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 43: The Lady Finds the Hero Gross, the Old Man Just Runs

The dollmaker is a minion of the Demon King.

That judgment from the hero Luek was probably correct—even Oz herself thought so.

Oz is a foundling.

She has no memories from before she was taken in by the monastery, and she knows nothing of her parents.

But don’t they say magic-eye users carry the blood of demons?

Magic eyes are independent organs.

Even if the host dies, unlike the heart or lungs, these eyes alone keep moving on their own.

Magicians say that is because the demonic factor mixed into a human body continues living inside the pupils.

If so, then Oz is connected to the lineage of the Demon King.

The fact that the power of these eyes is growing stronger in time with the Demon King’s appearance is proof. Even so—

“—I’m sorry, but I will resist. I want to live as a human.”

Oz chose to fight the hero Luek.

Running through the gap in the gold that Zaria had sliced open, Oz’s swung sword cane clashed hilt-to-hilt with the hero’s blade.

“Guh! So you finally show your true colors, dollmaker…!”

The hero Luek knocked her sword away.

Outmatched in strength, Oz was blown backward.

Yet the moment he tried to press the counterattack, something released from inside Oz’s skirt checked his feet.

“Puppets…!?”

Palm-sized little dolls.

Their thin wings trembled rapidly, wooden bellies and long needles pointed forward as they charged—like bees.

—Killer Bees.

Small yet powerful demonic insects with magic-enhanced venomous stingers. These dolls were Killer Bees that Oz had brought under control with her magic eyes.

Dolls this size she could manipulate freely.

The several Killer Bee dolls Oz threw all swarmed toward the hero.

“Luek-sama! Watch out for the poison—!”

“I know!”

Nodding at Sera’s warning, the hero parried the dolls with sword and golden magic.

Killer Bee venom is strengthened by magic power. If that property was reproduced in these dolls, he could not afford to take even one hit.

Oz successfully escaped the reach of his sword and stood beside Zaria.

“‘I want to live as a human’—nice policy. Whose influence?”

“The previous monastery director. He taught me that even if we were poor, we should eat human food, wear human clothes, and sleep in a human home.”

Raised in a monastery, huh, Zaria thought, impressed.

She must have had an excellent teacher. Her manners are really refined.

Meanwhile, the hero who had cut down the dolls—

And Sera standing beside him glared at Zaria and the others.

“Zaria-sama, you are aware, are you not? Heroes act under royal decree. Until the seven Demon Kings are driven from this world, the hero holds the strongest executive authority in this kingdom!”

“…So what?”

“If you interfere, even you, the daughter of Duke Levi, will become a target for execution!”

Zaria snorted at Sera’s threat.

“Bring it on. Come at me, hero. I’ll keep you company.”

“…Y-you’re serious?”

“Of course. Oh, but Sera? You’re separate. If House Eiyar as a whole points its staff at me, a few family heads won’t be enough, so keep that in mind.”

At Zaria’s burning crimson glare, Sera flinched and took a step back.

But Luek stepped forward to shield her.

“Luek-sama…!”

“It’s all right, Sera. Leave it to me. I’ll quickly defeat the dollmaker and free Zaria-san from her mind control!”

Don’t just decide that on your own, Zaria thought in exasperation.

“I’ve admired House Levi for a long time. When I asked Observatory Director Sante, I was turned down, but I wanted Zaria-san and Noiche-san to join me as traveling companions! So this is a perfect chance!”

—Ugh, gross.

Save me, Haro, Zaria inwardly looked up at the sky.

And this guy was trying to dig a moat around big brother first.

Immediately after, the fight broke out.

The hero traced the ground with his sword, generating gold all around as he closed in.

Zaria parried his swings with her magic sword while dodging the delayed waves of gold.

“Luek-sama! I-I will also—”

Sera, frozen in the back, began unfolding magic to support the hero.

“Fly, take courage, white doves of the sacred peak! Aim for that demon, not Zaria-sama—!”

Still a little intimidated by Zaria’s earlier words, several white doves appeared around Sera.

The doves tried to fly toward Oz—

—and at that moment, countless arrows pierced every one of them.

“Wha…!?”

“You’re forgetting about me, and that’s a problem.”

Before anyone noticed, Egiy had nocked bow and arrow.

Sera ground her teeth.

Right, there was an elf.

Releasing multiple arrows at once—an archery skill no human lifespan could ever master.

Plus, since the magically created white doves had taken damage, those arrows were clearly not ordinary.

“No way… magic arrows…!?”

Consumable arrows engraved with magic.

A technique considered “not worth the cost” and abandoned by modern mages, but Zaria alone knew that Egiy had quietly mass-produced them using scraps from magic-sword forging as part of her iron-forging training.

“Egiy! Perfect!”

“L-leave this side to me! Everyone, focus on the hero!”

“…Thank you both.”

Oz bowed her head.

From her perspective, she had no idea why Zaria and the others were siding with her.

From Zaria’s perspective, there was no clear reason either.

She just thought, “There’s no way a human should be killed this easily.”

And so their battlefield began to move.

Sera’s interference was shot down entirely by Egiy’s arrows, while gold and sword flashes continued clashing.

Naturally, the hero held the advantage.

His overwhelming magic power remained a threat as always, and they couldn’t actually kill the hero himself—only a hero can oppose a Demon King.

Zaria and Oz had no decent counterattacks.

Yet the hero was irritated. Despite his clear superiority, his opponents refused to break.

Especially Zaria.

That unknown magic and sword technique kept slicing through gold that should have been unbreakable.

“Why won’t you fall before this much gold…!?”

In response to the hero’s open confusion—

Zaria and Oz whispered to each other.

“Hold out, Oz. We’ll figure something out with time.”

“…Do you have a plan?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the cutest little sister in the world and the coolest teacher in the world on my side.”

…Oh right, she did mention a teacher. Oz recalled.

The battlefield had already spilled out of the narrow alley and onto the main street.

Screams rose from residents everywhere as they began fleeing; Zaria and the others positioned themselves to avoid dragging civilians in.

“Still, does the hero ever run out of magic power…!?”

He kept producing that much gold—why wasn’t his mana drying up?

Especially alchemy, which is supposed to be magic-power intensive—

Whatever, Zaria cut off that line of thought.

“If we make this much noise, he’ll come soon enough.”

Amid the residents’ screams, alarm bells began ringing in the distance.

Help would arrive shortly—Zaria’s trust was proven the very next moment.

“—Foolish God Praise Cthulhu”

A hoarse voice.

An incantation desperately squeezed out from an unpracticed throat—

—Ah, he’s here.

Zaria looked up at the sky.

A dark, massive shadow fell—

And eight legs of black ink trampled the earth from above.

—Almost the same moment, a gigantic old man twitched his eyelids and raised his face.

Larksi Witruwius.

One of the “Seven Sages,” the kingdom’s foremost grand magician.

He was inside a collapsed abandoned mine.

This was the place where a cursed sword thought to be the “Sword Demon King” and the old dwarf possessed by it had rampaged before being defeated.

The old man Larksi had run all the way here—a journey of a little over one day by carriage from town. Naturally, for investigation.

But he should probably turn back.

No—he needed to do so immediately.

Larksi made that judgment in an instant. The reason was the magic power he had just sensed.

“This is bad. This incomprehensible magic movement… those idiots actually ran into Haro Swampman?”

…Larksi is a grand magician of “water.”

Though he possesses more than enough skills in high-level body enhancement and alchemy to serve as tutor to the “Golden Hero,” his true specialty is water magic—his affinity for water-attribute mana is monstrous.

That sensitivity allowed him to detect the “ink” in the city of Dura, more than a full day’s carriage ride away.

“Yeah, as expected, that kid is water-attribute. Or rather, is it the black slime moving the mana? There’s also something that smells kinda draconic… Well, whatever.”

Muttering roughly to himself and casually hitting almost the exact truth—this was a bad situation, Larksi concluded as he cloaked himself in mana.

—Body enhancement.

The next instant, Larksi’s body shot forward like a bullet.

Faster than sound.

Splitting the earth, mowing down trees with pressure waves, the sonic boom from his supersonic movement shredded passing monsters into scraps.

In the middle of this outrageously disruptive full-speed sprint, Larksi lamented.

“This is bad, really bad. The worst part is that Haro Swampman already defeated the ‘Sword Demon King’!”

He had just finished examining what appeared to be a sealing shrine.

The seal was probably real, and so was the Demon King. In other words, that boy Haro had single-handedly defeated one-eighth of a Demon King.

“Logically, if he can kill a Demon King, he can kill a hero too. And Luek—right now you have no chance against Haro Swampman…!”

Even I’m not sure I could beat him, Larksi thought with a wry smile.

The hero must not die.