MaruMA:Volume 03

Prologue

There, my dear Shinou from the other world, or however you’d like to name yourself. I’d say that we have raised our son just as you wish. With black hair and eyes from his Japanese DNA, he possesses a heart full of zeal, perseverance, a keen sense of justice, and the strong mind of a game leader.

It’s still a mystery to me why my wife and I had been entrusted with the heavy responsibility of raising the next Maou. Nevertheless, I am proud to say that our nurture and education have produced a masterpiece. My wife would certainly agree with me on this.

However, there’s one thing we would like to clarify from the beginning. My wife and I would never completely give our son away to you! Whatever happens, he will forever remains Yuri Shibuya, our child. And if he is mistreated in anyway, we will take him back, by all means. Yuri! My boy! No one has done anything bad to you, right? If anything ever troubles your heart, remember that your father’s shoulder is always here for you to lean on. You can always talk to me about everything, as a man to a man.

But tell me, Yuri, don’t you think that lately you have become somewhat distant to your father?

Chapter 1

A date at the Sea World aquarium. With a guy. Oh, great. Why does this happen to me only?

It was summer vacation, time for the baseball. The newly formed amateur team and the Seibu Lions, of which I have been a devoted fan most of my life, took up all of my time. Until I got a call from Murata.

"She rejected me," he said moodily.

"Who? Your girlfriend?" I asked, curiously.

"No, I had planned to ask a girl to go out with me on a date to Sea World, then confess my feelings to her. So I bought pre-sale tickets, but she turned me down."

"So you confessed, and she turned you down?"

"No, I did not confess. She didn’t even want to go to Sea World with me."

"What? But that doesn’t mean she rejected you, maybe she just couldn’t join you this time."

"But I feel rejected." Murata sighed. "And I had already bought the tickets."

Although I tried to cheer him up, Murata only smiled weakly. He didn’t want to waste the tickets he had bought, but it was troublesome to return them. He was willing to give them away, but it was near the end of July, and most of our friends had already had plans.

"Well, of course that’s unfortunate."

"Don’t you want to go?"

"When is it?"

"The tickets are for the 28th."

"But that’s when we have the night game at the Seibu Dome..." I protested.

"Oh, to hell with the night game!" Murata said irritatedly, which was unusual for him. "Have you forgotten how much time I've sacrificed for your stupid baseball games? Not just the games, you dragged me along to the training sessions too. And now you choose a damned game over your good old friend, even when he has a broken heart?! Come on, it costs you nothing. I’ve already paid for tickets. Come with me, please!"

"Okay, okay, I understand, I'll go with you. But I have to say that if you’re persistent enough, she will eventually give in."

My friend looked up to the sky with an exaggerated expression.

"Shibuya Yuri Harajuku Furi, naïve as you are, you can’t possibly know how it’s like."

"Wait, Murata! How old are you after all? And this has nothing to do with Harajuku Furi at all!"

And so Murata and I, Yuri Shibuya, spent the day at the Sea World aquarium. Yes, my name is Yuri Shibuya. Yuri as in ‘advantage’ with the same kanji script as ‘interest,’ not a gentle pear or anything like that. I had spent a big part of my 15 years of life being teased for this stupid name.

As my father worked in the bank, I had thought that I had been given this name because my father was always thinking about interest rates. But then I found out that the blame was on a friendly young man who had shared his taxi ride with my mother, when she was on her way to the hospital to give birth to me. Even so, at least they could have chosen a different kanji for the name, which would have given it a different meaning! Well, yes, I consoled myself with the thought that my brother had got a worse deal: His name meant "victory"! Shibuya Victory, that was even a bigger laugh than my name!

Anyway, that afternoon I got stuck at the Sea World aquarium with a guy, who insisted that he was rejected by a girl, while it couldn’t be worse than a one-time refusal. And so the two of us, one boy wearing glasses and one baseball fan, went to Sea World together, surrounded by couples and parents with their children. Walking along the glass tunnel that ran right through the water, we could see the nautiluses, the fire fish, the banner fish, the Arapaima, and the sawfish swimming gracefully together with the delicious sardines and bonitos.

"If only I were with a sweet girl!" I sighed.

"Man, what is it now? You’re bitching all the time."

"Hey, I was only cursing my lonely existence, you know. Tomorrow I’ll turn sixteen, and I still have no girlfriend."

"Tomorrow is your birthday?! I had no idea. Tell me then, what do you want for your birthday? Look here, do you want a cell phone strap from the gift shop? This one is really cute, isn’t it?"

"A cell phone strap? But you know my phone is broken."

"Then it’s a good time to buy a new one. The texting function is quite convenient."

I sighed and looked at the back of my right hand. The entry stamp for the day visitors had been pressed on my skin with a special ink. If I held my hand under a scanner, the stamp glowed with a pale mark.

"I don’t need a cell phone. And I have no use for texting function."

"You don’t need a cell phone?! What is this nonsense? Everyone needs a cell phone. And that’s why everyone has indeed got one, except you. Sometimes I really think you come from another world!"

If you only knew!

It had only been three months ago that I fell through a toilet and landed in another world! Really! And I had even been declared king against my will. No kidding! I, a fifteen-year-old high school student with average looks and ordinary intelligence, was really and truly been appointed king of the mazokus!

Of course initially I thought I was dreaming. But when I woke up, hung around my neck was a pendant that someone from that world had given me. It was a stone the size of a 500 yen coin, which I wore around my neck ever since. It had silver rim and was of a blue color deeper than the sky, the color of the Seibu Lions. This charm stone reminded me every day that it had not been a dream. It was for real: I was born with the soul of a mazoku and had committed to protect Shin Makoku, the kingdom of the mazokus.

"Hurry up and take your number, Shibuya." Murata pushed me.

An employee at Sea World handed me a piece of green paper.

"Hmmm? Ah yes, thanks."

We had moved away from the exit of the aquarium and were now at the entrance to the show "Friends of the Sea." A heat wave suddenly hit us: we were in an open stadium and the summer sun was burning mercilessly above us. We walked down tiers of blue benches, looking for two empty seats. At the other side of the large water pool was the white performance stage.

"Shit, it's hot!" I complained.

"Stop whining! If you hadn’t come with me, you would be running around in your baseball uniform in the same heat."

Although I knew it was almost no use, I fanned with a piece of paper. A cool breeze brushed against my neck for a moment.

"Are there at least girls in swimsuits?"

"Why don’t you look at the stage?" Murata said.

Sure enough! There were the trainers - in bathing suits - with seals.

My thoughts wandered. Who was more majestic, the emperor penguin or me? Which formation should my team take for the practice match next week? Tilting my head to one side, I absentmindedly watched the seals performance: a seal headed a soccer ball through a basketball hoop, and a woman in a swimsuit tapped a pink drum vigorously.

"27! Number 27! Would you please come to the stage?"

On the adjacent seat, a toddler clung to the knees of his father and started to bawl.

"Hey, Shibuya!" Murata called out and prodded me with his elbow. "Number 27! That's you!"

"Sorry, what am I?"

"The visitor with the number 27! May I ask you to come on stage?"

"Go on, go on! Hurry up, otherwise they will think you’re not here at all."

I glanced at the piece of paper in my hand. It had indeed number 27 printed on it. With a broad smile, Murata grabbed my arm and pulled me down the stair, as if he won a lottery.

"Hey! Slow down! Not so fast!" I protested.

The trainer put a blue cap on my head and led me through an acrylic door. Then she gave me a small thing that was hanging from her fingers.

"Congratulations! These are your souvenirs, a cool dolphin cap, and a key chain with a cute little dolphin. I’ll trap it to your belt so you won’t lose it."

I was still in a daze.

Indeed, my gifts were all decorated with gray-blue dolphins. The cap had a brim shaped as the dolphin’s beak, and two black eyes on two sides. The key chain had a little dolphin dangling with his beak slightly open. It looked very cute, much nicer than the real dolphin.

"On behalf of our audience, could I ask you to shake hand with our stars today?" said the young woman smiling.

Whom am I going to shake hands with? A dolphin? No way!

Without saying a word, three people from the staff pulled me to the side of the pool.

"Wait, wait a minute! Dolphins are not really my favorite. Don’t you have a couple of whales or sea lions I could shake hands with?"

No response.

"Here we are, our friends Bando and Eiji, the bottlenose dolphins!" The trainer announced.

Two shiny gray dorsal fins came gliding through the water to the side of the pool next to us.

"Hey guys! That wasn’t a joke! I really do not get along with dolphins!"

Still no reaction.

"Hey, Murata, Murata! Please help me!"

"Shibuya, you lucky devil! I envy you!"

Then one of the two dolphins, I couldn’t tell whether he was Eiji or Bando, jumped out of the water then fell down, splashing all around. Holy shit! The beast was huge! He extended a blue-green shimmering flipper toward me, his eyes looking straight at me and his beak slightly open, showing two rows of small sharp teeth like a zipper.

"There goes my sixteenth birthday tomorrow," I muttered.

"Don’t be scared! He’s not going to bite you."

There was no way out; the staff had blocked my escape route. The dolphin was at my feet and still looked at me attentively, his flexible tail and waist muscle moving gracefully as he stood floating in the water. "Hey you, human! Let’s get this over with quickly, so I can finally have my sardines!" His eyes seemed to say to me. He opened his gaping beak and a screech filled the air "Kschaaaaaa!"

"Ahhhhh!" I also let out a small cry of terror. Hesitantly I reached out my right hand and finally touched the slippery flipper. It felt sticky and cold as ice. I felt my hand squeezed tightly.

Wait a moment! How could it be?

He was just a dolphin; he couldn’t possibly hold my hand with his flipper, could he? But then what was it that was pulling on my hand?

"Hey, let me go! Let go!" I yelled.

Just before I was pulled into the pool, I could hear the indistinctive shout of the staff and the audience, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Murata stretch his hand toward me. But the next moment, blue water engulfed me. Although the pool could not be very deep, I sank deeper and deeper into what felt like an abyss. My clothes were completely soaked and became heavy, still wrapping around my arms and legs, pulling me down. Damn it, where's the bottom of the pool?! Wait a minute. Hadn’t I been through something similar before? Twice?

"Not again!"

I was sucked backward into the depths. I swallowed a tremendous amount of water. It was really physically impossible... biologically and architecturally as well. My back ought to have hit the hard cement. Unless David Copperfield had his hands in the game. Or Princess Tenko!

"Tell me, Mama…"

"What, Yuu-chan?"

"Why are people so fond of playing with dolphins? It’s stupid."

"But they're cute! Don’t you love dolphins?"

"Well, not at all. You never know what goes on in their heads. They might shake hands with us and swim around us amicably, but what if they are secretly mocking us? What if they actually look down upon us and think to themselves “Let’s have some fun with these little humans”?"

"Ah! I got it! You can’t get along with those you can’t understand. But that’s why, for Mama, it is important that you work toward that understanding. Friendship needs time to grow and blossom. Spending time together, gazing up at the stars while talking to each other, that’s how we come to understand one another better. Do you understand what I mean, Yuu-chan?"

Friendship? With dolphins? Thanks, but no thanks.

I looked up to a blazing blue sky dappled with contrasting white shreds. Salt water burnt my eyes. Probably that meant I was floating in the ocean and not in a pool. Listlessly, my body drifted like a jellyfish, slightly rocking back and forth.

The sun was still high in the sky, blindingly bright and intense. The skin on my face and neck felt painful under the summer sun. It reminded me of the summer vacations when I was a child. I had always looked forward to going to the beach with my family; we would have a lot of watermelon, fireworks and collect piles of sea shells.

I'd become somewhat used to waking up in a completely different world, since this had happened to me for the third time in my life. So they summoned me again. Traveling through a whirlpool of water, being dragged here almost against my will, was no longer something new. But I had never expected it to happen in front of such a large audience. I had been lulled into a false sense of security.

Fortunately, I know the final destination of my journey, and I had friends there, so it was not all that bad. The story in broad strokes: the protagonist landed in a strange world of swords and magic and must perform heroic deeds. Plots like this were not at all uncommon. The only thing was that in this story I was not a hero, but the Demon King, the enemy’s last boss. It took me three months on Earth to accept the situation more calmly.

A gray triangle floated in the water and approached my right leg. It must be one of the dolphins. Poor guy, now I had accidentally dragged an innocent animal to this world. I overcame my fear and held out a hand to him to pat his shiny head. The tips of my fingers touched his forehead lightly. It felt much rougher than the dolphin’s flipper, which I had touched during the show.

"Hey, good boy! No wonder you can swim so fast. Ian Thorpe used a swimming suit that mimics the skin of a shark."

Did someone just say shark?

Our eyes met. I found myself looking into the eyes of a shark ... A huge white shark!

I had always disliked sea creatures because you never knew what was going on in their heads. But this time it was totally different! What that animal was thinking at the time was not at all difficult to guess: dinner was served, in the form of a human! With the theme song of the movie "Jaws" as background music.

I gave a little cry and fled with a chaotic mixture of front crawl and dog paddle. Wasn’t it called freestyle? Damn. What should I do? Pretend to be dead? No, it worked with bears only. Just ignore him? No, it worked with teachers only. Damn, what was the trick with sharks again? Attack or unconditional surrender?

"Your Majesty, are you all right...? Oh no...!"

From the distance, a familiar voice pierced my ears. An overly showy luxury boat approached, moving at a breakneck speed towards me. In the boat sat the duo who were determined to make Yuri Shibuya an experienced Maou - no matter what it cost.

"How outrageous! A shark dares to approach His Majesty!" Lord Günter Von Kleist paled with anger.

He brandished the oar in his hands wildly, as if to challenge the shark to a duel. His long disheveled gray hair fell on his back; his sparkling lilac eyes were bloodshot; and the very seductive baritone voice was reduced to a hysterical falsetto. No woman could ever resist the beauty of this autocratic teacher, but when it came to me, this epitome of perfection inevitably crumbled into pieces.

Sir Weller's face, however, bore a mixture of calm serenity and a pained smile while watching the "video-clip-of-the-dismemberment" of a small child.

Conrad, how could you do this to me?! Your only baseball companion in this world was about to become fish food!

"Calm down, Günter! Use the rudder to steer closer to His Majesty, try to get close to his head, I'll pull him up."

Conrad took my arm and helped me climb up the boat, which I did with the last bit of my strength. I was drenched, breathless and my heart pounded with fear. Conrad held me steady with ease.

"I’m saved! I was almost eaten by the beast." I gasped.

"Don’t worry, Your Majesty! These animals do not attack human."

"That's a shark, Conrad! A huge white shark! And it was about to bite my right leg!"

"Sharks are vegetarians, Your Majesty. I’m sure he just wanted to play with you a bit."

Oh yeah, that’s right. Most animals in this world behaved very differently than those in ours. I had already noticed that in my last stay.

I left Conrad's arms.

"How many times have I told you not to call me Your Majesty? It was you who gave me the name Yuri."

Sir Conrad Weller was the one who took my soul - when I was still not "me" - on a journey to a strange world called Earth. And on a street in Boston, he had offered to share his taxi ride with my mother when she was going to the hospital to give birth to me, and during that ride, had suggested a name for me: Yuri.

Conrad looked like a young man about twenty years old, but his age was actually five times what he appeared to be, as with all other mazokus here.

The mazokus had long life and great beauty. As Conrad was only half mazoku, he looked a bit plainer than the full-blooded mazokus. All the other mazoku nobles, however, would form a club of "pretty boys." Yet, as their king, I was nothing more than a normal boy whose looks, build and intelligence could only be classified as mediocre. I found myself at a big disadvantage. I could only keep faith in Andersen’s fairytale of the ugly duckling and desperately hope that I would one day grow into a beautiful swan. On the other hand, maybe one day I would be able to find a girl, as in “Beauty and the Beast,” who would assure me that for mazokus, personality is more important than appearance.

"Damn, it’s so hot here!" I groaned.

Summer seemed to be at its peak even in this world. My clothes were all wet but I didn’t feel cold. Damp clothes clinging to my skin made me sweat even more. With difficulty I peeled the T-shirt off. When I reached the belt buckle of my pants, my hand scratched against the dolphin key chain. Those stupid dolphins!

Conrad looked at me closely.

"Can it be that your muscles have grown a little?"

"Not just a little! Here, look at my biceps."

I was happy and proud with the result of my fervent daily training. Conrad smiled while looking at my "muscle-of-a-baseball-player" appreciatively.

"Then I'll get you a new sword, one made for adult men."

"I don’t need a sword, Conrad."

"Well, but..."

Conrad was interrupted by a long, indefinable cry.

Günter was about to be harassed by a group of sharks. "Geez, these animals are cuddly, but really."

Vegetarian-and-cuddly-sharks. I still hadn’t got used to this sort of thing yet.

This was my third stay in this world. And this time I landed at a place completely unknown to me. The white sand and greenish blue water would have made a perfect travel brochure for the Greek Adriatic. Not far from this picturesque backdrop was the Royal House, a summer residence with the architectural style of a castle, but its structure was quite different from the two castles where I had stayed previously.

I was worried that I would have to wear my school uniform in this unbearably hot weather, but fortunately the clothes that the maid brought me were a set of two-piece upper and lower summer clothes in beige color, made of a light material that felt like linen. I put the slightly large pants on. The waistband was a little loose. The maid lowered her head with a fearful look in her eyes. Probably she was worried that she had made a mistake with the clothes and I was going to get angry with her for that.

"Never mind, I can wear a belt and everything will be all right." I tried to cheer her up.

"Your Majesty, have you lost weight? Hopefully it’s not your health that..." said the girl.

"No, don’t worry. This is just the result of my muscle training. I have even bought a body-building equipment to tone my abs."

I got it for a mere 1000 yen in a discount store! My goal was to get a six-pack abs like Kamen-Rider. As I fumbled to pull my belt off from the wet pants, Günter entered the room and ran to the corner where I was.

"One moment, Your Majesty, I will make sure you can enjoy a pleasant temperature."

In a world of magic and swords, of course electricity or household appliances wouldn’t exist. But despite the lack of air conditioning, the further one went into this stone house, the cooler it became. Once I took off my shoes and socks and stepped on the stone floor, I felt coldness penetrating the soles of my feet.

However, before I could assure him that it wasn’t so hot, Günter had already made a gesture with his right hand. An attendant gracefully stepped forward, his hand holding a large duck by its neck. The tortured duck flapped his wings with all his might. Aha, I got the idea! And indeed, the air felt cooler, only the breeze stank of poultry, and I felt terrible for the animal.

"Please stop!" I hurriedly said. "This is an act of cruelty against animals... And it is cool enough in here anyway!"

"Oh, the compassion of His Majesty has no limits! His kind heart feels for even these insignificant creatures! This is our Majesty, the 27th Maou of our Kingdom: ‘Glory to the Mighty Shinou and his people, the mazokus! Never let it be forgotten that our people, the mazokus, have existed since the dawn of the world! Our strength, wisdom and courage have once forced even the Creator Gods to kneel! The mazokus will prosper in this kingdom for all eternity!’"

That was the lengthy name of our country. Or, in short: Shin Makoku.

While he talked, his hands moved beautifully in perfect choreography.

"Your Majesty, I have deliberately inserted a mistake. Can you tell which part of the name was incorrect?"

"Uh... Sorry, I… uh... was not paying attention." I stammered.

The beautiful man looked disappointed.

"Really, Your Majesty, I must earnestly request you to spend more time here and learn more about the country, its people, and the basics of our diplomatic relations. You should no longer return to the other world. Your Günter would like to remain by your side forever."

The situation was clearly straying from the right track. But Conrad, who had ushered out the fanning duck, beautifully and effortlessly turned it around again. He always knew how to handle tricky situations. There were many things I could learn from him, for example, how to deal with Günter. With an attitude as calm and composed as usual, he said:

"Günter, haven’t I told you already? We have no exclusive right to His Majesty. He is also very important to Earth and Japan."

If I was really that important, then why had I been a mere bench-warmer for the past three years?

"Günter! What is the meaning of this?" A voice bellowed. The thundering footsteps that were rapidly approaching sounded extremely intimidating.

"Why was my brother the only one who went to pick Yuri up?! Without informing me! I will not let you treat me like a fool! As his fiancé, I have the right..."

The one who barged in was the angel-like bishounen, Wolfram von Bielefeld. He stopped dead in the hallway upon seeing my naked torso, and seemed to be at a loss for words, his cute face flustered.

"Yuri… my God! Your face and arms ... So dark! Have you caught a terrible disease? Or a curse?"

"Are you looking for a fight?" I sulked.

In fact, my face and my arms were well-tanned, but my torso and legs were still white as snow. For baseball players, having this shirt-like tan would be considered an achievement, but when my upper body was exposed like this, it was indeed not the best look.

With the thumb and forefinger, Wolfram pinched my cheek.

"Ow-ow-aie-ooh-aie!! What do you think you're doing?"

He looking directly at Conrad and asked.

"Is he real?"

Conrad nodded.

"But if this is Yuri, who is the one my older brother went to pick up?"

"Probably an impostor."

When Wolfram mentioned his big brother, it would not be Conrad who was in front of him, but his other older brother, Lord Gwendal von Voltaire.

Conrad, Wolfram and Gwendal were half-brothers, sharing the same mother. Until recently they were Their Royal Highnesses, the mazoku princes. But when their mother the former Maou stepped down and I had to take over, the three brothers became Their Excellencies, the former princes.

Wolfram was a rival-less super bishounen, like a Vienna choir boy who had jumped straight out of a shoujo manga. He had inherited his mother’s shiny golden hair and her emerald green eyes. While his build was no better or worse than mine, the difference between our looks was as wide as the gap between heaven and earth. I imagined all artists in the world would fight over the chance to paint his portrait. If he had appeared in someone’s dream, the dreamer might even be moved to tears thinking they had seen an angel. However, he was angel-like only as long as he kept his mouth shut. Else he was just a terribly spoiled and bratty prince. As he claimed, and if one could believe his words, he was already eighty-two years old. If he was living in Japan, he would be a stubborn old man. And because of a small tiny minor cultural difference, we were engaged to each other.

Lady Cecilie von Spitzweg was the mother of the three brothers as well as the former Maou - who insisted that we call her "Cheri." Her love for men extended beyond the barrier between different species, as she happily declared. The son of her union with a human of unknown origin was the half-blooded Conrad. Maybe it was because of his human DNA that Conrad’s features were not as captivating as the other mazokus. However his face with a cheeky smile and a thin scar across one eyebrow could still be described as attractive. Had he lived in the United States, he would probably have become a model for the [[MaruMA:Vol03:Translator's Notes#GI Joe|GI Joe]. No one looked as good as Conrad in a military uniform.

"Wolfram, take your hands off His Majesty at once!" Günter admonished him in an upset tone, and pulled the younger ex-prince's fingers away from my deformed cheeks. "I'll never forgive you if there should be even one small fingerprint on that beautiful face!"

I could never understand the mazokus’ standards of beauty, given that Günter seriously believed I was more beautiful than all the mazokus, including himself.

Black hair and eyes were extremely rare around here, and that rarity gave it a great value.

"What is really going on here? What impostor are you talking about? Why should I not be ‘me’?"

"While you were away, a brazen man pretended to be you and committed crimes under your name." Günter said.

"Incredible! Someone claimed to be "Yuri Shibuya”?"

"Not exactly so, Your Majesty. In Suveria, the southern country near Conashia, a criminal was caught posing as the Maou. We ignored this at first because we believed it couldn’t have been you. But now that the execution date has been announced, we all felt a bit uneasy. As long as we couldn’t say with absolute certainty whether that criminal was Your Majesty or not..."

Conrad interrupted him.

"We could not exclude the possibility that Your Majesty had come to our world outside the country and without our knowledge. We had to clarify the actual circumstances. This was also the reason why we called you back this time."

"Sure, sure...! And because of that, I fell into the pool while shaking hand with Bando, and ended up floating next to a shark in the ocean…"

"Bando? Who is Bando? Another guy?" Wolfram growled unhappily.

"I don’t know if Bando is male or female! Besides, Bando is just a dolphin."

I turned back to Conrad and Günter. "So now that I am here in front of you, I’m the proof that the other guy couldn’t have been me."

"That’s right, Your Majesty! Your wisdom always delights me."

Now that wasn’t a difficult one to figure out. With Günter slopping all over me, I badly wished I could indeed be somewhere else at that moment.

So in a foreign country, an impostor had claimed to be me, and had painted the town red. How bold! As far as I knew, only Master Mito Komon, the Bold Shogun, or Michael Jackson had been impersonated. For the celebrities or deities, it is inevitable that there would be cheap imitations. Then wasn’t an impostor the best way to prove that my fame had elevated?

"But, why do you want to go to look for my double? The fact that I’m here would clear all doubts, right? And why would Gwendal himself take the trouble...?" I trailed off. Suddenly I could imagine the figure of the eldest brother in front of my eyes.

"You are right. Of course, Your Majesty, we wouldn’t really care if a crazy man who impersonated you would die on the scaffold. But this ... what is the word he used?"

"Double."

"Yes, we have received information that this double is in possession of a special item that only the Maou can handle. This is an extremely precious treasure to the mazokus. It was taken out of the country two hundred years ago and has since disappeared. If this information is correct, we need to bring the treasure back, to revive our power. Twenty years ago we sent a man, a relative of Gwendal, to look for it."

"What was his name again?" Asked Conrad.

"Lord Grisela, Lord Gegenhuber Grisela."

"Ah, yes, exactly, this Huber."

Conrad tugged his ear uncomfortably. Although he was kind and pleasant by nature, even he did not seem to get along with everybody. I turned to the younger brother, trying to find out some information about this Huber.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"He is the cousin of my brother from his father’s side. An aunt from the Voltaire family has married into the Griesela family."

"Oh." I mumbled, a little bit disappointed. I was hoping for something more dramatic. "So no one else can touch this treasure? Does it bite, burn, or spit on you?"

I was vividly reminded of my encounter with the Maken Morgif, who had done all that.

"Not exactly, Your Majesty. Anyone could possibly touch this treasure. But in this world, only you can play it."

"Play it?"

"The Mateki, Your Majesty."

"The Mateki?!" Wolfram cried excitedly. "I’ve only heard the stories about it from my father. He said that the sound of the flute is fantastic! One note from the flute and the sky roars with thunders, the earth shakes, the sea rages! Allegedly, the flute has the power to conjure a formidable storm!"

As I had immediately imagined a flute with a clear sound or a piccolo, I forced myself to revise my picture of the Mateki. Maybe it was a kind of conch?

"I've always wanted to hear the sound of the Mateki. I can’t wait! I’m curious to see how well Yuri can play it." Wolfram said cheerfully.

"Playing the flute?! Me?! Are you kidding?! Get that idea right out of your head!"

Arms folded on his chest, Conrad had leaned against the wall and was listening to the conversation, as usual.

"I strongly doubt that the people of Suveria will do us a favor and show us the possessions of the executed criminal in his coffin."

"You think they would confiscate all his belongings? Wait a minute, his coffin...? Are they really going to execute my double?! What has he done?"

"If I'm not mistaken, he ran away without paying the bill."

"Death sentence for eating and running without paying the bill?!"

Wow, blow me down! My double was going to be executed for failing to pay for his food! You might not like such a person, but you can’t kill him! That would be a scandal! I had to stop that!

"We must save him, Conrad!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"We have to save my double!"

Chapter 2

"What is this child doing here?" Lord Gwendal von Voltaire turned to his two half brothers with an obvious expression of displeasure. His hair was long and of a very dark gray color; his eyes were blue, with a permanent look of bad humor in them which no beauty could get rid of. In my opinion, Gwendal was born to be the Maou, worthier than anyone else. His deep voice was chilling to the bone.

I felt glad that my brother wasn’t like that; otherwise years ago I would have run away from home. At this point, I had to take my hat off to Wolfram. He professed deep affection for this man.

"His Majesty intends to explain that the prisoner Suveria is holding captive is a fake." Conrad cheerfully said, trying to help me out. Unfortunately, at that moment I had hooked one foot in the saddle and was hanging writhingly against the horse's belly.

"Ah! Really?" Gwendal growled. He had been waiting for us near the south border.

"Exactly!" I said hastily. "You probably already knew he was a fake, and so you thought it would be fine even if they go ahead and execute him. The only thing is, the prisoner isn’t me, I’m perfectly fine, I’ve returned and I will not allow him to be executed! So let’s get to Conansia or Cavrella or where ever the double and the Mateki are!"

"Conrad…"

"Yes?"

With the slightly raised eyebrow, Gwendal stared sharply at his brother, the one he held in high esteem as a soldier.

"Please do me a favor and take these two back to the capital!" He growled again.

"What?! Me too?!" Wolfram exclaimed indignantly.

The younger brother apparently did not think he should be treated the same way as me.

"I only obey orders from his Majesty." Conrad said smoothly.

Wow, don’t say such things so easily, else it’ll go to my head and I’ll end up believing myself all high and mighty. There is no way freshly crowned newbie Maou, and ordinary baseball kid (forever a bench-warmer) like me could be a great person.

"Okay, do whatever you want!" Gwendal grumbled, and turned his horse toward the river that ran along the border. The men in his troop followed, halting just enough to pay us respect.

I had the honor of sitting behind a stunningly beautiful young boy on the horse and looked up toward heaven. Everyone wore dresses like in the movie Lawrence of Arabia "white cloaks to protect from the scorching sun, because we were riding through endless sand dunes of a desert. Safety measures against heat strokes are crucial when travelling through even a short stretch of desert.

"Inconceivable! You may have a heat stroke!" Günter hugged me tightly while fighting back tears. Holding onto my right hand, he implored.

"It's not just the heat. A few years ago, Conashia was in a civil war. Since then the gap between rich and poor people has become large, and public safety is now in a miserable state. On the other hand, in the last two years there has been an unprecedented drought, everywhere people struggle for food. Please stay here, Your Majesty! Gwendal will take care of the magic flute! Instead, go with me, his faithful Günter, to the beach to enjoy the summer."

It was difficult to assuage Gunter’s worries, because the snot dangling from his slender nose kept distracting me. As nothing could commence before we persuaded him, I reassured Gunter that getting acquainted with one’s neighbors was the first step in friendship, and that first hand experience was important in learning diplomacy. My presentation moved Gunter into a fit of exclamations.

"That is so noble of you, Your Majesty!"

Ha, that’s 1 point to Yuuri Shibuya. Finally, I’m getting the hang of persuading Lord von Kleist.

I had dyed my hair and put on contact lenses to hide my black eyes for this trip just as I had done for the previous one.

We had reached the edge of a parched river separating Shin Makoku from the country Conashia. The river had completely dried up in what was called a "record drought." The cracked riverbed was about a kilometer wide. There was no comparison with the Tone River near my home...

"It’d be an amazing sight, if only there was water" I said.

"During the Civil War, lots of corpses would drift and land on the river bank on our side. But as the humans were afraid of setting foot on our territory, so no one came to collect the dead. We had to take care of those ourselves." Wolfram said.

"That… wasn’t the kind of amazing sight I meant."

When we crossed the riverbed, we arrived at a simple picket fence. There were soldiers all around; their number was considerably higher than ours.

It was understandable that the borders should be well protected, but the mazokus had never invaded their neighbors, yet I found their soldiers openly hostile against us. Their spears pointed directly to us. Some standing in the back row pressed the back of their hands to their chins.

"What are they doing?" I wondered.

Wolfram clucked his tongue.

"A malicious act against the mazokus. Although humans are actually scared their pants off by the mazokus, they feel safer as a group, and they become insolent. Nasty creatures!"

"Eh, sorry bout that." I muttered.

"Stop feeling defensive! You are not human but a mazoku! Accept that already!"

Eh, sorry about that, too.

At the south of Shin Makoku was the territory of the Karbelnikoff. It was a popular vacation destination, famous for its white sand beaches and dry climate. Many tourists from the northern regions of Shin Makoku come here to quench their need for the sunny weather.

On the other side of the river, Conashia had suffered heavy losses of harvests due to the drought. But for the people of Karbelnikoff, whose main source of income was tourism, the motto was: More sun, more customers.

Lord Günter Von Christ was staying in the Maou’s resort complex, completely exhausted, as if the heat had finished him off also.

"He's gone." He sighed.

His long gray hair had lost its luster and fell all over his back in a mess, and his violet eyes were desolate and empty. With a loose lock of hair clinging to his cheek, Günter’s tragic appearance looked like that of an exhausted homemaker whose energy has been completely spent on cleaning tasks. He stared absently through the window into the sky and sea.

"Why did His Majesty leave me here all alone? Has it finally come to the day he despises his faithful Günter?"

"It is entirely possible."

Startled, von Lord Christ raised his head.

In front of him was the body of a woman, full of exuberance, wrapped in a tight summer dress, or was it just a swimsuit?

The long golden curls reaching up to her hip were gathered to generously reveal an erotic waist under the summer dress. If one could look pass this exhibition so dazzlingly sexy, her innocently smiling lips, her white skin, and her emerald green eyes hidden behind long eyelashes would remind one of her youngest son.

She did not look more than thirty years old, but in fact she had lived longer than the sisters Kin and Gin, the oldest twins in Japan.

Lady Cecilie von Spitzberg was the mother of the three mazoku brothers who didn’t look one bit alike, as well as the previous mazoku queen. She was not only a sexy queen, but also a genuine certified queen, my very predecessor.

"Your Royal Highness the Former Queen! What a bold outfit...!"

"And it doesn’t look good on me, my dear Gunter? I was told that His Majesty had arrived. If I had known that I would find only you here, I would have kept my legs covered."

"Cheri-sama, I humbly ask you to refrain from these constant attempts to seduce His Majesty."

"But Günter, you’re just the same as you’ve been sniffing the clothes of His Majesty all this while."

"W... Well, that’s..."

Madame Cheri snatched the arms of a T-shirt Lord Von Christ had been holding.

"It's very rude of you to keep all the prizes for yourself. Let me hold it too….hm?"

She held the damp cotton cloth to her nose and sniffed.

"Is this really the scent of his majesty? Don’t you wonder Günter? He seems to be such a sweet person."

"That scent actually befits a young man. A distinctive aroma of ... how shall I say? ... ocean air."

Most likely, the odor is from the dolphin... not from Yuuri.

From the hot saddle,

The sweat drips.

It is not just the sun.

A horse, two bodies… close together.

No, the verse did not help much against the heat. No haiku can alleviate this exasperating heat.

We were in the middle of the desert, with nothing within sight but endless rolling sand dunes.

I tried to shift my body away from the boy sitting in front of me as much as possible so that some air could pass through between us. However, it was nothing but hot air all around us, and there was no stir even remotely resembling a breeze.

"If you slip further back, you'll fall." Wolfram said.

"I'm dying of heat!" I complained.

Wolfram was obviously enjoying the situation.

Yes, thanks. Very funny. If only it had been a girl who was sitting in front of me, then I would have had my fun. Like a charming gentleman, I would have steadied her, with the reins held in my hands. Sadly for me, the front seat was occupied by a bishounen lovelier than a girl.

Our crew, consisting of twenty men, was crossing the desert under the sun instead of the moon, and on horses bred by humans instead of camels.

The soldiers at the borders who gestured rudely at us had claimed that animals must be kept quarantined for 20 days before allowed entry into the country. Coming from a modern society in Japan, their claim made sense, but according to Wolfram and his subordinates it was merely petty faultfinding. We ended up sending back the mazoku’s horses (they have two hearts) and bought local horses at a border village near Conanshia. It would have been more convenient if they had cars for rent, but it wasn’t like I had a license anyway.

This endless sienna arid region was supposedly not as big as a true desert. Born in Boston and brought up in Saitama, even though I can tell apart artificial grass fields from the real grass fields, I had no idea what was the difference between a desert and sand dunes.

Nor had I ever been in the mini desert in Tottori, Japan.

Gwendal rode a distance away in front of us. The cloak on his back moved in a wavelike motion in the air like seaweed in a lake. I turned toward Conrad and lamented.

"Damn, why is no one else but me suffering so much from the heat?"

"It's probably because of our training." Conrad replied, looking extremely fresh and relaxed.

They didn’t even sweat that much.

That was probably expected. After all, it was easier for well-trained soldiers, assuming that they trained hard everyday under the supervision of an evil sergeant.

Like the armed forces of the Japanese self defense. They presumably traveled through forests and mountains, crossing swamps and building igloos in the snow. Maybe even stumbling everyday in forests where the trees were thick and the ground could suddenly slide. But this was more of a training routine for a Ninja.

In any case, among all travelers, I was the only one who was dying of the heat. And then I even saw hallucinations.

"Do you also see over there in the middle of the sand a small animal raising its arms?"

"What? Where? What small animal? I can’t see anything." Wolfram said.

I could see the head of an animal unknown to me sticking out from a hole about ten meters away. Bu no one would expect such an animal in the middle of the desert.

A soldier on a dark brown horse disappeared right in front of me. The gray horse Wolfram and I were riding suddenly flexed, lost his balance and sank.

"Yikes, what's happening now?!" I cried.

"A sand bear!"

A sand bear?! Everything became fuzzy around me, and the whole world turned into the color of gold and orange. Here and there helmets, or a forearm, came into my sight. We sank deeper and deeper into the smooth sand. There was no escape. We were being inevitably sucked in.

"Wh... what happens?! How can this be?!"

When I opened my mouth, sand immediately filled between my teeth. I tried to hold Wolfram back by the hem of his robe, but his arms, legs, hands and finally even his face disappeared. I could barely breathe.

What kind of animal could this be?! In my field of vision, which was becoming blurred, I could see a huge two-toned panda moved his arms up and down at the center of a whirling mass of sand.

"That's a damned panda!" I cried.

A panda in the middle of a desert. With a new variation of color too: his coat was of beige and brown. Where did you leave your bamboo?

Suddenly someone grabbed my arm firmly, freeing me from my immersion into this giant sand hour glass.

"Conrad..."

No, that could not be Conrad. My indestructible protector was supporting my legs from below with his shoulders.

When I looked up I saw Gwendal standing right on the edge of the hole. Wolfram and the other soldiers had been sucked into the vortex. I saw only a few horses’ legs and someone’s hands that I could not recognize. The sand kept swirling down the center of the vortex.

"What about Wolfram?! He fell in front of me into the sand! But he won’t die, right?!" I cried and wailed.

"If he was unlucky..." Gwendal said above me.

"Don’t worry, if he’s not suffocated he’ll find his way back to the surface." Conrad reassured me. "Your Majesty, climb up quickly!"

"But we have to go back to help! We don’t know if he has a chance against the bear!" I protested.

I tried to slide down the slope, but Gwendal held my arm tightly and would not let me go.

"You cannot help!" He reproached me.

"But I can’t just leave him like that! Then at least you go and save him, he is your brother! Go and save him instead!"

I turned to Conrad. "Hey, you can deal with that bear, can’t you? You are a sword master! Surely you can deal with a middle-stage boss character?" I appealed while being dragged up. Though it was in order to steady his feet, he avoided my eyes.

"The top priority now is your security." He looked up and panted, still trying to push upward.

"But I'm fine, so..."

"No!"

For a split second, his eyes, brown with flecks of silver, met mine. Conrad bit his lips, frowned, a scar barely noticeable on an eyebrow, and then spoke with tormented voice. He turned towards the center of the vortex.

"Your Majesty, Wolfram would agree with me immediately. He is also a grownup warrior and knows that things like this can happen. Your safety comes first!"

"But-!"

By now, there was no visible trace of the soldiers who had been swallowed by the sand vortex. Would they pass off falling into such a land hole as a matter of bad luck? Just imagining the honey blond hair and brilliant emerald green eyes, frozen with terror, hurt my chest; I couldn’t breathe. Of course twenty lives would weigh more than one, even if it was my own life that was at risk. Go and save those twenty people, rather than staying here for me. The choice is straightforward. No one should be sacrificed, even for a king!

"Conrad, I don’t want you to be someone who abandon his own brother." I finally said.

"Your Majesty... we must leave this place immediately. Everything can collapse any moment now."

I reached up and got to the solid ground. Finally the sand under my feet felt solid and stable. I turned to Conrad:

"You've said that you would only follow my orders." I said.

"Yes, but that was..."

"You said you’ll follow my catcher’s signs. Then I order you to save Wolfram. Please! I'm fine; you have no reason to worry about me. After all I still have a strong guard here."

Conrad looked surprised and shifted his eyes back and forth between me and Gwendal

"Any order?" He finally turned to Gwendal and murmured. "Okay. But you take care of him!"

"Mhmmm." Gwendal grumbled.

He was standing behind me so I could not see his face, but I thought I heard a bit of relief in his voice. Confidence grew in me that my decision could not have been wrong.

Conrad slid down the slippery slope, to rescue his brother and subordinates.

"Do you know how to find the hidden tunnel out of that beast’s den?!" Shouted Gwendal a moment later.

"No need to worry, this is the third time I have had to deal with a sand bear! See you at the capital!"

Yes, my decision was correct. It has to be.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Lord Densiam von Karbelnikoff governed the Karbelnikoff area according to the order of several successive generations of Demon Kings, the most important feudal lords in the great empire of the demons. He belonged to the Ten Noble Families, and even in his own circles he was considered an eccentric figure. Lord Densiam's talent was less in the arts of warfare but more in diplomacy and business.

Despite his jovial personality and his shrewdness, he had the deepest loyalty for his king. For the prosperity of the state finances, he deposited huge sums of tax money into the state treasury. When he found out about the presence of the 27th Demon King in his area, he wished nothing more than an audience with the king. Unfortunately he arrived too late, as Yuuri had already ridden on.

Demsian's hasty plan crumbled like a sandcastle. He had planned to have an audience with the Demon King in Karbelnikoff, outside the royal summer cottage. He had wanted to name this place “The audience hall of the Demon King" and make it accessible to the general public - for a decent tour fee. Instead he now planned to design a commemorative coin to perpetuate the visit of the Demon King. While he drew the sketch of his new plan, he bit into a Karbelnikoff pie, a regional specialty.

He had a younger sister, but their similarities were limited to the same hair and eye color. As for the differences in personalities, speech, gestures and points of view, they took second place to the three most dissimilar demon brothers of all times. Although his sister was also a demon, her comings and goings always had a quality almost divine. This woman would not spare a thought for moneymaking. She was solely interested in one thing: new uses for magic in everyday life.

Her philosophy dictated that such a practical and exciting skill as magic should not be used only for combative purposes. It would be a huge waste if magic wasn’t applied to daily life. Only then would its true value be utilized to the advantage of the demons. In order to reach her goals, she pounced on every opportunity of experiment. In her life, the most important things are: first, experiment, second, experiment, third and forth are secrets, and fifth, experiment again. The only person who knew what her third and forth most important things were was her childhood friend Lord von Voltaire.

It was on that very day that she found a new scientific challenge.

"It's very important that His Majesty’s clothes be thoroughly washed and well maintained, even if it is a shame that his invaluable smell will disappear", sighed Lord von Kleist. "The last step is particularly dangerous, because the wrinkles must be smoothed out with a hot iron. And it is not possible at all to leave this highly important task to somebody else."

"But Günter, that's the work of the laundry women. The girls will be very sad if you take their work away." Madame Cheri pointed out for his consideration.

"What are you thinking, Lady Cheri! One of my most important duties is to take care of His Majesty’s personal matters, and that includes washing and preparing his clothes."

The door was suddenly thrown open.

"Did you just mention you wanted a better way to take care of the laundry?"

Both Günter’s and Cecilie's gazes shot to the door at once. There, a small and slender woman was standing straight, her voice literally bubbling with self-confidence, and her light-blue eyes, slightly drawn up at the corners, shining with her whole willpower. The flaming red hair was tied together at the back of her head and fell long and pretty down her back. The moment they saw this intrepid beauty, the tutor turned pale, while the sex goddess clapped her hands to her chest.

"My dear Anissina!"

Lady Anissina von Karbelnikoff was Lord Gwendal's childhood playmate who had taught him how to knit. She was considered, alongside Madame Cheri, one of the three most powerful Demon women in Shin Makoku.

"Oh Anissina, it's been so long! Since you have not been visiting my son lately, I started to worry about you."

"Forgive my long absence, Your Royal former Majesty. I am delighted to see you doing so well. And Lord von Kleist…?"

"Yes, yes, I’m also fine, thank you, Lady Anissina."

"But let’s get to the point! It was fortunate that I found you here, Günter. I've been looking for Gwendal, but he seems to have left Karbelnikoff. There's something I'd like you to help with. Using my latest invention, all types of clothing can be prepared beautifully. I would like you to go with me to test the machine."

"Te…test the machine?"

"Would you be willing to? Yes? "

Willing or not, it was all up to her.

"Very well, then please take a look at my latest work, my great pride! I call it the fully-automatic magic-operated washing-machine-kun!"

With sweeping pompous gestures, Anissina presented her invention.

My decision couldn’t have been wrong! But why didn’t it make me happy, but uneasy as if I was sinking in a swamp?

We found a piebald horse that had managed to escape from danger and continued our journey for two. We had to leave the dunes behind as fast as possible.

At night, the temperature dropped significantly. For me, an untrained soldier, it was more than just another tough night. It had already been hell during the day! Because of the scorching heat, I was always on the verge of fainting. To remain conscious, I tried to carry on a non-stop conversation, but I never got much response from my traveling companion, except for a non-committal "Uh-huh" or "No" as the answers. If I asked more complex questions, Gwendal would even refuse to answer. Given this lack of communication, had we been a married couple, we would have already been separated and divorced long ago. It didn’t surprise me however… After all, in the entire Shin Makoku, he was the one who hated me the most. To him I was nobody.

Since Gwendal always seemed moody and expressionless, I couldn't guess what was in his mind. I felt ill at ease and didn't know how to behave towards him while we rode on together.

"Would you mind if I put my hips around your arms?" I blurted out. Damn, this was no first date in middle school! Put my hips around his arms! How could I make such an embarrassing mistake? Seriously, this guy was driving me out of my mind.

Meanwhile, there were thousands of questions at the tip of my tongue: Why was I the only one who can see the deadly panda? Why didn't Gwendal fall into the pit? How would Conrad, Wolfram and the others escape from the quicksand? But even if I could voice all these questions, they would remain unanswered anyway. And I had no option but to pull myself together and try hard not to fall off the horse.

"Here, take it!"

"Pardon me?"

Gwendal handed me the leather water pouch.

"It's okay. I just drank," I refused.

Even though, to be honest, I couldn't remember when that had been. However I surely had drunk more often than my companion.

During the summer baseball training, I had learned firsthand how important fluids were to the body. I could understand better than any average person the dangers of dehydration and overheating. Even so I couldn't just take all the remaining water for myself alone...

"Do I have to force it down your throat?!" growled Gwendal.

"Okay, okay! I’m drinking already!"

I hastily grabbed the leather pouch. After such a threat I would have drunk even poison. Oh! At last, could this be Gwendal's plan?! Wasn't this the perfect opportunity to get rid of me, here and now, in the middle of the dessert, without a single witness? But to do away with me, he didn't need to go through the trouble of poisoning me. It’s a 90% chance I would fall victim to the heat anyway.

And again I began to hallucinate. This time, I saw what seemed to be a mirage: a city on the other side of a whirlpool of sand. I rubbed my dry, sore eyelids but the shimmering buildings didn't disappear. Maybe the contact lenses had slipped; my sensitive eyeballs did feel a bit strange.

"I could be imagining it, but I see a town over there," I said.

Gwendal didn't utter a word, but steered the horse straight toward that direction. The closer we went, the more clearly we could see the shape of the houses. The uniform beige color of the walls was probably due to the large amount of sand mixed with the cement. The gigantic building in the town center was a solid construction with stone walls. Maybe it was a sanctuary or a government building. My brain, in a stupor from the heat, was incapable of more accurate observations.

The town was small but wide, spreading out for about a mile, very much like a strip mall in Ginza. However, there were no splendid shops here. We could only saw dusty and dirty facades one after the other. I was overcome with serious doubts as to whether one could buy anything here.

Some women walked around, and children were playing on the ground. There were a surprising number of guards stationed around the place, but not a single male civilian in sight...

"Isn't that strange for a city?" I asked, and again got no response.

When we were about to ride inside, the guard on duty stepped forward to stop us. He wore a sleeveless, simple military uniform with a long, quite heavy looking sword hanging at his hip. His tanned, bronze-colored face was twisted into a grin, and he had a bizarre hairstyle. His dark brown hair was shaved short on the sides, leaving only a circular mat of hair on the top which was dyed red. Probably this was the conventional military hairstyle here, but I couldn't help it, this brown-red mat reminded me of something... Yes, salmon and caviar sushi! That was exactly it! This hairstyle reminded me of a Gunkan - Maki in the shape of a battleship. If all the soldiers were to move in a circle, it would look like the conveyor belt in a sushi-bar.

"Horses are not allowed in the town," the soldier with the sushi-hairstyle barked at us.

Gwendal quietly got down from the horse. While acting as if he was helping me get off the saddle, he whispered in my ears telling me to hide my face.

"Are you coming from the dessert?” asked Mister Sushi-Head.

"Uh-huh", muttered Gwendal.

"Well, my respects! And no encounters with the Hinemos?"

Hinemos?! At home, in Japan, this was a leisure activity where you use paper tubes to make for example a dinosaur figure. And there was also a haiku by Yosa Buson about the sea at springtime, in which that word meant "all day long." A dinosaur that swims up and down all day long in the springtime sea? No, that didn't fit.

"No, we saw nothing", Gwendal answered in monotone.

I had no idea why, but the Sushi-Head soldiers started to laugh.

"You lucky dogs!"

"The horse needs rest. We also need water and food. Is there a hostel in this town?"

"No idea", answered the soldier.

The whole group gurgled with laughter again. Were these lunatics suicidal? Didn't they know who they were dealing with? If Gwendal shredded them to pieces, they would have only themselves to blame.

However, instead of teaching some manners to this reckless bunch, Lord Gwendal von Voltaire - the invincible demon between the demons, famous for his unparallel sangfroid - only stared at them briefly and rolled his eyes.

"Would you perhaps be kind enough to tell us where we could find a hostel in the city?” he said in such a humble tone that I thought I had misheard. "We would also appreciate it a lot if you could tell us where to find some water and food."

"Well, that depends on how much you are willing to shell out!"

Gwendal only grumbled something to himself. We left the horse and went further into town on foot.

Were there upcoming elections? Everywhere I looked, the walls were plastered with posters. The pictures were no better than children’s drawings: the faces of the candidates - a man and a woman – were more like circles with spikes on top. I could not read the sentences below the pictures.

"Stay here and don't do anything stupid," Gwendal said then disappeared into one of the shops.

I was left alone on the street. Some children were crouching on the dry ground throwing something into a circle. Their toys were full of rusted nails.

"Do you want to become carpenters when you grow up?” I asked.

"Carpenters? What nonsense! All men should become soldiers. How else would one earn his bread, riiiiight?”

The other children nodded their heads in confirmation.

"Come inside right now!" a woman raised her voice angrily. Probably she was their mother.

Could my appearance cause so much attention? My hair was dyed brown and I was still wearing my contact lenses.

"Hey, you forgot something!" I called after them, but when I picked up the toys from the painted circle, none of the boys was there anymore.

According to the G-shock watch on my right wrist, it was three o’clock in the afternoon. The temperature hadn’t dropped and sweat was running down my chin.

“Hey, boy!”

I looked around for the friendly voice.

A nice looking woman waved at me from the door of a huge building. Her extremely long eyelashes probably gave her eyes good protection against the sand.

“Isn’t it hot out there? Come into the church, you can wait for your companions here.”

Günter has always drummed into me two things: that I should never accept food or drink from a stranger, but it was okay to seek refuge in a shadowed shelter.

It was very cool inside the stone building. The sweat dried immediately on my skin as if I had stepped from the platform into an air-conditioned train. The idols of the country’s deities were hung on the walls in two long rows that reached the altar. There were about 300 such idols.

"These are all straw dolls!" I said in surprise.

Just like the 'Japanese voodoo'! A shiver ran down my back all the way from my neck. This type of idolatry was just too extreme for me.

"Don’t you pray to such gods?"

A guy with the sushi hairdo suddenly blocked my way to the door with his back. He had at least seven or eight comrades with him. This gave me a bad feeling.

"Not very often," I answered. "Maybe I pray more often to the god of baseball." Not that it had made me any better at the game.

The men closed around me, hands on their swords. Did they want to shred me into pieces inside their own church?

"As long as you keep your mouth shut we won't kill ya."

I heard noises coming from outside. Then the explosive sound of the door burst open.

"Come on, let's get out of here!" shouted Gwendal.

I made a move to run away. But somebody grabbed me roughly and pulled down my hood. They held me from behind and peered into my face.

"This is the one!"

"Wh... what do you mean?"

Thanks to the best Demon technology my disguise looked exactly like a normal human. There was not a trace of the revealing black. But why the hell would these guys want to capture me then?

At that moment, Gwendal entered the church with a surly face, held by the soldiers. He probably would not spare time to appreciate the cool temperature inside the church. Although I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong, I immediately felt the dire need to apologise to my companion.

"Even a demon warrior would find it impossible to use magic inside a church. Isn’t it so? This building was full of the power of our gods."

"What do you want? Money?"

The furrows on Gwendal's brow deepened and his lips were slightly distorted. He was clearly angry.

"Of course it's about money! But we want much more than your pocket money. If we turn you two in to the authorities in the capital we’ll collect a very fat bounty!"

Mister Sushi-Head held out a poster, the one I’d seen before.

"It is you in this drawing, am I right?"

"You think it’s us in those posters? But we aren't candidates." I exclaimed.

For a moment there was a weird silence. It was, apparently, not an electoral poster.

"Don't pretend you know nothing! These drawings look exactly like you.”

Excuse me? What do you have for your eyes, tomatoes?! This time even Gwendal was surprised. Did these guys seriously want us to believe that those bizarre portraits resembled us in any way? Two balloons with spiky hair on top - a drawing I would have made as a preschooler for Mother's Day.

‘Wanted! A tall male demon with grey hair and a human girl dressed as a boy. Both have eloped together. Whoever captures them will receive a bounty of fifty thousand gold pieces.’

"Eloping?" exclaimed Gwendal indignantly. "I'm eloping... with that?!"

"What's with that disdainful tone?" I shouted. "And what is this 'eloping together' all about? Do you mean ‘eloping’ as in: "Our parents are against the marriage, let's run away together"? My god! That would be completely absurd! Do we look anything like a couple? In case you haven't noticed, we are both... "

Men! That was what I meant to say, but before I could finish protesting, Mister Sushi-Head forced his hand through the neck of my clothes, without my permission.

"Arghhhhh!"

"Man, the girl is as flat as a board, even if her breasts just started developing... "

Committing sexual harassment right in front of everyone, yet he showed no sign of embarrassment. And growing tits wasn’t in my future agenda at all! My chest was just as it was supposed to be. With rigorous baseball practice, a lot of batting maybe, I might build more muscles on my chest, but nothing else!

"Well, as long as she has a cute face… There’re always guys who enjoy girls that look like boys."

"I'm not a girl, you stupid asshole! Grope me between my legs, while you’re at it!"

My outbreak shocked the soldiers and they fell quiet for a moment. If Günter could hear the language unfit for a king I was using just now, he would burst into tears with disappointment. Truth be told, I sometimes thought he had a strange perception of me.

Damn it! To clear matters once and for all, I would have wanted my clothes to be torn off. There wasn’t much to show off when it came to size, but at least there was something.

Gwendal couldn’t control his ire either. He bellowed more furiously each time.

"Drop that nonsense! We aren't even remotely similar to that drawing!"

"Exactly!" I roared too. “Or is it that I resemble Charlie Brown?!"

A soldier grabbed my right arm and showed the back of my hand to Mister Sushi-Head.

During the long journey through the sand dunes my hands had become red. In the middle of the sunburn area, a faint whitish mark was still visible, which I had seen somewhere before.

"This is the proof! In our neighbour country, this is the mark for those who have eloped as lovers! Anyone who violates the marriage law will be branded on the back of the hand. You fled from there, and this proves it!” exclaimed Mister Sushi-Head.

"Wait a minute... this is the Sea World’s stamp! It says 'Free Entrance for the Day.’ Don't you know how to read?!"

Of course they couldn't read what it said, this wasn't their language. Damn special ink! This was no longer about my freedom for one day, but my freedom for the whole lifetime.

"Don’t make any foolish mistake, or I’ll break your little friend’s neck! Drop your weapon, come closer and put this on you and the girl."

It seemed the soldiers were afraid to approach a demon. They threw a short heavy-looking chain at Gwendal's feet instead. It made a muffled clanking sound of metal on metal. While Gwendal held his glare steady on the men, he stepped forward, slightly bended down towards the chain and picked it up.

Never before had I had any problem with the police. And I would never have imagined one day I would be handcuffed in a church in a foreign land. Not only was I innocent, they even got my gender wrong!

"Please don’t put it on my right arm... That’s my throwing arm." I told Gwendal.

I breathed with difficulty as one of them was holding me by my neck. Gwendal put the metal rings on my left wrist and his right one. The handcuffs snapped into place with a clicking sound that seemed to extinguish all hope. Between us now hung a thick chain about thirty centimetres long. It was so heavy my shoulder dropped right towards the ground.

Even a pig couldn’t have had such bad luck! I had to be chained to Gwendal, of all the people in the world. What a pair! It wouldn’t take more than a quick glance to tell which one was the police, which one the criminal. As the thought of crimes came to my mind, I suddenly remember the topic featured on Six O’clock News from last week: How should a woman defend herself from a stalker?

"Urgh!" the man who had been holding me all this while groaned and dropped to the floor.

I had given him a head butt and a kick to his crotch both at the same time, which caused me to bite my tongue badly. Instinctively, I reached for one of the idols, grabbed its head and held it out towards the men.

"Don't move! One single movement and I stick this nail right through the heart of your god!"

In Japanese voodoo practice, you actually use a special long and thick nail, but one can't always choose. The rusted nails the children had been playing with would have to do.

Such sacrilege! To hold a deity hostage. If I continued doing such things, maybe one day I'd manage to become a true Demon King.

However Gwendal's lightning-fast attacks were much more effective than my old Japanese ritual curse. As he kicked his extremely long legs, three men went flying through the air. A High Kick, a Round Kick and even a Flying Knee Strike! Urgh! All his kicks hit their targets with devilish perfection.

"Run!" cried Gwendal.

He didn't have to tell me twice. We ran out of the church to the bright and dusty road. Footsteps and angry voices followed us. Something sharp whizzed past my ear and struck the ground two steps in front of me.

"Wow, it barely missed me!" I yelled and sped up.

Our horse was waiting at the town entrance. Grass still hanging from his mouth, he seemed to be happy. Gwendal jumped on the horse, pulled me up by the chain and spurred him on. I didn't even have time to ask if I could wrap my hips around his arms.

Chapter 12

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