The Melancholy of the Demon Army Officer
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Shizukuku
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 082 – Magic [A]
One day.
A few days had passed since Kesselring had become a majin and joined the Demon Army. Leonhart, the supreme majin and the demon army officer, who had some free time thanks to her contribution, had called several women to his room.
“—There’s only one reason I went through the trouble of calling you all here.”
Leonhart had a serious expression as he looked at the three women in front of him.
They were Maou Ssulal, Majin Kesselring, and Apostle Hunty. They had answered Leonhart’s call and came to this place. By the way, Carol continued to do paperwork behind Leonhart.
Galtia’s figure was not among the people gathered. Although everyone present was female except for Leonhart, it wasn’t like he called them for lewd purposes.
Leonhart said something while looking pretty serious.
His words were,
“—Please, teach me magic…!”
“…”
Silence engulfed the room as they heard what he said.
They looked at each other’s faces and they each wore a subtle expression. After a while, they resumed their movement.
The first to talk was Hunty,
“Ah-… the tea tastes delicious… Carol, did you get better at brewing tea?”
“Eh, really? I don’t think I improved that much!”
“The leaves might be good, but the taste changes depending on the skill of the person who brews them.”
“Indeed, it tastes good…”
“Fufuhn! I’m one step closer to becoming the perfect apostle!”
The three women tasted the tea served to them and praised Carol, and her hand that was working on paperwork stopped. It was because she was busy proudly puffing her chest forward due to the praise.
That was fine and all but,
“…Oi, are you listening to me? I want you to teach me magic here…”
Just in case, Leonhart repeated his request once more.
Then, once again, the women were looking at each other. They all wore subtle expressions.
However, a proper response came this time. Ssulal represented the group and spoke to Leonhart with an exasperated expression.
“…Leonhart. You—”
She said as she exhaled,
“What do you want to do if you become stronger than you already are…?”
“Seriously.”
“…No, well…”
Hunty had half-lidded eyes as she agreed to Ssulal’s words. Kesselring was doing her best to be considerate, but her words didn’t come out well.
Meanwhile, Leonhart argued while slightly raising his eyebrows.
“Wouldn’t it be fine, even if I got stronger? So don’t look at me like I’m a no-good person.”
“…It can’t be helped since you do look like one.”
“What do you mean by that…?”
Leonhart wrinkled his eyebrows when he was treated as a no-good person for some reason. However Hunty didn’t respond, choosing to drink her tea instead. The one who answered in her stead was Ssulal who had just moved her cup away from her mouth,
“…You see, Leonhart is already strong enough and has fought well, even without learning magic, right? We can even consider your swordsmanship to be the best in the world. There’s not much meaning to you learning magic at this point.”
She shrugged as she said that.
However, Leonhart expression became worse at that light remark,
“…I have someone I have to beat, you see…”
“Eh, what’s with that?”
Ssulal’s expression changed into wonder as if she’d heard something she didn’t expect. Kesselring, who also had similar expression,
“So there’s someone out there that Leonhart wants to defeat badly enough to proactively learn magic… No, is there any opponent who has such power?”
“Aah,” said Leonhart as he nodded.
Then he said it. While everyone had serious expression and paid attention to him,
“That opponent is—”
Leonhart spoke with a quivering voice and spoke the name of said opponent.
“………………A troll.” 1
The moment that name was uttered, the atmosphere of the room froze. Everyone stopped moving out of exasperation.
After all, they had imagined the opponent that Leonhart had personally said he wanted to defeat might be an absurd entity.
But unlike their expectations, said opponent was something they were all familiar with — a demon. Their movement stopped due to the gap between imagination and reality.
But after a while, they reorganized their thoughts, understood it, and recalled something. Everyone then said together,
“—Ah- I see.”
They all nodded in understanding. As the atmosphere relaxed and they wore convinced expressions, Leonhart instead clenched his sweaty fist,
“…There is no other demon as scary to me… To overcome him, I need to learn magic…!
“No, well… I guess you’re right…”
Hunty replied half-heartedly when Leonhart said so with a deeply regrettable expression and clenched his teeth. The difference in their temperature was significant.
“After all,” Hunty said as a preface before explaining,
“A troll is… a demon that makes physical attacks invalid.” 2
“I never saw one in person… But if I am not wrong, they are demons who possess characteristics that make any physical attack in the selected region invalid, right? There are also goblins who can make magic invalid instead.”
Ssulal put her hand on her chin and supplemented the explanation as she recalled the demons’ characteristics.
Kesselring was,
“Does that mean… Leonhart happened to encounter one somewhere?”
She asked him. To which Leonhart answered as he held his head.
“That’s right… I happened to encounter one in the dungeon the other day… I could do nothing but escape in front of him…”
“It was scary back then~…”
“…I guess that was a disaster for you.”
Carol also looked down in a similar way. They went together when they were exploring the dungeon and, since neither of them could use magic, they had no choice but to escape back then.
That was why Leonhart stood up.
“I want to learn magic to defeat him… No, I need to learn magic…!”
Perhaps recalling the regret of that moment, Leonhart then looked at the three with a passionate gaze.
Then he proceeded to kneel on the floor,
“That’s why please! Teach me magic…!”
“Ah, hey…!”
Even as Ssulal tried to stop him, Leonhart proceeded to cling to Ssulal and asked her over and over.
“Please…! Teach me magic to defeat that troll—”
“H-hey?! Let me go, ah, hey… O-okay! I-I get it so let me go!”
“! Really?!”
As Leonhart looked at Ssulal with a bright face, Ssulal looked away with a little blush on her cheeks,
“I-I just need to teach you magic, right? I don’t mind…It’s not that hard for me anyway…”
“Ooh…Then—”
“—However.”
Leonhart seemed to want to be taught immediately, but Ssulal spoke before he could continue his words.
Ssulal then squinted her eyes and put her finger up in front of Leonhart to make him listen,
“Listen to me properly! That’s my condition!”
“A…Aah! I get it…!”
Even though he felt a little pressured, Leonhart quickly understood and accepted the condition. The people around him were,
“…Well, then I’ll only teach him when I feel like it. It’s a hassle anyway.”
“Ssulal-sama should handle most of the teaching — but if you need my help, you can always call me.”
Hunty accepted reluctantly while Kesselring willingly accepted it.
Seeing that, Leonhart stood up tensely while feeling something spring up in his chest.
“Okay, then let’s go outside immediately—“
“Well then — here. Read this first.” 3
“…………Ah?”
Looking at the book that was suddenly presented to him, Leonhart leaked a stupid voice.
Where did she pull that from? Leonhart thought, as Ssulal passed him the book,
“Read all of its content first, and I will give you the next book once you understand it. You can ask me if you come across something you don’t understand.”
“………………No, rather, this is—?”
“Why do you ask… of course it is a book about magic theory. I made sure to give you a book that is meant for a beginner… what’s wrong?”
“………………No, nothing.”
Ssulal tilted her head in wonder. She thought she had done an obvious thing.
As Hunty saw that, she wore a nasty expression as she looked at something interesting and said to Leonhart,
“I’ll say that you first need to learn properly about magical theory and knowledge, okay? In practice, you’ll need to remember it and you’ll need to learn things like how to use your magic power to use magic, so do your best and learn it.”
“Leonhart… Well, do your best.”
“…F-fine…!”
Hearing the two’s words, Leonhart took the book with excitement and,
“I will make sure to learn this within a week… no, within three days…! Then… I will destroy that fucking troll…!”
“I will also study together with you!”
As Leonhart clenched his fist and made his declaration, Carol also stood up and followed.
“W-well, do your best…?”
Looking at the strangely motivated master and servant, Ssulal gave her encouragement mixed with wry laughter.
—And with that, Leonhart began his training to learn magic.
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