—How many days has it been? How many months — no, years — had he spent there? In that white space without walls or ceilings or a floor, where night never fell and dawn never broke, where hunger and slumber didn’t exist?
Spending so long in that place numbed his sense of time. Had he been here all alone, he’d have surely gone mad, but Diablo thankfully had Klem to keep him company. She was a real Demon Lord with knowledge on par with God, and the things she told him touched on the very structure of the world and the origin of sorcery. The sheer scale and magnitude of her words was beyond description.
After talking for a very long time, Klem suddenly fell silent.
“Nnng...?”
“What’s wrong?” Diablo stood up.
And then he realized that the white space was shaking. Was this an earthquake?
“...I can hear someone,” Klem said, listening carefully.
“A voice?”
Diablo concentrated his hearing. He could indeed make out someone’s voice.
“Oh, hero.”
It wasn’t a familiar voice. For a moment, he was hoping Rem and Shera were summoning him, but it was someone else. After all, they didn’t know Diablo was even trapped in this white world.
“Come forth, hero.”
For a moment, Diablo hesitated. He was no hero.
“This is a summoning,” Klem said. “Since we can hear them, it must mean someone on that side has the power to make miracles. I think.”
In other words, this was summoning sorcery, and they were calling for a hero. What this summoner was seeking was certainly not a socially crippled gamer like Diablo, who could only get through life by role playing as a Demon Lord.
“What are you going to do?” Klem asked him.
Answering that summoning’s call was up to Diablo. If they were to stay here, Rem and Shera could eventually summon him, but the chances of that were slim. They didn’t know Diablo and Klem were in this predicament to begin with. If he didn’t answer this summon, who was to say when the next chance might come? He couldn’t afford to dawdle.
“Let’s go!” Diablo said, making up his mind.
“Very well!” Klem nodded.
Diablo fell silent.
“Answer my call, brave hero.”
He felt himself break into a nervous sweat.
—How do you even answer a summon...?
Asking Klem how to proceed after he had made such an assertive declaration would be lame. Based on what she’d said, Diablo had already visited this white world once before and answered Rem and Shera’s summon here. But he couldn’t remember ever doing that.
Diablo strained to recall with all his mind. Back then, he...
The voice calling him grew louder in volume.
“My name is Mariabelle de Lucrecia Grande! Come forth, my hero!”
Diablo raised his voice and called out.
“Call for me, Mariabelle...!”
He’d spoken those words almost subconsciously. And the next moment, he felt the sensation slip from under his feet. A sense of weightlessness overtook him. He was falling.
“Klem!” Diablo reflexively reached his hand out to grab her arm.
“Nhaa?!”
But as soon as he heard her yelp, Diablo found himself in a pitch-dark space, a great contrast to where he had just been. He looked around in the darkness, noticing flickering lights. Countless sparks flickered in the darkness.
Diablo realized where he was; he was floating in a sea of stars.
—Is this outer space...?
“Fool!” Klem clamored. “A summoning can only call one person! If this Demon Lord comes with you, it could fail!”
“Ah...”
Diablo wasn’t as ignorant as he was before. Having learned the basic truth of magic, he could now understand what she meant with ease... But he had grabbed her before he’d even realized it.
“This is bad!” Klem continued. “If the summon fails, we could both fall into the interstice between worlds!”
Perhaps. But Diablo didn’t regret what he’d done.
“If I’d left you there, I never would have seen you again.”
“Mmg...” Klem flinched uncomfortably.
“If the summoner’s power is insufficient, I will simply supplement it with my own power. Given what you taught me, it should be possible.”
“That’s mad! You don’t know what world’s magic we’re dealing with!”
“I will handle it! I refuse to stay in that white nowhere, nor will I leave you there forever!”
Diablo focused on the spell weaving around them and analyzed it. It was different from the sorcery Klem taught him, but it wasn’t beyond his understanding. He could see some points of commonality, like a different game that shared the same fundamental system.
—If I do this...!
“Diablo...” Klem said, gazing at him fixedly. “You really are too kind to call yourself a Demon Lord.”
That made him feel bashful all of a sudden.
“D-Don’t be stupid!” Diablo shook his head. “You belong to me! I won’t let go of you, nor will I permit you to leave me without permission! That’s all there is to it! Mm, huh?”
“Oh, right...” Klem brought a hand to her neck.
The 《Enslavement Collar》 that should have been there...
“It’s gone?!” the two of them said as one.
They realized, a bit too late, that it had been missing since they reached the white world.
“Aah. When this Demon Lord became the Shining Wing Armor, the magical energy that made up my body was destroyed, and any spells placed on me likely lifted.”
Diablo could understand what she meant now.
“Enslavement sorcery is placed on the body, after all.”
But their conversation cut off there. They were drawn to one of the countless lights, rapidly closing in on a single sphere — a star. They broke through a layer of clouds and seemed to be approaching the ground rapidly. Were they crashing?! Did the summoning fail?! Diablo prepared himself for the possibility of death.
“Whaaaaaaaaaa!” he screamed.
“Hahahaha!” Klem cackled.
They fell at planet-splitting speed. Only when they touched down safely did Diablo realize that teleportation magic saved them.
†
Diablo found himself in a dark room. The stone floor had a magic circle drawn with a red, blood-like fluid. The four corners of the room were illuminated by torches, making the room’s shadows dance with the flickering of their flames. A girl with strong, willful eyes stood before them.
“I...called him...” she muttered, half in disbelief.
“Oooh!” A knight in armor standing nearby raised his voice in surprise.
The girl stepped forward toward Diablo. She had argent hair and scarlet eyes, her skin was a pale white, and the bridge of her nose was pointed. On top of all that, she had long, pointy ears.
—Is she an Elf...?
Apparently, this girl was his summoner, Mariabelle. This time, he was summoned by only one girl. Diablo looked around, only to find Klem peeking out behind him.
“There’s an odd smell here,” she said, sniffling the air.
“There is?”
The only things that gave off any scent back in the white world were himself and Klem. Here, however, they could smell the oil burning on the torches, the musty scent of the dust on the stone floor, as well as the girl’s flowery perfume. Everything felt terribly familiar, yet new all at once.
Mariabelle peered at them dubiously.
“Two heroes...?”
Diablo could tell explaining things was going to be a bother.
“This one is my familiar,” Diablo told her.
He couldn’t introduce her as another world’s Demon Lord, after all. Diablo had to play the act of a hero here, and Klem was clever enough to stay silent. The girl nodded, seemingly satisfied with this explanation.
“Great hero, I am the star sorceress Mariabelle de Lucrecia Grande,” the girl said.
“Hm,” Diablo hummed in agreement.
Star sorceress. That wasn’t a class he was familiar with. Wherever he was, it definitely wasn’t Lyferia.
“The sorceress gave you her name, yet you don’t introduce yourself?!” The armored knight glared at him. “Even if you are a hero, this is insolence!”
Despite all he’d learned from Klem, his communication skills hadn’t leveled up one bit. Still, if he were to act meek, Mariabelle could decide to reverse his summoning, and that was something he couldn’t afford. After all, he didn’t have any clues about how to get back to his world again. And so, stifling his bashfulness, he spoke brazenly.
“Hmph! My name is Diablo! A Dem—hm, hero from another world!”
—See? I’ve matured!
He would praise himself if he could. Klem nodded in agreement.
“Diablo the Hero, please,” Mariabelle said, kneeling before him. “Please, save me and this country...”
So far, everything seemed to be going according to RPG cliches. But just then, the knight at her side drew his sword furiously.
“Wait, sorceress! I can’t trust this man!”
“What are you saying, Leon?”
“The Demon Star Manuscript doesn’t mention anything about the hero having horns!”
✦ ✦ ✦
