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 49: Interlude – The Black Ink Stirs with Color

That land was simply called “the Continent.”

No other landmass of equal size had yet been discovered on the outer seas, so there was no need to distinguish continents by name. It was just “the Continent.”

On the Continent stood three great powers and a slightly larger number of smaller nations.

For example, the enormous kingdom where Haro and Zaria lived was formally named the Holy Pelegrius Kingdom.

And the scene now unfolding was in the neighboring country of Pelegrius: the imperial castle of the Solbaroa Empire, commonly known as “the Empire.”

The glittering imperial chamber was drenched in blood and ash.

Retainers, royal guards—all had their heads burned charcoal-black from the neck up. Only one man, an old emperor still wearing his crown, remained alive, standing blankly at the head of the banquet table.

Leaving the dazed old man on his feet, three figures casually occupied three seats at the table.

“Well now! The empire’s vaunted high knights turned out to be disappointingly fragile! After two hundred long years back in this world—how utterly boring!”

One was an oni.

Ash-gray hair, ash-gray skin, clouded white eyes. Black flames leaked uncontainably from the small twin horns sprouting from his forehead.

His face was twisted somewhere between laughter and rage as he roared—an oni who had once been feared as the “Demon King of Ashes” and supposedly sealed away.

Across from him sat another woman, likewise a Demon King from two centuries past.

“Good grief. Why must I be the one puppeteering this moldy old man?”

She spat in disgust and pointed at the vacant-eyed emperor.

Bat-like wings, vivid azalea-pink curls, and two intensely magical eyes.

She was the mighty succubus once called the “Demon King of Dreams.” Together with the oni, she had revived and now seized the very heart of the empire.

At her complaint, the Demon King of Ashes laughed in fury.

“‘Why’? Wahahaha! Because this country is the perfect camouflage for us, obviously!”

“Ugh, shut up already… You slept for two hundred years—can’t you be quiet for once!?”

“As long as I am me, that’s impossible! Besides, everything went suspiciously smoothly, didn’t it? How do you explain that, Demon King of Storms?”

Demon King of Storms.

The man the oni addressed with faint respect looked, at a glance, like an ordinary human.

Slightly tanned skin, spiky silver hair sticking out wildly.

He lounged insolently with his feet on the finest chair that should have belonged to the emperor.

Yet if Haro had been present, the boy would surely have thought:

Why is he wearing a polyester-fiber hooded jumper that shouldn’t exist in this world?

The Demon King of Storms, with his utterly out-of-place appearance, smirked at the oni’s question.

“Why did everything go smoothly? Because we’re not rampaging. In the past we rampaged too much. That’s why they grew wary, gathered intel, formed parties, and beat us. So this time we do the same thing they did.”

He crossed his legs leisurely and grinned fearlessly.

“We lie low. We hide in this imperial court, gather information on the heroes, and form our own party. No one will ever imagine that three Demon Kings have already joined forces like this.”

At his words, the oni clapped and laughed, “Exactly, exactly!” while the succubus reluctantly complied.

To the two of them, the Demon King of Storms issued crisp orders.

“Demon King of Dreams, handle countermeasures against divination.”

“Already doing it.”

“Good. For now, just manipulate the empire from the shadows. That’s your only job.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“Demon King of Ashes, you and I will search for the remaining Demon Kings.”

“Oh!”

“They’re probably newborn kings, not old ones like us. We need to find and protect them quickly, or they’ll get hunted down by heroes like before.”

“Got it! Then let’s hurry!”

While the succubus looked bored, the cooperative oni earned a satisfied nod from the Demon King of Storms.

Finally, he glanced at the single goblin kneeling at the far end of the table.

“Now then. Let’s hear the details, old man of the Sword.”

Sword.

Though the creature was a goblin, the name more accurately referred to the single sword it clutched.

Yes—he was the Sword Demon King.

A monster from five hundred years ago, far older than the three Demon Kings present.

Yet this most ancient Demon King had recently been utterly crushed by Haro and his familiar ink, stripped of his power as a king.

Unable to free the seven sealed soul fragments that remained, he was now completely under the thumb of the Demon King of Storms and his allies.

“G-guuh. How insolent these young upstarts are toward me… gugeh!?”

The moment he complained, the goblin prostrated itself.

No one had kicked him; a heavy mass of air simply pressed his body to the floor.

“Guh… ugugugugu…!?”

Writhing in agony, the goblin flailed.

After a while the pressure lifted, and the Demon King of Storms asked again.

“One more time, old man. The monster that stole your factor is probably the last Demon King. I heard it’s some kind of slime?”

“Guh… uuu… y-yes. A black slime devoured me.”

Manipulating the half-dead goblin’s body, the Sword Demon King reluctantly answered.

“B-but that’s not the important part! The problem is that thing has no intellect or pride befitting a king! It’s completely obedient to a human named Haro!”

“…Hoo.”

“Don’t even think of taming it—find and kill it fast! That thing will never side with us; it’s a Demon King yet fights for humans— bubeh!?”

A little too noisy.

The Demon King of Storms crushed the goblin under air pressure again and pondered.

“…That slime is probably the ‘Demon King of Another Star.’ Hmm, we definitely want to make contact soon.”

At the same time, something bothered him about the Sword Demon King’s words.

The matter of a Demon King’s intelligence.

All kings are born with high intellect.

Sometimes a highly intelligent monster becomes a king; sometimes kingship grants intellect. The “Sword Demon King” is a perfect example of the latter—

A cursed sword that originally had no brain now possesses intellect far beyond sufficiency.

“Is the Demon King of Another Star truly without intelligence…?”

Or perhaps—

Is it in the very process of awakening right now?

Thinking of the yet-unseen “another star” who might one day become an ally, the Demon King of Storms fell into deep contemplation.

As for Haro’s thoroughly debauched relationship with the women—by now even they themselves couldn’t remember exactly where it started.

It began with bathing together.

From there, under the pretext of “taking responsibility” for his aroused body or “comforting” him, things escalated step by step—hands, mouths, breasts—

Until finally, unable to endure the endless teasing any longer, Haro begged, and Zaria and Noiche sweetly granted him full, meltingly tender penetration.

It always began with the women in complete control and ended the same way.

Pressed from both sides by soft female bodies, legs entwined, hips not even allowed to thrust—held in unbreakable restraint while they slowly simmered him for hours. Only when his body was thoroughly tenderized did the women finally devour the “finished product.”

Because that was all they ever did—

Something inside Haro’s body learned.

It was the first spark of tiny intelligence—the budding of emotion.

A childlike, honest sensibility learned the various kinds of love and lust directed at its host… and began to imitate them.

Thus one day the black ink, exactly mimicking what the women always did—

Wrapped its octopus legs around Haro’s thighs from his back.

“I-Ink?”

Inside the carriage, Haro flinched in surprise.

At this stage it wasn’t yet converted into pleasure. He just looked down at the ink clinging stickily to his legs and wondered what was wrong.

“…Hungry?”

After a moment’s thought, Haro fed it a piece of candied fruit.

The ink accepted it, ate, decided this was different but still tasty—and melted satisfied into the floor.