CH 73

I felt like I could understand what the butler Vince was concerned about. Clearly, what little survival instinct Mayer Knox still had diminished even further when it concerned the demon lord. I gave him a wide smile as I pointed out, “Have a good fight then, without me there to cast element conversion for you. You did hear that physical attacks don’t work, right?”

“…I am sorry. I was jesting,” Mayer apologized, noticing my ire. There was no reason to not accept his apology. Who was I to tell him what to do when he insisted on abusing himself? It was a wonder why it bothered me so much.

I sighed and added, “Never joke like that again, please. It’s unsettling, even when I do know you’re not being serious.”

“…It is not a bad feeling to have you worry for me.” He smiled.

“I wish you did feel a little bad, so you’d never say something like that again.”

Mayer’s gaze was oddly warm despite my grumbling. He seemed to enjoy arguing like this. Did he have nothing else to enjoy? How emotionally deprived, really. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to reproach him for that.

He tapped his desk a couple of times, a habit that occurred whenever he was deep in thought. After a moment of silence, he asked, “Then how must I grow accustomed to using demonic power?”

“Nobody can stop you if you go berserk, so… I plan on making steady progress. Outside dungeons.”

“If something were to go wrong outside dungeons… Would that not be dangerous?” Mayer’s face hardened, recalling the traumatic incident of losing control of his mana and killing the previous grand duke of Knox.

“I’ll handle things so don’t worry.”

“…You will be handling things? By that you mean…”

“Of course you’ll be practicing with me. It’ll be dangerous by yourself, Captain.”

Mayer stared at me, wide-eyed. He barely held back from shouting in protest, but he still couldn’t stop himself from shooting to his feet. Realizing he was agitated, the captain slowly sat back down and tried his best to maintain composure as he asked, “So you mean… You and I, alone?”

“Yes.”

Mayer continued hesitantly, “In my opinion… that also seems dangerous.”

I could understand his never-ending worries since, my capability aside, the matter was of great importance. I puffed out my chest and spoke with my head held high and voice confident. “Don’t worry too much. I’ll do well so there’ll be no problems to our surroundings.”

“What I am concerned about is you, not our surroundings! If you were to end up dying…!” Mayer failed to contain his emotions and burst out yelling. I could only blink dumbly as I never considered that he was worrying for my life.

Sure, I’d die in an instant if Mayer went completely berserk. But how could I claim to hold his leash without any guarantee? I laughed as I pointed out, “You seem to think that I won’t be able to stop you, Captain.”

Mayer answered with silence. Apparently, he thought speaking the truth would hurt my pride. Honestly, that would have been the case if it wasn’t coming from Mayer Knox. I would’ve actually been more suspicious if he believed in me too. “It’s okay because I have ‘Divine Devotion’. Do you remember? It’s the spell I cast on Wipera,” I reminded him. I had no intention of using that spell on Mayer, of course. I’d have no mind to spare in using additional magic since I had to put my all to controlling his demonic power. But it was fine as long as Mayer didn’t know so I gently persuaded him.

“Even so…” Mayer’s face was still full of concern, but I persisted regardless.

“It’s not like you can go telling someone else about your demonic power, no? You don’t want that, Captain.”

“That is true, but… I would be troubled more if something were to happen to you.”

“Trust in me. I told you that I’d make you stronger, Captain.” Saying something like this to the strongest man of humanity was utter arrogance. It didn’t matter, though, as I was a support mage. I was the weakest being out there, possessing not a single offensive spell. Yet, that was precisely why I was capable of tempering the strongest being into something even greater. This was the essence of why I liked Jun, and that hadn’t changed even after becoming her. It was my pride and my dignity.

I held my head tall as I stared at Mayer, but he still looked conflicted despite my words. Seeing how unsure he was, I realized I had to do something about it. “This kind of situation was also within my expectations. Well… Since we’re on the subject, how about we do it now?”

“Right now? Here?” Mayer was startled.