Yomigaeri no Maou

Luru slipped between the trees, speeding through the forest.
His reinforced physical abilities given to him through the circulation of mana granted him speed on par with a wolf running through the forest.
The darkness-coloured mana light that shone by his legs were as beautiful as they were in his days as the demon king.

The animals and monsters in the forest couldn’t ignore Luru, the intruder to the forest.
Each time Luru went by, the ears of the animals around him would twitch, and they would turn towards him.
However, they couldn’t deal with Luru’s overwhelming speed and in the end Luru left them behind.

Like that, Luru headed towards the ruin mentioned by Gran and Yuumis.
Even within the forest near the village it was at a comparatively deep location, and was a ruin whose detailed location was known by basically only the hunters of the village.
As for knowledge of its existence however, it was quite famous amongst those that entered the forest, and in fact all the villages knew of it.
Normally he would have asked in detail about the location before heading there, but right now it was a race against time.
He didn’t have the time to do something like that.

Fortunately, he had mostly heard about the direction of the ruins from Gran and Yuumis’ conversations yesterday, and to begin with Luru’s detection capabilities had been raised due to mana.
Thanks to that, he continued forward, having caught small clues about Gran, Yuumis, Rusty, Mii and Yuuri, like their mana, their presences, and their scents.

Luru’s legs didn’t stop.
They were his first human friends since he had been reborn.
There was no way that he would let them lose their lives.

Whether it was good luck or bad luck, close by the ruins that Luru finally arrived at were not just Gran, but Rusty and Mii, and to his shock, Yuuri as well.
Looking carefully, you could see that Rusty and the others were embracing each other, terrified, and trembling enough that words wouldn’t come out.

“Why the h.e.l.l are you here!? What happened with Yuumis!?”

Angrily yelled Gran.
With his greatsword in a guard, he was standing in front of them, protecting them.
His muscular back felt reliable, and he gave off an intensity that felt like he could protect them from anything.
However, even he may have had opponents that he was disadvantaged against, and it seemed that such an opponent was before him.

It was no surprise that Rusty and the others were trembling, for what stood before Gran were a number of those Magus Machines that were hardly ever seen in this era, and were looking at Gran with their inorganic, glowing red eyes.

“I came to save you! Yuumis is maintaining a barrier over the village!”

Said Luru, arriving at Gran’s side.
Looking at Luru suspiciously, he replied,

“Haah!? The h.e.l.l did you say!? Of course that’s impossible! It’s too late for me to say anything now that you’re already here, but… You too! Hide behind me, d.a.m.nit!”

While speaking, Gran turned his greatsword to the Magus Machines.
Were they in the heat of battle, he might not have had the leisure to speak like this.
But mysteriously, the Magus Machines didn’t seem to move, and just continued to stare at them, which is why they could speak like they did.

To explain the design of the Magus Machines in a word, it would be ‘giant’, and they were mostly humanoid, with a thick and large body.
Their hands were armed with swords or axes and such, and given their giant size, could easily turn a person into a lump of meat.
The size of the giants were perhaps 3 metres.
They were almost all made of stone, and looked incredibly hard, and troublesome to deal with.
The area that corresponded to a face had nothing but a single eye that shone red.
Based on all of these traits, Luru guessed that they were the Magus Machine that were ma.s.sed produced in the early days of the way, the “Stone Giants{Lupes Gigantes}”.

If he remembered correctly, their physical abilities were not all too high, and they were simply constructed Magus Machines.
However, because of that their ma.s.s construction was simple, and because they were also difficult to break, they were often used in the public works[Note: public engineering etc.].
The castle that Luru used to live in were also created by a large number of these Lupes Gigantes, so he felt deeply moved somehow.

Though Luru took up a stance against the Lupes Gigantes, he began thinking about the reason why they weren’t attacking.
Though they were used for tasks in public works, it wasn’t uncommon that they were used for battle during emergencies, and during the end days of the human-demon war, almost all of the Lupes Gigantes were converted for battle use.
Accordingly, their attack targets should have been set to humans, but then the fact that they weren’t attacking right now meant that they were a.s.signed some other task.

The wasp-model Magus Machines that had escaped Yuumis, the “Magic Cannon Wasps{Cannon Apis}” had clearly been set to attack humans, though. Just what did this mean…?
He felt that there was some principle behind their actions.

Whilst thinking this, Luru said to Gran,

“I’ll be fine, so you protect Rusty and the others.”

“Like I said, there’s no way I’d b.l.o.o.d.y accept that! I don’t wanna to be the one to have to explain to your parents when something happens to you! To begin with, this happened because of Yuumis and I. Just obediently let me protect you!”

Replied Gran, almost shouting.
He probably felt a sense of responsibility for it, thinking that this kind of thing happened because the two of them had entered the ruins carelessly.
Because of that, he didn’t want any casualties.
It was easy to understand.

But Luru decided not to reply to Gran’s entreaty, and took a step towards the Lupes Gigantes.
Wondering how close he would need to be before the Magus Machines acted, he stepped forward to find out.

“Oi!”

Gran yelled even more, but because Rusty and the others were behind him, he couldn’t move from there.
They didn’t know when the Lupes Gigantes might attack.
Because of that, despite the fact that the Lupes Gigantes weren’t moving, he was forced to stay there.
Normally Yuumis would have come back after setting up a barrier, but because Luru had come here for some reason, Gran had lost his other avenues of action.
Seeing what Luru was doing, as expected Rusty couldn’t bear seeing his childhood friend endanger himself, so whilst trembling, he screamed,

“Luru! He said to stop it!”

However, had this been enough to stop Luru, he wouldn’t have done something like this to begin with.
In the first place, the reason Luru did what he did was because he was the only one that knew how to stop the Magus Machines.
Even if he told Gran how these Magus Machines could be stopped, there was nothing that could be done if Gran wasn’t familiar with the control mechanisms in the ruin.
Because of that, it wasn’t a method that could be finished quickly, and so there was no way Luru could leave it to Gran.
That’s why despite knowing that his words were nothing but consolation, Luru said,

“It’s fine, so you guys just let Gran protect you! I… have to deal with these guys.”

He neared the Magus Machines.
He didn’t know where the boundary [beyond which they would attack] was, but most of the thus far unmoving Lupes Gigantes had their eyes on Luru, and then attacked him.

Are they the type that attack after you enter a certain distance?
Having recognised this, Luru took a distance from them temporarily, and fell back until they stopped attacking.
Of course there was also the chance that they would continue chasing him forever, but the reality was not like that.
As for how far that was, after drawing near and retreating over and over, he realised that it was calculated by distance from the ruins, rather than distance from the pursuing Lupes Gigantes.

Watching that dangerous looking behaviour from behind, Gran also seemed to have come to the same understanding, and relaxed his guard.

“…Seems that they won’t attack unless you get close to the ruins, huh…”

“Yeah. But the wasp model Magus Machines that flew to the village will just attack you no matter what. These ones and those ones probably have a different objective.”

Luru replied to Gran.
Gran tilted his head to the side, and said,

“Objective?”

“You can already guess, right? These rock giants are obviously protecting the ruins. It’s natural to think that those wasps are the same.”

“Then why’d they leave here?”

“Isn’t it because those wasps have a greater range of surveillance than these giants?”

“Ahh… I see. I guess I’ll accept that idea for now. But then there’s still an issue; why are they protecting this place?”

That was certainly a good question.
Luru didn’t know of this ruin.
From the appearance of the ruin, it was a small, round and flat building[Note: think a short cylinder], and though Luru was a bit far from it, he could see a staircase a little from the entrance.
There were a bunch of piled rocks near the stairs, so the stairs probably weren’t normally exposed[ and were normally hidden].
The stairs seemed to lead downwards, so you could tell that they headed underground, but Luru had no memory of such a building.
He didn’t know the purpose of the building either, and had no memory of a place guarded by Lupes Gigantes and Cannon Apis during the war.
That meant that this place was necessarily built after Luru’s death as the demon king, but he couldn’t imagine a reason why they would build such a thing.
Could the ancient demon race have survived longer than he had expected?
It couldn’t be helped that he was concerned about what was inside the ruins.
That’s why Luru spoke.

“I’m going to go into the ruin, and search for…”

However, Gran immediately rejected it.

“Oi. That’s no good. I won’t allow it.”

His words were natural.
It was the job of adults to stop children from doing reckless things.
His words were extremely natural.
However, Luru should have been more correct from a logical point of view.

“Things will get dangerous if we don’t hurry up, you know. A bunch of wasp model Magus Machines escaped, right?”

Right. As long as they didn’t know the range in which they were active, deactivating them quickly was a priority.
They had no hints about how to do so, and so there was probably no mistake that there would be something in the ruins, meaning that they needed to hurry up and investigate inside. His argument was sound.

“That may be true but… To begin with, you’re a kid. Do you get it? Do you have enough power to fight? You don’t, right?”

However, though Luru’s argument may have been natural, to Gran, Luru was definitely just a kid.
There was no way that a kid would be able to do something like that, and he argued that there was no way he could let a kid do something dangerous.
Though Luru managed to discover the Lupes Gigantes’ range of action, in the end it was nothing but that approaching and retreating, so it looked like nothing more than an extended game of tag.
In truth, that was basically all he did.
To Gran, Luru was nothing more than a child with fast legs.
And because Luru understood this quite well, he didn’t think that they would get anywhere with just conversation.

That’s why Luru spoke.

“In other words, you’ll accept it if I have enough power, right?”

“Well, frankly speaking, yeah, but…”

“Then just watch me.”

“Huh…? …O-, OI! Stop it, idiot!”

And without time for Gran to stop him, Luru headed towards the Lupes Gigantes.
He then shrouded his fist in mana and attacked the Lupes Gigantes.
From Gran’s point of view, it was an unbelievable action.
A seven year old child attacked the three metre giant of rock with his bare hands.
However you thought about it, it was nothing more than an act of suicide.

However, what was even more unbelievable to Gran was that the one hit Luru threw at the rock giant’s chest had smashed it into tiny pieces of rock.
Without even stopping, Luru continued towards the next Lupes Gigantes and continued to crush them one by one.

“Oi, oi… What the h.e.l.l is that kid!?”

That was all Gran thought.

“Amazing…”

“So Luru was actually this strong…”

“It’s unbelievable…”

The shocked voices of Rusty, Mii and Yuuri could be heard.

Each time Luru swung his fist, the Lupes Gigantes would be reduced to rubble.
Luru’s small figure that danced about, struck and kicked the giants and leaving them as just bundles of rock looked almost like he was playing.
Despite doing all that, he was still taking it easy.
That was what Gran could feel from him.

And then, by the time they had noticed, the Lupes Giantes around them were all turned to sc.r.a.p rock, and not a single one remained functional.

Having done all that, Luru turned to Gran and spoke.

“I wonder if there’s any problem with my power.”

“…No. Since you’ve done this much, I can’t say a thing.”

“Then you don’t mind if I enter?”

Having said that, Luru stared at Gran.
Gran sighed, and replied,

“I got it… But yanno, these ruins have turned into a pretty big find. You can tell from the Magus Machines just now, right? That’s why it seems like it’ll be annoying in the future if you go in alone.”

“Meaning…?”

“I want you to go with Yuumis and I. But the wasp Magus Machines are a problem. So if possible, I want you to head back temporarily if you find a way to stop them. Then if the ruins continue beyond that, wait for us before you go in, or head back to the village for a little. I don’t want you going in too far. Also I suppose I may as well say this while we’re at it, but I’ve also heard in cases where Magic Dolls{Golems} in ruins aren’t being controlled by someone directly, they’re being controlled by some equipment left in there. Considering that these Magus Machines are moving together towards the same goal, they’re probably of the type that I just mentioned. In these cases, if you mess about with the controls, or you break them, it seems the Golems will stop. That’s why if you find one, destroy it. After that, wait there. If not, then wait somewhere not too far in for us. Those are my minimum conditions. If you accept, then I’ll bring these guys back to the village. …You fine with that?”

Gran looked at Rusty, and said that.
To Luru, as long as he could stop the Magus Machines, he would be happy for now, so he nodded.
If possible, he wanted to search every inch of the ancient demon ruin for clues, but whining about it now would be annoying, so he didn’t.

“Got it. I’m fine with that. …Well then, I’ll leave Rusty and the rest to you. …Rusty, Mii, Yuuri – be careful heading back, alright?”

When he said that, the three of them obediently said,

“Yeah! You be careful too! I mean… I get that I can’t go in with you, after all.”

“Rusty is being obedient for once… Luru. Don’t try to do anything that you can’t, okay? But I know that you won’t do anything reckless like Rusty, so you might be fine even if I didn’t say this.”

“Sorry about this, Luru. I tried to stop Rusty and Mii but… in the end I just made trouble for you all the same. I’ll show you my grat.i.tude later.”

Saying that, they followed Gran and headed towards the village.

Luru once again gazed at the ruin.
They weren’t built of anything strange.
It didn’t look very different from the buildings he had often seen as a demon king.
It seemed that there was no mistaking that this wasn’t built too long after his defeat at the hands of the hero.

“…It’d be nice if there weren’t any traps. Wait, or perhaps the Magus Machines were the trap…”

Like that, Luru headed into the ruins.

Lupes Gigantes: Luu Pehs Gi Gans Tes

Was a bit liberal with ‘その方法をグランたちに教えたところで、遺跡の中にあるだろう中央装置の扱いを知らなければどうしようもない。’

Haaaah!? is a type of scoffing ‘whaat!?’ sound. I don’t just write ‘what’ because ‘what’ lacks the scoffy-ness, and ‘haaah’ is close enough to someone going ‘huuuuh!?’ in the same circ.u.mstances.

/Chapter 6 END