Gluttony Demon King with the Swampman ~A Man with No Magic Power Who Dreamed of Magic, Wielding Knowledge from His Past Life Through Steady Research and Hard Work to Become the Most Vicious Final Boss~

Chapter 1.2: The Madman Yearns for Magic (2)

However, that speculation collapsed when Zaria asked the boy’s name.

“Whitey, what’s your name?”

“…Haro Moskaneyra.”

The sisters looked at each other. It was a name they knew.

The failure of the Moskaneyra family—the second son with no magic power.

All the people from the Moskaneyra family they met during the day had black hair, but the boy in front of them did not. Perhaps there was some genetic mutation.

In any case, then the author was not him.

There was no way a person without magic power would do magic research, and no way they could.

“Why is someone from the family in a place like this… Whoa, could it be you can’t get into the house?”

“…No way, because no magic power?”

“That’s the kind of family, right? It’s common in magic bloodline supremacists, but that’s seriously the worst.”

Zaria and Noiche, who sensed his situation.

The treatment of the boy in this family was mostly as they guessed, and well, it was a common story.

However, Haro made one correction.

While casually stroking the slime on his lap with one hand, his wide-open eyes looked at the two.

“It’s fine, this place is more convenient. No matter how much I cause explosions, I don’t get scolded.”

—Explosions?

No, they understood what he meant. Accidents come with magic research.

That’s why many families build research towers in places away from the mansion like this, and that’s why the sisters suspected this woods.

But if that’s the case—

Could it be this child? This boy who was said to have no magic power?

Thinking about it, there were strange things.

For example, the black slime sitting quietly on his lap.

At first they thought it was a familiar, but if Haro had no magic power, there was no way he could use contract magic. How on earth—

—The anomaly came when the sisters were thinking like that.

“…Zaria.”

“What? Noiche.”

“Something’s coming.”

The first to sense it was Noiche, then Zaria.

It was footsteps and vibrations coming from the other side of the woods. Probably a monster, and a pretty big one. Right after that, what appeared from the other side of the darkness was—

“T-Troll… this close to town!?”

“…It’s rare.”

The giant feared in the world for its monstrous strength.

Moss-covered stone-like skin, a bloated obese body, but its whole body was a mass of muscles, and it was always marked by adventurers as a high-danger monster. It was not a monster that should be walking around here.

“It’s come again. They’ve been frequent lately…”

The two were startled by Haro’s mumble.

It was not a monster that someone without magic power could handle—but the boy did not back down.

Zaria got annoyed at him for not showing any sign of fleeing while sitting.

“H-Hey, Whitey! We should hurry into the tower… Ah, geez, Noiche! Take it out!”

“Yeah, leave it to me.”

Zaria, who grabbed Haro’s collar, and Noiche, who stepped forward.

When she pointed her palm at the troll and chanted “Float,” deep indigo magic power gathered there.

The countless blades of dark magic fragments were released all at once at the troll—but—

“ROOOOAAARRR—!”

“…Wind magic?”

—Along with the roar, the gust of wind magic swirling around the troll repelled the blades like a veil.

Darn, this individual has more intelligence than I thought— the moment Noiche revised her recognition, however, the one who stepped in front of her was the boy Haro.

He shook off Zaria’s hand and forcefully leaped out, then stroked the slime he held in both hands.

“I’m starting today’s experiment, I-N-K-U.”

Ink—

The slime, called that, which was obsidian-colored, then wriggled and squirmed in his arms.

Its body was a liquid even more fluid than a normal slime, exactly like ink.

It moved, floated into the air, and the slime changed into a magic circle.

—After that, it was in an instant.

As if responding to the boy’s call, the slime swelled its magic power and became a spear that pierced the troll’s throat.

The troll, pierced in its vital spot, staggered, and soon collapsed.

Zaria and Noiche, caught by the rising dust and the rumbling of the earth, could only swallow their breath in stunned amazement.

“What… what the heck is going on…?”

“Constructing a magic circle using the slime as a brush substitute, and furthermore repurposing that slime as the base for water magic… I-I get the logic, but it doesn’t make sense…”

Even that Noiche, who never twitched a facial muscle usually, twisted her expression and said, “What do you have to eat to come up with something like that…?”

Zaria felt the same. What he was doing was the epitome of unorthodox for a magician, but more than that—

“Whitey… no, Haro! Weren’t you supposed to have no magic power!?”

At the end of the clearing dust and smoke, the boy slowly turned around at Zaria’s words.

With a self-mocking smile on his face, he said in a hoarse voice.

“Can’t help it, I fell for it.”

Even without magic power, I’ll do it, Haro laughed.

—He was neither a noble hero nor a great archmagician; this was just the story of a madman.

It was the record of the pursuit and obsession of the madman Haro, who was born without magic power yet captivated by the beauty of magic—

And it was the story that would eventually lead him to become the demon king.