As round four began, Yogiri and Tomochika found themselves in the city surrounding the castle. They moved to an open square with a fountain, thinking it would be easier than fighting in the alleyways.
“Yogiri Takatou is right here!” Tomochika shouted as always, as Yogiri was already standing off to the side with his ears covered. After quite a wait, worrying that no one was going to show up, something fell from the sky. The buildings around them shook as the scenery flickered, moving them into the battle channel.
A party of five had appeared in front of them. A boy in a T-shirt and jeans, a huge man with skin like stone, a thin man with three pairs of eyes and three pairs of glasses to match, a woman with hair long enough to cover her face and reach the ground, and a young man in glasses and a lab coat.
The entire party seemed rather mismatched, but Yogiri did recognize one of them. The man in the lab coat was Shirou, a Sage. He was involved with running Cavern Quest and had appeared once to explain a change in the rules to them.
“Yo. I’m Demon Lord Gorbagion. These are my Four Heavenly Kings.” The boy in the front appeared to be their leader.
“Gorbagion? I feel like I’ve heard that name before,” Yogiri said.
“That one guy mentioned him, right?” Tomochika replied. “That ‘weakest’ guy.”
Her reminder sparked the memory again. Back in Base Town, they had been attacked by a horned boy calling himself Naltine, one of Gorbagion’s Four Heavenly Kings.
“But he’s not here,” Yogiri observed.
“I guess not. He said he was the weakest, so maybe he died?”
“It’s pretty common for the Demon Lord to switch out his Four Heavenly Kings, right?” Gorbagion said. Yogiri supposed if the Demon Lord himself said so, that had to be true, although he didn’t care all that much about his enemy’s situation.
“Anyway, why would the Demon Lord’s army join a game like this?”
“Because someone more evil than the Demon Lord showed up. No matter what we do, we’re being overshadowed by you.”
“Not much I can do about that,” Yogiri said.
“We’ve had people attack us for all sorts of reasons before, but this is a new one, huh?” Tomochika commented.
“Anyway, please die.”
Yogiri Takatou vs. Demon Lord Gorbagion: FIGHT!!!
It seemed there’d be no room for negotiation, as one word from Gorbagion triggered the start of the fight.
“Breia, go give him a hit for me,” Gorbagion instructed.
“Got it!” The man with stonelike skin, Breia, stepped forward. He looked like the kind of person to be overly reliant on brute force, and sure enough he charged at Yogiri without a second thought. Winding up his huge fist for a punch, he immediately collapsed to the ground.
“I see,” Gorbagion said. “Go ahead and give it a try, Haruka.”
“Hey...” Haruka murmured, her face still hidden behind her hair. “What happened to the dog?”
“The dog? Oh, Dai? We split up.” Even remembering it caused a twinge of pain in Yogiri’s heart.
“Why?! I said I wanted him!” The sudden angry shout caught Yogiri off guard. He hadn’t expected a reaction like that.
Haruka vanished. Tomochika turned around, and Yogiri shortly after, to see her lying on the ground behind them. Apparently she was the speed type.
“It would be a lot faster if you all just attacked me at once,” Yogiri said. Even in this situation, he didn’t plan on using his power proactively. Restricting his power to be used for self-defense ended up with the same result over and over, so even if it drew the fight out longer, he wanted to keep to that principle.
“All right. Graze, Shirou, take him together.”
The six-eyed man and the Sage stepped forward, both collapsing immediately.
“Jeez, this is so boring!” Gorbagion snapped. “Can’t you at least do something?! Say a creepy chant, or strike a pose, anything!”
“I don’t really have the chance to do anything like that, though.”
The Four Heavenly Kings had been slain, but Yogiri hadn’t done much of anything. They had all been killed by his power automatically activating in response to danger.
“But you understand my power by now, right? Why don’t you surrender?” Yogiri tried.
“You think any Demon Lord would do that?”
“Yeah, I guess that would be pretty lame,” Yogiri said, thinking of this in terms of a video game. He would want to throw a game that ended that way across the room. “But still, you have no chance of winning.”
“Don’t I? Hey, girl over there. You’re the next member of the Four Heavenly Kings!”
“Huh?” Tomochika blinked. “Uh, I’d rather not.”
A moment of shocked silence passed, Gorbagion being entirely unprepared for rejection.
Unfortunately, that kind of attack will not work while I am here, Mokomoko smirked, lounging in the air beside Tomochika.
“That was an attack?”
Perhaps not. It was more like a curse forcing one to enter into his army.
No doubt he had intended to make Yogiri and Tomochika fight each other. It was true that Yogiri would have had a difficult time fighting back if it was against Tomochika, but he figured he could find a way to deal with her.
“So, now what?” Yogiri asked.
“I understand your power, now. But I’m still not at full strength myself.”
“That’s easy enough to say, but you haven’t done anything yet,” Yogiri sighed. The Demon Lord’s declaration felt like it had come out of nowhere.
“Don’t be in such a rush. I get stronger as the fight goes on.” Gorbagion lifted his right hand towards the two of them, clearly intending to fire something. But naturally, he then collapsed to the ground. Whatever he had intended to do must have been dangerous enough to kill Yogiri, so Yogiri’s power had activated to stop it.
Yogiri Takatou Wins!
“So, uhh...I guess we never got to see his full power,” Tomochika said.
Yes, it would have been nice to draw things out a bit longer.
Both Tomochika and Mokomoko seemed a bit disappointed.