“Ex-robot Shal, you’re really good at petting~”

“I don’t remember being a robot, but… as far as I’m concerned, I’m smiling right now.”

“Pfft, it doesn’t show on your face, you know.”

In this world, the word robot refers to a magical tool.

It wasn’t a chemical thing, but a mechanical doll, so it generally meant the same thing as in the modern times.

In other words, they were treating me like I had an iron mask, but… if I was having fun, I’d be laughing, and if I were sad, I’d be depressed just like that.

I was certainly the one who climbed up the walls of the demon lord’s castle and the one who got lost.

But I wasn’t expressionless. I was rather expressive. My normal face just looked a bit sleepy and leaned towards a straight face.

“Expression, huh.”

Speaking of which—That’s right.

I think I might’ve been laughing a lot more ever since I came to the demon lord’s castle.

“We demons see humans like stray cats, if you’d look from a human’s perspective. But even so. I think it’s better to have a cheerful cat going ‘nyaa, nyaa’ than a slim one walking around by itself.”

Ario pouted his lips in embarrassment as he said that to me with an uneasy look on his face.

His mouth was covered in cookie crumbs.

Oh, it seemed that the dragons weren’t demons who hated humans, and Ario seemed to have given me a friendly response.

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling about that either. I gave myself three cheers inside my head.

Besides, I gave Gard my seat as a hamster as a present, so I had been ranked up to a cat. The Hero’s image improvement operation was a great success.

“Thank you.”

“Gulp. It’s nothin’. The dragons are all good-natured, and the Air Force welcomes you for giving us sweets! Right, Commander Gard?”

“Munch, munch. Mm, of course. It’s my favorite, after all. But, Ario. Y’know you can’t get your sweets without paying for it, right?”

“““W-What?!”””

Ario welcomed me with enthusiasm as I thanked him while taking off the crumbs off his cheeks.

But as soon as he heard Gard’s words… BANG! He was shocked.

Three people raised their voices in unison, so it seemed that the other two who had been listening to their conversation were also trying to get some more sweets in the future.

I’m very happy that you feel that way, but it’s my job too, so… I felt a bit sorry for them.

“Ughhh… Then, I’ll save the rest for teatime…!”

“Uhhhn… I’ll save mine too…!”

“Olga, Kireau…! I guess I’ll have to save mine too…!”

The traffic lights trio comforted each other, putting away the rest of the cookies into the summoned magic storage.

I always thought that summoning magic was so convenient. I’d like to learn it too.

When I was travelling alone to the demon realm, I had a magic pouch that could store more than it looked like.

It had been confiscated along with my sword, which was a bit of an inconvenience now that I could go out and walk around.

I stared at them enviously when Olga, the blue dragon, noticed it and tilted his head.

“What’s wrong? You want them back, after all? No, you can’t, I’ll eat it later.”

“No, I don’t mind. Also, I’ll be selling different sweets tomorrow, so I’d be happy if you’d buy them, if you like. I just thought that summoning magic would be so convenient.”

“Y-You can make something else?! Alright, I’ll make a reservation. And while you’re at it, I’ll teach you summoning magic.”

Olga repeatedly slapped my back, wagging his tail delightfully.

It hurt. If it weren’t for my enhanced human status, I’d have cracks in my spine.

I said, ‘By the way, tomorrow will be pound cake.’ And they tilted their heads as if they hadn’t heard of it before.

So, when I explained to them that it was a sweet and fluffy baked sweet, they drooled again.

Do dragons like sweets after all? That’s cute.

I consulted Olga about the lesson when Gard, who had finished eating all of the cookies, couldn’t stand it any longer and leaned on my back.

“Shalll? I can use summoning magic too, I’ll teach you. Okay? Just think, ‘I want to use summoning magic’ and snap your fingers. Then, it’ll come out. And when you’re done, just think, ‘I want to put away my summoned magic storage’ and touch it, then it’ll disappear. See? It’s easy, right?”

“Hero, Commander Gard is a genius type, so don’t take him seriously.”

“You’re right.”

“What’re you talking about? That’s what it’s like when I, the army commander and the navy commander want to learn new magic.”

The Air Force Commander had a temperament of stereotypical prodigy.

At this rate, those two war commanders were also likely to be full-blown monsters. I was the type to make steady, hard-working efforts and they were the type of teachers I couldn’t keep up with.

“Anyway, here’s my payment.”

Thud.

“It’s an excessive compensation.”

Gard used his summoning magic to give me a bag that weighed far too much for the price of the cookies without warning.

Wait a minute. It’s not often that I hear a thud whenever I get paid. I have a bad feeling about this.

I peeked in fearfully and found gold coins. I knew it.

This world had some familiarity with fantasy games, so it was easy for me to understand where copper, silver and gold coins were the mainstream.

When converted to modern currency, a copper coin is 100 yen, a silver coin is 1,000 yen, and a gold coin is 10,000 yen.

And, in the bag I was holding had about twenty gold coins. Lightly 200,000. Those were just cookies, though…?!

Naturally, I desperately tried to give it back to Gard, but he nimbly avoided me and casually threw it into the basket.

“Ugh, my cookies, ten pieces per bag, are just five coppers… I’ll forcibly deliver you up to this amount of gold without compensation, so be prepared. I’ll do my best to make it taste better and I won’t take any more money from you even if you lower your head and beg.”

“F-Five coppers! What, it was that cheap?! It’s a sweet that’s rare in the demon realm, so I thought it’d cost me two silver coins…! I’d like another bag of cookies!”

““Me too!””

Oh my. Unexpectedly, I was able to sell three additional bags to the three dragons who thought rare items were expensive.

Oh, right. Of course, I pressed another bag of freebies to Gard too.

If it was an ordinary bag, it would’ve been emptied in one bite.

I remembered when the two of us went to Axio Valley some time ago, and he almost ate a whole buffadon roast all by himself.

Based on that, the theory that Gard’s stomach is a black hole was held strong.

“I hope they don’t get a stomachache.”

I left the noisy, fun-filled Air Force after being soothed by their happiness, though worried that they’ll get a stomachache later on.