As you may have noticed, I removed Maou Saikon"s translation progress from the tracker. That"s because I"m generally able to translate and edit the entire thing in one sitting, or at most leave it for one night and finish in the morning. I might add it back in if I do start taking more than a day to post a chapter, but for now, I figure it"s unnecessary.

For the time being, I used s.p.a.ce-time magic to teleport back to the demon lord"s castle. I arrived in my office, where my secretary Toralina was doing administrative work.

Toralina is a demon woman with black hair and gla.s.ses. Apparently, she was a cla.s.s representative back when she was a student. Because of that, sometimes my subordinates still called her "cla.s.s rep." And she usually gets mad when they do.

"Sir, you were away for far too long. I"ve told you before to let us know beforehand if you"re going out," she said as she pushed up her gla.s.ses. For an instant she had an expression of disgust, but I was used to it. If something like that bothered me, I would have fired her long ago.

"Sorry, something important came up. I"d like to make a small personnel change. Umm, I want to transfer the personal escorts to a different department, the ones that protect me when I sleep."

"Fine… but, what for?"

I guess she wanted to know the reason.

"I"m getting married again, so I"ll be living somewhere else now."

"What?!"

That "What?!" would have been perfect for cutting someone off.

"Well, I get the married part. Or rather, because you have no children, if you hadn"t gotten married again, it"s possible there would have been a succession problem sometime in the future. And you"ve been getting calls to marry again from various places. But—"

The look in Toralina"s eyes was frightening.

"Why won"t you be living in the castle? It doesn"t look good for someone of your status to move in with your new spouse."

I know. Trust me, of course I know.

"I know what you"re saying, but… it would be kind of bad for a human to come live at the demon lord"s castle…"

"What?! What?!"

The number of "What?!"s just went up.

"Also, if a "the hero has betrayed us!" story somehow got out, they might send another hero to the demon lord"s castle here…"

"Ehhhhhhh?! What are you talking about?! I need to know all the details! Or are you maybe drunk right now?"

"I haven"t had any alcohol. I"m being serious…"

This time Toralina looked at me like I was a piece of garbage. Now, that was just disrespectful.

"Uhm, I hope I"m wrong, but did you fall in love with that female hero that came here? She"s just a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl who has barely begun her life. This is going to be terrible for your reputation. If you at least looked like a human in their twenties, we could play it off, but you"re middle-aged now."

In other words, you want to say that it looks criminal. I know how you feel. However, it"s pretty natural for a man to think that a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl looks cute, so I"d at least like to be forgiven for that.

"Wrong. The person I"m marrying… isn"t the hero…"

"Oh, I"m so glad. I apologize. I would also like to withdraw my "looking at garbage" glare from earlier."

So she"s aware of her glares…

"The person I"m marrying is the hero"s mother."

Even though I"m being straight with her, her face clearly says "what the h.e.l.l is this guy talking about?"

"What are you talking about…? Are you insane…? Did someone cast a mental debilitation spell on you…? Wait, demon lords are normally immune to instant death and mental debilitation magic…"

She began patting me all over, like on the shoulders and on my back. You know, if a man did what you"re currently doing to a woman, that would definitely be considered s.e.xual hara.s.sment.

"It"s true… by the way, I already proposed and she said "yes.""

"You"re already that far!"

"So, that being the case, everything"s good now."

"Nothing"s good at all! You can"t do this… Even if demon and human relations have been making progress recently, this is unprecedented!"

So I guess I can"t really convince her. However, I won"t give up now.

"Well, as they say, love breaks down all barriers, whether it be age differences or racial differences. Isn"t that an age-old saying? I"m sure there are even some stories of demon lords and heroes becoming couples or something…"

"That"s only in fiction. And here, the hero is going to become your step-daughter, that"s a pretty different situation!"

"Anyway, I will fulfill my duties properly as demon lord! It"s fine as long as I teleport to work, isn"t it?! I"m the demon lord, after all, so I make the rules!"

Toralina seemed to want to say more, but I used teleport to get away.

I arrived in Laetia"s kitchen. There was a pot whose contents were letting off steam. Apparently, I came right when Laetia was cooking. This meal consisted of stew, it seemed.

"Ah, mister demon lord, welcome back."

Laetia turned to look at me with a bright smile. Her ap.r.o.n-clad figure sported high destructive capabilities as well. What was she, a G.o.ddess……?

"I"m… I"m back, Laetia."

It felt awkward to be calling out to her. We only just met some hours ago, after all. For that matter, I wondered if it was all right for us to already start living together. Maybe we should have waited a bit before taking that step.

"I"ll make your portion now, too. There isn"t anything you can"t eat, is there?"

Apparently it was already an established fact that I would eat here.

"Ah, no… As long as there"s no holy water or anything like that, it should be fine…"

Demons and humans both had basically the same physiology. Demons were more resistant to poisons, though.

"I"m not sure exactly when Angelica will be up, that"s why I made stew. If it gets cold, it"s easy to warm back up. I hope it"s to your tastes, mister demon lord."

"I see! By the way… I wonder if you would stop calling me "mister demon lord"……"

In fact, I"d really like for her to call me "Dear." But, I didn"t have the courage to say that. I think it could sound a bit too familiar. Or rather, it was definitely too familiar.

"My name is Galtau Leuzen, so… could I ask you to call me "Galtau"?"

"All right, Galtau. Mmm, "Galtau." What a cool name!"

A cool name, huh. No matter how many times my retainers said my name, it never really moved me. If no one ever thought it was cool, then no one could ever call it cool. But now, her words resonated in my heart. Just that simple line was able to make me feel proud of my name.

Also, I just realized, but apparently Laetia tied up her hair when she cooked. The way she looked with her hair up was also beautiful.

Ah, that"s right. I wonder if I should just let her cook alone. I think by modern standards, cooking was no longer considered an activity solely for women. Was it disillusionment? Were demons considered uncivilized now? In the end, because I"m the one who proposed to her, making her take care of our first meal alone just felt wrong.

"Um, let me help you out. I can at least peel vegetables, I think."

"It would be completely fine if you just relaxed, you know~"

"Please, I insist!"

"In that case, can I ask you to take care of the carrots and onions?"

I earnestly tackled my a.s.signed tasks. Working together with my wife… this was nice. Although I would cla.s.sify this as a kind of manual labor, it was completely different from the labor I was used to doing. It had a different kind of happiness to it.

"My, you"re very good at peeling vegetables~♪"

"Demons" eyes don"t get irritated by something like cutting onions. I"ll have it all done before you know it!"

"Let"s make another dish with onions, then."

"I will help you out with that as well!"

I"ve been a demon lord for a very long time, but it"s also been a very long time since I felt this kind of satisfaction. This sense of household tranquility was something I had long forgotten. Because I forgot about it, I also stopped feeling monotony. But, now that I"ve remembered, I wasn"t sure if I could return to my previous lifestyle of work, sleep, work, sleep.

For food, I always dined out or bought a cold meal at a store. Those of course were tasty, but the type of "tasty" was different. Here, even before eating the food we were cooking, I was already happy.

"Oh my, Galtau, I thought you said that you wouldn"t cry from cutting onions."

It appeared that I was crying.

"Hahaha, this isn"t from the onions. I just feel so emotional right now."

I wonder how many hundreds of years it"s been since I cooked with someone…

—  — Chapter 4