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However, he wore a thick coat with high defensive magic on top of his black innerwear. In addition to that were leather boots and gloves. The rest were several pouches wrapped around his waist, probably contained potions or something, and were all crude pieces of equipment for subduing a demon lord.\n
He had a slender sword with its sheath fixed at his waist that was made to easily pull out a sword so that he could immediately move into combat.\n
It was well-maintained, but with a good, slender sword and light equipment… Rather than dealing against demons, it was an equipment ideal for killing people.\n
…But wait, huh? He’s alone?\n
They mentioned it was the hero’s party, so I thought they had gathered all their strongest men just as they had done in the past, but Shal was the only one.\n
“I-It’s just you?”\n
“Yes, the demon lord is all by himself too. It’s just you and me, just the two of us in here.”\n
“Augh…”\n
Just the two of us…! What a nice ring to it! But don’t get embarrassed, damn it, you bastard. Ehehe.\n
I shook my head to put off the small fire that was about to rise from my face again.\n
That’s right. I have to fight him and win quickly, then tell him to stay here in exchange for losing…!\n
My eyes flared up as I put on dark magic. My skin began to turn brown, and the roots of my hair became silver.\n
Seeing me transition into my second form, Shal read the cue to start the battle, drew his sword and swung his sword at me with tremendous speed.\n
Clang!\n
“Ha!”\n
I swung out one of my favorite swords – Jabal, the Lord of Calamity, shaped similar to what humans call a shamshir – by using dark summoning magic and pushed him back lightly.\n
By the way, his nickname was Balbal. He was a cursed sword that didn’t speak, but had a will of his own, so he kinda… glows a bit happily whenever I called him. He was somewhat sparkly.\n
After being pushed back, Shal immediately regained his stance and attacked me with the full use of his physical reinforcement magic.\n
I barely noticed the magic circle trap affixed to where I had dodged into and managed to avoid it by a hair’s breadth. Shal, who had regained his stance once more, was waiting for this moment and aimed precisely at my vital point.\n
Slash!\n
“Guh―“\n
“Nngh…”\n
I grunted a bit when my heart got stabbed, then quickly moved to a distance. Shal furrowed his brows and tilted his head in bewilderment.\n
W-What a cute groan. Not good. Hang in there, me. Hang in there!\n
“You have a cheat-grade resilience…”\n
“A buff recovering 5% of my maximum health points is passively applied, so I won’t die unless you have the firepower to overkill me within a second.”\n
By the way, this was just a secret but whenever I changed forms, my physical strength would turn to max.\n
There were only five stages so I could only do it four more times, but if I didn’t get overkilled by my final form, I would move onto a higher stage and it would just add more to my total recovery.\n
Shal heard about my passive skill and had a look of total exhaustion saying it was a cheat. However, he was still able to move and worked tirelessly to coordinate his magic, traps and sword by himself. Thanks to that, I was stabbed several times.\n
I usually just attacked normally and sometimes swung my sword so as not to injure him, but Shal managed to avoid and parried them, never faltering.\n
He must’ve undergone considerable training. For a human, both his physical strength and magic power had been maxed out.\n
Alright, this feels great…!\n
Shal could fight me until my fourth form with that kind of strength. And when it comes to that, I’d take things a bit more seriously, and use my trump card: a knife hand strike to the neck.\n
If I did it gently, as if trying to softly touch a slime, he should be able to lose consciousness without getting decapitated.\n
I was waiting for an opening from Shal with my heart pounding at that thought, but suddenly, Shal looked at me and chuckled.\n
“Even though you, the demon lord, is this strong… you have bed hair in your bangs. …That’s cute.”\n
“Gulp…!!”\n
“? …Huh?! Guah!”\n
C-C-Cu―?! Geez―Ah! I got caught off guaaaaaard!!\n
I was so embarrassed that I turned red holding my bangs, and accidentally shifted to my final form in one g o, sinking Shal into a sea of blood.\n
Of course, right after that, I forcibly summonsed the Prime Minister, Reisephon Amarald of the Phoenix demon race, while crying loudly.\n
He was fuming because I summoned every udon noodles as he was sipping his favorite lava udon. However, Reisen was someone who highly respected demon lords. Even as he scolded me, he cast a magic of highest difficulty and gave him a complete healing.\n
Then, I desperately fixed my bangs before Shal woke up and nervously returned to the first-class guest room where he was laid down on.\n
However—there, I found that Reisen had placed Shal in a cage, and I held my head with my hands.\n