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Chapter 20
“Gotcha, great work. Yeah, it’s okay. Gonna end this soon, myself. Tell Luiza-sama and the others my gratitude.”
Kyle carried the long-distance transmission card in his hand and was informed of the victory that happened in Rimarze. He did thoroughly prepare for everything, but he was still worried nonetheless. Seeing Kyle suddenly engage in a call like that despite being in the middle of a conversation, Byakumu was furious, but what he heard from Kyle completely made him forget all his anger. The squad that was supposed to be off at Rimarze murdering humans and their leaders had been decimated. But even more than that, the bits and pieces he heard completely threw him for a loop.
“Flame-Eye, Poison-Needle…and even Luiza engaged directly in combat? Wh-Who would believe such lies?!”
Just like Targ, he found it unbelievable that Luiza would join the frontlines like that. However, Yuriga didn’t deny this fact, and since Byakumu knew just how deeply she admired and honored Luiza, she wouldn’t allow anybody to lie using her master’s name.
“It’s up to you if you wanna believe it or not. The demons who infiltrated Rimarze have all been dealt with, and Targ was struck down… Good thing, because he was a real troublemaker.”
“Now we just have to clean up over here…and they’ll crumble down like a toy tower,” said Shildonia as she descended from the sky, still looking like a bird.
Attacked by Creet’s army from behind, the assault squad controlled by Byakumu was slowly but steadily ripped apart. This in itself would send ripples through the whole demon army.
“I don’t think this will end up in a fight, but our own side is probably just as confused,” Minagi said but knew that this was an expected result.
Since most of them didn’t even know about any of this, if they saw two demon armies clashing with each other, they might rightfully assume that to be a trap. Surely, Sharidan and the others would be beyond themselves right now.
“But some are going to use this as a chance…Just like those guys, for example,” Kyle looked into the far distance with an exhausted tone as he observed Basques and the dark elves slicing through the demon army.
At first glance, it might look like the dark elves were shooting their allies, but thanks to their rigorous training, Basques remained unharmed and efficiently sliced through her opponents.
“You’re absolutely not one to talk, Kyle,” Minagi sighed.
Not after he had pulled the same nonsense over and over.
“A-Anyway, this is the final destination for you guys…”
But then, Foken started screaming.
“H-How dare you deceive us!”
“Deceive? That’s such a strong word. I knew that you’d dance out of line eventually, so why not limit that to when it would only benefit us?”
“P-Plotting something like this with those demons…You traitor of humanfolk! You should be ashamed!”
“…I’m genuinely impressed you can just say that without any remorse.”
He disregarded his own actions and just screamed at everybody but himself. Kyle could only admire that kind of mental parkour.
“P-Please! I was just ordered to do this! Save me!” Raynor pleaded, but nobody would listen to him.
“Well, regarding the two of you…I guess you ended up lost in the woods forever. But I’ll let them know how valiant your battles were, so your honor won’t be sullied,” said Kyle without a glimmer of emotion in his voice.
The two protested but to no avail. Minagi seemed annoyed with them, so she sent two daggers flying at their medullae, to which they went silent and never moved again.
“Now that just leaves you, Byakumu. Wanna surrender? I don’t mind letting you escape this once, and I’m not gonna chase after you. Whether you’re around or not doesn’t matter,” Kyle’s obvious provocation made Byakumu’s white skin turn red, as he glared at him.
“D-Don’t think you’ve won! I’m going to take you with me! My immortality is stronger than Luiza-sama’s! You can’t kill me!”
Yuriga looked at him in disgust but returned a calm voice.
“Yeah, you’re not worth anything. Your invasion of humanfolk’s base failed, and you lost this fight, too. And now that Targ is gone, no more demons will follow the black-winged one as the Demon Lord. He’s done for. And you, Byakumu, can’t change anything about that.”
“I kinda feel bad for that Demon Lord if this is the best subordinate he’s got right now,” Kyle’s devilish grin came from the bottom of his heart, pulling his blade out since Byakumu seemed furious enough to attack at any moment.
“Kyle, perfect timing. They’re here,” Shildonia’s voice broke through the tension.
In the distance, he could see more human soldiers approaching.
“Numbers won’t help you…”
“Minagi, now!”
Kyle’s order had Minagi throw a smoke bomb on the ground, filling the area with white smoke.
“Another smokescreen…”
Byakumu hissed at the white smoke spreading everywhere, finally having calmed down. Since Kyle was using the same strategy as before, his sole goal was to run away. Byakumu understood that he had just played strong just now.
“Don’t think you can run away today…I’ll only stop chasing you after I carry your cold dead body in my arms,” Byakumu grinned like a psychopath, only for him to realize that what really limited his sight wasn’t smoke, but something else that blocked off even sunlight. He wondered what he was looking at, only to spot tall walls reaching up above him.
“Walls of stone? You’re trying to keep me locked up or something? With something laughable like this?”
It must have been a dome created with the help of a spirit, which surrounded Byakumu from all sides.
“So that must have been an elf’s doing…They never know when to quit”
Since they knew they couldn’t defeat him, they instead opted to keep him locked up. Byakumu laughed at Kyle’s foolishness, as he pressed his body against the stone wall, slipping into it like he was walking through a wall of water.
Slipping through a wall like this is child’s play for me.
Byakumu didn’t think much about it and just slipped through the stone wall, only for something to start feeling off.
Did they keep it thick on purpose? They should know it won’t work!
Byakumu started feeling anxious as he began speeding up. However, the end of the wall was not in sight.
Wh-What is going on here?! It couldn’t be this thick…No, hold on…
Byakumu finally realized the intention behind all of this as he began to panic, but it was too late.
“Oh, seems like he caught on. He’s starting to struggle.”
Outside the stone dome, Shildonia commented on Byakumu’s location.
“Hm, he’s running backward now.”
“Gnome!”
Under Shildonia’s comment, Rifuaro and the other elves used the spirit Gnome to lock up Byakumu inside the wall of stone.
“He’s starting to slow down.”
“So he’s finally out of strength…Good thing that worked out.”
As Shildonia calmly analyzed the situation, Kyle seemed relieved that his plan worked out.
“He’s not even invincible or immortal, regular attacks just don’t work against him. Defeating him would have been difficult, but just killing him wouldn’t be that difficult. Poison him, burn him, drop him to death, crush him, there’s other things too…but the easiest one is suffocating him.”
“Don’t win but instead kill…Yeah, that sounds doable,” the shinobi Minagi nodded.
Ironically enough, Seran did the same thing against Targ, even though they didn’t even plan for that.
“Still, his ability is extremely dangerous, so I wanted to get rid of him now before he could do something.”
That is also why Kyle aggressively provoked him before. So that he would do anything to kill Kyle here and now.
“Oh, he’s fighting. He must have realized that he’s in trouble.”
“He probably didn’t think he’d suffocate in a wall of rock like that,” Yuriga’s voice carried a glimmer of sympathy.
Even if she hated his guts, dying such a death was quite pathetic. Speaking of her, since Rifuaro and the others had arrived, she once again wore the hood and hid her identity. They may have their doubts, but there were more pressing matters, so they didn’t realize that she was a demon.
“…He stopped moving. He must have run out of strength.”
“Keep watching him for a few hours, just to make sure.”
And thus ended the story of the arrogant demon Byakumu, who was one of the strongest their species had to offer, suffocating in a wall of stone.
“That resolves one thing…but what exactly is even going on here?” Rifuaro asked with a confused voice.
He knew that he was called here to defeat an incredibly strong demon, and although he didn’t like getting ordered around by Kyle, he knew that this was necessary. What really confused him was that most of the demons that attacked had already begun to retreat.
“I do not know…All I can think of is that the demon forces weren’t one united front, and instead split between the two demon lords,” said Kyle, offering a hypothesis.
“I had assumed that all demons would show absolute servitude to the Demon Lord…but that might not be the case after all,” Rifuaro said, showing no more doubts.
Meanwhile, Yuriga looked over at Kyle who could so easily tell a lie, realizing that she definitely did not want him as an opponent. And with these words, the surprise attack of the demons came to an end, and the final confrontation between demons and humanfolk ended with a victory for Kyle and his friends.
Around the same time, another battle over at Rimarze came to an end. Knowing that the half-demons couldn’t do anything even after breaking down the walls, they retreated to the lake. The humans in Rimarze might have been saved, but another big problem remained—the demons who had saved them. Looking at what had transpired, it was clear they arrived to save them, but that didn’t change the fact that they belonged to the same species that they had been fighting for months now, and there were a lot of opinions seeking to fight these new forces, too. However, this was prohibited by the existence of the dragons. Since the demons arrived by riding on the dragons, and them landing in the center of Rimarze, they also intended to use them to go back.
Since the relationship between them was unclear, if they tried to fight the demons, they might aggravate the dragons in the process. And even if they could hold their ground against the demons, the dragons were too powerful. And the excessive parties who wanted to fight despite that were put on hold by none other than Maizer.
“You intend to fight the dragons, too?! They are not an opponent we can handle!”
“We should avoid any unnecessary fighting,” Sakira also strongly protested, and so it was decided to leave them be.
As a result of that, Luiza and her forces could wander around Rimarze’s main street like it was their own home. As she walked ahead, the pride and dignity she emitted reflected charisma that even the human soldiers were entranced by her. Even now, her left leg was severely injured, and she could barely walk, but she showed none of that. Despite being showered by thousands of gazes from every corner, emitting tension, curiosity, hostility, and anxiety, she kept her leisurely mannerisms. Flame-Eye and Poison-Needle did the same, and although many were scared, they also felt a level of reliability. Luiza and the others then headed over to the two dragons Irumera and Ghrud.
‘You sure love to use us, don’t you?’ Ghrud complained, seemingly having complaints at being used like a chauffeur.
‘Fool, this is all coming from Zeurus-sama’s order. We have to repay the debt we have created,” Irumera also sounded like she had a few things to say.
“Heh, I’m just here to get picked up. And regarding all of this, bring your complaints to Kyle and Seran, they will handle it.”
Luiza hopped onto one of the dragons and then looked in a certain direction, waving her hand. Her expression looked oddly gentle, which helped many of the people who watched this change their image of her and the demons who saved them. Leaving the smaller details aside, the fact that humanfolk had been saved by the demons was unprecedented, and it would greatly influence how the situation in this world will change…but that is a story for another time.
“If possible, I could’ve been there for the final battle, too…” Seran saw Luiza and the dragons off after being showered by Luiza’s smile, grumbling to himself.
The final battle referred to the fight against the black-winged one inside the demon territory. Seran had already dealt with Targ, but he still wished he could rush over there right now.
“Just get it over with and come back already,” Seran mumbled as he looked west.
CClaw Translations 