In the afternoon of the day we arrived at Wind Port, the passenger ship crossing the sea finally arrived. But we have to wait at least two weeks for the ship to prepare and depart back to Zant Port. Because even if this is the largest trading port on the Demon Continent, the amount of goods and people needing to travel between the two continents just isn't that much to constantly travel.
This world is still somewhat in the medieval era anyway, so most local areas and countries develop towards self-sufficiency. Most people everywhere do jobs that don't require much travel; they barely ever leave their birthplaces, let alone go to another continent. Cross-continental transport of goods in any form is extremely costly and time-consuming. Not to mention the seafolk also limit the number of ships passing through their waters.
Taking all those factors into account, having to wait half a month, according to Roxy, was already a pretty good number.
"But what should we do now?" I asked when we all were eating a newly cooked takoyaki batch for lunch on our second day.
"Whatever you want to." Talhand said. "Drinking, cooking or fighting. This town has every kind of entertainment for you to enjoy."
"I love drinking but the wine here is too bad for my taste."
"Your standard sure is high huh? Just like Isolde."
"I can't deny it." I admitted.
If I'm gonna put something into my mouth, it should be great or even better. Like the takoyaki ball I'm chewing right now. The last year of my previous life was only instant noodles and cheap food because I'm broke. And the experience in the Ant Nest Labyrinth makes me cherish good food even more. I don't know when I'm going to die in this dangerous world, so at least I want to live to eat and drink excellent stuff.
But my questions are gonna be answered soon.
Instead of spending those ten days resting, exploring, and enjoying the seaside life like a normal tourist, I was bothered by one person after another.
First were the food stall vendors and innkeepers coming to ask me how to make the grilled octopus balls. I thought it would only take me a day or two to teach them. But as it turned out, it took way more than that because my perfectionism on cooking doesn't want them to do anything sacrilegious to my beloved dish. The end result was that after nearly a week in Wind Port, every restaurant and inn had grilled octopus balls on their menus with acceptable quality.
I even taught them how to make katsuobushi, hoping that one day when I return here, an authentic takoyaki with all the right toppings will appear on my dining table.
After finishing up with the chefs, I suddenly got the idea of writing a worldwide cookbook. So I planned to spend the remaining days eating at the best restaurants here and learning their recipes. The chefs and restaurant owners, having been helped by me, didn't mind sharing at all—except for their signature dishes, for which I promised not to publish the recipes to ensure their business wouldn't be affected.
But after exactly three days, a disaster struck.
To be specific, ever since I made the pact with Larry, every day I have to go sunbathing so he can transform into Shinichi. It's a bit weird that lately, my sunbathing time hasn't changed, but Larry's enlarged time has been increasing quite steadily. Even though I don't understand why, my grumpy black cat seems to enjoy it, so I have no reason to complain. Until today.
Just like always, I found some deserted place at noon to burn under the sun for an hour. Larry, after turning into a giant panther, ran off somewhere as usual. I thought my job for the day was done. But just as I was getting ready to go eat something, I heard a commotion out on the beach.
And there was the oversized version of Larry, dragging the corpse of a Kraken ashore.
I have no idea how he managed to do this because Krakens are supposed to live somewhere in the middle of the sea right? How the heck can he catch this giant monster? Did he use his magic? I was actually impressed by this scene but everyone else in the town doesn't share the same amazement as mine.
They thought they were under monster attack and had summoned all the adventurers to fight off the terrifying black panther. Someone even tried to throw a fireball into Larry but it literally just vanished when came near my pet.
I had to spend half an hour explaining that it was the normal black cat that always followed me. The problem was only resolved when Larry shrank back down into the small, harmless Conan.
But trouble is like the first autumn rain. Once one drop falls, the rest will follow. Upon seeing that I had such a terrifying cat, someone gasped out loud.
"Then you must be the Demon Dragon King Lan Atur, right!?"
"What!? Demon Dragon King!?"
"The Bald Hero who defeated Demon King Atoferatofe!?"
"WHO THE FUCK CALLED ME BALD!?"
And just like that, my identity was exposed, even though I hadn't had the slightest intention of hiding it.
I thought my rumors only existed in the northern part of the Demon Continent. But it seems the winds carried them further than I thought. Only then did I realize I had more nicknames than I thought. Like Bald Hero, Demon Dragon King, One-Eyed Hero, Fire Fist, Ant Destroyer, Demon Kings Hunter,...
At first, when people saw me and heard my name, they were already suspicious because it matched the stories being told. But after the Larry incident, they got full confirmation.
Because of that, suddenly, from one adventurer to another swordsman, they kept coming to me to... ask for guidance. They were curious about what the swordsmanship, skills, and power of a Heroic Demon Dragon King would be like. Some of them are even trying to go to Fortress Necross and took me quite some time to persuade them not to. And by some miraculous means, Wind Port ended up hosting a whole swordsmanship tournament.
To be specific, I won't go into long-winded details. Just know that my strongest opponent was only at the Advanced tier, which tells you that most of my matches only lasted one or even two seconds. Even the match between Isolde and me went by pretty quickly. I used Exorcist Light and Howl simultaneously to stun her for a split second and won before the fight even truly started. This was the first time I used this tactic since leaving Roa, so it wasn't strange that Isolde was caught off guard.
Our score since meeting up again is now 267-289 in her favor. Of course, Isolde didn't seem upset; she looked quite thrilled to witness a novel technique.
"So you can even use Beast Race techniques as well? Did Arcantos teach you?"
"Ah no, Ghislaine taught it to me." I admitted, then helped her up.
"Ghislaine? The Black Wolf Sword King?" Isolde seemed a bit surprised. "Then why is this the first time I've seen you use it?"
"Because countering this is pretty easy." I shrugged. "You just need to dodge to the side before getting hit by Howl, and that's it."
"I thought so too. So that really is the most effective way, huh?"
Truly a genius, she just got defeated and already figured out how to counter it. From now on, I assume no Beast Race can use Howl against Isolde effectively anymore. But I will find another way to surprise her later.
"I concede complete defeat." Isolde added, then left the arena with a quote like something out of a shounen manga. "Don't you dare lose."
"Yeah, you know that I won't."
And so I entered the finals.
And quite surprisingly, this match was tougher than I thought. My opponent was a North Saint named Yalin, a disciple of some North Emperor named Auber-Peacock-or-something that I didn't catch clearly because his voice was quite grating. That guy was a Demon Race who looked quite like a fox with orange hair (or fur?) that was rather pleasing to the eye. To be honest, I wanted to touch his hair to feel the softness but successfully restrained it.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Yalin asked, he seemed scared.
"Ah… Um… Well… Do you understand what wa pa pa pa pa pa pow means?"
"What?"
"Ah sorry, that was a strange thing to ask. Let's fight then."
I didn't think this would be a difficult match so I had my guard down, and then this guy played dirty by throwing chili powder and using wind magic to blow it all over my face. And it wasn't just any normal chili; it was Hell Chili, a thousand times spicier than usual.
Because of that, my eyes felt like they were on fire, my nose ran like rain, and my mouth burned so much I wanted to bite my own tongue off.
"YOU CALL THROWING CHILI AROUND SWORDMANSHIP!?" I yelled.
"Hey, as long as it works." Yalin chuckled and dashed toward me with full speed. "Haiyah!"
"AH!"
Consequently, Yalin got the first-strike advantage and landed three solid hits on my head, chest, and legs very decisively. If it were a normal swordsman, they would have been knocked out instantly.
"Huh? Why is your body so hard!?"
But too bad for Yalin, his opponent was a man covered in Blood Tribe battle aura. So even after being hit with his full strength, I only felt like a slightly strong gust of wind had slammed into me.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"
Meanwhile I'm still in agony. My face is still burning like it's on the surface of the sun. Thus, the final match was a bizarre spectacle. Me, the famous Heroic Demon Dragon King, rolling around on the ground, while my opponent held a real sword and struck me continuously to no effect for ten straight minutes.
By the time I calmed down a bit and threw a punch, that Yalin guy was knocked unconscious. Just like that, I became the 'Champion of The Sword'. While those isekai protagonists go around collecting pretty girls into his harem, here I am collecting a bunch of titles whose sole function is to level up my imposter syndrome to new heights.
And right after the swordsmanship tournament, I was asked by younger, less experienced adventurers about my journey here on the Demon Continent. So I recounted exactly what happened, minus a few things like the fact that Isolde and I were technically only in a fake marriage. I didn't want to get nabbed by Sir Lan just two days before I could finally leave this damn continent.
But somehow it turned into a novelty love story about two genius swordsmen and swordswomen who knew each other from childhood. A young swordsman who listened to that story got his courage and finally confessed his love to his childhood friend as well and they became a couple.
Good for them, I guess.
On the tenth day, some merchant from Rikaris arrived with a lot of his ware. The ship started preparing to leave, and that's when we found out there won't be that much space for us to bring all the luggage we currently have. So we had to sell the two transport lizards to a beast trainer here.
Funny how the one who bought them from us is a lizard kind demon race. They are called the Rugonia tribe, the same tribe as Calina. I did ask if he knew the Ultimate Four of the Wind and it seems like he doesn't. We can't expect everyone to know everyone then.
As for all the food and provisions we brought from the beginning of the journey, plus that massive Kraken I tried everything to keep fresh, it was all brought out and cooked into a huge feast along with the snake wine I had been brewing for nearly half a year.
Initially, I just planned to cook a giant pot of stew to treat the adventurers staying at the same inn. But after finding out I was leaving, the townsfolk of Wind Port decided to take the day off work and cook their best dishes together. So what started as one pot of meat turned into a full-blown festival that night, with the locals singing and celebrating together.
The next morning, the ship left port. There weren't many people seeing us off because everyone was still dead drunk. But these past ten days in Wind Port gave me more beautiful memories than I thought.
In the late spring of the year 421 Armored Dragon King Calendar, I officially left the Demon Continent, heading towards Millishion.