Just as the awkwardness reached the point where someone might start clawing a Demon King's Castle out of the ground, Yunyun, who had kept her head lowered with her shoulders trembling, suddenly snapped her head up. A fierce resolve burned in her purple eyes.
She strode into Sylvia's massive steel shadow, pulled her Adventurer Card from her chest, and held it high as though presenting a sacred contract.
"Wait, Sylvia! Not every member of the Crimson Demon Clan is like that!"
Yunyun's voice trembled with tears, but it was far stronger than it was weak.
"Look! This is my card! I... I may be a member of the Crimson Demon Clan, but I never learned [Teleportation] magic! To protect the village that raised me, even if I'm the only one left, I won't take a single step back!"
Sylvia's enormous electronic eye flickered several times. She bent down, bringing her huge metal face close to tiny Yunyun.
For once, the Demon King's General actually seemed to show something like admiration in her gaze.
"Oh? Among all that trash who only knows how to run, there's a girl with the soul of a warrior?"
Sylvia's voice turned low and solemn. Her gigantic steel fist slowly drew back as she shifted into a fighting stance.
"Very well! Since you're that prepared, I take back what I said. In honor of your fighting spirit, I'll crush you and that pride of yours with my strongest physical force!"
Watching this, Kōichi felt something stir in his chest.
"Yunyun... you're actually this reliable when it counts?"
"Hey, Kōichi, did you forget where we are? This is Crimson Demon Village."
Kazuma Satou glanced at him from the side, his tone full of grim suspicion.
At the very moment Sylvia roared and charged, and Yunyun braced herself for a desperate last stand,
"Whoosh! Whoosh!"
Two crisp teleportation sounds rang out behind Kōichi and Kazuma without warning.
Before either of them could react, two thick, powerful hands landed on their shoulders.
It was the mustached uncle and the seamstress auntie, the same two who had clearly run away just moments ago.
"Yo, Reincarnator! Sorry to keep you waiting! We just went home to pack our bankbooks and some clean underwear!"
The mustached man flashed a cheerful thumbs-up.
"W-wait! What are you doing..." Kōichi didn't even get to finish.
"Teleport!!"
White light burst out in an instant.
Kōichi felt the world spin around him. The steel monster and the burning square vanished before his eyes.
At the same time, over by Yunyun, two other villagers pulled the same trick. In the blink of an eye, they appeared on either side of Yunyun, who was still striking her dramatic pose, and hooked their arms under hers.
"Daughter of the Clan Chief! Trying to look cool at a time like this will get you killed! Off you go!"
"Let go of me! I haven't finished fighting yet! My resolve! My scene! Waaahhh!!"
Yunyun's shrill scream cut off abruptly.
"Whoosh!"
The last flash of white light faded.
The Crimson Demon Village square, which had been roaring with noise, flames, and the atmosphere of a final battle, fell dead silent in a single second.
Sylvia's massive foot, powerful enough to crush a city wall, slammed into the empty ground and kicked up a storm of dust.
But when she raised her head and looked around, she found that not only were there no people left, even the stray dog that had been gnawing on a sweet potato by the roadside had been teleported away by the members of the Crimson Demon Clan on their way out.
In all of Crimson Demon Village, aside from the burning ruins, only she remained: one enormous, red-glowing steel monster, imposing and majestic, yet lonely enough to look pitiful.
A cold wind blew past, lifting a scorched roof tile and sending it spinning around Sylvia's icy metal toes.
"..."
Sylvia froze in her attack stance.
"Damn it all!! Are every single one of you members of the Crimson Demon Clan insane?!!" Sylvia's shrill, aggrieved roar echoed through the empty village. "Where's my audience?! Where's my loot?! Did I go through all that effort to fuse just so I could come here and enjoy the scenery?!"
...
After being forcibly teleported back to the tailor shop on the edge of the village, Kōichi and Kazuma Satou didn't even get the chance to yell at the Crimson Demon Clan uncles and aunties for their strategic retreat before they were swallowed by the room's chaotic piles of junk.
This place was clearly the workshop of that so-called Number One Tailoring Genius. Fabrics and design drafts that gave off eerie magical fluctuations were piled everywhere.
"Damn it, those bastards ran faster than rabbits! So that's the so-called Soul of the Crimson Demons? More like the Soul of Running Away!"
Kazuma Satou cursed while brushing dust off himself, then started rummaging through a desk buried under scrap paper.
"Hey, Kōichi, look at this! This dump actually has a secret diary written in katakana?"
Kōichi leaned in. It was a notebook with a yellowed cover, and crooked Japanese was written across it.
About All the Crap I Made to Kill Time After That Moronic Goddess Reincarnated Me into a Fantasy World.
The two exchanged a look, and an extremely bad feeling rose in both of their hearts.
They opened to the first page, where the following was written in bold:
"That day, a woman claiming to be the Goddess of Water, with long blue hair and what seemed like a head full of nothing but water, sent me here. She told me to save the world, but I only wanted to do research. So I modified the genes of some locals, gave them red eyes and chuunibyou, and named them the Crimson Demon Clan... Incidentally, to keep those chuunibyou from rebelling, I built a giant magic-absorbing device. It looks like a microwave, but I call it the Mage-Killer..."
The air froze.
Kōichi and Kazuma Satou turned their necks slowly, inch by inch, like rusty gears, toward Aqua, who was sitting on the floor nearby and trying to wash the singed tips of her hair with Sacred Create Water.
"A-qua..."
Kazuma Satou's voice was so low it sounded like an evil spirit crawling up from hell. The veins on his forehead bulged.
"You blue-haired Goddess with a head full of water who's good for nothing except causing trouble... don't you think you owe us a reasonable explanation?"
"Huh? What explanation?"
Aqua looked up innocently, tears still shining in her eyes.
"I'm a victim too! That Reincarnator looked so honest back then! How was I supposed to know he'd build something this dangerous? Besides, the Crimson Demon Clan is really popular now, isn't it? That proves I have a good eye... Waaah! Kōichi, your glare is scary! Kazuma, don't come any closer! Help! They're abusing the Goddess!"
"Popular, my ass! They just dumped us on that perverted Gundam and ran for it!!"
Kōichi couldn't hold back his roar either. His clenched fists cracked loudly. "So the root cause of all this was you again, you useless Goddess! How badly do you want to destroy the world?!"
Just as Kazuma was about to activate his skill and give Aqua the full Goddess Punishment Package, Kōichi caught sight of the diary's last page from the corner of his eye.