"Touka-sama, w-what is this... something like this..."
Liz covered her mouth with both hands.
Her pupils were trembling slightly.
Eve let out a low groan.
"Muu... I cannot believe it..."
Pigi-maru was also frozen in place.
"Pi... pu, yu..."
Liz's expression relaxed, and she brought both hands to her cheeks.
"It is... very delicious..."
"I see."
I had transferred some sweets from the leather pouch.
I had just handed them out.
The result was a huge success.
The other day, I had tried transferring things from the leather pouch as a test.
What came out were sweets.
They were cookies with white chocolate on top.
I bit through the chocolate and cookie layers with my teeth.
The exquisite two-layer texture.
The hard chocolate melted with a chewy feel.
The cookie crumbled softly.
The gentle sweetness of the white chocolate spread out.
The cookie was not too sweet.
There was even a faint saltiness.
All of it fused together to create one supreme sweetness.
This chocolate and cookie really went well together...
The sense of balance in the flavors was truly wonderful.
"I used to like these too."
I handed them out to everyone as a sort of reward for all the hard work so far.
"It will not open."
Eve was struggling to open the wrapper.
"Give it here."
Rip.
I opened the wrapper and handed her the contents.
"You open it surprisingly easily."
"It is designed so that anyone can open it easily, but..."
Eve narrowed her eyes.
Her expression was serious.
"I cannot believe this either. The carving applied to this sweet white part... what is this high-level carving technique..."
She was amazed by the picture carved into the chocolate.
"The bag that wrapped the sweets is also unknown to me. What exactly is this smooth material... what is the fabric made from?"
She seemed to find the wrapper itself unusual as well.
"Nn~... mm."
Liz was also having trouble with the wrapper.
It was probably because both of them were avoiding the serrated edge.
Did they think it was a dangerous spot?
I opened Liz's for her too.
"Here."
"Ah, Touka-sama... I am sorry for the trouble—"
"It is fine, just eat it."
"Y-yes."
Liz nibbled away like a hamster.
She was trying to exercise some self-control.
But she seemed completely absorbed in it.
"It is delicious, right, Pigi-maru-chan?"
"Pi~♪"
"Touka-sama... this is the first time I have eaten something so delicious..."
"Occasional surprises like this are nice too, right?"
"Touka."
Eve spoke up.
"The other world you lived in must be an amazing place."
I had already told Eve and the others that I was a hero from another world.
There was no point in hiding it.
I had also told them that the sweets I gave them were from my world.
Heroes from another world were recognized in this world.
There was surprise at the various things from the other world.
But their understanding of the other world was not completely unknown.
So the existence itself was not incomprehensible.
This part was convenient.
"From our perspective, this world is the amazing one though..."
It had been the same when Seras ate the cheesecake tart.
Each side saw the other's world as incredible.
It was probably just one of those things.
By the way.
Seras was being unusually quiet...
"What is wrong, Seras?"
"...I like it."
"What is it?"
"Ah, no... it is nothing. These baked sweets are really delicious..."
Her reaction was similar to when she ate the cheesecake tart before.
She was eating elegantly, but...
She seemed to like this one quite a lot too.
Last time she had been so moved that she had leaned on me.
But now she was behaving herself in front of Eve and the others.
As vice-captain, she probably wanted to maintain her cool image.
"..."
She probably wanted to express her feelings.
Her eyes when she looked at me were shining unusually brightly.
▽
"Have Eve and Liz already gone to sleep?"
"Yes. Both of them are sound asleep."
It was now my turn for watch duty.
The rotation had settled in nicely.
I rummaged in my pocket.
"Seras."
"Yes."
"Here."
"Touka-dono, this is..."
"I am giving it to you."
It was the remainder of my own portion of the sweets from earlier.
I had only eaten one bag myself.
"Is it really all right?"
"You like them, right?"
"But..."
"I ate plenty of them back in my previous world."
Seras's expression did not break easily.
But when it came to sweets from my original world, she showed rare expressions.
"Is it really all right?"
"Do not worry about it. It is like baiting."
"Eh, baiting..."
"...Just kidding. It is a reward for the vice-captain's hard work."
I returned my gaze to the Forbidden Arts Compendium.
"You are always reading that."
"It is literally a book where 'knowledge is power.' Whenever I have free time, I read it, including re-reading parts."
The next strengthening for Pigi-maru.
A monster strengthening agent.
It would be nice if we could obtain one in the Demon Zone.
A single strengthening had clearly raised our combat strength.
The battle against the Black Dragon Knight Order.
The battle against Ashinto.
The strengthened Pigi-maru had played a major role in both.
I wanted to keep the path to the next strengthening in mind as I acted.
"Touka-dono."
"Hm?"
Seras skillfully opened the wrapper.
Snap.
She broke the sweet in half.
She held out one half toward my mouth.
Seras smiled in a slightly theatrical way.
"I will do some baiting too."
"...There is quite an impudent vice-captain here."
"Now, go ahead?"
"Yeah."
I took the sweet into my mouth and bit it.
...She really did have slender fingers.
And yet she gripped a sword with them.
"Tomorrow at last, we enter the Golden-Eyed Demon Zone."
"...Yeah."
We had finally arrived.
"It feels strange. I do not feel much fear about stepping into that Demon Zone."
"If my power works properly on the monsters in the Demon Zone too, I will be able to relax even more."
Whether status abnormality skills would work or not.
Whether they would work on humanoid types or not.
How many soul-eater level creatures there were.
In any case, it would become clear in the near future.
"Fufu, I will be counting on you, okay? Of course, I will also work hard so that you can count on me."
"Yeah, I am counting on you too."
"Yes. By the way, Touka-dono."
Munch.
Seras took the other half into her mouth.
"Changing the subject... actually, I was thinking about a name for the mercenary band."
"A name for the mercenary band?"
"Yes. After we leave the Demon Zone, we may need to introduce ourselves somewhere."
She had even been thinking that far ahead.
"I see. Now that you mention it, that might be true..."
I recalled the recruitment matter in Mils.
There could be cases where we participated in something as a mercenary band.
"So I have one suggestion. How about 'Fly King Squadron'?"
"Does that name have some origin?"
"In legends, the army led by the Fly King was called that. The name itself is well known, but I have never heard of a mercenary band that actually uses it."
"...Fly King Squadron, huh."
I was wearing the Fly King mask to hide my face.
It might not be bad.
"Understood."
I placed my hand on the Fly King mask beside me.
"Let us go with that."
▽
After putting Seras to sleep, I set down the Forbidden Arts Compendium I had been reading.
I muttered to no one in particular.
"Still, there is no sign of it fading at all."
Surely time would heal it.
Surely time would make me forget.
Surely time would solve everything.
It would not.
My desire for revenge against that shitty goddess showed no sign of fading at all.
Would it be fine if she died somewhere I did not know about?
No, if it ended on its own somewhere I did not know, that would also be a problem.
"If the shitty goddess gets easily killed by the Demon Emperor's army or whatever, it would be anticlimactic..."
At the very least, she should use Kirihara and the others to survive.
Until my preparations were complete, I wanted that "merciful shitty goddess" to keep living carefree.
"..."
Living while forgetting revenge would look smart.
Forgiving the other party with a tolerant heart would look truly beautiful.
That is why I was fine with being foolish.
That is why I was fine with being ugly.
As the foolish and ugly Touka Mimori, I would show the goddess Vysis hell.
"Well, I do not think that shitty goddess will die so easily anyway..."
She would stubbornly survive.
"Hm?"
A cry sounded in the distance.
It came from the direction of the Demon Zone.
Was it a scream?
It was a voice that grated on the ears.
It reminded me of that soul-eater's voice.
Along with the depth of the darkness, the sea of trees was growing increasingly eerie.
The Golden-Eyed Demon Zone.
Golden-eyed monsters.
Humanoid types.
Ferocious monsters.
We could not let our guard down.
I knew that we could not.
And yet, it was no good.
I could see it.
To me, the Demon Zone looked like it was shining.
There, an enormous amount of experience points was swarming.
My status correction value was low.
I was aware of that.
But it was not minus.
It was raising me up from the bottom.
It was helping me decide on skills.
It was supporting me.
I had felt it when fighting Ashinto and the duke's private soldiers.
The correction value was also useful in the process of releasing skills.
So even if the number was 1, the higher the better.
I would probably never catch up to S-rank or A-rank heroes in status.
But I could close the gap.
In other words—
Leveling up also had meaning.
In the future, the narrowed status gap might decide life or death.
I stared fixedly at the Demon Zone.
So if the status abnormality skills worked without any problems,
I would kill them, kill them, kill them all.
As the next foothold toward achieving my revenge...
I would trample the monsters of the Demon Zone and turn them into experience point fodder for myself.