Chapter 32

The road headed from the Edius Adventurer School to the Adventurer’s Guild.

Nino continuously looked up at Shion’s face as he walked along it.

Her usually displeased-looking face stayed as it was, however, she walked next to Shion without saying anything.

Nino wasn’t eloquent by nature, but for this girl who would say whatever she wanted to say without any reserve to bring about this kind of atmosphere was rare.

At first, Shion thought about whether or not he wanted to talk to her about how he was deep in talk with Luuty, but he suddenly noticed that Nino’s eyes, which he had looked down at, were tinged with a serious look.

They were eyes different from the usual Nino who would say that she didn’t care about things that she didn’t care about.

Seeing that, Shion was suddenly assailed by anxiety.

「……What’s wrong?」

As Shion asked that and awaited a response, Nino muttered a few words.

「Were you, influenced?」

「……?」

Nino muttered while looking up at Shion who was making a face that said that he didn’t understand what she meant.

「Your appearances are similar, and words could get through. That’s why, you felt sympathy?」

「That, is……」

Shion understood the meaning of Nino’s words.

Shion wasn’t Human.

Shion was the king of the Mazoku, the Demon King Vermudol.

Everything in this territory of mankind was built upon the destruction of the previous Demon King Gramfia.

The peace they desired did not include the peace of the Mazoku.

Both Shion and Nino who were only pretending to be Humans were not included within that either.

「It is impossible, is what Nino thinks.」

That is why Nino dared to choose bitter words.

Before Shion would hold expectations and get hurt.

So that it would be alright even if he didn’t hold on to something like hope.

「……I still, have a hand to play.」

「Nino, does not think so. But, if that is what Shion-sama desires.」

They are different living creatures where only words are communicated.

When Nino was going around killing the Majin of the west, there were things that made her feel that.

Self-preservation, small filthy pride, and then lust for power.

Without lending her ears to any of that, Nino tore all of that up with her swords.

Since she understood that it would be better by doing that, she did so.

However, what about the territory of mankind.

In this Shutaia Continent, there was large strife with four large countries at the center of it all, and there was strife even within those countries.

And then, most likely, that sort of stuff was surging even within the school from earlier.

In that case……there was no longer anything that could be done about them.

Nino thought that that was surely a disease that would spread to all that were in the territory of mankind, and the Majin that once existed in the west seemed to have received that influence.

That is why it was better to not have come here in the first place.

For Nino, she did not want to leave Shion in this rotten and poisonous continent.

Even so, Shion desired this.

That is why Nino was here.

She was here like this, even if she understood that mankind was corrupt.

「……」

Nino jumped.

While silent, while without a sound, she disappeared from sight in an instant.

She had jumped.

Before the “owner of the gaze” noticed, Nino was already at his back.

She had suddenly vanished.

While being unable to understand it as anything but that, the ruffian crumbled down.

「Hii……!」

In a dim alley, Nino’s green eyes illuminated in a faint light, and shined.

The number of idiots that turned their filthy hostility towards Shion was three.

The number remaining was two.

In an instant, she apprehended another one.

There was no need for something like hostility there.

There was no fool that would scatter about blood lust when cleaning garbage.

There was no need for something like an edged tool here.

It was enough to just tie them up a bit.

「……Did someone put you up to this?」

The man that was tied up by a small young girl that was much smaller than himself made a pathetic scream.

Nino clicked her tongue packed with displeasure at that sound that was similar to a Goblin begging for its life.

「Obediently answering is recommended. Nino isn’t gentle after all.」

「U, uwaaah!」

「O, oi, you bastard!」

The tied up man desperately shouted at the remaining one that left him behind and ran away.

「You’ve got it wrong, that guy, everything is that guy’s fault! He told us to threaten you a bit……!」

Nino sighed at the words that she had often heard since they had come to the Shutaia Continent.

When she threw the struggling and disgraceful man into the alley, she made a kick to his stomach.

Leaving behind the man that had spit up a filthy soup and fainted, when Nino turned around to leave the back alley, she saw Shion, who had noticed Nino’s absence, rushing over.

「What’s wrong, Nino!?」

When she entwined her own arms around Shion’s arm as he had a panicked look on his face, Nino answered that it was nothing and dragged Shion back to the street they were on before.

「Nino is a transcendently beautiful girl after all. Nino was simply hit on by a fool that didn’t know his place.」

「Is that……so?」

「Un, that’s right. Nino is different from some no-good maid that pretends to be a beautiful girl.」

「That’s, don’t say that to Ichika, got it?」

「Un. Nino won’t tell her that you were reminded of Ichika when you heard the words no-good maid.」

Seeing Shion’s speechless face, Nino made a thin smile.

「No, listen here. Nino, that is.」

「It is alright. Nino is here at Shion-sama’s side after all.」

「That’s not what I meant, see……」

While looking at Shion breathe a deep sigh after realizing that it was the usual Nino’s joking around, Nino had a thought.

For Nino, she did not understand half of what Shion was thinking about.

She thought that it would be fine if all Humans were destroyed and thrown into the farthest ends of the seas.

But, Shion did not desire that.

Although she did not know the reason why he was like that, if that was what Shion desired……Nino thought that that was surely the correct action.

The great Demon King, Vermudol.

And then, right now, he was simply Shion.

A Shion that was only for Nino.

Chapter 33