Vast and sprawling as the yawning continents of Ente Isla were, there was not a soul in their world unaware of Satan, the Devil King. He was the overlord of the demon world and all the creatures that slithered and slavered within, his name all but synonymous with abject terror and cruelty.
His sole motivation in life was to conquer Ente Isla, the divinely protected Land of the Holy Cross, and subjugate the foolish humans within as he transformed the continent into a paradise for his dark legions.
Making the situation even more desperate for the human race were the faithful war generals by the Devil King’s side, each as overwhelmingly powerful as the master they served.
They were Alciel, Lucifer, Adramelech, and Malacoda, and together they were called the Four Great Demon Generals.
Ente Isla, the land protected by the gods, was composed of a large central landmass planted within the Ocean of Ignora, itself surrounded by four islands. These islands extended from the sea each to a cardinal direction, thereby forming a rough cross. The Devil King had deployed Alciel’s forces on the eastern island, Lucifer’s on the western, Adramelech’s on the northern, and Malacoda’s on the southern. They had deployed far and wide across the land, bringing both the humans and the godly forces that aided them to the very edge of annihilation.
Then, something happened to Lucifer’s western forces.
Word arrived from the west that the war-loving general’s armies had been routed by a single human being.
This woman, referring to herself as a “Hero,” had rallied the few surviving human fighters together to stage a resistance effort.
Lucifer was a former angel that had fallen from the world of the heavens, and the Western Continent was occupied by the resilient forces of the Ente Isla Church, the powerful ecclesiastical institution that was deemed the “closest to heaven” in the land. The Demon King had reasoned that Lucifer, well versed in the ways of the heavens, would be perfect for dispatching the Church and the divine assistance it received. This assumption had been dashed by a single human. A so-called Hero, at that.
Of course, every long, drawn-out struggle has its setbacks. Lucifer had had a poor string of luck, perhaps. But, as Satan confidently concluded, the combined forces of his remaining generals would surely make easy work of this Hero.
That was his first mistake.
Satan had thought of humans as little more than grubworms, wriggling in and along the ground he trod upon.
But think about it. Could one ever truly eradicate every single grubworm from the land? Even the mightiest and fiercest of lions could be felled by a single insect bite, if it proved poisonous enough.
Within the space of a single year, first Adramelech, and then Malacoda, followed Lucifer down the path of defeat. Alciel, renowned as the Generals’ most gifted strategist, suggested abandoning the Eastern Continent and waging a defensive battle on the Central Continent in order to protect the Devil King’s central base. After years of waging war over the fate of Ente Isla, the battle had been turned upside down in twelve short months. Not even Satan could view the situation with optimism any longer.
Soon the humans, on the rebound and campaigning in the name of the Church and their Hero, had pushed their way to the Central Continent, their vast forces descending upon the Devil King’s holdings. One had to wonder where all these grubworms had been hiding up to this point.
In the blink of an eye, the central island was overrun. The demonic forces had been brutally crushed, all because he had underestimated the mettle of this single Hero, this mere maggot of a creature.
Satan and Alciel fought back, battling the forces of the Hero and her three stalwart companions at the site of his Devil’s Castle on the Central Continent.
The war wore on. Even the Hero faced difficulty against both the Demon King and his sole remaining general. But in terms of manpower and resolve, the Hero’s forces far outclassed Satan’s and Alciel’s.
Eventually, once the Hero’s holy sword sliced off one of Satan’s horns, Alciel advised his ruler that retreat was in order. Continuing to wage war would lead not only to defeat but threaten their very existence as well.
It was an agonizing decision for Satan to make, but one that even he saw the need for. The demonic forces would, to put it simply, flee Ente Isla. They would escape to another world and wait, rebuilding their strength until they were ready to return.
The look of pained frustration on the Hero’s face as Satan plunged through the Gate to another world, just before she could pierce his heart with her holy blade, provided but little comfort to the demonic overlord.
Satan’s final scream thundered across Ente Isla, as if he were attempting to address the heavens themselves.
“Hear me, humans! Ente Isla is yours…for now! But I will return… and when I do, both you and this land will be mine!”
But controlling a Gate to another world required a tremendous amount of magical force. Weakened and wounded by the Hero’s decisive victory, Satan and Alciel no longer bore the strength needed to fully navigate the portal.
Sucked into the Gate’s torrential flow, the two powerful demons were soon astonished to find themselves marooned in a world with an advanced civilization already established upon it.
It was filled with an intense, pulsating energy, the likes of which Satan and Alciel had never seen. Their infernal conquests had never prepared them for the towering structures and seemingly endless stream of shining, dancing lights that surrounded them now.
They were inside a large city, it seemed, one filled with just as many dark, dingy alleys as glorious, massive edifices. They peered into the dim crevices between the buildings, listening in wonder at the unfamiliar, raucous noises that seeped from each one. Who could say what sort of intelligent life-form ruled this land, or what kind of insidious, ferocious monsters might populate it? Still not fully recovered from the shock, the pair of demons decided to find someplace to rest and heal from battle.
Just then, a sharp, intense light shone upon them.
“Hey! What’re you doing over there?!”
It was a man’s voice, speaking what Satan could tell was a clearly defined, intelligent language. Turning toward the light, he saw someone there—a human, just like the ones that infested Ente Isla. The tubelike object in his hand emitted a blinding white light.
“You guys okay? Have you been fighting?”
Apparently the human race ruled this world. Another human was behind him, dressed similarly, eyes turned his way.
Alciel was eager to avoid any further trouble.
“Fall back, foul beasts! Who do you think stands before you?!”
This bold declaration failed to have the intended effect on the man with the light. He furrowed his brows in apparent exasperation.
Even Satan couldn’t hide his surprise at this reaction. There was pure, unadulterated magical force bubbling behind the noble cadences of demon speech. It was simply impossible for a human to ignore that domineering essence, treating it like the bleating of some animal.
“Augh, great. Foreigners, huh? Man…”
The first man tilted his head before taking out a small, boxlike object and muttering softly into it.
“Uh, this is Patrolman Sasaki. I’m looking at a possible case of simple assault here. Victims are two non-Japanese Asian nationals. Location is—”
The two humans were dressed in sturdy-looking, well-kept clothing, woven from some manner of leather or cloth. Weapons hung from their waists, their daggerlike hilts visible. The front of their headgear featured a golden emblem modeled after an unknown type of plant foliage. Knights from one of this world’s nations, then?
That box must provide some form of long-distance communication. If these were knights, perhaps they had just called for reinforcements. A battalion of them could prove dangerous, especially in the demons’ current wounded state.
For now, it was two against two. They had their guards down. Seeking to eliminate these possible witnesses, Alciel transformed his remaining magic force into a ball of crackling energy, sending it flying toward the humans. Or he meant to.
“What…?!”
The magic wasn’t focusing, somehow, the way he expected. In fact, the more he tried to harness his magic skills, the more it seemed to drain harmlessly out of his body, something he was powerless to stop. He turned toward Satan to explain this anomaly.