Chapter 200: A Premonition On the Road
Their journey was going quite well.
First of all, to Loren’s surprise, the roads, which were called highways, were quite well paved.
Roads in the realm of the humans were usually just bare earth, although the bigger ones were more-or-less maintained. However, roads in the demon realm were properly paved with stones. According to Lapis, almost all highways in the demon realm were properly maintained. Every year, the demon kings would allocate a budget to pave new roads and maintain old ones.
“I’ve heard that they don’t really maintain the roads so that troops won’t be able to move around as easily in times of war.”
“Troops on both sides? That sounds inefficient.”
“It’s mainly to hinder the enemies, isn’t it? Even if it’s at a slow pace, if your allies move in advance, you’ll be able to place the necessary troops where they need to be.”
In fact, Loren remembered that during his time as a mercenary, he was taught that it served more as an obstruction when enemy forces invaded your country.
Lapis snickered at the common sense of the human race.
“It’s meaningless in the demon realm. Of course, there are some skirmishes amongst Demon Kings, but the Great Demon King is on the top. There’s no need to mobilize large armies. Problems can be solved by the Demon Kings and the Great Demon King themselves.”
Lapis explained that rather than worrying about such things, the demons were more concerned about the delays in distribution caused by the lack of maintenance of the roads.
It was true that if only one person had the strength equivalent to a large army, then this kind of obstruction was pointless, and Loren agreed that it would be more efficient to focus on convenience in peacetime.
What surprised Loren even more was the performance of the wagon they had borrowed from Aus. The road may have been good, but the wagon itself didn’t jolt much. Lapis said that the secret was in the axle and the body of the wagon, but Loren, who was not a specialist in this area, could not understand what was done to reduce the jolting. Nevertheless, the wagon barely shook even when the horse pulling it was going at a rather fast pace, and he was so impressed that he began to seriously consider the possibility of bringing it back to Kapha.
“Maybe I can secretly ask Mother if we can use it in the human realm.”
When adventurers went out on a long trip, they usually rented a mule to carry their luggage or a wagon to ride in. But even though walking was very tiring, riding in a wagon was very b.u.mpy and brought about its own problems like motion sickness and sore b.u.t.ts. However, with this wagon, the likelihood of getting motion sickness and sore b.u.t.ts would greatly decrease, making it worth considering bringing it back to the human world with them.
“As long as we only use it for ourselves and don’t let anyone else find out, I think Mother will agree.”
“If the commission is completed successfully, we should stop by the Demon King’s castle.”
Loren was convinced that a less-jolting wagon totally worth the trip.
“I don’t want to stop by there anymore.”
It was Gula who uttered those words.
When they left the Demon King’s castle, Gula had been loaded into the cart together with their luggage in an unconscious state, probably due to the maids’ attack. A while later, she had finally crawled out from between the luggage, squirming like a caterpillar. Her whole body was carefully bound with ropes. Loren had immediately cut the ropes with the dagger he kept inside his jacket as a backup weapon, but the experience of being hara.s.sed by the maids, losing consciousness, then being tied up left a scar on Gula’s psyche.
“I don’t want to eat baguettes and ham anymore… I want to fill my stomach with proper food.”
“The maids only fed you those?”
“They must have had a lot of leftover food that was going bad. Sometimes that happens, and all we get is that food.”
Looking angry, Lapis said that the maids in charge of stocking were quite irresponsible. But Judie, Lapis’ mother and the lord of that Demon King’s castle, was rather indifferent about such matters and didn’t really reprimand them for it. The result was things didn’t improve at all.
“Indulge yourself for tonight, then.”
Feeling sorry for Gula, who seemed to have been stuffed with nothing but meat and bread under the maids’ watching eyes, Loren suggested. The wagon was loaded with all kinds of food, so he believed it wouldn’t be a problem even if she consumed a bit too much. Lapis did not object to the suggestion, and Gula welcomed it with open arms.
They proceeded in such an atmosphere, and spent the first night of the trip camping outdoors. But from the second day on, the number of demons they pa.s.sed on the road increased, and they were stopped more often.
Unlike human cities, which were surrounded by walls and moats, demon cities seemed to have a building at the center with houses and stores laid out around it, their density decreased as you moved away from the center. It seemed like they had been far enough from the Demon King’s castle that they could be considered to be out of the city now.
In other words, their encounters with patrolling soldiers had increased, and those soldiers often had their eyes on Loren, a human. But these kinds of attention didn’t develop into real trouble because Gula had reverted her red eyes to their original purple hue and Lapis, despite currently having black eyes, was more-or-less known due to being the Demon King’s daughter.
In addition, the white greatsword Loren carried on his back also served as a kind of pa.s.s.
“For something that’s been stored in a warehouse, this sword is quite famous among demons.”
Loren didn’t even know how many times they had been stopped by soldiers until now, but every single time, he just needed to show them the sword, and they would let them go. He now let it rest on his knees in case he required to show it to another group of soldiers.
“It seems so. I didn’t know that.”
Lapis said while steering the wagon. Then she seemed to suddenly recall something and started rummaging around her pockets with one hand before taking out a piece of paper. She gave the paper a shake to unfold it, then read attentively for a while.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the manual for your greatsword. Father gave it to me right before we left.”
Of course, there was no such thing as an ‘manual’ for a sword, but Aus had given Lapis a list of the sword’s properties that had been known since the time Judie used it. It seems that Aus thought it would be pointless for Loren to have a weapon that he didn’t really know how to use, but Loren tilted his head and wondered why he gave it to Lapis instead of him.
“An insurance, so that you don’t just make off with it, I guess?”
Lapis tried to answer Loren’s question. In the event that Loren didn’t carry out Judie’s commission but ran away with the greatsword instead, even though he possessed the sword, Lapis would be the one who possessed the information about it. Lapis would choose to tell him about them or not at her own discretion.
“So they don’t trust me.”
“They don’t know you well enough to trust you.”
‘But I do’, Lapis said, and proceeded to tell Loren about what was written on the paper.
“To put it simply, the sword is very st.u.r.dy, unbreakable, maintenance-free, and so sharp that it can cut through magic.”
“That’s too general.”
In fact, the paper was filled with explanations about the magic that was applied to the sword and the metal used to forge the blade, but Lapis decided that even if she explained all that to Loren, a swordsman, he probably wouldn’t be able to understand anything. So, she skipped all these descriptions and only gave Loren the necessary information.
“Will you understand if I tell you about the synergistic effect of the magic formula and the demon metal on its st.u.r.diness, or the formula that converts the wielder’s life force into its sharpness, or the formula that enables it to record its shape and destruction to repair itself?”
“Ah, sorry, my bad.”
Lapis began listing out, and Loren immediately admitted his wrong and apologized. He realized that if she kept on with such explaining, he wouldn’t be able to understand a thing when she finished.
“It can transform life force and create flames.”
“That’s awesome. So I can become something like a magician?”
A magic sword that could produce flames from its blade was an orthodox yet powerful one. They were occasionally available on the market at a very high price. This was an expensive sword that was normally beyond Loren’s reach. Loren was extremely grateful for being able to obtain it now.
“However, it doesn’t have a limiter for the user’s safety, so if you’re not careful, it can siphon off all your life force and kill you.”
“Now that’s scary.”
If the wielder was a Demon King, even if the sword had absorbed all the life force it could, the most the wielder would feel was some fatigue. That was what written on the paper, but Lapis skipped over it. In fact, from those words, she came to understand that if a human like Loren used the sword’s power with no moderation, he would die for sure.
“In addition, there is a small amount of supportive magic infused in it, such as increasing recovery, strengthening defense, and boosting arm strength. But you’ve probably used them already despite not knowing anything, so there shouldn’t be any difference.”
“Well, those are nice features, aren’t they?”
“Finally, now that you’re officially registered as its user, a new function has become available…”
At this point, Lapis became evasive. Loren peered into the paper, but it was written in a script he didn’t know, so he had no idea what made Lapis act like this.
“Is it something bad?”
“Father just said to have fun using it.”
The fact that there was no warning meant that it wasn’t going to be life-threatening. But a function that a demon, the husband of a Demon King no less, said to ‘have fun using’… There was no way Loren would use it without any information.
“Does it at least say how to use it?”
“Yes, well, but… It’s really insane?”
Lapis said and, as if afraid someone else might hear, leaned in close to Loren’s ears, covered her mouth with her hands, and whispered to him about how to use the new function.
Loren frown once he finished listening.
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t think I can tell you to try it.”
Loren memorized what Lapis had told him in case nothing else worked and he had to use it, but he really didn’t want to be in that kind of situation at all.
“You probably won’t have to use it unless we’re in THAT situation…”
“This is quite ominous.”
But considering the place they were heading to, they couldn’t deny the possibility that they might be forced into a predicament where they wouldn’t be able to do anything about. Also, this was a reward given to them in advance by the Demon King. Loren wondered if Judie had already antic.i.p.ated such a scenario.
“L-Loren, I’ll try my best to not let that happen.”
“Ah, yeah… Well, yes please.”
Lapis clenched her hands into fists to emphasize her determination. Loren had already half-resigned himself to accept that it would happen, so he just patted her head.