Chapter 59 – Cohabitation
The ruler’s crystal, which had been known only through the story of the one-armed old wizard Merlin, is now held in Escaros’ hand, shrunk to the size of a baseball.
Escaros, who lifted the crystal ball at an angle and looked around, tried pouring mana lightly as a test.
“…”
This time, too, there is no reaction. If the crystal itself did not feel the mana that could only be described as miraculous, it would have been regarded as useless junk.
Poof-!
“Ouch…! Tossing it all of a sudden…”
He tossed the crystal in a parabola without warning and returned it to Merlin, and the old wizard, who deftly received it with his only one arm, pretended to be sweating.
“Hmm… According to your guess I heard a little while ago, if you were a demon born when the previous demon king was beaten by a hero, he must be young enough to be recognized as an adult. Low.”
“That’s right. For that reason, starting tomorrow, I will use this crystal to go around each city and investigate the young demons living in the slums first.
The majority of the demons living in the slums are often unidentified, so it is not easy to accurately measure the age, but there are facilities in each city that obligatory manage demons until they are old enough to live alone. If you follow the records, you will be able to roughly know the names and whereabouts of demons who are a little past the age of being recognized as adults.
After hearing Merlin’s search plan, Escaros nodded moderately and rose from his seat with a tired voice.
“Yes. It’s already late enough today, so let’s do the distribution of people to search for the demon king tomorrow.”
“Ah, you don’t have to worry about that. I prepared the staff a long time ago.”
“Thanks to you, it saved me a bit of trouble. If you find a target, bring it to me.”
After hearing what Escaros said, Merlin asked the reason with an interested expression.
“Oh, do you plan to get rid of it yourself?”
“Whether to deal with it or not, I’m going to judge it after seeing it with my own two eyes. I won’t listen to objections, so go out now.”
“…”
When her congratulatory decree fell, Merlin, who judged that it would be difficult to continue the conversation due to her master’s personality, quietly left while holding the crystal ball just as he had entered her private room.
Returning to her own room that doubles as her laboratory, passing by several guards patrolling the inside of her demon castle, Merlin placed her crystal ball on the recessed pedestal she had prepared in advance.
Then, she put her hand on her forehead and focused her mind.She used telepathy, a magic that allows the caster to freely send and receive each other’s intentions with only a pre-designated object and thought, regardless of location.
-Ah, the black hound. Can you hear me?
-Yes. Master. We are all listening. You speak.
The target of Merlin’s contact is the Black Hound, one of the organizations that live in the darkness of the Dark World. Although their superficial identities are completely different, all members of the organization have been thoroughly raised by Merlin since childhood, and are worthy of the organization’s name, the Black Hound. They are perfectly trained hounds.
The old wizard telepathically explained to the black hounds the conversation he had with Escaros a while ago, and the plan to search for the demon king of taste, from beginning to end.
-Okay. As soon as we receive the crystal from the master tomorrow, we’ll start the search. If we find the target, we’ll take it right away.
-No, there is no need to bring them. Just kill them.
-Yes? However, from what you just delivered, it is clear that Lord Escaros ordered the capture… ．
-Who is your master? You know how much I hate to say the same thing twice. If the crystal reacts, kill it without a chance to counterattack.
-… I will take your order.
After checking her hounds’ answers, Merlin stopped her telepathy for the last time and trudged toward the window where the blue moonlight shone low. She started recalling her old memories.
“Ohhh… I want to see that majestic figure again as soon as possible. My master…”
* * *
The morning of the day when a week had already passed since she revealed her relationship with her twin sister to Roxia after having her first relationship with Marill, who took the form of Merim.
In the meantime, Roden, who has had enough conversations with Roxy, has put a fairly large bed in a place that was originally an empty room in order to live with her twin sister in earnest on the day she is off from business.
“Sir Alchemist! That’s it! By the way, the bed is so big that it takes up half of the room. Would you really like it?”
“I decided in advance that I would only use this room as a bedroom and live in the living room anyway. This is fine.”
“I’ve heard rumors about twin adventurers with the teacher, but seeing that they even prepared such a big bed, it seems like it was real. Flowers on both hands… Oh, I’m really envious of men like you~”
After finishing the installation work, the staff who were talking to Roden and her were looking at the large bed and Roden, looking at each other with quite envious eyes.
“To think that rumors had already spread there… Anyway, you both worked hard.”
“Nothing special. Thanks to the wizard lady reducing the weight of the parts, we were able to work quite comfortably. Whenever this happens, the magic is different~ It’s comfortable~”
When the clerk, who impressed her with her crude and slow tone, generously praised Roxia for her weight-controlling magic, she glanced under her nose as if somewhat embarrassed.
“Ahaha… I thought it was a good opportunity, so I tried it for practice, and I’m glad it helped. Goodbye.”
Roden and Roxia sent the furniture store workers who had a lot of trouble dragging a cart on this hot day to get the bed parts, moving them into the house, and even assembling them in the room, saying thank you for your hard work and giving them some tips, and then let them go. ．
The two men and women looked around and touched the new large bed in the house, and tried lying down, passing the time until the twins returned.
Not long after, the twin sisters, each carrying a thick backpack, came to see them. As soon as they entered the house, they started looking at the newly prepared bed.
“Wow, I guessed it from the moment I picked it up at the furniture store, but when I saw that it occupied half of the room, it was really big. Whoa…Where, where, where! Shall we test the performance?”
While muttering, Merim opened her backpack and jumped boldly! He was so big that he rolled around on the new bed like a child.
“Ah~! Good. Good! Hey, hey, Marill. You jump in too!”
“Haa… I’m fine. We’re not kids… Enough is enough, so get up quickly. Merim.”
It was always her sister’s role to be ashamed of her older sister’s appearance instead.
“Yes, yes.”
Anyway, thinking that you can enjoy the feel of the bed to the fullest at night, Merim quietly got off the bed and stood side by side in front of Roden and Roxia, close to her brother.
“Oh no, Roden oppa, Roxia. Don’t you see that we’ve changed a bit?”
“Has it changed?”
“Ah…! I found it!”
Roden and Loxia, who took turns looking at the twin sisters, quickly discovered an unusual feature.
“…Ah. Looks like you touched the head a bit.”
“Ding dong deng~!”
Upon closer inspection, the twin sisters had decorated each other’s hair slightly differently in the day they hadn’t seen each other.
When viewed from the front, her older sister, Merim, had her bobbed hair parted in a ratio of 7:3, while her younger sister, Marill, had it biased in a ratio of 3:7.
“Since we now have the same hair length, people around us often get confused when we wear private clothes. So, I changed it for a change of heart… Does it suit you well?”
“Of course it suits you! In the first place, Merim and Marill are so beautiful that I would have matched her hair no matter what.”
“It’s just as Roxia said. They both look good together.”
“Hehe, I’ll have to keep it like this for the time being.”
Roden, who decided to put an end to the story of the new bed and the new hair, decided to change the subject.
“Merim, Marill. Have you accepted the request?”
“Yeah, I received it as a subjugation request that could easily be done in a location not too far away.”
“There is a domain of monsters that can be reached by going straight through the forest in the northeast direction, but it is about arranging the goblin colony that often settles there.”
“Because it’s a goblin village… It’s perfect to tell you about your first real battle experience with monsters. Like I said yesterday, you must have eaten breakfast beforehand, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then we’ll just have to change and come. Wait a minute.”
Instead of taking a break from the shop today, Roden decided to carry out a subjugation request with her twin sister and Roxia.
She is to give Roxia, who has never fought a monster properly, accumulated experience through her actual battles, and to directly check Marill’s training results in the field.
As a bonus, you can earn a little money, so it’s really three birds with one stone.
The twin sisters had already been fully equipped, so only Roden and Roxia needed to change. The man and woman went into their respective rooms.
… After a while.
“I got it reasonably cheap, but it feels different to wear new equipment after a while.”
Roden, who came out of the room again, put on the typical swordsman’s uniform and the helmet he used to enter the dungeon in the past.
Originally, it was a helmet that was rusted here and there, but the rust was removed while receiving repairs at the blacksmith some time ago.
As a result, he became a common swordsman who would disappear from memory in 10 seconds even if he met face-to-face on the street… Well, it’s not very common thanks to its unique physique.
“The gear you’re wearing looks good on you, Uncle! It’s a pity that I can’t see your face unlike usual.”
“Thank you. Roxia looks like a wizard because she dresses like that, right?”
“Ehehe…”
On the other hand, Roxia, who had been waiting after changing clothes first, had the appearance of a young wizard wearing a purple robe and a conical hat that seemed to have shrunk the clothes Merim was wearing, and a wand she always treasured as a finishing touch.
“Then let’s set off right away. Let’s aim to return home before dark.”
That’s how Roden and the women who nodded side by side for the first time all started to go to the northeast forest to do her subjugation request.
