“Fine, Pyrid. Glad to see you looking hale and hearty.”
“Gah-ha-ha! That is my middle name! Mm? You’ve brought familiar faces with you, I see.”
“I’ve returned, Boss.”
“Mwa-ha! Boss, you never change!”
Pyrid didn’t bat an eye at their attire, or lack thereof. The entire village seemed to be used to their shtick, which was terrifying. Who gets used to all that bare skin?
“Where you off to, Pyrid?” I asked, figuring that was less a mystery than where these two might end up.
He answered readily, “Oh, just a spot of fishing. We’ve got company! Gotta host in Alka’s stead.”
Pyrid looked pleased.
“Company? All the way out here?” Merthophan asked.
“Yeah, been a regular lately. The kids all go play at the chief’s house, I guess? What are we to do?!”
He didn’t seem at all bothered. I’d figured out who it was.
“Ah, him?”
Pyrid nodded. “Sounds like he’s finally found something worth living for.”
“Mwa-ha? Someone you’ve known awhile?”
“……Can’t remember. Well, whatever happened in the old days, he’s having fun now, and he’s not alone. What could be better? Gah-ha-ha!”
“Mwa-ha-ha! No matter how scrawny you start, muscles can be obtained! Muscle memory!”
Pyrid ignored this, turning back to me.
“So you sit with them awhile, Asako. They’re with you, yes?”
“Yep. Friends of mine, and I’ll make sure they don’t go too far.”
“Thanks.”
With that, he headed off toward the river, and we headed for the chief’s house.
Where we found—
“Mm? My, look here!”
“Oh! Some passionate guests!”
Shouma, Sou, and—
“What a coincidence.”
—glasses.
“Oh, hi.”
It was Micona’s former classmate and current military PR rep, Pamela. Merthophan and Nexamic looked surprised to see her.
But I knew exactly what had brought her here.
“She’s one of us,” I said.
“What ‘us’ are you referring to…?”
“Mwa-ha-ha, what muscle group are you strengthening? Tell me, muscle!”
Ignoring Nexamic’s irrelevant comment, I answered Merthophan’s query.
“We’re collaborating to turn Lloyd’s heroics into a movie.”
“Mwa-ha?!”
Nexamic shot me a quizzical look around a most muscular pose.
Shouma shot to his feet, mouth already running so fast, there was spittle.
“Exactly! We’ve banded together to spread word of Lloyd’s wonders!”
“In a movie?”
“Yes, Merthophan!” Shouma cried, introducing the band. “I’m the director, and Sou’s the producer/cameraman. Pamela’s in charge of wardrobe. And our source novel/screenwriter—”
“Would be me,” I said. Not that I’d finished the source yet.
It was a grand project to tell the world about Lloyd—
Shouma had been filling in for Alka a lot lately, so we were meeting once a month at this house, reporting on our progress.
That might not sound like often, but Sou was so delighted by his new purpose in life, he often came over to shoot the breeze. Did he live here or something?
“You just happened to be visiting, Pamela?”
She adjusted her trademark spectacles, nodding.
“I was hoping to discuss costumes and props for the movie, and I happened to bump into our producer, Sou. I rather invited myself along.”
“I’d been just about to teleport from Azami to Kunlun when I felt her wavelength. Do not worry yourself, Pamela; it’s like sharing a carriage.”
“Hats off to our producer’s generosity.” Glasses shove.
Pamela didn’t even bat an eye at the teleport carriage remark. We could all learn from her fortitude.
“Mwa-ha-ha! She’s mastered the teleport ride-along? So much for common sense!”
No one without a shirt had a right to speak.
“The secrets of the ancients are but a means of conveyance, are they?” said the loincloth man using artifacts as farm tools.
Thinking up comebacks was getting exhausting, so I changed tacks.
“I knew Sou visited often, but I’m surprised to see Pamela here.”
This was a stroke of luck, having us all assembled.
Light glaring off her glasses, Pamela nodded. “I never imagined I would regularly visit the village from fairy tales.”
“It’s not that bad. The villagers lack common sense, but they’re otherwise normal. Compared to the city, there’s little in the way of entertainment.”
Plenty of stimulation otherwise, though. Violent monster stimulation was in plentiful supply.
Meanwhile Pamela was still doing the glasses thing.
“Perhaps it was fate that led me to this legendary village! I can see the appeal of opening a branch of my family’s boutique chain here.” Shove.
“Huh…”
That sounded pretty wild; I wasn’t sure how to reply.
Incidentally, this Lloyd project involved Shouma, a Kunlun villager; Sou, a runeman; and myself—technically a demon lord. Quite a lineup.
“Indeed!” Shove.
And Pamela was the one “ordinary” human—the outlier. Arguably, that placed her in the same league as Lloyd and Selen. If only the nudists weren’t ruining the moment.
“I feel like someone somewhere is insulting farmwork!”
“Mwa-ha-ha! Whoever it is, is just envious of the perfect build it provides.”
Damn it.
While I was swearing inside, Shouma, Sou, and Pamela were amping it up.
“Passion! Fashion, in Kunlun? Perhaps we’ll become trendsetters!”
“It’ll liven up the place! And if we attach the village name, we can get the new fad rolling. Lloyd’s the model, naturally.”
“Manufacturing earth spider silk could give us a stable income, and the world might accept Kunlun like it does Lloyd. And if I’ve got the fashion world in my clutches, I can make my cosplaying hobby a standard across the land!” Glasses push.
Pamela spread her hobbies like she was seeking world domination…but cosplay was plenty popular back home.
Glad she wasn’t actually conquering anything, I moved to the shelves, searching for the reason I was here.
“Gonna borrow this,” I said, picking up a monochrome camera with a big lens.
“Why that one?” Shouma asked, tilting his head. “Asako, you can capture crystal footage. Why choose black and white?”
Sou put his hand to his chin. “Ah…you don’t want footage. You want a photograph.”
“Today’s Lloyd’s big day. I figured it would be more effective to take a proper photo and sell it to the papers.”
Pamela adjusted her glasses like she’d just remembered. “Yes, the PR department was all in a fuss. This is the year Lloyd steps into the limelight!”
“Um, don’t you work for them? Can you afford time away?” I asked.
“I’m on a long lunch break.” Shove.
“So you’re slacking.”
“Bringing Lloyd’s word to the world is all part of a PR girl’s work, dear.” Shove.
She made that sound positively poetic, but anyone skipping out of work to hang in the Last Dungeon boonies was every bit as out there as Lloyd, Selen, and Eve herself.
At this point, Shouma and Sou both leapt to their feet.
“Let us capture both photographs and moving pictures at once for the true passion!”
“Indeed. Film is fantastic, but still images have a grandeur all their own.”
Sou already had his own camera out, and Shouma seemed equally keen.
“Exactly! Asako, your passion has cleared my vision.”
“I take it you’re both coming to watch?”
“Naturally. I had planned on letting you handle this one, but the more we talked, the less I could sit still.”
“If we get too close, Lloyd’ll yell at us again—but that’s too bad! This is what passion is all about!”
So they had pissed him off before. I shook my head. Shouma, you’re verging on Alka’s territory here.
Pamela started getting ready, too (by which I mean she adjusted her glasses). “If he objects, merely say the PR department requested it. Our boss is really only good at putting out fires without anyone noticing.”
That is a genuinely alarming statement, Pamela.
Merthophan was arguably also getting ready (by which I mean adjusting his loincloth).
“Takes me back. It’s like an oracle of the Azami army’s future. And with Lloyd involved…”
Nexamic, meanwhile, had no clue what we were talking about, so he swallowed his shame and— Okay, look, I know he has no shame; anyone who’s ever seen him is aware of that. Anyway. He asked a question.
“Mwa-ha-ha. Incidentally, what’s going on today? A bodybuilding competition?”
“That would hardly predict the future of the Azami army.”
“Mwa! Ha! Beautiful bodies belong on film! And you said steel images—what else would those be but rock-hard muscles?!”
Ignorance had never hindered this man’s enthusiasm.
Everyone here was far too busy with their own shticks, so it fell to me to get Nexamic up to speed.
“Today’s the entrance exam for the Azami Military Academy.”
“Oh?”
In other words—
“It’s Lloyd’s first day as an instructor.”