One Of The Four Heavenly Kings, Bella The Magical Beast King

“Ah… This is awful…”

Faced with the carnage unfolding before me, I couldn’t help averting my eyes.

I should have been able to predict this situation, and if I could have predicted it, preventing it would have been easy…

Two months had passed since we were summoned to this world.

Today was the day we would be formally introduced as Mureen’s guardians and as the new Four Heavenly Kings.

The reason it had taken so long to arrange this unveiling was simple: we needed time for the influential figures of the Demon Realm whom we had invited to arrive, and we also needed time to prepare to receive them.

Even though the Demon Realm had been reduced in size by human invasions, the strongholds of its influential figures were scattered far too widely for anyone to travel between them in a day or two.

Well, Anis could make a round trip much faster and with ease, but at the very least, the influential figures themselves needed several weeks to reach us.

And even though we’d summoned them here with the intention of forcing them into submission, once we’d invited them, we naturally had to treat them properly as guests.

If our hospitality proved shabby, people would question our caliber, and Mureen’s reputation would suffer as well.

If possible, I would have liked to use the castle where the Demon King had once reigned as the venue, but apparently it had been completely destroyed by the aftermath of the battle between the Hero and the Demon King.

So, with no other choice, Villa and I completed a fortress in time for the unveiling.

Neither Villa nor I could work during the day because we had to look after Mureen, so once night fell and everyone was asleep, we left her protection to Bella and devoted ourselves to construction.

Honestly, I never would have finished it in time alone, but with Villa assisting me, we could use a magically powered construction-support program.

More specifically, whenever I used magic to produce stone, the program interfered with the spell and automatically shaped and positioned the material according to the design.

It felt a lot like building a fortress in a crafting game.

Mureen and the servants from Zahak’s mansion stared dumbfounded at the fortress that had seemingly appeared before they knew it, though everyone helped us with the interior.

For that part, relying on people native to this world produced a much better result than leaving everything to those of us unfamiliar with its architectural styles.

So while Villa and I remained at the mansion that served as our base, we were constantly busy, while Anis and Pisca were away serving as envoys to the influential figures of the Demon Realm and therefore weren’t around very often.

Naturally, that meant the person who spent the most time with Mureen was Bella, who stayed glued to her as her bodyguard.

Before becoming a devil, Bella had been a Cerberus said to guard the gates of the Underworld, so she possessed an extraordinarily strong instinct to protect others.

Once she decided someone was under her protection, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to them.

Considering Mureen had lost her father, been separated from her brother, and then lost her guardian as well, it was only natural that she grew attached to Bella.

And the more Mureen adored Bella, the more precious Bella found her and… well, that was a wonderful thing, but Bella became a little too enthusiastic about it.

Then, on the day of our unveiling, one of the influential figures who had accepted our invitation said,

“To gather such suspicious creatures around yourself and call it an unveiling… I am appalled by the princess’s childish games. She may carry the Demon King’s blood, but in the end she’s merely a child. Her brother, too—bwah?!”

He had deliberately spoken loudly enough to be overheard.

He was probably trying to win the agreement of the other influential figures, but of all people, he had chosen to say it within Bella’s hearing.

Before I had any chance to stop her, Bella moved beside the man in an instant and smacked him away with a foreleg before he could finish speaking.

The influential figure flew through the air and embedded himself in the fortress wall.

Watching the fortress we’d worked so hard to build become damaged almost immediately made me feel faint.

Fortunately, the man Bella had swatted into the wall possessed strength befitting an influential figure of the Demon Realm, so at least he survived.

A human would probably have died instantly.

Naturally, someone of his standing had brought guards with him, and when their master was suddenly left on the verge of death, they flew into a rage and tried to assume combat stances, only for Bella to slam every one of them into the ground in the blink of an eye.

Not only that, but the other influential figures and their guards, who sensed danger and prepared for battle themselves, were one after another smashed into the ground or embedded in the walls.

The terrifying thing about Bella was that, despite causing such spectacular destruction, she accurately gauged each opponent’s strength and beat them down without killing them.

In other words, she knew exactly what she was doing.

Sure, we had planned to demonstrate our strength sooner or later, but this wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near this forceful.

And since Mureen’s eyes were sparkling at the unexpected performance of Bella, whom she’d grown so fond of, I doubted Bella would stop anytime soon.

Well… whatever. This was certainly a fast way to settle things.

“Ahaha, I knew it would turn out like this, Lept-kun.”

Before I knew it, Anis was standing beside me laughing, a plate piled with food and a bottle of alcohol tucked under one arm.

She knew Bella well, and she’d personally met the influential figures of the Demon Realm while serving as our envoy, so apparently she’d already predicted this outcome.

If she’d known, she could at least have warned me beforehand. Whether I’d actually taken precautions or not, I could have prepared myself mentally.

I twisted my mouth into a frown and held an empty glass out toward Anis.

“Here you go. Bella-chan is gentle with children. You’re the same, Lept-kun—you like children too… though you’re also soft on old men. This summoner was an old man too, wasn’t he?”

Anis said that as she poured alcohol into my glass.

That was entirely coincidental.

It wasn’t as though I got to choose who summoned me.

Though if she accused me of liking children and being soft on old men, admittedly, it was difficult to deny.

“Well, the people I’m softest on are you, Bella, Pisca, and Villa. You guys, obviously. …Speaking of which, how is your granddaughter Lenis doing?”

I took a sip of the alcohol, rolled it around my mouth, then swallowed.

…This was supposed to be fairly expensive liquor we’d purchased to entertain the influential guests, but frankly, it wasn’t very good.

As a devil I couldn’t get drunk, but I could still taste alcohol perfectly well.

I didn’t know whether this was unique to the Demon Realm or true of this entire world, including human lands, but compared to other worlds, their brewing techniques seemed rather underdeveloped.

“She’s incredible. Of course she is—she was Lept-kun’s student and she’s my granddaughter. She’s currently the leader of the Sorcerers’ Federation. Now that I can travel between worlds, I’ll go back to be there when her final moment comes, even from this world. …I wonder what she’ll wish for at the very end.”

Anis murmured wistfully, and rather than saying anything, I simply nodded.

When that moment came, Anis could decide what she wanted to do.

Whatever my subordinates wished for, I would simply do my best to grant it.

Anyway, for now, it was probably time to stop Bella and start treating the injured.

After stopping Bella and healing the influential figures and their guards with magic, they practically prostrated themselves in gratitude.

We might have been the ones who healed them, but we were also the ones who had injured them in the first place.

I asked, just in case, whether they wanted to see the strength of the other Four Heavenly Kings as well, but they begged us to spare them and promised they would obey.

It wasn’t as though I’d threatened them, but apparently Bella’s strength had terrified them that badly.

Regardless, this meant we’d taken our first step toward rebuilding the Demon King’s Army.

Next, we would storm the strongholds of the influential figures who hadn’t answered our invitation, and after that, deal with Mureen’s brother.