CH 63

— One and a half months after the Demon King was defeated, in the Kingdom.

A place about 50 km to the south of the Demon King’s Castle – which is now a shell of its former self, with no master or leader – after crossing the Great Mountain Range {Grand Porzen} that divides the East and West. There is an extremely large waterfall there, called the Shinjin Waterfall.

For the people of this world, it is just that – a place. Wonderful nature. A power spot overflowing with negative ions. A hidden place to visit at least once a year.

In fact, no one knows that there is a hidden passageway and dungeon entrance behind the waterfall. Of course, even the legendary monsters that once lurked in the dungeon beyond are feared in this world and called the {Four Gods}.

Well, I know about it.

“『Thunder Rage』” (TL: Hm. It looks like he can still use the skills of the previous version of upgraded skills.)

CREAKCREAK! And an electrifying blow is fired from my spear.

─ ─ That was ten minutes into the battle. The attack that I had repeatedly unleashed on the same spot over and over again finally broke through the monster’s hard blue scales.

Ggah-oh-oh-oh!

With a loud roar, the dragon-shaped monster, which was about 10 meters long, thrashed about in front of us. It was the Seiryu, one of the four gods.

“Yah! It looks like you finally landed a good blow on its weak spot, Gustav!”

“Forcibly thrusting into an opponent who doesn’t like it… that’s a feat indeed, Gustav-san!”

“Both of you! You can only be happy after defeating him once and for all! We’ll be on our guard until the end!”

The expressions of Nina and Spera, who had been talking lightly, tightened. Seiryuu seems to have a lot of strength left in him, and he glares at us with powerful eyes.

Now, what’s he going to do next?

As we prepared ourselves, the blue dragon began to create a huge ice block around itself. It is one of the Blue Dragon’s magic 『Giga Anasta Icist』. It is the strongest ice magic in the game of {Let’s Go Crush the Demon King}, which causes huge ice cubes to fall like rain.

“Spera! Shield me!”

“Yes!”

“Niña, use 『Block All Presence』 and retreat with Spera!”

“Yeah, I know… what about you?”

“You can’t afford to get hit by ranged attacks… so I’ll draw them away!”

I confirmed that Spera’s shield was on me, and ran forward alone, towards the blue dragon.

“Hey…! You’re really… be careful!”

“I’m sorry for always swinging you around!”

Although Nina complains, she and Spera do as I say and hide their appearance. Then, of course, the blue dragon’s gaze was focused only on me, the only one who could see with his eyes.

‘Goooooooooo!’

Ice cubes rained down on me.

“Uraaaaah!”

I draw them to the very edge and dodge them, or prevent them with 『Thousand Spear Birth』, shoot them down one by one with 『Thunder Rage』, or sometimes break them all together with 『Quatrdent Forcer』, and if I can’t repel them, I have Spera’s shield protect me while closing the distance to the blue dragon.

I finally jumped into the Blue Dragon’s bosom and once again fired a 『Thunder Rage』 at the position where I had just struck it.

Guggaohh!

The blue dragon was impatiently twisting its body and running away from me with great momentum… but at a certain point, its movement stopped and it was unable to move due to the electric current that ran through its body.

“Gustav! Now!”

Having lifted the presence blockade, Nina’s figure was right in front of the fleeing Seiryuu. Seiryuu was blocked by the 『Numb Trap』 that Nina had quietly set up.

That’s Nina, thank goodness! I’m sure she anticipated my attack, as well as the Blue Dragon’s future movements, and set the trap.

Nina has the sharpest minds of all the people I know. The more time I buy as a good target for the enemy, the more freely she can move and lead us on the path to victory.

“─ ─ Gustav!

Hmph! And Spela appears next to me via teleportation. And then she takes my hand.

“I’m coming!”

“What?”

Without even a time to nod at Spera’s words, she again humps! And this time, she teleports away with me.

“Oh, oh? This is……”

My vision switches in an instant, and my body is thrown into the air. And now, right below me and Spera, is a blue dragon who is motionless, caught in a numbness trap.

“Gustav, the rest is up to you.”

Spera guided me to the best position to launch the attack. She is a first-class super sorcerer, both in attack and defense. With her unaffected calmness and boldness, which she has cultivated in her 300 years of life experience as an elf, she always puts the best move in front of me.

“… Thanks, you two!”

The two of them are so perfect and ideal in their support that I can’t help but feel excited.

Ah, team play is the best after all…! Nina the Thief and Spera the Sorceress. I’m so lucky to have these two in the SS!

I’ll never miss this chance they’ve given me. I land on the blue dragon’s back and strike it with the bottom of my spear.

『Thunderbolt』

Immediately afterwards, super-powerful lightning exploded from inside the blue dragon’s body…

(TL: Crap! It must have created a hell of a mess)

***

Twenty minutes had passed since the start of the battle, and the blue dragon’s body fell to the ground with a loud thud.

─ ─ [Level up. Gustav Lv 56 -> Lv 58]

At the sound of that voice in my head, I realized that the long battle was finally over, and I let out a deep sigh unintentionally.

Well, I knew it was a difficult enemy at level 60, but I didn’t think it would be such a struggle.

“Haa~~! It’s over~~!”

“How…. there are some amazing monsters in this world…”

Nina and Spera sat down, leaning on each other’s backs, looking limp.

“Good work, both of you.”

I give them both a potion and then walk over to the slumped corpse of the blue dragon.

Well. As I recall, if the shitty game specs named {I’m going to go and kill a demon king for a bit} are still the same, I can’t get anything like materials from this blue dragon, can I? After a while, the corpse disappears, and – oops.

After all, its specifications were the same as in the game. The blue dragon corpse suddenly seemed to be enveloped in a pale light, and then disappeared upwards like fine ash on an updraft.

─ ─ A clatter.

“What? That sound now…”

“Oh, it’s the lock opening.”

While answering Nina’s question, I head for the one door that is hidden at the back of this room where the blue dragon was. Twisting the knob, the door opened with a squeak.

“…Okay. Just like in the game.”

There it was, just as I remembered from my previous life, a treasure chest made of red wood with gold trim. Without hesitation, I opened it unlocked. What came out of it was a white feather.

“Gustav…? What’s that?”

Before I knew it, Nina and Spera, who had been following me, were peering into my hand.

“This… is a bit of a {key item}, I guess.”

“{Key item}?”

I didn’t answer the two people who tilted their heads at the unfamiliar word, but only smiled.

The official name of this white feather, I believe, is something like – {White feather of one half} or something like that. Incidentally, you can get three more key items by defeating the other four divine monsters {Byakko, Suzaku, and Genbu}, and by collecting all of them, you can awaken the {Back Boss} who went into deep sleep somewhere in the kingdom a long time ago.

─ ─ So, why on earth did I get the key items to awaken the Back Boss? That’s exactly why I got the key item to wake up the back boss.

This world is 90% based on the specifications of that shitty game. However, there are 10% uncertainties mixed in, such as the existence of me and the existence of a magician called Agranis.

If that’s the case, it means that someone insanely strong may one day be born into this world. If that happens, it is possible that someone will, by mistake, seek out and defeat all four gods.

What would happen then – perhaps this kingdom would be destroyed by the awakened back-boss.

This is the point where I really think it’s a shitty game. That’s what I’m talking about. The level of the four gods is uniformly around 60, but the level of the back boss, the half-breed female white dragon, is 90. There’s no balance of strength at all… As you can imagine, I gave up trying to conquer it.

I’ve been trying to prevent the four key items from ending

“Hey, Gustav. What’s a key item? Tell me.”

“Right. A key item is a word that means… well, in other words, it means the achievement of a goal?”

“Huh? That sounds like a lie. You’re definitely lying about something…”

Niña looks at me with a stern look and lets out a sigh of exasperation.

“Or rather, what do you mean by achieving your goal? You weren’t planning to come to this dungeon in the first place, were you?”

“Haha, well, yeah.”

To Nina’s question, I can only reply ambiguously again. Because Nina was indeed right… as a matter of fact, though.

Yes, in the first place, the reason I came to this place far from the castle town was because I proposed to the king and the princess that [I want to investigate whether there are any towns and villages beyond Grand Polzen that are suffering from secondary damage or scars caused by the Demon King’s army].

It’s a strange thing for a mob guard to know about the existence of monsters like the Four Gods, and if you explain what the back bosses are about, they’ll probably think he’s a crazy guy, so it was a desperate measure.

Well, but we got the key item as planned, and it was worth the nearly month-long journey with Nina and Spera involved.

Now, then.

“Hey, Spela. Quickly, can we burn these feathers?”

“Yes? Burn it? Is that okay? It looks like valuable material.”

“It’s fine. I want you to do it.”

I place that feather, a key item, on the ground, and a flame spell flies from Spera’s fingertips. It lands on the feather, and boo! It flared up… but…

“…It doesn’t turn to ash. It looks like it’s on fire… but in fact it seems to be blocked by a powerful barrier.”

“No good…”

“Would you like to try more powerful magic?”

“No, that’s okay. Maybe the result will be the same. Thank you for your help when I’m tired.”

It seems that, after all, it’s a key item, something that can’t be made to go away. If that’s the case, it can’t be helped.

“Spera-San, when we get back, can you stop by my room for a bit?”

“Eh? Yes, that’s fine, but…? Are you perhaps pent up? If it’s okay with me, I can empty it out right here and now, as much as you want…”

“I want to put these feathers in a suitable box and cast a sealing spell. Make sure it’s powerful enough that no one can break it.”

“As usual, you’re all through… I’m starting to lose a bit of confidence in myself…”

“I’ll be counting on you.”

I pat Spera on the shoulder as she cries. The more I care about her, the more vulgar she gets. The countermeasure is not to go along with Spera’s flow. The countermeasure is to keep the conversation solely self-initiated.

“So, what are you going to do after this?”

Niña asks, having downed the potion and completely recovered from her exhaustion.

“For now, as Gustav first advised His Majesty, we’ve already looked at all the towns and villages beyond the Grand Polzen, haven’t we? There was no serious damage, and the monster rate seemed to have dropped considerably… is there anything else we need to do?”

“Hmmm, no, I don’t think there is anymore.”

The advice was used as a pretext, but we still went around the town and village as we had been advised. The conclusion was that, as Nina said, there was little damage, and now that the Demon King had been defeated, the incidence of monsters seemed to have dropped significantly.

If that’s the case, then the whole purpose of our journey was really complete.

“Okay, mission accomplished. Let’s go home, back to the castle town.”

When I suggested this, Nina’s expression brightened. It has already been a little over a month since we left the castle town. During that time, she hadn’t spent much time with the former slum children she was protecting and nurturing, so it was only natural that she would do so (although she did return to castle town once every few days via Spela’s teleportation).

“I enjoyed these trips, but… well, it’s good to devote myself to the study of magic after a long time. And while I’m at it, I’ll also be reviewing my own sexual attractiveness.”

Spera seems to agree, so we gather at Spela’s place and teleport out of the dungeon.

Now, I can finally return to my escort duties as Princess Leia’s SS. I’ll be able to spend peaceful days with the princess, just like before the Demon King battle.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the Princess, so just thinking about it makes me feel happy, although it’s complicated, like {(thrill x excitement x nervousness) ÷ 3}.