Not long after…
Schiiiiing.
Eve was rocketing straight toward her destination fast enough to make the air itself sing around her.
As the roads below her began to coalesce into major thoroughfares, Azami grew visible to the naked eye.
“Hey, ho! Target sighted… Hm?”
She was over the field just outside the walls.
But a sinister aura below made her pull up short, wheeling above.
“What could that be? My, my!” Eve squinted and saw a girl standing in the center of that field. “………Hmph.”
With eyes like daggers, arms folded, and feet planted firmly apart stood Micona Zol.
An upperclassman at Lloyd’s school, she’d been forced to acquire demon lord powers. And she was head over heels in love with Marie.
Today, she was filled with hate and bile, like she’d been when she’d first hit the scene.
Eve fluttered down before her with a mocking curtsy. “And what might you want, little lady?” she asked, as if she didn’t know.
Micona just kept glaring.
Eve feigned confusion. “If you don’t use your words, how can I—?”
“You’re Eve Profen?”
Eve smirked. “You noticed? All that time I spent in a rabbit costume, I figured no one would recognize me! Perhaps I’m just that refined—”
“Spare me the bullshit.”
Eve pouted, not pleased to be interrupted twice. “What, you know I’m king and dare act this way?”
“I’ve heard of your vile nature and the deeds you’ve done because of it,” Micona snarled, not the least bit intimidated. “And that you were behind the schemes that implanted the demon lords’ power within me.”
“Um,” Eve said, blinking. “I heard you just chugged two demon lord boosters all on your own?”
“Spare me the bullshit.”
Micona was always good at forgetting anything that worked against her, without a trace of guilt.
She seemed so confident, Eve rather respected it.
“Well, okay. Thanks for the warm reception! I take it you’re a hater?”
“That, too!” Micona roared so loudly, Eve flinched.
“Why are you yelling? And by ‘too,’ you mean…?”
Micona’s eyes softened so completely, Eve recoiled. “More than anything, Marie’s mother wants me to stop you here! This is a direct request from my future mother-in-law, Rinko! If I can score points with the fam, I’ll be one step closer to true looooove!”
Yes, that was Micona earlier.
She’d sniffed out the threat to Azami and come running. Aware that Rinko was Marie’s mother, she’d volunteered to delay Eve—even if it cost her life.
Naturally, this had left both Rinko and Chrome looking like they were suffering from bladder discomfort.
“Purely personal, then? Well, at least that’s easy…but could Azami really not find anyone better to step up to the plate first?”
“We know you plan to steal the Holy Sword and lay waste to the kingdom! If I can stop you here, I can cajole Marie into rubbing my head— Er, I mean, no Azami soldier would stand for that!”
The last line sounded regal enough, but it was rather undermined by her drool.
“Look at yourself! Is everyone from Azami determined to turn things into a joke?” Eve was almost impressed. The sheer bliss in Micona’s eyes was clearly more about her fantasy life with Marie than it was about the future of the kingdom.
Eve looked to flummox people but found herself on the back foot instead.
“So! We’re gonna throw down, Eve Profen!” Micona roared—and she was instantly in combat mode.
Abaddon’s power gave Micona colorful wings, and the treants let her extend tree roots.
Eve looked delighted. “Heh-heh-heh! I was just thinking I could use more of a warm-up! Fine, I’ll—”
“Dieeeeeeeeeee! For my gleaming future with Marie! Oh, and Azami, too!”
“Do you ever listen?!”
She did not. Fueled by lust, Micona was coming for Eve’s life like a bullet with her name on it.
Tree roots reached out for Eve, but she easily darted through the air around them.
“You didn’t have to tell me your country was a secondary concern… Still, I’ll enjoy tormenting you.”
With an impish gleam in her eyes, Eve began fighting back—with the same tree roots Micona had used.
“How?!” Micona yelped, astounded.
Eve smirked. For the first time, she had the initiative.
“You were just an experiment—all so I could gain the same powers!”
She was really enjoying swinging those roots around.
Micona and Eve’s respective roots tangled together, as if each of them had four hands.
“Nghhhhh… But I’ve had these roots longer—I’m better with them.”
Micona did seem to have a surprising advantage here, but this failed to diminish Eve’s confidence.
“Experience does do wonders! Still…”
“?!”
And Eve breathed fire. No incantation, no magic stone—just pure fire from her mouth, like a monster.
If she’d heard a chant, Micona could easily have countered it—but at this speed, she was helpless.
The wall of fire came right at her.
“Waughhh! Hot, hot, hot! What is that? That’s not magic!”
She barely managed to shield herself with roots.
But that blocked her line of sight, and she missed Eve’s next action.
“Gotcha!”
A huge, hard stone fist came swinging right from her blind spot—the golem that demon lord Zalko the Thief had used.
“Crap!”
Two attacks of very different natures—soft and hard—sent Micona flying.
“Mm, that golem arm is so nice! Nothing like blunt force trauma!”
Micona had been struck so hard, she left a trench in the ground, but thanks to the locust demon lord’s shell, she avoided any fatal damage.
“Hurk… I heard you could use all the demon lord powers, but seeing’s believing.”
“Too much for you, Micony?”
“I relish the challenge! True love can overcome all hardships!” Micona was still all fired up.
Eve smiled approvingly. “You’re one tough cookie! How’s this?” She took the golem arm, pointing one finger at Micona. “Rune cannon, was it? Doesn’t matter. Fire!”
“Huh?”
Crack!
There was a noise like an electric spark, a flash where Micona had stood—and a plume of flame.
Micona had dodged by the skin of her teeth, and the ground was scorched terrifyingly bare.
“Tut, tut,” Eve grumbled. “It’s so hard to hit you if you move! I remember that time I got them to give me some target practice at the gun range. Shoot enough times, and you do start to improve, but the toll on your shoulders! Recoil’s a bitch.”
Her voice echoed through the smoke.
She soon lost interest in her anecdote and aimed her finger again.
“But this has no recoil! I can shoot as much as I like! Hmm, the smoke does make it tricky, but—”
Crack! Crack!
On the last word, Eve began firing runes wildly, not aiming at all and going for quantity alone.
“If I fire a few dozen shots, some of them are bound to hit! Okay, about time I go pay Rinky a visit. Too smoky for me here!” She turned her back on the plumes behind. “Don’t fret, Rinky, I’m coming—”
Shnk!
Micona’s attack came just as Eve let her guard down.
“Rahhhh!”
“Oops! That was careless. They all missed?” Eve backed away unhurriedly, scratching her head and fake wincing. “I suppose I’ll never be much of a markswoman! Even in the last world, Asako wound up snatching my gun away and murdering me instead. Or…?”
She’d assumed the rune cannon had whiffed…
But Micona bore quite a few burns. She’d clearly taken the brunt of those light beams.
Bleeding badly, radiating the scent of burning flesh, Micona was still coming on hard.
“My! I did hit you!” Eve said, surprised.
“Of course you did!” Micona roared, punching her. “And it hurt like hell!”
Eve took the blow right in the kisser and rubbed the point of impact, appalled. She did not seem particularly hurt, however.
Meanwhile, Micona was a wreck, especially her hair. Yet she was throwing her full power into every blow.
These wounds were clearly life-threatening, but that did not dissuade her.
“How are you still moving?” Eve asked. “Fighting with injuries like that will be the death of you! I realize I’m the last person who should be pointing this out, mind.”
Micona seized a fistful of Eve’s shirtfront.
“When I get hurt! I know a girl! Who’ll heal my wounds!”
You could almost hear the percussive emphasis in her words.
“They’re fatal, though?”
“I’m not dead yet! The deeper the wounds, the longer it’ll take Marie to nurse me back to health! No hardship at all! See?”
“Uh…sure!”
Eve saw nothing but decided it was best to nod along. She’d worked out by now that nothing she said would make a difference.