As if an old friend had come.
When Ella sat in the living room, the very place where she had first lain down and awakened, facing the four members of the Hero Squad, that phrase inexplicably came to mind.
Just an hour ago, everyone had been fighting for their lives in the forest.
An hour later, they were sitting together in a circle.
They didn’t recognize her, but she recognized them.
“Let’s start by talking about what happened at the time.”
The swordswoman with long, icy blue hair, Celes, spoke up.
“From what we saw at the scene, after the Demon King returned here, he used some secret technique to transform into an animal and escape. He left his clothes on the ground before leaving, which means he couldn’t wear them after the transformation. The animal he became was likely small, so it didn’t cause much of a stir, and no one noticed. There weren’t any traces left behind, either.”
So meticulous…
No wonder she was such a formidable opponent just now.
“Wait, there’s another detail.”
The mage, Vina, raised her hand.
“Before the Demon King escaped, he left a naked girl in the living room to block our pursuit.”
Even though that’s what happened, hearing it said like that really makes me look bad…
“Can you describe in detail what happened at that moment?”
“Ella?”
“Oh, right.”
Ella, a little distracted, came back to her senses and replied quickly, “Yes, he ran in from outside, rushed straight at me, and then everything went black and I fainted. I don’t remember anything after that.”
“So the Demon King knocked you out first, then took off your clothes.”
Celes said this calmly, picked up her pen calmly, and calmly wrote it down.
Is this really something that needs to be recorded…?
“What do you know about the Demon King’s transformation abilities?”
“I don’t know. He’s never shown that kind of ability, and no one in the Castle has ever seen it,” Ella replied with conviction.
In reality, there was no such ability at all, but that didn’t matter.
Saying it like this made her seem shrewd, never letting anyone know her trump card for survival.
“Highly vigilant, doesn’t trust others,” Celes muttered as she wrote.
“……”
Is that really how you interpret it?
“And another thing, he’s a pervert!”
Vina chimed in, raising her hand.
“This big-breast lady here is the best proof!”
She’s so eager, afraid to miss a single detail.
The big-breasts lady’s eyelids twitched furiously, but she couldn’t hold back, “Actually, I’m still perfectly fine.”
I can accept being seen as arrogant and cunning, but not as a pervert.
That’s my bottom line!
The others all looked over, their eyes practically asking, How did you manage that?
“Because the Demon King… was very ambitious. He said that until his goals were achieved, he wouldn’t let himself be distracted by women, so he hasn’t touched me.”
Now that’s a strong and principled character!
“Oh? He really didn’t do anything?”
Vina looked suspicious.
“Maybe he has a different preference and only captured you to throw us off.”
Damn you, little mage brat!
Ella’s temple throbbed, but she forced a shy expression: “Well, it’s not like he didn’t do anything at all… Sometimes he’d take a little advantage.”
No choice, can’t be too clean, but can’t be too dirty either.
“Oh~”
“All right, enough nonsense.”
Celes tapped her pen.
“Serious question: the Demon King ran away. Based on what you know, where do you think he would go?”
Ella casually listed a few places in the Demon Territory, the Demon King’s birthplace, the site of his first speech, where he launched the Crystal Night, and the place of his coronation, and so on.
She just rattled them off, but Celes wrote every single one down with utmost seriousness.
“Last question, what kind of person do you think the Demon King is?”
“Or what kind of demon,” Vina said with a mischievous smile, changing the wording.
Ella fell silent for a moment, then forced herself to say, “The Demon King is a fiendish, cunning, ruthless, and utterly evil villain.”
Celes noted down her words one by one, then dismissed her.
Returning to the small resting alcove from earlier, Ella sat down, bit her lip as she looked out the window.
The humiliation of today, I’ll pay it back a hundredfold someday.
Just you wait!
***
In the living room, Zero and Vina relayed Ella’s request to join the team to the other two.
“That’s impossible,” Celes refused without hesitation.
“We have our own missions. This isn’t a game.”
Leah, sitting nearby, frowned slightly.
“The gods have not permitted such a thing.”
Zero hadn’t expected her two companions to be so adamant.
For a moment, she didn’t know what to say.
“Oh, come on~ Don’t be like that. Big-breasts lady has suffered so much and knows how dangerous the world is. She definitely won’t treat this as a game.” Vina drew circles on the table with her finger. “As for Miss Leah, we can just take her to the Chapel for a service after we return to the King’s City. The Goddess of Light is magnanimous, she would never turn away a devout believer.”
Leah’s pure and holy face showed a trace of displeasure, but she couldn’t find a rebuttal.
All she managed was, “It is not for us to speculate on the gender of the gods.”
“That’s a separate issue,” Celes said, putting away her notebook and tucking it into her bag. “We don’t really know her.”
“That’s not a reason. We don’t really know each other, either. A month ago, none of us had even met. After half a month of training, we came here. If you talk about understanding, we might not know each other that well, either.”
Zero glanced at the mage, then at her two speechless companions, giving Vina a silent thumbs-up in her heart.
Amazing. She didn’t even need to help.
After a few seconds of silence, Vina spoke up:
“I know, you just think it’s not appropriate. How about this, I have an idea: let her come with us to the King’s City and stay together for a while, say, about a month. That should be enough for us to get to know each other, and then we can decide.”
Celes had no grounds to refuse this suggestion.
***
A few minutes later, Zero dashed into the next room, beaming as she brought Ella the good news.
“We’ll have a month to get to know each other. Once they understand you, I’m sure they’ll let you join.”
So happy, smiling so brightly… Silly Zero, you’ve been completely used by me.
Ella tilted her head slightly and flashed a sweet smile. “Thank you, Zero.”
“You should thank me more~” Vina appeared at the door, left hand on the doorknob and right hand holding a book. “It was me who stood up for you, refuted all their objections, and got you this probation period.”
“That’s right,” Zero nodded.
“Vina was amazing just now!”
“Mm, thank you.”
Ella absentmindedly replied, her attention caught by the book in Vina’s hand.
That damn mage brat, coming to my house to steal books without even saying a word… Wait, what was that book about again?
The cover looked a little familiar.
She stole a few glances and remembered, it was The Girl Taken by the Dragon. It told the story of a beautiful girl kidnapped by an evil dragon, who eventually developed Stockholm syndrome and fell in love with her captor.
The plot was a bit like those old-fashioned romance novels from her previous life. Ella had liked it before, since she could see herself in the role of the dragon, always imagining someday she’d kidnap a beautiful princess.
Too bad fate had other plans. She never caught a princess, she became a beautiful, big-breasts girl herself.