Prologue

Preface

“What do you think is happiness?”

“An illusion, I would say.”

“Too bad, you’re incorrect. We call it happiness when your heart is full.”

“When your heart is full?”

“Indeed.”

“What is the heart in the first place? Isn’t that in itself an illusion?”

“Oh? That’s a good question.”

“…I was being sarcastic though.”

“Fufu, then you are too honest. So cute~ As expected from my student.”

“What does that even mean? Are you complementing me? Or making fun of me? I will persecute you, you know?”

“No to the persecution! Listen. Heart is what makes humans humans. Only monsters lack the heart.”

“Then, everybody…is a monster.”

“Ahaha, that’s not true. After all, I’m happy because you’re here.”

“…Huh? What is this single old man saying? Gross.

“Heeey! That’s mean! How do you come up with such harsh words?!”

“Anyway, teacher, let’s leave that kind of nonsense aside and make dinner. What would you like to eat?”

“Tang fry, swallow’s nest soup or black truffle pasta would be nice.”

“Please stop making requests that are really one-choice. Tang fry again, huh…”

『It』was certainly neither an illusion nor a dream as it existed there. Yet, I couldn’t even notice it, not to say anything of treasuring it. Even though it was so quiet and I always took it as granted, now it’s more distant than a dream.

XXX

If one falls from a high height, they will surely wake up.

In other words, if this is a dream, I should wake up any second now. However, in my field of vision, there’s only my outstretched hand and the smile of the man who pushed me off. There are no signs of my consciousness fading and my body is still under the rule of gravity. This fall must feel so slow because of that one condition during which, the impending sense of crisis causes everything to seem like it’s in slow motion. If I remember right, it was called Tachypsychia. No, right now that doesn’t really matter.

“In other words, this is not a dream.”

I understand this the moment I’m hanging in the air upside down.

Currently, I’m falling from the roof of the 15-story building. That means that I will land on ground in about 3 seconds, or to say it in other terms, I will die. If that is a predetermined future, isn’t this situation, with my accelerated thoughts, a bit too wasteful? After all, if I had reached this state a bit faster, I would be able to make something more interesting and earn more money. Then, I would be able to support ‘that person’ more. Then, maybe I would have a different future.

Anyway, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. Before I die, I should at the very least close my eyes to call ‘that person’s’ image to mind. ――and that is exactly what I try to do, but in contrast to my accelerated thoughts, my eyelids don’t even twitch. My body must be unable to keep up with my thoughts. ―― Since there’s nothing I can do about that, I project the image of my beloved on the upside-down Sun.

The long and fine, lustrous black hair sways with the wind. The grey eyes hold celestial beauty. High nose bridge, thin lips and white teeth. Right part of his body is that of the dead, left part is that of the aberration and his rare soft smile is truly that of the God. His sculpted words are also spun exquisitely and each of the magical circles he draws is an epitome of perfection. That person lacks faults so much that it’s actually sad.

Demon King, the last boss of the Lapis Lazuli world. I call him Mr. Demon King with respect.

The Weekly Drop that was released last week had a superb colored cover and on the last page, was the picture of him, dying in explosion.

Ah, just remembering it makes me cry. ―― However, my body doesn’t cry even if my heart does. It’s painful, but my heart is filled with sadness―― it was already strange for an unpopular work like that to have a colored cover. I could already see the signs from half an year ago. Fast pace, the appearance of unnecessary handsome characters, unreasonable fan service…it was axed. Otherwise, there’s no reason for the Mr. Demon Lord from the fluffy gag fantasy story to be killed by the Hero who had never worked before. In the first place, Mister Demon Lord hasn’t done any Demon King-like work either. His worst deed would be reviving zombies on Halloween. However, as a result, the Hero got to talk with his deceased grandma and the chapter turned out to be kind of heartwarming, there was no damage done to humans and no matter how much I think about it, he didn’t deserve to die from getting hit by that kind of secret technique.

Of course, I understood that the work itself wasn’t very popular. That’s why, I bought thousand copies each week and kept filling the questionnaire. I kept sending fan letters to the author every day and whenever the separate volume came out, I visited all different bookshops, participated in the university reunion party I didn’t want to attend and conducted missionary work.

But what did that account to?

Why didn’t I buy more?

Only buying thousand copies isn’t enough. Truly not enough. Such naïve thinking! Truly naïve. What did I expect from the investment of mere thousand copies in a week?! If I didn’t make it into the bestselling magazine in the whole country by myself, it’s just a shallow effort.

After all, that person is a Demon King and even without doing anything, he’s the absolute evil.

If I wanted to keep such person alive, I should have thrown away everything I had. I’m sorry, Mr. Demon King. This all happened because I was incompetent. I’m sorry, Mr. Author. Your comment about “not being able to let him survive no matter what” must’ve definitely been addressed at me. Mr. Demon King, who only used to appear once in chapters climbing up to the stop of regular characters and getting drawn better and better with his each appearance is probably also my fault. Thank you. Thank you very much. I only feel gratitude for you. I understand that if Mr. Demon King died, the story would be settled. It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s much better than the dream punchline. The only thing I can’t help but regret is my actions.

―― I wanted to dedicate everything to you.

Even getting killed feels trivial compared to that regret.

Finally, I am able to close my eyelids. Fuu, I sigh. Tears flow from my eyes, which were burnt by the Sun.

Since that much time has passed, it’s time ―― for death.