Story of The Ancient Demon King!

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“Ready? Yeah? Let’s start! The Jealous Demon is a scary person. They covered an entire city with embers of fire because they were rejected. That too, in an instant.”

“Lies! Lana is full of lies! It’s impossible to do something like that!“

“I’m not lying! Don’t doubt it! Don’t forget to have faith and… well, doubt, too! Let them coexist!“

In the shade of the churchyard where Hildegard had been staring at before leaving, Lana, with her softly coiffed short-cut hair, was telling a fairy tale to five children.

“But seriously, they were still in love and set the whole area on fire! I’m serious!”

“Hey, Lana!“

A man in his thirties walked up to Lana who is trying to make the kids believe her.

“There’s no money in the dojo! What’s going on– Hideba(1)!?“

Lana jump kicked.

“Don’t come here! You’ll become a bad influence on the kids!”

“Go-hauh!”

“What the hell is wrong with this old man… He won’t listen to me. He’ll just spend it on booze!”

The bearded man who entered the room was kicked by Lana.

“…Guw…kuw….No, that’s false. I’m going to use the money to renovate the dojo. I don’t drink!“

“Do something about your red face first! You’re drinking at this hour in the morning!“

“Ouch! No, no! This is due to last night’s drink!”

“You! You’ve been drinking all night?!”

“Hii-?”

♢♢♢♢

“-Shhh!”

He avoided a blow from Princess Erika’s fist by tilting his head slightly.

“That’s it, come at me!“

She came forward with a jab, and after measuring the distance, threw her right hand straight at me.

She was getting good at this, but I was not going to spoil her, so I avoided all of them.

“Damn, I can’t hit him! This is making me so frustrated! Take this!“

“…ten minutes have passed. If you don’t touch me in the next 10 seconds, you’ll have to complete an extra 20 minutes of jump rope.“

“No!”

In the forest at the academy, I was practicing with Princess Erika and her friends while stitching at the same time.

“Ugh! You’re teasing me again…..”

Sometimes I stroked Princess Erika’s face like a professional bullfighter all the while still stitching, to relieve the frustration I felt daily.

She looked a little miffed and embarrassed and had a red face, as if she was happy being teased. She might have been lonely since she had been doing her own training for a while now.

Her expression in situation’s like this was similar to that of Celestia.

“Erika-sama, you are way too open, considering this is a battle. Your desire to beat me up or and make a smug face afterward shows through. We have to control our passionate fighting spirit with cold thoughts.“

“One, two, hook!”

She said ‘hook’ and came at me with a high kick, which I bounced off with my fingers.

“Whoa!”

“You fell down quite hardly, didn’t you?”

I just finished stitching the luncheon mat.

…nice. I think I did a good job. I don’t think it’ll go well with the rock tables indoor, but it will be perfect for the wooden table here.

“…Huh? Where were we? Yes, let’s start jumping rope…!”

“Yes, but I want to have more hands on practise. If this is not good enough, isn’t it better to train more, Glass?”

She tugged at my sleeve to appeal to me to do more practise with her.

This part of her was a little like Celestia. Although, Celestia’s a bit more daring.

“…Every time, they don’t start even if I tell them to start. I always have to struggle. Whenever I enthusiastically exclaim, ‘Let’s start!’ or something similar, I’m always met with an empty silence.“

While Hakuto was facing the improperly cut cloth with an expression like an elementary school student who couldn’t do an upside down headstand, Princess Erika was taking things at her own pace.

I asked her about the situation with Oswald.

She was concerned about the case, and was frustrated that she couldn’t get involved because she had made a promise to Oswald to not do anything dangerous.

I personally felt that there were ways to investigate the case without getting involved with the suspects….

“Sorry! I’m late!”

Oswald said while he came running.

“….why don’t you two do a little snooping this afternoon for a change of pace?”

“”What?””

The investigation had begun(2).

Since both of them seemed to be curious about the case, though they didn’t say so, I wanted to show them how detectives back on Earth investigate.

I might be able to come up with a good hypothesis, since I used to be addicted to famous detective dramas.

I felt bad leaving it only to Celestia. I should help out a little myself. I was getting a little excited about this… investigation.

“Oh?“

“Erika, you’re grounded for a while, aren’t you?”

“…poo~”

She thrashed her legs on the ground and puffed up her cheeks to express her anger.

Well, I thought she looked cute and pitiful, but I couldn’t disobey decisions made by the royals.

“…you just want to be with Glass-sama. Be serious. Don’t play around.“

“You’re being mean again…. For the record, Glass will not tolerate anyone who bullies me!”

“Erica, please start jumping rope as soon as you can. It’s getting cold.“

“Fine.”

Princess Erika finally started jumping rope while grumbling.

“You’re putting too much effort into it, Hakuto-sama. You must break it with only the flow of mana, okay?”

“…I know that. You don’t need to keep repeating it.”

Hakuto turned to the cloth again with a sulky look on his face, perhaps annoyed by my advice.

…I see. Kids these days seem to be annoyed by everything and anything adults say.

Even when they are told to study, they say things like, ‘What’s the use of this?’

In fact, studying has lots of uses… I think it will give one the ability to learn how to accomplish what they want to, and most of all, it allows them to broaden their future path.

Because one will never know when and where they will need to apply the knowledge they’ve learned, or what kind of profession they will be in, studying allows one to prepare for the future by learning various things. This was the opportunity that studying gave to children and students.

Even after I ramble on with countless explanations, kids these days would say, “Shut up, I’m going to join the Aaengers, take me to America…!“

“You’re still just a kid.“

“This is pissing me off! It’s so annoying to be warmly watched over and patted on the head, and then to be called a child!”

♢♢♢

“–His Highness, the murderer is crazy. He’s a madman, but he’s very intelligent.“

Juan’s shaggy hair peeked out over his glasses as he turned his eyes straight at Erika.

The class was over and the rest of the group headed for the city in the afternoon, leaving Erika who wanted to investigate and outdo the rest of them in her own way.

(1) – Onomaetopia.

(2) – This was originally ‘The investigation was a foot.’, but my brain’s slow right now so I’m not able to ascertain whether that’s truly grammatically correct even though it sounds okay to me.

I’ll release the final part soon~