The Twelve Seats And The Dispatched Devil

Twelve seats floated in the void.

Before me, who was seated in one of them, the needle on a disk spun round and round.

Then, with a click, the needle stopped in front of me.

Mana poured steadily into the seat I occupied.

“Oh, it’s me. I’ll be right back.”

I called out to the devils occupying the remaining eleven seats and surrendered myself to the summoning formula within my seat as it began to glow.

I was summoned onto a plain.

The female sorcerer who had summoned me looked up at my figure appearing in the sky and pumped her fist triumphantly.

Apparently, she considered me a lucky draw.

Accompanying the female sorcerer were a hero, a warrior, and a priestess.

The priestess gave me an extremely conflicted look, but even so, there was unmistakable expectation in her eyes.

Meanwhile, the one staring at me in terror was one of the Demon King’s Army’s Four Heavenly Kings, the Lich King… what was his name again? Something or other.

Well, whatever.

And surrounding him was a great horde of undead.

The Lich King had apparently tried to overwhelm them with sheer numbers, but the hero’s party had held their defenses firmly enough that he had been unable to disrupt the female sorcerer’s completion of the spell.

So I smiled and raised both arms toward the Lich King.

I didn’t hold any particular grudge against the Demon King’s Army or the Lich King, but I’d been told I could go all out.

My assigned attribute was light.

Apparently, devils capable of wielding the light attribute were fairly rare, but perhaps because I had originally been human, I could use it just as naturally as any other attribute.

As it turned out, I was actually a fairly rare kind of devil.

Though in exchange for having no glaring weaknesses, I didn’t possess any particularly specialized strengths either.

Between my facing palms, I reflected and amplified the light again and again.

Full power, huh… full power…

All right, maybe I could push it a little further.

I compressed the swelling light before it could overflow, amplified it, compressed it again, and repeated the process—

“Ray!”

…then unleashed all of it toward the Lich King and his army of undead.

The torrent of light drowned out even the Lich King’s scream, and when it passed, nothing remained but a barren plain.

After releasing the spell, I looked toward the female sorcerer who had summoned me, gave her a single nod, and returned.

That’s right. My dispatched assignment this time was to serve as a summoned devil for offensive summoning Magic.

In other words, it was an extremely specialized arrangement where I was summoned, launched a single attack, and immediately returned.

“Ah, welcome back, Lept-sama.”

The one who greeted me upon my return was Zaras, the devil seated beside me, who was responsible for dark-attribute attacks.

At first glance, she looked extremely imposing, with an appearance that practically radiated the sinister aura one would expect from a devil, yet she had been remarkably kind to me despite this being my first time doing this job.

“Oh, come on, don’t call me -sama, Zaras. There’s not that much difference in rank between us, and besides, having a woman call me -sama is a little embarrassing.”

In truth, I wasn’t the only one assigned to this job; there was a devil corresponding to each of the twelve seats.

The disk in front of us randomly selected one of those seats in response to the female sorcerer’s spell and activated the appropriate summoning.

“I couldn’t possibly address a friend of Grazen-sama without an honorific. Besides, what was that light Magic just now? If I got hit by something like that, even I’d be blown away. I almost felt sorry for Zoid, one of the Four Heavenly Kings.”

Zaras laughed brightly, and I couldn’t help but smile along with her.

Oh, so that Lich King was named Zoid. Now that she mentioned it, that did sound familiar.

“They told me I could go all out, so I got carried away. I’m not very good at fighting, but if all I have to do is fire one huge attack, that’s something I’m good at.”

That was right. If all I had to do was fire a single shot with no mind games or tactics involved, I hardly had to think about anything, which made it very relaxing.

This sort of one-shot summoning arrangement might actually suit me surprisingly well.

…Though because it required so little thought, it was also somewhat lacking in excitement.

The summoning formula activated several more times afterward, but I didn’t get another turn.

After all, the odds were only one in twelve, so I wasn’t likely to be selected often.

The devil currently answering the summons belonged to the Sword Seat, and a magnificent ten-hit slash was carving the enemy magic dragon to pieces.

The thought that I’d probably be sliced into strips if I took an attack like that sent a slight chill down my spine.

“Still, preparing twelve devils in exchange for that amount of mana… does this arrangement actually balance out?”

While waiting in our seats, about the only thing we could do was watch the female sorcerer who had summoned us—in other words, observe the hero’s party on their journey—so it was fairly boring.

And perhaps because battles left them worked up, they tended to get extremely amorous at night, which made the atmosphere among the seats a little awkward whenever we happened to be watching…

So we often passed the time chatting among ourselves, and since Zaras’s seat was right beside mine, I had become especially friendly with her.

“Ah, Lept-sama, you didn’t know? The one who created this spell was that female sorcerer’s master. The contract was for us to support her with this spell until she defeated the Demon King, and we’ve already received his soul as payment.”

Zaras’s explanation made everything click into place.

So that was why the spell was so inefficient.

After all, the twelve prepared seats represented sword, shield, fire, lava, water, acid, earth, iron, wind, lightning, darkness, and light.

They had probably been selected to cover as many situations as possible, but because the actual selection was random, the spell had no real ability to adapt to the situation at all.

Put bluntly, it was full of waste.

“Giving up his soul so his disciple could defeat the Demon King… he must have cared deeply about her.”

Since we were generally summoned because the caster wanted an attack powerful enough to wipe out enemies, the Shield Seat devil was treated as a complete dud.

That was despite the fact that he provided increased physical defense, increased magical defense, and even restored stamina on top of that.

Well, devils were powerful enough that even if a seat with an unsuitable attribute was selected, brute force usually solved the problem anyway.

“Apparently, his disciple was also his granddaughter. He didn’t have much time left to live, so I suppose he wanted to find some way to help her. But that magic dragon from earlier was the last of the Four Heavenly Kings, so they’re nearly there now.”

That was right. Once the Demon King was defeated, this spell would lose its effect.

There wasn’t much time left for us to watch over the female sorcerer and the hero’s party on their journey.

And then, during the final battle against the Demon King, tragedy struck.

The needle on the disk that selected among the twelve seats didn’t point to any seat at all, and the moment it stopped, every single seat suddenly began flashing.

Huh? Did it break?

As I tilted my head—

“To pull this at a moment like this… that female sorcerer really does have incredible luck. Or perhaps this is the result of her grandfather’s love.”

Zaras, in the seat beside me, let out an impressed murmur.

The next instant, starting with the Sword Seat, mana began pouring into every seat in sequence.

“Lept-sama, get ready. It’s the jackpot. Everyone will be summoned in order starting from Sword, so we’ll be last, but that means we’re the finale. We have to make it flashy.”

The jackpot meant everyone would be summoned…

It was certainly a system full of playful flair, but that meant…?

“Yes. Twelve consecutive attacks.”

To me, Zaras’s words sounded less like an explanation and more like the Demon King’s death sentence, and several moments later, the Demon King was executed exactly as predicted.

As I unleashed my strongest light Magic at a Demon King who had quite clearly already been overkilled, I learned something about the merciless nature of this world.