“!”
Rinko won the clash of fists, and Eve went bouncing across the fields like a skipping stone.
She stopped only when she hit the forest in the distance.
“Looks like you win on raw power,” she said, getting up like nothing had happened.
Rinko hadn’t taken any relief in that victory, either—her fists were still raised. She knew Eve was a real threat.
“Punches were never meant to be your thing, Eve Profen,” she said, well aware.
Eve chuckled. “You hit as hard as you could on the off chance you’d take me out before I kicked it up a gear, right? Like a chef hoping you’ll be satisfied with just the hors d’oeuvres.”
Raising her arm again, she waved a hand—as if she were summoning the concierge.
“?! Runes?!” Rinko knew right away what that meant and yelled at the soldiers and adventurers behind her. “Is the evacuation done?!”
“Barely in time!” yelled Rol—Riho’s surrogate sister. “Noncombatant military staff are on standby in the castle, too.”
“Rinko!” yelled the adventurer guild’s Katsu Kondo. “Guild members are ready to go!”
Gaston clashed his two shields together. “Rinko! I am Gaston Tien, the man who survived three hundred slimes! Ready whenever—”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Rinko didn’t let him finish. “All forces! Brace for attack! She’s bringing out the demon lord minions!”
“““Aye-aye!”””
Even as the soldiers and adventures roared…
Bzzzzt…bzzzt…
A skin-crawling noise reached them from the sky above.
A flock of giant locusts was inbound. Just like Abaddon’s attack and the assault on Maria Stadium.
But that wasn’t all. The locusts were carrying mystery objects.
As they grew closer, those on the ground managed to identify them.
“Those are the mechanical soldiers…and copies of Surtr?!”
Giant bugs were enough of a threat on their own—but Eve had also brought fire-breathing turtles and machine soldiers more powerful than any humans.
These numbers meant total war, and Rinko was sweating.
“Far more than I’d imagined. I think skipping the hors d’oeuvres and going right for the main dish is tactless, Chef!”
“Sorry. Never was big on the finer things in life.” Eve winked.
Rinko had lost some of her aplomb.
“Fire-breathing heavy tanks, flying bug units, and infantry no ordinary soldier can face head-on. Talk about insanity mode!”
“Do you really have time to bellyache, Rinky?” Eve was lording it over her now.
Rinko made a face. “Throwing in all your forces here?”
“That’s the plan!” Eve acknowledged.
“Surprising,” Rinko said, clenching her fists.
Assured of victory, Eve launched into a monologue. “You didn’t see this coming? True, once I get the Holy Sword, I still have to hit Kunlun. You assumed that meant I’d have to conserve my forces!”
“……”
Rinko’s answer was silence, but that said everything.
“And you also didn’t expect me to show up unharmed and powered up after you sent Lloyd, Shouma, and the loincloth man my way.”
Unable to hide her irritation, Rinko clicked her tongue. “But if you’re throwing everything at us, you must have more up your sleeve.”
“Oh, is it that obvious? Well, I’m certainly not telling.”
She wasn’t even hiding it—she knew she didn’t have to.
“If what Eugy said was right, then I guess this is on me,” Rinko said.
“Mwa-ha-ha! Consider it an honor I sent my entire army after you!”
Eve accepted that she’d scored a point here and gleefully set about commanding her forces. She was like a kid playing with toys.
All Rinko could do was force herself to smile.
“If only they were here… Maybe I miscalculated.”
Eve didn’t let that lapse go unpunished. She came in quick, swinging hard—this time with her golem arm.
“Hrk!”
The fist buried itself in Rinko’s face.
Eve relished Rinko’s expression, but she didn’t stop there.
“I’ve got the powers of the demon lords, and I’m here to flex that strength! You can’t fight me worrying about what stands behind me!”
“Gah!”
When the flurry did stop, it was only to bind Rinko in treant roots.
Rinko was yoinked into the air.
“……!”
“Gosh, that was easy! Micona was far more of a threat.”
Rinko glared at Eve through swollen eyelids. “You were possessing someone else—not sure who—and couldn’t use your demon lord powers. That’s why you had Eugy make you an ideal body, right?”
Eve took this as an acknowledgment of her victory and moved on to the postmortem. She rolled with it.
“Yes, some divine prank left me in Director Ishikura’s daughter—you remember Asako? That’s why I never had demon lord powers. I suppose I was more the ghost demon lord than anything else.”
Rinko’s eyes widened. “You don’t say? That never occurred to me. That does explain how you could be reckless enough to gather all the demon lord powers.”
“Reckless?” Eve blinked.
“Take it from a gamer. When we came here, everyone in the lab got this ‘demon lord’ attribute added to our character sheets. Less strong-willed folk started out as monsters—but once they get their wits back, they’re in the prime of their life. Alky’s love for her brother turned her into a nine-year-old, and as far as I know, that old gardener lost his sense of self and turned into the treant demon lord—the Erlking.”
“What’s your point? You’re not exactly the type to explain your theory on your deathbed.” Eve was getting suspicious.
“Don’t get it yet?” Rinko grinned. “The fact that you could pile on more powers proves you lack a sense of self. You’ve got ambition—but it’s hollow.”
“And now it’s a sermon!”
Eve frowned.
But Rinko did not seem to be grasping at straws. If anything, she seemed to believe victory was still in her grasp.
“Were you aware demon lords show their true selves after you beat them once?”
“Like in your retro video games?”
“You blow yourself up and let the demon lord’s instincts out. That’s your second form.”
“Ah, that’s why Eugy turned into that beast. I can’t do that just yet, but someday…”
“You won’t,” Rinko snapped. “The very fact that you could add other powers proves you have no second form! That’s the difference between us, and it’s my shot at winning!” Her eyes went wide, and her abs tensed. “I don’t like doing this in public—it tends to scare people.”
There was a creaking sound—a sound of flesh expanding.
“…So you have a power that I don’t. You never cease to delight, Lab Chief.” Eve cackled, watching Rinko transform.
“Don’t panic, Eve. It’s still me, even if I’m a dragon.”
With that, her flesh tore apart—and a thunderous pulse filled the air.
The treant roots binding her ripped and snapped.
“Oh, look at you! Your husband and Marie would flee in terror!”
“Trying to rattle me, Eve? My family is made of tougher stuff than that!”
Even as she spoke, a burst of light enveloped her—and when it cleared, she was a massive dragon. She was golden and bipedal, like a slim T. rex; her awesome form mingled the divine with the destructive.
Truly, this was the king of dragons. Rinko’s second form even got a gasp out of Eve.
“That is so much cooler than I expected! You were the model for the domain’s dragon legends, right? I wish Anzy could be here to see this! She’d love it.”
“She’ll love it more if I can beat you.”
“Well, that is a shame. Because that’ll only happen in your dreams, Rien Cordelia.”
“Aww, you really do care about her.”
“She was the first good friend I ever had— Oh!”
Rinko’s tail swung in and sent Eve flying before she could finish her line. It was large enough to balance her body weight—like a long, thick whip.
The sound of it was a crack, a crash, a clang.
It was also the signal for the battle to begin. A roar went up from across Azami’s walls.
“Hyah!”
The tail swung again; this time, it slammed Eve into the ground.
The crowd roared at each move Rinko made.
The dragon raised her small forelimbs, acknowledging the crowd. The gesture seemed a mite bashful. Perhaps she hadn’t expected cheers in this form.
And that rubbed Eve the wrong way. She got up, rolling her shoulders.
“Like rooting for Godzilla in a kaiju movie.”
“Does that make you the giant mech, then?”
“I suppose— This body is certainly cyborgy.”
As Eve finished, Rinko breathed searing flames, and Eve countered that with Surtr’s fires.
Perhaps this face-off between two similar powers was Eve’s way of showing how confident she still was.
“Must you drag this out, Eve? I want to smash you quick and save the others.”
Letting the fires die down, Rinko tried to bite her foe.
Eve saw it coming and blocked it with her golem arm.
“Oh, I saw this at a police dog training demonstration.”
“Grrr…”
Eve wasn’t daunted at all.