PROLOGUE
A GOLDEN DEPRESSION
A white manor. A garden lined with colorful blossoms. The young girl's smile—and a boy watching over her. It was a vivid, unfaded memory of happier times, and he wished to gain that happiness back.
But it was difficult. He built a manor—a city of gold, with a beautiful garden that seemed to re-create the paradise of heaven up above. It was even more splendorous, even more impressive than what his memories told him. But no matter where he looked, he just couldn't find the final piece of the puzzle. Even with his power—enough force to become one of the great pillars supporting the entire world—he was unable to get his beloved girl back. If she couldn't be found, the smile would never return to his face. He had, after all, established all of this for the sake of that one young girl.
His name was Leon Cromwell, a demon lord known as the Platinum
Saber. And the name of the girl he searched for…
At the throne room of the vast, spiraling palace looming in the center of the Golden Land of El Dorado that he ruled over, Leon exuded as much military might as he could at the three suspicious-looking characters taking a knee before him. They were dressed unusually: all black clothing with large, umbrellalike hats to match the weapons merchant Damrada. It went without saying that it was Laplace and his cohorts.
"…You, then? This is the second time, is it not?"
"Yes, my lord. It remains a great honor and a joy to have made your acquaintance. However, we regret to inform you that we cannot honor the request for the certain classified materials included this order."
It was Teare who responded, looking suitably composed. They had the lone woman in the group handle negotiations, hoping to give the demon lord the best impression possible.
That, however, would come to an end today. Now they would follow the plan Yuuki devised and halt activity in the Western Nations for the time being. Misha, one of the leaders of Cerberus, would take over as the main contact point with the Rozzo family, continuing regular business, as Yuuki's team moved operations over to the Eastern Empire.
What's more, with the loss of Maribel, the power of the Rozzo family itself had taken a major hit. The Kingdom of Seltrozzo was the main point of procurement for the "classified goods" mentioned, and right now, it was unlikely the Rozzos had the force remaining to perform the stable-summoning ceremonies that were required. Plus, Tempest had now joined the Council of the West, which essentially meant the Western Nations were now under the influence of the demon lord Rimuru. There would be more eyes on them than ever before. Everyone agreed that now was the best time to pull out.
"Oh? A rather bold thing to say. I see you're wasting no time demanding more money, unlike Damrada."
"No, Lord Leon. It is nothing like that. As you know, the demon lord Rimuru is attaining a prominent position within the Western Nations. He appears to frown on the summoning of otherworlders, and he strictly prohibits it. Thus, we have come to the painful conclusion that it will be difficult to continue defying his will."
Listening to Teare's brisk reply, all Leon could think was: I knew it. He had received similar reports from his plants in the Western Nations; he was fully aware this was just a matter of time. Besides, this approach really had too many unknowns to it. In fact, the chances of success were astronomically low. It would've been foolhardy to expect success from the start. He was, after all, being far too specific with the type of summons he wanted.
He had sent orders to his team, having them perform summonings on multiple occasions. Over thirty summoners aided in the effort, and it took seven whole days to ensure that every required condition of Leon's was fulfilled when conducting the ritual. But it still worked less than one percent of the time—and since the same people couldn't be involved in another summoning immediately afterward, they had only so many tries. Their chances were close to zero from the start.
Leon himself had conducted a few summonings, but every one of them failed. His last success produced Shizue Izawa, and sixty-six years had passed since then. The more you narrowed down the conditions, the longer the interval required between each attempt, and there wasn't much reason to expect the next summoning to work, either. So he came up with the idea to perform "incomplete" summonings they could attempt with more frequency. The person Leon was looking for was still a young girl, so an incomplete summoning that resulted in a young child would boost their chances, no matter how slimly.
So his project spread across the Western Nations, as he engineered as many attempts as possible to collect as many children as possible…
And now it had all come crashing down. There was no other way, and there was no new great idea to explore. Leon found himself burning with an intense impatience, but still he kept his voice cool as he spoke.
"…Rimuru? We have no treaty signed with the West, and I've made no request for cooperation. We were interfered with in the end, but that's all in the past now. But why are you shutting off business with me? If the West is beyond our grasp, there's always the East."
Leon's penetrating voice echoed across the throne room. The powerful coercion that filled every syllable was like a point-blank attack at Teare, whose body froze. He was simply on another level. Your average magic-born couldn't even bear standing before a demon lord, and even a strong, highlevel one like Teare had trouble dealing with Leon. But Teare wasn't alone.
"Ah, allow me to explain that matter, my lord. To tell ya the truth, things are starting to get a little suspicious over in the East as well. It looks like they're tryin' to prepare for war on the sly over there, so apparently there aren't any sorcerers free enough to take up the work. It'll be hard to find the personnel we need."
Leon squinted at Laplace. Deep down, this annoyed him. He cared very little for what became of the West and East, but a dragged-out war would impact his own mission. He thought it seemed that he would need to reconsider his direction from the bottom up. But he didn't betray this on his face, his expression as cold as ever as he continued staring at Laplace.
Facing the full brunt of it, Laplace grew uncomfortable.
This sure is bad news. The fake demon lord I killed was nothin' compared with this guy. Ain't nothing like the real thing, and all that. Maybe the boss is right. Tryin' to exact revenge from him directly might not be such a hot idea…
Yuuki had ordered him to refrain from any under-the-table dealings for now. Even with the very man who killed Kazalim right here in front of him, Laplace had no intention of doing anything to Leon. He wanted to live up to
Yuuki's trust, so the only thing on his mind was carrying out his work. Still… If your sworn enemy is in front of you, of course you're going to gauge your chances a little. And as he evaluated his opponent's power, seeking out any small weakness he could find, he concluded that the demon lord Leon truly was a monster. If they got into an actual fight…he couldn't say what would happen. Maybe he'd win; maybe he'd lose. Even if his cohorts Teare and Footman joined him, there was no guarantee they'd emerge victorious.
So Laplace was treating this visit as strictly work-related. But as he did, he correctly understood why Yuuki had assigned this job to them.
The boss wanted us to see this guy for ourselves, no doubt. Know thy enemy, 'n' all that. Hell, even the boss said he'd have trouble with Maribel if they went toe to toe. She only messed up 'cause Rimuru was more of a monster than she thought. 'Course, trying to gauge that guy's strength is a real tall order…
Maribel's fatal error had been misjudging Rimuru's strength. The fact that someone like her, a born talent when it came to schemes and strategy, decided to directly engage her target was a blunder in itself. Laplace thought so, and so did Yuuki and Kagali. What could she have been thinking? What did she fear? As a third party, it was hard to imagine what had made Maribel decide this was a war of attrition and to try to end things quickly, no matter how disadvantageous that was.
Besides, it was Yuuki himself, in the end, who had guided Maribel toward that line of thinking. Maribel certainly overestimated her strength— there was no debate over that—but Yuuki was the one who planted the idea in Maribel's mind that she had a fighting chance against Rimuru. Weaving together a web of false information, he had successfully put all her plans out of order.
Not even Yuuki thought for sure that Maribel would lose, of course. His goal was to pit these two forces against each other and gauge their abilities.
It ended up with the demon lord Rimuru winning, Maribel (a thorn in Yuuki's side as well) dying, and Yuuki himself becoming the new master of her unique skill Avarice.
That was what he really wanted, as much as it stunned Laplace into silence once he heard about it. You couldn't really aim for someone else's skills like that—but as Yuuki put it, he had a hunch it would work.
It's crazy. Just completely mad. Maribel's luck failed her, to be sure, once it became so clear she was talkin' up her prowess too much with the boss. Nothin' can beat the power of information, in the end. And that's true for Leon, too. I hate to say it, but unless I'm sure I've got the upper hand, staying hands-off with 'im's the wiser choice here.
Such was his conclusion.
So they decided to halt their plans and focus on expanding their influence and gathering intel. Those objectives hadn't changed, and now that Yuuki's goal was realized, they had no reason to stick around in the Western Nations. Now they were trying to wriggle out of their dealings with Leon without making him blow his top.
Laplace couldn't let himself falter against the pressure of Leon's gaze upon him. He distracted himself by talking some more.
"Now, mind you, this ain't the end of our dealings forever, my lord. We'll contact you again once the coast is clear, so to speak, for summonings. We're just looking for a little more time until then. And remember, we have a network spanning the globe, so if any kids wind up in this world in the meantime, we can scoop 'em right up for you."
"…Well, our hands are tied on that front. I will leave that matter to you, then. But I do have one question."
"What would that be, my lord?"
"Why are you so loose-tongued?"
"Um?"
Laplace gave Leon's question a befuddled stare. He had no idea where or when he might've misspoken.
Did I screw something up? Ah well. If he's willing to continue workin' with us, then let's keep this party going!
It didn't faze him much. In his mind, life had to be enjoyed to be worth living. Even if he made a mistake, as far as he cared, that was then and this was now. Resisting the urge to lunge at Leon, Laplace quickly made up his mind on the matter as Leon spoke.
"Is it really right for merchants, so keenly aware of their self-interests, to speak so loosely of affairs such as war? If Damrada were here, I don't think he'd do anything quite so foolish."
"That…"
He had a point. But Laplace still felt in the right. Yuuki had ordered him to make that statement—and he told him about something else, too. Recalling it, Laplace could feel all the pieces falling into place in his mind.
The next thing Leon was likely to say was…
"What are you hiding? You seem to want to point my eyes toward the war, but you will have to try better than that."
The question was exactly what Yuuki predicted. It put Laplace at ease, even as it exasperated him. There's just no dealin' with him, is there? The boss knew full well that the conversation would turn out this way.
Leon, reading Laplace's words too deeply, surmised that he was hiding something. A demon lord like him, who correctly knew the value of information, mistakenly thought this was a scheme to distract him from some other goal. But it wasn't. Laplace and his friends were just doing what Yuuki told them to; there wasn't any deep thinking behind it. It was a simple fact, but one there was no point in telling Leon. He'd just assume that Laplace was making futile excuses.
This was all the work of Yuuki, who wasn't even in the room, and there had to be some meaning to it. And of course, Laplace had some hints.
"Ah yes, Lord Leon, you're a shrewd character, indeed. To tell you the truth, this really is the end for the confidential goods for now, but we actually still have five at a certain location. These were the kids that Shizue Izawa intervened with and took care of."
"…Hmm."
Yuuki had wanted to leak word of the children in Rimuru's care to Leon from the start. But if his team simply blurted it out, Leon might assume there was some ulterior motive behind it. That's why he waited until the end of their chat to instruct them to save the children. His uncanny ability to predict a conversation, something that could potentially flow in any direction, was one reason why Yuuki was such a fearsome presence. It even scared Laplace a bit as he continued following Yuuki's instructions.
"There are three boys and two girls, you see, all otherworlders. The problem is their location. It's a spot that we don't have access to."
"Shizue Izawa… Shizu, is it? And this place is Tempest, is it not?"
"You got it. I hate to disappoint, lemme tell you, but we're all merchants here. We don't wanna expose ourselves to too much danger. By the way, their names are—"
"Ken Mizerre, Ryozeki, Gale Gibbs, Alison, and Scoey Colbert."
Before Laplace could recall the names, Footman, silent until now, barked them out. Yuuki, picturing Footman as unsuited for negotiation, had only asked him to memorize that name list.
"Yes, those are the ones. Not that you'd have much interest in unavailable goods, my lord…"
Laplace smiled. Leon, meanwhile, frowned peevishly.
"Your diction leaves much to be desired. Are you sure it was Scoey, and not something more like Chloe?"
Footman gave the irritated question no answer. Any further prodding, and Leon's anger might develop into all-out belligerence. Footman, after all, was in the most danger out of anyone in this room. Normally, it would've been smarter to not say anything—but despite riling Leon up, it wasn't the wrong move to make.
"Excuse him, Lord Leon," Teare said. "The names of otherworlders are always difficult to transliterate into our languages, so they're likely not completely accurate. But if I may, I was told that the names aren't important regardless."
She bowed, and Laplace and Footman followed suit in vaguely comic fashion.
"Indeed, the names don't matter. I pin the blame for losing these goods on you, but it's not enough to count as violating our terms. I will accept your intelligence about an upcoming war as ample apology."
Swallowing assorted emotions, Leon maintained a cool composure—and with that, the meeting came to a close. Laplace accepted the money for the goods provided, and he and his cohorts put El Dorado behind them.
"Well, what to make of that…?" Leon whispered after they left.
His long hair tied back in a ponytail shone a beautiful gold color, a stark juxtaposition to the gloominess of his long eyes. Standing at attention next to him was Arlos, the Silver Knight, his adviser and one of his closest confidants.
"Should we do away with those three? If they've upset you, Lord Leon, I see little value in keeping them alive."
Leon scrutinized Arlos's words. Compared with Damrada before, this trio had acted very suspiciously. He wondered how they and Damrada could even share a profession. Leon barely trusted merchant types to begin with, but he also wanted to avoid conflict with the Cerberus organization. He may have had his agents planted across human society, but compared with that massive group—based in the East, expanding its influence in the West—it wasn't even a competition.
So he coldly decided that he'd use them while they were useful. In particular, he believed that humans were better suited than monsters for rooting out otherworlders. If he wanted to reach his goal, Leon required human help.
"Let them be. I'm more concerned about the information they had for us. If the Eastern Empire is truly about to mobilize, we could very well have a world war on our hands. I don't know how the other demon lords will react, but I hardly want us pulled into worldwide chaos."
"Indeed, my lord. All of El Dorado shines under the light of your authority, but I can easily imagine large-scale conflicts across many other lands. We must be prepared for that." Arlos nodded at Leon's reply.
El Dorado, the land Leon ruled over, was on a continent of its own, separated by ocean from the rest of the world. In Earth standards, it was larger than Australia, and every inch of it was Leon's domain. A gigantic active volcano was perched in the middle, constantly erupting the whole year through, but the ash it spewed was carried away by magically conjured wind, never falling on the beautiful central city. Nearby, the volcano had laid a vast variety of ore deposits, which were worked into assorted types of magical metals. The gold ore veins found there produced so much precious metal that Leon was secretly dealing some of it to human civilization.
The city was the pinnacle of glory, the crown jewel of a kingdom protected by magic. That was how Leon pictured his Golden Land of El Dorado, and not only Arlos, but everyone else who lived on this land would want nothing less than to be dragged into some ugly human war.
"I will have some emergency defensive magic readied for deployment, and I will put our security protocols at their highest level."
"Yes, if you could, please. But things never work out the way you want, do they?"
"…What do you mean, my lord?"
"I mean war. If enough people die in one, it could awaken some creatures that would trouble all of us terribly. I know Jaune, the Original Yellow, is slumbering in this land somewhere. I doubt she's taken physical form yet, but…"
Leon groaned. It was all so ridiculous. What was the Eastern Empire thinking? He didn't know, but any war naturally involved a lot of death. The more blood that was shed, the more the monsters exposed to it would be energized. In the worst case, it could awaken one or more dangerous demons —a true calamity for humankind. Leon, with his unique background as a former Hero, knew exactly how foolish that was.
Of course, as a demon lord, this was just him being sentimental. While it saddened him to see, no matter what sort of misfortune all those unknown faces witnessed, he wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it.
No, Leon's concern was about a far less likely possibility. What if, by some chance, this harms the very girl he's looking for?
"If that time should arrive, let us show the full force of our powers!"
"Yes. I look forward to seeing that. Also…"
"Allow me to deploy a few Azure Knights to their nation as well."
Leon and Arlos placidly nodded at each other. No need for detailed orders. Arlos had a gift for reading Leon's intentions and putting them into action.
"Make it so," Leon said as he closed his eyes.
Then, in that now-empty chamber, he opened them again and stared into space.
…Scoey Colbert, though? I know I shouldn't expect too much, but that's almost too close to her name. Even if it's a trap, I can't ignore it.
Whether it was a trap didn't matter. The demon lord Leon's ultimate goal was to find her, his childhood friend—and the girl he had to protect.
That girl's name was Chloe Aubert.