Daily Life at the Demon Lord Castle

"Did you know? A person's head is, on occasion, capable of bursting."

"It will be all right. Merea-sama's head is fairly tough."

"It is true that I drove formula-related knowledge into my own head with somewhat unreasonable methods. — But, people have aptitudes. Apparently, this is not a me domain — country-affairs, country-products, geography, all of this terribly studious-feeling business."

"Merea-sama is going to become the Demon Lord who rules the world from now on, so all of it must be memorised."

"This maid, at the foundational level, has misread something…!"

Star-Tree Castle, second floor.

In one of the second-floor study rooms in what was, by by-name, called the 〈Demon Lord Castle〉, Merea Mea was, this day, voicing protest.

In a room set in the Star-Tree Castle's proper register — white-stone-centred interior, a complete inversion of the first floor's poison-coloured hall — sat at a likewise white-themed desk, Merea could not help but lament.

"S-so, by the way, the others…?"

"Each to their assigned work. — Right. The money-fiend, who recently set out on trade-business, sent word by bird that he'll be back today. The plant-paper had a gold-stink clinging to it, so I tore it up and threw it out."

"The option of handing it to me —"

"Cannot. The dubious smell would attach to Merea-sama too."

"Marisa really does not waver in her response to Shaw…"

Merea, sadly tracing the gold pattern cut into the white desk, threw repeated side-glances up at Marisa beside him.

Red eyes faintly damp, an entreating tint added to the expression.

Marisa, to that, was answering only flatly — but on Shaw's name — nickname — her brow, as expected, knotted slightly.

To this Marisa, Merea threw the next line —

"Well, that aside… I'd like to head out for a bit, soon… — say?"

Head tilted small, an awkward smile attempted alongside the line.

But —

"Hah. Is that so."

Spine straight to the line, the maid — a slim figure that, on first glance, almost read as fragile — kept the ice-like expression on her cool beauty intact, and let the line out flat. — Behind her back, fingers were twisting together in restless conflict, but no one noticed that.

"Marisa's been hard on me lately."

"It is the whip of love."

Even now, fundamentally Marisa was sweet on Merea — but, having gradually got the distance with him, her perfect maid pride and her sweetness now competed; in cases like this, on necessary business, she could come out fairly hard.

"For master's own sake, ultimately."

The pattern of cool face out front, hand-twisting at the back, came up often enough — and, so far, was undetected. At least, the person in question believed so.

"Do I have to memorise all this — really? Marisa already has it memorised, no?"

Merea, giving up on the placating smile and putting up an I'm done face instead, set a finger on the desk.

What was spread on the desk under that fingertip was, plainly, an inexhaustible quantity of paper.

The black-ink lettering covered information not just on the eastern continent's countries but on countries on other continents too; for Merea, the whole pile, plainly, looked harder than formula-work.

If they had story-shaped the data — dressed it up — fine; but plain bullet-style information simply refused to enter his head.

"Of course, I have memorised it."

"Then we're fine. Marisa, posted at my side at all times, equals perfect."

Merea, planting his face squarely in the paper, looked up sideways at Marisa and let the line out off-hand.

But, against the off-hand-ness —

"…!"

The line had kicked an enormous heat-charge inside Marisa.

Specifically, the posted at my side at all times part — alone — was glowing strongly inside her, and being conveniently warped in the direction her wishes ran, and on that, her cheeks went red in the same beat.

"Mm?"

"Ah — no — n-nothing of consequence."

Merea threw a puzzled look at Marisa, who had abruptly dropped her face — but Marisa flagged that off with one hand, blocking Merea's red-eye'd gaze.

"Mn-mn. — A-anyway, I am not asking immediately, but — please apply a degree of effort. Merea-sama, the necessity itself — you do recognise it?"

"Well — yeah."

Merea, raising his upper body again, hands behind his head, nodded with a slightly more serious face.

He himself recognised that, in the end, there were going to be cases where he had to take responsibility and decide.

About a week since they had come to Star-Tree Castle.

Lemusan life, finally settling in, was a quiet stretch of days — a complete inversion of the imminent fight with Mūzeg before it — but Merea had no plan to drown in it.

To begin with, the chance of this continuing peacefully was vanishingly thin.

For now, Mūzeg was injured and quiet — that was all.

With the northern and western fronts tied in too, Hasim's read was that a fair bit of time could still be bought; even so, the Demon Lord side had to use that interval to prepare — same as anyone.

"I, also, have to be sensitive to the world's situation… — is what I'd like to think."

Gather Demon Lord intel as fast as possible; where viable, attempt contact.

What Merea was weighting first was the saving of fellow Demon Lords going through the same suffering.

— Saving is, in its own way, an oversized word.

In practice, it isn't that one-sided.

In short —

— Help, and be helped.

Same as when this group came together.

Same as when they took Lemuse's hand.

That, fundamentally, was the shape.

In any case —

"If they have no place, let us provide a place."

They had, somehow, struck a deal with Hasim and obtained this castle.

Not a country in scale, but — among the Lemusan citizens, with a strange awe attached, called the 〈Demon Lord Castle〉 — Demon-Lord-property enough.

— Could we do something about that label, first off.

So thinking, but for now, accepting.

"In which case, separate from Hasim-sama, we too must be sharp on information."

"Right."

Merea tilted his chair back and looked up at the ceiling.

Marisa, taking that in, evidently read it as Merea giving in, and as if this round of persuasion was finally settling, let a small breath out.

But Merea did not miss that one beat of slack.

"— However, this quantity in a day is murderous!!"

Marisa's love was too heavy.

Past where Merea was pointing, hidden in the shadow of the desk at Marisa's feet, was another idiotic stack of paper. Merea screamed.

Striking that single beat of opening, from his backward-tilted chair he sprang to the rear window and, on his innate physical strength, leapt clean out.

Outside the study window, the Great Star-Tree's giant-tree-like branches were curled in close enough that, used as a foothold, one could climb up to the Great Star-Tree's main body.

"Ah! Merea-sama! Running again, are we?!"

"I cleared today's quota in real terms! It's not like I'm slacking entirely!"

"But there is still this much of my additional love left! At this volume of love, I could occupy your side from morning till night and monopol— ah no, nothing of consequence."

Marisa, the line of her actual aim halfway out of her mouth, hurriedly papered it over.

In the meantime Merea was already three branch-jumps along the Great Star-Tree.

"Ahh — let him get away again today."

The remaining Demon Lords, what's all this and head-out-of-the-upper-window, watched Merea climb the Great Star-Tree at a light pace; Marisa, from the windowsill, watched him go with a regret-tinted look.

That day, Lemuse was carrying a pleasant, fresh wind.

---

"R-right. Today, too, somehow shaken off…"

Soothing his head where it kept ringing under the flashbacks of whole strings of facts, Merea walked the streets of Lemuse.

In a week, he had got a fair feel for the city's air.

"Ah — White God-sama!"

"Please spare me that name…"

As he walked the worked white-stone road, a small girl, passing the other way, called him that.

A few weeks ago he might not have reacted to the voice; now, different.

Turning his eyes toward the source of the voice, he saw a girl in a one-piece dress as white as his own hair.

The girl was apparently on her way back from shopping with her mother; in her hand, a small leather pouch.

The mother, looking at Merea, smiled and dipped her head in a small greeting.

Merea returned the greeting in kind — though, on the name the girl had assigned him, he would have liked to file a small adjustment request.

"Oh — this, I'll give to White God-sama!"

The girl, in cheerful spirits, came skipping over to Merea, untied the cord on the leather pouch's mouth, and pulled something out.

"This is —?"

What landed in Merea's outstretched hand was a glass orb, blue-and-green gradients flowing endlessly inside.

"There's two, so I'll give you one!"

"Oh — really. Thank you."

Merea, while saying his thanks, lifted the orb to the sky, let sunlight pass through it, and was caught by the shine.

"Beautiful, this is."

Almost certainly a piece of formula-craft. A simple but real formula was carved into the surface of the glass.

The shifting blue-and-green gradient was no less than sapphire or emerald, and the soft way the two colours met was, in itself, beautiful.

"But — is it really all right for me to take something this beautiful?"

Returning his eyes to the girl, in the same motion he stooped to put his eye-line level with hers, and asked again.

The girl gave him a smile bright as the sun, innocent through and through, and answered.

"It's fine! Mum said it was White God-sama who saved Lemuse from Mūzeg! So this is thanks!"

Receiving that line, Merea let a troubled smile up — and gently stroked her head.

About then, the mother called the girl's name from a distance; Merea waved the girl over to her mother, returned a smile to the girl's repeated turn-and-wave, and waved back too.

After the two of them were gone, Merea, lifting the glass orb the girl had given him to the sun again, murmured —

"Surely Hasim hasn't calculated this far ahead — has he? — Truly, this is foul play. Makes it impossible to refuse, well, anything."

Even saying that, Merea, smiling pleased, tucked the orb into a pocket.

---

Merea was, in the main, called 〈White God〉 by the Lemusan citizens.

It was, also, a name set on him as the second coming of the 〈White Emperor〉 Leilas Lif Lemuse, who once had carried Lemuse's pride.

Hair very close to Leilas's snow-white.

In fact it was Leilas's body-factor itself; the citizens, naturally, did not know to that level of detail.

Hasim, after that whole conversation, had heard it from Merea himself and did know — but even Hasim, who had struggled with the story at first, was not going to step the citizens through it line-by-line.

If anything, leaving it unsaid lent the citizens the feel of fate; even were the explanation easy, Hasim would likely have left it alone.

"White God, eh…"

Merea, on his end, carried something complicated about it.

Lemuse's expectation was, on the present-day Merea, on the heavy side.

The Demon Lords were the prior call.

He did, of course, want to help Lemuse — but Lemuse had Hasim, the central pillar; he himself was, strictly, an outsider.

That they overlaid him on Leilas, fine. But standing out too much was, also, not in Hasim's interest.

Their innocent expectation was, for the still-only-just-walking-the-master-of-Demon-Lords-road Merea, a quiet weight on the back.

"What's this — looking dour today, Merea."

Then, abruptly — a clean voice cut into his ear and pulled his attention back.

He noticed, ahead of him on the street, a person standing.

Realising belatedly that he'd been walking with his head down, he raised his face to the voice.

What was there —

"Cheer up, Merea! Today — snake meat!"

A monster of a great serpent, slung from her shoulder past her back, the tail dragging on the ground — Elma.

A small smudge of dirt on her cheek; on her face, an open and bright cheerful smile. Black-haired beauty.

If first-impression annotation be added —

— A hero returning from a monster-cull, by the look.

"Mm? Something the matter?"

"No, nothing."

A slim build that, kept silent and still, could anchor a society ball — but on this day, no chance whatsoever of her becoming such a demure being.

But Merea, on his end, far preferred this version to the other.