Nourrie started to tell us about the new demon lord.

“One day, during meeting with the elders to choose new demon lord, an unknown man who looked to be of the exceidus tribe appeared from out of nowhere in the Nox Calea castle.”

Nox Calea… the demon lord’s castle.

“Berudis finally acquired majority of the votes, Kaharen and I were the only ones left voting otherwise. Alurio and Nigul lost to Berudis in a duel so they finally gave vote for Berudis.”

“But, Berudis didn’t become the demon lord because of this unknown man, right?”

Nourrie nodded to my remark and continued.

“The man suddenly barged into the meeting room. No one came when the elders called for the guards. After the man killed all the elders with ease, he proposed for everyone in the room to fight him all at once in the castle’s arena and if we all lose, he will become the next demon lord.”

Nourrie’s expression became that of despair and she paused.

“All of you lost, eh?”

“I… I couldn’t even lift a finger to that man. Only Berudis was able to fight him to some degree, but in the end, even that Berudis was utterly defeated.”

Utterly defeated… As far as I know, among the demon race, only Orcus was stronger than Berudis, but if we go by just physical strength then Berudis should be stronger. For someone who so utterly defeated Berudis and many other generals to appear from who knows where at this timing, could this be related to the Ar Daenocens as expected?

“Did this demon… lord, really gave order to attack the adventurers guild?”

“Yes…”

“Even if it meant killing many civilians in the process?”

Liz finally raised the question she might have wanted to ask the most at Nourrie who only nodded with a grim expression in response. One of her subordinate then added,

“The order was to bring destruction to the adventurer guild and to kill anyone who resisted even if it was children or the elderly. General Nigul was the one who led his army to Orea where the guild is located while general Alurio was chosen to attack the one on the human’s side.”

It was luck that Teobaldur was over there and returned just in time so that our side could evacuate the civilians beforehand, eh? But, I can’t even begin to guess the reason to attack the adventurers guild… At least, I doubt that it was simply because it was a neutral organization. Or maybe it was really just that?

“Father would never allow such a despicable act…”

Her voice trembled, Liz’s face showed a slight hint of anger which was rare for her. Nourrie who also noticed that also reacted by lowering her head with a bitter expression. After a bit, Nourrie resumed talking.

“The demon lord also has the ability to freely command dragonkins, seeing as how our army could get so many dragons and wyverns, I am suspecting that there might be no limitation to the number.”

Now this is the ability that Mareritter told me about. Some first generations and basically all Ar Draughum and Ar Daenocens have complete reign of dragonkin and that includes elder dragons, just with lesser effect. The analogy Mareritter gave me was that regular dragonkin can be compared to a game character that you control via a joystick, while elder dragon was a low level salaryman with you as the CEO. That’s quite an interesting comparison. Anyway, that was how Mareritter suspected that the Ar Daenocens were involved.

“There is no one left that could openly oppose the demon lord as even the people and our territories were basically taken as hostages with many large dragons released all over the region. But, I, I just had to confirm your safety, princess, now that I have fulfilled that goal, I can return with peace of mind.”

Unexpectedly, Nourrie seemed to never have any intention to bring Liz back. No, she just knew that taking Liz back might actually be more dangerous. It is just that, after listening to that, Liz might...

“Erik…”

Liz looked at me with both hesitation and expectation. I could guess what she wanted to ask me though.

The capital and the great dungeon are located quite far away from each other, which means I will have to make some detour again. And even if I helped to take care of this demon lord case, I won’t have the time nor the will to help any further on the demon race’s situation. I mean, losing another leader in such short period of time will create quite some opening for the human’s side to exploit, rendering the situation to be worse instead.

Frankly speaking, I don’t care whichever side wins the war, as long as I can bring destruction to the empire.

Perhaps she interpreted my silence as denial, Liz became dejected but she seemed to have recalled something as her eyes lit up immediately.

“I still have my three wishes, right? Can I use one now?”

Ugh, she remembered…

I sighed. But a promise is a promise, can’t be helped then. Besides, with this there would only be 2 more to worry about. And no, I wasn’t trying to lead so that Liz will use one of her wishes here, trust me.

“While I might be able to deal with this demon lord, I don’t think I will go as far as fixing the demon’s political situation. That would be beyond me.”

Liz shook her head and replied with a forced smile.

“That’s enough. Thanks, Erik.”

Nourrie and her attendants looked my way with question marks floating above their heads.

“Nou.”

“Y, yes?”

Startled by Liz who suddenly raised her voice in a firm tone, Nourrie straightened her posture.

“I want to see this demon lord. Will you arrange it for me?”

“Princess?! Does that mean you’re going back? In normal circumstances, I would be more than just glad to have you back, but it is too dangerous right now! There is no telling what the current demon lord might do to you!”

Liz briefly closed her eyes and opened them again as she looked at me.

“I will be okay, I have Erik after all… right? Also, if it is just magic, I might have become stronger than Nou so it’s not like I can’t fight too.”

“Yeah, now that Liz has made her wish, I will make it happen. Just leave it to this blue lamp genie!”

“Blue…?”

“Lamp genie? What is that?”

Uhh, as expected, nobody here knows the reference. Liz lost her serious expression and Nourrie was even worse.

“Umm, princess… it was not about how strong your magic is, and I don’t know if I can trust that man yet, so I can’t agree to do that…”

“Nou, if you can’t trust Erik, that means you also can’t trust me who do, is that so?”

“E, ehh? No… not like that…”

I was amused by how Liz could act differently than usual, on the other hand, the flustered Nourrie looked at Liz and me alternatingly several times. She also looked behind as if looking for support from her subordinates to persuade Liz not to come, but one responded by looking away while making soundless whistle, the other shook her head so quickly you can literally see beads of cold sweat flying about.

Now that I have decided to go, then I’ll make it happen though.

“If this demon lord found out what you were doing, your territory will be in danger. Won’t hurt to have some more fighting force.”

“... I… “

“I also might be able to come with a little more reinforcements if you’ll wait until tomorrow here.”

“Ugh.. .alright… but the princess’ safety shall be the highest priority no matter what.”

Nourrie relented after I said about reinforcements. Liz also looked at me, puzzled.

“Erik… this reinforcements, did you mean Mareritter and Azanthys?”

“Yep, but I might be able to get some more after this. I don’t know if they really will come but it won’t hurt to ask.”

“?”

Ah yeah, Liz haven’t seen the guys yet. I did tell her about the village within the tower last night though.

With that settled, we told Nourrie and her subordinates to wait one more day in the ruins, they will need the rest as well anyway. I then joined up with Azanthys and Mareritter to head south, to where this former frontier village was located.

As it was quite far, walking will take too long, so I held the somewhat reluctant Liz in my arms and ran all the way until we could see the place. Mareritter and azanthys had no trouble keeping up with me, by the way.

As I noticed the wafting faint smell of sea breeze and stood atop of a cliff overlooking the sea, a rather disorderly placed set of old and dirty crumbled houses could be seen. Being basked in the midday sunlight and with a glittering blue sea, as the background even the scenery of the ruined village was unexpectedly pretty good. The place that once should have been devoid of life was however, bustling with activities.

I let Liz down, but she showed a reluctant face just as I was bending my body. When she noticed my gaze, she immediately looked away and pretended she never made such a face though. I wanted to pat her head but refrained because I heard the noise of people coming closer, a lot of them to be precise.

“Oh, it seems they noticed us, master. Most likely, because the rising cloud of dust behind us.”

I looked behind to confirm that a cloud of dust… or a sandstorm(?) was indeed there, I thought I was taking it quite easy as not to put a burden on Liz but it seems that wasn’t exactly the case. Liz didn’t complain or anything so, yeah. Did she force herself to bear with it, or it was just that she has become stronger? It’s too late to ask, I think.

From the ruined village, most, or perhaps all the villagers were walking in a quick pace up the hill to our direction. Huh, um? What are they doing? Eh? Wait, stahp… not this again.

“The savior has graced us with his presence!”

“““““Oooooooh! It’s the savior!”””””

Does anyone have a clown mask? ‘Cause I kind of want to hide my face with it. Mareritter, how about your 4 dimensional pocket? You have all sorts of thing in there, right? I mean, why are all of them genuflecting, at me like I am some sort of divine messenger? Look, Liz has donned her rare “what the hell is happening?” dumbfounded face.

“...correct… attitude…”

Oyy, why are you the one getting smug, Azanthys? Argh, whatever… I should have expected something like this.

“Erik, are they the people who lived in the tower you told me before?”

“Y, yeah…”

“They are calling Erik ‘savior’ while kneeling, so Erik must have done something amazing to help them.”

“Well, I might have technically helped them… I got them out of the tower one way or the other.”

I told Liz about them, but not in detail as I wanted to avoid exactly about being the savior, about Praesia, and especially about how they treat me. The first and last one ended up being pointless though.

***

After I managed to force the mass to calm down, I was invited to look over the ruined village. And it should have only been several days but I could see a clear trace of progress here.

They must have used magic in rebuilding the place. There were also some demon beast corpses in the square. Probably they hunted them from the nearby suvaard forest. Should I say as expected from people who had been living inside that tower? They have the necessary survival capabilities. I also saw that their farm animals were also teleported here by Praesia. So they should be good for now.

“Ah, its the saviour…”

I saw Novia, followed by Albert and Juno with some others bringing a haul of huge fishes.

“Hoo, I’m surprised that you guys know how to fish.”

“Well, we found some still usable fishing tools here and one of our ancestors was said to love fishing to a fault. The only things we inherited from him was his fishing knowledge and the likes. I was the only one who inherited them right from the source as I was his direct descendant, and I taught the others after trying them out myself first. Of course I did better than these young’uns.”

The elder’s eyes gleamed when he looked at the fishes while saying so. He might have inherited things other than the fishing knowledge.

“I was surprised that there really was a place where there is only water wherever you can see. But the water is strangely salty.”

Albert, while looking astonished, said so. So he’s the type that tried tasting seawater.

“I told you the sea should have been salty but you didn’t listen. Well, I thought I would never even see a sea but now here we are… I’m so glad that we were able to leave that place.”

“Fishing was enjoyable.”

Novia lightly reprimanded Albert, while Juno who was holding to the catch smiled proudly. The elder has succeeded in infecting his ancestors’ fishing hobby to someone else it seems.

There was no aquatic area in the tower if you don’t count the small ponds or rivers, so a sea would be more than just a breathtaking view for them. Ah, speaking about sea…

“I forgot to tell you guys something important, about this place and the sea…”

So, after we finally reached the elder’s somewhat renovated house, I told them about the tsunami that devastated this place and that it might happen again. For some reason, Albert, Novia, and Juno also came along.

“So there was such a thing… should we move out from this place then…?”

The elder sounded so disappointed. His face seemed like he just saw the end of the world. He already got attached to this place, eh?

“Well, maybe that won’t be necessary, at least for now. While recurrence is more than just possible, tsunami isn’t something that will happen often. And actually, I was about to propose making some tsunami barrier since you guys are adept in using magic anyway.”

Thus I told the elder my amateurish concept of tsunami barrier, an “A” shaped structure if seen from above made with earth magic that gets narrower further to the sea. The thickness would be about 5 meters at the bottom and the height would be about 10 meters or so. The effect ‘harden’ would be a must, and regular maintenance should be done monthly. The elder immediately ordered to start the construction and some villagers who were good at earth magic went to the beach including Juno. With their ability, I think 10 people could finish making the massive barrier in just 2 or 3 days.

I also told them to evacuate to a higher ground, and as a backup plan, a part of the village would be built on the hill overlooking here in case the barrier failed. I almost forgot but I also told them that earthquake and receding sea level are signs of an oncoming tsunami.

I don’t know what else to tell them. Other than anything involving money I think they should be fine. Well, as they are basically demon race, they won’t be able to do any kind of trade with Arx Norr or other human settlements, but they survived the tower without outside contact for a thousand years anyway.

After that, I looked around the village with Liz who repeatedly glanced at the sea, seemingly fascinated.

“First time at the sea?”

“Un, I’ve been to lake Estria once and was surprised at how vast a body of water could be, but it couldn’t be compared to this.”

“Shall we stay here a bit longer then?”

“Can we?”

“Sure. Want me to teach you how to make a sand castle?”

While no hot and glistening summer beach fantasies happened, I’d like to say that I finally had tasted the holiday-ish time after all the difficult things around. I didn’t plan to do this, but hey.

After only three attempts, Liz already created a masterpiece surpassing my puny (lol) sand castle. She’s surprisingly talented at this. Azanthys… we’re making sand castle, not ice castle. Why were you even trying to compete with Liz for? And, Mareritter, why are you in a trunks already? When did you get changed? Hey, he’s swimming better than dolphins, what’s with that multiple consecutive air times and dives?

Albert and Novia who tagged along also tried making sand castles but theirs were… plain bad. Novia tried cheating with earth magic, and Albert who noticed that destroyed her sand castle with his wind magic… scattering the sand everywhere. Now they are having grade schooler level bad-mouthing fight.

On the other side, Liz’ sand castle was getting swarmed over.

“Big sis is cool!”

“Just how did you make something like that without magic?”

“I, I was taught by Erik…”

“Mister saviour, Teach us too!”

Before I knew it, the kids from the village had joined us. Different with the reserved adults, they have no difficulty talking to me. I reluctantly taught the kids on how to make sand castle and made Liz teach some others. By the time I noticed it, Liz was happily chatting with them. It seems Liz had acquired friend making skill already, big brother Erik is happy. This situation somehow reminded me with my younger days on earth, when our family went to the beach. During sixth grade, was it? Young me, Reza, and several other relatives’ kids on a family gathering, Mira and her parents also tagged along since our parents being best friends and all. I’m still young, by the way.

I called it quit when the sun was halfway down, ignoring the kids’ booing. Sorry, but we need to get back to Arx Norr for now. There’s also one more thing that I need to do here.

Thus we left the beach littered with various sand castle projects, both the beautiful, and the awful ones. The sight was made more bizarre with tsunami barrier construction site on the other side.

“Albert, Novia!”

““Y, yes!””

When I called them, Albert and Novia who were still quarelling immediately dashed over here and knelt before me. Perhaps my tone was kind of too serious?

“Why is kneeling became the very first thing you do… whatever… Tomorrow I will leave for the demon race territory, how about it, wanna come with us? Of course I’ll talk to the elder too about this, if you decided to come along.”

““Eh?””

They should have known about the situation related to the demon race from my talk in the tower and the scene they saw in Arx Norr when they first arrived, so I won’t bother to tell them the details yet. If they decided to come along they will also learn it little by little, I guess.

“Although there would be some detours, my goal is revenge on a certain country, and with that, also fighting the same guys that trapped your ancestors in the tower as well. How about it?”

Albert and Novia didn’t answer right away, but they seemed like they were communicating with their eyes instead.

“Saviour, to be frank, I only have a slight feeling of hatred to the ones who did that to our ancestors. I meant, we were born and raised in that place so we didn’t really have any attachment or strong feeling of wanting to be freed from there.”

“I’m the same, even after looking at how wonderful the outside world was… other than some happiness, the previous feeling didn’t change much.”

Albert spoke first, followed by Novia.

“I see, well… I was just asking anyway. If you don’t want to, then it’s fine.”

I just thought that having some fighting force on demon lord level would make it slightly easier from here on, but it wasn’t like I really need it to begin with. As I was about to turn away though, Albert stopped me.

“Please wait!”

“With all being said, it does not mean that we feel no gratitude to the saviour for freeing our people.”

The two looked at each other and nodded at the same time.

“Just as Novia said, the least we could do in return is to be of service to our saviour. I’m sure if we ask Juno he will also say the same thing. Besides, I have the feeling that we can still grow to be stronger if we follow you.”

“Yes, please let us follow you, even if it is to the end of the world. Let us be useful to our saviour. The elder will definitely approve of this anyway.”

Novia added the last part with a wry smile.

Liz might have tried to be considerate to the two as she took a few steps to the back and waited in silence during the whole exchange, so I patted her head, getting a “fuee” in response, and walked to the village while waving my hand to gesture at the Albert and Novia.

“Welcome aboard, I’ll work you guys hard as you wish, if you want to be useful that is. I won’t allow any second though, alright?”

““With pleasure””

The fact that I thought ‘are they masochist’ when I heard their answer was a secret.

I then went to tell the elder who gave a ‘yes’, seemingly in delight. He sent someone to call Juno and in the meantime he also asked if I would like to take some more personnel. Of course I declined the offer. Albert Trio had really become far stronger than everyone else in the village and I know how they do the fighting, hence it would only be the three. The village can’t take anymore loss of manpower anyway.

Now all that is left would be to tell Teobaldur and some other acquaintances that we are leaving Arx Norr, else trouble might arise.