The Simple Job of Only Perishing to the Hero

「Hofuhifu」

「……Talk after you swallow.」

「Delicious.」

「Is that so.」

What was in Shion and Nino’s hands were skewer grilled Sora Bird.

It was something simple that was seasoned with salt, but it was one of the staple menu choices for eating while walking.

Incidentally, the Sora Bird is a typical livestock in the Shutaia Continent, but they didn’t live in the Dark Continent.

To begin with, it isn’t just limited to Sora Birds, the animals treated as livestock in the Shutaia Continent don’t really exist in the Dark Continent.

Since the weakest animals are the thorn-horned deer and the charging wild boars which could kick Goblins about without hesitation, it could be said that it couldn’t be helped that the culture of animal husbandry didn’t grow.

「……I wonder if we can promote this sort of thing back home as well.」

「There might be merit in attempting to.」

When she ate up the skewer while saying that, Nino wandered over to a drink cart.

Speaking of drinks, it would normally be well water, but there were also a great number of carts that offered the juice of squeezed chilled fruits.

It is said that recently, a product that a fruit juice called Ole, which mixed fruit juice and cow milk and was introduced just a few years ago, was quite popular.

It seems that some company had started selling it, but since there were stocking and preserving problems, it wasn’t something that an ordinary merchant could sell, and it seems that it pretty much turned into a monopolized market.

However, since it didn’t circulate as far as the small street stall that Nino went to, she bought normal apple juice in the end.

「……Nn, that was delicious.」

When she returned the wooden bowl to the female owner of the cart, Nino returned to the waiting Shion.

「Sorry to keep you waiting.」

「Nn, what should we do today after this……」

Making the royal capital as the base for absorbing the culture was good, but the outcome wasn’t all that favorable.

Or rather, there was nothing to use as a base reference.

A big cause for that was the fact that there was too big of a difference between the foodstuffs and raw materials, and the climate and people.

For example, the reason why there weren’t any carriages in the Dark Continent is because there simply weren’t any animals that would submissively pull a wagon, and because Mazoku have a nature where they will almost always start a fist fight if they are placed together in a small place for a long time.

Culture is born under the pressure of necessity, and without that, there would be no change even if a century has passed……That’s just how it is.

And since there is something convenient like magic, that is all the more reason.

「……It doesn’t look like we’ll get many results.」

「Probably.」

Thus, even after coming to Humanity’s territory, except for the small disasters and the filthy cross-national things, it was exact picture of peace.

Even the making a fuss and calling every little thing that comes up as the Demon King’s doing, it has a feeling like it’s just the changing of the season in a certain way.

Possibly, even if Shion’s group didn’t go out of their way to crush them like this, wouldn’t things work out somehow……That is how he started to feel.

Nonetheless, their reason for being here like this was in order to investigate the cause for why things turned to war during the previous Demon King Gramfia’s era, and to pinch that sprout if the need to had risen, but there was just no progress.

What was transmitted down in the Dark Continent was only stories of the Humans coming to invade.

However, after trying to investigate in Human territory like this, it turned into a story of having happened after the Mazoku’s invasion had become fierce.

It’s possible that to think that both sides only had the convenient parts for them remaining.

But, he learned that in the Human territory, the “Demon King” didn’t specify Gramfia.

Gramfia was the “Great Demon King”, and it seems that there existed “Demon King Shuklous” here in the Shutaia Continent.

It seems that the Hero was summoned from another world in order to oppose him.

When that happened, it felt as if the Dark Continent got dragged into being invaded by the Hero, but to the bitter end, the excuse that Humanity’s side had was to restore peace to the world by defeating the Great Demon King who was the 「root of all evil」.

Shion naturally did not know what Gramfia had thought of, and he didn’t have any evidence to make a judgement on whether Gramfia had actually created the one that would become Demon King Shuklous and had him try to occupy the Shutaia Continent or not.

However, if the cause for the Hero’s invasion of the Dark Continent was due to the Mazoku side, as long as Shion had no interest in invading Humanity’s side, it would mean there was no reason to remain here.

However, even if that were the case, there was one reason for why he couldn’t leave.

「The Alva……Just what in the world are those.」

Alva.

An unidentifiable creature that appeared in an unexpected place and at an unexpected moment.

It was a Mazoku that wasn’t even sure if it was a proper life-form.

It resembled Majin, however, when he looked at it with Status Confirm Magic, the Race was 「Alva」, and was likely a being that could be guessed to be a species of Mazoku.

This Alva, it was actually a Mazoku that didn’t exist when Gramfia was alive.

On the contrary, it is a creature that doesn’t even exist in the Dark Continent……But there was no way that the Humans would know about such a thing.

From the Humanity side’s point of view, it seems that it’s said that they are Mazoku that Gramfia’s curse had given birth to, but for Shion who was the current Demon King Vermudol, there was something that he couldn’t quite understand.

Although they were called Mazoku, the Mazoku have races, and even exist under distinct ecosystems. If they are killed, they leave corpses, and it’s even possible to make them go extinct.

Mazoku that would disappear like mist if they are defeated or have unclear ecosystems and residences like the Alva shouldn’t exist.

If this point is taken into account, the Alva are existences that go beyond the limits of being such creatures, and there should be some sort of cause that makes it possible.

He was thinking that he would like to crush them as much as possible, but it was just one of the reasons to remain in the Shutaia Continent.

Incidentally, this is something that Shion didn’t know, but today was the entrance ceremony day of the Edius Adventurer School.

This was a year where a large number of promising and extremely talented new students were enrolling and they could be said to be the finest even after looking back over the past several decades.

And then, the fact that among them, there was the son of a Baron House who, despite breaking the highest recorded grade in the entrance examinations, was ranked third in enrollment rankings due to a powergame of the fellow houses, was also something that Shion didn’t know.

Chapter 23