Chapter 59 - A blend of chaos

Chapter 59 - A blend of chaos

“Hoh, so this is the Evil Dragon’s strength. It’s beyond any imagination…”

“Evil Dragon Lord, what should we do? Shall we start off with roasting it?”

“Don’t suggest a method of execution like a cooking recipe.”

The Mr Adonis, who was made completely powerless, was collapsed face-up on the ground with his whole body quivering. Still, physically was one thing, but there was no sign of him giving in mentally. His behaviour made one think he wasn’t a particularly powerful demon, but regrettably he was already on the verge of death when we met him, which made it sort of hard to tell.

“Hey, I’m going to get straight to the point, but were you the one who moved the mountain somewhere? Could you return it?”

“If you spit it out obediently I’ll kill you painlessly.”

“No, this is where you say you’ll let him go back safely. It’s too cruel to have every way lead to death.”

“You heard that, demon? It actually looks like the magnanimous Evil Dragon Lord will let you off with just losing one arm.”

“Why would I take its arm? The one who needs to listen is you.”

Panting heavily with his chest rising up and down, the long-haired demon showed a nihilistic smile.

“It’s regrettable, huh… I’m nothing more than a disposable scout in the Demon King’s army. I always bore in mind my inevitable death as a disposable piece. I’ve no intention to leak information. Come now―― kill me.”

Thud. Rēko seized Mr Adonis putting on airs by the ankle and slapped him into the ground, like a dying fish.

“Never mind that, spit out everything.”

“It’s useless. I won’t yield to something like…”

“Then I’ll put you through Evil Dragon Lord style torture and scrape out every nook and cranny of your brain.”

“You better give it up. It’s not a sensible decision. If you try to force me, I’ll blow myself up…”

An abrupt self-destruction declaration. Seeing the stirring soldiers, the long-haired demon’s intrepid smile grew only deeper.

“I’ll also give you a piece of advice - you should stop hitting me. If death calls upon me in front of my enemies, I’ll make sure to blow up and take some company with me.”

Thud. As if challenging him to a game of who backs out first, Rēko pushed the line. Towards the perilous act carried out calmly with no signs of heeding the warning, the soldiers’ faces immediately turned blank, frozen on the spot.

“… Erm, Rēko? Why did you do that just now?”

“It’d be troublesome if he blew up as he pleased, so I nullified his self-destruct magic in one hit.”

“Aha, is that so…”

I spoke more politely without thinking.

“Impossible… You want to say you destroyed the Magic Stone placed inside my body so easily…?”

“That’s correct. I crushed it into small pieces by permeating it with the shock from the impact. If you drink a lot of water you’ll no doubt excrete its fragments in a few days along with your urine.”

“What’s with treating it like ureteral stones?”

Rēko started swinging Mr. Adonis around without holding anything back as soon as the fear of self-destruction disappeared. Somehow it brought back flashbacks of the time I was waved around by Ariante, making me feel dejected.

“Rēko, that’s about enough. It’s getting hard to look at.”

“Understood. However, he’s quite a tight-lipped one. He’s still sticking with it this late into the game.”

“Isn’t it only because he can’t speak due to his dimmed consciousness?”

Mr Adonis has already begun departing to a faraway place. Maybe because he judged that it’d be bad if the information source died, Haizen ordered a medic to perform a heart massage, but it was unclear just how much effect it had on demons.

That’s when Sheina suddenly raised her hand.

“Hey, look, maybe for now we should try going to the mountain… to the place the mountain was at? It looks like this guy’s going to be out for a while anyway. Perhaps he only cast a concealment or illusion magic and is only trying to fool us, when in reality the mountain is still there?”

“I see, she’s got a point. Well then, I guess we shall crucify this demon and take our time interrogating him later on…”

“Can’t you just tie him up like every normal person would?”

He’d most likely die if she pushed any further. With my appeal, the long-haired demon ended up coming with us on a stretcher. According to Rēko we’d be able to smoothly proceed with the interrogation on-site, but I pretended I didn’t hear her.

By the way, the reason I purposely took Haizen and the others along was to make sure that this time Rēko wouldn’t be able to make me fly freely. After all she couldn’t make only me fly when we were travelling in a large group.

“Hmm… It doesn’t look like it’s an illusion after all…”

Sheina pointed her finger forward several times on our way to the mountain’s former site, making a high-pitched noise similar to striking metal. Apparently she was investigating the substance by using sound magic’s echo.

“Rēko, what do you think?”

“Although regrettable, the mountain did disappear. If it goes on like this, the Evil Dragon Lord’s golden statue will…”

“You should forget about that already.”

We eventually reached the place which was the mountain’s foot. The last night’s blazing flames disappeared without a trace. Rēko’s flames couldn’t be erased with some half-hearted power. It was okay to guess that someone with considerable magic power had to intervene.

“It looks like we were too late. Who and where could’ve taken a mountain of such size…”

“Sir Evil Dragon, it’s too early to give up. We still have that captured demon.”

“I guess. We’ll also be in trouble if there’s no money, so it’d be nice if he somehow told us.”

『The mountain has shrunk.』

“That’s right, Mr spirit might also be troubled like tha――”

Sheina and I looked at one another. The voice we heard just now, was without a doubt the voice of a spirit we heard last night. Moreover, this time we heard it clearly even though Rēko wasn’t interpreting it.

“Eh, where is it? Where did it come from?”

“Wait, wait a minute. If I also hear it, could it mean I’ve scored? Will it lend me strength?”

Both me and Sheina started going around the rocks and investigating. Haizen and the soldiers who didn’t know the circumstances only stared with their eyes wide open.

At that time.

“Uwaa!”

Along with a surprised voice, the sound of a dropped stretcher could be heard. When I looked over my shoulder wondering what was going on, it turned out the tied-up demon with long hair vanished unexpectedly.

“You’ve my thanks for bringing me this far. You humans aren’t the only ones aiming for the spirit’s strength. Even we, the demon kind, decided to bide our time and aim for an opportunity.”

Standing at the tip of a slightly elevated mound of rocks, Mr Adonis’ hair fluttered in the wind.

“Come now, spirit―― comply with my voice! With my body born anew, I’ll make sure to show you this power to my heart’s content; I’ll burn you and deal a crushing blow to the Evil Dragon!”

“The likes of you dare to spout about crushing Evil Dragon Lord with an arrogant attitude? I cannot let it pass.”

With a clatter of rolling pebbles at her feet, Rēko revealed herself from the shade of a nearby rock. I was about to point out and ask why she kept strangely quiet for so long, but I lost my words for quite a while because of the surprise she appeared with.

『Mountain, became a little higher.』

Rēko gave a ride on her shoulders to a tiny little girl. She had no clothes. Instead, she had bagworm like leaves tightly packed from her shoulders down. It was the stereotypical appearance of a feral child.

Rēko said while gently lowering her onto the ground,

“The Evil Dragon Lord’s flames are the flames of affection, only burning thoroughly the enemies with evil in their heart. There’s no way the spirit would’ve earned his enmity.”

『It became lower.』

“Ah, that looks fun. Hey Rēko~ , could you let me? I wanna try lifting her up.”

“Sir Evil Dragon, just who on earth is that shabbily dressed girl?”

『It became higher.』

“Spirit, why aren’t you listening to my commands…? Don’t you have a grudge towards humans and the Evil Dragon…?”

“Wait guys, let’s try to calm down and speak one by one; the flow of this conversation is a mess.”

『It became lower.』

The chaos continued like that for a while.