Story of a Careless Demon Volume 7 Chapter 0 Part 1

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Volume 7, Chapter 0: Hero Summoning, Part 1

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In a large room surrounded by walls of stone, a huge crystal ball hung like a chandelier from the ceiling, emitting a pale, wafting light.

It made the entire room look rather mystical.

With no windows and only a single set of double doors, there was a gigantic [Magic Circle] drawn on the floor of this place that looked like a nobleman’s mansion.

 

The pale light that illuminated the room suddenly went dark, and then glowed brightly again.

In this uninhabited room, the crystal ball in the ceiling pulsed slowly, getting brighter, and as light and darkness alternately dyed the room, the magic formation on the floor began to glow, filling up with magic.

 

*Bachin*!

 

The pale light shone brighter and brighter until it popped, the space distorted, and a dense fog covered the room.

The light from the ceiling returned to normal, and silence returned.

However, something was different.

 

“……owowoww…… what?”

The voice of a boy, or should I say, a young adult, was heard.

That boy: “Daichi”, was rubbing his sore forehead with his hand, having fallen suddenly onto the cold floor.

“……What the……”

He didn’t know what had happened.

No, he remembered an event that was so far removed from reality that his common sense couldn’t accept it.

“What…… where…… am I?!”

There was a deep mist, like from dry ice, covering the room up to his waist, but it was thinner above, and he could tell that this was a stone room.

“I-is anyone there!?”

There was a moving shadow in the fog.

What was this creature that was in such a strange place……?

If it was something dangerous, it would have been foolish, but Daichi instinctively understood ‘who’ it was and rushed towards them.

“Touka? oi, get a hold of yourself!”

“……uu……n”

When Daichi shook her shoulders, the girl slowly opened her eyes.

“…Dai…chi…?”

The girl who had a slightly strong jaw opened her eyes wide when she get ahold of herself, and hugged her chest to fool herself over her relief at seeing Daichi’s face.

“D-Daichi, what are you doing to me…”

“I’m not doing anything, what are you even saying!”

The boy and the girl stared at each other until, noticing that their faces were too close to one another, they hurriedly turned away, their faces turning red.

“W-we shouldn’t be doing that!”

“Y-yeah”

The two young adults continued glancing at one another. When it seemed like the atmosphere under the lights would be unbearable, they hear a low groaning sound from nearby that startled them.

“Eh, who’s there?”

“Someone’s here?… This is Futa!”

“I’m here too! It’s Mizuki!”

The lights on the ground moved slightly, showing the two new figures.

Two of their classmates were now visible, the first a girl named Mizuki, who looked up from the light and gave a small smile, before her expression became unsteady again.

The other person, a boy named Futa, adjusted his glasses and makes a face as he looked down and asked:

“Where is this…?”

“I have no idea… Futa, do you remember what happened before you woke up here?”

“… Yeah, we were at school…”

“Yeah, the school end bell rang and I was staying in class waiting for the crowds to calm down.”

“Y-yeah”

A shout from Mizuki at the shining lights covered up what was he was going to say, but Futa, just nodded.

Futa, seeing that his words weren’t be heard, gave a light shrug and sighed as if used to it, not giving a complaint.

 

The four people begin comparing memories, to get a picture of what happened.

 

Daichi and Touka met in kindergarten, Futa and Mizuki joining them as childhood friends in elementary school, and all four of them advanced through the same escalator school, acting like typical childhood friends.

The four of them were talking after school in their high school junior year classroom before looking at the sky as a rumbling sound began and the sky turned black.

Most of the students hurried home after seeing it, but Mizuki said she saw something in the sky so they stayed for a moment.

When a sound like thunder echoed after a bit, the clouds cleared up and Mizuki suddenly said “I can hear a girl’s voice from the sky,” the next moment, a magical shine surrounded them and the four’s memories ended there.

 

“Maybe this is an [Isekai] situation?”

“Haah?”

A harsh sounding voice came from Touka at the mutter from Futa.

“It’s okay to enjoy those types books Futa, don’t be so loud, Mizuki is getting frightened.

“Y-yeah, Touka-chan, be nice, Futa-kun knows a lot of things.”

Mizuki defends him with a reddened face, all huddled up. Whether it was because of the lighting or how sullen she was, she looked like a small animal. Daichi finally spoke up from the side in a loud voice.

“Yeah, I also borrowed some from Futa and read them. So, does that make us Heroes?”

So he actually read them? When Daichi shared his thoughts, Futa nodded with a serious looking face.

“Yes, I’m sure this will sound stupid, but please listen a bit. How likely is it that we were kidnapped suddenly together from school and put into a room with this fog and other strange scenery? How much would some guy need to spend just to deceive us.”

The other three couldn’t come up with a good counterargument to Futa.

They couldn’t think of any way a kidnapper could make money if they set up such an elaborate stage.

“So you’re saying we’re in a different world?”

Futa gives a slow nod.

“Mizuki, you said that you heard a ‘voice’ at back then, do you remember what they said?”

“… No, it was a beautiful girl’s voice, but I couldn’t understand what they said…”

Futa shook his head, which caused Mizuki to jump.

“No, sorry. I was thinking that that ‘voice’ might have been the spell from a summoner… I figure that if it’s a spell it’s natural that you wouldn’t understand the words.

Futa looks at the three people before him.

“People who have been summoned to a different world are typically called “Heroes,” as Daichi said, although there is no excuse to rely on the knowledge from those books, there is a possibility that we will be forced to fight if that is the case.”

“Something like that…”

Mizuki is leaking out a small whine, Futa putting his hands on her shoulder, feeling embarrassed.

“Apologies, we’re all together on this. Now, what was your strange request…”

“Wait, I hear something.”

They quickly looked where Daichi was staring.

 

The white mist floating all around them began to flow and compress, and a ‘pressure’ could be felt from where it was flowing, the two boys stepped in front of the girls as if to protect them.

 

““““…””””

 

In the silent tension, the four held their breath and keep looking around.

Until…

The first thing they saw were two quietly approaching figures…

When the shadows fell away from the two people as they emerged from the fog, the four were astonished.

A man and a woman stood in front of them, they seemed to be related, with similar foreign looking faces, silver eyes, and mousey hair color.

What surprised the four was that they seemed to be younger than them. The boy was wearing a high quality butler outfit that they hadn’t seen before and the girl was wearing shining knight armor.

The dazzling boy and girl seem to have finally noticed the ground and looked at them with contemplation.

 

However, as the two moved forward and to either side, revealing two more girls, the four high schoolers could only stare.

The first of them was a coldly beautiful girl with shining blond hair curled into vertical rolls.

The other was smiling widely, with long silver hair that spread out around her shoulders.

Both of them were wearing pretty clothes, long skirted maid uniforms that didn’t look at all like the imitations worn in Japan. On top of that, Futa and Mizuki noticed that each had what looked like a stuffed animal in their chests.

 

The blond girl was hugging the bear plushie and the silver haired girl hugged the rabbit plush. They seemed to be very well made, and even looked around like they had their own wills.

 

As they watched to see whether it was a [Creature] from a different world, Mizuki was staring at the moving eyes, her eyes glistening.

 

The four beautiful children stopped moving after moving a few meters to stand in front of the four people who arrived from Japan and stared without saying anything.

“… Guys…”

Futa broke the silence with sleight fear in his tone, and the atmosphere changed.

 

Nothing changed visibly…. The temperature or the moistness of the air…

However, behind the fog, where the four people arrived, there was something new, something unfamiliar.

 

The four well dressed people shifted further to the sides, and as they all bowed and fell to their knees, ‘something’ scattered the mist from the depths.

 

““““…!””””

 

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App’s Notes:

 

Hi, folks. As I touched on in the announcement this week, Piro’s off building J.A.R.V.I.S. or something else cool with computers in China for a couple months, so I’m on my own for a bit. This wouldn’t normally be too much of an issue, but it’s compounded by my work hours getting worse until mid-August.

As such, the next four chapters will be split in two to prevent another gap like what happened last week, as I should have enough time before things kick into high gear to make that buffer work.

I’ll do my best to make the splits as natural as possible :), though the quality will take a slight hit since it’ll be only one head working on it until the split chapters are done.

 

I’m really excited for this arc and hope you all join me in having a good time, regardless of the outside factors! (I’ve done some negotiating and it looks like my schedule will be less hell-like in January-March, so this should be the only time a year this should happen)

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