99 First, until the end,

We first heard the story of the Purple Demon King.

Her background, how she became a Demon Lord, and her life after becoming a Demon Lord.

I have some thoughts, but before I can break them down, I have to talk about my life first.

Explaining to the people of this world what is normal for Earth is a somewhat arduous task.

The Iliad and the others have asked me to come along, but I have no choice.

I don't like to talk about myself, and I'm not sure I can talk about myself very well, but I'm pretty sure I haven't lived a life I'm proud of.

I have parents, older and younger siblings.

My parents both had jobs they wanted to do and made time for their families.

I was a little older than my siblings, my family was a little wealthier than average, I had friends, and I had a crush on someone, though it was not a deep relationship.

After graduating from high school and becoming a university student, my life was ordinary but unsatisfying.

The catalyst for this was the death of a friend, a suicide.

I thought that our friendship had not changed to the extent that it had become somewhat worse.

I grieved over my friend's death and tried to understand why he was driven to commit suicide.

As soon as I tried to know and understand, they became apparent.

The family environment, social interaction, stress at work, all these things were tormenting my friend.

I couldn't denounce any of them, because my friend's suicide note contained a variety of grudges.

My friend, who had always laughed with me, was jealous of my happy life, hated me, and asked me why I didn't help him.

It was at this time that I began to be hypersensitive to the malice that surrounded me.

He had a habit of observing seemingly ordinary scenes for signs of disturbance.

When I realized that malice is everywhere, I was able to find a lot of malice.

My parents had lived a normal life, but they had been involved in fraud in the past and had inheritance troubles with their relatives.

They were having an affair with each other and hid it as a matter of course.

The siblings, who were close to each other, reported to their parents about what was going on behind their backs in order to get more of their parents' property.

Each of them repeatedly squandered their money and blamed the other siblings for it.

He tried to maintain his superiority by saying that he would solve the problem.

I felt nauseous and left the house, not confident that I could pretend not to notice the malice in my family.

I tried to live a peaceful life, telling myself that this family was the exception and that other families were often normal.

But once you find something ugly, you find it everywhere.

There were plenty of people who treated me with malice.

In a world where it was easy to live as a human, they wielded their power of life to gain advantage.

At first, I avoided them and tried to stay away from them if I could find them.

Then I found someone I could trust and tried to live a peaceful life.

But no matter how careful I was, the fangs of malice fell on everyone.

My dearest friends were plotted against by evil people, and their fortune, position, honor, and sometimes their lives were taken away.

I was inexperienced and had no way to prevent it, only to feel helpless and angry at those who had wronged me.

Even if I tried to counter it with knowledge, those with evil intentions would move on and find a new way.

What I have learned is the art of understanding my opponent, recreating his position, and predicting his actions.

If the straightforward method did not work, I embraced the same malice and conquered the poison with the poison.

He cheated con artists, attacked thugs in the night, and crushed criminal groups by using others.

At that time, I knew that I could win, and I grew up to be overly hostile to evil.

But if I was hostile to evil and I did evil to evil, I would be hostile to evil as well.

I had many grudges, and I had many painful experiences.

The more he fought back, the more enemies he made, and the more he began to betray even those he had trusted.

His anger toward those who had betrayed him was stronger and more merciless than those who had been his enemies from the start.

He trusted his emotions and was willing to fight.

He found himself isolated, with no one to call a friend, even if he had someone to use.

There was no one who could be considered a friend when he was mercilessly framing his former friends as enemies.

One day, he was caught in a trap by the police.

Due to extenuating circumstances, the sentence was quite short and the burden on my life was minimal, but it gave me time to think alone and I became calm.

There is only so much that one person can do alone, but if you are overconfident in someone, you will never be able to get back at them when they betray you.

The larger the opponent, the more clearly I understood its limits.

I realized that if I tried to fight against them, the reprisals would be huge.

Why should I take out my anger on evil when I could avoid it in the first place and my friends were gone, and I would only lose if I gave in to my rage?

I left the city I lived in and decided to change my way of life and live in a new city.

I did not interfere too much with others, and I remained vigilant against malice.

If you stand out, people will look at you whether you are good or bad, so I tried not to be liked and not to be liked.

There was no need to make waves in my life, it was enough to live a quiet, peaceful, and safe life.

However, the skills and experiences I had acquired did not allow me to do so easily.

Even when I was close to them, I could see their intentions behind them. I could see the dirt even in the cleanest of places.

I spent my days pretending not to see them.

I acted quietly so that the problems would not come to the surface, and if they did, I dealt with them by laying the groundwork and working in the dark so that they would not be noticed.

The number of enemies did not increase. The number of people I could call allies was increasing, though they were small.

"If you get too close to someone, you have to grieve when they turn against you. If you get too involved with someone, you have to be sad when they malign you, and you have to be angry when they betray you. So I started to keep my distance. I was tired of the emotional turmoil.

This is good, I told myself, this is good.

This is when I felt the world was fading away.

I couldn't tolerate evil, and because I didn't have enough power, I turned to evil, and before I knew it, I had enemies all over the place and destroyed myself. After that, I just tried to live inconspicuously, and I became an unpleasant person.

I came to this world when I was fed up with such a world and was living inertia.

It was a world with immature civilization, but many people in this world were trying to live.

Not all of them are desirable people.

There is discrimination, persecution, labeling, prejudice, and so on in every world.

But this world was still easy to understand. It was simple and comfortable to live in.

I found myself able to act emotionally as I used to.

But at the same time, this means that I am more prone to emotional turmoil than before.

I instinctively felt dangerous and tried to keep my distance from people in this world.

"I was honestly scared that the Purple Demon King had real feelings for me. I tried to keep my relationship with Taze, Mejis, and you as level as possible, so I tried to run away. But it seems that even if I live like I do on Earth, I can't live like I want to on this world. No, no, I guess I just wanted to live my life as I do in this world.

In this world, there are people who are serious about you. That's why I thought I had to face them seriously.

Well, I understand you a little better now.

Are you a little disillusioned?

Yes, I understand that you're a smaller man than I thought.　But it doesn't matter to me, because the only value I see in you is what you have done and given me in this world.

So it's okay to be a bad guy?

That's not a problem.

Don't tell me you're afraid of losing.

Now we know each other's information to some extent in advance.

It seems that we have the advantage in the amount of information.

In the meantime, Duvraeus, who had completed his preparations, appeared.

The stage is set for the game, sir.

"Yes, let's go, shall we?

The main change is that the fountain in the center and the long desks around it have been removed.

It's been completely remodeled into a large, battle-ready space.

Whether you are fighting or not, won't the knights on their night rounds find you in this open space?

"No problem, we'll build the walls now.

As soon as the Purple Demon King said that, a black wall around the square sprang up from the shadows of the ground.

As soon as the Purple Demon King said that, black walls began to rise out of the shadows around the square, covering the square in the shape of a cube.

"Is this a demon?　

Yes, it's a wall of demons I brought with me to this country.　If you attack it, that part of the wall will revert to its demon form and fight back. It's not as dangerous as it sounds, because they don't come in such large numbers unless you attack them in a very wide area, but it should be enough to buy you some time.

In the event that you've got a lot of money, you'll be able to buy a lot of things, and you'll be able to buy a lot of things.

So, what's the game?

"This.

At the entrance to the plaza, a small rectangular table rises up.

A small rectangular table springs up at the entrance of the square, and two chairs spring up to flank it.

The Purple Demon King sits on one side, which means that the other side should sit here.

Sitting on the chairs and looking at the table top, there are five round holes evenly spaced near each other's hands.

There seems to be a rather large drawer in front of the table.

As I looked at it, a piece appeared on the table.

The pieces looked like deformed versions of the members of our camp.

The seven pieces were Ilias, Wolfe, Lakra, Mikus, the Golden Demon King, Ecdysius, and me.

On the other hand, the Purple Demon King also has seven demon-shaped pawns.

There are seven of them as well, the same number as the remaining great demons.

In addition, there is another piece of the Purple Demon King.

Let me explain the rules, okay?　Can you open the drawer, please?

"Oh.

Grab the handle and pull out the drawer.

There is nothing in the drawer, but there is a circle of the same size drawn in the same position as the hole on the table.

The drawer contains nothing, but there is a circle of the same size drawn at the same position as the hole on the table. "Now you can place three arbitrary pieces on the circle.　Can you close the drawer when you place them?

In the meantime, you place your pieces, Iliad's pieces, and Wolfe's pieces in order from the left side, and close the drawer.

The Purple Demon King seemed to have followed the same procedure and closed the drawer.

Then, strange sounds began to be heard from the table.

As you watch, the piece you have just placed appears through the hole in the table.

That's how it works. And if the pieces that are in position are not you and me, then those pieces will fight each other?

In the current state, the Iliad's piece and one of the opponent's demons are in the same position.

So in this state, it's a one-on-one battle between the Iliad and the demon.

The losing piece is eliminated from the game, and there must be three pieces, or only one if there are not enough.

Oh, so if you run out of pieces, you lose?

"Not exactly. Your win condition is if you can set your piece in the same position as mine. And you lose if your piece is removed from the game.

Does that mean I'm done facing the devil?

"Not necessarily, let's say it's one-on-one in this situation, but let's say your piece is ......?

The purple demon lord then sets one of his demon pieces in front of my piece.

Now there are two sets of pieces facing each other.

In this case, she alone can challenge our two great demons. However, if you lose, it will be considered a defeat for you, okay?

In the end, it can be up to three against three, and if my pawns are included in the fight, the number of people will be reduced and the fight will be to my disadvantage.

"By the way, if there are only my pieces.

"In that case, you lose, because you don't want the Great Satan to hurt you, do you?

What happens if someone other than my pawn faces your pawn?

I don't fight, so it's not considered a set?

Now that you know the rules, the basic winning strategy is to let each side consume its pieces and eventually bring each other's pieces to the field.

You don't need to lose all of your pieces to win, but some fighting is inevitable.

"Can I abstain during a battle?

"Only at your discretion, but I'm going to let the Great Demons fight to the death, aren't I?

If we can make it, we can prevent the worst from happening.

If those injured in the battle were to face Duvraioli, they would have to consider immediate defeat.

If the game turns into a war of attrition, the second half will be a game of chance.

...... No, I won't let that happen.

I'm sure you'll be happy to know that I'm not the only one.

"Yes.

And so the final game began quietly.

The Purple Demon Lord seemed to be setting up his pieces without really thinking about it.

I guess he doesn't need to worry about it since it's just three big demons at first.

I too had decided on three pieces, and was thinking about where to place them.

I've got information about the Purple Demon Lord, she's serious.

I dared her to respond seriously, so I'll do whatever I can now.

It's in place, okay?

Give me a minute. ...... Okay, we're set.

The moment the two sides confirm each other, the pieces in the drawer appear.

The result of the piece was a surprise to all.

"What does this mean?

The Purple Demon King has three pieces lined up in order from the left side.

The Purple Demon King has three pieces lined up in order from the left side, with Mix's piece first, Exdoik's piece fourth, and "I"'s piece fifth.

In terms of the result, the battle between Mixu and the great demon is complete.

But that's not what the Purple Demon King was talking about.

The purple devil king was not talking about that. He was talking about the fact that he used the "I" piece from the very first move, which should have been a condition for defeat.

"Meaning?　It's what you see.

You said you were going to play for real, how could you not understand such a simple game?　Is that a lie?

I'm serious. I'm serious about winning, that's why I'm doing this. I declare, I will include my pieces in everything from here on out.