At the heart of the great forest, [Tempest], the deep sunset glow had already begun to fade.
Until yesterday, this place had trembled with anxiety because of a defensive war unlike anything it had ever experienced. Even just an hour ago, that unease still hung heavily over everything.
After all, a calamity had come—one not officially judged to be [Disaster]-class only because it lacked intelligence, yet still powerful enough to be called the ruler of the skies as a fragment of the [Storm Dragon]. And they had gone to war against that calamity.
It was entirely possible that the aftermath of this war might have been even worse than the rampage of the [Orc Disaster] and the Orcs.
And yet because of that very fact—
—there was no trace of that anxiety left in [Tempest] now.
Because every monster in [Tempest] had witnessed it with their own eyes: that calamity treated like nothing more than a scarecrow, its enormous body frozen in an instant.
"Whaaat?! It's over already?!"
There was only one exception.
A pink-haired girl was pouting at the demon who had frozen not just the calamity, but the very sky around it—a complaint that was far from merely cute.
"...I already told you several times, Milim. This was one thing you really couldn't get involved in, especially as a guest..."
For over four hundred years, Adelio had killed more monsters than he could count, creatures hundreds of times more dangerous-looking than the girl in front of him. Even so, when it came to the sulking of Milim—one of the strongest [Demon Lord]s of the current age, not just some girl—he still found it hard to escape.
Unlike the lofty rulers of various nations who fancied themselves clever and schemed halfway, Milim did not think because she disliked it, not because she lacked the ability. If she wanted to, she was a sharp child who could be as cunning as anyone.
'...If I'd known this would happen, I should've just healed Phobio first and woken her up after that...'
Adelio recalled how Milim had somehow fallen into a deep sleep on top of the hill while he was training the monsters, then let out a brief inward sigh at the spilled-water problem he could no longer take back. A wry smile spread across his face.
He knew better than anyone that she was not an ordinary child. Even so, he could never simply brush aside her whining. That was exactly why he was called her best friend.
"If something like this happens again next time, I'll leave it entirely to you. So bear with it for today."
In the end, just as always, Adelio promised her a next time and ruffled the pink hair fluttering before him as if he were calming an angry cat.
"......"
If anyone else had touched her hair without permission, Milim might have ripped their head off on the spot. But after closing her eyes for a moment, she placed both hands on her hips and declared, "...Hmph. Since it's a request from my best friend, I'll grant it this once."
The words came out a little stiffly, but Adelio knew from long experience that this tone was her own way of agreeing. Without saying anything, he patted her head again.
For some reason, nothing worked better than this when it came to calming Milim down whenever her emotions started to flare.
A little later.
"...! [Gluttony]!"
Fwoooosh...!!
Even though more than an hour had already passed, [Charybdis], still fused seamlessly with the sky, showed no sign of melting. Inside it, Rimuru searched for its core. The moment she spotted what looked like the core, she immediately used [Gluttony] to pull out the object that was essentially [Charybdis]'s heart, then spread her wings at the same time.
Then, with a faint smile, she looked over at Adelio, who still seemed utterly drained from the ongoing task of petting Milim, landed beside him, and held out a core at least five times larger than her own body.
"Adelio, is this the core you were talking about?"
Because of the aftermath of Red Demon Ice Path, it was already no different from a dead heart to [Charybdis]. But for Phobio, who was barely clinging to life inside it in a near-death state, it was the final barrier keeping him alive.
"Yeah, you found it well."
After giving that barrier a brief look with eyes tinged with magic power, Adelio slowly nodded and finally lifted his hand from Milim's head.
"This is the core of [Charybdis] with Phobio inside it."
Hummm...!
Gray magic power began to glow through Adelio's palm as he poured it into [Charybdis]'s core.
At the same time that he healed the dying Phobio, he perfectly separated the core wrapped around his body. A few seconds later, he looked down at the unconscious Phobio sprawled on the ground, then stored the now-empty shell of the core in his subspace.
'...For someone who almost died after getting swallowed by [Charybdis]'s instincts, he sure sleeps well.'
Phobio was pitifully weak mentally, but a lycanthrope was still a lycanthrope. Borrowing strength from his body, he was slowly recovering his mind little by little. As Adelio looked down at him, he narrowed his eyes.
It wasn't because he disliked the sight of Phobio sleeping so peacefully on the ground.
It was because he had been sensing the magic power of another high-ranking lycanthrope watching this place with sharp eyes for a while now.
'Among [Demon Lord]s, the only ones who'd protect even a foolish subordinate first and ask questions later are probably Ramiris... and that one.'
Silent as a viper, fierce as an eagle, and waiting quietly for the right moment like a tiger—
'Carrion.'
—one of the [Ten Great Demon Lords], also known in this age as the Beast King.
It was the magic power of Eurazania's strongest warrior, the [Beast Master].
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