The Meaning Of Being Born

I left the dragon’s cleanup to Kamila and the others, and after returning to the castle with Lynferia, I resumed the audience with Viktor and the others… or rather, we moved locations and held a formal conference.

When I entered the room, Viktor and the others greeted me in a frenzy, but after a while they regained their composure and apologized for their discourtesy.

Even after that, they praised our strength, delighted that with this power, the other lords would surely be convinced, and the surrounding countries wouldn’t easily dare to meddle with us.

They recommended keeping the dragon’s head frozen as-is and displaying it as a symbol of Einheria’s martial might… a palanquin to silence the neighboring nations.

Honestly, I didn’t want to display a severed head… and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Dragon-kun, who would have his head put on display even after death, but if they said it would stabilize Einheria, then it couldn’t be helped…

We’d make good use of both body and head.

Apparently its fangs and horns could sell for a pretty good price too… but once the rumors of dragon-slaying spread and we’d shown Dragon-kun’s head to the surrounding nations to some extent, we’d have it become materials and treat that as a memorial.

Better than being a spectacle forever.

That was about it regarding the dragon, but I asked whether we really didn’t need to evaluate the strength of the army, since defeating the dragon was ultimately individual valor… and they told me the army’s prowess had already become widely known in the previous war.

I had been thinking of holding military drills by our kids to show off our strength… so it was a bit disappointing to be told we didn’t need to go that far right now.

Well, even if it wasn’t for show, having our kids conduct drills sounded like a good idea, so I figured we’d do it someday.

For now, what we decided in the conference was… reorganizing the former Lumoria army, abolishing the noble system, opening the forbidden zone “Dragon’s Roost” and developing it, summoning all lords within one month, issuing directives on how to handle goblins and other races, appointing Viktor as deputy governor of the former Lumoria royal capital, installing mana collection devices in every settlement across the former Lumoria Kingdom, selling dragon materials and attracting merchants.

It seemed like a bunch of smaller things were decided too, but at some point I became a machine that only said, “Approved.”

Honestly, I felt like I’d worked hard today, so I wanted to go back to my room, fluff Lumina, and dive into bed, but I didn’t get released from that conference until close to midnight.

At least… take a break… okay?

The one comfort was that when I finally returned to my room, Lumina—curled up into a ball—sprang up and ran over to me with her tail wagging like crazy.

“You look quite exhausted.”

“…If I’m tired, just let me sleep like a normal person.”

I should have been burrowed in bed, yet I found myself standing in a wasteland beneath a star-filled sky.

“Because you seemed tired, I brought you healing like this, did I not?”

“…Healing?”

“Yes. You vulgar thing could easily eat three bowls of rice just by looking at a pretty girl like me, right?”

As Fio struck a cutesy pose, I shook my head.

“Nope. I’m not that advanced, at least.”

Even so… damn it, Fio striking all those calculated poses was—cute.

“Hohoho, it’s fine to get aroused, you know? Just aroused. I won’t allow you to touch, though.”

…She looked cute, but the inside was bad.

“What, do you want to see my inside?”

With a bewitching smile, Fio pinched the hem of her skirt and slowly lifted it.

Slowly… very slowly, but bit by bit her legs were revealed… past the knee… and finally her thighs—

“This far.”

With that, Fio let go of the skirt she’d been holding.

Naturally, the hem fell without defying gravity… and covered everything.

“Daaaaamn yooooouuuuu! Thank you very much!”

Thank you very much! Daaaaamn yooooouuuuu!

Crouching down, I slammed my fist into the ground with all my strength.

My mouth and heart didn’t match, and it made me do something incomprehensible.

“…That’s a hard no.”

Looking down at me, Fio made a face like, “No way.”

Alright, enough skit.

Thinking that, I stood up.

“No, you were regretting it at full power while thanking me. Not just with your mouth, but in your heart too… it was a perfect match.”

“…You always say there’s no time and never talk about the important part, right? Hurry up and get to the point.”

I sighed at Fio spouting nonsense.

“…Well, it’s true I’ve always left things half-finished… but today I’ve got plenty of time, you know?”

“Oh? Then I’ve got plenty I want to ask… can’t you at least produce a chair?”

I demanded a chair without looking at Fio, who was somehow wearing a smug expression.

“Sit on the air.”

“This is the first time I’ve met someone who responds to a chair request by forcing an air chair.”

“…It’s not like you’ll get tired in a dream, so an air chair is fine, isn’t it?”

“Even if I won’t get tired, I’m not doing an air chair on purpose. I’d rather just stand!”

You said I wouldn’t get tired, but mentally this was exhausting.

“Well then, jokes aside… ask whatever you like. I’ll answer what I can.”

Fio fluttered her hand as if urging me on, and I asked with a serious expression.

“…Why did you summon me to this world? What’s your objective?”

“Hm… before I explain that, let me introduce myself once more. My name is Filone=Najuras. I was the Demon King from about five thousand years ago.”

Fio introduced herself with a sharp, composed face.

“Huh.”

“…”

“…”

“…Is that all?”

“That’s all. So what’s your objective?”

“…No, no, there should be more, right? I’m the Demon King. You should be afraid, trembling, something like that.”

“Nope, not really. More importantly, the objective—hurry.”

Fio panicked at my lukewarm reaction.

“…Demon King, you know?”

“I got that, but… these days Demon Kings aren’t that rare, are they? A while back they had final-boss vibes, but lately it’s usually ‘actually a good person,’ and honestly a purely evil Demon King is rarer. What’s there to fear?”

“Put aside good or evil—there should still be something, right?”

Fio puffed her cheeks in dissatisfaction, but—

“I’m the Overlord, though? I’ve been beating Demon Kings like mid-bosses.”

“That was in a game, wasn’t it? I’m a real Demon King.”

Seems she wanted more reaction… fine.

“…I’ll admit I’m surprised you’re at least five thousand years old.”

“…It’s about time. Farewell.”

Fio instantly went expressionless at my words, turned on her heel, and started to walk away.

“Wait, wait, you’re the one who demanded a reaction, so I squeezed one out. Calm down—I don’t think you’re an old lady or anything. Yo! Radiantly beautiful Demon King Filone-Najuras! You’re as cute as ever! Super adorbs!”

“…Gross. Fine. That’s enough. The reason I called you. I wanted you to help me.”

Fio said it with a big sigh.

How rude—after I gave her such an exaggerated reaction…

“Help you…? From what?”

Even so, I handled it like an adult and moved the conversation forward.

“…From what, or rather… you know about a Demon King’s mana, right?”

“Just a little… The mana overflowing from the Demon King spreads, and if you absorb too much, you go into Frenzy, right?”

“More or less. A Demon King is a being that harms other living creatures simply by existing. I wanted to do something about that, and the solution I chose was to summon you.”

To do something about a Demon King’s mana… ah, the mana collection device.

“Correct. Five thousand years ago… using all the Demon King’s mana that had spread across the continent, I tried to summon into this world a being that had a solution—or at least a method to counter the Demon King’s mana. The ritual itself succeeded, but… there was a colossal miscalculation.”

Fio looked like the type to mess things up spectacularly.

“…That’s true, so I won’t argue. I misjudged the amount of mana required. The mana used included what was spread across the continent at the time, all the mana inside me, and the Demon King’s mana for several thousand years after I performed the ritual.”

“So you borrowed from the future?”

“No matter how smart and cute I am, I can’t borrow from the future. The ritual simply remained in a standby state until it reached the required mana.”

“…I see.”

I wasn’t going to nitpick.

“Also, the moment the ritual activated, all my mana got taken, so I went and died nice and quick.”

“…”

“And when a Demon King dies, a new Demon King is born immediately… but the new Demon King’s mana got taken by the ritual too, and while Demon Kings after me didn’t die right away, they were born incredibly frail… and that kept going for about five thousand years.”

“…”

…Well, if you looked at it another way, it did feel like the goal of “doing something about the Demon King’s mana” had been achieved.

It must have been a massive nuisance for those frail Demon Kings, though.

“R-right? Amazing, right? In the end, I did fulfill the wish of handling the Demon King’s mana through my own efforts!”

“…And the rest?”

There were so many problems here… but I couldn’t possibly address them all, so I decided to listen to the end.

“Y-yes. And then… the current Demon King’s mana is tremendous. Even while being drained by the ritual, it gradually spread Demon King’s mana across the continent. The current Demon King was born about a hundred years ago, and recently the phenomenon called Frenzy has returned. In the midst of that, the ritual finally reached the required mana and activated. As a method to deal with Demon King’s mana, I set my sights on the otherworld game ‘Sword and Legions,’ and I made it manifest in this world.”

And that was the cause—and the reason—why I… why we had been summoned to this world?