"Alright, let's have a friendly duel," Kohana had said.
Haruto didn't hear the word "friendly."He only heard the word "duel" and instantly began internally composing his final will.
"Nope. No thank you. I'm out," he muttered, spinning on his heel toward the exit like a man in a "survival horror" tutorial.
He didn't get two steps before two enormous shadows blocked his path.
"Eeeeh? The challenger's fleeing?" rumbled a deep voice.
Standing there were two musclebound beastfolk guards—one bull-kin, the other a lion-kin—wearing loose robes, beaded necklaces, and holding tiny porcelain tea cups. They looked like they'd walked off a yoga retreat and straight into a boss arena.
"Excuse me," Haruto croaked. "I believe the correct response is to let me leave, let me live, and let me cry in peace?"
"Nope," said the bull-kin, casually picking him up like luggage.
"No running from sacred duels," added the lion-kin. "Especially if they're cute."
"I AM NOT A CUTE DUEL!!"
They carried him back like an offering to the comedy gods.
The council had cleared space in the great hall. The arena was marked with glowing runes and sacred ropes. Elders watched from their high seats, murmuring excitedly.
Lady Nerimaru sat on her oversized shrine throne with a bowl of snacks, already preparing the post-battle eulogy.
Haruto was placed gently—too gently—into the center of the arena. His legs wobbled.
Kohana stepped opposite him, stretching her arms with lazy confidence.
She rolled her shoulders.
Cracked her knuckles.
Her tail slowly swayed behind her like a fluffy executioner's axe.
"You ready, Haruto?" she asked sweetly.
"No," he replied instantly. "Can I just lie down now and spare everyone the effort?"
"C'mon, it's tradition!" she said, giggling. "It's just a little sparring! I'm not even going to hit you."
That statement made Haruto feel deeply unsafe.
Lady Nerimaru raised a tiny hand.
"Begin the duel!"
And then—
Kohana stepped forward.
No attack. No spell.Just one foot forward. A slight exhale.
And in that moment…
Haruto felt it.
A pressure.
Like the air had suddenly thickened.Like gravity had personally increased just around his body.Like every anime protagonist's "final boss pressure scene" had been copy-pasted directly onto his soul.
Her aura—gentle but crushing, calm but enormous—rolled over him like a tidal wave made of concentrated "You messed up."
Haruto's eyes went wide.His legs gave out.
THUD.
He collapsed in a heap, twitching like a dropped sandwich.
"...He's out," muttered the bull-kin, checking for signs of consciousness.
"That was faster than last week's squirrel duel," the lion-kin said, sipping tea.
The room was dead silent.
Lady Nerimaru slowly stood, arms crossed.
"Congratulations," she said, voice dry. "You have been defeated by a fox girl breathing in your direction."
Haruto groaned from the floor."Please... let me be the rock instead..."
Haruto lay face-down on the polished wood floor of the council chamber, twitching gently like a dying beetle.
He wasn't unconscious. Not fully.
Just spiritually disconnected from the situation.
His soul floated five feet above his body, silently questioning every decision that had led him to this point. Like trusting that vending machine bento. Like stepping outside.
Like… breathing.
Then—he heard it.
That voice.
That tiny, furious, ancient voice full of disappointment and 900 years of judgmental experience.
"Get up, you embarrassment of a titleholder!"
A third sandal hit him in the back of the head.
"OW—CAN YOU AT LEAST WAIT UNTIL I REBOOT?!"
Lady Nerimaru stood over him with her arms crossed, one foot tapping at machine gun speed.
"I have seen cabbage monsters with more backbone! You are the most fragile Maou candidate in recorded history!"
"I didn't want the job!" Haruto croaked from the floor. "I wanted a hamburger steak and a nap, not a kingdom and a concussion!"
The elders murmured amongst themselves.
Nerimaru narrowed her glowing eyes. "Enough stalling. Explain."
Haruto finally rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.
"Fine! FINE! I'll explain, but it will not change from what I already told you earlier! You all just don't listen to me...."
He raised a shaky hand like a cursed narrator about to flashback.
"I'm not from here. I was summoned—no, glitched into this world by some cosmic intern in a hoodie drinking bubble tea. He told me the gate was a mistake and I had two options: become a rock that can't move… or take the open Maou position that no one wanted!"
The room went silent.
Then—
"...That's the dumbest origin story I've ever heard," Nerimaru said flatly. "Even discount hero summoning stories have more dignity than that."
"But it's true!!" Haruto wailed. "I didn't get a tutorial! No starter pack! No cheat items! I didn't even get a cool menu voice!!"
"You're telling me," Nerimaru said, stepping closer, "that the new Demon Lord—the supposed reincarnated harbinger of chaos—was… accidentally sucked into our world like lint in a magical vacuum?"
"YES!!"
"And you accepted the role because… you were mad about the rock option?"
"IT WAS A VERY THREATENING ROCK, OKAY?!"
The council chamber sat in horrified silence.
One of the elders slowly scribbled a note that just read: "Maou = emotionally unstable sandwich?"
Nerimaru groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I refuse to believe our fate is tied to a man whose greatest weapon is a mid-tier tantrum."
"That's fair," Haruto mumbled. "Even I don't believe it."
Haruto lay there, still catching his breath from his technical defeat via aura exposure, when the shift in the air hit him.
A sudden silence.A pressure.Like the laughter and chaos had been evacuated from the room.
Lady Nerimaru raised her hand.
"Everyone out."
The council murmured in confusion.
"But Lady Nerimaru—"
"I said OUT. I will speak to the Maou failure alone."
Even Kohana hesitated.
"Grandma…"
"He'll be fine," Nerimaru said without turning. "If he gives the wrong answer, he won't be."
One by one, the elders shuffled out.Kohana cast one last look at Haruto—a mix of concern and "please don't die"—before slipping through the doors.
The moment the chamber closed, the warmth left the air.
Nerimaru took a step forward.
The wooden floor creaked softly.
Purple light began to radiate from her body—thin tendrils of arcane pressure curling around her like smoke made of malice and judgment.
Her eyes no longer looked like those of a cranky old lady in a child's body.
They were the eyes of a 900-year-old beastfolk war priestess who had seen kings rise and fall—and buried most of them herself.
She stopped only a few steps away from him, and for the first time…Haruto felt small.
"So," she said, voice low, quiet, lethal,"You. The statless, spineless, noise-polluting waste of demon lineage… have been chosen by some celestial moron to bear the title of Maou."
Haruto tried to sit up. Failed. Managed a half-upright pathetic slump.
She crouched slightly, meeting his eyes.
"What do you intend to do with that power, boy?"
The aura darkened. The air shimmered.The pressure pressed down on his lungs like gravity had tripled.
"Answer carefully," she whispered."Because depending on what comes out of your mouth next…you will either walk out of this hall alive… or as a smear on the floor."
Haruto swallowed hard.
He didn't know what a smear felt like, but he imagined it was unpleasant.
His fists clenched at his sides.
Slowly, shakily, he looked up—into the glowing, terrifying eyes of the village elder.
"…I don't know what I'm doing," he said honestly. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't plan it. And I didn't get the skills or the cheats or the cool sword everyone expects."
Nerimaru didn't blink.
"But," Haruto continued, voice steadier now, "I'm not planning to just roll over and die. Not yet. If I've got this dumb title, I'll use it for something—even if I have no idea what that something is yet."
He forced a wobbly smile.
"So until I figure it out… I'll survive. Even if it's just out of spite."
The purple aura pulsed—
Then vanished.
Nerimaru stared at him for a moment longer.
Then stood.
"…Hmph."
She turned, walking back toward her throne.
"You're still an idiot," she muttered. "But maybe not entirely hopeless."
Haruto collapsed back to the floor, gasping.
"I… I lived."
"Barely," she called over her shoulder."Now get out. Before I remember I still have one more shoe."