We were escorted to Irene's private room on the third floor of the castle building, and the owner of the room suggested that we sit down on the long horizontal guest couch.

While the butler, an elderly gentleman, served tea and tea cakes at a low table in front of us, Irene took a seat opposite me.
As the butler bowed and left the room, the beautiful princess in male attire leaned forward slightly and began to speak.

'Well, let me get this straight. Will, I'd like you to come with me to 'Fire Dragon Mountain'.

With her elbows on the table and her hands crossed in front of her, Irene said with a straightforward look in her eyes.

But even if you push the atmosphere like that, it doesn't make any difference that the story is too abrupt to understand.

'...... Wait, Irene. Why don't you tell it to me in order?

I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out.

'Oh, is that ......? Did I leave out too many pauses?

'That's probably true. I thought you were going to talk about the Demon King, but suddenly you're talking about the Fire Dragon Mountain. There's too much context.

The Fire Dragon Mountain is a rugged mountain located in the south of the royal capital, in a place that can only be reached after three days of walking.

As the name implies, the mountain is said to be inhabited by a red dragon, and it is a place that even adventurers usually don't even try to approach.

'Ah, uh, I see... ....... Then where should I start? ......'

'Tell me in order from the beginning of the matter. You said that a demon king appeared, but where was the place where it was found, and what was the situation of its discovery? Please start with those things.

'Uh, yeah, okay. ...... Well, I've heard this story from others too. ......'

Then Irene began to talk about the origin of this incident.


******


It seems that it was a party of adventurers who first discovered the strange phenomenon.
The adventurers were on a journey and stopped at a village.

Or should I say, 'what used to be a village' at that stage.
What the adventurers saw was an appalling sight.

It was almost night.
There was not a single living soul in the place.
There were just the corpses of cruelly murdered villagers lying here and there...

I saw three figures standing in the middle of the dead bodies.
Even though they were shadows, they were somewhat larger than normal humans and had sharp claws, fangs and horns.

In other words, those three figures were all demons.

But none of them were 'demon lords'.
I don't know if "ordinary" is the right word, but they were just ordinary demons.

However, I think Will knows that demons are quite powerful, even the lowest level ones.
A single demon, or even three of them, would be too much for a party of ordinary adventurers to contend with.

So when the adventurers saw the scene, they rushed away from the scene.
Fortunately, the demons didn't notice them, and they succeeded in escaping.

The adventuring party reported the incident to the Adventurer's Guild.
That information was passed on to us, the Knights of the Royal Capital, as a serious matter.

Of course, we couldn't leave the demon tribe that destroyed the village in our territory behind.
The knights organized a strike force and sent it to the village.

The ...... strike force was supposed to be more than enough.

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In fact, the strike team that arrived at the site easily defeated the three demons that they found there.
So far, so good.

However, when they were investigating the village further to make sure they were safe, they came across that person.

He had apparently emerged from the building that had once belonged to the lord of the village, alone and unhurried.

His appearance resembled that of a low-class demon, but his size was rather small, like a normal human.
It has horns, fangs, and sharp claws just like ordinary demons.

But he was wearing ice armor.
Furthermore, there was a blizzard-like cold storm blowing around him.

The strike team recognized him as a demon to be exterminated.
Elvis, the court magician, immediately chanted a fireball spell and released it while he was still far away.

But the fireball did not hit him.
As the fireball was approaching, he held out his left hand in front of him.
The ring he wore on the finger of his left hand glowed, and that was enough to drown out the fireball of the court magician Elvis.

From there, the slaughter began.

The demon approached at a frightening speed, and with incredible agility, it ducked through the hurrying knights, killing the court magician Elvis in a flash.

In addition, he easily tortured and killed Bertram and the other knights who challenged him to battle, as if he were twisting the hands of a baby.
His fighting style was like that of a martial arts master who had refined his skills to the ultimate level.

The knights, whose morale had collapsed due to the sheer strength of the knight, ran away as fast as they could.
Some of them somehow managed to escape, but one of them turned around as he ran away.
And saw the scene.

From the former lord's mansion, more than ten, twenty or more demons had emerged.




I'm not sure what to do.
You can find a lot of things that you can do to make your life easier.
He was tentatively called the 'Demon King of Ice' at the Order Conference.

Also, the power that drowned out the fireball of the court magician Elvis.
It's believed that it's not the power of the Ice Demon King himself, but rather the power of a magic item called the Ring of Extinction.
I don't know where he got it, but as long as it's there, any direct magic won't work.

To sum it up, the Demon Lord has a tremendous physical fighting ability that makes him seem invincible, he has magic items that block magic, and he also has twenty demons under his command.

Everyone was already scratching their heads.
How are we supposed to defeat such a thing?
Even if you send a hundred knights or a thousand soldiers to challenge him, they might just end up being slaughtered.

At that time, the king's father, who was participating in the meeting of the knights, said.

'All right, then, I'll go to the Fire Dragon Mountain. I'll get the dragons there to help me. But he's pretty difficult to deal with, so if I die, you'll have to find a suitable replacement.

I'm sure the Ice Demon King has ice properties, so if magic doesn't work, the dragon's fire will, apparently.

...... There's a lot of things to think about, isn't there?

It's a good idea to have a good idea of what you're looking for and how to get there.

Anyway...
The Knights are fiercely opposed.
You're the king now. You should be aware of that.
Of course.

And then your father said.
'Then let my daughter go.'

I really thought he was an idiot.
I wonder what he thinks of me.
Well, I don't mind that kind of thing either, so it's okay.

Of course, the Knights were opposed to this too, but your father overruled them by saying so and so.
He said that we have the lives of the people in our hands, so we should do whatever we can, and that even if we send an envoy, we should at least send a daughter who has my blood in her veins.



Anyway, that's how it went down.
Of course, they're going to take a lot of other measures, but among them, getting the cooperation of the dragons is a trump card (joker).

However, there's no way they're going to let me go to the Fire Dragon Mountain by myself, and on the other hand, they can't just devote their limited resources to that...


I'm sorry.


'So that's why Will and the others were chosen. He said they were good enough, and more importantly, he could trust them. ...... I wonder, would you accept?

'...... I see. I get the gist of it.

I heard about the reward, discussed it with Satsuki, Mee, and Cyril, and decided to accept the request.

The reward was more than enough, and I could easily imagine how much trouble it would be if we didn't accept it, and since we had come all this way to accept the request, well, to put it bluntly, I couldn't see any reason to refuse.

If I had to say one thing, it would be that the level of danger is expected to be reasonably high...
In any case, if Irene was going to go, I didn't like the idea of her losing her life without my knowledge, so in a way I could kill two birds with one stone by escorting her while I watched her go.
I sometimes wondered what she meant to me, but anyway, I thought that I could just go along with it this time.

After that, we went to bed at the inn.
The next morning, Irene and I met at the Adventurer's Guild, and we set off for the Fire Dragon Mountain.