Volume 4 - CH 15

Volume 4, Chapter 15: On the Battlefield, Part 1

A man was knocked into hell from the pinnacle of happiness.

He didn’t even know the meaning of misfortune when he was a child.

Born the only child of two parents, with no poverty in sight for his dual-income family, the man had no doubt in thinking that his was an extremely normal household.

He noticed when his parents did not come for the school’s athletics meet. Did the whole family only eat together about once a week? They weren’t able to have a family conversation, not even once, even as the days went by.

He alone was the only person who thought of it as a family, but for the rest of them who lived in that house, they were just not interested in family life. They were just cohabiting.

If he had noticed it, perhaps he would have realized that he was unhappy.

However, the man himself didn’t think that he was unhappy. He knew that there were unhappier things in the world, and, above all, there was a girl, a childhood friend, who worried about him.

Almost every day, ever since they were young, she would bring him lunch. He was the first person that she treated to her mother’s cooking at her house.

It could be said that the man was raised by the girl’s family.

A father and a gentle mother that were kind-hearted, a bratty older brother that thought of him as his younger brother, playing together in elementary school, becoming conscious of her in middle school, and becoming lovers in high school. Although he slightly ran wild in various ways, out of consideration for the girl’s family, he kept a pure relationship.

And…… when they lived together after they graduated from university, while thinking of paying for their marriage with his own money, he went to the government office to register their official marriage and have her entered into his family register… but fell into a manhole along the way.

When he came to, he was in a dark, shabby room.

Actually, he’d noticed that the room was shabby months before he managed to get his eyes to look straight… the man had become a baby.

He quickly realized that the world was not a good one.

A dark sky that never changed, regardless of day or night, people who had horns or scaled skin seemed to be very normally taking care of him.

But he couldn’t be bothered to care about such things.

Where was this? He didn’t care how or why he became a baby.

He had finally had his wish come true, with her… with the childhood friend that was his wife. They were supposed to be having their first night together, and he couldn’t understand why he had to be in this place.

He felt frustrated every day. Because he wanted to return to his wife so much, he cried like a baby, but since he was a baby, nobody knew.

One day, a turning point in his life came.

He was taken along while huddled together with his parents into a dim basement where adults with beast and monster features were gathered.

He saw a black altar. Noticing the drifting odor of rotting blood, his face paled.

When he looked at his parents with a questioning look regarding that [Demonic] altar, he finally noticed that his parents’ eyes had the same look that the parents of his previous life had, as if they were looking at some [Other] creature.

He had neither the horns nor scales of his parents.

He understood that he had been dragged here as a [Sacrifice] for a demon.

The ceremony began. He couldn’t do anything to resist with that baby’s body of his.

Why did things turn out this way……?

He wanted to return to my wife. It was nothing new. He wanted to go back to my loving wife and escape from this hell……

The magic circle shone around him, and in the instant that the man who he thought of as his father swung down the rusty dagger……

[…Surely, just these sacrifices and offerings to try and summon me… it seems I’m being taken lightly.]

The dagger that was swung down stopped right in front of his eyes as if time had stopped.

All of a sudden, everything that he could see around him had frozen in place, and it seemed that time really had stopped.

In the frozen world in which only he could move, that [Voice] spoke only to him.

[Among these, the one with the strongest soul turns out to be a baby… But even if I took your soul, I could hardly interact with the world… So, I will make a contract to you. Name your wish. And in return, what will you give to me?]

He didn’t hesitate, and wished instantly to return to his wife. He didn’t need anything else. He swore to offer all of himself.

[Then I will take your soul after you die. However, that is not enough for me to let you cross worlds. What will you give? The answers are before you.]

At those words, he instantly shut his mouth…… and answered what the Demon desired to hear.

＊＊＊

By the order of Geas, the Court Mage, whom Daemon King Hebrad had charged with the right to command, the Daemon King’s Army, who had been spread out in their various units, had been assembled, and the invasion had begun.

Total number: 400,000.

Since there was a lack of food and some of the Daemons were slow-footed, there should have been some variation in the time they took to arrive, but, still, wasn’t this was far too few?

The Daemon King’s Army had left the Daemon King’s territory with a troop well in excess of 2 million. Where did the vast majority of them disappear to……?

“Hurry up! As Beast King Gallus’ subordinates, it is shameful to be late to battle!”

The Beast King’s second-in-command, the White Monkey General Gretel, directed 100,000 soldiers as he ran through the Forest of Monsters.

Gretel’s head was full of impatience and irritation. Thus far, he had subdivided the army to move, but unexpectedly some of them did not return and their numbers had been decreased in vain.

Something was lurking in the forest…

Using their bestial instincts, they sensed someone in the shadows, and the movements of the Beast King’s army became sluggish.

Relying solely on their animalistic night vision, they were able to run through the woods at night, but it seems that their fellows that were beside them had run into [Something] unfamiliar.

“……Hieee,”

Someone’s muffled screaming was heard, and then a couple of the Beastmen Daemons burst into tiny pieces.

“Wh, what!?”

“An enemy!”

They could faintly discern a distorted figure in the darkness of night.

When someone cast a magical light quickly to try to illuminate things, there was the figure of a [Demon], wearing tattered clothes, laughing while holding up the face of a beast and slurping on fresh blood.

“Hiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!?”

“GyaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

The brave soldiers of the Beast King’s Army screamed out at the presence of the [Demon] that evoked the fundamental [Terror] of living beings.

Not restricted to one place, the screams of terror arose throughout the entire army, and the massacre began.

“Steel your hearts! The Demons will take advantage of your fear!”

Gretel scolded his men even though he was confused as well.

Why had these Demons appeared here? Furthermore, they weren’t simply Demons. [Greater Demons] that had manifested within a vessel… and there was a presence that felt even stronger than those.

In front of Gretel, a huge and stout Demon appeared.

“……Gollow…?”

The Demon’s face and body shape greatly resembled the 3rd Army’s Pig Beast General, Gollow.

“Did you make Gollow… your vessel… aaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

With the righteous fury for his friend whose soul had been devoured, Gretel slammed his huge battle axe against the Demon.

[…Buhahahaha]

The Demon picked up and crushed the battle axe as it roared and grabbed into Gretel’s chest, eating the heart while it was still beating, savoring the desperation and hatred that it was full of.

*[Nya]*

In that instant, with that slashing sound, the Demon and Gretel were sent flying in little pieces.

A golden blade cut through the night, and a single girl emerged from the darkness.

“Hey~, that’s no good, you know? I thought I told you that you could only have one soul (snack) a day?”

Her voice was not particularly loud, with the tone of an older sister in high school scolding her younger brother, but all of the Greater Demons in the area straightened their backs as their faces stiffened.

The Demon who had been scolded with that carefree voice, seemed to have had his existence blown away with a single blow, but Nia herself seemed to not care at all.

The number of Daemons that Millaine had turned into Vampires and transferred over to Nia were in the thousands. They had also used a large amount of souls, and had raised the number of the [Newtype Greater Demon] by the thousands.

Nia just did not have the patience to educate all of these new Demons.

Along with Tina, they had split the 1500 Demons between the two of them, and came here for practical training and soul collection.

“Al~right, Everyone~, stop moving~ The bad children’s meals, will be that thing, okay?”

Nia’s voice sent the Demons scrambling in panic.

All the Demonic pleasure and smiling disappeared from their faces, and 749 Greater Demons tried their best to slaughter them all.

This time around, the boxed lunch for Nia’s cohort of Demons was 15 kilograms of dried seaweed and one octopus. The snack was one soul.

The Demons spoke together.

“[To be frank we’re getting tired of eating seaweed… But unlike Tina-sama’s cohort, we don’t have any octopus. Compared to that, we’re better off, but I prefer Fannie-sama after all. She will give us [Black Candy] if we do our best. She rarely takes anyone out with her, but if anyone is taken along they’re the envy of everyone else. Besides…… that thing is dangerous……]”

It seems that [the naughty children’s meals] Nia spoke of was a terrifying existence.

The moment their Master Yurushia had her face cramp up from the gem from that [Seal], the Lesser Demons whose egos were weak had multiplied and prospered, squealing with a “[Kisha, Kisha~]” and had had their mouths ‘willingly’ stuffed with that dreamlike [Seaweed].

Thanks to Noa using it properly, the Demons had stopped complaining about their meals.

And thus in that way (?) the Daemon King’s Army had their numbers quietly reduced in fear and deep darkness.