“Explooosion!!”
“?!”
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No sooner had I spoken than the dungeon resounded with a blast that shook the stone off the walls and floors and sent rock shards flying through the air. My homemade Tinymite at work!
“…! What? What the hell?” the Demon King sputtered. Everything below his left knee was a mess. Shit, it had done even less damage than I’d anticipated. This wasn’t actually a magic spell, though. Was that why it hadn’t really hurt him? I’d thought it would at least tear off a leg.
I backed away from the Demon King, who’d dropped to one knee from the injuries. To cover for how shaken I was, I started running my mouth again. “Heh! Did you think I was just an ordinary Adventurer? I told you, I’ve been involved in the demise of a bunch of your generals. Naturally I can use a simple spell like Explosion.”
“Liar! That was nowhere near the power of Explosion! That blast didn’t even seem to be magical in nature! What did you use, an exploding potion? You really will sink to anyth— Hey! Get back here!”
Without waiting for the Demon King to finish, I set off running through the dungeon halls. The king came after me, dragging his leg as he went. Aqua might have weakened him, but he obviously still had way more physical stamina than I did. Even with the injury to his leg, I couldn’t put any more distance between us. Who’d designed the bottom floor of this dungeon anyway? If I just kept running around willy-nilly like this, I was going to hit a dead end eventually, and then I was really screwed.
I dug through my item pouch until I found my last stick of Tinymite. Dammit, if only it hadn’t made Megumin so mad, I could have made a few more of these… But it had been hard enough to find a couple of minutes when she wasn’t looking to craft even these few sticks.
If I could give the Demon King one more good hit with the Tinymite, maybe it would weaken him enough for me to go in with my magic sword and finish the job…
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But then I felt it.
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A hair-raising presence behind me. I knew what it was, and it wasn’t good. The aura wasn’t as strong as when Megumin used her Explosion, but the Demon King was trying to invoke some sort of magic, something powerful.
I turned to see him holding his hand up in my direction. Was this something I might be able to survive if my Auto-evade activated? No, no, I couldn’t just trust to luck like that. If it didn’t activate, I was probably going to die, right?
I was about ten meters away from the Demon King. This was definitely bad. The incantation was way longer than the one for his lightning spell earlier!
“I’m tired of playing around with you. I’m getting too old for this sort of thing, you see? I thought I would save my magic for when I got back home, but, well… Let’s just say you won’t be able to dodge this.”
Shit! Crap! Sonofa—! Whatever was coming, it was going to be big.
Quick! Did I know any defensive magic? I reached into my pack and grabbed Megumin’s gift, the extremely high-quality manatite.
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“Try this on for size! Inferno!”
“Create Earth!!”
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I drew every bit of MP out of the manatite and channeled it into creating a gigantic wall of earth right in front of me!
“Hrngh! Arrrgh, that’s hot!” I heard the Demon King cry from the other side of the barrier. It saved me from the flames, and it must have reflected them back at him. It really was a great wall, no shortage of soil. Just what you’d expect from high-quality manatite.
Wait… Hang on.
Maybe with one of these things…!
“Just how churlish do you intend to be, boy?! First you play your silly little tricks, and now you want to block my way with dirt? Are you planning to entomb yourself? I’m done playing hide-and-seek. This time, I—”
I took out another piece of manatite.
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“Create Earth Golem!!”
“This time…I’m…going back to my castle…for…”
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The earth started to squirm and form itself into a humanoid shape. With my usual level of magic, I could only create puny golems, but with this crystal on my side…
“You… You can even do that?”
By using all the MP from the manatite, I created a massive golem. Taller than the Demon King, big enough to fill the passageway.
I peeked out from behind the golem’s foot and gave my best smirk. You haven’t seen hide-and-seek yet, I thought.
“Round two!” I cried.
“You little—!”
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“Coward! The Demon King would turn his back on me and flee?! Stand and fight! Have you already forgotten what you said to me a few minutes ago?!”
“You bastard! You dirty, rotten—!”
We raced through the dungeon. He was suddenly “it.”
“Mwa-ha-ha! Some Demon King! Your generals were way stronger than you!”
“Silence! Cut a guy some slack! I’m not a young man anymore! I’m supposed to hang back and strengthen my followers, not fight on the front lines! And you know my powers are weakened right now!”
Maybe even the Demon King wasn’t equipped to fight a gigantic golem, or maybe he was afraid of leaving himself open to my attacks while he did it, but whatever the reason, he turned tail and fled, dragging one leg as he went.
You might think I had the advantage here, but I’d minimized the golem’s period of activity in order to make it as big and as strong as possible. It wouldn’t live long enough to help me if this fight went on for very long. I had to settle this before that happened…
“Take this! Deadeye! Deadeye! Deadeye!”
“Ouch! Argh! Hrgh! Wh-why, you…!”
The golem chased after the Demon King, while I took potshots at him with my bow and arrow from between the golem’s legs. All they did was scratch him, but it was enough to make him lose his cool. Combined with my taunting earlier, the Demon King really wasn’t thinking straight. If he’d simply teleported my golem somewhere else, it would have been all over for me.
Uh-oh. I was all out of arrows. My ideal scenario would be to use the golem to smack the Demon King around a bit, then finish him off with my last stick of Tinymite and my magic sword when he was weak enough, but…
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“Hff… Hff… I’ve had enough of this.”
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Suddenly, the Demon King stopped running. “Did you really defeat my generals? Yes… I suppose you must have… After all, you have me dancing in the palm of your hand, even if you did have to use underhanded methods to make it happen.”
What, so we were monologuing now? Was he trying to buy time until my golem expired? I planned to use the creature to give him something to think about for as long as I had control of it.
“How did they do?” he asked. “Did they perform as well as a Demon King’s generals should? Surely they at least gave you a bit of pain.”
“Let’s see… Beldia, I grabbed his head with Steal, and then he was purified out of existence while he was busy stumbling around. By the way, that old castle he lived in ended up saddling me with a lot of debt—thanks.”
The Demon King took a deep breath, his golden eyes glittering like a bird of prey.
“We blew away Vanir with Explosion, but for some reason he’s still around to work in Wiz’s shop. He’s doing fine, in case you were wondering. And he’s swindled me out of more money than I care to think about…”
My golem reached toward the Demon King.
“Hans almost ate me up, and so did Sylvia—um, in two totally different ways. Oh, then there was Wolbach. She struck me as the one half-decent general you had. The last one, Serena, she made me a Regina follower and then killed me. So you could say your generals put me through a lot.”
“……I see it’s not easy being you, either…” The Demon King sighed. I guess the old guy had had his hands full with that lot, himself.
“Create Earth!”
Suddenly, a massive amount of earth appeared in front of the Demon King—as much as I’d gotten using an entire manatite crystal all at once. The pile blocked my golem’s hand before it could reach him.
“Wait… Don’t tell me…”
“Create Earth Golem!” the king shouted, and now his pile of dirt started to writhe and assume humanoid form. Granted, his golem was a good bit smaller than mine.
I know I’m not one to talk, but can the Demon King do anything?!
“Hrm. This is no good. I’ve used a substantial amount of my MP. I have to hand it to you, boy. I’ve defeated swordsmen with swords and wizards with magic, turning each adventurer’s specialty against them. But I’ve never met anyone who fought with methods as strange as yours.”
He sounded genuinely impressed, but I had other things on my mind. I had the bigger golem, but this definitely showed the kind of power he had!
“I believe it’s my turn now. You do come up with the most interesting ideas, though. I wonder what you’ll think of next?”
His golem, boosted by the Demon King’s ability to strengthen his followers, smashed my golem into dust.
“Welcome to round three, boy!”
“Goddammit!”