Chapter 7

Inside of a tavern located in one corner of Dno’s main shopping district, Lion was talking to a plump, bearded man.

“Wow, you are quite something, lad! You don’t see someone having four rare beasts at such a young age often!”

“Ah, but it comes with a lot of limitations and I can only summon one beast…”

“Even one is amazing, though! Wait a moment, I think I have a request suited for a summoner.”

The man was an informant. He quickly turned the pages of his thick notebook, stopping when he reached a certain page.

“Here it is! There is a small town called Rowan located further east. It lies on the border between Thailes and the Eastern Demon King’s domain. Since last year, this town of Rowan had gotten very little rain, and their harvest was extremely bad. Even now, it hasn’t rained there in weeks although it’s the height of the rainy season.”

If there wouldn’t be enough rainfall during this year’s rainy season either, a lot of people would lose their jobs or die of starvation. Although meteorologists were trying to look for the cause of this abnormal weather too, since they have not figured it out, the town’s people decided to hire a suspicious shaman without consulting anyone. Of course, the town received aid from the country, however, since it was a town with a lot of people working in agriculture to begin with, it was a very severe issue.

Moreover, there was one more problem.

For some reason, Rowan was the only town where it wouldn’t rain. There were rumors going around that it wasn’t simply just a problem with the weather, but that perhaps, the drought was caused by something external.

‘Something external’. That meant…

“That means that there’s a possibility that a demon could be the cause?”

“Yes, exactly! Since you understand, I will make it brief. The government said that there was no definitive proof of that, so they hadn’t taken any proper measures yet. It seems that they intend to do something once there are casualties, but the mayor clung to me in tears. ‘We’re looking for a capable person!’ Young lad, you have Thunder, right?”

Thunder1 was a summoning beast considered to be the incarnation of lightning and thunder. It could summon heavy, dark clouds on the spot and was capable of manipulating lightning at will. Besides this, Thunder could also summon large amounts of rain.

Although Thunder could bring rain, if the drought was really being caused by a demon, wouldn’t Lion have to confront that demon as well? That might have been too big of a bite for just one summoner to swallow.

“But, if a demon really is behind it, then it’s too much to handle for a single summoner…”

“If a demon shows up, you should just run away, lad, since confronting it isn’t part of the job request. The commission the mayor put out just said that they wanted someone to bring rain. Getting rid of a demon is a completely separate matter, is it not? You are such a sincere young lad! Mwahaha!”

The informant was laughing energetically while slapping Lion’s shoulder.

Seeing that he told Lion things such as: “If you don’t learn how the world works, you’ll run yourself ragged!”, he was probably an unexpectedly good-natured man.

Without a pause, the informant pulled Lion closer by his shoulder and whispered into his ear secretly.

“Besides, you see, I have collected quite a hefty fee for serving as the middleman. If no one takes up the request I’ll be pretty ashamed, you know!”

Moreover, he seemed to be a very honest person.

Well, if it was just figuring out the cause of the drought and summoning rain, surely a single person should somehow manage.

Lion was about to give him an answer, when the man let out a ‘Guh’, sounding as if his voice was getting crushed, and the informant’s body floated in front of him.

“Get away from him.”

The man wasn’t floating, he was seized from behind by the scruff of his neck and lifted up.

The collar of his own clothes was cutting into the man’s throat, his neck as thick as a bull’s.

“Mister Sei!”

Sure enough, Seirios was standing behind the informant. Just like the last time, in the blink of an eye, Seirios had held up the plump man suspended in the air.

“This man was too close to you.”

“What are you doing?! Let go of him!”

Seirios gave Lion a brief, sidelong glance and then he suddenly let go. The informant forcefully fell onto his backside, greedily breathing in air in between of his continuous dry coughs.

He turned around, intending to yell at the sudden intruder, and froze. Seirios’ arms were crossed across his chest, and he was glaring at the man coldly.

It seemed that the informant truly was experienced with how the world worked. He had instantly recognized Seirios as ‘someone you can’t go against’. Drenched in cold sweat, he put on a flimsy smile and asked Lion:

“I-I’m guessing that this person is your companion, young lad?”

At once, Lion gave the informant his answer, telling him that he accepted the work request, and after he got the necessary information, he quickly walked out of the tavern. Lion couldn’t bear being the focus of attention of everyone inside the tavern.

“Listen…Mister Sei, please stop getting yourself involved so suddenly!”

“That man’s face was too close to yours. I felt uncomfortable.”

“I don’t understand why you would feel uncomfortable!”

“Since you are my owner, Lion, I can’t have others getting involved with you.”

Lion gritted his teeth forcefully. If this continued, he would end up wearing his molars down. +They weren’t on the same page at all…

They walked all the way back to the inn in silence. Since Seirios said that he would pay for a room as well, Lion intended to rent two rooms yesterday. However, since Seirios gave him no time to interject and there was no use in arguing about it anyway, they ended up renting just one upgraded room.

“Are we leaving for that town, Rowan, tomorrow?”

“Yes…Do you plan on going with me after all?”

“Of course.”

Since their room that day had a bathroom, they brought some hot water from downstairs and then poured it into the bath. Seirios said that he was fine with bathing later, so he let Lion use it first. Lion liked soaking in hot water to begin with.

At the moment, the two of them sat facing each other on their respective beds, talking.

“However, the fact that there might be a demon behind it… I have a feeling that it’s limited to this land. It could be possible that Vega doesn’t know about this.”

“Vega? Who is that?”

“The Eastern Demon King.”

”

”

“Demon…?!”

This word had come up so suddenly that Lion’s voice cracked. Since to humans, Demon Kings were a source of terror, to hear Seirios addressing a Demon King like a friend was startling.

Right. The man in front of him might look like a beautiful human, but he was actually a mysterious demon on the inside.

“If anything, Vega is a demon who treats humans unusually well.”

That was right. The Demon Kings had different personalities, and the demons under a certain Demon King supervision tended to behave the same way as their ruler.

The Northern Demon King, who had boasted about reigning for 400 years, and whose reign had already ended at that point, was heartless. He was known not to trespass onto the land where humans lived himself, however, if humans were the ones to trespass, he would severely punish them, so he was feared greatly. However, because the Northern Demon King’s territory was rich in ores and minerals, countless people had violated the agreement again and again for many years, and they kept on fighting with him repeatedly. Lion had heard about this many times when he was actually a part of one such hero group, although just briefly.

Since he had heard that a new Demon King had risen, he didn’t know how things would become from now on.

The Eastern Demon King, who had reigned for 250 years, was gentle. The Demon King had drawn a clear line between themself and the humans, but they treated the human kind relatively well, and there weren’t many conflicts between the demons and the humans. Therefore, there were rarely any work requests related to suppressing the Eastern Demon King.

The Western Demon King, who had reigned for 150 years, was a tyrant. Lion had heard that he was the most demon-like out of them, and he was hostile to humans and wanted to seize them under his control. Since the human and demon troops were constantly at war with each other, it was said that the human troops consisted entirely of elite warriors.

The Southern Demon King had been defeated by the Hero Aaron 100 years ago. Lion’s home country, the Mauser kingdom, was one of the lands that neighbored the Southern Demon King’s territory. Currently, no other Demon King had risen yet and the demons weren’t under anyone’s control either. In other words, the situation was chaotic.

Certainly, he also thought that what was happening to Rowan was out of character for the Eastern Demon King to do but…

“In any case, the moment a demon shows up, I’ll get lost. I can’t handle it alone.”

“Since I will be assisting you, I believe there wouldn’t be any problems, though.”

“I never heard about a demon aligning himself with a human and fighting against his own kind.”

“Is that so? Then I might just be the first demon to do such a thing.”

“……”

Lion wasn’t sure how much of that was a joke and how much of it Seirios meant seriously. However, he did attack the female demon at the shrine in the lake in order to save Lion and up until now, he hadn’t done anything that could hurt Lion either.

Well, even if Lion were to tell him: “Don’t follow me!” Seirios would just do what he wanted and would follow him anyway.

They had to get up early tomorrow, so they better get some sleep.

“Anyway, we should head to bed.”

“You’re right.”

“…ghk, we have two beds today! So why are you getting into mine?!”

“Your warmth and scent are nice.”

“Guh! What are you saying?!”

Lion went bright red and attempted to get out of the bed, however, of course, the other man wouldn’t allow him to do that. Lion was embraced tightly the same way as yesterday, unable to move.

That night, the summoner understood the importance of accepting defeat.

**********

Lion was dreaming.

He realized that he was dreaming because he was looking down at his own child self from above, from roughly the height of a ceiling.

The young Lion was hugging a small, black beast, sleeping soundly. Since he had that small demon with him, this Lion must be around six years old.

He had golden hair that was even frizzier and more unruly than it was now, and a freckled face. It was his own self, before he became aware of the cruelty of the world.

Since that black beast was the first demon he had secretly summoned when no one was looking, if the adults found out about it, they would definitely be angry with him. The puppy-like demon had soft, fluffy black fur, wings, and deep crimson eyes. Lion didn’t even know its name.

Although Lion was sleeping soundly, it seemed that the small beast was awake and was sniffing around Lion’s hair and neck, licking his face. He could hear its tail slapping the white sheets enthusiastically. Its whole body seemed to be saying that he loved Lion.

It was really so cute! I wonder where it went off to?

Since he hadn’t even known its name, even though he repeatedly tried to summon the same beast again once he grew up, he never managed to.

Because of these attempts, Lion had a contract with a lot of regular, dog-like common type beasts. If only his powers were not restricted! He at least wished that he could keep them summoned, so that they could keep him company on his travels.

”

”

Perhaps because the black puppy had enough of licking him, it crawled onto Lion’s chest and after squirming around for a moment, it went still. It probably fell asleep.

Feeling his chest becoming warm, Lion thought: ‘It has been a while since I’ve had such a good dream!’

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Thank you for reading!

Footnotes

ナルカミ – ‘Narukami’, literally means thunder