Labrys is out of the dungeon, and I’m facing the giant slime alone.
“Let’s begin, demon king Ultimelt.”
And then, as if responding to me, what looks like the upper half of a person’s body is created from the top of the giant slime.
It looks like the shape of a girl… Labrys’.
“…Hey, do you love us?”
“…Hey, will you be with us?”
“…Hey, will you play with us?”
From multiple parts of the slime’s body, I hear what sounds like baby voices patched together.
I think it attained a degree of humanity after eating humans.
“Hey, play with us.”
“Be with us.”
“Become us.”
“Let’s play.”
“Hey, come on, let’s play.”
“…Forever.”
Many human arms grow out of the demon king Ultimelt’s body.
These arms that will melt everything they touch feel almost like the arms of babies looking for their mothers.
Slow, viscous, wet… They stretch over my way to eat me while foaming with a pale-blue mucous.
“Sorry, but… I have a place I have to go back to.”
I grab my sword and unsheathe it while unleashing a sword flash.
The pale-blue arms that were coming after me fall and writhe on the ground.
“And because of that, I will end you here.”
I fix the melted sword by rewinding its time, and point it at Ultimelt.
“…Oh?”
“Strange?”
“Weird?”
“Why do you deny?”
“How come?”
“But you’re so weak?”
“It’s no use?”
“Right?”
Ultimelt seems confused, as it looks at the cut arms.
The arms regenerate right away.
No, they don’t just regenerate, there are many times more arms than before.
“Hey, will you accept us?”
“Don’t be scared.”
“Don’t feel lonely.”
“Everyone will be us soon.”
“Your family too.”
“Your friends too.”
“Your hometown too.”
“This world too.”
“Everyone… Everyone will get to be us!”
The slime arms then come at me like a spear being thrust.
“Haste Ⅴ!”
I crunch down a magic stone after throwing it in my mouth, and dodge the arms as I accelerate.
I hear a loud noise, and both the wall and the control panel behind me are pierced by many arms. Everything that’s pierced by them melts.
“Hahahaha!”
“We know!”
“This is called tag, isn’t it?”
“Kya kya!”
“It’s fun!”
The floor and walls of the dungeon are broken by the pale-blue arms.
As the walls are melted, the dungeon is starting to collapse increasingly faster.
It’s raining rubble, and it’s all melted in a second as I run at full speed from Ultimelt’s arms.
(This really is the worst demon king…)
I can’t let my guard down just because it talks like a child. This life-form will melt and eat everything, and keep expanding without stopping.
And it hasn’t even reached full maturity. This isn’t it at its strongest.
(If it manages to swallow me…)
This demon king will do as it said, and destroy the world with the cruelty and innocence of a child
It will eat the dungeon, Labrys, El, Almana… And even a few countries.
No one can defeat it in this era. It will continue to melt the world until it’s finally sealed a few decades from now.
That’s the original, correct future. The way it should be, but…
“I refuse to accept that future.”
I stop after taking some distance, and face the demon king.
“Ooh?”
“Over already?”
“Weak weak.”
“Boring.”
The demon king Ultimelt laughs loudly like a kid.
Yes, as I stand now, I can’t beat it. It’s just not a good match for me.
Ultimelt can’t be damaged by physical attacks. And it would be hard to advance its time and kill it by making it decay with age, since it doesn’t age at all.
There is also pretty much no magic energy I can take in, since Ultimelt is eating magic energy around it.
And if I target it with time magic, it might learn it.
The idea of this demon king using time magic on top of it all is a nightmare.
Still, I have to win.
I have people and a time to protect.
So… I have to defeat it no matter what.
“Demon king Ultimelt… The worst demon king, but not necessarily the strongest. I know that for a fact.”
I take ‘that’ from my cloak, the syringe with the demon king cells I swiped earlier from the mage.
I inject them into my own neck without hesitating.
“I’ll show you something ‘stronger’.”
That very moment, my whole body swells like a huge bolt of lightning exploded.
“…!?”
“No!”
“Won’t let you!”
Ultimelt sounds concerned for the first time.
A wave of slime arms rushes towards me, but it’s all scattered by the lightning I’m releasing.
Everything around us is painted by the color of the lightning flashes in the blink of an eye, until…
I manage to get it under control. The ‘power’ that flowed into my body and almost ripped it apart.
I didn’t want to know where these demon king cells were just so I could retrieve them and destroy them.
I’ve broken all sorts of taboo in order to gain power, so there’s no way I wouldn’t get my hands on this.
But… Originally, I wasn’t compatible with these demon king cells.
If this era’s me were to take in these cells, he would’ve exploded instantly.
That’s why I spent time on it the first time around.
I took in demon king cells one drop at a time. Even just that much was like a deadly poison for a body that wasn’t compatible, like mine.
The first ten years were hell.
I was constantly assaulted with pain, like my body was ripping itself apart. I was always vomiting blood and shedding tears of pain.
The pain was too intense for me to sleep properly. I slept when I eventually fainted, and had nightmares every time.
But even in this state, I insisted on studying time magic and running around battlefields to become stronger.
And ten years later, I managed to control one drop of demon king cells.
I upped the dose to two drops over the next ten years, and ten years later, I went further…
I slowly took in demon king cells, until I was fully able to control them.
Before I knew it, my body stopped developing. My hair turned white, my skin had bruises that looked like black cracks, and a pattern that looked like the face of a clock appeared in my eyes.
Eventually, I was able to touch ‘time’.
I completely understood the thing we call ‘time’.
I had the power I needed to protect everything.
But… I took too long.
At that point, everything I wanted to protect was already gone.
I didn’t save anything I wanted to save.
I had the power to protect people, but they just feared me. I had become just an enemy of mankind, a monster.
Those were my hundred years.
I didn’t become the hero I wanted to be when I was younger, but it was fine.
Position, renown, wealth, none of that mattered.
If I can just save the people that are important to me… I’ll turn into whatever monster I have to.
Now let’s introduce ourselves. My name is…
The third demon king, Space-Time King Chrom Chronogate.
That’s most certainly not the name of a hero.
It’s the name of the most feared ‘calamity’ in the future.
Join my patreon to support me and read ahead.
