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 59: Golden Bough - King Slayer

Chapter 59: Golden Bough – King Slayer

Come on, it’s time to take down the Demon King.

That said, first let’s make sure the residents are safe.

The Demon King of Thorns— from what I’ve heard, this one specializes in overwhelming numbers and wide-area invasion. If left alone, the damage to the town would only keep growing.

“Zaria, Noiche, Oz. Each of you take a section and protect the town and its people. I’ll leave the detailed assignments to Zaria.”

“Got it!”

“Egiy, you help me.”

“Y-Yes, sir…!”

The three of them finished their preparations and scattered.

Egiy, whose abilities were a step below the others, would serve this time as my assistant—or more accurately, as an external magic tank.

Increasing ink requires magic power, but unfortunately, I don’t have any. That’s why an elf with her vast magic reserves comes in handy.

“Oh, Noiche.”

“What?”

“Could you lend me your telescope before you go?”

“Sure, here you go.”

I took the telescope from Noiche and stood up with Egiy.

“Alright, let’s go, Egiy. Try not to fall behind.”

“Y-Yes!”

Ricochet Mark Pinball—

We stepped onto the magic circle deployed at the entrance and leaped into the night sky over the town.

The Demon King’s reach had already extended into the town.

Peering through the telescope from a rooftop, I saw thorns racing through various parts of the town. It seemed the Demon King had entered from the north side and was expanding its forces in a fan-like pattern from there.

People ran for their lives, and screams echoed from everywhere.

Just as thorns caught one resident and tried to burrow into his body from the shoulder, an adventurer who came to help sliced through the thorns along with a chunk of the man’s shoulder flesh.

“Guh!?”

“Hang in there and run! If you survive, Lord Haro will heal you!”

“O-Okay…!”

…It seems they have a lot of faith in me.

Well, that’s fine. If they survive, I’ll make sure to heal them.

“Th-These individual thorns don’t seem that strong.”

“Yeah, even average adventurers can cut them. But the deployment speed is insane. Who’d have thought it would swallow an entire district in an instant?”

The damage was severe.

Many residents had likely been swallowed and turned into seedbeds, and the destruction to buildings and livestock was immense. Herds of cows and sheep that had apparently escaped from pastures ran around with thorns growing from their backs.

Anyway, first we need to suppress the enemy’s expansion.

Spears rained down from the night sky.

It was Noiche’s wide-area annihilation magic. The pouring night magic blew the thorns away.

Flashes of light swords flickered.

Zaria’s blade, extended by magic, slashed through the thorns, and the scattered light beams burned the cut surfaces.

A giant doll rampaged down the main street.

Death’s Flutter—the handmade doll I named that was under Oz’s control. Its large wings, equipped with blades, tore through the thorns it touched one after another, and the ink installed inside its body fired like bullets.

I should join in too.

I held hands with Egiy and used her borrowed magic to multiply the ink. As much as possible—enough volume to even resist that Demon King.

“Shadow Picture Kingdom R’lyeh—”

“Multiple Deployment, Chainsaw Crown”

The ink instantly spread throughout the town.

It spread thinly, crawling along the ground and walls. And the moment the ink reached the clusters of thorns—

Countless rotating discs floated in the air and sliced through the invaders all at once.

“W-Wow, Haro’s magic is getting more and more monstrous…”

“The power isn’t that great, though.”

As a chorus-like ultra-vibration sound echoed around us, I said this to Egiy, whose face twisted into a strained smile.

Normally, the Chainsaw Crown includes abrasives made from crushed gems, but in this case, there weren’t enough. In short, it was a rushed job. As a result, the power was lower than usual.

Now then, I peered through the telescope.

The Demon King’s fierce assault, barely held back by the four of us—

In its center, pushing forward as if drilling a hole, I spotted the figures of Hero Cira and her party.

“It looks like Cira is heading straight for the main body. Let’s watch until the end.”

“Huh? Haro, you’re not going to help?”

“No.”

When I nodded, Egiy panicked with an “Ehh!?”

“W-Why…?”

“Why? Because I gave Cira equipment specifically ‘to kill the Demon King.'”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right.”

“If I joined in this Demon King slaying, we wouldn’t be able to properly check how much the equipment I made contributed to the subjugation.”

I continued to Egiy, who stood frozen with her mouth hanging open.

“We need to make the conditions as similar as possible. The result of the hero party’s challenge alone, versus the result with just the equipment added. We have to compare them fairly.”

“O-Oh. Even after becoming so popular, you’re still the same Haro…”

Becoming popular was just a side effect of the experiments—it wasn’t what I wanted. What I really wanted to do was this kind of thing.

Well, if it really gets dangerous, I could help, but somehow—

“It’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

I was confident.

With Hero Cira’s abilities, she would definitely master that equipment and kill the Demon King of Thorns.

*

The Demon King of Thorns—

Before becoming a Demon King, she was once a small dryad, a tree spirit.

Born at the roots of an ancient great tree, a fairy modeled after a beautiful girl. In ancient times, people loved and worshipped her, but at some point, she was captured by dark magic power, and before she knew it, she had swollen to this size.

No trace of her former self remained.

Her body, once like a girl’s, was now covered in cracked, fibrous bark, with thorns crawling over it.

Facing this transformed fairy Demon King—

The hero party, having slashed their way through the thorns, confronted her.

“Come on, Cira, it’s time for revenge. I wonder if it’ll really work out?”

“Y-Yeah, I’ll make it work. With th-this that Lord Haro gave me, it’ll definitely be okay.”

Contrary to her soft voice, Hero Cira showed no hesitation in her stance, and the magician Mizaela smiled and said, “You’re looking reliable.”

The confronting Demon King rustled its thorns instead of words.

The swelling mass of thorns surged forward to swallow Cira and her party. With her red braided hair blowing in the wind, Cira slightly lifted the bag hanging from one hand.

The bag was a leather attaché case.

A flat rectangular box, somewhat angular, made of well-tanned black leather, with magic silver fittings decorating the key points. This was Haro’s handmade anti-“Demon King of Thorns” specialized weapon—

“—Golden Bough – King Slayer Mistilteinn”

She channeled magic power into it.

Instantly, the case opened its mouth slightly.

What overflowed from the gap were thorns.

Studded here and there with ebony stakes, they grew only through Cira’s magic and swelled up to rival the Demon King.

The thorns, filling the space in no time at a speed that matched the Demon King, were truly on par with her.

Cira’s mind stayed calm. In one corner of her thoughts, she recalled the conversation with Haro.

“Cira, you lost to the Demon King of Thorns in ‘volume.’ But actually, that wasn’t the real reason you lost.”

“I-It wasn’t? Then what was I lacking…!”

“Yeah, listen. It was d-e-p-l-o-y-m-e-n-t s-p-e-e-d. Originally, there’s no limit to the volume in your magic. But you lost because you were outmatched in deployment speed. That’s probably it.”

With a body smaller than hers—

But with a mind and words far more thoughtful than hers.

“If you add the Demon King-derived deployment speed to plant magic that has no growth limit—in theory, infinite volume—then Cira, you will never lose.”

—As a result.

Haro’s prediction was correct.

The weapon “Golden Bough – King Slayer Mistilteinn,” remade using parts from the Demon King— with its overwhelming explosive power, it suppressed the approaching thorns in an instant.

“D-Demon King of Thorns. I will kill you.”

Clearly different from last time—

The Demon King of Thorns showed something like panic at Cira’s demeanor. But Cira paid it no mind and continued.

“A-As a hero, I will kill you, and as Lord Haro’s disciple, I will take y-o-u-r m-a-g-i-c s-t-o-n-e. Lord Haro said he wants the Demon King’s stone. So—I’ll take it!”

The magically modified hero bared her fangs.