“I’m kidding.”
With that, Tiamat licked the Demon Lord’s face. I thought that must have been scary in its own right. She took the Demon Lord by the hand, who couldn’t move from her fetal position on the ground, and helped her up.
“Still, it’s not very nice to tell someone to die out of the blue.”
“...”
“There is some reason for it, I assume. Why don’t you tell us?”
Tiamat guided her by her hand some more and approached us. Tiamat seemed like a kindergarten teacher at the moment.
“Which do you prefer, cats or dogs?”
“...Dogs.”
“Mm. Baze. Won’t you come over here and help her stay up, please?”
“Sis, I... Okay, all right...”
The Fenrir, with an expression that said he had completely given up, laid down next to the Demon Lord. Wow. She just used a Fenrir like a stuffed animal.
The Demon Lord slowly leaned into him. I mean, his silver fur was really soft, so I was sure that it provided some sense of safety.
Please, Lord Baze. Don’t look at me like that. I can’t do anything to help you. I’m sorry.
“Now, why don’t you tell us your name? I don’t want to keep calling you ‘lass.’”
Then Tiamat introduced herself, much more genuinely than I did. Her skills as a school counselor were coming through.
“Rio Kodama. I call myself Leon here.”
“Understood. Now, Leon, we are not here to fight.”
Her tone was kind, as if to ease the tension between them. The Demon Lord nodded ever so slightly.
Ruey and Miss Cielz didn’t seem to be following the rapid turn of events. Obviously. The Demon Lord went berserk, then a dragon tore up the throne room. I would have given them the toughest constitution award if they had maintained their composure through all of this.
“We would like to discuss the future with you. But first, tell me about you, Leon. If you don’t want to talk in front of them, we’ll get them out of here.”
Tiamat winked. At me. Leave it to me, she was saying. I had no doubts about Tiamat’s handle on the situation. Acknowledging her wink, I urged our friends and the dark elf to exit the throne room with me, leaving Baze to be used like a couch.
Hang in there, Lord Baze.
Led by Miss Cielz once more, we moved to a guest room.
“...I never thought our lord could be so fragile,” she muttered, exhausted.
I thought it might be best for me to console her.
“It can’t be helped, given how young she is. Fifteen or sixteen, I presume. It would have been much stranger for anyone that age to act like a well-rounded adult.”
“Is she really?”
The dark elf looked astonished. From my knowledge pool of fantasy worlds, dark elves were a very longevous species. To her, a girl of sixteen must seem like a toddler.
“Most likely, Miss Leon is from the realm of dragons, like us. She’s a Hermit.”
“No, Sir Eiji. Our lord may appear to be human, but she has Hellion wings on her back and a rune on her abdomen. She can’t be a Hermit.”
That would make her a Hellion, apparently. ...How did she know about the rune? Did they take baths together, or something?
“Sometimes Hermits change forms when traveling to this world. Tia took the form of a dragon, for example.”
I explained the situation, more or less. Tiamat had requested her form, but I wasn’t sure how Leon the Demon Lord had acquired hers. Was it a form of her choosing or of the on-site god’s? I assumed that it was the latter. It wouldn’t have worked out for someone to remain human while being tasked to torment humans. Still, I was willing to bet that she wasn’t as out there as Tiamat, so she chose the most humanoid form.
“Now, I have a question for you, Miss Cielz.”
Why did the Demon Lord try to kill me out of the blue? It was so sudden. We hadn’t had enough interaction with each other for her to hate me. We hadn’t even held a conversation before. I didn’t think my life was so sinful that I deserved to be killed at first sight... I hoped.
“I don’t know,” Miss Cielz said, painfully.
She had whispered to Leon that we had come with no intention to fight, but to talk. Of course, she didn’t ask Leon to kill us or anything.
“Are you sure about that, you dark elf?”
Ruey glared at her. His complete distrust was written all over his face.
“Unlike humans, I don’t break a promise once I make it.”
Her glare met his, sparks flying. These two really didn’t get along. I suppose no one could have gotten along in their shoes.
“Now, now. If we can’t believe what Miss Cielz says, we can’t even begin to negotiate. That’s our starting point, Ruey.”
I calmed him down, holding up my palms. That being said, now Leon’s actions made even less sense. Trying to kill someone who came to talk without even hearing them out. She didn’t seem that aggressive of a person. In fact, she seemed like a quiet type of girl.
“She doesn’t act like she looks. I wonder what’s going on?”
Not that there aren’t people like that out there. There are loads of people that commit crimes while looking like they wouldn’t hurt a fly, and many people have an intimidating face but a heart of gold. While I kept thinking that the concept wasn’t a difficult one, I just couldn’t convince myself.
“She tried to kill me without batting an eye.” I shook my head a little.
We weren’t in Japan. Life was worth a lot less. While I knew that, it wasn’t something I could get over all too easily. In fact, I hadn’t killed anyone before, although I was bracing myself that such a thing could happen.
“I don’t get it...”
“Only natural. It’s a world you never would have come across.” Tiamat jumped in.
I looked around to find the beautiful dragon princess standing at the doorway to the guest room. She seemed to have walked right through the castle without so much as a guide. What a free-spirited woman she was.
“Tia. You’re done already?”
“She cried herself to sleep. I left her with Baze,” she said as she plopped down on the couch.
First thing’s first: I threw up a prayer for Lord Baze. He committed the ultimate sacrifice. Amen.
“A world I never would have come across?”
“Hm. Have you heard of the phrase ‘frozen eyes’ before?”
“No, I’m uneducated in that world, it seems.”
“It’s not a phrase anyone would hear or read if they are living an ordinary life. In short, it indicates abused children.”
“What?!”
“Habitually abused children gradually lose the ability to express emotions. Eventually, their eyes appear frozen, devoid of any light.”
Tiamat explained this, matter-of-factly. Eyes are the window to the soul, as they say, and when children are abused, they lose all emotions from their eyes.
“That’s why Leon...?”
“Mm. She was a victim of domestic violence in Japan. And so, frozen eyes. To confirm that, I had to play a mean trick.”
“Oh...”
She had defeated the Demon Lord with direct violence. Well, not even that. She just hit her with her tail. That’s all she had to do to make Leon the Demon Lord overcome with fear.
“What the hell...” I couldn’t help but groan.
I knew that children are abused. As a statistic. But had I really accepted that as a fact of the world I lived in? Had I not convinced myself that it was only happening on some distant planet?
“Does Leon want to annihilate the human race for revenge...?”
“Not sure. I doubt that she even has that much emotion left in her.”
“What...?”
“Their eyes don’t freeze while they still have a drive for revenge.”
They lose emotions because they have forsaken everything. Even the will to live. But humans are creatures of emotion.
“Then... Why...?”
“I can’t be certain before I have more sessions with her. But I suspect she did it because the god on-site asked. Nothing more.” Tiamat sighed.
Again? It was orchestrated by the god on-site, again?
“...That does it...”
I could feel my teeth grind into each other.