Chapter 32: This Is the Demon King’s Key

Deep in the waterway we had wandered into by mistake lay a wide chamber, bathed in the same pale violet magical glow I had once seen in a goblin cave in the forest. In that space—just like back then—a misshapen, four-armed iron golem that looked as though it had crawled free from a collapsed stone statue was attacking a little girl.

Of course, not in a sexual sense. In a wholesome, purely violent sense.

The girl was defending herself from the golem’s four vicious-looking weapons with a hemispherical shield glowing a faint green—probably some form of defensive magic.

"What are you standing there gawking at?! Hurry up and lend me a hand, will you?!"

She looked to be about ten years old: long flaxen hair, a cute face, well-dressed… and somehow absurdly arrogant for a child.

"Alright! Hang in there just a bit longer! I’m coming to help!"

From behind us—where Ririka, Natsumi, and I stood frozen, unsure of what to do—Shogo burst forward. Just like his original character, he was the hot-blooded type who couldn’t ignore someone in trouble.

"Hadoken!"

Shogo brought his hands together at waist height in the familiar pose and fired a ki blast.

It struck the golem in the head with a sharp crack and a flash of energy, but only made it stagger slightly.

"No choice… guess we’ll go with that tactic again. …Erica! Drop the armor!"

『It is possible, Master. However, directly above our current position is a massive structure believed to be the residence of the local ruling class—what would commonly be referred to as a castle or palace. If the container’s excavation system is used, there is a risk the structure will collapse. Is that acceptable?』

"Abort the drop! We’ll think of another way!"

『Acknowledged.』

I cut the connection with Erica and couldn’t help yelling at Ririka.

"You idiot cat-eared girl! What do you mean this leads outside the city?! We’re right under the palace!"

"I’m sorry, nya! I didn’t think we’d end up somewhere like this either, nya!"

"A-anyway, we need to support Shogo-san! It’s dangerous for him to fight alone!"

Prompted by Natsumi, we all sprang into action.

"Got it, nya! Ririka can at least act as a decoy, nya!"

"I’m not gonna let Shogo-san fight by himself either!"

"Dias! Use this to protect yourself as much as you can! Erica! Unlock the Falchion! Let him use it!"

I tossed the Falchion Mk.42 electromagnetic-barrel assault rifle I’d been carrying to Dias. What had looked like nothing more than a rectangular box unfolded its barrel and grip, transforming into a proper rifle.

"Much obliged! With this, even I can be useful!"

Dias shouldered the weapon.

With his shaved head and dark skin, the heavily muscled macho guy somehow looked perfectly at home wielding an automatic rifle.

I drew the handgun strapped to my thigh beneath the long skirt of the plain clothes I’d grown used to wearing since arriving in Godart City. As I took aim, a cross-shaped reticle and remaining ammo count appeared in my vision, a square cursor overlapping the iron golem with the label [unknown].

At the golem’s feet—its body more than three times a human’s height—Shogo faced it head-on while Ririka and Scarlet danced to its left and right, evading and harassing it as it swung all four weapons. Meanwhile, the little girl slipped free of its attack range.

"Everyone, fall back! I’ll stop its movement! …Slash it apart—Hydro Cutter!"

At Natsumi’s warning, the three on the front line leapt away as a compressed jet of water unleashed by his magic sliced through the stone ceiling above the golem. Chunks of shattered masonry rained down onto it.

The damage itself seemed minimal, but the fallen stone buried its legs and pinned it in place.

"Nice one! Gunfire won’t do much to its surface! If you’re shooting, aim for the eye!"

"Leave it to me! I might be a newbie at RPGs, but I’ve drilled this thing every night with my bros—and I’ll show you what my airsoft-hardened clan, Team Delta, can do in the real world!"

This time, Dias and I poured our gunfire into the golem’s head, destroying the single red-glowing eye set deep beneath a visor reminiscent of a Western suit of armor.

The brotherly, beefcake macho man who had clearly been transferred to the wrong world let out a triumphant shout.

"Yeee-haaa! This is one hell of a rush!"

Thanks to the nanomachines in my body, I could shoot with precision using targeting assist—but Dias, who had just been handed a scopeless, space-marine-spec assault rifle, landed every shot while firing full-auto from the hip. I couldn’t help letting out a breath of admiration.

For some reason, in RPG-style battles his hulking muscles were useless—but they had more than enough strength to control the recoil of a full-auto rifle. Combined with what was clearly extensive FPS experience and real-world airsoft training, his skill was the real deal.

"Alright! Time to finish this! …Divine Devourer Vacuum—Hadoken!!!"

Shogo clasped his hands together, charging longer than usual before unleashing a brilliantly radiant ki blast with a thunderous shout. It slammed into the golem’s head and blew it apart.

Deprived of its head, the golem rapidly lost power, all four arms drooping limply as it froze in place.

Shogo’s techniques couldn’t kill living beings, but they apparently worked just fine on a lump of iron.

"We did it! That was some great teamwork!"

As Shogo raised a fist in victory, Scarlet charged forward and wrapped him in a hug.

"As expected of you, Shogo-san! That was awesome! That amazing Hadoken just now—if you can pull out something like that, I wish you’d do it with me too♡"

"Ah—yeah, maybe next time… I’m kind of exhausted right now…"

"...I’d appreciate it if you did that sort of thing when I’m not around. That aside, it really doesn’t turn into light and disappear when it’s beaten by Shogo-san’s techniques, does it?"

Deliberately ignoring the flirting pair as much as possible, Natsumi approached the immobilized golem and tapped it with his staff—tap, tap. The golem dissolved into particles of light, vanishing amid a clatter of coins and scattering rainbow-colored ore across the floor.

"Huh? Does that mean it counts as me defeating it? With my level capped, there’s no point in experience… kind of feels like I did something wrong."

"Eh, it’s fine, isn’t it? Collapsing the ceiling was a solid idea."

When I stepped closer to where the golem had stood, I noticed a key mixed in with the coins and ore—the same type we had found back in the goblin cave.

"Another one of these keys, huh. It looks exactly like the one we found before. Does it actually mean anything?"

As I picked it up to examine it, the little girl from earlier walked over, snatched the key from my hand, stared at it for a moment, and then spoke.

"This is the Demon King’s key."

"The Demon King’s key… huh."

We sat down on the floor of the underground chamber where the golem had vanished. After trudging through the waterways, we were tired and hungry, so while eating preserved bread and dried meat and drinking water Dias had taken from his item box, we listened to the little girl’s story.

"Mm. It’s said that if you gather five of them, the gate to the Demon Realm will open, and the Root-of-All-Destruction Demon King, Bad End, will manifest in this world."

She sat cross-legged atop an altar, folding her arms and nodding with exaggerated gravity.

She was adorable and well-dressed—and yet somehow overwhelmingly smug for a child.

"Is that really true, nya? How do you even know something like that, nya?"

The little girl snorted arrogantly through her nose before answering.

"About two months ago, a messenger arrived from the great sage Hemsworth-dono of the Sage’s Tower. He brought word that a new document had been discovered—one detailing the existence and manifestation of the Root-of-All-Destruction Demon King, who dwells in the Demon Realm and plots the downfall of this world."

"Two months ago… that’s before we got transferred here, nya?"

"That would’ve been when the Demon King subjugation event was held. So that’s how the people of this world interpreted it."

Ririka and Natsumi nodded in unison, looking satisfied, as if everything finally made sense. I, on the other hand, had never played the game to begin with, so parts of it still didn’t quite click.

"So it’s basically a key item used to summon the Demon King… but is it really okay for some random golem to casually drop something like that?"

"Even if it’s called a Demon King, it’s just an event raid boss, nya. The key is probably a consumable item that drops endlessly from slightly stronger dungeon bosses, nya."

"When you hear ‘Demon King,’ you expect something lurking at the deepest level of a dungeon, waiting for players."

"It was the management’s desperate last cash-grab event, nya. There was no Demon King in the setting at all until they suddenly shoved it in, so everything about it was sloppy, nya. Even the W〇k〇 updates couldn’t keep up, so no one knew the summoning conditions—but the idea that something like this could summon a world-ending Demon King is just ridiculous, nya."

"But according to that sketchy rumor Siegfried mentioned, defeating the Demon King is supposed to be the condition for returning to the real world, right? It’s hard to believe, but at least we finally have a lead…"

As Ririka and I talked, Shogo listened with his arms folded, then muttered to himself.

"So that’s how it was over in Gransil? What I heard was that defeating the resurrected evil god—the one originally planned as the final boss—would send you back to reality."

"That evil god is from the original Sword Blaze Fantasy lore, way before the game itself, isn’t it? In-game, it’s just background flavor. Compared to the Demon King, that’s an absurdly long shot."

Natsumi added that with an exasperated look on his face.

"Anyway, the Demon King is a raid boss that requires thirty people at the recommended level of 250 or higher, nya. Without specialized counter weapons, you can’t even deal proper damage, nya. Even with Claris-nyan’s weapon, it’d still be questionable, nya. We should absolutely avoid summoning it until we’re fully prepared, nya."

At Ririka’s suggestion, we all nodded, and the Demon King discussion came to an end. By chance, we’d learned what the key was—but there was still something else we needed to confirm.

"So, missy, why were you all alone down here anyway? Did you get lost? Aren’t your mom and dad with you? Do you know where your home is?"

"How rude! Do not lump me together with some random brat!"

I’d tried to be as gentle as possible so I wouldn’t scare her, but she snapped back anyway. Maybe girls this age really did hate being treated like children.

"That loli is probably this kingdom’s loli granny queen, nya."

"The in-game graphics didn’t really show it clearly, but she is tiny. A loli granny."

"Like I◯g◯dr◯d or something. Still, a no-ja-loli loli granny queen feels a bit too on-the-nose, doesn’t it?"

"Man, there are people who actually enjoy being ordered around by a loli granny… humanity’s got some deep karma, huh."

"I’ve always thought this was one of those things Japanese games really ought to rein in. Skinny little characters are always strong, and muscleheads are just jobbers, right? Well, everyone’s got their tastes—I’m not saying loli grannies are bad or anything."

"W-what is wrong with you people?! Loli granny this, loli granny that! Do not call me such things! I am neither a loli nor a granny! I am Queen Tilda of Larentia!"

The no-ja-loli loli granny snapped.

With no real choice, I tried to calm her down.

"Okay, okay, good girl, let’s calm down now. So, l—Tilda-chan, why were you all alone down here?"

"I told you not to treat me like a child! Are you doing this on purpose?!"

I’d started enjoying myself a little too much and ended up making her even angrier. The loli granny queen looked on the verge of tears. You’re really selling the ‘loli’ part here.

"Alright, alright, I get it. So tell me—why is Her Majesty the Queen down here all by herself?"

"V-very well… you did save me from danger, after all. I shall forgive your earlier rudeness."

The loli granny queen nodded deeply, composed herself, and continued.

"I was ensnared by the schemes of a certain adventurer and confined with the children of the royal capital in the same room deep within the palace. There, I was forced to endure nonsensical lessons—language, morals, arithmetic, science—against my will. That scoundrel claimed he was guiding the children into becoming upright and wholesome citizens, but to lecture me, the queen of this nation, on morality is laughable. Even the court ladies acting as instructors clearly had no idea what they were supposed to teach me at this point. I had no intention of humoring such foolish games, so I used a secret passage in the palace, made my way through the underground waterway, and attempted to escape outside. It was then that I discovered an unfamiliar altar in this chamber. My curiosity got the better of me, and when I tampered with it slightly, that golem emerged from the stone statue—and I found myself in quite a predicament."

Ririka, Natsumi, and I exchanged exhausted looks and sighed in unison.

"It’s not exactly the same as Masato, but… this time it’s some kind of self-appointed moral guardian—or maybe something even worse…"

"And seriously, why do people like that insist on forcing Japanese customs on others even after coming to another world, nya? They could at least consider the people who got transferred along with them, nya."

"Don’t they know the saying ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’? If they’re that desperate to lord over others, they should’ve gone to the Stone Age instead of a half-baked fantasy world."

It seemed that even in a swords-and-magic fantasy world, certain particularly troublesome people from reality were already beginning to show just how troublesome they could be.