Squinting my eyes, I tried to block away the morning glare of the sun shining through the curtains. I was about to wonder why there were mornings and nights in this tower, but Iām surrounded by cheat-like beings, so they should be able to handle something like this. It was heavenā¦ā¦ No, should I say itās hell instead? I donāt knowā¦ā¦ However, what I do know for sure is that Iāve welcomed the day of the Six Kings without sleeping a winkā¦ā¦
Well, to be honest, I thought that after the three of us went to bed, I thought I would be able to get some freedom after they turn over while sleeping butā¦ā¦ that was quite naive of me. Kuro cutely slept on top of my body without turning over at all, while Isis-san didnāt turn over as well. Alice would turn over from time to time, but she was adamantly not letting go of my hand. As a result, I was forced to fight a long and painful battle against my own reasoning, and in the end, I couldnāt sleep a wink. Howeverā¦ā¦ I repeat, however! Morning has finally comeā¦ā¦ and I can finally be free from this heavenly hell.
As I was thinking about this, Kuro was the first one to wake up.
[ā¦ā¦Umyuu.]
[G- Good morning, Kuāā- Hahh!?]
As Kuro slightly opened her eyes along with a cute moan, I negligently āforgot about the pastā and reflexively called out to her. Thereupon, Kuro turns her half-opened, groggy eyes to me and smiles.
[Ahh~~ Itās Kaito-kun~~]
There, I recalled that when Kuro wakes upā¦ā¦ This is bad! I- I need to escaāā I canāt!? Memories of the past come flooding back to my mind and I try to escape as quickly as I can, but my arms are captured by Isis-san and Alice, and thereās no way for me to escape. Then, in front of the panicking me, Kuroās hand reaches straight towards my face and firmly fixates both of my cheeks.
[Kaito-kun~~ Shyuukk~~ Chyuuu~~]
[Hnnn!?]
With a coquettish voice, without any hesitation, she pressed her lips against mine. Before I could even taste her soft, sweet touch of her lips, Kuroās tongue, covered in saliva, mercilessly pried open my lips and invaded my mouth.
Her tongue, which moves in all directions as if she was coating my whole mouth with her saliva, soon finds my tongue and entwines around it, making the sound of water resound. This kiss, which was so intense that it almost knocked me unconscious, continued for several minutesā¦ā¦ Just as I was about to pass out, Kuroās mouth separated from mine. Kuro stared at me with a dazed expression on her face, but after a while, light reappeared in her eyes.
[ā¦ā¦Hmm? Arehh? Kaito-kun, good morning~~]
[ā¦ā¦G- Goodā¦ā¦ morningā¦ā¦]
I canāt do this anymore, Iām losing consciousnessā¦ā¦ The kiss just now was more amazing than before.
Waking up heavily fatigued from an all-nighter because of the half-awake Kuro, I secretly ate one of the Fruits of the World Tree before breakfast. It took away my fatigue, but it didnāt help me with my sleepiness or my mental fatigue. The Six Kings Festival has just started, and Iām already feeling anxious. Even though it was still quite early, we had to have an early breakfast since the organizers of this festival, Kuro and the others, seemed to have some preparations they needed to make. The breakfast Ein-san prepared for usā¦ā¦ is quite a surprise. Itās a pure Japanese style breakfast, consisting of Miso soup, rice and pickled daikon radish, dashimaki egg rolls, and grilled fishā¦ā¦ This is perfection.
[ā¦ā¦Wait, Iām fine with the Japanese style breakfast, but what about Kuro and the others?]
Rice isnāt really popular in this world, and many of the people I know like Lilia-san and the others would say āEating rice for breakfast is kindaā¦..ā when I asked. So, I asked Kuro and the others if they were fine with it.
[Unnn? This is just our āusualā breakfast, you know?]
[Eh? Really?]
[Unnn, we have Neun living back home after all~~ So, breakfast has always been rice.]
[Ahh, I seeā¦ā¦]
Kuro seemed to be used to eating Japanese food, probably due to the influence of Neun-san, who is a big fan of Japanese food. She even looks quite familiar with the chopsticks when she eats with them.
[ā¦ā¦I donātā¦ā¦ usually eatā¦ā¦ so I donāt really care either way.]
It seems that Isis-san rarely eats, so she doesnāt seem to be particular about bread or rice.
[Iāmā¦ā¦]
[Iām not asking you.]
[Eh? Wait!?]
I wasnāt really worried about Alice from the beginning. After all, she eats just about anything and everything, and she also ate a lot of rice back at the yakiniku restaurantā¦ā¦ As soon as I thought that I had already dealt with Alice, she grinned at me for some reason.
[Fufufu, the one who should be acting like that right now is me, you knowā¦ā¦ After all, soon enough, Kaito-san will praise me, saying āAs expected of Alice!ā.]
[What kind of idiocy are you on nowā¦ā¦]
[Well, for the time being, how about you look at thisā¦ā¦]
[Wha!? What theā¦ā¦ C- Could that beā¦ā¦]
[Yes! This is āAlice-chanās Special Seaweed Tsukudaniā!]
T- This is impossibleā¦ā¦ Sheās bringing out my personal top 1 rice accompaniment, Seaweed Tsukudani!? A- Aliceā¦ā¦ W- What an amazing person you are. Astonished at the tsukudani that was offered to me, I held out my chopsticks and tried itā¦ā¦ A perilla-flavor of the seaweed is refreshing and spreads in my mouth, and its taste was further enhanced when eaten along with rice.
[ā¦ā¦U- Ugghhhā¦ā¦ A- As expected of Aliceā¦ā¦]
[Fufufu, I knew it!]
Frustrating it may be, but this was a complete defeat for me. Moreover, this is really tasty. Although Iām feeling vexed because I had said what Alice had declared, I was more impressed by this tsukudani.
[Even so, this tsukudani is really good. Hey, Aliā¦ā¦ ce?]
With excitement budding in my heart, I looked back at Aliceā¦ā¦ only to see her holding a sheet of paper to her chest with a big smile on her face. On the paper, it said āAlice-chanās Special Seaweed Tsukudani: Assortment of 5 kindsā¦ā¦ 1 Gold Coin. Seaweed Setā¦ā¦ 5 Silver Coin.ā
Ah, sh*tā¦ā¦ this is just a ātrapā!? By daring to offer the first bite for free, she would make people realize how delicious her food is and induce them to loosen their purse strings. What an efficient strategy it is.
[ā¦ā¦Give me 4 of each.]
[Thank you for the purchase~~]
It was a complete defeat, but I wanted Aoi-chan and Hina-chan to taste it too, so I decided to uprightly buy it. Good gracious, sheās really getting better and better at businessā¦ā¦ Sheās only focusing on me thoughā¦ā¦
[Hey, Shalltear. Let me buy one of those too.]
[Ehh? Yes, I donāt mind.]
[Thanks~~]
As I was paying Alice and putting the set away in the magic box, Kuro stopped eating and asked Alice to sell one to her.
[ā¦ā¦Hey, Kuro. Iām going to ask just in case, but what are you going to use it for?]
[Eh? Of course, for my new baby castellaā¦ā¦]
Now then, what should I do? Seaweed-filled baby castellaā¦ā¦ I wonder what it tastes like? I donāt know. I canāt even imagine how it would taste. However, I donāt think it would go well with the sweet dough, so I hope she would stop with that plan of hers.
[Ahh, itās alright! Iāll make sure that Kaito-kun āgets to taste it firstā!]
[ā¦ā¦I- I seeā¦ā¦]
Iām just imagining things, arenāt I? What she just said was purely out of courtesy, right? It kinda sounded like she was asking me to be her lab ratā¦ā¦ Itās just my imagination, right!? How should I say thisā¦ā¦ The Six Kings Festival is about to begin, but it feels just like usualā¦ā¦ Well, I guess this was typical of Kuro.
(Volume 12 End)
Afterword
For picking up the 12th Volume of āI was Caught up in a Hero Summoning, but That World is at Peaceā, thank you very much. This volume finally brings to a close the story about the Demon Lord Vier, which can be said to be the climax of the middle part of the story. The next arc, or rather, the next series of volumes will be the aforementioned Six Kings Festival. It will be more than three times longer than the Rigforeshia arc, and it will be the longest since it will take the form of a festival for all of the Six Kings. I mean, it will definitely be a long arc. In fact, even in the Web Novel, the Six Kings Festival is the longest arc in terms of chapter count, and has by far the most new characters introduced in it. I mean, since many new characters appeared at the Six Kings Festival, the Light Novel had released some of them earlier, in order to keep the new character appearance count smaller to a certain extent.
Now then, I would like to talk about the Six Kings Festival and touch on the story of this volume.
The new character introduced in this volume is one of the Dragon Kingās Executives, Four Great Demon Dragons, Freabell Nidzveld. This character is also one of those mentioned earlier that had an early appearance. She is the Special Individual of the Wyverns, which should have been one of the weakest beings in the Demon Realm, and was actually mentioned by Kuro and the others as a weak monster. Sheās a being who has risen from the weak to the strong. Although there has been no explanation given in the volume, she is the strongest among Dragon Kingās subordinates, and her strength far surpasses that of Fafnir, who is the Head Subordinate. As for the reason why Nidzveld isnāt the Head Subordinate, it was because the Head Subordinate organizes the other subordinates, and is chosen based on a comprehensive evaluation other than mere combat power, so being the Head Subordinate of a camp doesnāt necessarily mean theyāre the strongest subordinate.
To explain the other camps, even though the Underworld King camp doesnāt function the same as the other camps, Ein was the one who holds the position that resembles Head Subordinates, so in their camp, the Head Subordinate is also the strongest in this case. This was also the case for the Phantasmal King camp, whose Head Subordinate, Pandora, is the strongest subordinate. Meanwhile, Agni, who was mentioned in the latter half of the volume, may have been the War Kingās Head Subordinate, but Ozma is their campās strongest subordinate. World King campās Head Subordinate is Lillie, but the strongest subordinate is someone called the Grass Flower Princess Camellia. I think this character will also appear later onā¦ā¦ someday, I really havenāt thought about it yetā¦ā¦
Also, this is also really a light spoiler from the Web Novel, a story happening really far towards the futureā¦ā¦ but as for the Death King camp, the Head Subordinate is also the strongest subordinate. Well, there are still many of the Six Kingsā executives that havenāt been mentioned yet, and I think they will gradually appear in the future.
Anyway, that is how I would like to end this afterword. Once again, thank you for reading to the end. I hope to see you again in the afterword of the next volume.