Kōichi had thought this would be a fierce battle with their lives on the line. He had even steeled himself to fight to the death, despite the taste of Kazuma still lingering in his mouth. But what happened next left everyone present, including Aqua, trapped in a long silence.
Sylvia was brandishing her Magic Sword, while countless Beastmen behind her roared loud enough to shake the earth. The atmosphere was grim to the extreme.
And then, three Crimson Demon Clan villagers who looked unbelievably sloppy slowly wandered up to the front.
"Hey, you lot. You're getting in the way of my laundry." The middle-aged man in the undershirt spat out the toothpick in his mouth, his gaze so sharp it seemed like it could cut through space.
"Wait! Before you attack, hear our names!"
The young man holding the corn suddenly tossed it into the air, then twisted his entire body into a pose that violated every law of ergonomics.
"My name is Qiekenao! I am the Crimson Demon Clan's foremost master of rhythm, the man who commands thunder and the power of the beat! Tremble, you scum of the Demon King's Army!"
"My name is... yawns... Kunkun, the Crimson Demon Clan's foremost... Sleep Emperor. Anyone who disturbs my sleep can go eat dirt in their dreams."
The girl lazily flicked her finger.
Sylvia's eye twitched with rage. "Enough! You lunatics! Die! All troops, charge!!"
At Sylvia's command, thousands of Monsters roared and surged toward the village entrance.
Yet in the face of an army strong enough to destroy a small country, the three villagers did not so much as raise an eyebrow.
"Light of Saber!"
"Inferno!"
"Cursed Crystal Prison!"
In an instant, countless blinding flashes, scorching flames, and deep-blue crystal pillars poured from the three villagers' hands like bargain-bin goods being dumped wholesale. The once-menacing vanguard of the Demon King's Army evaporated the moment it touched the magic, without even getting the chance to scream.
BOOM!!
A massive explosion thundered into the sky. When the smoke and dust cleared, a crater several meters deep had appeared in what had once been flat ground.
With one casual attack, the army Sylvia had brought had shrunk by a full third.
"W-what the hell was that?!" Kazuma froze in place, still clutching the dagger he had prepared for a sneak attack. "Those guys just used high-level magic, right? That was definitely high-level magic! Why are they using it as casually as sprinkling water?! Hey, Kōichi, what the hell were we risking our lives for just now?!"
Kōichi stared at the young man eating grilled corn, the corners of his mouth twitching violently.
"Don't ask me, Kazuma. Right now, I'm starting to think the only reason the Demon King's Army still exists is because the people of Crimson Demon Village are too much of shut-ins to bother going outside. This isn't a war. This is a max-level boss bullying mobs in the starter village!"
"Heh. That's the Crimson Demon Clan for you." Megumin planted her hands on her hips. Though she had failed to steal the opening spotlight, her face was full of pride. "In our village, anyone who can't use high-level magic doesn't even qualify to do odd jobs at the tavern!"
"You've got to be kidding me! Then what's the point of me existing?!"
Aqua watched the Undead being purified in an instant and suddenly felt an unprecedented professional crisis. "With efficiency like this, even this Goddess is going to lose her job!"
Meanwhile, Sylvia stood at the edge of the crater, watching the army she was so proud of get swatted like flies by villagers in pajamas. She sank into deep self-doubt.
"Impossible... This is impossible! I'm a Demon King's General! I'm the Chimera Sylvia! You bastards, take this seriously!!"
Sylvia let out a grief-stricken roar of fury. The answer she received was a passing Crimson Demon Clan child casually tossing a [Fireball] at her.
At the smoke-filled village entrance, the once-fierce Demon King's Army had become a pack of defeated dogs, completely lost in the wind.
Sylvia looked at her army, now reduced by more than half, then looked at the Crimson Demon Clan uncle crouching on the ground studying ants, as if he had not just casually thrown out an Inferno Spell. At last, she completely broke down.
Just then, an unexpectedly touching scene unfolded.
Several Beastmen commanders, charred black and missing limbs, flung themselves at Sylvia's feet and shouted in a tragic tone worthy of an opera lead.
"General! Run! We'll hold them off here! Please survive and return to the Demon King's Castle. Tell everyone... the people of Crimson Demon Village aren't human at all! They're monsters wearing human skin!!"
"That's right! General, you are the hope of the Chimera! You must not fall in this cursed place where even the announcer wants to go home and eat potatoes! Go! Hurry, go!!"
The Monsters actually joined hands and formed a wall of flesh, their eyes filled with the resolve to die without regret. A few Undead even cast Self-Destruct Magic on themselves, trying to use their final burst of light to illuminate their general's path of escape.
Sylvia's eyes reddened. Though she was a Chimera, she was moved by the simple loyalty of her subordinates.
Gritting her teeth, she took one last deep look at the young Crimson Demon Clan man still eating grilled corn, then let out a shrill curse.
"Remember this! I, Sylvia, will definitely return! You lunatics of the Crimson Demon Clan, and you, young man. You'd better be waiting for me! I'll never let any of you off!!"
With that, Sylvia became a streak of crimson light. Under the cover of her subordinates' desperate self-destructions, she vanished over the distant horizon without looking back.
The villagers of Crimson Demon Village merely patted the dust off their clothes.
"Ah, she got away." The middle-aged man in the undershirt scratched the back of his head, looking regretful. "If I'd known, I should've used Teleport to get behind her and finish her off. Too bad, my clothes are almost dry."
"Forget it. Something like this happens a few times every month anyway. You get used to it."
The young man holding the corn took another bite, then wandered back, looking completely uninterested.
After witnessing the entire thing, Kōichi and Kazuma Satou had completely lost the ability to cope. Their bodies were as stiff as stone statues, as if a single gust of wind would make them crumble apart.
Kazuma Satou slowly turned his head. The excitement in his dead-fish eyes was gone, replaced by a hollow detachment from worldly concerns and an overwhelming desire to survive. He reached out with a trembling hand and clutched Kōichi's arm.
"Kōichi... I suddenly feel like defeating the Demon King, going back to Japan, and getting a beautiful girl's first kiss... none of that matters anymore."
Kazuma's voice was so faint it sounded like he was about to die.
"Why don't we... spend the rest of our lives here? I think this is the safest place in the entire world. As long as we don't leave the village entrance, even the Demon King himself would probably lose a layer of skin if he came here."
Kōichi swallowed hard. He looked at the Crimson Demon Clan child using high-level magic to make himself a slide, then thought back to Sylvia's terrified expression as she fled, as if she had seen a ghost. With a heavy and utterly sincere grip, he clasped Kazuma's hand in return.
"You're right, Kazuma. I agree. Here, even if we spent every day putting on some perverted show where we kissed each other in the town square, the villagers would probably only critique whether our poses were chuunibyou enough. Our lives wouldn't be in any danger at all. This place... is paradise for losers and shut-ins."
In that moment, the two reached a kind of spiritual resonance.
They finally understood the true strength of Crimson Demon Village. How was this a small border village in need of saving?
This was clearly a forbidden zone on a completely different scale, the kind the Demon King's Army would take a detour around and even the gods would get a headache just thinking about.