“Impressive! But I must ask—where is your weapon?” the Demon Lord inquired.
“I appreciate the concern. But carrying a weapon around is just too much hard work, so I’ll take you on with my bare hands instead.”
“Why, you—”
“No need to hold back. Martial arts are my specialty.”
“Is that so? We’ll see about that!” The Demon Lord unleashed a flurry of punches too quick for the untrained eye to register. Seb dodged each and every blow within grazing distance and landed a clean, heavy punch of his own.
“Wh-What kind of inhuman beast are you?!”
It turned out Seb wasn’t kidding when he said the Demon Lord didn’t stand a chance against him in close-quarter combat. The Demon Lord, recognizing this, kept his distance.
“Hahaha! Your physical prowess might be superior, but I can’t sense any magical energy from you. This could mean one of two things: you’re either an inexperienced magic user or you aren’t one at all. Either way, you lose!” the Demon Lord declared.
“I fall into the former category, I’m afraid,” Seb replied, smiling.
“Then why do you smile?”
“Because I have this,” Seb said, busting out his spellbook.
“Is that a P-Poem of Jabberwocky?!”
Sweat started pouring down the Demon Lord’s brow. And who could blame him, given how Poems of Jabberwocky could get quite overpowered.
Haigha’s spellbook letting her dispel illusions was already overpowered enough. But the White Queen’s spellbook allowed her to dispel anything, which was just comically broken.
Even the Demon Lord himself employed a Poem of Jabberwocky to curse the entirety of the Nameless Forest. Thus, he knew full well what they were capable of.
What he didn’t know, however, was that the one in Seb’s possession was a different type of overpowered.
“Make your next move. I’m waiting.”
Seb had no business being this intimidating while waving around an egg differentiation spellbook.
“Wh-Who do you think you are! My lightning magic is sure to make quick work of both you and your spellbook!” the Demon Lord muttered, unleashing an indiscriminate rain of dark thunderbolts.
“W-Watch it!”
The fact that Jean was inside the bubble with them had completely slipped the Demon Lord’s mind at some point in time. His attention was on Seb and Seb alone.
“Eep!” Haigha instinctively put up a protection spell. But the impact sent her flying regardless.
“If that’s the best you’ve got, I’m not sure I’ll even need this,” Seb said, effortlessly dodging the endless barrage of thunderbolts like it was nothing. Jean and Haigha, meanwhile, just scrambled for dear life.
“Q-Quit it! You’re going to hit—” A bolt of lightning struck Jean as he spoke. And yet, the Demon Lord was still none the wiser.
Haigha was also at her wit’s end.
Hatta and Alice, meanwhile, couldn’t take their eyes off those two. Although the “epic” battle paled in comparison to their hilarious antics.
“Why, you little…” The Demon Lord spread his arms, setting off a bubble-wide explosion. “Eat this!”
Seb scooted over to a point in the bubble where he’d take the least damage and shielded the rest with wind magic.
Jean and Haigha, of course, just got turned into charcoal.
“Hatta, help! I’m going to die in here!” Haigha screamed, furiously banging on the bubble’s walls. “I can’t do anything while the Boundary Stone is up even if I wanted to!”
“You got this, Haigha,” Hatta said. “Remember the ward I gave you?”
“You mean the ‘Good Fortune’ one?! Please, just help me already!”
He would if he could. Not Alice, though; she was too busy laughing at Jean.
“So be it. I’ll blow everything to the ground If I have to!” the Demon Lord roared, accumulating magical energy for one final explosion.
“Remember, you made me do this.” Seb took Jean in his arms, positioning themselves in front of the Demon Lord.
“I knew you’d come to save me… Seb…?” Jean’s voice slowly trailed off as he realized he had a knife against his throat.
“I’d cease this foolishness at once if I were you,” declared the butler coldly. “Unless you’d like me to slit Jean’s throat. Right here, right now.”
“D-Demon Lord! Help! H-He’s not fooling around!”
“Jean?! What happened? Who did this to you?”
If only we knew, Hatta thought sarcastically
“Do as you will! Just…leave Jean out of this. He’s innocent,” said the supposed villain of this story, surrendering to his fate.
Seb took the opportunity to deliver a roundhouse kick, knocking the Demon Lord clean off his feet as the bubble retracted.
“Demon Lord!” Jean held his hand, tears collecting in his eyes.
“Jean? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me, Demon Lord.”
“Thank you, Jean…for everything. It’s been a pleasure.”
“D-Demon Lord? Demon Lord!”
The Demon Lord went out, smiling…or so they thought.
“You’re not going anywhere ’til I say so,” Alice said, dragging her heels across his face.
“Y-You’re that prince—” The heel-dragging intensified.
“Long time, no see. I’m Wonderland’s princess known for my charming looks. And that there’s my older brother, Jean.”
“Jean’s a… No, that can’t be right.”
“If that’s how you want to play it, fine by me!” A dark aura, even thicker than the Demon Lord’s, enveloped Alice.
Alice picked the Demon Lord right up off the ground and smacked him so hard, it sent him careening into a wall. She then closed the distance before he was even able to process what had happened and proceeded to double-slap the life out of him.