Chapter 39: Demon Lord Comes to Life

It was midnight. Tamie was in the yard of the Order mansion, under the starry sky. She had gathered a pile of brushwood and held her story in her hands. Yet, she looked uncertain.

Should I be doing this? After all, Goatee did say not all muses are benevolent, and this one surely is not. For the sake of my stories, my muse always turns out more or less violent… mild and soft only towards a character modelled after me. Will it be alright? Goatee also said that if there is more than one face, then, the most powerful one will emerge and live forever. He will even be able to enter my dream world and come out of it whenever he pleases, stay how long he pleases and do everything as he desires. I know that, out of all my stories, Kokujin’s character is the strongest. Surely he will emerge, so is it truly alright to let him loose?

She hesitated. To do or not to do? – That question lingered in her mind.

However, it is also true that whenever I dream of Kokujin, I feel this unusual warmth come from him – not the evil heat of his Blue Fire powers, but the warmth his heart holds towards me… After all, if I, as a creator, am not evil and unkind, the muse will never be, right? I just show off his powers in my stories, but in fact, he is quite a kind individual…

Thus, making up her mind, she looked at the stars, made her wish and threw the story in the blazing fire. The flames ate the notebook little by little, burning it bit by bit. Tamie watched it with her heart nervously beating – would he manage to emerge? She clenched her fists – of course, he would. It was her muse, after all! She wove hand signs and yelled, already on the Seventh Rank of her Class:

“Libra Style, Writer Art, Summoner Mode: Summoning the Muse!”

She blew her White Zen energy into the fire. The fire blazed and continued eating the notebook, turning it into ashes. Finally, it merged with the White Zen energy and ate the last bits of the notebook. Tamie’s knees shook from excitement:

Come on… Come on!

The fire blazed. The flames began taking on a different colour. Tamie raised an eyebrow – it was taking a shade of… blue?! It ate the redness of the fire and took over little by little.

So, it really works?!

Blue Fire could mean only one thing – he was going to emerge!

Soon, the flame blazed blue completely, let out a cloud of blue smoke and died out. Tamie almost yelled with joy as she stared at the brushwood until the smoke dissipated. What she saw… was nothing.

“Eh?!” she looked around, and then back at the brushwood, unable to understand why it hadn’t worked. “What’s wrong? Ugh, don’t tell me it was all a scam?! However, the Blue Fire did appear… Don’t tell me, he was not powerful enough to emerge?!”

Yes, that was probably it – she was only the Rank Seven after all, not Rank Eight. That was why it hadn’t worked!

“Oh, no… And I lost the copy of my story! No!” she fell to her knees, with tears gushing from her eyes, “I’m a failure! Oh, Lord Kokujin…”

“Searching for me?”

She started and turned back. Her eyes widened in stupor and joy – it was he, in his black clothing, with that beautiful dark blue hair and shimmering icy-blue eyes… He had emerged!

“Kokujin!” she dashed at him and hugged him tightly, “Oh, Kokujin, you’ve come to life!”

She felt the young man’s arms embrace her and press her to his chest. She heard his deep, demonic but soft voice:

“Arigatō[1], Tamie”.

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[1] Arigatō (ありがとう) – Thanks (Japanese)