Translation: all chapters
Prologue
So, Your Majesty the Shinou, or whatever you’re called.
I have every intention of bringing up my son just as you wanted: black hair, black eyes, the DNA of the Japanese; passionate and gutsy with a keen sense of justice and the strong mind of a game-maker.
I have no idea why you chose us for the heavy responsibility of raising the twenty-...which was it again?...well, something-in-the-high-twenties-th Maou, but I have every confidence of delivering the ultimate masterpiece. My wife agrees. How is he doing over there anyway, our son, our pride and joy?
But know that we have no intention of handing our son over to you. I’m very sorry for the misunderstanding, but he will always be ‘Shibuya Yuuri.’ If you don’t treat him right, we’ll get him back by whatever means necessary.
So, Yuuri, nobody’s making you do anything you don’t want to do over there, right? If you’re worried about anything, we’re here to listen. Fly back into your father’s arms! We can speak frankly to each other, man to man. Right?
Speaking of which, Yuu-chan, don’t you think you’ve been a bit cold towards your father lately?
Chapter 1
Two guys together at Sea World.
“...How did I even get talked into this?”
It’s the middle of summer vacation, and baseball has been keeping me busy, filling my time with my new glasslot team and the Seibu Lions, of which I’ve been a devoted fan for more than half of my life. But then I get a tragic call from a friend.
“I got dumped.”
“No way! You had a girlfriend?!”
“Nope. I was going to take her on a date so I could confess my feelings to her. I even got tickets in advance, but she rejected me.”
“You confessed to her in this boiling heat?”
“Nope, never asked.”
“What?!”
I try to explain several times that there’s a difference between getting dumped and assuming that you’re going to be rejected, but Murata only gives me a weak smile and refuses to think positively. The problem is that he’s already bought those tickets. It’s a pain to get them refunded, and even giving them away is difficult because the date’s already fixed. Most people already have plans for a Saturday at the end of July. That includes me, by the way.
“There’s a nighter at Seibu Dome on the 28th.”
“A nighter—seriously?!” Murata Ken, the Glasses-kun who shared a class with me in the second and third years of junior high, asks with what is unusual volume for him. “How much baseball stuff have I done with you? I’ve not only been to their games, but to their team practices. I even carried that gigantic cooler! So you could at least spend some time with me when I am totally, completely heartbroken! I mean, do you have any idea how much I paid for these tickets?!”
“All right, all right already! I’ll go, I’ll go, geez! But you know, if you hit your girlfriend with that power of persuasion, maybe she would’ve said yes?”
“As if someone with a trendy name like Shibuya-Harajuku could understand my feelings.”
“...‘Trendy’...? Murata, how old are you, exactly?! Hey, wait a minute! Don’t call me Harajuku!”
That’s right, my name’s Shibuya Yuuri. Yuuri: not the characters for ‘fertile country’ or ‘gentle pear tree’ or ‘enduring lapis lazuli’, but Shibuya ‘Advantageous’. So I don’t really think Harajuku is disadvantageous; you have no idea how much trouble I‘ve had with my name in my fifteen years of existence. I always suspected that it was because my dad’s a banker and his mind is always on interest rates that my parents had the poor naming sense to call me something like ’advantageous.’ I finally learned that it was a kind young man who shared a taxi with my mother on her way to delivering me who gave me this name...but they could‘ve at least picked characters more fitting for a person’s name! Recently, though, I’ve started thinking that at least I got a better deal than my brother, whose name reads Shouri and means ’victory.’ See? I’m all mature and adult now.
So that’s how I ended up going to Sea World with Murata Ken, who thinks he’ll get rejected as a matter of course. The aquarium is jam-packed with couples and parents with their kids—then there’s me the baseball brat wandering around with Glasses-kun. Which of these do not fit the pattern? The aqua tube running straight through the aquarium is really pretty, and the chambered nautilus, luna lionfish, pennant coralfish, pirarucu, and sawfish are all quite graceful and elegant. The sardine and the tuna just look tasty.
“Then I turn my head, and instead of a girlfriend, there’s Murata Ken.”
“You got a problem with that? Want to hold hands or something?”
“That’s not funny! I’m just cursing my unpopularity. Tomorrow will mark the sixteenth year that I’ve been girlfriend-less.”
“Your birthday’s tomorrow?! Huh, okay then. Tell me what you want, and if it’s cheap I’ll get it for you. How about a phone charm from the gift shop we passed earlier? Little Sealeo the spotted seal 1, maybe?”
“Are you making fun of me? My cell phone’s broken.”
“Oh yeah. So get a new one already. It’s a pain to not have texting.”
As the line carries me forward, I look at the back of my right hand and sigh. The one-day pass is stamped there with a special ink that glows palely under a scanner.
“I don’t really care; it’s not like I need a texting-pal. I mean, it could be anybody on the other side. What happens if I’m talking with a company director or CEO or king or something? I could cause an international incident.”
“That’s ridiculous. You only see incognito kings in girls’ manga.”
Actually, he’s got one standing right next to him. How that happened goes something like this:
I was living the perfectly ordinary life of a high school student when, just three months ago, I got flushed down a western-style toilet. Then it was to another world: GO! ...or something like that. All these things happened to me that sound like some kind of weird dream. My job in this other world is to be a king. So yeah, I’m the head of a kingdom at the tender inexperienced age of not-quite-sixteen.
And I’m not just the king of any old place. Mr. King’s Gyoza in front of the station downtown is great, but my job is pretty darn awesome, too. I’m a completely average high school boy: physique, looks, even brains...
But I’m the Maou.
If you were suddenly summoned to a parallel universe and told “Starting today you’re the Demon King,” you’d think it was a dream too. So yeah, that’s what I thought. Especially when I’ve got all these uber-beautiful Demon-folk, the Mazoku, for my people. And the people I thought were the same race as me? They called me sinister and evil and started throwing rocks. It was a complete shock, and I decided I probably wasn’t in a theme park, so the only remaining answer was that I was in a dream—so when I woke up, everything would be back to normal.
But then I woke up, and I still had the pendant I was given in that world.
I close my hand around the five hundred-yen-sized stone I’ve been wearing around my neck ever since. Silver filigree border around azure blue a shade darker than the sky. The Lions-blue magic stone is a tangible weight in my hand.
I was born with the soul of the Demon King, and I promised to protect that country.
I promised.
“Hey Shibuya, take a number.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry!”
A smiling park employee is handing me a scrap of green paper. The surging crowd has carried me out of the aquarium exit into the Friends of the Sea show. A wave of heat suddenly assails me. Stepping over the water-blue benches, I walk down the stairs looking for a seat. In front of me are a white stage and a huge pool with transparent sides. I rub at my eyes with my right hand, dazzled by the midsummer sun.
“Ugh, there’s sweat running down the backs of my legs! It’s totally gross.”
“But at least it’s still probably several times cooler than wearing a uniform.”
Even though I know it’s useless, I flutter the ticket at my throat. It generates a tiny breeze.
“It’s summer, but there aren’t any pretty girls in swimsuits or people throwing balls.”
“Sure there are. Look down at the stage and you’ll see both.”
One’s an animal trainer and the other’s a seal.
As my mind meanders through questions like: are emperor penguins more imposing than me? What batting order should I use for the practice game next week? the strength goes out of the back of my neck. I watch the show in a daze. The seal heads the soccer ball into the goal-basket. I wonder if the ball game’s over? Next, the woman in the wet-suit shakes a pink box vigorously. What’s that for?
“All right! Please come down to the stage if you have ticket number twenty-seven!”
The pre-schooler sitting on his father’s lap next to me starts howling. Poor thing, maybe he’s been chosen as the sacrifice for some sort of really scary ritual. Wait a minute, stuff like that doesn’t happen here in modern-day Japan.
“Wow, Shibuya, I can’t believe they selected you out of a full house!”
“...Huh?”
“Please come down to the stage if you’re the audience member with ticket number twenty-seven!”
“Hurry up and go, or else they’ll think you’re not here—and after you made that little kid cry because you got picked instead of him, too.”
I open the ticket in my hand and look at the number written in the middle of the green slip. Woah! So I’m the chosen one? But for what kind of sacrifice?!
Murata pulls me by the arm down the stairs, looking as delighted as if he were the one who’s won the prize.
“Wait a min...! Stop that, I’m gonna fall!”
The animal trainer, in her wet suit and a professional smile, puts her blue cap on me. She passes through the acrylic door with the familiarity of having done it countless times before. Something tiny dangles from her finger.
“Congratulations! I have some souvenirs for you: a dolphin cap, dolphin cell phone charm, and dolphin keychain. How about we hang the phone charm and keychain from your belt so they don’t get lost?”
“Woah.”
Like she said, they all have dolphins on them. The cap’s brim is a dolphin’s nose, with two dark blue eyes on the forehead. The phone charm and keychain both have skeleton-blue swimming mammals with partly-open mouths hanging from them. I gotta say, though, they’re all totally cute.
Way cuter than the real things.
“Now, as our representative from the audience, let’s shake hands with Dolphin-kun, the idol of Sea World!” the woman says, smiling.
What?!
Three employees pull me towards the pool.
“Wait a minute! I’m serious, wait—wait! I don’t like dolphins very much, to be honest! If it’s gotta be a sea mammal, how about a whale or an orca?”
“Everybody, please welcome our friends the bottlenose dolphins: Bandou-kun and Eiji-kun!”
Bandou Eiji? I’m thrust forward without any time for thought. Two shiny gray dorsal fins cut through the water towards me.
“Waugh—! I’m really bad with dolphins, I don’t get along with them, I don’t like them...however you wanna say it...! Heeeey, Murata! Murata Ken-san, help a friend out here!”
“You’re so lucky, Shibuya! Bandou-kun is totally cute.”
With a splash, Bandou-kun or Eiji-kun stands on the surface of the water.
“Urgh...”
I manage to swallow my scream. It’s way bigger than I thought! I feel like I’m about to cry. It thrusts out its bluish hand—er, fin. There’s a glint in its wide-apart eyes as it stares at me. Tiny teeth like the rows of teeth on a zipper peek out from its slightly open mouth.
“...I, I’m scared...”
“Please step up. It’s all right, I promise it’s not going to bite you,” the trainer urges with an insistence that I can’t refuse, and I’m trapped at the poolside. Bandou-kun, skillfully treading water with its tail and back muscles, scowls at me out of bottomless eyes. The expression on its face says: “Hey human, hurry up so I can get my sardine!” It opens its mouth wide and emits an angry screech.
“Gishaaaaa!”
“Waaaaah!”
I reflexively thrust out my right hand and touch its slimy-looking fin with a finger. It’s more sticky than slippery, the same temperature as the salt water. It seizes my finger.
Come on boss, isn’t this enough? I’m about to shout, before logic tells me that a dolphin shouldn’t be able to grab my hand. I mean, it doesn’t have any fingers, and I don’t think it likes me that much. So how is it pulling on my hand? I’m already at the edge of the pool—I’m about to fall in...
“No way?!”
The park employees and audience all start shouting. Just before I sink into the salty water, I see Murata’s out-stretched hand in the periphery of my vision. But the aqua pool immediately spreads out around me, and I don’t know where I am anymore.
I didn’t think the pool was that deep, but I sink and sink. My soaked shorts and T-shirt cling to my hands and legs. There’s no sign of Bandou-kun or Eiji-kun, whose fault it is that this happened to the representative from the audience.
The pool, which is at most used for Sea World’s shows, can’t be this deep—so how is it offering the bottomless swamp experience? Wait a minute—haven’t I sunk like this twice before?
“This again?!”
I swallow a lot of water as I’m suddenly sucked down by the middle of my waist. No, the physical laws don’t apply here, and nor do the biological or architectural. My back should have slammed into the hard cement by now. Princess Tenko couldn’t sink endlessly like this, or David Copperfield even if he wore out all his chest hair—!
Next up: the familiar Star Tours.
Hey, Mom?
Yes, Yuu-chan?
How come everybody says playing with dolphins is good for you? I don’t think it is at all.
But they’re so cute! Do you not like dolphins, Yuu-chan?
I don’t like them. I don’t know what they’re thinking. They probably think we’re stupid even when they act friendly and let us hold their hands and go swimming with us. Like humans are wrong in the head because we like doing things like that.
Ah, I get it! Yuu-chan, you dislike what you don’t understand, right? But you know, Mama thinks you should interact with them. If you do something together, if you look up at the starry sky together and start talking to each other, I believe you’ll start to understand each other. Right? Don’t you think so? That’s how people learn how to be friends...it’s so beautiful!
Friends? With dolphins?
I’ve obviously failed at it, I’m thinking with no particular regret as I look up at sky-blue and contrasting white with stinging eyes. I’m pickled in brine, but not in the pool: I seem to be drifting about on the surface of the sea, face-up like a jellyfish.
The sun is high and bright and so intense that the skin on my face and neck are screaming in pain. This must be a midsummer sun—it reminds me of summer vacations when I was little, when it was fun playing at the beach with my family: to the sea we go with watermelons and fireworks and sea shells!
It’s pretty obvious that I’m now in a completely different place than I was before—but then again, this is now the third time I’ve been whirlpooled away into another world, so I’m used to it.
Guess I’ve been summoned again.
It was my own fault for being taken off guard—I just never thought it’d happen in front of such a huge audience. But I know where I am now, and I’ve made lots of friends here. I mean, there are tons of stories in which the main character goes astray in a sword-and-sorcery world and does stuff to become a great hero. The small difference for me being that a cheat code was used on the “hero” character creation screen to make me the “Maou.”
It’s taken about three Earth-months for me to be able to laugh at that ‘small difference.’
A familiar triangular fin approaches from beyond my floating right foot: the dorsal fin of my ocean friend, obviously.
“Ba-Bandou-kun?”
I’m very sorry to have dragged an innocent by-swimmer along with me. I push down my terror to stroke its shiny head. My fingertips touch its chin gently. It feels a lot rougher than the fin I grasped during the show.
“Wow, Bandou-kun, no wonder you’re so fast. It’s like the shark-skin suit that Ian Thorpe uses.”
Huh? Shark skin?
I meet its eyes for an instant—its shark eyes. “Yo-you’re not Bandou-kun! ...You’re...Jirou-kun?!”
What the?! I’ve been cuddling up to a Great White Jirou-kun? I resent ocean animals because I can’t read their feelings, but I can read this ocean animal’s feelings quite clearly. In about five seconds, my background music is going to be the theme from Jaws.
I try to go through emergency coping mechanisms, but my brain stalls. Choking out an odd cry, I clumsily attempt to swim away in something that’s not quite crawl and not quite dog paddle. I guess you can call it ‘free-style.’ What was I supposed to do in a crisis?! Play dead? No, that’s bears. Pretend not to know anything? No, that’s election campaign cars. Nobody taught me what to do when faced with a shark! Should I try threats? Or go for unconditional surrender?
“Your Majesty—!! Are you all right? ...Aaah...”
A familiar voice reaches me from a long way away, and a pointlessly extravagant little craft approaches me with reckless speed, its hand-oars slaloming through the waves. The club of two who want to see Shibuya Yuuri make it to adult Maou-hood row with all their might. The color of one of them changes, and he cries, “How dare you, a fish, so freely accost His Majesty?!”
Lord Günter von Kleist brandishes his oar at the shark as if about to declare his name as a prelude to battle. His rage is so great that it’s enough to spoil his transcendental beauty: the silver hair falling to his waist is disheveled, his intelligent violet eyes are bloodshot, and the captivating baritone that usually comes from the area of his hips is now a hysteric falsetto. My overprotective tutor would make an instant killing of any female in sight! Except that even this beauty instantly crashes to earth when I’m around. It kinda makes me want to clap him on the shoulder and say “have a little more confidence in yourself.”
Lord Weller leans out of the boat as far as he can. His expression is nowhere near as blood-curdling as Günter’s: it’s more one of wry tranquility, as if he’s watching a video of a kid’s epic blunders.
Come on, Conrad, your only catch-ball partner in this world is about to get turned into yam powder. Wait, I mean clam chowder.
“Calm down, Günter. If you keep waving the oar about like that, you’ll hit His Majesty in the face.”
Super-Spartan watermelon-splitting. That would be an ill-omened beginning.
He finally grasps my arms and pulls me up into the refuge of the boat. Soaked and panting, my heart is still going thud thud thud with terror. I hug Conrad without ceremony.
“Yo-you saved me!...I thought I was gonna get eaten!”
“Oh, no fear of that. It doesn’t attack people.”
“Huh? But it’s a shark—Jaws! Wasn’t it gonna bite my foot off?”
“No no, sharks are vegetarian. I’m sure it just wanted to play with Your Majesty.”
This world’s animals, man. They’re enough to make me cry. Since my nose is dripping, I step away from my protector.
“...Didn’t I tell you not to call me ‘Majesty?’ You did give me my name and everything.”
“Ah, yes. Force of habit.”
This is the fine young man who came all the way to Earth, a parallel universe to his own world, with my soul in his keeping before I became ‘me.’ Who then offered to share a ride with my nine-months-pregnant mother on a Boston street corner, and quite incidentally and shrewdly inspired my name before returning from America. Lord Conrart Weller, without whom I would not be Shibuya Yuuri, is my protector and best friend in this world, and perhaps my last fortress as well.
You might think, because he looks barely twenty, that he doesn’t quite fit the part of a protector. In actuality, his age is about five times that; in Japan he’d get an award for being a super-fit centenarian. In this world, those with Mazoku blood are both long-lived and guaranteed to be gorgeous. Conrad, who is half human, isn’t exactly plain, but he doesn’t come close to the unearthly beauty of the other aristocrats. Even apart from Günter, this place is awash with people who belong in paintings.
Yet I am completely average in looks and physique and intellect. When will this ugly duckling grow into a swan?—I wonder incessantly as I reread Anderson. Currently taking applications from ‘Beauty and the Beast’ girls who want personality rather than looks from her Mazoku.
“...Achoo...”
Guess it’s now summer in this world, too. My soaked clothes, rather than chilling me, are suffocating me in steaming heat. It’s so unbearably hot that I peel off my T-shirt. As I reach for my buckle, I notice with surprise that the dolphin keychain is still hanging from my belt. I guess Dolphin-chan is pretty tenacious.
Seeing the true-blue magic stone swaying against my chest, its previous owner’s eyes crinkle.
“Looks like you’ve got a little more muscle on you, hmm?”
“A little?! There, look at those biceps! See the upper arm?”
That’s all from my daily training. Conrad tests my baseball muscles, smiling his refreshing, fond smile.
“Looks like I’ll have to find a new sword for you. One worthy of a young man.”
“I don’t need anything like that.”
“Then what...”
“Gyaaaah!”
Günter strikes the shark with his oar, letting out a scream that’s impossible to describe. Jirou-kun seems to have called in his buddies: an Ichirou-kun and a Saburou-kun have joined him.
“Oh dear. They might be a little too friendly towards people.”
I wonder if that’s really true.
This is the third time I’ve come to this world, but I’ve landed in another unfamiliar place. The white-sand beach and turquoise-blue sea look like something out of a brochure for a beach on the Greek Aegean. I inhale the dry air until my throat burns and immediately forget that I was dripping a moment ago. A short walk from the beach is a villa obviously built to a different architectural style from the two castles I’ve toured so far.
I’m worried that I’ll be made to wear my school uniform in this heat, but the wardrobe girl brings a two-piece summer garb in off-white. It feels like linen against my skin. The cargo pants are a bit loose around the waist, and the girl looks down in shame as if she’s afraid I’ll be angry at her.
“It’s all right, I’ll just use a belt.”
“Your Majesty, have you lost weight? Is your health...”
“No no, it’s all muscle training. I bought some abs workout whatever-it’s-called.”
1000 yen from a discount shop. My goal: Kamen Rider’s washboard stomach. When I pull off my belt, eager to shed my wet trousers, my teacher helpfully runs to a corner of the room.
“Please wait, let me call for a cooling breeze—”
Home appliances don’t exist in a sword-and-sorcery world, of course. But even though there’s no air conditioning, it gets cooler the further I get inside the building constructed of ivory-white stone. I’ve already kicked off my shoes and socks, and I can feel the coolness from the soles of my feet. Before I can tell him I’m not hot anymore, Günter has raised his right hand in a summons. A servant quietly enters gripping the head of a giant duck, which, in its pained state, flaps its wings frantically. Sure it generates a breeze, but it stinks of poultry, and it hurts to look at.
“Stop that, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is going to disapprove! I’m cool enough already!”
“What compassionate words and concern for such a lowly creature! This is precisely why you are the Twenty-Seventh Maou of this kingdom of the mighty Maou and the powerful, wise, and courageous Mazoku who—ah, it must not be forgotten are the origin of everything in the world—defeated the Creator and his army to their eternal glory...”
Even the crook of his fingers is exquisite, and he looks like he’s gazing into a camera. That long verse might sound like the national anthem, but it’s actually this country’s name, which I daringly abbreviate Shinma Kingdom.
“Now, Your Majesty, tell me—on which part did I intentionally make an error?”
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t notice.”
The uber-beauty looks slightly crestfallen.
“If Your Majesty could only stay in this country for a longer period, I could teach you about its people and the basics of its territories and diplomatic relations. Or better still, if you never returned to that other world, I could remain at your side always...”
We’re derailing in a weird direction here. Conrad, who has released the ventilation duck, skillfully corrects our trajectory. “But you already know, Günter, that His Majesty is precious to Earth and Japan as well, and we must not monopolize him,” he interjects with serene eloquence. He knows exactly how to handle his colleague. I can learn a lot from him, too. Like how to spin my teacher.
If I’m so precious, how come I’ve been a bench warmer for three years?
A distant aggrieved voice draws closer. Someone’s angry shouts approach, accompanied by rushing footsteps.
“Günter! Why is my brother the only one who got to go meet Yuuri? Why was I, his affianced, not told of his arrival? How dare you insult me like this?”
The angelically beautiful boy who comes barging in is Lord Wolfram von Bielefelt. One look at my naked upper torso has his cute face twisting in shock.
“...Yuuri, your face and arms are a different color from the rest of you! Have you been stricken ill? Are you under a curse?”
“Curse?! That’s so rude!”
My face and arms are tanned, while my chest and legs are pale white. The uniform tan is the pride of a baseball player, but it’s a bit of a different story at the pool or beach.
Wolfram pinches my cheek between his thumb and index fingers, pulling to the side with all his strength.
“Ow ow ow ow! Present!”
Pavlov dog: an elementary school kid’s conditioned reflex. He questions Conrad with his eyes.
“He’s real?”
“He’s real.”
“Then who did Elder Brother go to meet?”
“A fake, I suppose?”
The person he calls his Elder Brother is not Lord Conrart Weller standing right here in front of us, but his eldest brother, Lord Gwendal von Voltaire. In other words, Conrad and Wolfram, as well as the absent Gwendal, are half-brothers who share the same mother. They were the princes of the Mazoku until just recently, before the Prior Maou suddenly announced that she wanted to retire. I was hurriedly enthroned at that point, so they’re now the Former Princes.
Though we’re of a height, there’s a heaven-and-earth difference between our appearances. Wolfram is a girls‘ manga-style pretty boy who, with his mother’s dazzling golden hair and sparkling emerald eyes, reminds me of the members of the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Any artist would beg to paint him. If you see him in a dream, you’d be moved to tears, believing you’ve been visited by an angel. That is, until he opens his mouth—because then you’d realize he’s more spoiled Pooh than angel. He claims to be eighty-two, and if he were in Japan he’d be one of those stubborn old geezers. Due to a bit of a cultural difference and misunderstanding, we’re now apparently engaged.
The mother of the three brothers is Her Prior Majesty the Former Maou, Lady Cäcilie “call me Cäli” von Spitzweg...who, after crossing race boundaries to fall in love with a Human man of unknown lineage, gave birth to Lord Conrart Weller. He is quite plain compared to the other Mazoku, perhaps because of those human genes. He has an old scar across one eyebrow, and his face with its refreshing smile is handsome rather than beautiful. They must’ve modeled G.I. Joe after him when he was set loose on America decades ago. There is no one whom the military uniform suits more.
I always know what kind of smile he’s wearing even when I can’t see his face. I also know, though more distantly, that he hides the heart of a lion within.
Anyway, I guess three totally unlike brothers really do exist. In looks and personalities and thought.
“Please release His Majesty, Wolfram! I must protest his beautiful face being marred!”
Günter pulls the youngest son’s fingers from my abused cheek. I know these people pretty well at this point, but their sense of aesthetics still confounds me. They actually think I’m more beautiful than all these Mazoku around me. Black hair and eyes are apparently very rare among the Mazoku, and very much cherished. It may be noble and sublime here, but it’s standard issue for the Japanese.
Pointing to my throbbing face, I demand, “What the heck was that about? All this stuff about what’s real and what’s fake? Okay, so I guess I don’t make a very believable king...”
My tutor, who doubles as my aide de camp, clears his throat to speak. “The truth is...there have been rumors of an insolent fellow claiming to be Your Majesty.”
“Huh? Shibuya Yuuri Harajuku Fuuri?”
“No, not with such detail. This brazen criminal was captured in Conanxia, Suvellera, which lies south of our kingdom. Of course we never took his ridiculous claim of being Your Majesty the Maou seriously, but we could not help but be a little uneasy as the execution date was set...there was perhaps a million-to-one chance he really was Your Majesty, but even so...”
Günter’s mumbles trail off, and Conrad offers a clearer explanation.
“In other words, if Your Majesty had somehow arrived in this world without our knowledge—were, moreover, lost in a territory outside Shinma Kingdom without a single subordinate and captured for some sort of unavoidable crime...well, we simply had to be certain. Which is why we had to summon you once more...”
“So that’s why I tumbled head over feet into Star Tours when I shook hands with Bandou-kun.”
Wolf mutters sullenly, “Who’s Bandou-kun? Another man?”
“I have no idea if it’s male or female. Bandou-kun is a dolphin, and Gondou-kun 2 is a whale. Jirou-kun is a great white shark, and then there’s the monkey to reflect on, who was called Jirou 3, too. So anyway, I’m here, and he’s there—um, where is there? Cabrera? But that means he’s not me, right?”
“Exactly! Your Majesty’s sagacity never fails to inspire admiration.”
That one was easier than a kindergarten puzzle. As long as I’m me, I can’t be anywhere but here. Now it’s turned into a philosophical question.
In other words, a fake me has appeared in another kingdom and is having the time of his life. It’s pretty rude, but if you think about it, Koumon-sama and the Bold Shogun and Michael Jackson and God—important people in all places and times—have all had impersonators. Knockoff merchandise is evidence that your popularity is growing.
“But if you could clear it all up by calling me, why go investigate? Where’s the sense in...” Recalling that it was the oldest brother who went on said investigation, I unconsciously trail off—“...Gwendal...”
“That is quite true. The execution of an ignorant Human fool does not concern us in any way. However, we did receive information Your Majesty’s...”
“Doppelgänger?”
“—yes, your doppelgänger was in possession of a special item that cannot be used by any save the Maou. This precious artifact, a treasure of the Mazoku, was taken just two hundred years ago. It has been lost to us ever since. If the information is true, we must do whatever we can to retrieve it. Twenty years ago, someone was sent on a similar mission—a relative of Gwendal’s.”
“Who was it?” Conrad asks. He looks like he already knows the answer, yet cannot help but ask for confirmation.
"Lord Grisela. Lord Gegenhuber Grisela.
“Aah, Hube, then?”
The words are laden with meaning. Even this good-natured guy appears to dislike the man in question. I try to get a clearer picture of him from the normally talkative third son.
“Who is he?”
"He’s Elder Brother’s cousin on his father’s side, the son of my aunt Voltaire. He married into the Grisela family.
“Ah, I see,” I give the textbook response, slightly disappointed. I was expecting something more dramatic—more Ultraman vs Alien Baltan or Seibu vs Daiei. “So anyone can carry this treasure. I won’t have to get my fingers bitten or have my hand go numb or get vomit spewed on me this time!”
I remember the Demon Sword Morgif’s miserable face like it was yesterday. Compared to that, even a snake’s cast-off skin could be called a treasure.
“True...anyone can carry it away. But only Your Majesty would be able to play it.”
“Play?!”
“Yes. The Mazoku treasure spotted in Suvellera was the ‘Magic Flute.’”
“Magic Flute!” Wolfram, who is feeling my tan line curiously, suddenly joins in excitedly. See? Vienna Boys Choir OB—he gets excited about Mozart. “I heard stories about its beautiful sound from Father. It would cause the skies to rumble, the earth to shake, and the seas to swell. It can summon the winds.”
“Wh-what about cows?”
“The cows would only purr loudly.”
So the calling of the wind must be a thunderous roaring. That or a Gouda Takeshi solo concert in the behind-the-scenes vacant lot (abbreviated G-Con): which would be more destructive? Clearly I’m thinking about this treasure as if it were a flute or piccolo, but then I make a 180-degree turn: there’s a high possibility that it’ll turn out to be a conch shell.
“I wish I could hear it. It must be wonderful, Yuuri’s Flute-playing.”
“Me?! I’m supposed to play it?! I, er, don’t think that’s a very good idea. If it’s a conch shell, you can get a mountain ascetic or a wandering Buddhist monk, or Dragonball if it’s Piccolo!”
He would probably call the wind.
Something seems to catch Conrad’s attention as he listens in his usual arms-crossed pose leaning against the wall. “I wonder if they would be compassionate enough to bury an executed criminal’s belongings with him in his coffin?”
“What are you saying? That the jailor’s gonna take his stuff? And what do you mean coffin?...he’s gonna be killed?! My doppelgänger! He did something so horrible that they’re going to kill him?!”
“No...if I recall correctly, he left a restaurant without paying the bill.”
“Left a—?!”
No way... My first look-alike ever, and he’s going to be executed for eating and running? I can’t just sit back and let that happen. Executing people for such minor crimes is a huge humanitarian issue. Besides, if I can bring him back with me...
“We can switch off like Perman Number Two!”
“But Your Majesty, Number Two is a chimpanzee.”
“Oh yeah...wait, how did you know?”
Hold on, we’re not in Fujiko F. Fujio’s story right now.
“...I gotta save him.”
“Huh?”
“I gotta save my knockoff!”
Shibuya Yuuri doppelgänger epic rescue battle-operation codename:
Mission Impossible.
footnotes
- The spotted seal is ”gomafuazarashi“ in Japanese. Murata calls the phone charm ”gomazou-kun“, which is the elephant-like Pokemon called Phanpy in English.
- Gondoukujira in Japanese
- A famous performing monkey who won the Japan Commercial Festival Prize for his work in ”a monkey to reflect on.“
Chapter 2
“What is he doing here?”
Lord Gwendal von Voltaire, standing by at the kingdom’s southern border, regards me with blatant displeasure when I show up with his two half-brothers. Long gray hair so dark it approaches black, blue eyes filled with such deep ill humor that no woman, however beautiful, can assuage them: he looks more Maou-like than anyone, and even his voice is a deep bass that comes from the vicinity of his hips.
I’m so glad I’m not one of his younger brothers. If I had an older brother like him, I’d run away from home. On that point Wolfram has all my respect: he adores his brother.
“I believe he wanted to explain to you that Suvellera’s prisoner is a fake in person,” Conrad says brightly, coming over to help as my foot catches in the saddle and I flail at my horse’s abdomen.
“Explain?”
“Th-th-th-that’s right! Even if you probably would’ve let them execute my doppelgänger thinking he’s the real thing! Well, sorry, but I’m right here, and I’m not gonna let them execute him either! So let’s get to Konanshou 1 or Cabrera or wherever it is. We’re gonna retrieve both my doppelgänger and the Magic Flute!”
“...Conrart.”
“Yes?”
Right eyebrow slightly raised, he turns to his brother the esteemed military man. “Take them home.”
“‘Them?’ Why do I have to go?!” his other brother the cute spoiled idiotic Pooh demands indignantly at being tossed into the mix. He probably just doesn’t want to be labeled a ‘wimp’ like me.
Conrad, ever my ally, leads in with an “I’m sorry, but...” and follows with: “I am acting under His Majesty’s orders.”
When he says stuff like that, without a hint of hesitation or doubt, I feel like all my supposed importance is a illusion. I’m just a baseball brat, the ten-thousand-year bench-warmer, the guy who’s about the become the newest Prior Maou—not some great man.
“...Do whatever you want, then.”
Gwendal steers his horse towards the river which marks the border, the rest of our company following behind us at a respectful distance. I have the honor of riding with a bunch of uber-pretty boys. I look up at the sky. We’re all dressed in off-white Lawrence of Arabia robes to shield us from the midsummer sun. Though the journey is a short one, we’ll be riding through sand dunes, and we came prepared to face the heat.
“What would happen if you collapsed from heatstroke?!” my overprotective tutor weeps, clutching at my right hand. As usual, he’s trying to dissuade me. The transcendent beauty seems on the verge of wailing.
“And the heat is the least of it. Conanxia was fighting a civil war until just a few years ago, and even now the gap between the rich and the poor is causing restlessness among the people. I have heard that public order is in disarray. It has also suffered a record-setting drought for the past two years, and people are squabbling over provisions. I beg you not to go with them. I have no doubt Gwendal will conclude the affair of the Magic Flute satisfactorily...so please stay and come to the summer lake resort with me.”
I can’t help but be distracted by the mucus dripping from his finely-sculptured nose...but I can’t set out unless I convince him. So I launch into platitudes like “even though you know what kind of people your neighbors are, you still have to find a starting point for interacting with them” and “understanding lies at the foundation of diplomacy, and personal experience is the fastest way to understanding,” all of which move Günter to a storm of admiration.
“How splendid, Your Majesty!”
And he’s mine. I’ve figured out how to spin Lord von Kleist.
I override all protests to make my way to the border. As usual, I’ve dyed my hair and put on contacts to hide my black hair and eyes. A river divides Shinma Kingdom from Conanxia. It’s nearly dry from the record heat, its riverbed cracked and exposed. It’s easily a kilometer across, and as grand as the Yellow River or the Nile. I don’t think my hometown’s Tone River can quite compare.
“It would look pretty spectacular if it had water, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. I heard that lots of Human corpses were washed ashore during their civil war. It was a huge predicament for them because they didn’t want to enter our territory to claim them. They had to deal with the force of the current, too.”
“...That...wasn’t quite what I meant by ‘spectacular’.’”
A simple log fence with a company of soldiers several times our number marks the river-crossing. Having heavy security at the border is pretty normal, but why can’t they be a little more friendly? The Mazoku have never invaded Suvellera, after all. Their spears are all pointed straight at us. For some reason, the soldiers in the back row are making a slicing motion under their out-thrust chins.
“As if anyone does ‘AIIN’ anymore...” Wolfram huffs. “They’re slandering us. They’re terrified of Mazoku, but they think they’re all high and mighty as soon as there’s a crowd of ’em. Humans are so lame.”
“Um...sorry.”
“You’re not Human—get it into your head already! You’re Mazoku!”
Sorry about that too. Now I’m triply sorry, even.
Located in the south of Shinma Kingdom, the Karbelnikoff region is a resort destination known for its white sand beaches and arid wind. Quite a few Mazoku from the sun-starved, short-summered north are in residence. The agriculture of its neighbor Conanxia on the other side of the river seems to have been hard-hit by drought, but obviously sunny days are a boon to a place boasting of tourism as its chief industry.
Yet here, at the heart of the Maou’s villa, is a man as wilted as any plant in the heat: Lord Günter von Kleist.
“...He’s left me...”
The silky shine has deserted the silver hair straggling down his back, and his violet eyes are clouded and vacant. The stubble on his cheeks gives him a haggard, worn, and tragic air.
He stares dazedly at the sea and sky beyond the open window with his chin buried in the clothes spread out on the desk in front of him.
“Why has Your Majesty left me behind? ...Do you detest me so?”
“Probably,” someone answers his private muttered words. His head jerks up.
Though not tall, her body is graced with all the right curves—and she’s in a swimsuit?! No, it’s actually a micro-mini sundress. Her waist-length golden ringlets have been tied back, coquettishly and generously exposing her naked nape to the summer air. If one is able to disregard her flagrant sexual allure, her innocently smiling lips, white skin, emerald green eyes, and long eyelashes are a perfect match for those of her youngest son. No one, looking at this young mother, would put her age past thirty, but in actuality she is older than Kin-san and Gin-san.
This is the mother of the three unlike Mazoku brothers, Her Former Majesty the Prior Maou, Lady Cäcilie von Spitzweg. She’s not just sexy enough to be a queen or dressed like a queen—she is a queen.
“Y-Your Prior Majesty! What sensational attire.”
“Ah, but I had heard His Majesty was here. If I had known you were alone, Günter, I would not have shown such a daring amount of thigh.”
“P-p-please desist from attempting to seduce His Majesty, Lady Cäli!”
“Aww, but Günter. Were you not smelling His Majesty’s clothes just now?”
“We-well, that is...”
She picks up the T-shirt with the strange symbols written on it—symbols widely used on Earth—out of his arms.
“What does it smell like? You have no right to monopolize, Günter. I want to try it too... My...”
Lady Cäli brings the wet cotton to her nose. Her expression grows unreadably complicated.
“...Is this His Majesty’s scent? Rather surprising from someone so adorable, wouldn’t you agree?”
“That’s absurd! It is very much how a young man should smell...well...when he’s been at the beach...”
What they’re probably smelling is not Yuuri’s scent, but Bandou-kun the dolphin’s.
“Riding together:”
much too hot given any
meaning of the words.
Even haiku poems don’t help with the sweltering heat. The sixteen-year-old and eighty-two-year-old young...well, more-or-less youngsters are glued together atop a narrow horse underneath a brilliant midsummer sun, so of course getting hot is natural. Not to mention, this isn’t an air-conditioned room, but the middle of the desert with our goal nowhere in sight. I try to put as much space as possible between my front and my fellow passenger’s back to let some wind in. Though calling the air flowing from the hot sands ‘wind’ is something of an hyperbole.
“You’ll fall off if you don’t keep close to me.”
“But it’s hot!”
Wolfram seems rather pleased with this state of affairs. If he were a girl, I’d be very happy to be his partner ahorse. I’d wrap my arms around her to hold the reins and say gentlemanly things like “please be careful.” Sadly, a pretty boy who’s even cuter than a girl is sitting in the front seat.
There are twenty of us crossing beneath the desert moon—strike that, desert noon. There are no camels here, so we’re riding Human horses. The AIINing guards at the border told us that livestock coming into the country have to be quarantined for at least twenty days. Raised as I am in modern Japan, I thought it pretty sensible, but according to one of Wolfram’s subordinates, it’s ridiculous even if you’re expecting them to be unreasonable. Anyway, that meant that our Mazoku warhorses (which from my minimal knowledge have two hearts) had to be turned back, and we ended up buying some local horses at the Conanxia border. Too bad they don’t have rental cars here—but then again, I don’t have a license anyway.
Apparently this endless ochre land isn’t actually big enough to be called a desert. As someone who was born in Boston, raised in Saitama, and who has never lived in Tottori, I really don’t know enough to differentiate between sand dunes and desert. Though I can tell between artificial and natural lawns. If only it were cooler.
Gwendal, forging ever forward, sways in the heat shimmer like seaweed. Conrad, behind him, turns at my complaint:
“Why aren’t you guys hot?”
“Training, perhaps?” he answers, calm, composed, and nonchalant. He’s barely even sweating. Now that I think about it, everyone here is a trained soldier except for me. Anyone who can truthfully write ‘soldier’ in the business occupation field is probably used to being beaten up by demon sergeants and undergoing rigorous training every day. Like the Japanese Self-Defense Force, they must roam through hill and dale, go lake-diving, and make snow sculptures for the snow festival. They probably train by leaping over fast-growing saplings—or was that the ninjas? Anyway, I guess I’m the only one melting in this heat.
Then I start hallucinating.
“Heeeeey looooook, there’s something raising its arms in a cheer in the middle of the desert—isn’t it cute?”
“What? I don’t see anything.”
The face of a familiar animal peers from a hole in the sand around ten meters away. Why is it in a place like this?—it’s a rare endangered species!
The soldier trotting immediately in front of us disappears with his chestnut. Next, the gray bearing me and Wolfram loses its balance and starts to sink.
“Woah, what?!”
“It’s a sand bear!”
Sand bear?!
Everyone in front of us abruptly disappears into the sand, and we’re starting to get sucked in as well. The world turns the color of yellow dirt. A hoof and two arms appear in my peripheral vision. The slow, inexorable, inescapable giant antlion larva pit is swallowing us whole, and we’re swirling to the center of the bowl.
“Wh-what’s going on?! What’s happening?!” I try to ask, but sand fills my mouth. I reach out to grab hold of Wolfram’s clothes, but my arms and feet and face are all entombed within the hot sand. I can’t breathe. Did he say sand bear?! What kind of animal is that?! What kind of sound does it make? The giant two-tone sand-bear still has its arms hazily raised in cheering pose at the center of the whirlpool. It’s camouflaged in beige and brown, but it’s obviously not a sand bear...
“Isn’t that a panda?!”
A panda in the desert’s new summer colors. Where’s the bamboo?
As I’m getting my fill of the ‘immersed in an hourglass’ feeling, someone grips my arms hard.
“Conra...”
My infallible protector is below me, his shoulders supporting my legs. I look up to see Gwendal standing at the very edge of the hole. His is the grip from which I’m dangling. The other soldiers and Wolfram have all been swallowed by the yellow sand, and I can’t see anything of them but a hoof and someone’s fingers. Everything has disappeared into the whirlpool, spiraling down and down.
What just happened?! Did I just blindly walk into a place where such dangers await?!
“How could this have...wait, Wolfram! He fell in before me! Is everyone dead? Is Wolf dead?!”
“If he was unlucky.”
“It’s all right, all he had to do was hold his breath until he found the tunnel. Here, Your Majesty, climb up! Hurry!”
“But I have to go and help! I don’t know if Wolfram can beat a bear that big!”
I mean, it was a giant panda. I make for the collapsing sand, but Gwendal refuses to let go of me.
“And what could you do for him?”
“Yeah, but—yeah, but! I can’t just leave him! He’s your brother, isn’t he? You gotta go help him, you should’ve grabbed him instead of me! Come on, Conrad, you can beat that bear to a pulp, can’t you? You’re like a master fencer! You should be able to beat the underboss, right?!” I plead as Gwendal drags me up. Though he’s moving carefully to keep his feet from getting sucked in, Conrad doesn’t meet my eyes.
“That’s likely true, but my first priority at the moment is to get Your Majesty to safety.”
“Don’t talk like that! Forget about me...”
“I can’t do that!” Lord Weller’s silver-flecked hazel eyes meet mine for a split-second. They immediately dart back to the center of the whirlpool, and he bites his lip. His scarred eyebrow is slightly drawn, and his voice is filled with seldom-heard agony when he insists, “Your Majesty comes first. That goes for everyone here. Wolfram is an adult and a soldier, and he should be able to take care of himself.”
“But I...!”
There’s no trace left of anyone dragged into the antlion larva’s pit. No one’s going to die in there unless their luck is bad? Really? My chest hurts when I think of the boy with the golden hair and emerald green eyes he inherited from his mother being attacked by some horrible monster in that hole. Saving those soldiers takes precedence over my safety. When you weigh those twenty lives against mine, there’s no question which way the scales tip. It doesn’t matter if I’m the Maou; none of those lives should be sacrificed for mine.
“But I don’t want you to be...someone who stands aside while your brother is dying...”
“...Come on, you have to get out of here. I don’t know how long this ground can hold.”
“You told me, didn’t you—” To prepare myself for my next words, I move to surer ground. I can feel the sand firming beneath my heels. “You said that you were under my command.”
“That’s...”
“You said that you’d follow my signal. So this is my command: go save Wolf! I’m good here—I have someone strong at my back, so don’t worry about me!”
Taken aback, Conrad looks between us as if seeking confirmation. He says to his ever-cool older brother, “Take care of His Majesty.”
“Of course.”
Gwendal is behind me, so I can’t see his expression, but I can almost hear the sigh of relief from their brief exchange. The feeling of having made the right choice wells up inside me.
The second son slides down the treacherous slope to save his youngest brother and his company.
“Do you know how to find that thing’s tunnel?!”
“This is the third time I’ve encountered a sand bear! We’ll meet in Suvellera’s capital!”
I’ve made the right choice...I’m pretty sure.
footnotes
- Japanese name for Hunan Province, China.