Merry (belated) Christmas! I keep accidentally writing Nagai Koto character names instead of Kaif.u.ku characters lol. Thanks for reading~
We came to the only town in the world where humans and demons coexist, Buranikka. Everyone entered the town.
"Ellen, you should pull your hood deeply over your head. Don"t let your face be seen." (Kearuga)
"Certainly, Kearugniisama!" (Ellen)
Following my instructions, Ellen pulled her hood deeply over her head.
After all, although I slightly tampered with her appearance by using【Transformation Heal】, there are still traces of princess Norn, who tried to destroy this town. There are many people that still resent princess Norn in Buranikka.
… It will probably be fine if I changed her appearance a lot more boldly with【Transformation Heal】, but I don"t want to do that.
That dims the feeling of playing around with princess Norn. Besides, if I"m going to change her face to however I want, without paying respect to her former face, then there"s no need to make her a beautiful girl. It goes against my aesthetics.
"Kearugsama. Buranikka seems peaceful." (Setsuna)
"Yeah. Our fight wasn"t pointless." (Kearuga)
Setsuna says her thoughts while looking at the state of the town.
When we left this town, the town was in quite a tattered state, but it seem to have recovered a lot in a short period of time.
Shop owners are energetically touting, and there are many people around.
Princess Norn"s attack didn"t break the relations.h.i.+p between humans and demons, and as usual, humans are laughing together with demons.
A cat therianthrope type demon is running across the main street while carrying a bundle of paper.
Then, she stops right in the centre of the town square.
"Extra news! Extra news! We received a follow-up report from the new demon king, Eve-sama! Official information from the new regime! Buy it! Buy it!"
She seems to be a newspaper seller.
Unexpectedly, the printing technology from humans seem to have grown in Buranikka, and they even have the culture of newspapers.
People gather around the newspaper seller.
Everyone seems interested about the new demon king"s regime.
"I"m curious about what they wrote about Eve. I"ll go buy one too." (Kearuga)
"Kearugniisama, I agree. Knowing the public opinion is important after all." (Ellen)
Like that, I purchased a newspaper.
I can read the newspaper later, but for now, we"re going to a tavern.
We already decided on the store we"re going to today. It"s a popular store, so we"ll need to wait unless we take a seat quickly.
It"s slightly bad mannered, but I"ll slowly read the newspaper while drinking alcohol.
The place I’m visiting, is one of the stores I was introduced to before by my friend.
He was the only friend I made in Buranikka.
If he was still alive, he would find a business opportunity in the change of the new demon king regime, and might have suddenly risen in the world.
He was an excellent, good guy. I lost a guy that deserved better.
"Kearugniisama, it"s a very lively store, isn"t it." (Ellen)
"Well yeah, this much is normal for a popular store in a big town. Is this your first time seeing a store like this?" (Kearuga)
"Yes, I didn"t have an opportunity until now." (Ellen)
Now that I think about it, I haven"t invited Ellen to a store like this before.
We departed from Buranikka immediately after princess Norn changed to Ellen.
After that, we went to the village of the kokuyoku tribe, the village of the persecuted races, and then the demon king castle.
I couldn"t take her to a developed town, nor a good tavern.
"Be as luxurious as you want for now. Go order everything you"re interested in." (Kearuga)
"Then I will, without reservation." (Ellen)
This store has many things in its menu
Furthermore, none of them are misses.
They"ve prepared quality alcohol too. It will surely satisfy Ellen.
Letting her order what she wants to is interesting, since it shows her personality.
While swinging her tail around, Setsuna orders nothing but meat dishes.
On the other hand, Freya mainly orders refres.h.i.+ng dishes, like salads and seafood dishes.
Ellen chose interesting and unusual things, and Kureha ordered anything that seemed to be missing after looking at everyone"s orders.
"Guren, it"s time to eat. Wake up already, we"re having a feast." (Kearuga)
The kitsune cub above my head is rounded up in a ball. She was probably that scared during the trip on the flying dragon, as she"s sound asleep from getting exhausted.
She wouldn"t wake up even if I shook her, so I gave up and put her on top of a chair. I"ll order some takeaway for her.
Apart from than that, I"ll also order some staple food.
I"ll read the newspaper I bought before while waiting for our orders to come.
"I see, the official announcement from the new regime is informative, and easy to understand. It seems they had been preparing in advance." (Kearuga)
What was written on the newspaper, was the government policy from the new demon king, Eve. Other than that, there were tax systems and so on, that the people would be curious about.
The comparison to demon king Hakuou"s age is summarized well, and it"s easy to understand.
Most likely, after learning that Eve became the demon king, the chiefs of each tribe that have work experience on politics used something like a carrier pigeon, to scatter the information to the main towns, but they wouldn"t have been able to make this if they didn"t start preparing before Eve became the demon king.
There seem to be many experienced chiefs who were serving the demon king from two generations ago, so they will probably become reliable.
"Kearugniisama, please let me read it too." (Ellen)
"Yeah, sure thing." (Kearuga)
Ellen narrows her eyes, and finishes reading the newspaper in two, three seconds.
Since she has learnt speed reading, she was able to put all the contents in her head in a short period of time.
Afterwards, she faces down, and started studying it in her head. She"s wrapping her hair around her finger round and round.
It"s an action she takes when she enters a state of deep concentration.
The movement of her finger stops. She seems to have finished studying it.
"Ellen, how do you see it?" (Kearuga)
"It"s not bad. The fundamental plan of action of『making all demons equal』, will make enemies easily, but since those words sound good to the ear, there shouldn"t be much complaints in public." (Ellen)
"Why do you think it"ll make enemies easily?" (Kearuga)
"That wouldn"t be fascinating for the races that were given favourable treatment by demon king Hakuou, and the races that were finally released from persecution would have thought that"s it"s their turn this time, so it will make enemies out of both sides. For short term stability, welcoming one side would be better, but thinking about long term, after holding down the disorder at the start, is good too." (Ellen)
Ellen"s view is quite political.
It"s an opinion that we don"t have.
"How else do you see it?" (Kearuga)
"The fact that they are reducing the tax from the previous generation is on my mind. … The previous generation demon king wasn"t particularly spending extreme amounts, and when I looked through the doc.u.ments in the demon king castle to pa.s.s the time, I saw that he only gathered an appropriate amount of money to use. Even though they are already in a situation where they need money to start up a new regime, they might go bankrupt if the tax is reduced. I am worried whether those people are just reducing the tax as a publicity stunt." (Ellen)
"Well yeah, they"re probably going to cut down the maintenance costs on the army." (Kearuga)
After all, the demon king army is mostly made up of the previous generation"s followers, so I don’t think the new demon king regime would just use that existing army.
"This is just my intuition, but I think that might not be it. In the first place, I know that Eve insists on equality with all demons, but the fact that they allowed them to officially announce that and distribute it to each town seems contrived. Since the people that hold the real power right now are the formerly persecuted races, they should have been revolting more… returning to the demon king castle as fast as we can will probably be a good idea. Eve"s real enemies might unexpectedly be her followers." (Ellen)
"Yeah, for that sake too, I need to get the【Philosopher"s Stone】quickly." (Kearuga)
It should be hard to hurt Eve, a demon king that holds overwhelming power and orders of absolute compliance, but even so, it"s dangerous.
As I thought about that, the alcohol and cooking was carried over.
It smells good.
Setsuna"s stomach made a sound.
"… Kearugsama, excuse me." (Setsuna)
Setsuna"s face is blus.h.i.+ng, and she seems embarra.s.sed.
"Don"t worry about it, for now, let"s just toast. Guys, hold your gla.s.ses." (Kearuga)
Everyone holds up the alcohol they ordered.
"Cheers!" (Kearuga)
Knocking gla.s.ses together, we started our banquet.
… We are more or less celebrating the subjugation of the demon king. It"s not too extravagant, despite how big of an achievement we had, but celebrating it just with friends in a store that has good alcohol and food is better, since it won"t be so mentally fatiguing.
If we return to the demon king castle, we might be praised extravagantly and have a grand banquet, but that seems extremely tiring.
"Kearugsama, this cooking called kurunaara is interesting, and Setsuna likes it." (Setsuna)
"I also like it. It"s fun making it to your liking." (Freya)
It seems Setsuna and Freya are liking the kurunaara that I ordered.
You add ingredients to something that looks like thin bread, and cover it with whatever sauce you like.
Several ingredients were laid out, such as fried ground meat and seafood, tomato, other vegetables, cheese, and so on.
You can combine them together however you want.
The one I like, is the combination of lamb with tomato and cheese as a topping, and spicy sauce.
Freya liked seafood, avocado, lettuce, and sweet sauce.
Setsuna unexpectedly chose only protein, with cow, pig, lamb, and cheese with sour sauce on top. … Just looking at it is giving me heartburn. As expected of the ice wolf tribe.
"Kearugniisama, this cuisine tastes good too!" (Ellen)
Ellen brought a red, cylindrical food to my mouth.
Plenty of cheese is on it.
"It certainly is good." (Kearuga)
It"s an intricate cuisine.
They seem to have wrapped chicken meat in thin bread, boiled it in tomato sauce, and baked it in the oven after putting cheese on it.
It has a soft mouthfeel, and the taste has unity.
"Kearuga, this omelette is great too. The egg itself is soaked with flavour, and it"s delicious." (Kureha)
"… This is interesting. They didn"t pour sauce over it, but they mixed the soup with the egg and then cooked it, huh." (Kearuga)
Kureha"s favourite was the omelette that was cooked after mixing all the ingredients and soup with the egg.
Because the soup was made well, the taste has depth, and it"s easy to eat.
I"ve come to this store multiple times, but I still can"t see the end to it.
They have good local alcohol, and there"s plenty of good food. I want to come again.
As we talked, the seats became full, and people started getting drunk around us. Demons and humans joined shoulders and stood up.
"New demon king Eve"s regime, banzai!"
"Now it"s become easier to do business!"
While reading the newspaper, they"re getting fired up.
They seem to be merchants, and in the new demon king regime report, it mentioned that the goods that some demons are monopolizing sales over, can freely be sold.
With bright red faces, the merchants talk to each other about the new demon king regime.
It seems their expectations mostly exceed what I was expecting.
Since demon king Hakuou had a tyrannical rule, this is probably the recoil.
"Apparently black knights have been appearing in this highway recently. The people attacked by those guys get turned into black knights, which makes the next black knights."
"What, that"s such a badly made ghost story. Gahahahaha, do you really believe it?"
"I thought it was just a rumour, but there are quite a few people that said they saw it."
They"re laughing it off, but I know of those black knights.
If their conversation is true, then that"s terrible.
… After all, I thought only the Dioral king could make black knights.
However, if the black knights have the power to change living things into black knights, the black knights will exponentially increase.
There"s no stopping something like that.
The world will seriously be destroyed.
I should keep this in the back of my head.
I return my senses to Setsuna and the others.
Everyone ate up all the food. Since there was quite a lot, we don"t seem to need any more.
Everyone asks for the dessert they want.
Since they"re girls, they seem to like sweet things, and they"re all ordering dessert with sparkling eyes.
"Next time, let"s go together with Eve too." (Kearuga)
"Nn. Being left out is pitiful." (Setsuna)
"Yes, this store has such delicious food after all." (Freya)
"Kearugniisama, you are kind!" (Ellen)
"Couldn"t we give her a souvenir?" (Kureha)
Setsuna and the others nod.
It will probably be hard for Eve, the demon king, to come to a normal store in a town like this.
However, I can do something for her.
Today was fun, and it should be even more fun with Eve.
After our stomachs swelled out, we moved to the inn.
We splurged, and rented a wide, good room.
By paying additional fees, we got plenty of hot water to clean our bodies.
Other than eating, today we"re also going to have some amus.e.m.e.nt we"ve been neglecting for a while.
I take off my clothes.
"Now, everyone, take off your clothes. I couldn"t give you guys love for so long. I"ll do all of you in one go today." (Kearuga)
"Kearugsama, happy." (Setsuna)
"My body was always throbbing." (Freya)
"Please give me lots of love, Kearugniisama." (Ellen)
"Doing everyone together is quite embarra.s.sing." (Kureha)
We didn"t even have enough spare time to do this for a while.
My patience was basically at the limit, and it was tough for Setsuna and the others too.
Making them go in turns is just pitiful. I"ll satisfy all of them.
Setsuna and the others shyly took off their clothes.
However, their faces had expectations for what we"re going to do now. It seems their bodies are also prepared.
It"s a magnificent view of beautiful girls each having different personalities standing in a line. At the same time, it also stimulates me very much.
… Taking four people in one go might be tough for even me, but these women are all starving for me. I should be able to give love to everyone today.