This is a chevrotain, also known as a mouse-deer. They mainly live in Asia, with one species in Africa.

So when I read the scanlated first chapter of the manga adaptation for this series, I was smitten. It was so cute! When chapter 2 came out earlier today, I looked into it some more and saw that it"s by the same author who writes Killing Slimes, which is a fun slice-of-life series. I also saw that no one was translating the web novel when it has over 100 chapters, so I started looking into it some more.

That led to this. I finished in a couple hours, and the chapters overall feel pretty short, so I figured, hey, let"s do it, why not!

Forewarning, all my other series still have precedence. Summoning j.a.pan I"m making good progress, so I won"t be dropping that. Sword Saint is caught up, so that"s an easy project. Kenja will soon be caught up in fairly short order as well. So where does that leave Maou Saikon? I see it as a palate cleanser. Short chapters mean I can easily pound one out when I feel like translating but don"t want to wade through SJ and there"s no manga to translate. With my current workload, I"m thinking I"ll do one or two a week, nothing crazy.

I"m trying to be cognizant of the fact that I may still be in the “translator honeymoon” period, where I feel like I want to translate all the time. It has been a good 3 months since I started this blog, so maybe I"m actually over it, but I still want to take it slow instead of pumping out tons of chapters at the beginning then burning out and leaving multiple projects hanging. Once we"re caught up on Kenja, I might pick up the pace, but 1-2 a week seems good for now.

Anyway, enjoy!

"Hmph! Your attacks can"t hurt me!"

I posed fearlessly, shrugging off the fire spell with my chest. Strictly speaking, I actually just took quite a hit and it certainly did hurt… but it would be pretty lame to admit that, so I just held it in.

"Wha—?! Even Selene"s attack magic has no effect!" the hero Angelica yelled in shock.

The hero, Angelica. She was only sixteen years old. Not bad, becoming a hero at that age and forming a party of all girls. But still… they were not prepared. They wouldn"t be able to defeat a demon lord like me.

My name is Galtau Leuzen, the demon lord of the continent of Masgenia.

It may sound amazing, but there are many other continents and demon lords as well, and the human countries are always fighting with each other. Even if I were to be defeated, it"s not like humanity would be saved and everyone would immediately become happy or anything. The hero"s party still had many enemies to defeat in the name of their country.

"Let me repay you for that, mage girl."

I threw a fireball at Selene. She screamed and fell to the floor. The only one left now was the hero.

"Angelica. You are all still children. I will give you the chance to leave and make a fresh start. Just run along home."

"Hmph! I"m the hero! There"s no way I would turn tail and run before the demon lord!"

At least she was s.p.u.n.ky. However, I didn"t really want to fight her… which was to say, there were personal reasons. She somehow reminded me of my late wife…

My wife, Sasaya, pa.s.sed away around 300 years ago. Back then, one of my four generals revolted and tried to kill me. In a twist of fate, I was not in the castle that general attacked, I was out doing inspections, but my wife was there…

Of course, I immediately learned of the rebellion and tore the traitor limb from limb. My wife was hovering closely between life and death, until a few days later she pa.s.sed away…

I cared for her until her final moments, then kept on living, alone, until eventually I became what was known among demons as "middle-aged." The topic of marrying again came up countless times, but I refused every time.

There were no other women like Sasaya, who was calm and gentle but possessed an unmovable core. Even if it were a temporary marriage, I would only compare my new wife to my first wife, which would certainly be disagreeable to her.

However, this female hero unexpectedly had features that reminded me a little of Sasaya! Well, at best, it was only a little… This must just be a form of karma. Anyway, I didn"t want to fight her.

Also, recently, the human country in one of the regions I ruled wouldn"t shut up about it, so, even if they were hostile to me, I was under pressure to send back children and girls to them without going overboard.

—The end! That"s why I just wanted the hero Angelica to go home.

"I won"t lose! If I lose here, then everything that happened up until now will have been pointless!" Using her sword like a cane, Angelica managed to stand back up. d.a.m.n, she just wouldn"t leave…

"Wait, hold on. To say "everything was pointless," no matter how you look at it, that"s a gross exaggeration… The things you experienced still happened, so you can just start anew. You"re all still young… You"re only in your teens, your lives have barely even started."

"Why is the demon lord lecturing me like a teacher?! What are you acting all high and mighty for, you bearded weirdo!!!"

Hey now, I"m a middle-aged man, if I want to grow a beard then I"m going to grow a beard. I"d appreciate if you didn"t comment on that.

"Prepare to die, Demon Lord Galtau Leuzen!!!"

The hero jumped at me with her sword out— I flicked it away with my right arm.

"Aaaaagh!"

Angelica let out a scream that echoed in my ears. And just like that, Angelica flopped over. I held back, so she wasn"t dead, but she did lose consciousness. Because of my fatigue and wounds, I had to concentrate in order to move my body. You can"t achieve good results if you only preach about working hard.

"Now then… if I leave them here, they"ll just be eaten by h.e.l.lhounds… I guess I"ll take them back…"

I cast a transfer spell. Being a demon lord, a spell of this level was easy. And then, we were in the town where the mage girl grew up.

Yep, not many people knew, but I could come to human town too. Coincidentally, someone who looked like the mage girl"s older brother was there, so I called out to him.

"Ah, excuse me, this young lady was defeated in battle in the demon territory, I"ve brought her back."

"Ah… Selene, Selene!"

"She has some light burns, but nothing life-threatening. No need to worry too much about it."

"Ah, thank you for going out of your way to bring her back. Lately, the way some demons have been treating girls has been pretty bad, you know."

Somehow, I was being thanked for this. Indeed, even if someone were captured by an enemy, it was no longer acceptable for them to undergo cruel punishment or torture. It was like the relationship between humankind and demonkind was progressing to a new stage.

"Well then, I"ll be off now. I need to get these other girls back home too."

"Sorry to make you go through all that!"

That"s one done. It would be nice if it were this peaceful for all of them. If anything went poorly, I"m sure I"d get complaints from the Demonic Feminists a.s.sociation.

"Fine, I"ll only fight male heroes then. That way no human women will be hurt, that should be fine, right?" Or so I once said, since injuries were apparently detrimental for women trying to advance in society. But, at the same time, it also wasn"t good to limit dangerous jobs like adventuring to only men. They really were an insufferable bunch.

I returned the members of the hero"s party one by one. I could have just let my subordinates do it, but since they managed to get to the demon lord, I wanted to show my respect to them by doing it myself.

Finally, only the hero Angelica was left.

"When she"s laid out like this, there really is a pointless resemblance…"

Of course, I knew she was a completely different person from my Sasaya. In the first place, Sasaya had horns. Even still, when I thought of Sasaya, they seemed similar.

"I should stop thinking about weird things."

With Angelica in my arms, I cast another transfer spell. I already knew the village where she was born, so I teleported straight there. It wasn"t that the village was famous, but rather that it became famous because the hero was born there.

If I remember correctly, the hero"s father died shortly after she was born, so her mother raised her alone. If the story was true, then I really did think she should give up her dangerous job of adventuring and just stay by her mother"s side. I guess I was just being a nosy old man.

There was a woman in front of the hero"s house, sweeping it clean with a broom.

"Excuse me, is this the hero"s home? She was defeated in demon territory, so I"ve brought her back. She"s just knocked out."

"Oh my, how kind of you. Thank you so much."

The woman who was cleaning raised her head, showing me her face. At that moment, I felt like I had been hit by lightning magic.

She looked just like my wife!

The way her eyes drooped slightly on the side. The way she spoke so gently. Above all, just her ambiance, the air around her.

"Um… I apologize if this is rude, but… are you the hero"s older sister, by chance?"

"Oh, you! I"m her mother."

Her mother! She didn"t look that old, but… If she gave birth to Angelica when she was a teenager, I suppose she could still be this young…

I-I see, so that"s why Angelica only slightly resembled Sasaya. More like, if you took away her childish elements and imagined her as an adult, then she would naturally look more like her.

"Are you perhaps the demon lord? You cut such a splendid figure that I couldn"t help but think so," the hero"s mother asked as she looked me over.

"Y-Yes… I am the current demon lord, my name is Galtau Leuzen…" I introduced myself normally. I wonder if I was being too modest.

"Um, would you like to join me for a cup of herbal tea? I was just thinking of brewing some." The way she instantly broke down walls with people she was meeting for the first time was just like her as well.

"In that case, I would love to have a cup…" This was how I ended up in the hero"s house.

"Excuse me, could I ask for your name?"

"Oh, my name? I"m Laetia."

"Laetia, you say…"

I was completely spellbound by her.

Author"s note: I"m starting a new serialization! When I tried writing a story about an older man, somehow I ended up with this. Thanks for reading!

TL note: One thing the manga didn"t seem to have were those couple of weird (anti-)feminism lines. Considering the author"s other works, I don"t think it"ll be a common theme, but it got kind of a side-eye from me.

Also, I"m changing the j.a.panese “remarriage” to “second marriage” where appropriate, since I think that makes more sense in English rather than “remarriage, but with a different person.”

 — Chapter 2