Finally, on our fifth expedition into the demon king’s castle, we arrived at a vast chamber that seemed like the exact sort of room where the demon king would finally take to the stage. The one slight problem: The room was totally empty. There was, however, a single door at its far end.
“’Tis all but certain the demon king lies just ahead,” Beelzebub said as she took inventory of the sack we kept all our items in. If we wanted to heal before the battle, this room would be the place to do it. There was a real chance we’d be forced into combat the second we stepped through the door.
“Agreed,” I said. “I wonder what sort of person ended up in the demon king role, though?”
“Seeing as they’re a demon king, I sure hope it’s someone with poise and dignity! ” said Pecora. She’d never struck me as the poised and dignified type herself, but I could see why she’d want a fictional demon king to live up to the image.
“Um, excuse me, everyone,” said Laika, who seemed to have noticed something. “It would seem that part of the wall over there is made of glass…and there’s something just beyond it.”
Oh—maybe this is one of those things where you can get a hidden item by investigating a wall?
On closer inspection, Laika was right. A portion of the wall, roughly at eye level, seemed to have been made into something of a display window. A row of items—the sort you could buy in most stores—was lined up behind the pane of glass.
“Can we really buy stuff here? I mean, I’m not complaining if we can,” I said.
On a closer look, however, I found a line of text written in one of the window’s corners.
“It’s like the samples you’d find at a company’s corporate headquarters!” I moaned, clutching my head. This world’s demon king was operating under a terrible misunderstanding of what demon kings were supposed to do.
“Look at the writing over there, Step-Hero. It says, ‘Our products outdo items from the human lands in price and quality! The demon king’s seal of quality: a guarantee you can always count on!’…”
That’s great, Wynona, and I’m sure it must have you pretty distracted, because you just accidentally called me something that felt really rude…
I had a funny feeling I knew who the demon king would be. We stepped through the door at the back of the room, and there she was: a sprite I assumed to be Halkara wearing a pair of weird horns. I say “assumed” because between the horns and the graphical style, it was honestly a little hard to tell for sure.
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“So you’ve all finally made it here! I’m the demon king, Halkara!”
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“Yep. I had a feeling it’d be you.”
Halkara the demon king started pacing back and forth in front of us, like a bear in a cage. Apparently, it was hard for her to monologue while she was standing still.
“I heard the demon king’s job was to conquer the world, so I decided to work toward that goal using my own methods. I’ve spread my mark far and wide across the human lands—in the form of the demon king’s mark of quality that’s attached to the products the humans buy!”
Honestly, at this point, I’m not sure if we even need to bother defeating her…
“Oh, that’s right! Here, have this,” Halkara added before passing out business cards to each of us in order. I’d seen her give one of those to Nosonia in the past, so this was pretty much business as usual for her, but I really wished she’d skipped over that part during our big confrontation scene, at least. “It’s really impressive that you made it here at all! I can’t offer to make you the general manager of half the world, but I can at least make you the general manager of a single country if you agree to surrender to me! How about it?”
She’s trying to recruit us now?!
Pecora took one step toward Halkara, then another. A wizard like her getting into close combat was dangerous, even when she wasn’t doing it with the literal demon king, but she approached her all the same.
Is she actually going to take Halkara up on her offer, maybe…?
“Oh, Halkara? ” Pecora said with a smile. It looked just like her usual smiles, on a surface level, but there was something weirdly menacing about it this time.
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“I’d like you to take your role as the demon king seriously, okay? If you keep making this weird, then a real demon king—you know, me—might decide to give you a crash course in how it’s done! ”
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“Ah! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Please allow me to battle you now, like I’m supposed to!” Halkara babbled. She must have sensed how much trouble she’d almost gotten herself in. Messing around when you were supposed to be playing a character was, it seemed, something Pecora did not take kindly to.
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“Oh? You’re sorry? That’s weird, isn’t it? The demon king is supposed to be haughty and arrogant! It doesn’t seem to me like you’re taking this seriously at all!”
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“I’m so, so sorry! I’ll do better! I… Oh. I’m not supposed to apologize, right… But I can’t be rude to a genuine demon king, either! What should I do?! Help me, Mistress Teacher!”
“Stop asking the hero for help, to start!” I shouted back.
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“Exactly! A demon king would never ask the hero for help, so you shouldn’t, either! You really should get your act together, or I might have to make you deeply regret it, you know?”
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Pecora got mad, Halkara freaked out, and then Halkara’s freak-out made Pecora even madder. Oh no, we’re stuck in an infinite loop!
“Agh, that’s it!” Halkara wailed. “It’s time for our battle! We’re fighting now!”
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Our showdown with the demon king had finally begun. Our foe swapped over to the larger sprite that represented her in battle—and now that I could see her design more clearly, I realized her outfit wasn’t exactly modest.
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“Um, Miss Halkara…? Covering yourself exclusively with a few strips of fluttering fabric is rather indecent…”
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Laika blushed beet red and averted her eyes.
Yep, that’s a thing that happens all the time with late-game RPG bosses! For some reason, lots of them decide to fight you mostly in the nude!
“Aaaaah!” Halkara shrieked. “I had no idea I was wearing this, either! Please, just think of it as a swimsuit, or something…”
Halkara seemed just as shocked by her clothing as Laika was. On reflection, it made sense she wouldn’t have seen her battle sprite before, either. It’s not like she would’ve battled any of her subordinates, after all.
The fight itself, however, proceeded a lot more normally than I’d expected it to. There was one sort of questionable bit where, after she struck a nasty blow against us, the text “When you’re wounded, try a demon king–endorsed full recovery potion! It’ll carry you through even the most drawn-out battle of attrition!” showed up on-screen and she actually healed us… But then Pecora unleashed a terrifying barrage of incredibly powerful spells at her.
“You know, I just despise people who don’t take games seriously! ” Pecora said with another of those smiles that told you she was actually really, really upset…
“I-I’m sorry! I just can’t help but let my real personality shine through from time to time…”
“Why are you apologizing? Demon kings don’t apologize, do they?”
Once again, Halkara and Pecora were caught in their endless loop of apology and apology-induced fury. To make a long story short, the battle finally ended with Wynona using the ultimate sword technique she’d gained thanks to the sages’ event to finish Halkara off, and her battle sprite was sent packing.
“Ugh. I knew the heroes would be tough…,” Halkara groaned. It was kind of hard to tell, since her normal sprite was so small and distorted, but I was pretty sure she was lying face-down on the ground. “But in the end, I was only doing the elder god’s bidding. Unless you defeat it as well, this world will never again know true peace!”
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Yep, I think we all saw this development coming.
“The entrance to the realm of the gods lies just outside my castle. Go ahead and try to stop it…if you think you can! Blarg!”
With that final bit of exposition, the demon king vanished away, thoroughly vanquished.
“Okay, then! The demon king’s out of the picture, so now we just have to move along and take on the final boss!” I said.
The five of us took a moment to exchange high fives and celebrate our victory. Our party had been brought together by circumstance, but we’d been traveling together for long enough now that it felt like we’d really learned to work as a team.