"I'll walk Crocell back to her dorm. Leo, you stay put."

"Sure thing."

"And don't go wandering off on campus, either! I'll be back soon, so I mean it! Stay put!"

"What are you, my mom?! Quit keeping Crocell waiting!"

I waved Iris and Crocell off and sat down on a bench near the Academy's front gate.

Iris had volunteered to escort Crocell back after our talk with her, probably to clear up any misunderstandings. Obviously, the Viceroy Iris escorting Crocell was not actually Iris, but Echidna, in a disguise spell.

Crocell had sworn deep loyalty to that Iris. If she ended up running into the real Iris somehow, things could get needlessly complicated. "Iris" probably wanted to avoid that and would likely reveal her true identity on the way to the dorm. I figured she wouldn't want me to know, so I told her I would wait by the gate. If she didn't think I'd seen through her disguise, I'd let her believe what she wanted.

In any case, we'd gotten our priestess and cleared up the issue of whether Crocell was actually needed or not. All I had to do was kill some time before "Iris" got back.

"Excuse me."

Or so I thought.

"Hm?"

I heard a voice beside me and turned see the somehow familiar visage of someone I'd never met before. She had well-kept, silky white hair that fell to her shoulders and a dark silver rapier at her waist. A white researcher's coat hugged her shoulders over her black dress, forming a dissonant union that was nonetheless beautiful in its contrasting colors.

"Leo Demonhart, hero of the human world, I presume. My sister has told me all about you. Might I have a moment of your time?"

"Sure, take all the time you want, Viceroy Iris."

"Hrm." The actual Viceroy Iris let out a scoff. Not of annoyance, but more of fascination. "How curious. This is the first time we've met, but you act as though we're friends."

"Why, I've spent the last few days with 'you,' Viceroy. It'd be awfully strange if I weren't familiar with you."

"I imagine seeing through her ruse was a simple feat," she replied. "Echidna's acting does leave much to be desired. Ah, I presume this seat is free?"

Iris sat down beside me and lightly stroked her hair. In human years, she was about fourteen or fifteen. Her conduct and demeanor all had an aura of class to it. Twisted horns adorned her head and a tail extended from her backside, much like Echidna, announcing that she was a higher-class demon and a noble of her world. If there ever was a daughter of means, she sat before me. Viceroy Iris, the Demon World's other ruler, who led the land in tandem with Echidna.

"Although, we haven't much to talk about," Iris continued. "Ever since my sister's return from your world, there's been little room in my head for anything other than researching methods of decontaminating the earth and wind, as well as dealing with the Church of Belial."

"Well, don't worry. Echidna and I are working on the water."

"Indeed. I've had my spies watching you." She slipped that rather chilling revelation in without missing a beat. "And I was quite relieved to see how serious you are about my world's future."

 Since Iris hadn't been to the human world, its hero—its paragon—was likely not a figure she could trust easily. It came as no real surprise that she'd sent spies to observe me.

"So, did I win your trust?"

"Indeed. If you hadn't, I wouldn't have taken part in Echidna's 'Operation I Argued with Leo but He Was Totally Right So I'll Disguise Myself and Share My Troubles with Him.'"

"Uh. Did Echidna come up with that name?"

"No, that was me," she replied, tilting her head as if wondering if there was a problem. Her onyx eyes nearly sucked me in.

Come to think of it, we had someone like her in the DH Series. Someone who went their own way no matter what others said. They had a different kind of aloofness than Mernes or Lili.

"So I take it you've been disguised as Echidna this whole time, then."

"That I was. While she took my form and stayed in the capital, I did the opposite. Until just yesterday, I was touring the land and paying greetings to all the lords, souvenirs from the other world in hand, as if I'd just gotten back."

"Sounds taxing. No one figured you out?"

"Not in the least. I'm a better actress than I look. Still, it wouldn't mean much even if I were caught."

Iris put a finger to her brow, then whispered a quiet chant and cast three disguise spells at once: Disguise, Metamorphose, and Voice Change. That was a Chain Spell, a technique in which the user registered multiple spells as a set in their mind and activated them after performing a certain action. To put it in Machine Age terms, it was like a macro on a spreadsheet. It was harder than it sounded, and the ease with which Iris performed it showed me how much of a veteran sorceress she was.

Light enveloped her for a moment as the spells took effect and when it cleared, her appearance had changed into something far more familiar. She was the Echidna I knew all too well.

"I must admit," she said, sounding amused. "I was rather tempted to appear like this before you and give you a bit of a teasing."

She looked exactly like Echidna and even had her smug tone of voice down to a T. She wasn't kidding when she said she was good at acting.

"You should have. It would've been funny."

"Hah. Well, I didn't want to enjoy myself too much and then have 'Iris' show up on us, you see. She still believes her disguise has everyone fooled, does she not? It would be just a touch awkward for her to run into me here."

"Amazing. If only your sister had a fraction of your disguise techniques!"

One of the key factors in disguising oneself as another was how you talked. If you were going to pretend to be Echidna, you needed to talk like her. You had to take on her boastful, regal air. You had to affect unstoppable confidence paired with boundless magnanimity. If you just mumbled along like an insecure Canaan or spoke with the calm, collected air of a cool Iris, anyone who knew Echidna would see right through you, no matter how much you looked like her. Iris passed that point with flying colors.

A flash of light abruptly covered her again and returned her to her original visage.

"In any case, I trust you," Iris admitted. "My sister may be a few beakers short of a full lab apparatus at times, but she's an excellent judge of character. If she wants to bare her vulnerabilities to you when she won't even show weakness to Shutina, that shows me how much she trusts you. And, in turn, how much I should trust you. As any sister would, really."

"I'd heard you really loved your older sister, and it sounds like they weren't wrong."

"That I will not deny," Iris replied. "Well, I leave her to you." She then signaled the end of our conversation with a bow and began to leave.

"Wait, hold up. That's it?!" When I called out to her in surprise, she looked back at me, puzzled.

"Is something the matter?"

"No, I mean...isn't there anything else you want to say?"

"Such as?"

"Oh, come on. If you know this much about what's going on, then you've got to know how in the dumps Echidna is."

"Indeed. She did say she wasn't confident about remaining on the throne and might ask you to take over. And your work up to now has shown how talented you are, so I would say she's made a fair assessment," Iris replied without hesitation. She didn't sound the slightest bit concerned that she might soon end up being my viceroy.

"You're not worried?"

"My sister is strong, you see." She glanced at the bench where she'd been sitting, but did not sit back down. "Not just anyone can become the Demon Queen. You need strength in combat, mental strength, and fortune on both the micro and macro scale. Only then will you survive the battle to decide the next ruler of the Demon World. I fought my hardest, as did Shutina and the rest of the world's finest, but she won."

Iris began to sound nostalgic as she continued, stating, "I'm not speaking out of blind faith when I say my sister is simply that strong. She's gotten through worse, and she'll get through this, as well. But most importantly," she added, her onyx eyes settled on me, "this is not my battle to fight. You're the one meant to help her through this."

"Me?"

"Of course. You're the one she wants to share her worries with, after all. I can but watch you two quietly from afar."

"Is that so?" The chuckle in my voice surprised Iris.

"Did I say something humorous?"

"No, it's just," I started to reply then paused. I couldn't help but think we had something in common. That deep trust in one's siblings, that determination to help them however one could—she was the very picture of who I had been three millennia ago. That I would run into someone so similar to my past self, out of all the people I could possibly encounter, struck me as a touch of rare cosmic humor. I had to chuckle. "It's nothing, really," I finally continued. "I'll make sure to give it my all, so don't worry. Echidna's in good hands."

"I'm glad to hear that. If you need anything, I'm always at the Academy. Just visit the west research tower." She finished with a polite curtsy and headed off.

"Oh, that's right," she said to herself before turning and coming right back.

"What?"

"Since it's been a while, there's a message I'd like you to pass on to her."

"A message? Sure, what is it?"

"Nothing terribly major." She leaned close and whispered into my ear. "...And that's all."

Iris had left me with a pretty interesting message. It reminded me that she was, indeed, the Demon World's Viceroy. Although her character differed from Echidna and the Great Guardians, she had a boldness about her that was probably required of the land's rulers.

"Haha, sure thing. I'll let her know."

"Thank you. Well, I have to get back to my research."

Following another polite curtsy, she was off. The much louder "Iris" returned right after the real Iris had disappeared from sight.

"Do you mind telling me why you've decided we're going to walk all the way back?!"

We had forgone the use of convenient spells and were instead electing to return to the capital on foot.

"I felt like stretching my legs a bit and seeing the sights. Is that such a crime?"

"What sights? There's nothing but trees for miles in this forest! We could have been back in seconds with a Warp Portal!"

"Then we wouldn't have an opportunity to go over your homework, dummy."

Iris had been complaining for a while, and for good reason. We were walking along a "road," certainly, but Demon World roads weren't paved and orderly like the ones in my world. It was essentially a trail carved into the plains. To make matters worse, reaching the capital would easily take half a day, despite the relatively short distance.

The only other sounds besides Iris' complaints were our footfalls. The Demon World was less populated than the human realm, and we hadn't seen another soul on the road.

"Besides, we've got the time. Crocell said she'd help, and we have a pretty good idea of what to do for Undine's summoning ritual. And we already sent word to Shutina, remember? So if things play out in our favor, we'll have the ritual ready to go in a few days."

"That means Shutina needs my help more than ever now—"

"That's right. She's going to need your help."

"O-oh." Iris abruptly put her hand over her mouth.

"Good. You figured out that you and I barely have any time left to be alone together."

The Undine ritual was to be a huge project to purify the world's water. It needed a project lead, and the story was that Echidna would return from her diplomatic tour tomorrow. With the queen back, Iris would no longer need to govern. Our walk back to the capital was the only time we had left to settle things before Echidna supposedly returned.

"Why're you so quiet all of a sudden?" I teased. "What happened to all of your complaints?"

Still more silence.

"Say something."

Iris kept quiet. She would probably remain quiet all the way back to the capital unless I did something. Seeing no other option as we walked along the Demon World road dimly illuminated by the evening light, I decided to reveal a thought that'd been on my mind for quite a while.

"Hey, Iris."

"Yes?"

"I've been debating back-and-forth on whether to say this from the moment I met you." I kept my attention fixed on the road in front of me and blurted out, "You're Echidna, aren't you?"

"Bwah?!"

It sounded like Iris had stepped on a frog. And when I glanced over, she quickly looked away in alarm. I could see her lips moving as she desperately tried to come up with a response.

"Wh-what makes you think that?" she finally replied.

"Oh, don't even try to come back from that! You're the worst actor I've ever seen!"

"Guh!"

"Do you really want me to lay down every piece of evidence I have that you're Echidna? Because I will if you make me."

The look of resignation on her face told me she knew I wasn't bluffing.

"I even picked a road no one takes, just for you. And there's no villages along the way either. We can scream and fight all we want and nobody's gonna even notice. So, if there's something you want to talk about, out with it."

Iris let out a groan.

I talked a big game, but if we seriously came to blows, it would probably rend the surrounding countryside beyond recovery. Still, if that was what it took to get Echidna back to herself...

Then she gave deep sigh following a long silence.

It looked like there wouldn't be a brawl, after all. Iris came to a stop just as we were about to enter a section of forest halfway between the Academy and the capital. As luck would have it, a nearby pair of giant gnarled roots made what appeared to be an inviting bench for weary travelers. She immediately sat herself down then mumbled loud enough for me to hear, "Disguise, Metamorphose, Ghost Face. Dispel."

Countless little lights twinkled around her like sparks from a fire, or stars in the night sky, and her form slowly began to change—or, should I say, return to normal.

"Phew."

A few seconds later, the lights vanished to reveal the Echidna I knew so well.

Silence took root between us for a few minutes. Intuition told me that Echidna should have the first word.

A few minutes. Many minutes. More minutes.

Finally, Echidna began, "Where do I start?"

"Come on. You were pretty well-spoken as Iris, and now you're tongue-tied?"

"I was well-spoken because I was Iris. If I could just talk to you about this, I wouldn't have disguised myself in the first place."

Good point.

"You don't have to keep talking like Iris either."

"It's fine. This is how I normally talk. Just think of me as regular old Echidna and not the Demon Queen."

"And regular old Echidna can complain to me and share her troubles, right?"

"Right, I...hey, don't act like you just expect everyone to bring their troubles to you! It's not like I..." Echidna hesitated.

"It's not like you what?"

"I..." Her tone grew weaker, and her shoulders drooped.

It looked like it would be tougher than I expected. Talking to me as Iris wasn't just easier for her, it also provided her with a temporary escape from questioning whether she was worthy enough to bear the heavy crown of queen. Her nervousness showed me just how serious that loss of confidence was to her.

"Well," I said, deciding to break the ice, "there's a few things I want to talk about, so how about we start there?"

"Sure. Whatever you want."

"First, I've got a message from the real Iris."

"Is that so? ...W-wait, what?!" She jumped to her feet and exclaimed. She then stared at me in surprise while struggling with her next sentence. "Wh...wh...?!"

"If you're asking when, it was just a bit before we left the Academy. She approached me while I was waiting for you to escort Crocell back to her dorm."

"I-I told her to stay away from you, in order to keep up my act!"

"Your act was dead from the start. Seriously."

Her own confidence in it was almost impressive, though.

"Well? What did Iris say?" Echidna continued.

"It was real short. She said that if you left the throne, so would she."

"Sh-she did?"

"Yeah. And after that, she wants you two to start a bakery in the human world."

"Ahh, of course she does. Of all the human food she's tried, fresh-baked bread is her favorite."

I was reminded of the oven in the mess hall under the dark castle that they used just to make bread. Fresh bread was pretty popular among the troops, so I hadn't paid it much mind. But it sounded like Echidna likely had it put in so she could deliver bread to her sister back home.

"So, are you going to take her up on it?" I asked. "A former Demon Queen running a bakery would probably make for a good essay."

"Depends on what happens now, really. All right, so that's the stuff with Iris. What else did you want to talk about?"

"All right, second. Why didn't you change the way you talk when disguised as Iris?"

Echidna furrowed her brow and, in a dubious voice, asked, "Are you sure you want to ask me that?"

"I'm just making small talk, and you told me to do what I wanted."

"Well, yeah, but..."

Conversations have a flow to them. Grasping that flow and controlling it was all about what being a good conversationalist was. At the moment, Echidna wasn't able to tell me how she truly felt. If I led the conversation with what was actually on our minds, it would be awkward and never progress below the surface. The flow would escape me. The way around that was to get her to relax with lower-stakes topics. I had to soothe her nerves and bring the conversation to a place where she felt comfortable speaking her mind. That was the best approach, in my opinion. Such techniques served me well when I was a negotiator in the underworld.

"I'll tell you," I continued. "First of all, you must be the worst actress I've ever seen—"

"I can't be the worst!"

"You may have issues with acting, but still, if you had copied the way Iris spoke, you'd have stood a much better chance of not being found out. Why'd you keep talking like yourself?"

"Isn't it obvious? I wasn't confident I could pull it off," she replied frankly. She didn't seem like she regretted it. "The only acting I know, and that I've poured my life into, is the Bold Demon Queen. In order to act like Iris...well, you know her, you've met her. You've felt her aura."

"Ah, yeah."

"There's no way I could pull that off."

She had a point. That wasn't happening.

It may sound insulting, but a gregarious girl like Echidna could never pull off the air of quiet dignity that surrounded Iris, no sir. Even if she did her best to keep up the act, she'd slip up eventually. And if the calm, cool, and collected Iris started talking like a spunky teen, any idiot would see through the disguise. Luckily, I'd never met the real Iris, so her pretending that Iris was spunky from the start was a good play.

Echidna continued, "I really hate words like 'inborn' and 'talent.' I mean, I personally believe you can do most things if you put in the effort."

"Yeah, I hear you were pretty bad with magic until Shutina taught you."

"Exactly. I could barely cast Dim Light, but I worked really, really, really hard, and look where I am now! Pretty awesome, huh?!"

"Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Admirable, really."

"Heh-heh!" Echidna shot me a smug look then quickly returned to her serious scowl. "But at the end of the day, I'm still me. I figured hopelessly trying to pretend to be Iris would just get me caught. And besides, pretending to be her wasn't the point. I did it to talk to you."

"If you had only been that honest with yourself a little earlier, you wouldn't have had to bother with this disguise stuff," I grumbled.

Echidna immediately retorted, "Well, I wasn't able to, okay?! Besides, it's your fault for accusing me of wanting to abdicate the throne and making us fight! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"You're putting the blame on me?! Come on. I was right, wasn't I?"

"You were! But I wasn't prepared!" She began picking up fallen branches and throwing them at me like petulant kid.

"H-hey, cut that out!"

"You big! Stupid! Dummy!"

Her behavior did answer one hypothesis I'd come up with when she was Iris, however. Without the mask of the Demon Queen, Echidna didn't have her armor of haughtiness. She was just your average, innocent, girl next door.

And the girl next door in front of me had donned the iron mask of the dark ruler in order to save her homeland, then resolved to invade the human world. She may have had Shutina and the other Guardians with her, but she still must have felt nervous and lonely. I found myself growing a touch angry at the Demon Kings of old who had spent their epochs warring and plundering as they wished, leaving Echidna with such a massive debt.

The barrage of branches slowed, then finally stopped. Echidna sat back down on the root and mumbled, "The homework."

"Hm?"

"Do you remember what my homework was?"

"How could I forget? I gave it to you."

The Demon World needed a brilliant ruler. It needed Echidna, not me. So the homework was to answer the question, what did Echidna have over me? Why did I say that she would be a better ruler than me?

"Do you have your answer?"

"Sort of. And I don't know if it's the right one either."

"Well, that's what we're going to find out. Go ahead, speak your mind, even if it's wrong."

"Well," she hesitated a moment before continuing, "The first thing that...stood out to me, was you saying that you could only deal with logic. That was you giving me a hint, wasn't it?"

"Haha. You got me there." I remembered saying that when we were persuading Crocell.

I was the type of person who tended to, unfortunately, see the world from a logical point of view. And I could trace that back to the fact that I was built around the concept of Hyper Self-development. Like, I wasn't a god, and it wasn't like I was just mindlessly copying things, either. The core of my technique lay in analysis, in tracing the thought processes of people who were masters. My mind was constantly doing that. I took a single action and analyzed ten patterns from it, then converted those patterns into far greater knowledge. That was how I was built. If a regular person shared my thought processes, their brains would probably explode from the mental strain.

My current personality fit that purpose, too. It was part eighteen-year-old boy and part unassuming nomad who went around gathering information, along with a variety of other useful traits. I was a man who lived by logic and analysis. I prided myself in being logical. It was part of my identity, and also a weakness.

"I have a tendency to look at things from a coldly logical perspective," I explained. "Living for three thousand years has given me the ability to hide it decently, but people used to always tell me I was pretty stiff and lectured too much. You, on the other hand..."

"You don't even need to say it. I'm a lot less meticulous and act on emotion, rather than logic. I'm like, the exact opposite of you."

I argued Crocell down with logic, but what did Echidna do? She slammed her with her feelings, straight up. She took the emotional path, and that won Crocell's heart. That charisma was Echidna's greatest strength.

"Unlike me," Echidna continued, "you lean way too much on logic. With that mindset, you'd be a much better strategist than a king. And since a good strategist can make a king many times more effective, you thought acting as my strategist would be a much better role for you, right?"

"Bingo."

That was the answer to the homework, and the reason Echidna should be on the throne, not me.

"You've got that regal talent," I explained. "Remember when we were talking about the trolley problem? I'll sacrifice anything to save the world, but you're naive enough to try and avoid pretty much every sacrifice you can."

"And you're telling me that naivety is what a queen needs?"

"Yeah. People might see it as childish idealism, but putting that sort of dedication front and center will get people to follow you. They'll know that when push comes to shove, you won't throw them under the cart for the 'greater good.' That you'll really protect them. And hell, that naivety of yours is why I'm alive now."

My last remark startled Echidna. It seemed she realized what I was getting at. If she had operated more on logic and sacrificed the few to save the many, then I would've died during the battle on that snowy peak. But when I lost to her and the Guardians and told her to take the Wisdom Stone, my very heart, as her prize, what did she say? I still remembered those words. Not only did she refuse to slay me, but she told me to join her. It cost her the chance to get the Wisdom Stone that she'd tried so hard to acquire, but she saved me. Because Echidna was who she was, I still lived. And I wanted to help that lovable fool achieve her goals.

"Well, you've got the picture," I continued. "I'll be your strategist from here on out. Just imagine it, Echidna. With your natural charisma and the skills I'll teach you that I've honed over the millennia, you'll become the greatest ruler in Demon World history!"

"Y-yeah?"

In that sense, she was kind of like Lili back on the islands: she still had room to grow. Whether she took advantage of it was up to her efforts, and her teacher. If that teacher were me, I could raise her to her maximum potential. I could turn Echidna into a ruler with skill and might yet unseen.

"So look, just...just have confidence and...and..." I struggled to come up with the right words.

"And what? What's the matter?"

"Ah, wait, that's not it. Hang on a second." Echidna gave me a curious look as I shook my head. "I mean, that is it, but...all right, listen. You've got charisma, and I can assist you. Forget about logic. Okay?"

"O-okay, but why do you want me to forget about logic now?"

"Because...that's not it. That isn't what I really want to say."

"Then what do you want to say?!"

"Something without the logic, without that air of reasonableness! It's there, but...dammit. Times like these, I wish my thoughts were as simple as yours!"

"Hey, you don't have to start insulting me!"

Sure, on paper, she was better for the throne because she had natural charisma, while I only had technique. That made sense. But it wasn't what I truly wanted to say to her. No, what I wanted to say was something far more emotional. The urge to say it first hit while she was giving me her homework answer, but I ignored it and got all rational again. A bad habit of mine.

"So. All right. Listen."

"Y-yeah?"

"L-look. All this stuff about who'd make the better ruler and all that. That isn't what I really want to say."

"You can take your time," Echidna replied. "I'm not going anywhere." The accommodating note that crept into her voice made me feel like I was answering her homework problem.

Is that what I want to say? No. ...What about this...?

After far too much effort searching my feelings for the right phrase while throwing out everything that involved logic, I finally found what I was trying to say.

"Look! I just want you to be the Demon Queen!" That got my engine going.

"Huh?"

Echidna stared in surprise as I launched a barrage of words at her.

"Who the hell cares who'd be the 'better' ruler? I'm in the dark army because you're the Demon Queen! That's it! I fell for you the day you saved my life, and I've wanted to do everything I can for you! That's why I came all the way to this world, and that's why I'm trying to keep it from collapsing! I'm in the same boat as Iris, Echidna. If you weren't the queen, I'd have gone back to being a wanderer ages ago!"

"L-Leo?"

"So believe in yourself a little! Be proud of all the people you've got following you! Be proud of the Great Guardians who have your back! And be proud that you've got the world's strongest hero on your team!"

Stunned silence.

"And you, Demon Queen Echidna, were the only one who could've done all of this!"

I'd finally put my true feelings into words. Sure, Echidna was more advantageous to have on the throne than me. Sure, I could raise her talent and charisma to its full potential as her strategist and her councilor. But who cared about any of that? Not me! None of that really mattered, and that's what I'd been trying to tell her the whole time.

"I would have been dead if you weren't Demon Queen. You're the one who made me realize I could go on living. You saved me, Echidna, and you're the only queen I could ever serve. Just, don't forget that. Don't ever forget that."

The dark forest around us fell silent. In contrast to our tea party out on the balcony, I was the one laboring to catch my breath while Echidna watched and waited. A few moments passed and I finally regained my composure, which she took as her cue to hesitantly speak up.

"Well. Um."

I quietly waited for her to continue.

"Sorry. About all of this. I didn't think you'd get so worked up."

While I had mistakenly thought Echidna was some unstoppable woman with a will of iron, she had apparently been harboring the wrong impression of me, too. I may have looked like the invincible hero who always had it together and was never without an answer to any problem, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. I knew she'd seen a glimpse of my real personality during our battle on that snowy peak.

Two forces inside of me were eternally in conflict. The painfully rational mind I was born with, and the emotions I'd built up over three thousand years of growth. Not a moment went by when my mind wasn't trying to keep those contradictions from getting out of hand.

"Well, that's how I feel," I finally replied. "Now let me know how you feel."

"Oh. Yeah. Well..." She paused to smile bashfully then continued, "It feels kind of silly when I think about it now. I've always been a simple girl, so I've gotta wonder what made me stress out so much about this in the first place."

She patted the space next to her on the root, beckoning me to sit beside her. When I did, I could no longer see her, but I could still feel her breathing next to me as I stared out at the dimly lit forest.

"I'll stay on the throne," she said without any hesitation. "I mean, I have to, right? Shutina and Iris gave their all in the fight for the throne. Think of how mad they would be if I said I wanted to quit because you made me feel insecure!"

"Seriously," I agreed. "Hell, if I were your rival, I'd come for your life. I'd die before I let you have a pleasant retirement."

"Yeah," she giggled. "I'd say that's the normal reaction." I couldn't see her face, but I knew her smile didn't hold any darkness in it. "But it is true that you're ahead of me in all sorts of stuff," she continued. "The only real ace I've got is..." Then she paused. Coming out and calling herself charismatic was probably embarrassing. "My good vibes, I guess?" she finally finished. "The ability I've always had to get people fired up and following me. I think that's all I've got over you at this point."

"Popularity and charisma," I replied. "You've got those in abundance. Unfortunately, though, you really are less skilled than me everywhere else. As it stands now, I should probably be king."

"All right," she acquiesced. "I get the picture." Then she tightly gripped my hand. "I'll do my best, Leo. I'll do everything I can to be a proper queen, and I'll keep growing every day, so..."

"Yeah. I hear you." I gripped her hand back and smiled. "We're running a three-legged race from here on out. I'll teach you everything I know, so be a good student."

"I will, but...well, we can't forget Shutina and the others, so it's a lot more than three legs!"

"Hah. You know...you've got a point."

A little recap of our lesson.

Sometimes, what you thought was a weakness could be a strength. The most important thing to remember was to not try and forcefully rid yourself of that weakness, or use it as a reason to give up on your dreams. Instead, you needed to talk about it with someone you trusted, and work with them to think of ways to turn it into an advantage.

We finished our rest and were once again listening to the sound of the path crunching beneath our feet. Since the two of us had managed to talk through Echidna's troubles, we could have teleported back to the capital with magic, but Echidna had admitted that she wanted to walk some more. I had no reason to argue.

"Say, Echidna. There's still something I want to ask."

"Yeah?"

"That whole thing about how a king mustn't show hesitation. Is that really what your pops said?"

Echidna's father, Cychreus had been the previous Demon King, in a manner of speaking. The man a habit of handing the throne to other people then taking it back when they died, and wandering off on solo adventures whenever he felt like it.  He basically did whatever he pleased.

"He's the freest of free spirits, but he isn't a fool," I continued, "I can't imagine him saying something as extreme as 'a king must never show hesitation,' so I've got to believe he had some kind of ulterior motive."

"Hm? You sound like you know da...my father."

"Yeah, I do. We were in an adventuring party together back in the day, just the two of us."

"Oh yeah?"

Several seconds of silence followed, during which I listened to the sound of dried leaves crunching beneath our feet.

"Wait, what?!" Echidna gave me a startled look.

"He'd visited the human world way back, alone and incognito. He said he didn't have money and needed help, so we formed a team to take out monsters in the area, and, well, we ended up doing a lot together. We busted drug gangs, took out a hundred chimeras, started a country on a desert island...it was a lot of fun."

"So how did it all end?"

"You know the rest of the story. He revealed who he was, and we fought as hero and Demon King. It looked like he was scouting out for an invasion, and trying to find out what kind of person I was."

I didn't think Cychreus was particularly serious about invading the human world, but he couldn't just ignore it entirely. He had numerous war hawks back home to appease, and needed a way to persuade them. I'll scout out the human world myself, he probably told them, and then call the army to invade when the time is right. Hell, I bet some of the hawks were lustily eyeing the chance to take the throne if Cychreus "unfortunately" fell in battle on the other side. Still, no one came from the Demon World to check up on him, and he had his fun in the human world for a whole year. Then, at the end of his extended vacation, he enacted a token invasion to satisfy his men.

He did not, however, have Echidna's kind heart. With all his cunning and wiles, he arranged for plenty of those war hawks to meet tragic (alas!) ends in the battle against me, and I heard that caused an increase in doves back home—a faction that would end up supporting Echidna.

Which led me to the question, why would someone that smart put such dire pressure on his daughter? I'd been puzzled by that the whole time.

"I've got to wonder," I asked, "What if Cychreus saw this all coming?"

"Saw what coming?"

"You caved to the pressure of trying to follow your father's teachings, and I came in to help you. That deepened the bond between Demon Queen and hero, guaranteeing an eternal peace between both worlds. Something like that."

"Pff. Come on, that's got to be a coincidence." Echidna looked dubious. "There's no way he could see that far into the future."

She had a point. My theory was well beyond requiring genius. One would have to be able to predict the future to pull it off. Still, Echidna and I had grown far closer because of those teachings. Hell, going back even further, the whole reason I joined the army in the first place was because Echidna followed Cychreus's path to become a peaceful Demon Queen.

If all of that was according to his long-reaching plan, well...I owed him my gratitude. He'd led me to a wonderful queen, and I couldn't thank him enough.

"If by some miracle you were right, that'd be pretty depressing," Echidna admitted. "It would mean both you and my father have me beat as rulers."

"I don't think you should feel discouraged. You've got something going for you that's every bit as powerful as that charisma of yours."

"I do? What's that?"

Echidna's fondness for peace wasn't the only reason I fell for her. The Echidna standing before me was who she truly was—a regular girl. The haughty personality, the grandiose manner of speaking, and all the rest of it was a result of her efforts to be regal. The girl who hated fighting and loved peace had defeated her rivals and ascended the throne, and then reluctantly made the painful decision to invade the human world, all to save her home. All to protect her land. She'd been sacrificing herself the whole time in order to be the Demon World's protector. At her core, she was just like me during my hero days.

If someone said you could save many by sacrificing yourself, how many would jump at the opportunity? I might have lectured Crocell (as an act) for refusing to perform the tuning, but she had the correct response. One couldn't just force everyone to be self-sacrificing.

"You'll sacrifice yourself to protect what's dear to you," I answered. "That's something countless rulers lack. There's no way you'd make a poor queen."

Echidna thought about that a moment before answering, "Yeah?" The look in her eye said she could say the same for me, but rather than pursue it, she simply nodded.

"That work for you?"

"It sure does."

They were a few simple words, but I could tell that she was fully satisfied. We could go back to being normal, without any regrets.

There was a bit more levity in the crunch of our footsteps as we started walking toward the capital again.

"Leo."

"Hm?"

"Thanks."

Crunch, crunch.

Crunch, crunch.

We walked along, side by side, until eventually, the faint outline of the city came into view, far in the distance.

The following morning, after a two-week absence from the castle, Demon Queen Echidna took the baton back from Viceroy Iris. Something must have happened during her time away, because she immediately began carrying out her duties with a renewed sense of passion and the utmost confidence.

How many years has it been?

I murmured into the void at the bottom of that dark lake. I didn't know how many times I'd asked that question. No one ever answered, but I knew I'd been alone in those depths for ages.

My name was Undine. I was a water spirit sealed away in Lake Amia. I had taken a more mortal, humanoid form in ages past, but I could no longer tell you why I wasted my time on such nonsense. I was an elemental spirit, a being completely unlike a mortal.

It was all because of my blunder. Reflecting on it, I should not have trusted Aquarius. She was an outsider, one of the DH Series, the heroes who had defeated Demon King Belial. Of course King Ronove would not let such a powerful individual do as she wished. Of course he would attempt to make her his pawn.

They must have had a deal. Perhaps he had offered her a position serving him in exchange for me. After all, she wasn't there at Lake Amia when I needed her most. And then she had the nerve to act as though sealing me deep underwater was for my sake.

I'd felt her magic, her presence, for the past five hundred years. She had never left the lake. And I imagined her strutting about on the surface, fancying herself the master of Lake Amia with me gone. And that I could not allow.

Rage kept me alive. Rage towards Aquarius for stealing my place as guardian of the lake, and stealing the mortals' faith in me. Rage towards her for swearing she would save me when all she had done was keep me in those depths for five hundred years. And finally, rage towards myself for believing in Aquarius in the first place.

Anger had made my creative powers destructive. Instead of the pure water I had brought to the world, I generated torrents of poisonous flows. If the water were contaminated, Lake Amia would lose its reason to be, and Aquarius would set me free. Yet, she refused to break the seal. How stubborn could she be? Would she refuse to let me out of my prison until all the world's water was corrupted?

"Aquarius...Aquarius...!" I called her name again and again, but received no answer.

Well, just you watch, Aquarius. I'm going to break this seal and claw my way back to the surface, and when I do...you're a dead woman!

I am Undine, the water spirit. The queen of water, sealed under Lake Amia for hundreds of years.

The solitary queen of water, betrayed by the knight she trusted.

Exactly a week after my meeting with Crocell, the shores of Lake Amia broke their five-hundred-year-long silence with the hustle and bustle of activity.

"A-Aquarius?! Why the hell are you still alive?!"

"Why, hello there, Virgo. I trust you've been well?"

"Cut the niceties!"

Aquarius and Virgo were the main source of commotion. Virgo wasn't one to be shy about his emotions, and he'd never gotten along with Aquarius back in the day. To him, the whole situation was like encountering an old natural enemy he'd thought had gone extinct. Even a man of Virgo's mental fortitude couldn't hide his surprise.

"My, my, now this is rather fascinating." Aquarius sounded amused. "You've got your Akashic Engine bundled into this doll? Haha, how cute you've become!"

"Hey, get your grubby mitts off me! Personal space, pal!"

"There you go, too shy to say how happy you are to see your dear sister again. There, there. Good boy, good boy!"

"I haven't thought of you as a 'dear sister' once in my entire life! Hey, Canaan, bail me out over here!"

"Um. I'm not really sure what you want me to do."

"My, what a beauty!" Aquarius abruptly stopped poking around Virgo's doll body. "Curse-Maker Canaan, I presume? The succubus?" She had Canaan's hand in hers so fast one might think she had teleported over to her.

"Eep?!" Canaan cried in alarm. "Wh-what's the big idea?!"

"The young succubus, Canaan. A brilliant girl from Zalem in the west, you mastered countless curses and graduated from the Central Academy at the head of your class, going on to become Sorcerer General Shutina's star pupil. My, I hadn't expected you to be this exquisite, this beautiful!"

It was a spell called Mirage Step. By scattering shards of ice with light-refracting properties into the air, the caster made their movements hard to read. It was a high-level ice technique that boasted versatile uses, mainly in escape and defense, but it could also be used to quickly close the distance between oneself and one's opponent.

Aquarius had, however, used the high-level technique to sweet talk a lady. That lady being Canaan, of all people.

"My name is Aquarius, DH-12 Aquarius. I'm a proud Demonhart Series unit, like Leo or Virgo. I hail from Britain, by the way."

"B-Bri...?"

"Have you heard about my mansion, just a little ways off from this lake? Where I live all by my lonesome?" Aquarius's right hand wheeled around Canaan's slender waist, bringing her in closer. "It's quite a bit too big to live in alone, not to mention a touch cold. Now, my dear, if you were to move in with me, why, I'd throw all my heaters in the trash the next day!"

"Eep! V-Virgo! What's with this lady? Help!"

"Give it up. Once she's got her claws into you, there's no escape."

Aquarius would not let go of Canaan, whispering incomprehensible words of seduction all the while. Virgo had made up his mind not to get involved, and Canaan, not used to any of it, appeared to be malfunctioning.

Virgo and Canaan were usually too much for me to deal with, so I was glad Aquarius was still alive. If I ever had trouble with them, I'd just call her.

"Why are those three fooling around before so grave an event?" Echidna murmured in bafflement from beside me. "Leo, are you sure about this Aquarius character? I imagine her abilities are up to snuff, her being a DH Series unit like Virgo, but still." She paused there and went back to watching the three of them.

Both Virgo and Canaan appeared to have completely given up, letting Aquarius do as she pleased. They were like a house cat being toyed with by a baby.

"You're...absolutely sure about her, right?" Echidna repeated herself.

"You can give her a pass, just this once. Undine was the first friend she made when she fell into the Demon World, and she's finally getting rescued from the lake. I figure anyone would be in high spirits."

I smiled as I crouched down and poured power into one of the small magic circles we'd set up for the ritual. Aquarius had certainly been living with regret for hundreds of years after letting her dear friend fall into Ronove's trap. And without tuning, Undine's rampage would only get worse, until the seal eventually met its limit. Then, right as Aquarius had steeled herself and resolved to slay her dear friend as a last resort, I appeared, bringing with me the possibility of saving her friend. I couldn't begin to imagine how relieved she must have felt.

She was probably happy to meet another DH unit, too. As her brother, I understood that quite well. I'm sure she must have thought we were all dead. Hell, I was beside myself when I ran into Virgo again, even though we were on opposite sides. I had a feeling Virgo understood that, too, and had resigned himself to letting her have her fun. Probably.

"Hmph," Echidna pouted. "So the great hero Leo has a soft spot for her, does he?" She didn't seem to appreciate me covering for Aquarius. "You saddle me with homework, and play your mind games and all manner of nefarious tricks on me. Yet with her, you have the patience of a doting brother, granting her special treatment? I protest this unequal treatment!"

"I'm not giving her special treatment. And I didn't play any 'nefarious tricks' on you. Come on."

"Oh yes, you certainly did! It's not fair for her to get your magnanimity! Not fair at all!"

"What's with you? Are you jealous?"

"Am I jea...?!" She choked on her reply.

"If you really want special treatment that badly, I wouldn't mind giving you some nice, tender, loving special treatment when we get back. Just like a regular princess, heh."

Echidna's face turned beet red, and she unleashed a volley of kicks on me.

"Who would be jealous?!" she yelled back. "And I need no special treatment!"

"Ow! Quit it! You're gonna mess up the spell!"

"Hey! Leo, Queen Echidna, is everything all right over there?" Aquarius called out to us. "Do you need any help?"

Before I could answer, Echidna shouted back, "We're fine here by ourselves! You go and keep playing with your toys!"

"Ah, of course. Forgive my presumption."

I heard Virgo yelling "Who are you calling a toy?!" in the background, but his complaints were quickly drowned out by Aquarius's laughter.

Lake Amia was where Undine slept, deep under the frozen surface, sealed away after Demon King Ronove sent her into a frenzy. We were standing at an altar built on its shore. A massive, compound magic circle completely enclosed the altar, and countless smaller magic circles surrounded that one. To a human from the old days, it may have looked like the famous Nazca Lines.

We would perform our summoning ritual by combining the smaller magic circles with the large one and using it all as one giant summoning device. That would break the seal on the lake and bring Undine before us.

Breaking the seal itself wasn't difficult. Aquarius had been actively maintaining it the whole time, so if she stopped, it would wear off in a week or so and Undine could surface on her own. However, that would require us to be on guard constantly during that week. Calling Undine out and doing a preemptive attack was easier, and since Crocell and Aquarius were helping us, the ritual preparations wrapped up quickly.

There were ten of us in total. Crocell was the lynchpin of the ritual, and Virgo and Aquarius were there to protect her. Echidna and I were handling the fighting, and the Guardians would back us up. Of the Guardians, just Shutina, with the help of Canaan, would also act as support for Crocell since she didn't possess combat skills like the rest of us, and performing the tuning required her to touch Undine.

"Heyyy! Leoooo!" one of the Guardians, Lili, called out. She came dashing over with her dog ears fluttering and threw her arms around my waist as she wagged her tail. "It's all ready! Shutina said that when you're finished with your stuff, we can do the ritual whenever!"

"Luckily, I just finished my stuff over here. You know what we're doing, right, Lili?"

"Got no idea!"

Alas. Really, it was one of the few times that silly pup wasn't at fault for not doing her homework. She was unable to sit in on our strategy meeting the previous night since it was a bit late, and growing girls need their sleep. That was typically twelve to fourteen hours from eight o'clock, so night meetings weren't on her menu.

In retrospect, we should probably have cut down on the late-night meetings for the operation we were about to undertake. But since we all lived in the same castle, we didn't have set working hours and got into the bad habit of just gathering whenever.

I glanced at Echidna while patting Lili on the head.

Echidna nodded back and said, "Perfect timing, then. Leo, gather everyone here. We'll do a final check of the operation."

"Sure thing," I replied. I then called out, "Hey, everyone, come over here! And Aquarius, quit messing around!"

"Sure, sure."

We all gathered at the altar and sat down. Well, everyone except for Crocell, who was still busy preparing for the ritual. She'd been wrestling with a strange, wooden box nearby for quite a while.

After confirming we were almost all present, I moved aside to make room for Echidna.

She stepped forward and quietly cleared her throat. "Ahem."

That familiar confidence had returned, and there was no hint of the insecurity and self-doubt that had plagued her over the past few weeks. Clearing her throat was all she had to do to prove it.

"The goal of this operation is to tune Undine, who presently slumbers deep within the lake!" she announced. "After we have summoned Undine from her slumber using this ritual, we must wear her out enough for Priestess Crocell to touch her!"

"We can't defeat her?" Lili asked, tail swaying from side to side.

"I'd really appreciate if you didn't," Aquarius replied with a chuckle and patted her on the head. "It's kind of complicated. For one thing, the world will be in danger if we defeat her. But more importantly, Undine's my best friend. It would really hurt to see my friend die."

"She's your friend? Okay! Got it! Just leave it to me, then!" Lili gave her chest a mighty thump. "We're a good dark army that loves peace! Obviously Echidna wants us to save your dear friend! So let's save her!"

"Oh yeah? What a nice girl you are, Lili."

"It's not just me! There's lotsa nice people here, and it's all 'cause Echidna's the queen!"

Suddenly given the spotlight, Echidna bashfully scratched her cheek. In all honesty, though, that kindness of hers was a powerful weapon. It's what charmed Crocell over to our side, made allies of the Great Guardians, and saved my life and brought me into the fold. That was pretty impressive.

"Excuse me. Um. Do we have a moment? There's something that's been on my mind this whole time."

A succubus in a thin robe stepped forward. She had beautiful, silky blonde hair and the seductive proportions you'd expect on a succubus, but a refined and reserved personality that you wouldn't. She was Sorcerer General Shutina, the Almighty Magic and the finest sorceress in the army.

"Is this really all we need for the summoning ritual?" Shutina asked while glancing skeptically toward Crocell. "I can still hardly believe it, myself." She clearly didn't have much faith in the ritual.

"Indeed," grunted the large man with red dragon scales. "I'm as skeptical as Lady Shutina."

He was Dragon General Edvard, the army's main instructor and toughest individual in the force. His focus on martial prowess made him Shutina's polar opposite, an observation which lent a strangely persuasive weight to their shared doubts.

"If you've approved of this, Lord Leo," Edvard continued, "I can't imagine it to be mistaken. Yet will doing this really summon a spirit? It's not much different than fishing with Lili as bait."

Lili happily shook her tail at the mention of her name. "Hey, Shutina," she started. "Did he say something nice about me?"

"I would call that mockery."

"Hey!"

"It'll be fine," I reassured them while grabbing Lili by the scruff of the neck to stop her from thrashing and kicking up a fuss. I then attempted to answer their question. "You see, spirits are called to the material world through people's faith. That's what makes their manifestations solid. Their existence in our world depends a lot on how strongly we believe in them. To put it simply, if we think they exist, they do. If we don't, they don't. That's how different they are compared to us."

"So all of this is to strengthen our faith, then? Our beliefs about how powerful this spirit is, and what she looks like?"

"Exactly. If we start to believe, and I mean really believe, then Undine should manifest in the world, break the seal, and show up on the surface."

"I...see..."

Edvard was staring at the long, narrow wooden box with a door on its front. If you opened it, you would find countless sheets of paper inside. Crocell had been silent the whole time because she was intently focused on checking each and every one of them. The sheets of paper had pictures drawn on them, and she stood behind the box flipping each one over, in order, making sure the picture showed.

"Storytime with pictures? You gotta be kidding me."

Mernes' bafflement was well justified.

The Undine-worshipping denizens near Lake Amia had, for many centuries, passed down the story of how Demon Queen Crocell defeated the water dragon. It was not done out of obligation or admiration for the queen, but to control the spirit. Spirits are strongly affected by people's beliefs, and by passing down the tale of Crocell, they planted a firm truth in the world: Undine, in dragon form and manifest in the material world, could not defeat a Demon Queen.

"Long, long ago, in this very Lake Amia, there lived a monstrous water dragon," the girl named after the former monarch began reciting. "Today's tale is that of the bold and daring Demon Queen who defeated her..."

She paused to flip over the first sheet of paper entitled "The Tale of Demon Queen Crocell." The next sheet had a pastel color image of the ancient Lake Amia and the villages surrounding it. They weren't simply story cards, but traditional, sacred implements of god-summoning that accurately recorded Lake Amia's past, and were handed down in Crocell's village from generation to generation.

"Back then," Crocell continued, "the lake was said to be the most beautiful in all the world. Fearsome legends told how the water spirit Undine inhabited the lake as a great dragon and demanded human sacrifices, but they were merely myths. People had lived around the lake since far before the age of Demon King Belial. However!"

She flipped to the next page, which illustrated a great water dragon bursting from the lake.

"Oh, goodness, how terrible! It turns out the myth was true! One day, a great water dragon burst from the lake and pierced the heavens! In an earth-shattering voice, the great dragon Leviathan demanded: 'With every moon, offer unto me a human sacrifice in the lake, or I shall drag your miserable villages into my domain!'"

"Ohhh!"

Lili had plopped herself on the ground and was listening intently to the story. The half-eaten piece of fried kraken in her left hand and the candied apricot in her right (sourced from Virgo and Canaan's farms, of course) had both quickly been forgotten.

"The people did as they were told," the story continued, "and offered up sacrifices, for so fearsome was the water dragon! However..."

Crocell flipped to the next page, which illustrated a blood-red lake.

"Leviathan's demands were unending. What started as every month became every fortnight, then once every three days. On and on did she demand human sacrifice. Though the villages' mightiest warriors embarked on quests to slay the dragon, not a single one returned."

The story was mostly true. Crocell explained that introducing impurities would lower the mystical power of the ritual, making the summoning imperfect. So there could be no doubt that not a single one of those powerful demon warriors could defeat Leviathan. And when we summoned her, she would be, at a minimum, many times stronger than the average dragon.

"If this continued, why, the dragon would eat up everyone in the villages! However, a girl who happened to be staying at one of the inns came forth. And that girl was none other than..."

Following a dramatic pause, Crocell flipped to the next page.

"None other than Crocell the Ice Fang! That Blizzard Sorceress and heroic maiden the world was crying out for! The great forty-ninth ruler of the Demon World, whose songs would call the Crushing Glacier!"

"Hey. Edvard," Mernes quietly murmured to the large man, who stood beside him with both arms crossed. "She seems less like a priestess and more like a..."

"Indeed," Edvard replied, finishing his sentence, "a bard, or a commentator in an arena."

"Shh! Quiet, you guys!"

Lili immediately chastised them both from her seat on the ground. As she did, however, the altar where we all sat began to shake.

"Is it time?!"

It was an earthquake, but not just any earthquake. Everyone except Crocell and Lili began to grow excited. The lake, frozen by Aquarius's hands, had a great swirl of cracks in it which were audibly growing larger by the moment. I looked up and noticed the sky directly above the lake had taken on an unsettling ultramarine hue. From that spot, a ray of emerald-blue light poured down into the center of the lake, and the shaking began to grow more violent.

Crash!

In the blink of an eye, the ice covering the lake melted. Not from heat, but from the power of the spirit that controlled the element of water. The ice simply returned to its original form. Undine was setting up a field where she could use her power to its fullest extent.

Then, with a great splash, a massive figure came looming up out of the water. A figure large enough to pierce the heavens. It had sharp fangs, hard scales, and six eyes fearsome enough to sunder the courage of the bravest warrior.

"At last, I have awoken. At last, I have returned, Aquarius!" the massive being bellowed out. "Five hundred years. For five hundred years have I lived below the ice, surviving on nothing more than my hatred for you! Rue the day you broke my seal in hell, worm!"

That figure was none other than the manifestation of Undine which the water village had spoken of for millennia! The violently belligerent form of the great spirit, with neither mortal mind nor heart, the water dragon Leviathan!

Well. Normally, after that kind of description, one or two characters might say something that made it obvious they die in the next scene, and the protagonist would get all pumped to risk their life to defeat the big, bad dragon, but...

"Good grief, listen to her. I know the weakest dogs bark the most, but could she tone it down?"

"She may look a bit different, but a dragon is still a dragon, and there is no foe I know better! You, fiend, will rue the day you made a foe of Edvard the Dragon Slayer!"

Mernes and Edvard smoothly dropped into their fighting stances, daggers and greatsword at the ready.

"And come on, isn't she just a big sea snake? The time we were low on food and the apples ran out was way scarier."

"Indeed, that I'll agree with! Oh, how I wanted to sup on meat!"

Was food all that crowd could think about? They didn't even progress to the fighting; they just devolved into talking about how much they missed human food, or how much they wanted to have wyvern skewers again. Normally I'd tell them to reel it in, but their aggression was still squarely pointed towards Leviathan, so I had to feel impressed by their focus.

"How will the battle go?" Crocell continued booming out commentary. "The avatar of Undine, the fearsome water dragon Leviathan, burst out from the lake!" As announcer and priestess, she managed to keep story time going without a hint of distraction. "Demon Queen Crocell and her allies boldly stood before the beast! What will become of them?! Will they be able to defeat the water dragon? Will peace return to our humble lake?!"

"Well, what happens next?! Hurry, hurry!"

"U-um, Lady Lili, it is about time to start fighting, so..."

"Canaan, sshhh! It's just about to get good!"

"It is time, so..."

Lili chomped away on her seventh piece of fried kraken, completely entranced by the story. She'd completely forgotten her role as a combatant. Damn it, Lili, you could listen to the story later!

"I'll go on ahead to my position with Canaan, then," Shutina announced. "Good luck in battle, Your Majesty." She then tapped her magical staff, Claustrum to the ground as a salute to Echidna.

Echidna deeply nodded back and replied, "Leave this all to me, for today, I am near immortal!"

"Queen Echidna, you've been in awfully high spirits these last few days. Did something happen?"

"What? Oh, no. Nothing has happened. Nothing at all."

Shutina gave her a look.

"H-honestly."

When Echidna looked away, Shutina rephrased her question.

"Wait, did you and Leo—"

"I said nothing happened! Now, off with you!"

"Oh, fine, fine! I'll be off! Good luck to you!"

There wasn't the slightest hint of concern for the upcoming battle from Echidna or Shutina. It was like they were preparing for another normal day on the job. After giving my neck a crack, I turned around and did one final check.

"All right," I said. "Virgo and Aquarius, keep Crocell safe."

Canaan had already restored Virgo to human form, and he and Aquarius were protecting Crocell's flanks as she continued her tale.

Virgo angrily replied, "Go on, get out of here. You got me to agree to go on backup, so if you mess up, I'm murdering you."

"Backup? Listen buddy, Crocell's the key to this whole operation. She goes down and this whole thing's up in smoke. Not to get all serious, but you want to protect her with your life, because—"

"Quit yapping, I know! Geez, you never lost your love of lecturing, did you? Now go on, get going!"

"Don't worry, Leo," Aquarius reassured me while Virgo continued to grumble. "Unlike this barbarian, protecting ladies of exquisite beauty is my specialty."

She then held up a finger, releasing countless tiny ice crystals. They glittered and sparkled as they surrounded Crocell. It was Glacial Yard, a damaging defensive spell that instantly froze those who touched it.

"I'll protect Crocell, so don't worry about a thing. Just leave it to your dear sister and go fight, little brother of mine."

"I told you, I'm not your little brother! But...thanks," I replied. At that point, I was resolved to show those two just how much stronger I'd gotten over the last three thousand years, and just how powerful my friends were!

"Everything's ready, Echidna. We can go any time."

"Aye!" she replied from beside me with her red dress fluttering in the wind.

All eyes were on us as Echidna continued, "To bring clean water back to our world and to save the dear friend of Aquarius, my warrior Leo's sister, we will do battle with Leviathan, avatar of the great water spirit Undine!"

Echidna drew Tyrfing from her waist, then held its tip high to the heavens before lowering it in a powerful stroke.

"Get her!"

On their queen's orders, the Demon World's most powerful army charged the water dragon.

Size was power. As one could deduce from how boxers were divided into weight classes, simply being large and heavy was its own weapon.

What we could see of Leviathan's figure was well over five hundred feet tall. If you added in what lay beneath the surface, she was probably double that. Hell, in terms of sheer length, she was larger than the battleships and aircraft carriers that dominated the world during the Mechanical Age.

"But so what, right?"

"Yeah!"

Two figures, one emerald and one platinum, flew at Leviathan like the wind.

One was Mernes, and the other was Lili in her Fenrir form, a massive, platinum wolf. Mernes was the fastest being in Echidna's army, and Fenrir was unusually speedy for her size.

Leviathan immediately turned to counterattack. With a single roar the lake stirred, and countless water projectiles rose up and launched themselves towards Mernes and Fenrir.

"Too slow! Way too slow!" Fenrir taunted.

Of course they wouldn't hit. When those two got moving at top speed, even Echidna and I would have trouble landing a blow.

After dodging, the two of them dashed up Leviathan's body, spiraling around her as they went.

Leviathan let out a groan, then cuts suddenly appeared up and down her body which started spewing blood.

"The bigger they are, the easier it is to get in close. Giving yourself all those blind spots just makes my job easier."

"Exactly!"

"Lili, there's no way you have any idea what I'm talking about."

"Ho ho...ha ha ha!" The dragon let out a haughty bellow, unfazed by her wounds. And I quickly realized why. Light covered her colossal frame, and a moment later, all of the damage Mernes and Fenrir had wrought was completely gone.

"I am the water dragon Leviathan," she bellowed, "the avatar of Undine, a spirit who boasts power over healing and destruction! Know that it will take far more might to defeat me, you fools!"

She'd cast Cure Water. There were plenty of healing spells, such as Earth Heal or Cure Light, but Cure Water was especially powerful in aquatic environments such as the lake. It not only gave the surrounding water healing properties, but it let the healing waters form barriers over the wounds, adding defensive capabilities. With all of the water present in the lake, Leviathan had as much healing power as Virgo. How lucky. That was just how I'd planned it!

"Bwahaha...grahh?!"

There was a loud pop, and the dragon's laughter abruptly seized.

"Guh...gyahhh?!"

Smoke was rising from the nearly sealed wounds covering her body. It was the work of a poison Mernes had concocted. He'd taken pills of Witching Water, a compound that generated a powerful acid when it came into contact with water, and implanted those venomous pills into Leviathan's wounds. That sealed her ability to use Cure Water.

What surprised me was Mernes' speed. He'd deftly flicked those pills into the countless wounds he'd inflicted on Leviathan, sinking the poison into his foe. When it came to dexterity, and only dexterity, Mernes had me beat.

"I mixed in thirteen poisons on top of ground black waterlily root, a plant that only grows in the Demon World. It took a whole week just to concoct all that. A whole week," Mernes grumbled as he zipped through the air with his Blurry Fire spell. "I had to call in sick for my job at the mess hall, so you'd better suffer and make it worth it."

"Grahhhh!"

The effects were immense. The dragon continued to squirm and howl in pain.

Wait a second. Mernes had been going back to the human world to keep up his waiter...er, waitress job? Which did he think was his real job? I might be forced to ban side hustles.

"F-foolish humans!" Leviathan roared, glaring at Mernes as he continued to stay airborne. "I am of the water element! All of the spirit world knows my antidotes are even more powerful than the wisps'! I will remove this p—"

"I will not let you!"

"Gwahhh?!"

A mighty blade slashed out, slicing fiercely into the water dragon's belly. The powerful charge came from Edvard, riding on Fenrir. He held the wolf's mane with one hand while swinging his greatsword with the other. "Soft!" he yelled. "Laughably so! You've been slacking on core day, Leviathan! Why, the wyverns I fought at Eris put up a better show than you!"

"Heyyy, quit yelling in my ears!"

"Ahaha, sorry, sorry!"

Fenrir Lili shook her head in protest. Shutina had buffed her up with all sorts of enhancement spells, so she could run over anything, including water and air, like it was solid ground beneath her feet. It was like watching a Pegasus in action.

To a mounted fighter, a weapon with poor reach had no real use. Mernes' daggers and the one-handed swords Echidna and I fought with were a poor fit. Edvard, however, was different. He wielded a two-handed sword as large as he was, giving him enough reach to effectively ride Fenrir.

"Come now, sea serpent, it's as if you're standing still!"

"Too slow, too slow!"

With Fenrir's claws, Edvard's blade, and Mernes' dagger strikes, Leviathan was covered in wounds again in a flash.

"You...you fools...!" she cried out in annoyance.

"Wahaha! Slow, slow! Soft, soft!"

"She really is super slow. It's kinda funny," Mernes commented.

 From the massive Leviathan's point of view, it was like facing three flies not the size of one of her claws. There was no way she could avoid their attacks.

"Why, you worms!" she complained, twisting her frame to force them off. Then she announced in a booming voice that the whole world could hear, "I am Leviathan, wyrm of the depths! My true name is water spirit Undine! I am the avatar of water that dwells within every river, every spring, and every sea!" Water ripples began expanding out from around Leviathan that, strangely, only grew in amplitude. They continued spreading outward from the center of the lake towards the rivers that flowed from it. "Come forth, my aspects, the Undines of the world! Gather around me and smite my foes!"

"It's happening! Stay frosty, Echidna, and be ready to cover me anytime!"

"Got it!"

Undine had influence throughout the entire Demon World. Every river, spring, waterfall, and sea had countless smaller versions of herself in them. That was how the spirits worked: they had other parts of themselves, or clones, in all sorts of natural bodies. From there they caused miracles and gathered faith from the mortals of the realm, which in turn made them stronger.

As I focused my mind and sensed the magic around us, I realized my call was right on the money. The smaller Undines all the world over were heading right for us, answering the summons of their master, Leviathan. They came up through the river...as a massive tsunami. That was what Undine had up her sleeve!

"Hahaha! Gaze upon my mighty army and despair! My smaller avatars occupy all the water of this world!" Leviathan laughed victoriously as the first wave of the tsunami appeared at the edge of the lake. It grew in size with blistering speed and came straight toward our lakeside altar, where we stood.

"Quiver in fear, insects!" Leviathan continued, "Flee in vain and meet your untimely ends!"

I squinted and saw wave after wave in the distance, following the first one, all raging towards us. If those waves came crashing down one after another, there was no way the altar would remain standing.

"Truly terrifying, I must say," Echidna proudly whispered beside me. "It truly is terrifying that everything has gone just as you said it would, Leo!"

"I wouldn't be your strategist if I couldn't make this kind of call."

That was the reason we divided our attack into waves, rather than sending the whole team in at once. We were waiting for Leviathan to get desperate and call all of her clones to her aid. If Undine was the source of Lake Amia's contamination, then it meant all of Undine's clones scattered throughout the Demon World were also becoming sources of contamination. Even if we defeated Leviathan and stopped her frenzy, we would still have had to traverse the whole world and purify each smaller Undine afterwards.

However.

"See, they all showed up as one big, happy family! This makes it way easier to purify them!"

"Truly two birds with one stone. Well, it looks like it's my turn."

Aquarius stepped forward, held out both hands, and focused on her ice magic. That was all it took for her to send the temperature around us plunging, covering the lakeside in a thin layer of frost.

"They didn't stick me on that aircraft carrier during the war for no reason," she boasted. "I am unmatched when it comes to dealing with water!"

The biggest misfortune to befall Leviathan in our battle was the fact that we had the greatest ice sorcerer in the world on our side. She was even more powerful than Demon Queen Crocell!

"Re diri ri saa Aum!" Aquarius recited. "O blue limbo, o platinum cage, eternal barrier of ice, cover the heavens!"

"Mernes, Lili, Edvard!" I yelled. "Get outta the way, a big one's coming!"

"Come forth, breath of Hades, and bring down the curtain of death and silence! Cocytus!" Aquarius finished chanting, right as the three of them got out of her way, and a fierce storm of cold rushed across the lake. It froze the water, Leviathan's massive frame, and the impending tsunami, turning it into a massive wall of ice.

"That...that cannot be! Such foolishness is unheard of!" Leviathan bellowed in disbelief while struggling to break free from her frozen prison. "Do not presume to mock me, you worms of the material world!"

"Oh, she's mad."

"I am the avatar of water! The avatar of water! Did you really think the likes of this ice would work against me?!"

Fenrir Lili landed on the altar and rubbed up against me with a canine growl. "It'll work, right?" she asked. "Like, Acky's got the best ice magic in the world, right?"

"No," I answered. "Leviathan's more or less right."

"Hwah?"

"It might work on the smaller ones, but ice isn't too effective against the main Undine herself. It borrows on Shade's and Undine's powers in order to work, after all."

Using ice magic on Undine was like asking her to hit herself. It wasn't completely ineffective, but there was no avoiding some loss in strength. Essentially, Aquarius was working against her own affinity for water, which meant she couldn't fully take Undine on her own.

In fact, the reason she had been able to seal her in the lake in the first place was because of all the magical seals on top of the ice. If she'd simply frozen Undine, Leviathan could have busted out and come looking for revenge centuries ago.

What was worse, our present victory condition required having Crocell make contact with Undine. And yet, holding her down with ice alone would be nearly impossible, even for Aquarius.

"The likes of this ice...this mere...ice...?!"

Indeed, it would be impossible, if Aquarius was acting alone!

"Dammit, Aquarius," Virgo grumbled, "You owe me."

But Aquarius had a huge external battery.

"I coulda been laying the smackdown on that dragon, but no, I have to spend all my time and energy giving you juice!"

DH-06 Virgo was the most talented healer among our units. That, of course, made him excellent at support, and among his repertoire was the ability to grant magic power to others! He had his hand on Aquarius's back as he poured energy into her and complained.

Aquarius simply took it in stride and replied, "Leo was our tactician. If you have a problem, take it up with him."

"Dammit! Why do I have to be a disposable battery, huh?! I'm letting you have it after this battle, Aquarius, don't you forget it!"

"I told you, tell it to Leo!"

As long as Virgo was supporting her, Aquarius's magic power was nearly infinite! Leviathan may have boasted great resistance to ice spells, but that was nothing a little brute force in the form of repeated shots of Cocytus couldn't solve.

"This cannot be!" Leviathan raged. "Why will this ice not melt?!"

Two, three, four. It was a spell even Aquarius normally couldn't fire multiple times, but with Virgo's aid, she kept them going at maximum firepower. The lake was frozen like a skating rink, leaving the water dragon with nowhere to run.

"Go, Leo! You've shown me enough of how powerful your friends are!" Aquarius began cheering me on as she continued firing spells. "You're up last! Finish this! Neutralize Leviathan and make a path for Crocell!"

"You've got one thing wrong, Aquarius," I replied, then cast Aeracomet and zipped up into the air above Leviathan's head. "I will neutralize Leviathan, and I'm pretty glad I got to show off how powerful my pals are. But I'm not going to finish this. We are."

I wasn't flying alone. There was someone beside me for support.

"Let's do this, Leo! I'll give you all the power I've got!"

"Let's show 'em, Echidna!"

I had a battery, too. The only monarch that the hero Leo Demonhart would choose to serve, the ruler of the Demon World, the Empress of Conflagration, the Demon Queen Echidna herself! No matter who I faced, there was no way I could lose!

"Dio Neel Zod! Spiral of the most radiant light! Bring the piercing light of the gods into my hand!" I recited, gathering my magic power as the purple magic circles which were a lightning spell's calling card appeared all around me. "Come forth, o blade of light! Burst, fly, pierce my foe!"

I then held my hand to the heavens, calling forth countless spears of light. It was the ultimate lightning spell that could reduce the strongest castle walls to mere rubble.

"Block this one if you can! ...Aurora Assail!"

Those thousands of spears abruptly rained down from the heavens and pierced through Leviathan. Some shot out in a straight line, while others bent in an arc and stabbed her side. Others zigged and zagged as they soared, scoring multiple hits. All of them exploded violently, unleashing sparks like fireworks and filling the air with the smell of ozone.

Much like Cocytus, Aurora Assail was a top-class spell in its element. Normally, even I couldn't fire off so many at once, but I had help. The Demon Queen and the hero had fused their powers, becoming one in might.

Virgo and Aquarius, the brother and sister I never expected to see again, were watching.

More importantly, my queen was right next to me, witnessing my exploits!

The moment had come! I would never get a better chance to look my best! At that moment, I knew without the slightest doubt that I was the strongest being in the world.

"It's the end for you, Leviathan! Eat this!"

For my final spear of light, I took it in my hand and threw it like a javelin. It screamed straight at Leviathan, piercing through her before falling into the lake and exploding.

"This can't be... This can't beeee...!" Leviathan cried in surprise, swaying as her strength faltered. As powerful as she was, the next blow would kill her. However, that wasn't our aim. We were attempting to save Undine.

The last dance belonged, of course, to Undine's priestess, Crocell!

"The stage is set for you, Shutina! Get to it!"

"Understood. Our backs are in your hands!"

While floating in the air with Levitation, I cast an additional Channeling spell to send the final signal to Shutina, Canaan, and Crocell, who had been waiting safely behind the frontlines.

In order to stop Leviathan's frenzy, we needed to have Crocell make physical contact with her. However, Crocell wasn't nearly as powerful as any of us, and it was far too dangerous for her to approach Leviathan in the middle of the lake, even if she used a flying spell. That was why we kept Shutina and Canaan, the army's two best spellcasters, in reserve. With their enhancement spells and Echidna and myself providing covering fire from the skies, even a combat rookie could reach Leviathan!

Crocell showed remarkable balance as she ran across the water. Shutina's Aqua Walk made her passage on the lake's surface possible, while Speed Up and Blessing helped smooth her journey.

"This isn't over yet!" Leviathan howled. "This is not where it ends!" She then unleashed an array of water missiles, but they harmlessly splashed in the air all around Crocell, as though she were covered by an invisible shell.

That was Canaan's Acid Sphere spell. The powerful defensive maneuver created a thin membrane of water over the target that disassembled and converted colliding projectiles into magical power. Echidna and I would shoot down anything that might get through the barrier, guaranteeing Crocell's defense.

She was getting close. Really close. A few more steps and she'd be able to touch Leviathan.

"Leo...look!"

"Yeah. Crocell's not gonna make it!"

Leviathan was no fool. Realizing that Crocell was coming to tune her, she'd abandoned her attacks to focus entirely on defense. Aqua Wall, Poison Bubble, White Mist...she unleashed a series of spells to guard herself and obstruct Crocell's path. Crocell was just a few steps away from touching Leviathan, but with all of those obstacles, that wasn't going to happen.

And the closer Crocell got, the harder it was for Aquarius to support her with Cocytus. We weren't just looking at a stalemate—we were about to lose.

Or, at least, that's how it must have looked to Leviathan. But I knew differently. I'd noticed that Leviathan had been keeping her eyes off of Aquarius the whole time. Hell, from the very start of the whole thing, when she bellowed out her name, she didn't give Aquarius so much as a glance. At first, I thought it was because she was too big to tell us apart, but that wasn't the case.

She couldn't bear to look directly at her. She couldn't accept the fact that she had to fight her dear friend. That's why she never asked Aquarius why she broke the seal. She couldn't risk hearing that the reason was to defeat her. She didn't want to have to accept the reality that her dear friend had become her enemy. Deep within Leviathan, the mortal mind, the mortal heart, still lived.

Leviathan's inability to look at her old friend was the cause of her defeat. Seeing the time was right, Echidna, Crocell, and I all spoke up at once.

"The path is finally open! We got this!"

"The time is nigh! Go, and save your friend!"

"Now is the time! Aquarius!"

"What...?!"

By the time Leviathan noticed what was happening, it was too late. The bright flashes of my Aurora Assail barrage provided cover for Aquarius's ascent into the air. A moment later, she was hurdling down a direct course toward Leviathan's head.

That was what our whole plan had been leading up to.

The priestess would be Aquarius, not Crocell.

"Well. Um. Not to criticize Your Majesty's plan...but I don't think you actually need me for it."

"...What?"

Iris (well, Echidna) and I were both stunned to hear Crocell's unexpected critique.

"You see, um, there are two main conditions for being Undine's priestess. The first is being strongly blessed by Undine at birth, and the second being that you have to be either someone who's lived in the water village for a long time or a descendant of someone who has. Only a person fitting both of those conditions can become Undine's priestess and tune her. But Aquarius fits that bill, right?"

Echidna and I exchanged looks and both groaned.

"Yeah, you're right. She kinda does."

"But that's weird then, right? Like, Aquarius has been with Undine for three thousand years. She should know more about the priestess system than Crocell does."

"Mm-hm. I was thinking the same thing. She'd definitely realize that she could be the priestess instead of Crocell, easy."

"I wouldn't know for sure," Crocell hesitantly continued, "but perhaps she doesn't have the confidence to do it?"

Hearing the word "confidence" made me frown. Seriously? Insecurity again? I already had Echidna's confidence issues on my plate. It was definitely turning into some kind of theme.

"There's actually a third condition to becoming a priestess," Crocell added. "Being a close friend of Undine's. Perhaps Aquarius is worried about that?"

"Is that an essential condition?"

"No, but I've heard that most priestesses through the ages have tried to be good friends with Undine, and their efforts made the tuning more effective."

"Well, I suppose anyone would be hesitant to let a stranger into their hearts...but if it was a friend, they'd probably think the whole thing wasn't so bad. Yeah, that makes sense."

Aquarius had told me that she'd fallen for Demon King Ronove's scheme and that's why she lost Undine. Then, after seeing her go into a frenzy as Leviathan, she reluctantly sealed her away at the bottom of the lake. The bitterness she felt about failing to save her friend and the guilt from sealing that friend in a dark prison must have eaten away at her confidence that she was Undine's friend, so she removed herself as a candidate from the start.

And yet, if I thought about it, she'd been guarding the lake for five hundred years straight. Alone and suffering from Ronove's curse, she loyally protected her friend with nothing but a staunch belief in a far distant future. Who other than a friend would do such a thing? There was no doubt in my mind, Aquarius could definitely be the priestess. And everyone else in the room agreed.

"Then, how about this? We could do, like, a two-pronged attack. While Crocell is drawing Undine's attention, Aquarius sneaks behind her when she's not looking and does the tuning."

"Not a bad plan, especially since DH units have unlimited magic power, so we won't have to worry about her losing any. And if she manages to tune Undine, that's our win."

"And if Aquarius can't tune her...that's where I come in!"

"Yeah. And while you're taking the stage, we'll support you with all we've got."

Back in the present, our plan succeeded! Distracted by Crocell, Leviathan allowed Aquarius, our true priestess, to get into range!

"Aquarius! Aquarius, you fiend!" Leviathan cried out when she spotted Aquarius shooting down at her like an arrow.

"Hey there, Undine. I'm glad you remember me."

"How could I forget the person who imprisoned me for five hundred years?!" she continued to howl, but her voice was filled with a mixture of love and hate rather than rage and intimidation. "Do you really think you have any right to be my priestess, Aquarius?!"

Those were painful words for Aquarius to hear.

"For five hundred long years, I festered at the bottom of this pitch-black lake! Have you any idea how many times I cursed your name and vowed my vengeance? Do you honestly think I would let your traitorous heart into mine?!"

Aquarius answered Leviathan's glare with a look of deep regret. "I'm sorry, Undine. I have no excuse. No reason I could possibly give you will change the fact that I fell for Ronove's scheme. That was my failure. And I kept you waiting all by yourself at the bottom of this frozen lake. There's no changing that either. I'll take any punishment that's due. But first, listen to me, and listen good!" Then, without the slightest hesitation, she stuck out her hand before her like the blade a sword and dropped towards her friend. "You were not the only one waiting alone these five hundred years! I've waited for this day for centuries, believing the moment would come when I could finally rescue you from that dark pit! And I am not letting this chance go!"

"Guh!" Leviathan immediately reacted with a barrage of water projectiles.

Aquarius froze every single one of them and kept on charging. The moment had come for her to howl back, "I swear I'll save you! Come back to me!"

"Aquari...us...!"

"Dammit, Undine, come back to me!"

"Aquarius!"

She finally reached Leviathan's head and laid her hand on it.

The moment Aquarius touched Leviathan, the space between them glowed brightly with a light the color of the deep blue sea.  According to Crocell, that same light appeared during a tuning. In other words, it was a success. The light disappeared in an instant, and in the silence that followed I heard Echidna gulp. One question remained: would Undine accept Aquarius's heart or not?

If, say, Aquarius had darkness in her heart, like the desire to seal Undine away and become the master of Lake Amia, Undine would see it during the tuning and strike back in rage.

The die had been cast. Would all the love Aquarius had felt for her friend over those past five hundred years be enough to calm Undine's frenzy? All we could do was wait and see.

"Hey, no one's moving. ...Did it fail?"

"No...look closer, Echidna! Look at the lake!"

A change was occurring in the lake. The black tsunami Aquarius had frozen with Cocytus was gradually becoming blue again. And that wasn't all. The tar-black waters of Lake Amia were slowly clearing up, reverting back to their natural emerald-blue.

There was no question that Aquarius had the right to be a priestess, and that she had the right to call herself Undine's friend, even after five hundred years. At last, Aquarius had rescued her dear comrade.

I was all set to cheer her on when the world tilted around me.

"Whoa?!"

I'd forgotten that I was still in the air, using Levitation.

"You idiot!" Echidna scolded me in a loud whisper. "Keep your magic up!" She then gave me a hand staying airborne. "After blasting all those spells, you've got to be spent, right? Just grab onto me."

"Thanks, and...sorry. I guess I couldn't manage to be cool 'til the end, huh?"

"Hah. That's okay. I've come to expect it."

Echidna carried me slowly back down to the lakeside. When we landed, I found myself standing in water up to my ankles. As waves washed over my shoes, I could see faint bubbles in the wake they left behind in the clear, blue water. It was hard to believe that same water had been so dark and murky just a few moments ago.

One long strip of the lake, however, was frozen solid. Aquarius slowly walked along it carrying a girl with blue hair. That girl was Undine's true form, the friend Aquarius knew. I figured she spent most of her time in that form and only turned into Leviathan when it was time to fight.

"What's it look like, Aquarius? She going to be okay?"

"Indeed. She's alive and well. She should be awake soon."

Undine slept quietly in Aquarius's arms. It scared me a little to see her lying so still, since she looked almost dead, but as the great mother ocean had demonstrated, water was the element that held domain over life. I was sure she'd be fine.

With Undine still in her arms, Aquarius bowed deeply to me.

"Thanks, Leo. I'd really thought I had no choice but to kill her. I never dreamed that she could return to normal. I can't thank you enough."

"You've got it all wrong. You wanna thank Echidna, not me."

"Hm?"

True, I had a big hand in the operation. I worked hard, traveled all over, and came up with a solution. The thing was, though, that I was supposed to be dead. I was a monster who nearly destroyed the human world just because I wanted to keep on being the hero. And who did I have to thank for being alive today? None other than Echidna. That's why I wanted the thanks to go to her.

Of course, I should have just come out and said all of that normally, but I was too bashful. Instead, I hid my embarrassment and deployed a little verbal cover fire.

"I mean, our queen's pretty impressive, right?"

Aquarius hesitated long enough for me to wonder if she'd picked up on my feelings, then she bowed her head and replied with heartfelt agreement, "Indeed. It's just like Cychreus said. Glad you found a good, peace-loving queen, Leo."

The winds of the Demon World once again blew over the clear waters of Lake Amia. We, Echidna's army, had successfully taken a big step towards the restoration of the world.

Two weeks had passed since the battle at Lake Amia. Echidna, the Four Great Guardians, and I had gathered in a room in the palace to have our weekly meeting.

"And that's all I've got to report!"

"Damn. I'm surprised how well things work out."

"What works out?"

Ignoring Lili as she gave me a curious look, I flipped through the report and let out a sigh. Not a negative sigh. No, it was an impressed sigh.

"When Echidna said she wanted Lili in charge of getting supplies from the human world, I thought she had to be joking, but damn, kids adapt really fast."

The Demon World's environment was in a much sorrier state than the human realm's, even if it had seen some improvements lately. There were plenty of supplies we still depended on the humans for, not the least of which was food.

The amount of imports we had from the human world made a huge impact on the quality of life in the Demon World, and the list of required goods that Lili had put together covered all the bases.

Mernes shrugged and sighed, giving the impression he thought our conversation was ridiculous. "Of course she did well," he said, "Shutina helped make the list and picked most of the suppliers, too. All she did was carry the stuff from there to here. Errands, basically."

"Hey, hey, Edvard, did he say something nice about me?"

"Nay, we would call this mockery."

"Heyyy!" Lili's tail wagged furiously in protest.

"Haha, settle down there!" Edvard replied, reaching out to ruffle her hair.

"I'm doin' my best over here! Isn't that right, Ecky?! I'm doing good!"

"You certainly are," Echidna interjected, "and you aren't the only one." She then cast her gaze over the Guardians from her seat at the back of the room. "Mernes, Edvard, and Shutina have also grown quite a lot these past few months. You've all put in excellent effort toward improvement...and you've had a wonderful teacher. I could hardly be happier."

She then glanced toward me. A "few months" ago was right around when I'd joined the army. And looking back, I'd sure had my work cut out for me. I enlisted incognito, reformed the shattered organization, solved the individual problems of the Four Great Guardians, formed an alliance with the kingdom of Eris after surviving my trial employment period, and since then had been grappling with saving the Demon World's environment.

Personally, I could hardly believe I'd worked that hard in such a short time. The days were packed. The Guardians must have thought the same, because they nodded in reminiscence.

"Indeed. Mernes has opened up just a touch and will now partake in small talk with me."

"Edvard doesn't ask the impossible of his troops anymore. Common sense, really."

"I hear that the Sorcerer General has been helping Lili with her tasks because she now understands the value of educating one's personnel. Rather than doing everything herself, she seeks to make the organization stronger as a whole. That's a wonderful development!"

"Shutina, it's really cool how you don't work super late into the night anymore! Oh, and Canaan said that you're getting six hours of sleep and not hitting your alarm's snooze button anymore! She was so happy!"

Hold on a second. That last remark was kind of interesting.

"Lili, does that mean Canaan's been peeping in on Shutina's room?"

"Probably!"

"You mean definitely! Good grief, some things never change."

I thought she'd gotten a little better after teaming up with Virgo, but it looked like Canaan still needed some education. I didn't want to embarrass anyone by editing the employee code of conduct to explicitly forbid making illicit recordings of your teacher's bedroom, so an intervention was in order.

Although the Guardians all had more to say, Echidna cleared her throat to quiet the room.

"There you have it, Leo. Had you not joined us in our time of need, not only would the environment be in a greater shambles, but so would the army itself. It is, indeed, thanks to you that we can have our regular meetings in the first place. I express my gratitude."

"You're gonna make me blush, Echidna. Besides, I hardly did anything. These guys would've grown on their own without me. They've got that much talent."

"Modesty? That's not like you, Leo."

"I'm just stating the facts. Everyone here's like a sponge, with a real knack for absorbing new things. Like, they're not top officers in the dark army for nothing."

There were certain unavoidable walls when training people, the largest of which was a student's own preconceived notions. Few things were harder than teaching a stubborn learner who was set in their ways.

"That isn't the way I learned it," they'd say.

"It goes against how my ancestors did it."

Or another classic: "We've always done it this way."

The list went on. Their preconceptions would kick in and make picking up new knowledge difficult. Whether the student grew through praise or grew through punishment, what truly determined a teacher's skill was how they dealt with preconceptions.

In that sense, the Guardians were easy to teach. Lili was as pure and genuine as they came, and Mernes was surprisingly receptive when you spoke with him. Shutina and Edvard had flexibility, too, which was surprising in people as old as they were. Even I couldn't teach someone who didn't want to learn.

The Guardians' immense growth, both personally and in their work, over those past few months was mainly thanks to their own effort and talent. They listened to my advice because they realized they lacked something and had room to grow. That's what I thought was the key to their success.

"Now then, next topic: the purification of Lake Amia."

"That's my cue. So, as we saw in the document Shutina shared, water flowing from Lake Amia has shown steady signs of improvement..."

The meeting continued as we covered reports on water quality, reports about the food crisis, and discussed views on what environmental actions we should take in the wake of solving the water issue.  Several other unrelated topics followed, at which point it came to a smooth close.

"With that, I thank you all for your time. This meeting is dismissed."

"Phew, finally over! Leo! Leo, let's eat some snacks!" Lili kicked her chair aside and launched herself at me like a rocket.

"Geh."

She then began affectionately shaking me with all her might. I was trying to decide whether to pet her or remind her that saying goodbye to everyone was good meeting manners when Echidna called over to me from her seat.

"Leo, I need you to stay. There's something we must discuss."

"Well, you heard her. Sorry, Lili, we'll have snacks later."

"Aww!"

"Tomorrow, even. You'll have my full attention."

"It's a promise! A promise!"

"Come, Lili, the queen wants her privacy," Shutina said, plucking her up like a mother cat would a kitten and pulling her from the room.

"A promise!"

Edvard and Mernes followed, and the noisy meeting room fell silent.

"So, what'd you want to talk about? Did something happen?"

"Mm."

When I sat down next to Echidna, she continued to gaze out the window and remained silent. Her eyes followed the river that ran near the capital. It used to be thick with mana contamination, but it was gradually clearing up and turning blue again.

"Saving Undine was a good play," I said, continuing to talk, "Lake Amia might be the only pure water now, but give it a year and all the world's water will be clean again. Think of all the swimming and bathing people can do then! And hell, we can make fish hatcheries, and maybe grow some edible seaweed, stuff like that."

"Aye."

"And we can't forget Aquarius, either. With Undine back in action, she can finally come and go from the lake as she pleases. Said she'd help out if we ever needed anything, too. She has a surprising number of talents, so I think she'll be pretty useful. Not as much as me, of course."

"...Aye."

"Hm? What's up? What's with the long face? Something in the meeting piss you off?"

"No, it's...it's not like that."

She'd slipped back into her regular, non-Demon Queen tone. Ever since she disguised herself as Iris, she'd taken to showing me her true self more frequently. I wasn't sure if it meant she really trusted me or just couldn't be bothered to put on the act around me anymore, but either way, I was glad to see it.

What she said next, however, was something I couldn't have predicted.

"Hey. Leo."

"Yeah?"

"How many more years are you gonna live?"

"Come again?"

How many more years would I live? Her question, completely out of the blue, had me tongue-tied for at least three seconds. Wanting to lighten the mood, I intentionally played it off.

"Heh, that's a dumb question. You already know, don't you?"

She should have known, anyway. DH Series units didn't have lifespans. As long as our Wisdom Stone cores were connected to the rest of us, we'd go on forever and keep protecting the world. Echidna must have realized that after I'd revealed what I was.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten? We DH Series—"

"Live forever, I know. That's why you've been alive for three thousand years, since the days of Belial. I remember."

"Then what's the deal?"

"Eighty more years. We'll be lucky if the army lasts eighty more years."

It took me a second to realize what Echidna was talking about. The lifespan of the Four Great Guardians.

"Lili and Mernes are humans, right? No matter how strong they are, they're not going to live that much longer than your average human. At most they'll live to be around a hundred, so they've got another eighty years."

"Really? Back in Lili's village, they've got legends that say those who bear Fenrir live way longer than the average Joe. And Mernes, well, the first master of the Assassins' Guild is still alive and kicking somewhere in human society. It's a guild secret, apparently. And get this, he's practically the same age as me! Although he only worked with demons and never lifted a finger to help me protect the world."

"What about Edvard? Dragonfolk are long-lived, but he can't have more than two or three hundred years in him."

"You're probably right about that. They believe pretty strongly in reincarnation and the cycle of life, so he probably won't be interested in living longer in the first place."

"And Shutina's a succubus, so if she does everything right, she's maybe got seven or eight hundred more years..."

"Hold up. What are you getting at, exactly?"

Echidna paused, then turned and gave me an incredibly sad look before replying, "You're going to end up alone again, aren't you?"

"Huh?"

"Like, as a higher-class demon, I'll live the longest of the group...but I won't live forever."

"You sure about that? I mean, you could probably live ten thousand years."

"Probably. And that would be great, but it still isn't forever."

"Good point."

Demons of Echidna's breed generally lived for a millennium, or a millennium and a half. The truth was, though, that there had been no records of any of them dying of old age. To die peacefully in one's bed was seen as shameful, so most chose to cast away a long lifespan in favor of a short life that ended in battle.

That was one great advantage of the peaceful Echidna being Demon Queen. The denizens of the world would stop trying to go to war with the humans and stop warring among themselves. With that much less war, the world's average lifespan would likely leap up.

"Until now, I'd only been able to focus on the problems right in front of me. First I only thought about being Demon Queen, then I only thought about saving the Demon World, then I only thought about how to deal with you once I'd invaded the human realm, and when you joined my army, well, you know the rest."

"You were wracking your brain pretty hard this time, too— Gwah!"

She gave me a light kick. Too light, in fact. It showed how drained she was.

"Now that things have calmed down a bit, I've had a chance to realize that eventually...we're going to end up leaving you all by yourself again."

"Yeah...true. Not exactly a revelation or anything, but yeah."

"I thought that I'd freed you from the burden of being a hero, but that was only temporary. It didn't solve the real problem. I've been thinking about it all morning, wondering if there's anything I can do, and I feel so bad about it."

I was an immortal being. Well, technically it might be possible for me to die if I lost my core, but I was as close to immortal as they came. I'd lived three thousand years since 2060, and I would probably live the next three thousand years just fine.

But immortality wasn't all peaches and cream. To be immortal meant you had to live outside of time.

Let me give a simple example. I once saved a village. That village held no particular significance to me, but I defeated some brigands attacking it while passing by, then delivered them to the guard. There was a couple in the village who had just given birth to a son, and they begged me name him. I refused at first, but by the third time they asked, I had given in. The kid got his name, and I stopped by the village every few years to visit.

After five years, that little baby I'd named had gotten big.

After fifteen years, he asked me for advice with his first crush.

After twenty years, I started drinking with him.

After thirty years, the boy I knew as a baby had become a man with a wife, and he asked me to name his child.

After sixty years, he had grandkids and a big, happy family.

Then, after eighty years, I visited the village following a long absence to find that he'd already passed away. Natural causes. His children and grandchildren were at his bedside as he went, and he told them to send me his regards.

His name was Leon. I'd simply named him after myself in the ancient dead tongue of a country called France. Not the most creative name, but Leon really liked having a similar one to mine. He went through radical changes over his eighty-year life, from babbling baby to energetic boy, then to strapping man and elderly grandpa. And yet, over those same eighty years, I hadn't changed a bit. That's what being immortal was. I had experienced similar partings on countless occasions.

Time flowed for everyone else but remained frozen for me. That was what my three thousand years had been like. And in all honesty, I had grown used to seeing people come and go. I appreciated Echidna's concern for me being all by my lonesome, but really, she worried too much. It was simply one more parting, but with Echidna and the Guardians. Nothing special. Nothing to get sad...about...

"Crap. Thinking about it's actually got me really sad. One day...you guys'll leave me."

"See?" Echidna replied then let out a deep sigh. "I know you. You were going to give some big speech about being used to losing people. But now do you understand? That's not something you should get used to."

She'd read me like a book. For a terrible actor, she sure was good at picking apart other people's characters. Maybe it was that regal talent at work.

"But there's nothing we can do, right?" I replied. "You all have mortal lives, and I don't. Eventually, we'll have to say our goodbyes. That's just how nature works."

"It is. And finally realizing that has me feeling really down. I know how much your immortality has hurt you. Painfully so, in fact."

She was pretty convincing.

After all, when I revealed what I was during our fight on that snowy peak, she risked her life to grapple with my problems. "I know how you feel" was a useless cliche, but Echidna had the right to say it.

"I mean, you've helped me so much in the past few months," she continued, "so I want to pay back the favor and save you. I asked you to stay behind so we could talk about it."

"You want to save me? Easier said than done."

"Well, it's what I want. I can't help it."

If saving me was all she wanted to do, there were a few methods on the table. For example, I could take my life after Echidna, the longest-lived member, died. Or I could find the Assassins' Guild's secret to immortality and give it to Echidna and the Guardians.

All of that, however, came from the desire not to let my beloved friends go. It wasn't logical. In fact, it was a twisted desire that went against the laws of nature. Why should the world bend to my will and fit itself to my preferences? Losing loved ones was a constant in life and something everyone went through. I just happened to have a few...okay, many more of those experiences than anyone else.

I was created to protect humanity. Any pain I suffered in the process was something I should get used to. With that in mind, I was prepared to accept Echidna's future death as part of nature running its course.

"All right, I've made up my mind!" Echidna said suddenly.

"About what?"

Or I had been prepared, until a few moments ago.

"My next goal. After I finish restoring the Demon World's environment and establishing peace with humanity, I'll aim for immortality. Yeah, that sounds good!"

"You'll what?!"

What was that fool of a queen going on about? Sure, successful rulers with too much time on their hands had been seeking immortality for as long as anyone could remember. Pick any brand of fiction or literature, from any era, and you'd find some dark lord character trying to unlock the mystery of eternal life. It certainly felt appropriate. And yet...she had her priorities mixed up!

"W-wait a second... You're not going to try and become immortal for my sake, are you?"

"I sure am!"

"You've got to be kidding."

"I'm not! I can't leave you all alone, so I'll just have to become immortal myself. Good idea, huh?"

"No it isn't! I don't know where to begin explaining how messed up that logic is!" I found myself slamming my fist on the table, but Echidna did not so much as flinch. "Just think about it for a second! Making the executives of your organization immortal means you can't bring in new blood! The organization will grow stale and collapse! Even more importantly, have you bothered to think about what your life means to you?! First you risk it to save your world, and now you're looking for a way to be immortal to keep me company? Your priorities are all over the place! Treat your life with some respect!"

"Treat my life with some respect?" Echidna reached out to grab my cheeks, then squeezed. "You're one to talk, buddy!"

"Ow! Owww!"

"You've been faithfully performing the duty you were given at birth three thousand years ago, throwing yourself into danger all alone because you're the hero, and you're going to tell me to treat my life with some respect?!"

"All right, all right, I get it! Seriously, you're killing me here!"

"You know what you are, you're an egghead! You try to think too logically about everything! I bet even now you're thinking, 'Oh, there's no way things will turn out conveniently the way I'd like them to,' or, 'Oh, this is how I was made, so I just need to accept it,' huh? You're just a good little boy, thinking the right things!"

"Urgh."

"You act like everything's a joke, but you just have to go by the book in the weirdest places, don't you!"

That description really hit the nail on the head.

Echidna finally loosened her grip on my cheeks then took them in both hands and forced me to look at her.

"It's okay! You've denied yourself this whole time and accepted every hardship that came your way while fulfilling your duty to the world, right? You took all the hard knocks to protect humanity, didn't you? So no one will complain if you get a little bonus! And if anyone does, I'll knock them out!"

"But...well..."

"No buts!"

"Yes, ma'am."

She was poised to pinch my cheeks the moment I protested. As I returned her gaze with our noses nearly touching, my mind raced to find a way out of the situation.

"Besides," she continued, "remember when we were walking back from the Academy? Wasn't it you who said you didn't care if I was good at it or not, but that you just wanted me to be the Demon Queen?"

"Hm? O-oh, yeah, I did say something like that."

"Well, I could say the same thing. I don't care what you want, I want you to be happy!"

"...Happy?"

"Yeah. Happy," she replied, nodding enthusiastically. "Living three thousand years has made you accept things you should be questioning. You think you have to accept losing loved ones over and over again just because you're different, don't you?"

"Yeah. That's exactly what I think."

"Well, that's the problem. For once in your life, I want you to grab onto happiness with both hands. And don't you dare try and withdraw just because you think you'll end up alone again. On my pride as Demon Queen, I can't have that!"

Echidna finally removed her hands.

"Listen, Leo..." She paused to stroke my head as if she were calming a crying child. "You've helped me so much, and now it's my turn to save you. No matter what you say, I'm going to become immortal, and we'll be together. I'll keep on living until your time is up, so prepare yourself."

"Huh."

"Wh-whaddaya mean, 'huh'?!"

"Nah, it's just..."

Echidna frowned back at me as I paused to reflect on my life.

Three thousand long years had I lived, and I thought I'd seen everything. I thought I was used to seeing my friends pass away. But at the end of the day, getting used to something like that is the same as becoming numb to it. My circuits for feeling sadness had grown dull from overuse, and I'd convinced myself that traumatic events like the death of a friend weren't that big a deal.

But if I were being honest, I had to admit that I wanted immortal friends of my own. Friends who lived with me, outside of the flow of time. However, I knew such a wish was impossible. Why should I be singled out for special treatment? Nothing about our conversation had changed my thoughts on that. Wanting Echidna and the others to become immortal, something that went against nature, was illogical. And yet, for some strange reason, as I spoke with Echidna, it started to feel...like a possibility.

It wasn't logical, but I had the feeling I'd been given permission to prioritize my emotions, just a little. I could admit when I didn't like something, or when I did.

"Is it really okay...for me to want to be happy?"

"Absolutely! I swear it on my family name and the throne, that I, Demon Queen Echidna, will make Leo Demonhart happy!"

"Haha. Y'know, that sounds an awful lot like a marriage proposal."

"Call it whatever you will, but once I've set my mind to something, it gets done!"

Honestly, at that moment, I was plenty happy. Even if Echidna passed away and left me behind, I'd always have those words to keep me going. I'd always know deep down that I wasn't alone. And if Echidna and the Guardians managed to gain immortality and become my fellow travelers, well...I had the confidence to say, hey, I protected the world for three thousand years. I at least deserve this!

I was a lucky man.

And it all started that day we battled on the snowy peak.

"Hey, Echidna. It's the strangest thing."

"Hm?"

"Whenever we talk like this, you always tell me what I most want to hear. It really helps."

And I appreciate it. Thanks.

Echidna chuckled and replied, "Likewise!"

A possibility dawned on me. Maybe there was a reason I'd kept on being a hero for three thousand long years: to meet my Demon Queen, Echidna.