The Melancholy of the Demon Army Officer
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Lilia
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 056 – Raizen [B]
Leonhart sensed the incoming Breath and quickly moved his legs to dodge it.
Even as he skillfully lept backwards and avoided the blast, his focus wasn’t there. There was something more important to him that he had to address.
Therefore, Leonhart immediately spoke of his resentment.
“Bastard! Isn’t a diamond supposed to be weak against impact?! I don’t see any wounds there at all!!!”
Leonhart shouted out in frustration. This was knowledge that he had carefully compiled and used, and it didn’t match the reality before him.
And in response to that, while Raizen was still unleashing his Breath,
“—Of course it hurts.”
He said that.
Leonhart instantly retorted,
“No, it’s not supposed to just hurt, it’s supposed to break! To be crushed!! Follow physics properly, damn it!!”
“Even if you say that… if it didn’t break, I can’t help it. After all…”
Raizen paused his attack to think. He said, unsurely,
“My comrade from the past used to tell me that, err-… my scales are indeed made of diamond but… ah-… it’s not exactly real diamond? Or something and…uhm, the structure itself is similar to diamond, but the molecules that formed it were—- ah-… yep, it was pretty complicated, and I kinda forgot it, so whatever. It’s not a big deal anyway.”
“You sure treat it half-heartedly, even though it’s about your own body!!”
“Stupid dragon, who doesn’t care about his health at all!” shouted Leonhart. To express his frustration, he sent flying slashes as retorts, which were predictably deflected away by Raizen’s not-diamond scales. Raizen frowned at Leonhart,
“…If you have such an attitude, try to explain it yourself! Why would a diamond be cracked so easily by blunt force, when it’s supposed to be so strong?!”
Leonhart snorted. “That’s a simple thing to explain,” said Leonhart, as he drew up the knowledge inside his head:
“…About that— eh-… a diamond indeed has excellent hardness, but somehow, it seems to possess structural defects that affect, ah-… it’s toughness? Seems to be lacking — anyway, it make them weak to impact, so they’re easily cracked, or something—”
Raizen snorted at Leonhart’s explanation. See?! His gleeful expression seemed to express such a feeling. He pointed out smugly,
“You also can’t explain it either!!”
“Foolish, foolish!” laughed Raizen as he unleashed his Dragon Breath again. This time, Leonhart cut the attack apart with his demonic sword. The rocks behind Leonhart collapsed and the environment around them became more and more damaged, but Leonhart continued to argue as his temple twitched.
“At least it’s just knowledge for me! Isn’t it better than you, who can’t even explain your own body?!”
“And what’s weird about that! Can you explain absolutely everything regarding your own body?! You can’t! There, your argument is invalid—!!”
“Guh…!”
Leonhart winced at those words. He never thought the day would come when a dragon was lecturing him. However, the original problem still remained.
…But it sure is unexpected to see that blunt force is ineffective…!
And that even after all the trouble to aim at the reverse scale. Since it was ineffective, Leonhart had to come up with another method.
He either needed to quickly strategize and attack again with an alternative method, or charge with reckless abandon. However,
Leonhart sensed what happened behind him and froze in realization.
“—! Cih…!”
“Mu…?”
Leonhart suddenly ran to the back.
As Raizen watched him go with a suspicious gaze, Leonhart dropped to his knees and started moving pieces of rubble away.
“I totally forgot about her…!”
He quickly found what he was looking for. It was the kalar girl who had collapsed there.
Pale, who had been hastily shoved out of the way in the beginning of the fight, had been thrown back again to avoid the damage from the Dragon Breath. The girl must have been caught in the rubble, and for whatever reason, lost consciousness.
…Aah, damn it…! That’s right, I need to consider the collateral damage. If either of our attacks get deflected and hit her, that would be bad…!
Since it was reckless to fight Raizen while carrying her on his back, he needed to put her somewhere safe.
However, the opponent in front of him was going to be a hindrance. The dragon was probably expecting to keep fighting until a victor was declared, and calling a timeout to hide Pale somewhere safe would sound like an excuse. Leonhart turned around and his expression stiffened as he made eye contact with Raizen, who had been observing this whole time.
Leonhart debated what he should do in this situation. But unexpectedly, such worries were resolved soon after.
“Ah-… is she your woman?”
“! No, it’s not like she is mine…”
Leonhart was a little confused by Raizen’s sudden question and denied it on instinct.
However, Raizen seemed to think about something for a moment, then nodded, almost to himself. He said,
“—It can’t be helped. Go ahead, just hide her in an appropriate place.”
“Ah…?”
Leonhart didn’t seem to understand what Raizen’s thought process was, so he just stared dumbly. Then Raizen continued his words in exasperation,
“It can’t be helped if women are involved. It’s shameful if other people — especially a woman — end up getting caught in the middle of a duel.”
Raizen then sat on the ground. He pointed towards the way down with his head.
“—I’ll be waiting here. Just return once you’re done.”
“…”
Leonhart was worried for a moment. He thought it was possibly a trap where he would be struck as soon as he turned his back. But soon,
…I don’t think so.
He shook his head and dismissed the idea. He had reached some understanding of the other party as he battled against him. He was sure the dragon wasn’t the kind of dragon who would resort to such a cowardly thing.
And in the unlikely case that Raizen did attack him, Leonhart was confident he could handle the incoming attack anyways, considering their distance.
In that case… Leonhart gave a light nod in response to that suggestion.
“…Okay. I’ll return soon.”
“Aah. Make sure you bring her to a safe place. I can wait for a bit longer.”
They exchanged such words, then Leonhart turned around, carrying Pale back to the mountain path.
“I have to return soon…”
As Leonhart returned to the mountain path of Rising Dragon Mountain, he quickly began pacing around the area, considering various hiding spots.
Pale, still unconscious, was being carried in his arms. This kind of situation had been happening a lot lately; it seemed like his embrace was becoming her special seat.
The damage from his fight against Raizen would undoubtedly be intense, and it would disturb his fight against Raizen even more if he had to stop and reposition her, or worse, if she got injured again. She was to be put in a safe location, but,
…A safe place, huh… is there any cave around that I can mostly block off?
Fortunately, there weren’t many demons or dragons around, since he recently killed a lot of them. But that didn’t mean any survivors would avoid the area forever. It wasn’t realistic to keep watch for an extended period of time to prevent demons from striking her, either. Although those demons might avoid him for some time due to his presence as a majin, as soon as he left, they might immediately strike her.
Just when Leonhart thought he would have to settle for leaving Pale inside of a large cave or in the shade of a rock,
“—Oh.”
He found a hole which was just big enough for a person to enter, and looked sturdy.
I guess I hit the jackpot, thought Leonhart as he approached the hole. He observed inside the hole carefully and realized,
…This doesn’t seem to be a cave. It’s more of a tunnel.
There was barely any depth inside, and it didn’t seem connected to anywhere else. It reached a dead end after a few meters in.
Leonhart would have preferred it to be a little deeper, but demons would likely be lurking around if it was a proper cave, so it was better this way. Leonhart went to place Pale inside, but stopped before doing so.
When he looked closely, he found that the ground there was muddy for some reason, and it would make her dirty with mud if he put her there as is.
…Should I put something down there as cover for the time being?
Even as he tried to show some concern,
…No, I didn’t bring anything extra, so forget it.
He noticed that and gave up. He only brought one piece of clothing and it was important enough that it couldn’t be excluded from combat, since it was mainly for defensive purposes.
But then, Leonhart looked at the clothes that Pale wore.
She wore a robe on top of two or three layers of clothing inside of it.
So that was the reason why he had a hard time carrying her.
As Leonhart saw that, he thought,
…I guess I’ll just take off a few of them and lay it underneath.
As long as he didn’t strip her bare, having all that fabric underneath her, as well as blanketing her, would make her quite comfortable and keep her well cushioned.
Therefore, Leonhart reached for Pale’s clothes without hesitation. Although what he did wasn’t exactly a good thing, it wasn’t like he was stripping her for a weird reason, so a little contact couldn’t be helped.
With that thought, he began to remove Pale’s clothes one after another. The first layer.
Doing things like this makes me feel like I’m babysitting a child. The second layer.
She really is wearing tons of stuff. I wonder if this is normal for kalar. The third layer.
Once he stripped the third layer, he found that he had reached the layer where she only wore kalar clothing, which was quite revealing. Leonhart exhaled. I guess this is about it, he thought.
And as he looked at Pale, who had been removed of all her thick clothing,
“!…She…”
His eyes stopped at a certain spot.
It was a certain body part of Pale which rose and fell up and down regularly. To put it more simply, there were a pair of mountains on her upper body.
As he saw that, Leonhart muttered.
“That sure is big…”
—It was her chest.
Before Leonhart’s line of sight, a pair of glamorous bosoms rose and fell up and down, matching Pale’s breathing.
…To think she was hiding this amazing pair…
A phrase of “but she looked so thin in clothes?” ran through Leonhart’s mind. There was also another phrase of “it’s amazing once stripped!” that ran through his mind as well.
It was so big that Leonhart could understand that the reason Pale wore thick clothes was to hide her amazing assets. He learned that Pale’s personality was more on the withdrawn side as he talked to her, so while Leonhart didn’t know how accurate his guess was, he didn’t think it was too far off the mark either.
But it’s regrettable, groaned Leonhart.
If he knew about it, he would have tried to enjoy the sensation when he carried her. It would allow him to enjoy climbing the mountains, with a double meaning.
“…I should be going.”
But there was no meaning in thinking about it. Let’s hurry and return, thought Leonhart, as he gave a final prayer of gratitude to the pair of mountains, and laid Pale on top of the makeshift bed of clothing on the ground. Since she wore these clothes all the time, it should be comfortable enough.
And as he left the tunnel, Leonhart thought.
…Even so, it sure is big…
After all, there was no one around him with such assets, so he felt the preciousness and was even more grateful about it.
And he was convinced. So it is true after all. As a man, the bigger, the better.
Although he didn’t hate modest breasts, there would be extra fun during the nighttime activities if they were big.
However, there was no way he could declare that opinion upfront. If he were to do so within the Maou Castle or when other people were around, they would definitely attack him, accusing him of prejudice against those with modest chests. Ssulal would definitely be first in line for this, as she often kicked walls when she saw Camilla, one of few people with glamorous assets. It was also important to note that the wall in this situation didn’t refer to an actual wall.
…As expected, a glamorous chest is better, yep.
Leonhart reconfirmed such thoughts. Once I return from the duel, I guess I’ll try to ask Pale if she could…perhaps she’ll be disgusted with me for asking, but on the off chance that she isn’t… Feeling newly energized with such thoughts, he left the tunnel to return to Raizen, but,
“—Hm?”
“—Oh?”
Both people felt each other’s presence and looked at each other. The person who walked up the mountain path was a kalar woman with long ears.
As their gaze met, they evaluated the appearance and strength of each other. Perhaps the woman noticed the extraordinary presence of Leonhart, because she looked at him with a somewhat relieved expression and said,
“—I finally, found you…”
“…”
She then glared at him fiercely.
Meanwhile, Leonhart looked at a certain spot and was astonished by an unexpected coincidence.
Upon the woman’s upper body, he discovered, with excitement,
—Another person with great assets, you say…?!
As the pair met under the setting sun, Leonhart felt unnaturally lucky, as if he had fallen asleep in his chair and woke up just in time to keep himself from falling over.
Author Note
Ssulal: “…”
Carol: “…”
Hunty: “…”
Galtia: … (I, I can’t say anything. I’ll get killed if I opened my mouth… if I said things like modest chest or something—)”
Launea: “… (GUILTY.)”
Galtia: “?! (She directly spoke to my mind…!)”
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