The Misfit of Demon King Academy: Volume 5, page 4
“Over what?”
“Well, they said they were gonna join another team instead of joining the one I was in. So we argued over that...”
“Over such a trivial thing? Were you not friends?”
“It’s because we were friends that I wanted to be on the same team as them, so I felt like I’d been betrayed. We made up after that though.”
Eldmed grinned and pointed his cane at the student. “You felt like you’d been betrayed. But what about your friend? What if your friend had believed you would understand their decision, but felt betrayed when you didn’t?”
“I think that’s what happened, though it took some time for me to realize it.”
“Now what if we replaced your fight with one on the scale of two countries feuding?”
A look of understanding crossed the student’s face. “Ah, um, one country would be so occupied with themselves—I mean, with their own affairs that in the attempt to maintain their peace, they would infringe upon the peace of another country.”
“Precisely! Wonderful. You do understand, after all! At the end of the day, the difficulties between nations can be equated to the difficulties of interpersonal relationships. People fight. Friends, lovers, strangers fight. Nations are a gathering of people, enormous organisms, chaotic mind mixtures that cannot be grasped as a whole.”
Eldmed beamed in delight, twirled his cane, and tapped it against the floor. “There’s no way conflict can be avoided! That’s why the Demon King is focusing his efforts on this academy. Looking at the country, he sees only chaos. Not even his Magic Eyes can do it. That’s why he looks to individuals and ensures each one of you receives the right education. He believes a country is the making of its people.”
If I stomped out all conflict by myself, that wouldn’t be true peace. Even when I’d split the world into four, all I’d done was prevent conflict from occurring. We were still far from true peace.
“By bestowing all of you with power, knowledge, and wisdom, the country will improve. If danger ever befalls us—or the world—he believes you will be able to avoid conflict yourselves. Bwa ha ha! What a plain and distant ideal.”
Eldmed shook with laughter. “But that is what makes this so interesting! Challenging the impossible is what makes him the Demon King! Until that dream is crushed, I, the Conflagration King, have sworn to serve as a teacher. I will shape you into fine demons no matter what it takes, for when the Demon King learns that conflict will occur regardless of education, he will ascend to the next level!”
The Zecht I’d exchanged with Eldmed was as he had just described. Gods were known to keep their promises, but there was no telling how much the now half-god, half-demon Conflagration King could be trusted. So, instead of using the Zecht to force obedience, it had been more enticing to make a proposal that would capture his interest. It was only natural that a contract of forced submission would eventually wear away and break.
The other reason I, in the form of a child, was sneaking into class was to see the results of the improved education plan from the perspective of a student. None of the students or teachers could voice themselves honestly if they knew the Demon King was among them.
“With this in mind, today’s lesson will be sword training. Mr. Shin, is there anything you wish to say before the lesson?”
“Let’s see... Today is the first lesson, so we’ll be doing something everyone can do,” Shin said matter-of-factly. “Today, everyone here will be dying once.”
The blood drained from the faces of every student in the classroom.
“Preferably twice,” he added.
§ 5. Sword Training Warm-Up
The students of first-year class two were gathered at the arena, lined up with their swords in their hands.
“Now, Mr. Shin, what will it be? Shall we start off by killing them?” Eldmed asked with delight.
“No. There’s a proper sequence to the path of the sword. We will begin with light warm-up exercises, followed by sparring practice. I still need to get an idea of the level of their swordsmanship and physical abilities.”
“Very well! Everyone, form pairs and have it out as you see fit. Mr. Shin and I will go around to assess all of you in turn.” Elmed tapped his cane against the stone floor and grinned. “Begin!”
The students of class two began to pair up with their team members or friends, ready for practice.
“There’s seven of us, so someone’s gonna be left out,” Sasha said.
Lay grinned. “Shall I take on two of you?”
“You should pair up with Anosh. No one else here can put up with that absurd strength of his.”
I let Sasha’s complaints go in one ear and out the other as I looked around the arena. “No need. I’ll find a different partner.”
“Huh?! What are you saying? No other student can survive sparring with you!”
“Don’t worry. This is the body of a six-year-old. Its strength is pretty average.” I started walking in search of a sparring partner.
“Average? Really?” Sasha muttered to herself. Misha shook her head furiously beside her.
“Yo, Anosh! Did you get left out? Let’s pair up,” a student in black called out. If I recalled correctly, this was one of the students I had once torn into eighty-eight pieces.
“Very well.”
“All right! The name’s Ramon. Ramon Iver.”
“Pleasure.” I drew a magic circle and reached inside to pull out a child-sized iron sword.
“Wow, so you can already use storage magic, huh? That’s impressive for a little kid.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Say, do you wanna take this to the edge of the arena?”
“I don’t mind where we are.”
“It’s easier to practice where there’s more space.”
It could have been my imagination, but there was something nasty about Ramon’s smile. Just what was he planning on doing with the new kid?
“Fair enough.”
Ramon and I moved to the edge of the arena. I could tell Sasha’s concerned gaze was focused our way. Of course, it wasn’t my safety that she was so worried about.
“Come to think of it, there’s something I wanted to ask you,” Ramon said, drawing the sword at his waist. “Does your black uniform mean you’re royalty, Anosh?”
My current uniform was black, unlike the uniform I’d used to wear. The reason was simply because it was better for Anosh to wear something different than Anos to avoid notice, which was also why my magic was currently disguised to resemble that of royalty. It would require someone as good at source magic as Lay or Eleonore to detect my true power, but such people were as rare now as they had been two thousand years ago. In other words, Ramon already knew I was a pureblood, yet he was asking me if I was royalty anyway.
“There’s no point in distinguishing royalty in the current Dilhade, but I suppose you could say I am.”
Ramon took the bait I dangled before him and came closer to whisper in my ear. “Just between you and me, what are your thoughts on that?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“I’m not saying I have a problem with it, of course! It’s not that. I was just curious how a fellow royal felt about Dilhade as it is now.”
So that was it. I could have ignored him if his complaints were limited to school, but that was no longer the case. The Royalists had been disbanded at my order—outwardly, that is. Although they were no longer an organization, its former members wouldn’t be so quick to change their minds.
“Unfortunately, I’m only six. I don’t know much about society.”
Ramon grinned wickedly. “I’ll let you in on something special—the world’s gone crazy. We royals are meant to be the most noble of existences. But now there are all sorts of nonsensical laws about ‘equality’ and ‘fairness.’”
No matter what I did, someone would always be dissatisfied. Of course, they were free to think whatever they wanted, as long as they didn’t harm others.
“Hmm. Come to think of it, I did hear that royalty once had special privileges,” I said, playing along.
“Yeah, that’s right. That’s how it should be—we should be the ones in control. We royals should be the ones in charge of Dilhade. Just between you and me, they’re saying the Demon King of Tyranny was planted by the Unitarians.”
Good grief. Was he really trying to teach a six-year-old this? This could no longer be considered mere complaining.
“Are you saying the current Demon King of Tyranny is a fraud?”
“D-Dumbass! Not so loud!”
Despite being a fair distance away from everyone, Ramon glanced over at Shin and Eldmed fearfully. Once he confirmed the two weren’t looking our way, he let out a sigh of relief.
“You might not have realized because you’re a child, but think about it. Isn’t it too convenient that Hero Kanon, the Demon King’s right-hand man, Great Spirit Reno, and the supposedly fake Demon King were gathered just in time for the Reordination Ceremony? It has to be a setup.”
Did he seriously believe that, or was he just saying it to convince me? Either way, there was no reasonable conclusion to be reached from that.
“I don’t know much about the Unitarians. Are they bad people?” I asked.
Ramon nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, totally. The real Demon King won’t reincarnate. He died two thousand years ago. The Unitarians made up the reincarnated Demon King—and that’s Anos.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
My response seemed to be favorable in Ramon’s eyes, as he continued chatting away. “It’s the duty of us Royalists to correct this distorted history, even if it means going against the current Demon King. It’s our obligation as demons of noble blood to reclaim this country for the true Demon King of Tyranny.”
Ramon continued speaking incessantly. It seemed he’d lowered his guard thanks to my childlike appearance—unless he was feigning it on purpose to hide something.
“I get it now. So the current Demon King of Tyranny is a bad guy.”
Ramon’s mouth twisted into a grin. “That’s right. Looks like we’ll get along after all, Anosh.”
He held out his hand. I accepted the handshake and decided to press him further.
“If possible, I’d like you to introduce me.”
Ramon stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I heard there’s a resistance called the Royalists. I don’t know the details, but resistance groups are normally on the side of justice, right?”
Ramon thought for a moment. “Don’t be silly. The Royalists have been disbanded already. I’m a former member, so I accidentally spoke in the present tense out of habit just now.”
So the Royalists were seeking like-minded demons to use that speech on.
“Besides, heroes of justice can’t reveal themselves so easily,” Ramon informed me smugly. “That said, I’m willing to introduce my friends if we see eye to eye.”
He laughed suggestively. I didn’t know how large the resistance group was, but there was no doubt he was a member. It seemed he was willing to introduce me if I stuck around him, but that was a little more trouble than I wanted to go through.
Perhaps I could prove my worth to him another way. The resistance was likely after as much power as they could get to oppose the Demon King’s Army. If they were willing to approach a child, they must really be lacking in personnel.
“I’ll be useful to you.”
“Ha ha! Don’t get cocky. You’re just a kid.”
I held my iron sword at the ready. “I can prove it.”
Ramon laughed again. He was still treating me like a child. “All right. How good are you with a sword?”
“Unfortunately, not very. My specialty is magic.”
“So I figured. You may be a child genius, but there’s a limit to the muscles and magic such a small body can have.” Ramon distanced himself and pointed his demon sword at me. “All right, I’ll go easy on you. First, I’m gonna swing my sword down from overhead, so try and block it. If you can do it, you’ll pass.”
“Hmm. Very well. Challenge me to your heart’s content.”
“Oh? Those are some big words for a little kid. You know that words alone won’t make you a hero of justice, right?” Ramon slowly lifted his sword and took one step towards me. “Here goes! Block or you’ll get hurt!”
He started running. As he ran, every movement he made looked to be in slow motion. That wasn’t a metaphor—he was actually slow. The slowest thing I’d ever seen. He was slow enough to make me wonder how much longer it’d take him to reach me.
“Hraaagh!”
Finally, his demon sword came swinging down.
“Hmm. Blocking...”
I held the sword in my hand up high and easily blocked the swing. The screech of metal clashing against metal rang out before—
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Ramon was unable to endure the magic bolstering my defense. He was blown back and lodged deep in the arena wall behind him.
“Like this?”
Ramon’s magic disappeared. It was an instant death. Noise immediately broke out among the other students in the arena.
“What was that? That was Ramon who went flying just now, right?”
“Did Anosh do that to him?”
“Y-Yeah. But all he did was block Ramon’s sword.”
“Why would the person attacking rebound like a ball?”
“He’s just a kid, right? What kind of technique was that?”
“Hey, did Ramon die? I can’t feel his magic at all...”
The moment the students noticed his death, Ramon opened his eyes. He’d been revived with Ingall.
“What?! He came back to life!”
“That was that resurrection spell, right? The one Lord Anos used at the entrance exam.”
“Did Anosh use it just now? It wasn’t Mr. Eldmed, was it? But how? He’s only six!”
“If he can use the same magic as Lord Anos at that age, he’s more than just a genius!”
I walked slowly up to Ramon. “Did you think a child would be unable to defend himself?”
Dumbfounded, Ramon stared at me and gulped. “Who are you?”
I chuckled. “Anosh Polticoal, an average child genius with big dreams of becoming a hero of justice.”
§ 6. The Sword Instructor’s Guidance
The arena was silent.
The scene the students had just witnessed resembled something they’d seen once before. The thought was written all over their faces. Whether they had wanted him to or not, the misfit now known as the Demon King of Tyranny had crossed their minds.
“Not bad,” Sasha said in a natural tone, her voice loud enough for the other students to hear. “As expected of a child genius.” She smiled smugly, flipping her twintails elegantly over her shoulders. “But you still have a long way to go.”
Her words implied that while Anosh was a genius, he couldn’t compare to the Demon King of Tyranny.
“R-Right. That looked super impressive to me just now, but if Lady Sasha still thinks he has room for improvement...”
“Yeah, I thought I was looking at Lord Anos himself, but I guess that isn’t possible.”
“We should have looked deeper into his abyss.”
If the Witch of Destruction from Anos’s own team was claiming this, then the students had no choice but to agree with her. No matter how impressive the kid’s moves appeared to them, that must only be because they weren’t looking deep enough into the abyss. They’d failed to measure my power from the start, so they had no choice but to believe her. For something she’d come up with on the spot, Sasha’s excuse was flawless—or at least it would have been if not for Eldmed.
“My, how wonderful! As one would expect from a boy genius! It’s as if I’m before the Demon King of Tyranny himself,” the Conflagration King said proudly, failing to read the room. She shot him a sharp glare.
The students started muttering among themselves again.
“Huh? If Mr. Eldmed’s saying that, then maybe Anosh is amazing after all.”
“So it seems...”
Sasha smiled elegantly. “Why, you’re so gracious towards your students, Mr. Eldmed.”
Her words were a little slower than usual—she was probably thinking of how to smooth over the situation.
“But even though he might appear perfect at first glance, he is just a child.”
All eyes were on her.
“If Lady Sasha’s saying that, there must be a reason, right?”
“She’s not the type of person to throw around baseless claims. I wonder what he did wrong.”
“Shh! She’s about to explain.”
“I want to hear too!”
Sasha stiffened. She turned to me as though she were looking into my abyss and opened her mouth...
“Right, Misha? Don’t you think so too?”
...and then left the rest up to her sister.
Misha blinked a few times. “The formation of his spell formula was slow. If he had activated Ingall a few moments later, he would have failed to revive Ramon.”
I’d made sure to make use of the full three seconds Ingall had before bringing Ramon back, but Misha had chosen her words to make it sound as though I’d been close to failing. It was a clever idea.
“His swordsmanship wasn’t that impressive either,” Lay added. “Sure, he deflected the force of the blow, but most of that was due to Ramon’s inexperience. Ramon basically tripped and fell with his own momentum.”
It had actually been quite a feat of strength, but Lay made it sound like nothing. His lies were as bold as he was.
“So that’s what it was... The Demon Swordmaster sure knows what to look out for. All I could tell was that Anosh’s magic was flowing a little oddly, but Ramon must just have been worse than we thought. I hadn’t considered that.”
“Does that mean Ramon basically died by tripping and launching himself into the wall?”
“How reckless can you be?”
Eleonore interrupted the chatter to jokingly scold Ramon. “I know Anosh is cute and all, but that doesn’t mean you can rush at him so recklessly!”
The rest of the class giggled. Ramon looked humiliated, but he still couldn’t move. He was buried so deep into the wall, his arms and legs were constrained by stone.
