"I don't care who you are. I only want you to do one thing."
Jhin's contemptuous tone sent Saurius into a fury. Flames laced with the stench of sulfur jetted from his nostrils. He'd been on the verge of swatting this presumptuous, death-courting little human flat in a single blow — but curiosity got the better of him over just what this human was about to ask. So, choking down his rage, he forced out a question: "What is it you want me to do? Spit it out. If your answer satisfies me, perhaps I'll grant you the mercy of dying a little less hideously."
"It's hardly a difficult task." Jhin acted as though he were utterly oblivious to that gaze capable of killing on sight, and pointed at the ingredients scattered across the ground. "Pick up the ingredients."
"What?" Saurius's anger doubled back on itself and twisted into laughter. "What was that you said?"
"Didn't catch that? Then I'll repeat myself." Jhin's voice rang out, every word striking the ground like iron. "Pick. Up. The. Ingredients! Pick up the ingredients!! Pick up the ingredients!!! And if you can't understand human speech — well! I happen to know my way around a fist or two as well!"
"You wish to die!" Saurius's chest very nearly burst from rage at those words. A clump of deep purple magical energy condensed in his palm, and he hurled it down at this brazenly arrogant human.
Jhin let out a thundering cry: "Soul Son — Jorgoa!"
A single simple line, and for reasons unknown a wave of dread surged up from within Saurius's heart, forcibly arresting his attack mid-swing.
Th-this... what manner of being's name is that?! That it could plant terror in a demon of my rank?!
The emotion called fear had not visited him in who-knew-how-many hundreds of years — not since his promotion to a cadre of the Demon King's Army. And yet, in some indistinct corner of his vision, he could almost see a pair of invisible giant hands sprinkling some mysterious liquid onto his head, then effortlessly tearing off his scalp and devouring the flesh and blood that had once belonged to him.
Just how much impact his offhand outburst had visited upon the goat-headed Demon King's Army officer in front of him, Jhin had no idea — nor did he intend to dwell on the question. The moment Time Stop kicked in, [Elemental Armament] materialized across his body. He returned to Pecorine — still huddled behind the stove — drew out a Void weapon and used it to amplify his own power.
He returned to stand before Saurius. The magical rings circling his arms gradually peeled free of him, condensing into a longsword colored solid black and gold from hilt to tip. The very space around its blade-edge appeared to blur, as if it might shatter open at any second.
This was something Jhin had developed by reworking the Dark-Corrosive Thunder he had once used to instakill the Sand Scorpion King — forcibly compressing what should have been a pillar of black energy into a single elemental weapon. The blurring of space around the blade was precisely the manifestation of its devastating yet unstable power.
To avoid the long night that breeds nightmares, he cleanly and decisively brought the longsword down across Saurius's neck. The sensation — as smooth as a kitchen cleaver slicing through a sheet of paper — gave him a crystal-clear sense of just how potent this unstable weapon in his hand really was.
Worried that this Demon King's Army officer might possess some special ability allowing him to regenerate even after decapitation, Jhin took the longsword and churned the demon's chest into pulp as well. After confirming that both of the demon's hearts had been thoroughly destroyed, he skewered the head and body onto the sword like candied haws on a stick and hurled them skyward with all his strength.
Two strikes to the body, one through the head — even Yama himself would have shaken his head in disapproval.
"Snap!"
"Time, resume."
In the heartbeat before anyone could react, Saurius had already vanished. The eye-catching pillar of black light that lingered up in the sky persisted for about two or three minutes before slowly diminishing in scope, finally vanishing altogether.
Jhin walked over to the beverage recipe, used his personal terminal to take a photograph for the record, and was about to turn and leave. With the competition having degenerated into this state, there was simply no way to keep it running. As the man who'd killed a Demon King's Army officer, snapping a commemorative photo as his reward was reasonable enough, wasn't it?
"Wait! Young man!" One of the five judges stood up from behind a stove and called out to him. "Take that beverage recipe with you. As its creator, I can think of no one more fitting to receive it."
"That was actually your invention?" If so, Jhin really did have to give the judge before him his due — managing to grope his way toward something resembling the prototype of a carbonated drink was no small feat. "Then I'll accept it without standing on ceremony."
"Take it. With the competition reduced to this state, there's no way to continue. And Saurius has vanished without a trace as well. If only the Knights' Order were still stationed in the royal capital..."
Jhin had no plans whatsoever to inform him that the food-wasting Demon King's Army officer had already been dispatched by his own hand. He was worried that hitting the kid might draw out the parent. Even though killing this demon had looked easy on the surface, he had already played every card in his hand. If something he couldn't put down came along next, his only option would be to grab his companions from the Gourmet Edifice and bolt.
I told everyone the name of this culinary contest was a problem, didn't I? Capable of luring out heavyweight demons like a Demon King's Army officer — it's frankly a miracle nothing went wrong in any of the previous installments.
Jhin took the still-rattled Pecorine by the arm and rejoined the rest of the party.
"Master, facing down a Demon King's Army officer all on your own was reckless beyond belief!"
"That's right, that's right! In a situation like that, you should've grabbed Pecorine and the others and run for it, and then let me unleash a round of Explosion magic!"
Jhin shot Megumin a sharp glare. "Are you trying to blow the royal capital off the map? There were so many people on that stage — no way I could've saved them all."
"In any case, let's get out of here as quickly as possible. Who knows whether that Demon King's Army officer might reappear." Inside the room, Kyaru had clearly sensed the dreadful magical aura that had wreathed Saurius. Without the slightest exaggeration, even ten archmages' worth of mana pooled together couldn't have matched his. "And who's to say that pillar of black light wasn't him calling out to the rest of his comrades?"
"Alright, let's hurry back. We got the beverage recipe in hand anyway."
As for having wiped out a cadre of the Demon King's Army — Jhin had no intention of breathing a word to anyone. The fewer people who knew about something like this, the better.
The party hurried back home. Pecorine at last recovered her wits. On that stage, with no weapon to her name, in the face of Saurius she had felt nothing but utter helplessness. Even if she had wanted to step in and intervene, there had been nothing — nothing at all — she could have done.
She had a gut feeling that Saurius hadn't departed of his own free will. It must have been Jhin who, by some means, had forced him to leave the arena.
"Jhin... thank you."
Faced with her thanks-out-of-nowhere, Jhin — currently bent over the beverage recipe — looked up in some confusion. "Thank me for what?"
"Thank you for protecting me on that stage. And for protecting everyone else in Landosol."
"Protecting you is what I'm supposed to do. Protecting everyone else, well... that was more of a 'might as well, since the opportunity arose' kind of thing." Jhin wasn't the sort of person whose chest brimmed with righteous justice. If he hadn't been able to put down Saurius, he would have grabbed his companions and made off without the slightest hesitation — the rest of the people on that stage would have had to fend for themselves.
After all, those people had been little more than strangers who'd crossed his path. There was simply no way he would have set aside his companions' safety — and his own — for the sake of saving them. And this, too, was precisely why he believed he wasn't cut out to be a hero.
Deep in a crimson hell filled with sulfur and flame, a goat-headed demon opened both his eyes.
"How is it that one of my avatars in the mortal world has been destroyed?"
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
Let's hit these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 extra chapter for the public!