Evade The Hero and Flee!

>The ultra-sharp edge of the blade began inflicting flesh wounds on the demon race princess.
Crimson blood trickled down her snow-white skin!

-You’re so cruel, master!

-Doesn’t matter, since you’re going to heal her, anyway.

Indeed, the princess looked even better than back when she first appeared here full of injuries.
Since we healed to full health in such a short time, surely she’d not get mad at me for cutting her up ever so slightly.

“Alright, now beat her up.”

“Ng!”

Slap!

“Kkyaaaahk!”

The flesh wounds might have been minor, but they were still stab and cut wounds inflicted by a blade.
Even so, the princess remained unconscious throughout the process.

A single slap from the metal bat later, however, and she was right back up to her feet while screaming her head off.

“Sit down.”

“Kuh-huk…! It hurts… it hurts so much…”

The moment she got up, the metal bat’s low kick landed splendidly on her, causing the princess to plop down on her butt again.

“Alright, then.
Are you ready to listen to me now?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

The demon race princess instantly went on her knees to sit straight.
I stared at her in satisfaction.

Yup, a stick was the best tool for education, indeed.
It was not for nothing that the concept of ‘tough love’ existed, wouldn’t you say!

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-Master, if you showed any more of your love, this whole world might get destroyed.

-A teacher’s grace is as high as the heavens and as deep as the oceans, you know.

-She’s not even your disciple, tho?

-In the ancient past, a wise man once said that everyone he meets on a stroll can become his teacher.

-…If we go by that logic, master, isn’t this the same as you beating up the teacher the moment you ran into one?

-Just say ‘I see’ and nod along, will ya! You’ve gotten awfully talkative lately, haven’t you?!

Thanks to the metal bat that had gotten sassy with time, it felt like I couldn’t even say everything I wanted to these days.

“I’m not involved with this individual you called Aggre-whatever, princess.”

“Are you… telling the truth?”

The demon race princess’s expression initially said she didn’t believe me, but she quickly revised that to an ‘I believe you!’ face thanks to the metal bat standing next to her.

“Yes, I am.”

“But, how did you know I was the demon race’s princess in that case?”

“Just my intuition.”

“Oh… I see…”

Now her expression said I shouldn’t lie to her face, but her lips were saying something else.

This was good.
She was talented in quickly assessing the situation.

“I’m being truthful to you.
As I said earlier, we have nothing to do with Aggre-whatever because…”

“…Heuph!”

I slowly raised my hand and carefully caressed my hair, causing the horns stuck up there to fall off.

“…We’re humans.”

The horn headband came loose and dropped to the ground.

This item was personally crafted by the dwarves that made the wearer look like demons and designed specifically not to come off that easily, as per my request!

When those horns landed on the ground, the demon race princess sucked in a deep breath, her disbelieving eyes glued to me now.
“R-really… you’re humans?”

“Correct.”

“H-how can humans be in this place? C-could it be that I’ve entered the human terri… No, if that’s the case, you wouldn’t have been wearing the horns in the first place!”

Her utterly confused eyes hurriedly scanned me and the others surrounding her.

“J-just what is going on… Hah-wuk?!”

Pow!

A small fist landed next to her face.

“…You talk too much, sis.”

“Yes.
I was wrong.
Sorry.”

The moment that fist shook about, the demon race princess stared at the metal bat with nervous eyes while hurried nodding away, emphatically agreeing with what the ego weapon was saying.

I knew it, this girl was quick on the uptake.

“Hmm.
I think I can more or less figure out the situation here, but there might be some other aspects that I’m not aware of.
So, tell me the demon world’s current affairs that you know of,” said I while picking up the horns from the ground to put them back on my head.

I told the dwarves to make the headband stick religiously to the wearer’s head no matter what, so they designed the dang thing to get entangled pretty tightly with the wearer’s hair.
That caused a bit of pain on my scalp, but I needed to wear the headband to keep my head attached to my shoulders.

Still, this product demonstrated the ability to fool even the eyes of the demon king’s daughter, so it passed with flying colours.
As expected of the trusty dwarven products!

“W-well, that is…”

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The demon king’s daughter, still deeply mindful of the metal bat’s moods, eventually began telling us the current situation as she knew it.

The demon king’s sudden passing.
The establishment of three factions soon afterwards.
But, in reality, it was a battle between the moderates and the radicals.

She also said that most of the moderates’ executives were defeated during the radicals’ sudden raid.

“Hold on.
Are you telling me that you didn’t expect the group called the radicals to attack you out of the blue?”

“Even though Aggreahrt and I differed in our ideals, we both still did our best for the sake of the demon race.
That’s why I never imagined someone like that starting a civil war.”

What kind of dog sh*t was this girl saying here?

You’d be a fool to trust someone close to you in the imperial court where all sorts of insidious plots were afoot!

I mean, folks in the imperial court would smile and shake hands amicably, only to start plotting your demise as soon as turning around to leave.
That’s what that place was like!

You’d be signing your own death warrant by being that naïve in the imperial court full of dastardly schemes and machinations, you know.

But to think that the demon race could be this benevolent!

“And what happened afterwards was that…”

She continued on with her story, revealing that the civil war started due to Aggreahrt’s misunderstanding over her subordinates searching for the descendent of the Succubus race, which led to…

…Mm?

‘Why does it feel like I’ve heard this story before somewhere?’

No, before all that.
We did have the final remaining descendent of the Succubus race with us, didn’t we?

“If only that descendent was found… The demon race wouldn’t have to experience the civil war, and everything would have been settled peacefully.
But we still haven’t found the descendent in the human continent yet, and…”

I wordlessly looked down at the demon race princess still yapping on and on about her circumstances.

Obviously, you wouldn’t find the Succubus’s descendent on the other side of the continent.
That’s because my daughter was the descendent you’ve been searching for, and she had accompanied me to the demon side of the continent, you see!

No, hang on a minute here…

There was an old saying about a crisis becoming an opportunity.
And the demon side of the world was currently embroiled in a crisis called the civil war.

And what do you know, the most important existence in this situation happened to be my daughter.

In other words, my daughter had the power to choose who would become the next demon king between the demon race princess and this dude named Aggreahrt.

Not only that but…

“…You say that, as long as you can endure the demon god’s blessing, you can become the demon king acknowledged even by the demon god itself?”

“Y-yes.
However…”

…You would definitely die after receiving that blessing.

In the history of the demon race, only five demons ever managed to survive the demon god’s blessing.
And all of those five individuals came from legends of the past, too.

After the previous demon king passed away, several demons stepped forward to take up the challenge, but they all died during the process.
Understandably, no one else felt brave enough to receive the blessing afterwards.

However…

“Who cares about your circumstances, anyway?”

The thing was, my daughter, with the power to cast the swing vote, was with me right now.
And the unique existence that even the gods had to publicly acknowledge was standing right here, too.

After combining these two factors, creating the next demon king should be a cakewalk, no?

That’s why…

“How about forming a contract with me and becoming the next demon king, princess?”

It’s time to make some investments for the sake of peaceful demon world life.

 

[1]: Apologies, but uh, I couldn’t think of an appropriate onomatopoeia for a person’s mouth silently opening and closing, and decided to go with the romanised version of the Korean SFX, “뻐끔뻐끔”