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I was standing before a ridiculously scary-looking door, like the entrance to some final boss’s chamber in a video game. I’d teleported to the lowest level of the notorious dungeon using my spell, and now the Demon King and I were standing in front of the room where the vampire progenitor resided.
I didn’t sense any monsters on this level. There hadn’t been any here, other than the vampire, when Vanir, Wiz, and I had come here before. Meaning it was the perfect place for me to face the Demon King.
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The man in question, having been teleported here along with me, jumped back as far as he could. “Where are we? I was sure you’d try to take me somewhere you’d have plenty of friends… Hrm. Judging by the moldy smell and the dense mana everywhere, we must be in some sort of dungeon.”
“Bingo. The bottom level of the dungeon reputed to be the deepest in the world. You’ve got two ways out of here: walk all the way to the surface…or teleport.”
“I think I’ll be heading home to my castle, then,” the Demon King grumbled. “What? Did you imagine that the Demon King wouldn’t be able to use a spell as simple as Teleport? I won’t be stuck in this putrid labyrinth one moment longer…”
Just as he was about to activate his spell, I said, “Of course I knew you could use Teleport. But is the Demon King really going to run away? Is the ultimate bad guy going to flee from a one-on-one confrontation with the hero?” I slowly shook my finger at him.
After a very long pause, the Demon King said, “I see. I don’t know where you learned what you know, but you’ve clearly done your research on the Demon King. You’re right: If I was to run away from a direct challenge to single combat, I would immediately cease to be able to call myself the king of the demons. However, O man so weak that he was immediately killed by my minion! You lack anything resembling the strength needed to face me. Go do some training and then come back when you’re serious. That boy with the magic sword might be a good baseline to aim for.” Then he laughed at me, a sort of snort, and a sneer came over his face.
I simply said to him…
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“I’m an Adventurer.”
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I tried my best to give him a smile provocative enough to match his sneer.
“An Adventurer…?”
“That’s right. The very weakest class.”
Maybe the mana was just that thick down here, or maybe there was some sort of fluorescent moss growing on the walls, but this deepest level of the deepest dungeon wasn’t pitch-black but instead glowed with a constant, soft blue-white light.
“You’re an Adventurer? Not an Advanced Class, not a front-rower, not even a wizard, but a piddling Adventurer? And you think you—”
“—can go toe to toe with the Demon King? You got it, buddy. C’mon. Even if a goddess’s powers have weakened you a bit, you’d never run from a poor, weak Adventurer, would you, Your Majesty?”
The Demon King’s face twisted. For a second, I thought I might wet myself at the sight, but I couldn’t just let him go running home. It was time to make use of the one skill I’d really cultivated as a shut-in in Japan: pissing people off.
The king, though, took a deep breath like he was calming himself down and said, “I won’t rise to your bait. I haven’t lived this long by being impetuous. You tell me you’re an Adventurer, but so what? Let me guess. This is what you have in mind. You contribute nothing to your party’s combat strength anyway, so you teleport me here and buy time by challenging me to a fight. Meanwhile, your party members pick off my minions, who will be left without the blessing of my powers.”
Why the hell was he such a good guesser?
But he wasn’t done yet. “Then, when you’ve bought your friends enough time, you’ll escape somehow, presumably by teleporting again, and when I teleport back to my castle, your party will surround me. How’s that? Sound about right?”
He began preparing to teleport back home.
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I was a little impressed to see he hadn’t wasted all those years of life, but this wasn’t the time to be admiring him. Instead, I pulled out a card and showed it to him.
“Hey, slow down, man. This is my Adventurer’s Card. I know it’s kind of dark down here, and we’re not exactly standing right next to each other, but you can at least make out the LEVEL, STATS, and CLASS fields, right? Seriously, check out these stats. I’m not one of those middling Adventurers, see? Oh, no. These are some trash-tier numbers. And you’re seriously running away from me? You can dress it up however you like, but from where I’m standing, it feels like you’re scared I might actually beat you. And you call yourself the Demon King? Look, man, I’m serving myself up on a silver platter here, and you’re trying to escape?”
I saw a vein pulse on the Demon King’s forehead. After a very, very long pause, he said, “Don’t test me, boy. If the mood took me, you would become little more than a stain beneath my heel.”
“‘A stain beneath my heel’!” I parroted. “That’s the kind of phrase I’d expect from a third-rate mini-boss. Seriously, what a letdown! Demon King, my ass! It turns out you’re just a scared old man who’s running away from the weakest-possible opponent with his tail between his legs!”
The echo of the Demon King’s teeth grinding bounced off the walls of the dungeon. “It’s no use,” he said. “If you’re just a sacrificial pawn of the weakest class, all the more reason not to waste any time with you. You’re all talk, boy. Now, farewell!” he spat and then began to intone the Teleport spell…!
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“You missing any generals lately? I probably had something to do with it. Beldia, Vanir, Hans, Sylvia, Wolbach, Serena. I think that was the order I went in. And then there was that strong guy defending your castle—didn’t catch his name. If you want to keep calling yourself the Demon King, surely you’d better at least get revenge for your cronies?”
The Demon King stopped chanting, looked at me, and snorted. “That’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard. Know this, fool: You were not even able to buy time for your friends! Cursed Lightning!” he cried, abruptly unleashing a spell in my direction.
Oh, shit! I was gonna—
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“?!”
“?! …Ahem! Heh, that was a close one… A sneak attack from the one and only Demon King… Who would have guessed? Lucky for me, when you’re as good as I am, you can read an old man like an open book. You can see exactly what attack he’s about to use. Pfft-heh-heh-heh!”
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That time I actually did wet myself a little. If my Auto-evade hadn’t activated by sheer luck, I would definitely have been missing my head right about now. Instead, the Demon King’s black lightning bolt had passed through the thin air my head had occupied an instant before.
I backed up a little, instinctively, out of sheer terror. The Demon King, though, didn’t even change positions after casting his spell; he just cocked his head. “…? Oh, so you used a skill to dodge me just now? One can’t normally ‘see’ lightning magic coming. Ugh, you’re turning out to be something of a nuisance…” He sighed, then started striding forward, cornering me.
Shoot! Hold on! I need to prepare myself…! “Wait—!”
“Hmph. What other little games do you have in mind? Not that any of them will help you. Old I may be, but killing a single Adventurer could never so much as…wind…me…?”
“……?”
He’d closed the distance in an instant and grabbed me by the chest, but then he froze. I started to hear a crackling from the hand he was holding me with, as if it were burning, and then it started to smoke.