"We need to go rescue her."

  "I agree, but we can't take them lightly. You heard what the investigation bureau said. They've consolidated power. It'll be an all-out war."

  "Do we have any allies we can pull for it?"

  "We're adventurers, not gangsters. No adventurer signs up hoping to fight other humans... well, most don't, anyway."

  "So there's nothing we can do?"

  "I didn't say that."

  The seniors of the Azure Dragons were in a heated debate.

  As Kid's liaison, Van decided to clear the matter.

  "We should try to help her, but we shouldn't rush it. Nobody's seen Beginner before, so they shouldn't have any countermeasures. She should be fine without us. The last thing we want to do is get unnecessary blood on her hands."

  "Unnecessary blood?"

  "She's torn up about every little debt she owes us. When she diligently repays us for letting her charge her phone, or for finding her winter clothes when it's winter, how do you think she'd feel if one of us died? You can't ever repay that."

  That finally settled the argument.

  It was bravado to go in guns blazing.

  No, it was more like... it was in an adventurer's DNA to always save the girl, no matter the cost.

  But he was right. She wasn't exactly in immediate danger.

  So it was more important to think about her future.

  "What if they're abusing her, though?"

  "Oh? About that, relax. They pulled in a lot of mercenaries, so we have insider information that they're treating her well."

  "They just volunteered that to us? How do we know it's accurate?"

  "Not exactly to us, but it's legit. The whole country's underground on the verge of starting a war with the Syndicate over this. They really don't like kids being mistreated here, you know?"

  ***

  "Again?!"

  "When it rains, it pours..."

  Before the Azure Dragons could get a solid plan together, their leader was called into another emergency meeting.

  The Demon King had once again arrived at Terra.

  Unlike the last time, where he made them all panic by being a big goofball and taking public transportation, this time he'd summoned a massive dragon that flew over imperial skies.

  "Do we know where it's headed?"

  "About that... there's a developing situation..."

  It was headed in a particular direction.

  Of course, a criminal organization kidnapping some kid wasn't great, but it had just been someone else's problem to most of the attendees.

  But since that kid was a diplomatic entity with ties to the Demon King of Naraka, they all complained anyway.

  "Why didn't you tell us about that sooner?!"

  "Is this going to start a war between the Empire and the Islands?"

  "No, the Islands disclaim any involvement."

  "As usual."

  But amidst all the panicked buzz that filled the room, there was one thing that nobody had managed to bring up: a solution.

  None of them knew what to do but watch.

  It was like a train wreck happening in slow motion.

  ***

  Aku the Divine Swordsman was an S rank.

  One of the few people who used one of Ran's legendary swords, not because they were easy to use, but because nothing else in the world let him express his talents properly.

  "Why am I playing guard dog again?"

  "We expect the Azure Dragons to retaliate."

  "What, those guys? Come on..."

  An A ranker could never compete with a true S ranker like him.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  No, he doubted their whole guild could bring him down.

  It wasn't accurate to say he was evil, although he often did evil things and often worked for an evil organization. It was more correct to say that he had no qualms about morality to begin with.

  The only thing he cared about was swordsmanship.

  Philosophizing over good and evil, or even simply striving to live a good life... were problems for other people to deal with.

  He'd also slain monsters that were ordinarily beyond humanity's capability to handle, so he wasn't all bad.

  He was more like a blade in human form.

  It's just that the Syndicate happened to be the ones who managed to pick him up and put him to use.

  A blade that turned against its master was no good, but if someone happened to destroy the whole Syndicate, if he was left standing afterward, he'd also have no problem joining them.

  "Something's coming."

  The words left his mouth the moment he felt it.

  He ran out of the manor, looking up to the sky.

  As the distant figure grew closer, others gradually joined him.

  It was a massive serpentine dragon, flying through the sky like a snake slithering through air itself.

  Atop its head stood a man clad in fine clothes.

  "What's with that aura? I can't stop shaking..."

  ***

  I heard a commotion coming from outside.

  Although my windows were barred, they were also shut, and my room was pretty quiet despite all the people that had come to the manor.

  So being able to hear anything struck me as odd.

  I went to take a look, and saw Zaitenmodi.

  'Why is he here? Don't tell me... no, he could have just kidnapped me himself. There'd be no reason for him to send other people.'

  Even I knew I couldn't really stop the guy who was said to collect Skills like trinkets.

  So why was he here?

  I couldn't hear whatever words were spoken between him and the many men who'd received him.

  But I could hear... no, I could feel him say a word, "Open," and then the devices around my neck and ankle simply unclasped themselves.

  I wasn't sure if the collar could still explode in that state, so I decided to place them as far from me as I could, before going back over to the window to watch whatever was happening outside.

  "Die."

  I could feel that word too.

  My eyes widened as I watched people outside slump to the ground, one after the other.

  Why was he killing them? Had things gone south?

  One of the foreigners who survived the spell approached him, drawing a curved sword.

  The man slashed at the demon king.

  Actually, their fight quickly took a mythical quality, with the man practically flying after him, each slash carving wide arcs out of the landscape and even the manor itself.

  His attacks had far more reach than the blade's length suggested they should have, and their destructive power didn't seem to distinguish between soft earth, asphalt, concrete, or anything else for that matter.

  Even a sturdy steel railing became naught but a prop for his destruction as he attacked with enough ferocity to stir most of the survivors into fleeing.

  Flashy, chaotic violence was perhaps easier for a human to understand than sudden death.

  Or maybe the first one just seemed more avoidable than the second?

  I wasn't sure what decided who had lived and who had died, presuming it was anything other than Zaitenmodi's whims.

  'But those attacks don't seem very effective against him.'

  The Demon King was at least reacting to the attacks, dodging and weaving to avoid most of them, but he also occasionally parried them, not with a sword of his own, but just with his arm.

  When he finally counterattacked, it was with a giant ball of energy fired from his hand at nearly point blank range.

  But the swordsman managed to slice the ball in half, causing it to explode.

  Given the destructive power of the explosion, I thought that was a really dumb idea, but he was fine afterward.

  Not just fine.

  He immediately tried to close the gap to make another slash at the Demon King.

  'He's pretty relentless... ah.'

  I considered that I should try escaping while everything was so chaotic.

  My door was locked from the outside, so I looked for some way to try and open it.

  Surprisingly, it opened on its own before I could.

  Though unfortunately, that older kidnapper who drove me here was the one responsible for that.

  He grabbed me by my arm, and dragged me toward the manor's entrance.

  "You're right. You're too dangerous to kidnap. Be glad we still need you alive, or I'd shoot you myself."

  'Huh... he really doesn't know...'

  ***

  Once we were outside...

  "Cease fighting! Demon King, let's make a deal! I'll give you this girl unharmed, if you leave us be! Otherwise..."

  He had a gun pointed to my head. That was the 'otherwise.'

  The swordsman stopped his assault, and got backhanded into the mansion for it. Given he'd survived that explosion earlier, I doubted he died from it, but I couldn't see what happened to him.

  He left a big hole in the outer wall of the manor though. The wall had failed to stop his momentum, and it was an awfully thick wall.

  "Demon King! Listen to me-"

  He didn't finish that sentence though.

  He'd never speak again.

  His headless body slumped to the ground beside me.

  If I were a real child, it'd probably be a terrifying sight, seeing someone be so effortlessly killed only inches away from me.

  But to me, it seemed perfectly rational, so much that the panicked responses of the few who remained actually annoyed me a bit.

  "You know," I remarked despite myself. "It's pretty rude to make demands of royalty like that."

  Hearing my comment, Zaitenmodi started laughing.

  It felt like it was at my expense, for some reason, so I just quietly stared at him.

  "Weren't you the one who told me visiting you was annoying, and I should just send you text messages instead?"

  "Huh...? That wasn't a demand. You could have refused."

  That made him laugh even more, so I glowered at him a bit.

  ***

  Riding on a dragon wasn't very exciting.

  I'd probably done so in my past lives, so there was no particular novelty to it. Of course, there was almost never a feeling of real novelty anyway, but that definitely killed any excitement it could have otherwise had.

  And although Zaitenmodi could stand perfectly still, as if unaffected by the wind, that was a property of him being the Demon King, not something the dragon itself bestowed upon all its passengers.

  So it meant that he needed to hold me the whole flight back, and that my hair got everywhere from the wind.

  Being carried like a child was less than pleasant, but for some reason, he insisted that he take me.

  "In this case, they believed they could kidnap you to gain leverage over me. Believing that I have any weakness is a sin. While I can tolerate some measure of free expression, especially outside my own domain, this simply went too far."

  Somehow, he made it sound like I wasn't even involved.

  "Huh? Are you taking the blame for everything, then?"

  "I cannot be blamed for simply enacting justice. This was simply a natural disaster for those fools who sought power beyond their means. History is full of such errors."

  I wasn't sure what the point was of him giving this elaborate speech to an audience of just me, but I decided questioning it was more trouble than it was worth.

  "Thanks for the help...?"

  "I wish I could accept your thanks, but as this happened because of me, I am the one who owes you a debt. Ah... why don't you show me your garden?"

  I was suddenly a bit worried.

  This was the same guy who told me that plants need sunlight and minerals.