Episode 272
"Cough, cough..."
"Puh-heh... puh-heh..."
Glare, lying face-down on the floor in a battered state, slowly raises her head.
- Snap...!
- Crash!!
Before long, as she flicks her finger, a crisp sound accompanied by something shattering echoes through the room.
"Hmm..."
The identity of that sound was the reflection magic the Demon King had layered on her body breaking apart.
"So, how long do you intend to keep this up?"
However, the Demon King asks Glare with an indifferent expression.
"I'm starting to get bored."
The reflection magic she had wrapped around herself had only broken the very first layer. The remaining reflection magic still thickly surrounded and protected her.
"........"
Glare, watching that sight blankly, unsteadily rises to her feet.
- Step, step...
Then, she heads toward the exit with difficulty.
"Finally given up, I suppose?"
"........."
"It's your defeat, child."
At those words, Glare, who had been heading toward the exit, stops dead in her tracks.
"And the same will be true for the Hero."
Looking at her back, Ruby continues speaking.
"When everything is over, shall I tell you what will happen?"
Ruby's eyes fill with enraptured emotion and excited anticipation.
"First, the Hero's..."
"I don't need that."
However, Glare firmly cuts off her words mid-sentence.
"There is only one thing that will happen when everything is over."
Though her entire body was battered, Glare strokes the ring that had been shining on her finger until now, and speaks in a low voice.
"Living happily with the Hero in a peaceful world, bearing his child. There is nothing else but that."
Saying that, Glare tried to open the door and step outside, but for some reason the doorknob wouldn't budge.
"No, no..."
From behind her, the Demon King smiles and whispers.
"When everything is over, he will be pinned beneath me."
Gently stroking her lower abdomen, the Demon King approaches Glare who is holding the doorknob, wearing a pleased smile.
"For a day, two days, months, years... continuously pinned beneath me, wailing as he becomes dyed in my color."
".........."
"When he's completely dyed in my color... I'll harbor his seed inside me."
Saying that, the Demon King looks down at Glare with superior eyes.
"Watching the life growing in my womb with dead eyes... doesn't that sound thrilling just imagining it?"
"...Disgusting."
"What's disgusting? It's the rightful privilege to take from a defeated male."
Placing her hand lightly on Glare's shoulder who wears a creeped-out expression, the Demon King whispers in a low voice.
"If the being you hate most in the world forcibly harbors your genes, and a life half-mixed between you and that being is created... what would that feel like?"
"Get lost..."
"An irreversible established fact is being made. Still pinned beneath me, listening to the heartbeat of life every day. Perhaps he'll feel paternal love? Or maybe his mind will completely shatter."
"I said get lost..."
"I'm already looking forward to it. What kind of reaction he'll show."
"GET OUT!!"
As Glare shouts with a stern expression, a barrier separates her shoulder and Ruby's hand.
"Did touching a brat's puppy love make you angry..."
The Demon King, looking down at such a Glare with pitiful eyes, slowly extends her hand downward again, even more slowly than before.
"But you're just a brat after all."
"Ugh."
"Too young to harbor a seed inside..."
As Ruby taps Glare's lower abdomen, a barrier appears again.
- Hum...
However, the faint vibration created was transmitted entirely, and thanks to that, Glare who stepped back one pace glared at the Demon King with cold eyes.
"If you become my subordinate, I can immediately make you into an adult suitable for harboring a seed. And when everything is over, I'll specially let your womb harbor the Hero's seed too."
The Demon King says this to her while licking her lips with a soft voice.
"Anyway, wasn't that your wish?"
Then, silence flowed through the room for a moment.
- Snap!
In the quiet room, the crisp sound of a finger snapping echoes once more.
- Crash...!!!
Then, the door that wouldn't open shatters in an instant.
"As expected... it is troublesome."
The Demon King, who had placed all the maximum locks and counter-spells she could on the door, mutters in an empty voice seeing the door break so futilely.
"What kind of ability is this? It doesn't seem like magic, sword qi, aura, or even martial arts. I don't feel any magical power, divine power, or mana - nothing at all."
The ability Glare possessed was something outside the norm even for the Demon King.
It was less an ability and more an authority. No, it was something that couldn't even be called an authority.
"Even That One said they didn't know..."
Recalling the conversation she had with the Demon God in a dream recently, the Demon King who was watching Glare with narrowed eyes and clenched teeth.
"Listen well."
"Hmm?"
As she speaks while holding the door that had its lock broken from being shattered, the Demon King tilts her head.
"I-I'm already... an adult. The Hero's... seed? I don't really know what that is, but even without you making me into an adult, I can definitely put it in this belly."
Saying that while gently pressing her lower abdomen with her finger, Glare was slightly blushing, but her eyes were fierce.
"And... don't arbitrarily judge others' wishes."
Glare's expression as she said that was resolute and bold, though she still hadn't shed her childishness.
"My wish isn't simply to receive the Hero's love, but to repay the debt I owe him with interest."
"Oh my."
"I'm just paying that interest with myself."
Having finished speaking, Glare stepped out of the hospital room and added in a low voice.
"Be prepared, I'll see you in second year. I'll use every means available to stop you."
"Is that a declaration of war? Come to think of it, the Hero said something similar..."
Hearing those words, she held her breath and laughed.
"...You will regret it, child."
Looking back at her with a terrifying expression she was making for almost the first time.
"I'll rape your 'Hero' right in front of you soon. Of course, only if you find the Hero."
"........."
"Of course, even if you don't find him quickly, I'll still rape him."
"Ha."
"And who knows? Maybe the Hero has already been defeated and absorbed by me after dying? Can you really be certain he's alive?"
After making a terrifying face for a while, Ruby suddenly raises the corner of her mouth and whispers.
"If you don't want your right horn to shatter too, you'd better shut that mouth."
From the corridor, Glare's clear, resonant voice is heard.
"Hmm..."
Hearing that and pausing for a moment with a frown, Ruby soon wears an amused smile and begins to restore the hospital room by waving her finger.
"Then... next time..."
Before her, the special function she had been displaying since just now was spread out.
"What kind of penalty should I give that guy..."
Stroking the left horn that was growing from her head with a chilling smile.
"...Ah."
Stopping mid-sigh of ragged breath, she soon wore a cold, hardened expression.
"...First, I need to earn points."
.
"Phew..."
Glare, having left the room, wipes the sweat from her forehead and sighs.
"Ouch..."
- Swipe, swipe...
Though feeling stinging pain because her whole body was soaked in sweat and blood, she takes out a notebook from her bosom with an unconcerned expression.
[Special functions, all sorts of strange skills are listed.]
[Visually confirmed ones include 'Disguise Removal', 'Illusion', 'Curse of Misfortune', etc.]
[Presumed to be for inflicting special damage remotely on the Hero. Extra caution is required...]
Then, she writes down the contents of the system window she just saw in her notebook as she walks down the corridor.
"I'm... not a kid anymore... I know that legally you become an adult the moment you enter Sunrise Academy."
Then, blushing again, she mutters to herself.
"I-I can drink alcohol too... anyway, what adults do... I can do all those things..."
Glare, who was inwardly dissatisfied with being called a kid by people, was whining while stroking her belly when.
"...Eek?"
Something caught her leg, and Glare nearly fell to the floor.
"Ugh..."
But at the last moment, she barely grabbed the wall beside her to maintain her balance, and then carefully looked down.
".........."
"Excuse me?"
There, Rosewin was sitting crouched against the wall, staring blankly into space with dead eyes.
[Auto-record complete - All-out war declaration]
She had just finished watching that scene in real-time through the automatically recorded footage due to what Glare had been doing until now.
"You... I have a question..."
Rosewin, looking quite haggard, asks Glare.
"Why do you... try to help the Hero so much?"
Then, Glare, who finally realized she had seen Rosewin once before, relaxes her guard and answers with a smile.
"The Hero saved me! If not for him, I wouldn't be here right now!"
"Ah..."
"He fed poison to that fake Hero last time, and just now I almost got killed, so you must know well, right? Actually... that one is an evil Demon King?"
"...Heek."
As Rosewin who had a blank expression heard that and showed a frightened expression, Glare begins patting her back to reassure her.
"But... don't worry too much."
Then, Glare whispers in a bright voice.
"Actually, I'm secretly assisting the Hero...!"
"........."
But hearing those words, Rosewin's eyes sank into deep darkness.
"My dream is to serve the Hero from his side... and after everything ends, to marry him!"
"Ah, ah..."
"That's my life's only goal... huh?"
Thinking she had finally met an ally and continuing the conversation happily, Glare starts to look confused as tears well up in Rosewin's eyes.
"I'm sooorrry...!!!"
"Heek!?"
The next moment, she's suddenly embraced by Rosewin who began crying.
"I, I ruined everything...! It's all my fault... It's all my fault..."
"W-wait..."
"I hate this...! I want to turn it back... If just once, even just once I could turn it back, I'd do anything to go back...!"
"Why are you like this...?"
"Please... let me work under you... Even menial work is fine, please..."
Seeing a girl with the same ability as herself, a girl with the same dream, but walking a different path, Rosewin begins to regret deeply.
'Frey... Hero... I was wrong... I want to see you again...'
[0%]
But after seeing the system window Glare had displayed earlier, she could only regret.
[None]
Because she thought Frey, whom she had abandoned and left to die, would never come back to life.
"U-um... well..."
Glare, watching her without understanding what was going on, quietly mutters to herself.
'She must be in panic due to the Demon King's threats, half out of her mind. I need to take her to the hospital quickly...'
"Your wish too... I'm sorry for shattering my wish too... I, I am... trash..."
'...Ah, this is a hospital.'
Eventually, realizing that fact, as she was dragging Rosewin who had buried her head in the floor.
"...Huh?"
She stopped her steps and looked up at the empty air.
[2nd Year Episode - Prologue Opened]
The Moonlight system window was shining before her.
"Why suddenly..."
Tilting her head at the suddenly occurring situation, she soon opens her eyes wide and fixes her gaze on the empty air.
[??%]
An anomaly had occurred in the value that hadn't changed even once until now.
".........."
The first thing Glare did upon seeing that miraculous sight was.
"...Hehe."
A smile of pure joy.
.
Meanwhile at that time, underground in the Order.
"From here on, it's an unknown world I've never experienced either..."
- What a shame... A little more and I could have channeled the Demon God, but to be interrupted at this very moment.
Perloche, pouring out all her divine power underground with all her might, had her eyes gently closed to avoid meeting eyes with the eyeball before her as she muttered.
"So pierce through the unknown with your light and move forward..."
Around her, Gugu was hovering with eyes wide open.
- By the way, the God of Stars is coming here.
Meanwhile, the eyeball, taking Perloche's vast divine power head-on yet merely blinking a few times, muttered in an interested voice.
- This will be quite interesting.
At the same time, the basement began to shake again.