After teasing the girl a bit to improve his mood and lift his spirits, Ash lay on the rocking chair specially moved onto the rooftop.
His gaze passed through the drifting clouds and falling snowflakes, looking at the gloomy sky in the distance that had once again returned, quietly enjoying this rare peaceful moment.
As the rocking chair swayed slightly with his movements, it let out faint creaking sounds on the snow-covered roof, forming a subtle harmony with the surrounding silence.
'No one knows the Holy Sword's abilities, and Flamme doesn't know either... what strange things were left behind... This world really has too many unsolved mysteries.'
His eyes were half-closed, but there was still a trace of worry on his face. As he muttered softly, snowflakes landed lightly on his face and quietly melted, making everything feel strangely peaceful.
But, a light and energetic set of footsteps suddenly broke this silence.
Ubel, who had disappeared somewhere earlier, stepped lightly through the snow. She hopped along while her ponytail swayed with her movements, coming right beside him.
"I saw everything that happened just now from the rooftop next door."
"What?"
"You said you like mature big sisters like me, but you kept flirting with that girls instead~ That's not fair, right? Or is this... part of your plan?"
The girl walked in front of him and pressed both hands onto the armrests of the rocking chair like she was about to climb onto him. She leaned her upper body forward heavily, her face full of playful smiles.
"More importantly, the way you're 'lying' on top of me like this, are you flirting with me?"
"I'm waiting for you to flirt with me~", The girl smiled brightly, as impossible as ever to tell whether she was serious or joking.
"You're waiting for me to lift your skirt?"
"Pervert?"
"You're the one who started saying weird things first, right? And when I'm troubled, can you at least act serious for once?", Crossing his arms while lying motionless in the rocking chair, he looked up at the girl above him and let out an exaggerated sigh.
"Going back to the earlier topic... even if I take ten thousand steps back, you still don't count as a big sister."
"My chest is big."
"Fern's is bigger."
"You're so dirty, actually talking with a girl about another girl's chest being bigger."
"My fault? You're obviously the one who brought up this topic first, right?", Ash almost couldn't stop himself from standing up after getting blamed out of nowhere.
But Ubel only grinned and directly changed the subject, "Still~ you really are a great demon. No, a Demon King~"
"What are you talking about?"
"What do you think?"
"..."
"Don't stay silent. I just said something pretty shocking, didn't I? If you stay quiet like this, it gets awkward for me!", His silence only made Ubel more excited. Filled with strange curiosity, she directly reached out and started touching his head with both hands.
"But yeah, I don't see horns... and it feels normal too. Doesn't seem like they're hidden with magic. Are you really a demon?"
"You already know I'm a demon, so why are you still here? Shouldn't you be more careful about possibly getting silenced forever?"
The girl messed up his hair while grinning badly and rubbing his head around, making it impossible for Ash to keep staying silent. He almost couldn't hold back from smacking her on the head.
"It's fine, it's fine~ I'm pretty confident in my instincts~"
"Seriously, what is wrong with you?", Ash's expression looked like he had eaten a fly.
But the more he looked like that, the happier Ubel became, "Ah~ anyway, humans and demons don't really feel different to me. I just want to study your body. Let me touch it a bit, okay?"
"Of course not! What nonsense are you saying?", With a face full of disbelief, he slapped away the hand trying to lift his shirt.
At this point, Ash truly couldn't understand how this girl's brain worked. He could only press a hand against her face to stop her from moving closer and say seriously, "Seriously, humans and demons are different. Maybe both sides have no limits when it comes to being terrible, but demons are generally more dangerous. If you don't want to die, stay away from demons."
"Then stay closer to you?"
"Can you stop adding that last part yourself?", Ash questioned her with a restrained headache expression, "Are you even listening to me?"
"You already know my brain doesn't work very well. But I'm listening~ Anyway, you're smarter than me, so what you say must make sense, right? Then listening to you can't be wrong, right?"
"...."
Ubel was being too obedient and speaking too sensibly, making Ash feel uncomfortable for a moment. He couldn't even tell whether she was really listening or only pretending to listen.
And even though this girl was an idiot, it was like she could see through what he was thinking. She grinned.
"I'm serious? Anyway, you wouldn't hurt me, right?"
"Hearing that from you makes me feel like you're the one with bad intentions."
"Because I'm flirting with you~", Ubel licked her lips seductively. Her expression looked serious, yet also completely unserious.
"Forget the flirting for now, besides the racial issue between demons and humans, you should know the difference in lifespan between them."
"Mhm~ I don't understand complicated things."
"Being an idiot really is nice."
"Don't praise me like that~ I'll get really happy!"
"Why would you take that as praise?"
"Because at times like this, you just need to honestly feel happy, right?"
"I'm telling you I wasn't praising you! You idiot!"
It was obviously supposed to be a serious problem worth worrying about, but Ubel's interruptions only left him mentally exhausted. It felt like there was a huge communication gap between them.
But he suspected... this girl was doing it on purpose.
Though she really was dumb sometimes, she was also the kind of idiot who fully used that advantage. But if that was the case, was Ubel really still an idiot?
On this snowy winter night, Ash lost even the chance to quietly think while lying in the rocking chair. While dealing with this strange girl, he couldn't help but wonder and even suspect whether she had already forgotten why she started following him in the first place.
———
[The Next Morning]
After the nonstop chaos of the previous night, everyone had been forced to stay awake late and still hadn't woken up yet.
Only the glasses-wearing man who had already returned to his room and slept soundly before Ash came back last night, Falsch, was up early in the morning wearing an apron and preparing breakfast for everyone.
"Good morning, Lord Ash. You're up early as always today," Hearing movement, Falsch turned around in surprise, "What would you like to eat today? I can buy some ingredients too."
"Anything's fine for me, but if you're up this early, shouldn't you be studying magic or something?"
"That's exactly why I said you and Sense work yourselves too hard. Magic shouldn't be someone's whole life. Besides, at home I've always been the one making breakfast for my wife and kids."
"Uh... you're actually married?", Ash, who had originally wanted to argue back, froze after hearing this unexpected information.
"What are you talking about? I'm already in my thirties. It'd be stranger if I wasn't married, right? My oldest daughter became taller than Sense and Frieren last year."
"Th-That's... really impressive," He was genuinely shocked and suddenly felt how terrifying the passage of time was.
'No, actually, a man in his thirties having a child taller than them sounds pretty normal.'
It wasn't that the child was too tall. Those two were just too small, and people in this era married early too.
"Sigh! Forget it. I'm heading out for a bit. No need to prepare my meal today."
"You're not eating first?"
"Mm! I'll take this bread."
Glancing at the bread Falsch had just bought and placed on the table, he silently picked it up and walked out while biting into it.
Because of what Sense said, he realized he had almost forgotten something very important.
If he really met the emperor together with Frieren and Fern, Emperor might relax a little, and security wouldn't be as strict.
Because Frieren used to be part of the Hero Party. That alone represented safety and harmlessness. He himself could run fast enough that it didn't matter, but Fern and Frieren didn't have his speed, and both were pure mages with overly obvious weaknesses, what if they failed and couldn't escape?
"No choice. I'll just use the kingdom envoy identity and settle this quickly. I don't want to waste any more time here."
After what happened last night, he only wanted to quickly fulfill the promise he once made. To hold the world in his hands, ensuring the long survival of demons and peace between humans. Then he could spend time pursuing other things.
For example, how to make humans live forever.
Even though at first he thought he had plenty of time and there was no problem taking things slowly.
Just like Serie and Aura often said, they had endless time to waste. They could drag things out until the Empire collapsed on its own. After all, this Empire had only existed for a thousand years.
There was no problem taking things slowly, but... he himself had no problem waiting. Other people could not.
Fern and the others would grow old. If possible, he truly didn't want to one day bury them and spend their old age taking care of them. And if they wouldn't grow old.
"Really want to kidnap Sense back home. Yeah, in a healthy way."
Liking cute things was probably a common problem among humans. Even though he wasn't human, he still felt regret on the way to the imperial city because he couldn't make a move.
Of course, kidnapping her home was probably a joke. He only wanted to properly bring her home and tease her. But no matter what, he had already started feeling a sense of urgency.
Since the kingdom embassy had been destroyed at the start of the war, and diplomatic staff on both sides had been expelled almost at the same time, Ash naturally wasn't heading to the embassy now. He only planned to walk straight toward the imperial city.
There was no need for careful preparations or warm-ups.
He was directly going to kill them all.
Though he was still somewhat worried that the Empire might have some hidden trump card here, killing the emperor and running away, or taking the emperor hostage, normally shouldn't be too dangerous.
And after using up the assassination squad, he no longer had extra people to use for testing. In the end, he was already getting tired of this slow-moving action and patient plotting.
"I've already endured for over two hundred years. Once in a while, I should be a little braver, right?"
After all, he was basically already standing at the peak of this world. Being a bit bolder shouldn't be a problem.
He refused to believe that something left behind by Flamme could really kill him.
———
Sparse sunlight passed through the clouds and quietly shone onto the medieval streets, bringing a trace of warmth and hope to the city that had slept through the night.
But the shadow of war hung over it like dark clouds, making this moment that should have been full of life feel especially heavy and desolate.
Though the shops on both sides of the street had opened their doors, there were few goods displayed outside. The merchants' faces had also lost their usual enthusiasm and smiles, replaced by heaviness and helplessness.
A faint smell of gunpowder lingered in the air, completely out of place with the freshness of the morning. From time to time came the sound of galloping horses and groups of soldiers marching, making the city's morning even more tense.
The constant unrest from earlier days, along with yesterday's explosion that even wiped out an entire satellite city, naturally caused the streets to become sparse with people. Pedestrians walked quickly with nervous expressions.
Children no longer chased and played around. Instead, they clung tightly to their parents, unease far beyond their age flickering in their eyes.
The entire city seemed covered by an invisible fear. Even the morning birds sounded unusually quiet, as though nature itself was mourning this city.
Although the sunlight tried hard to pierce through the clouds, it couldn't drive away the gloom inside the city. Yet after Ash made up his mind to stop caring so much and directly use force to eliminate the target... his mental state became strangely good, and his mood unusually cheerful. It was almost like he had just teased a child at home.
After cautiously finding a spy to give some instructions and handing over several letters, he even bought two boxes of roasted chicken legs from the roadside because he still hadn't filled his stomach. While biting into a chicken leg, he mumbled unclearly, "Though what I ate earlier was too light, eating roast meat this early in the morning feels a bit greasy, doesn't it?"
His overly carefree appearance made even the roadside guards lose interest after taking one glance at him. There was simply nothing suspicious about him.
But Ash hadn't walked and eaten for long before suddenly spotting a familiar figure by the roadside, before even reaching his target.
The priest with the completely dead-looking expression, Sein, was standing there with no motivation at all, cigarette in his mouth while leaning by a window wiping the windowsill.
But when Ash looked over, Sein quickly noticed his gaze. His eyes widened instantly as he threw down the rag and rushed over.
"You still dare show yourself? Do you know how I've been living these past few days?"
"I don't," Even with the other man glaring furiously, Ash denied it without hesitation. He casually took another chicken leg from the box and handed it over, "More importantly, want a chicken leg? I bought too many."
"Last time we drank, you said you were treating! But then you ran off with the girls!"
"Did that happen? Anyway, did you eat breakfast?"
"No! Because of you! I've been washing dishes, wiping tables, wiping windows, working to pay off debts these past few days!"
"Then eat something first. Mm... want a chicken leg?"
Though Sein looked like he wanted to tear him apart alive through gritted teeth, Ash only silently stepped aside to avoid the spit flying from his yelling before expressionlessly handing the chicken leg over again.
Looking at the chicken leg being offered, Sein could only feel both angry and amused. But in the end, he still snatched it over and bit down hard, as though he were biting into Ash's flesh.
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