Yomigaeri no Maou Chapter 18

“…What are you doing?”

In the wavering candlelight in the Cadisnola residence, in the far side of Luru’s room resounded Iris’ sleepy voice.

After the party at the tavern, and Luru’s conversation with his father had ended, his father immediately went to sleep, but because Luru hadn’t been drinking properly, he wasn’t very sleepy, and it just so happened that he recalled something he wanted to do, and took out his tools and clanked around with them.
Iris who had probably already fallen asleep had apparently woken up to the sound of colliding metal, and wondering what it was, came to have a look.

Though feeling extremely apologetic about this, since it was difficult to fall back asleep once you woke up once, Luru beckoned for Iris to enter the room and showed her what he was working on.
Quietly entering the room, Iris looked at the numerous things spread out on Luru’s desk, and realising what he was doing, she nodded in a.s.sent.

“…I see, a Magus Machine, is it?”

The things lay on Luru’s desk probably looked like nothing but junk to an ordinary person, and a number of them were spread about.
Many of them were made of metal, but there were also things that looked like ores, or simple rocks spread about as well, and there was no way to understand what on earth he was doing.
However, the members of the ancient demon race often saw Magus Machines, and to Iris who handled them, seeing just this much was enough to make it plain to see.
She just understood that Luru was trying to create some kind of Magus Machine.

He wasn’t particularly hiding it, and ever since he discovered Iris in the ruins, he had been thinking about manufacturing and reproducing Magus Machines.
However, the surprising level of backwardness of this era made Luru hesitate to start trying.
The fact that technology had gone too far was also one of the triggers of the war between the humans and ancient demons, and as a demon king, this was something that Luru understood.
Having said so though, he also knew that Magus Machines had an aspect of them that made life extremely convenient, and because of that, he was thinking of one day endeavouring to spread not weapons, but things that made life easier.

The problem was that with this timing it was something he was quite hesitant to do, but since the Magus Machines that had maintained and guarded the ruins that Iris slept in seven years ago were collected via Gran and Yuumis, as a result of bringing them to the capital, it seems that the research of Magus Machines had progressed just a little.
There was nothing that you could call it except a world of difference from the ancient demon technology that once existed, but even so, it seemed that it had become much easier to create Magus Machines than before.
As expected, the effects hadn’t spread to this village, but in a city of a large enough size, it was no longer a rare sight to see Magus Machines, according to Gran and Yuumis, and also Patrick, whose main base of operation were in the city. Moreover, the two would occasionally bring Magus Machines under the name of souvenirs.

Since Magus Machines had diffused that far through society, this meant that Luru’s reason for abstaining from creating them had become weak, at the very least Magus Machines that had a comparatively simple construction.
He had to think about the danger of the mechanisms being used for weaponry, but if it was something that would be discovered in a few years, then perhaps creating them probably wouldn’t make that much of a difference, he thought.

Luru picked up the Magus Machine he was currently working on and showed Iris.

“…Can you tell what this is?”

Iris thought for a little, but it wasn’t that difficult a question.
On the contrary, it was something she often saw.
She had seen them countless times in her experiences, after all.
As expected, Iris immediately answered.

“It’s a Magic Cannon. …No, it’s a small-type… portable model, so it’s a magus gun{Magis Pistola} perhaps I should say. They’re, they’re created as a means of magic attack for those who have lost their mana…”

Luru nodded at Iris’ answer, and gave some small applause, as one would give to a student who had done well.
After that, he opened up his desk, and picked up something else to show Iris.

“Well then, what’s this?”

Iris looked at what Luru was holding, tilted her head, and then replied with a curious expression.

“…Is that too, a Magia Pistola? Is it a one that has already been completed?”

Iris made a guess in that direction.
You could say that it was an extremely proper guess.
What Luru held in hand was something quite similar to the Magis Pistola from earlier, and as a result of a slight design change, Iris thought that it was probably something adapted from the model earlier.
Iris thought that in the next moment, Luru would surely nod and confirm her a.s.sumption.
However,

“Nope…”

Contrary to expectation, Luru replied as such while shaking his head, so Iris tilted her head with a curious expression and asked,

“Then, what is it…?”

As Iris said earlier, no matter how you looked at it, what Luru now held in hand looked like nothing but a Magis Pistola.
From the grip of the gun to the gentle curve of the muzzle, it was a form that you wouldn’t mistake after seeing it once, and didn’t look at all different to the Magis Pistola that Luru held up earlier.
However, there were certainly differences in the details, and unlike the work Luru created which had no accessories or intermediaries, and was created with just the bare minimum materials, the thing Luru was holding right now had gears, and cylinders filled with liquid the colour of floating bubbles, attached to it, and was quite over the top.
It was something obviously made with a different thought process in mind from the initial planning, and was a queer little thing.
And this very thing was one of the reasons that Luru was now trying to create a Magis Pistola.

“You see, Iris, this is something I got from Yuumis. It’s not something that I created…”

At those words, Iris widened her eyes in shock.
Iris immediately understood the reality made apparent by his words.

Over these past seven years, Gran and Yuumis had brought souvenirs from the various lands they had gone to, but amongst them was a pseudo Magia Pistola.
The shock that Luru suffered when he first saw it was large.
The construction and materials were obviously different from the ancient demon race’s, and it looked comparatively new; something created recently.
According to Yuumis, it was something she brought from a travelling merchant, but the merchant had just randomly come into possession of it, and since he didn’t really understand how to use it, he was thinking of selling it as some odd trinket he had come across.
Luru told Gran and Yuumis to constantly buy anything odd they found, so in other words, Yuumis abided by this and bought this as a souvenir for him.
And immediately after he received the pseudo Magia Pistola from Yuumis, Luru had been trying his best to get it to operate, but in the end he couldn’t.
From its construction, no matter how you looked at it, it was a Magis Pistola, but even filling it with mana produced no reaction.
Luru who felt it strange had begun lightly deconstructing it, resolved that he mightn’t be able to put it back together, and the result was that to begin with, there was no part inside it for storing mana.
And this being the case, there was some other theory behind its operation, and it meant that it was a Magia Pistola that worked under some new mechanism.

In this era where they couldn’t even handle Magus Machines properly, there was a being who could create tools even Luru couldn’t a.n.a.lyse.
Luru felt shock, and then strong curiosity at this fact.
And then, though it was only a little, he did feel a sense of danger about this.

In the past, the Magia Pistola was for those who didn’t have mana, and was a weapon created under the concept of giving magical offensive ability to those very few people.
Because of that, the power would basically fall short of the magic a magician could use, and once you reached the level of the demon king or the hero, almost n.o.body used it.
However, as an exception, if the magic or mana put into the mana storage was high enough, it stopped being useless, and if you remodelled it, you could give it immense power, or use it to fire off a spell that would be difficult to use in succession in normal magecraft.

However, the users of the latter were few in number, and to begin with, even those who could create such a weapon were few in number, so in the end, it became normal for those with powerful mana and physical ability to battle it out with swords and magecraft.

However, even so, to the lower ranking solders and to the civilians, there was no mistake that it was a weapon that possessed the power to kill.

Considering this, if the modern era ended up in a situation where there was somebody who could create Magia Pistola, and one country monopolised it, it went without saying that things would turn into an extremely dangerous issue.

At the very least, as long as one Magia Pistola existed, Luru felt that he needed to properly grasp the production method in case the need ever arose, and for that, here in his room, every day he would spend time on endeavouring in the creation and improvement of the Magia Pistola.

When Luru told all this to Iris, Iris took the one that wasn’t created by Luru―――― the pseudo Magia Pistola ――――into her hands, and after taking a good look at it, spoke.

“Certainly… there is no reaction after filling it with mana. I wonder why… It does feel like it is draining my mana, but…?”

“I went as far as deconstructing it to find out, but in the end I still don’t know. Even though we’re finally about to leave the village, a huge problem came along…”

Saying this, Luru sighed, but Iris suddenly smiled.

“Though you say that, you seem to be enjoying yourself, Ojisama.”

Having been told this, Luru realised that his own face was smiling a little.

“Oh[/Are]…?”

“Since the old days, you were, how should I say this… You quite enjoyed solving puzzles, didn’t you, Ojisama? Thinking back… Right. The time when my father Bacchus’ treasured drink stash disappeared too…”

Like that, Iris began speaking about her memories of how in the past, during Bacchus’ drink disappearance incident, giving a backward glance at Bacchus who was in a bad mood, Luru began happily searching for the culprit who had drunk the alcohol without permission.
And around the time she finished talking, Iris rubbed her eyes.
It seemed that she had finally gotten sleepy.

“…It seems that I’ll be able to sleep soon, Ojisama. My apologies for having you accompany me this late at night…”

“No, to begin with it’s my fault for waking you up. Don’t worry about it. I’m about to go to sleep too, so…”

“I see… That’s good then…”

It seems like she was really tired, because her eyes began tearing up, and she returned to her own room.
After putting away the things on his desk, Luru went to sleep as well.
Tomorrow there was packing for the trip, and then his rematch with his father.
It wouldn’t do to stay up too late.

As for the day of the rematch, if possible he had wanted it to be on a day when there was no risk of his father suffering a hangover, but because they had decided that they would be leaving for the trip on the day after, there was no choice but to do it tomorrow.
If it came down to it, he could use detoxification magic too, and just remove the alcohol.

Incidentally, they weren’t going to invite any spectators.

Luru and Patrick were going to fight with all their power.
Thinking about the small chance that some accident could occur, it was just a little bit, but it wouldn’t do for the people of the village who were unskilled with fighting to spectate.

Iris’ level of power was the minimum required, and so in other words, this meant nothing other than the fact that there was n.o.body in the village who could spectate.
There was also the fact that he didn’t want his strength itself to be known to too many people.

That’s why tomorrow would be a simple 1 vs 1, a match between just two men.

Thinking about the match, Luru’s heart leapt.

In the fourteen years since he was born, not once had he honestly used his power as a demon king.
He had utilised it countless times in training, but that was just training in the end, and not a fight he could enjoy.
However, this time was different.
Because his father was a truly powerful swordsman.
Perhaps his true strength would rival the heroes he had met countless times, Luru hoped.

If it was now, when he was a human, with his lowered magical circulation ability and physical strength, then he would be able to enjoy the battle even more.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t ever cursed this body that wouldn’t move the way he wanted, but in situations like this, where he’d be able to meet more difficult opponents, thinking about it like that made him even feel that this was perhaps not such a bad reality.

Like that, Luru extinguished the wavering light of the candle in his room, and got in bed.

Tomorrow would surely be a good day.

So he thought.

/Chapter 18 END