I Was Supposed to Be Feeding the Pigeons, But Somehow I Ended Up Feeding a Beautiful Demon Lord Instead - 07

Chapter 7

News of the kingdom army’s remnants surrendering like mud dolls after the rain-induced “water attack” spread through the royal capital in an instant. Whispers in the streets claimed that the “shadowless strategist” might be a great sorcerer who could even control the weather.

“Extra! Extra! Northern front falls completely silent! Demon King’s army finally moves to secure central air superiority!”

I walked through the familiar back alley with the newspaper boy’s shouts as background music. Air superiority, huh. The ground had indeed turned into a swamp, and the fortresses were razed to the ground. The only thing left was the “sky.”

But my concerns were not about matters on a national scale. They were much closer to home and more pressing.

(…I wonder if Bel is getting proper sleep.)

Last week on that rainy day, she had looked terribly exhausted. She seemed to perk up a bit after sharing the umbrella and drinking soup, but she must have been buried in work ever since.

I hugged the bamboo-leaf wrapper in my hands carefully and hurried to the park.

There, an unusual sight awaited me.

Bel was asleep on the usual bench.

Her head nodded forward jerkily, and her hood had slipped down. Through the gap, her silver hair sparkled in the sunlight filtering through the leaves.

I approached quietly and sat gently beside her. I felt bad about waking her. I thought I would just watch her sleeping face for a while when—

“…Nn…”

Bel stirred and slowly opened her eyes. Her unfocused gaze caught me vaguely.

“…Ah, good morning.”

“…Hm… Kazuya? Is this heaven? I shouldn’t be able to go to heaven…”

“It’s the park. You seem really tired.”

Bel stifled a yawn with a “fwaa” and lazily rested her head on my shoulder. She had fully switched to spoiled mode.

“…Sleepy. Last night, those ‘mosquitoes’ were so noisy.”

“Mosquitoes? Is it that season already?”

“Yes. They buzz around, waiting for an opening to stab with their needles. It’s extremely annoying.”

Off-season mosquitoes, huh. The area around the royal castle has a lot of nature, so there must be many pests. It was pitiful that they were bothering her enough to cause sleeplessness.

“Even when I try to swat them, they’re quick and dart away. If I try to blow them off with wind magic, they scatter. It’s frustrating and I can’t sleep.”

“Ah, I get it. You think you’ve caught one, but then you hear the buzzing from somewhere else.”

Feeling sympathetic, I opened the bamboo-leaf wrapper.

What I made today wasn’t bread. From inside emerged triangular objects with a beautiful contrast of white and black. They were “onigiri.”

“…What is that? A black stone?”

“It’s called ‘onigiri.’ I shaped freshly cooked rice and wrapped it with nori… a seaweed that looks like black paper.”

“Shaped…?”

Bel poked the onigiri curiously with her finger.

“How do you eat this?”

“You hold it in your hand and bite right in. Ah, but before that.”

I thought for a moment and patted my thighs lightly.

“Bel, why don’t you lie down? If you’re that sleepy, it would be better to rest a bit while eating.”

“…Lie down? The bench is hard.”

“I have my lap. It’s called a ‘lap pillow.'”

Bel’s eyes widened greatly. Her face turned bright red in an instant, and her mouth opened and closed wordlessly.

“L-Lap pillow…!? My head on your lap…!?”

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine.”

“I-It’s not that I don’t want to!!”

Bel shouted eagerly, then hurriedly looked around before timidly lying down. Her head rested on my thigh.

Her silver hair spread out smoothly, and I felt the warm weight of her. Bel’s eyes, looking up at me from below, were moist and dreamy.

“…Th-This is… how should I put it…”

Bel turned her eyes away with a red face.

“Just relax. Here, ahh.”

I brought one onigiri to her mouth. Bel opened her lips slightly and nibbled the edge.

“…Nn.”

“How is it?”

“…The rice is firm. Each grain stays together instead of falling apart… The saltiness is delicious.”

“Right? The key to onigiri is the ‘pressure from your hands.'”

I gestured squeezing with my free hand.

“You wrap the loose rice in your palm and press firmly, squeeze, squeeze. That way, the scattered grains form one solid mass, and the flavor doesn’t escape.”

“…Squeeze, squeeze…?”

“Yes. If you do it halfway, it falls apart, so you apply pressure from all directions to pack it tight with no escape.”

Bel seemed to mull over my words while savoring the onigiri in her mouth. I gently brushed away the hair on her cheek with my fingers.

“…Those ‘mosquitoes’ are the same.”

“…Mosquitoes too?”

“Yes. If they’re scattered and flying around, chasing them one by one is endless, right? Better to compress the air like with your palms and squeeze them all together at once.”

I brought both hands together in a crushing motion.

“Take away their escape routes and pack them into one spot. Then you can wipe them all out in one go.”

Bel’s pupils narrowed sharply. The relaxed expression from the comfort of the lap pillow tightened, and a cold, rational light returned to her eyes.

“…I see. Pressure from all directions…”

She grabbed my hand and pressed it to her cheek.

“Kazuya, your hands are big. With hands like these, you could crush the air itself.”

“I’m good at swatting flies, at least.”

“Heh… Swatting flies. No mistake there.”

Bel chuckled softly and stretched on my lap.

“I understand. …For scattered winged pests, instead of shooting them down individually, ‘spatial compression’ to crush them with pressure is effective.”

“Spatial compression? Well, like surrounding them with a net, that kind of image.”

“Yes. I’ll turn them into an ‘onigiri’ with no escape.”

Bel finished the remaining onigiri, then reluctantly sat up from my lap. Her complexion was much healthier than when she arrived, full of vitality.

“Kazuya. Your lap… was the ultimate comfort. Can I ask for it again?”

“Yes, anytime.”

“…It’s a promise. Don’t forget, okay?”

She cast her eyes down shyly, then sharply looked up at the sky.

“Then, I’m off. Time to do a little ‘squeezing.'”

“Yes, good luck.”

Bel flipped her robe and vanished with a gust of wind. I gazed at the empty bamboo wrapper and felt warmly amused. Getting that fired up over exterminating mosquitoes—she really is a neat freak.

◆

“W-We’re being pulled in!? Controls aren’t responding!?” “What is this gravity!? We’re getting sucked to the center!!” “No, we’re going to crash! We’re going to be crushed!!!”

Over the royal capital’s skies, screams of despair rained down through breaks in the clouds. The Griffin Knight Order, proud of their high-speed mobility and called “lords of the sky,” had lost all escape under Bel’s released “wide-area gravity press.”

As if gripped by invisible giant hands from all sides, they were compressed toward a single point.

Watching from far above was a shadow—the Demon King Bel. She stared at her own palm, then slowly clenched it. Squeeze, squeeze.

“…Kazuya was right. Take away their escape and squeeze—they’re fragile.”

The raw sound of iron scraps and feathers being compressed echoed through the air.

The Orc General floating beside her trembled with a pale face.

“T-Terrifying… To roll up enemies in the sky like trash and throw them away… Does that ‘shadowless strategist’ play even with gravity in his hands…”

“It’s not trash.”

Bel gazed at the completed massive sphere of iron with flushed cheeks in bliss.

“That’s an ‘onigiri.’ …The crystallization of love that Kazuya taught me.”

“Hiii…! What avant-garde expression of love…!”

In the Orc General’s mind arose a psychopathic vision: a fictional giant named Kazuya happily shaping onigiri with enemy soldiers as filling.