Yomigaeri no Maou

Thinking back upon it, coming from the village to the depths of the ruins was nothing but a series of huge troubles, but going from inside the ruins to the outside took almost no effort at all, and ended with nothing but walking.

“…But still, in the end, was this ruin an ancient demon ruin?”

Muttered Gran, the first one to crawl out of the ruins, to Luru and Iris who were still in the darkness of the ruins.
By the time they left it, the dark curtain of the night had already fallen, so it was dim.
However, perhaps because the moon was out, it was still much brighter than the inside of the ruins, and the outside was filled with the indigo coloured darkness.

“I wonder about that. Wouldn’t it be fine to get Yuumis to investigate? She’s knowledgeable, isn’t she?”

Luru who knew it was definitely an ancient demon ruin, or at least one with some kind of relation to them, just played dumb.
According to Gran, in this age there was no way to determine if something was an ancient demon ruin or not, so he didn’t want to get involved in any unnecessary trouble.
There was also that he wanted Yuumis to investigate appropriately, fulfil her desires for her romance, and on top of that he wanted her to state her knowledge on it.

At the end of the day, no matter how many books he read, Luru had pa.s.sed no more than seven years of his life, and his only information sources were basically only the books at home and his parents, the people in the village, and the merchants that came; speaking frankly, he was ignorant of the world.

There was no way he could know in detail about what was in this world.
At best, he knew the name of the neighbouring countries, and broadly about what kind of regions they were, and what they produced; there was no way for him to find out more than this.
Until he asked Gran about the state of the tools in the city, he didn’t even know that primitive Magus Tools existed.
Though it was true that from the state of the village he had expected that over these thousands of years, the technology had degenerated, there was quite a gap between what he imagined and seeing and hearing about the reality himself.
Perhaps there existed in this world, even magics and technologies that Luru hadn’t even thought of; because of that, he might have no choice but to act.
No, he had to. At least that was what Luru thought after this time’s adventure in the ruins.

That’s why he was thinking that once he got back to the village, he wanted to speak with Yuumis who seemed to have the atmosphere of quite an expert, but thinking about the details of the events leading up to now, it didn’t seem that it would be too easy.
If you thought about her interactions with Gran as an adventurer pair, you could tell that she didn’t seem the type to hold grudges[/drag things out].
However, they would still have to make up first, and Luru was feeling just a little reluctant[/pressured] at having to do that.

Whilst thinking about that, Luru crawled out of the ruins.
After the last member Iris finally crawled out, all of them gazed at the ruin.
It was already night so they couldn’t see it too clearly.

However, the sight of the ruins illuminated by the moonlight was fantastical, and beautiful.

This was where Iris had been sleeping.
Because of that, Luru was able to meet her again in this world.
Right now, she was the only brethren he had in this world.
Rusty was close to him, as were his parents, and the people of the village; there was no mistake about this.

However, Luru held many secrets that he couldn’t talk to them about.
There was n.o.body he could share these with, or in the true sense of the words, tell everything to.
That’s why the fact that Iris was by his side was to Luru, fortune that seemed like a miracle.

Iris was gazing at the ruins as well.
He couldn’t tell what emotions lay in those eyes of hers.

However, after she removed her gaze from the ruins, her eyes met with Luru’s, and she suddenly began to smile.
And at this difficult to describe expression that eased his heart, Luru felt that something that had been frozen in his heart had thawed for the first time since he was born.

“Well, there’s no use in watching this forever… Let’s make a detailed exploration once we have Yuumis. This ruin is that big of a find. A research team might even be dispatched from the capital. It’s sure gunna get busy, huh…!”

Said Gran with a smile.
It was what an adventurer was supposed to be doing; opening up new frontiers.
Whether they were frontiers in regards to the land, or in regards to treasure, or in regards to the sphere of research, it was undeniably the job of the adventurers.
And it was through these achievements piled again and again that their name became famous.

With this time’s discovery, Gran and Yuumis would probably become quite famous.
They might have already possessed fame and fortune, but even so, something like this wouldn’t hurt no matter how much of it you had.

“I’m so envious, Gran.”

That’s why Luru ended up saying that on a whim,.
He wasn’t jealous or anything, and it was just a joke with some irony mixed in.
They were words he spoke hoping to get a rise out of Gran, but as expected you could perhaps say, Gran wasn’t the type of be bothered by this.
While giving a manly[/hearty] smile, he declared something shocking.

“Hahahah! Watcha saying? You’re gunna become busy too, yanno?”

“…Hah?”

Luru tilted his head at Gran’s words.
As for Iris, she was chuckling quietly, and it seems that she understood the meaning behind Gran’s words.

“I was sleeping for a very long time, so I don’t fully understand the circ.u.mstances but… Luru-sama, you too explored the ruin with Gran-sama, did you not? …Being the case, it would not be strange to take you as a person with the important achievement of discovering a ruin, would it…?”

At Iris’ words, Luru finally realised, ‘Ahh, that might be so.‘ but even so, Luru was still a child.
The ones praised for such discoveries were adventurers, and because of reasons like ‘A village child won’t get dragged into that kind of thing.‘, Luru thought, ‘Isn’t that impossible?‘ and refuted Gran.

“Don’t be ridiculous… I’m just a seven year old child, you know? Even if you say that I was one of the explorers or whatever, n.o.body would believe you, you know?”

However, Gran shook his head as though he felt no problems at all.

“No, everybody would believe it I think. If I go around spreading it, that is.”

“…What?”

“My mouth is looser than a potato sack you know?[Sorry. Couldn’t think of Eng equivalent expression so made one up.] If I start drinking I’m confident that I’ll immediately start talking about what happened today… Moreover, Yuumis is mortified at having her barrier tampered with by you, so she’ll start spreading the same thing, yanno. You should already know what bad drunks we are, right? Just the other day, you saw it yourself after all.”

For an instant, Luru thought to seriously ask him to stop, but seeing how bold he was, it seemed pointless to Luru, so he gave up.

To begin with, thinking about it carefully, he wasn’t planning on hiding for the rest of his life or anything.
It was just to the degree of not wanting to start insisting in public that he used to be the demon king, and he held no reservations about using the magecraft and martial arts that he had acquired.
He was fine with these rumours being spread.
It was a topic that wasn’t a problem at all.

Having said that though, he felt like pa.s.sing on both being treated like a braggart, and being looked down on.
If it was spread that a seven year old held the achievements of being a ruins explorer, he would probably end up being called a liar and looked down on.
About these problems, Luru asked Gran.
He replied,

“Well, it’ll probably be fine not to worry too much about that. Though we look like this, Yuumis and I are actually quite famous adventurers in the capital. If the two of us evaluate you highly, as long as they aren’t a total idiot, they aren’t gunna pick a fight with you. Moreover, as long as you’re in the village, you won’t get involved with those sort of guys. Well, since there is a ruin, there might be more adventurers coming here than before, but, it’s just to that degree. Don’t worry about it so much… And well, honestly, that’s only if I start spreading it. In the end it was just a joke, so don’t sweat it. If you really wanted me to spread it, and you wanted merits for what you did this time, then I don’t mind since it’s the truth and all but… You don’t want that, right? I’ll stay quiet, so relax.”

Like that, Gran guaranteed him, so Luru felt relief that his lifestyle didn’t seem like it’d be getting all that difficult.
In the end, what he said just now was just returning a joke to Luru’s joke, and he probably had no intentions of spreading any rumours.
Gran was an adventurer, after all.
He couldn’t be that loose-lipped, since his responsibility of confidentiality as an adventurer wasn’t something that he could just toss away.
That’s why in that sense, it was also a relief, Luru thought.

And like that, feeling like everything they needed to say before returning to the village had been said, the three of them began to head away from the ruins.

The next time they’d be coming would probably be tomorrow, or the day after…

Thinking this, just as they began to walk, a huge rumbling could be heard from behind them, and the three turned around.

When they did, the scene that lay before them was the round, above-ground entrance building collapsing.

“Oi, oi…”

Muttered Gran, holding his head.
Moreover, it didn’t just stop there.

After the above-ground parts had finished collapsing, next was the sound of what seemed to be rumbling from beneath the earth.
If you put your ear against the ground and listened for where the sound was coming from, you could hear that it was coming from the ruins that stretched underground.
They were probably collapsed the same way the above-ground portions had.
Despite thinking that it was great that it happened after they left, Gran held his head at the sound coming from the discovery that he and Yuumis had finally found.
It was the same as their livelihoods.
Hearing the sounds of this collapsing away gave a similar feeling to helplessly watching money melt before their eyes.

After the rumbles of the ruins collapsing had mostly subsided, Luru lightly pat Gran on the shoulder, who was drooping his head lifelessly, and said,

“Well… This kind of thing can happen too, right?”

For an instant, Gran stared at Luru with a pathetic expression, and then dropped his shoulders.

“Seriously… When I’m with Yuumis, this kind of thing happens a lot, huh… I’m kinda used to it by now. Hahhh…”

However, he was quick to recover as well, and immediately straightened his back.

“Well then, should head back to the capital? We really don’t have anything to do anymore… In the end, our harvest was just the Magus Machines in the village, and the parts of the giants scattered outside the ruins, huh?”

“Isn’t this better than nothing at all?”

Said Iris gently, with a finger on her lip.

“If I had to say, then you’re right… It’s just that…”

“It’s just that?”

Tilting her head, Iris prompted him to continue.
Gran complied, and said,

“Yuumis is sure gunna cry, huh…”

Gran’s voice resounded amongst the ma.s.ses of stone that were scattered about.

When the three returned to the village, they saw Yuumis who was totally exhausted from maintaining the barrier all this time, glaring at them from the other side of the barrier.
It seems that Gran and Iris didn’t enter her eyes, and she was looking straight at Luru.
Though he was a former demon king, her gaze held enough strength that he drew back a little, and even Luru felt a little hesitant about speaking to her.
However, it seems that Yuumis had plenty of things to say to Luru.
Her mouth opened to spew a ma.s.sive amount of abuse at Luru, and it ended up being a scene where Gran and Iris just silently watched them.
Luru sent a look of ‘Can’t one of you do something about this?‘, but each of them had their own reasons for not meddling.
Gran simply just didn’t want to get involved once Yuumis became like this, and from what Iris heard about what Luru did to Yuumis, she felt that it couldn’t be helped.
Furthermore, to Iris it was a somehow nostalgic scene to see Luru being scolded by someone, and because she had some rather problematic inclinations, she felt a little happy at watching it.

In the end, Luru was completely exhausted from being shouted at for an hour, and was collapsed on the ground.
On the other hand, Yuumis look completely refreshed with glossy skin, and seemed to be in a quite a good mood.
Normally yelling continuously would tire someone out, but this was different for Yuumis alone.

Though they wondered if she would be exhausted from mana depletion because she had to continuously maintain the barrier, it seems that this wasn’t the case, and instead it was mental exhaustion because she had wondered if she could fix the barrier somehow and challenged herself to try it, only to conclude after a while that it was impossible after all.
However, after letting all of this stress out on Luru, it seems she became refreshed.

With that, Yuumis let go of all ill reserves, and spoke to Luru.

“I made sure that Rusty and the others went home. Also, as for you Luru, I told your mother for you… She probably doesn’t know about your magic, right? It seemed that way, at least. That’s why I didn’t know if it was fine to tell her about it, so I just decided to say that you were safe with Gran. Making up a story that fits is something you’ll have to work out yourself, okay?”

She was surprisingly considerate and attentive.
In the end, he had left the village without saying a thing to his mother, so Luru was wondering what to do.
However, since Yuumis had said all of that for him, he felt that he’d be able to make up some excuse.
After thinking for a little, Luru nodded.

Seeing him nod in agreement, Yuumis moved onto the main topic.

“Then, would you mind taking down the barrier? It’s impossible for me… Honestly, I have no idea how to undo it…”

It seemed that she really was having trouble, so Luru decided to take down the barrier and walked towards it.
However, before he could, Iris had walked up to it and after fiddling with it for a little, in the end the barrier was taken down as though it were smashed apart.
Seeing Iris do this, Yuumis said completely dumbfounded,

“Wh-… Whawhawha-!!

with her eyes spread wide in shock.
Seeing Yuumis’ expression, Iris made a refreshed smile and declared to Yuumis,

“Well then. With this, everything should be fine, yes?”

Yuumis was lost for words, and Luru wondered just why on earth Iris had done that.

When he asked about it later, she said, “Because she had screamed at you too much, Ojisama. Though you were in the wrong as well, as your retainer, I could not hold back my desire for a little revenge, you see.”

Though he replied that she could have just stopped the screaming itself, Iris said something like “I could understand why Yuumis-sama was angry, so…” so there was nothing that could have been done about it.

With everybody becoming exhausted, Gran looked up at the dark night sky.

“Well, a lot happened today. It’s pretty late as well. I have things I want to explain to Yuumis as well, so how ’bout we break up for now?”

Suggested Gran.
Things to discuss, and things to ask; there was no doubt that there was a lot to talk about.
However, truly, a lot too much had happened today.
The suggestion that going home, sleeping on things, and talk again later would be more fruitful, was Gran’s way of showing consideration.
Even with the blood rushing to her head, Yuumis understood that much, so with a face that seemed to say ‘can’t be helped, then‘ she replied, “I get it already… Well then, I’m going, Gran.”  and began to walk towards the inn.
However, Gran said,

“Yeah, I’ll be escorting these kids home, so head back first. I’ll come right after!”

and saw Yuumis off.
Yuumis seemed to have a lot she wanted to say as well, but because it certainly wouldn’t do to have the seven year old looking Luru to go home by himself, it seems that she a.s.sented.
She returned to the inn, waving her hand.
However, she did not forget to get in a final word.

“Luru, and that girl too! Tomorrow you’d better explain everything properly!”

Which was in a way, a show of her concern.
You could feel from her screams at Luru quite a bit of worry for him.
At heart, she was the same as Gran; a considerate person.
It was because of this that the two of them adventured together.

Luru and Iris waved their hands at her, and began walking with Gran – towards Luru’s house; in other words, the house of only n.o.ble family in this village, the Cadisnola Residence.

/Chapter 11 END