CH 149

“Now then, it’s time for us to dress up as well.”

Ellis let out a suggestive laugh. Standing beside her, Claire’s lips twisted into something slightly disturbing as well.

Today was the carnival.

Frau and Fe-rin had been cosplaying as chefs since the early morning, having fun selling their loin steak sandwiches alongside all the other street vendors.

Reeve and Su-chan were wearing some showy yet intimidating light soldier uniforms while running patrols, on the lookout for any unsavory characters looking to cause problems.

Katie and Ah-nyan were wearing matching dresses with a long slits down the side. Ah-nyan was also wearing a pair of pants underneath resulting in the two looking like a pair of beautiful ghosts who were supposed to only aimlessly roam around town without saying anything.

And then there was Ellis and Claire. To start, Ellis and Ra-chin had dressed up as two members of a military police unit. Ellis carried a small whip in one hand and having a grand time cracking it in the air. Claire and Pi-tan were also wearing military uniforms but with a white coat draped overtop. They were a pair of military doctors.

“Ufufufufu”

“Ehehehehe”

The two girls and their dragons seemed to be thinking something strange, laughing the whole while as they walked back out into town.

“Oh Ellis, you’re dressed up kind of scarily today.”

“Claire feels a little dangerous too.”

Everyone in town called out to Ellis and Claire, complimenting them on their costumes. In reverse, the two girls would always reply back with a large smile on their faces, saying things like, “If you make me angry, I’ll arrest you,” or, “I’m going to turn you into materials for my experiments”. Seeing them act like that, everybody in town thought they were just having a grand time with their cosplaying.

The two girls and their male-form counterparts continued roaming the city acting like a couple members of the secret police and some mad-scientist military physicians, having admiration and praise rained down upon them from all the citizens and tourists they brought a smile to. The city had a good atmosphere going, and everybody was enjoying the revelry.

But then, Ra-chin sent Ellis a message.

“Him”

At the same time, Ellis gave Claire and Pi-tan a signal with her eyes. The four of them then slowly began to surround one man who looked like a tourist, and when they were all in position, Ellis suddenly started shouting.

“You! You’re under arrest!”

Suddenly being yelled at, the tourist-looking man jumped. Before the man could say anything, a gag was shoved into his mouth while Ra-chin and Pi-tan took a piece of cloth, quickly wrapping it round and around the man until he was completely unable to move.

“There we go!”

Ra-chin then easily tossed the man onto his shoulder.

Everyone who had seen the scene began to murmur, and that part of the city started to get noisy, but when Ellis turned to all of them, smiled, and did a little bow, everyone was convinced this was all just part of the act, laughing about it before giving a round of applause. Ellis and the others left the crowd behind, waving farewell as the applause and laughter continued. And so they headed straight to the Thieves’ Guild.

Welcome to the Thieves’ Guild exclusive torture room. This was a special room Baltis had given Ellis permission to use beforehand after she had explained what it was she was planning.

“Now then, let’s get started.”

Ellis slowly removed the gag on the man who had been tied down to a magic torture chair. As soon as it came off the man started to scream.

“What is this!? Do you just suddenly abduct tourists in this city!? I want to file a complaint!”

“Ufufufu. What a good voice. Let’s test that out to start.”

“Hehehehe. Let’s start out forceful.”

Claire took something out of her bag.

It looked something like a large folding fan. It was the so-called ‘harisen’, and while it did make a loud, flashy sound, it didn’t do much for damage.

“Now, how about this? Haaah!”

Claire slapped the man’s head with the harisen with an excited expression.

“GYYAAAAA!” and the man screamed, obviously in far more pain that what you’d guess.

“Ehehehe. So it was effective after all. Then next would be this.”

The next thing Claire pulled out from her bag was a small mallet. If you were hit by this, it’d probably hurt, but it’d be pretty hard to kill someone with it. Claire squatted down in front of the man and lightly struck his knee with the mallet.

“GYYAAAAA!” and the man once again let out a shriek as the hit leg jumped up from the hit.

“Ufufufu, well it doesn’t look like you have beriberi at least.”¹

“You all, what is with that harisen and mallet!? Why do they hurt so much!?”

Ellis gave the man an evil smile while answering his shriek.

“Well you see, this harisen and mallet are equipped with the Exorcism ability. Do you understand, Mis-ter De-mon?”

A cold sweat formed over the man’s whole body when he heard Ellis’s words.

Yes, in the girls’ morning patrol, they had already noticed that several demons had infiltrated the city disguised as tourists. This man’s true identity, it had been leaked since the very beginning.

As for Exorcism, it was a magical ability that could be said to be the bane for demons since it does double damage to both them and undead. However, such a deadly ability being attached to something as silly as a harisen or a small mallet had never been heard of before.

Next Ellis took out a crop whip for horses. And then with a lovely smile, she poked the tip of the man’s nose.

“Now this is my personal Flying Phoenix and Exorcism crop whip. It should deal five times as much damage to demons. How does it taste?”

Ellis continued to hit just the tip of the man’s nose. It was really not much more than a simple tap. And yet the man was screaming as if it were a hot iron searing his flesh.

“Hey, are you going to show yourself soon? Mister Demon”

“I get it, I get it so please stop!”

While begging for the pain to end, the demon revealed his true form. It was a figure Ellis had seen before. It was the so-called Zabinas-class high demon, similar to the one that had been disguised and worked with the Durkfienance family in Wheat Grace. As he transformed, he tried to make himself larger and break free, but the magic torture chair kept him held down to a manageable size.

“Good boy. So then let’s now have a nice little chat about why you came to this town.”

The demon was completely overwhelmed by these two little girls with their mallet and crop whip, and so he answered any questions they had while being slapped around a bit here and there.

“It’s surprising to hear that the Demon Lord has been drawing away from his minions.”

“It’s even more surprising to hear that Berunal governs over all the other demons.”

“Rather than that, it’s putting that always smiling face of hers in a very suspicious light.”

“But that, I really don’t think she’s acting. She’s so happy and earnest.”

After finishing their little round of torturing demons, Ellis, Claire, Ra-chin, and Pi-tan were all gathered around and sharing their impressions with each other.

“I just want the demons to quit their plundering.”

“Perhaps it would be best if we had Reeve try and manipulate Berunal.”

“That’s too heavy a burden for someone so clueless.”

“You’re right. It’s be wiser to have us do something ourselves.”

They were saying some pretty awful things about Reeve, but when you have a certain track record, it just can’t be helped.

“Hey……… Are you still not going to release me?”

The demon who had been left on his own for a bit crawled his way into the conversation. And in response, Claire gave him a smile reminiscent of a mad scientist that would make you question which one of them exactly was the demon.

“Mister Demon, we’re not monsters. Of course we aren’t going to kill you.”

That’s what she was saying, but as Claire touched the demon’s forehead, using the spell {Distraction Needle} to completely do away with any magic resistance he had, she slowly began to recite her next spell. A spell that made the demon turn pale. Because inside that long chant, he clearly heard the spell {Explosion} embedded inside.

“DON’T!” the demon cried. But Claire’s smile only deepened as she continued her chant.

After half a minute, Claire finally finished casting her spell. No change could be seen in the demon’s body, but that only made the demon’s fear grow as Claire kept her sunny smile on show.

“Mister Demon, this spell is something I like to call {Keyword Explosion}. Simply put, this spell only activates when you say the keyword. As soon as you say it, you can expect a BOOM! But it’s fine. So long as you never say that word, you’ll be able to live a normal life. Hey, you’re kind of blessed in a way.”

Ellis continued acting worried for the poor demon.

“Oh whatever could that keyword be? Could it be Warren? Little girl? Dragons? Or maybe even something like Demon Lord? Ohh, I’m so worried.”

“I got it, I got it! I won’t tell anyone about you, so please just forgive me already!” the demon continued his begging.

“All right, we forgive you. Thank you for all the information you’ve given us Mister Demon. Now have a nice day.”

Thus the demon was released from the tortures of hell and scurried back home to the Demon Lord’s castle as fast as he could.

“Now then, let’s go catch the next one.”

Once again Ellis and the others went back into the city to run their patrols with playful smiles on their faces.

The special stage in Freedom Promenade.

On stage, different couples were acting out various different types of improv based on the cosplay they were wearing. The event on the stage wasn’t a contest this time, but everyone who participated  did receive a small prize like some specially made whale beast meat bacon from the Pot and Kettle, a special whale leather hat from the western fishing village, or other such accessories like mufflers which could be given away as a present.

Currently standing on stage was Katie and a Katie-lookalike Ah-nyan. Their program was a ‘catfighter performance’ with their claw gauntlets and greaves already equipped.

The two bowed to each other at center stage before taking an upright fighting position. Both of them took a strong step forward as the audience watched in bated anticipation.

Ah-nyan abruptly took a crouching stance, pushing off his back legs and lunging right into Katie. It was the standard posture for a catfighter punch. Katie avoided the attack by pulling a back step. Thereupon Ah-nyan took a position even lower than he already had and tried to tackle Katie right from the front. Katie read through the attack, stepping to the side and dropping her elbow right on Ah-nyan’s head. However Ah-nyan was able to lower his head, avoiding the hit and then jumping off of one foot to spin around to his left. Katie tried to intercept his movement with a low kick straight to his gut, but this time Ah-nyan was the one to pull off a back step, grabbing Katie’s foot in midair and tossing it away. However Katie used the momentum from Ah-nyan’s throw to her advantage, pulling a full rotation slightly above the ground, she managed to kick his legs out from under him. She then quickly mounted him, and the air stood still for a moment.

With things finished, the two fighters stood back up in the center of the stage and bowed once again. The two then turned to face the crowd, and everyone in the audience rose out of their seats, applauding and singing their praises.

“Hey Katie”

“Nyat Ah-nyan?”

“Do you know a riddle?”

“Does it take a Dad to bridge nyan with nyan nya?”²

And so the two started a small comedy routine up on stage, inevitably having to be dragged off to the sound of a couple laughs here and there, but for the most part it was a cacophony of boo’s.

Inside the Demon Lord’s castle.

Having scurried back as fast as he could, the Zabinas-class high demon that Claire and Ellis had caught rushed to a nearby magic circle in an attempt to return to the demon realm. He thought for sure that the spell would be canceled there.

But before he could make it, he was stopped by a couple of other demons calling out to him.

“Hey you, what’s the hurry?”

“I can’t talk.”

“What are you, you went with the others to infiltrate Warren right? Tell us what you found out.”

“No! I can’t talk.”

“What are you even saying?”

“Me talking about not talking is still me talking! It’s fine to say you don’t care, but I don’t know anything”

BOOM!!

The demon who had so quickly scurried home had his head split open like a watermelon on the beach. Without a head, his lifeless corpse collapsed onto the ground as all the other demons were left unable to understand what had just happened.

“What was that!?”

“That was an {Explosion}!”

“Who cast the spell!?”

And just like that the demons grew to suspect even those they called allies.

Ellis and Claire had designated ‘I don’t know’³ as the demon’s keyword. They had thought that someone would surely use it when the demon was confronted by his allies.

In other words, from the very beginning they had no plans to let him live. From then on, the two girls continued to apprehend several more demons and subjected them to the {Keyword Explosion} treatment before sending them back to the Demon Lord’s castle.

One of the demon’s they captured was able to leave behind just one bit of information before he popped.

“They were more like demons than actual demons. I don’t know anymore”

And then

BAM!!

The demons were left horrified by the words he left behind that somehow echoed louder than any explosion.

1. A disease that affects your nerves losing the ability to use certain muscles.

2. I hate their jokes so much. So this is meant to be a tongue twister-like joke that goes like “Nyan toka to kakete nyan toka toto kutte yatsuda nya”. I had a hard time reading this, but the joke here is that nyannyan as one word is slang for making out. So once again, it’s a dirty, stupid pun.

3. Just a friendly reminder that I don’t know is one word in Japanese.