Welcome to the Impregnable Demon King Castle - Chapter 233

233 – Those Who Qualified

All of the preliminaries held in each region have ended.

We knew about the points that we acquired soon after the prelims, but it’s impossible to judge whether or not that means we passed.

I mean, rather than a party passing when they attain a certain number of points, it will be decided when the final results from every location are pooled together and the top five hundred teams are arranged by points.

Five hundred parties might sound like a lot, but a considerable amount of parties gathered for this considering that there are thousands of Adventurer parties, not to mention the fact that non-Adventurers can participate as well.

Roughly only the Adventurers who had time on their schedule participated, so this already narrowed down the numbers considerably.

In addition, the number of participants will decrease even further in the main event.

Just what manner of people will make it to the final stage where they get to face off against my master or Altreed?

「Fu, fufu…fufufu…」

In a dormitory room reserved for the Demon King Castle.

I am currently sitting on a chair in the living room in front of the TV, awaiting the announcement about who qualified.

No, that’s not entirely accurate.

The results were already mailed to the party leader.

The announcement on the TV is about the remarkable parties that have passed.

「Milla, it’s about to start.」

I called out to the beautiful Vampire who had been sitting and staring at a Terminal screen while smiling all this time.

「Kuku, to think that the Warrior Alba would protect Lem. I thought he had muscles for brains but he exceeded my expectations. That aside…pant pant… speaking of Lem’s actions in the preliminaries…! It is enough to excite me even while editing it. I should send it to Nicola later.」

I wanted to look at it objectively, so I managed to get a copy of the video of the preliminaries.

I was watching it in my room, and Milla, who joined me, expressed interest in it, and she has been eagerly watching it over and over again ever since.

「But I must say, this system of visualizing the deeds of support party members is ingenious. Their relationship may be strained, but I must commend her Highness’s father.」

「Milla~.」

Milla was muttering something and then her shoulders twitched in surprise when I called her again.

「…! L-Lem. What is it?」　

「The program is about to start. You said you wanted to watch it too.」

「Oh my, is it time already?」

Milla moves her chair right next to mine and sits down.

She was close enough for me to feel her body heat and smell her scent.

Then, she once again takes my arm into hers.

「M-Milla…?」

「Despite it being my own intent to take part in the tournament, I was still lonely being away from you, Lem.」

Now that she’s mentioned it, I feel like Cashew, the Chief of Staff’s secretary, has been moving closer to me recently.

「Is…is it too much?」

She looks up at me with her puppy-dog eyes…there’s no way I can refuse that.

「No…it’s not.」

While all this was happening, the awaited program began.

I’m able to acquire a plethora of desired information in this special feature about the All-Heaven Festival Contest preliminaries.

Especially when it comes to extracting information that catches my eye…

『The world’s 7th ranked party, the Forest Silk Hero Demeter party, has passed the preliminaries with total points of 1300! Manipulating the trees like silk with Earth Magic, countless parties were crushed at the start!』[1. TL Note: Demeter is the Greek goddess of harvest and grain.]

『The world’s 6th ranked party, the Snow-White Hero Snow party has acquired approximately 1300 points! She has passed the preliminaries by putting on a brilliant show with her fairy-tale-like snow Spirit Magic that is a hit amongst women and children!』

All the other top ten parties have passed as well.

Regarding those that I have been recently involved with…

The 1st ranked Storm Hero Aerial party with 2300 points,

The 2nd ranked Jet-Black Hero Ex party with 1890 points,

The 3rd ranked Hero of the Cursed Sword Hervor party with 1570 points,

The 4th ranked Flame Hero Fenix party with 1080 points,

And the 5th ranked Thunder Hero Scathach party with 1550 points.

The 11th ranked Ash Hero Garo party also passes with 720 points.

『She’s in the top 100 parties, appears in the Hero Show, unraveled the mysteries behind the All-Level Dungeon, and went to war against the other leader and the Holy Paladin. The constantly talked about Silver Hero Nicola party, ranked 99th, has passed with 660 points! 』

『There’s still more! I’m sure many of you know her as an ally of the Demon King Army’s Chief of Staff during those Raid Battles! Leader of four studs, two are Black Sorcerers and the other two are White Sorcerers, the silver idol who dances magnificently through the battlefield! The 95th-ranked Undefeated Hero Ellie party has also passed the preliminaries with 710 points!』

『It’s not just Adventurers who did well! Among the thirteen parties led by captains from the Knights Order, twelve will actually be moving on to the next stage!』

The Scales of Justice Astrea party has passed the preliminaries with 800 points.

Each of the other eleven parties achieved excellent results.

『Five martial artists formed a party just to participate in the tournament, and each of them fought separately, yet still earning them 550 points, and the so-called Five Samurai party that hails from the east has collected 680 points and the appearance of various other dark horses set the venue ablaze with excitement.』

『Furthermore, Normals aren’t the only ones who are strong! Allow me to introduce strong Demi-Humans one after another~!』

『One of the Big Four hailing from the Impregnable Demon King Castle, the Reaper Knight Furcus party has 1650 points!』

『A Big Four from the same place, the Vampire Queen Carmilla party has 1260 points!』

『Yet another Big Four from the same castle, the Demon of Love Sitri party has 880 points!』

Furcus formed a party with three Dragonkin who work in the Demon King castle, as well as the Minotaur the Black Explorer Foras, a subordinate of Lemegeton.

As soon as the match started, she made her spear split into countless branches and pierced through the contestants in the vicinity, defeating them.

This skill that she revealed in the Raid Battle was officially registered as Forest of Spears.

While Furcus was focused on generally defeating a large number of enemies, Foras cooperated with her using his Black Magic.

The Dragonkin who prefer one-on-one battles went around and fought as they pleased.

Carmilla supposedly purchased a Magic Tool that was found in the Original Dungeon, but she did not use it this time.

Her party is formed of her adjutant Monster the Impaling Daughter Haagenti, the Lamia Evil Eye Assassin Botis, who is a subordinate of Lemegeton, and the remaining two slots were filled by Vampires.

Sitri leads a team of her subordinate Dream Demon maids, exercising the full power of Charm.

Using this, they manipulated the contestants to defeat other contestants.

In this situation, the person who cast Charm would get 5 points. Even if the target loses, it’s 5 points.

When someone is defeated in the preliminaries, there is a rule where the points are divided up between the last two people who dealt damage.

In relation to the Big Four, most of the parties consisting of the Big Fours from the North-South East-West Demon King Castles also passed.

The Barbatos party, the one the Dragon King Valac is in, passed with 470 points.

For instance, you would have to defeat a hundred people to earn 1000 points.

If you survive until the end, you will also earn the 10 points that were allotted to you, but no one is thinking about that in the middle of battle.

How to defeat your enemies and earn points is important.

With the number of remaining players dwindling by the minute, how many of us could have predicted that a single party would defeat over a hundred?

Those at the top are fearsome, but the points earned by the Barbatos party aren’t anything to scoff at if you look at it as a whole.

Incidentally, the show also touched upon the Wraith party.

『Having no rank since he just debuted, the young prodigy the Water Hero Wraith showed us great feats during the Raid Battle and his party has passed with a whopping 1150 points!』

『The composition of a party is always a super hot topic! When speaking of adding a Demi-Human to a Hero party, an Elf is common, but the Wraith party has a half-Cyclops and an Ogre. The other two are a young Destroyer and Black Sorcerer who left his party and started widening the scope of his activities. His party members are quite a collection of unique individuals.』

『Wraith, the contractor of the main Water Spirit, and his magnificent Spirit Magic! The Destroyer Fran with her overwhelming attack power! The White Sorcerer Josh with his meticulous and accurate support spells, and the Miner Melania with her devoted and fearsome club!』

『It is possible to see the scores of each member in the preliminaries, but would you believe that the Black Sorcerer Lem acquired 470 points!』

『Hm…?! Is that not the same amount of points as the entire Barbatos party as a whole? Considering one can get 5 points if a person is defeated with the help of support spells, aren’t these tremendous numbers?』

『Black Sorcerer is a Job that is generally treated coldly for various reasons, but surely no one can deny their contributions anymore after looking at these numbers.』

『Lem was originally from the 4th ranked party, so one cannot assume that…all Black Sorcerers are like this. But it can be said that this was a battle where the possibilities of a Black Sorcerer can be seen.』

『Speaking of Black Sorcerers, the Ellie party-』

And it went on like that for a reasonable amount of time.

Milla to my side looked very pleased.

Also, there is a reason that the points that we earned are slightly lower than those at the top.

Luck.

Which party will be taking part in which venue is completely random.

However, those with fixed workplaces, like Monsters, can’t really go to a venue that’s too far away. I mean, they can, but the burden is too great.

Therefore, priority will be given to venues that are close to their area of activity.

Also, it seems that adjustments were made so that people from the same workplace would not be on the field at the same time, for example, the date and time of the event being shifted even while they are at the same venue.

I agree with this arrangement.

If those of the same Dungeon banded together and cooperated, they would’ve had an unfair advantage during the match.

About that…I guess they decided that I already had no connections to the Fenix party despite being an ex-member.

Well, I suppose replacing party members isn’t a rare thing in this industry, so they thought that there was no way that I would join forces with them during the preliminaries.

At any rate, somehow, the venue we were assigned to just happened to have the 4th and 11th ranked party, the newest of the Four Great Spirits Contractors and his allies, a knight captain and her subordinates, and a selection of strong people, which includes the two Big Four from the Western Demon King Castle and a mysterious Giant.

As far as I could see and hear, there were few venues where so many talented people were thrown together.

There are many more people of interest, but the ones I pay special attention to are…

『Each of the rulers of the five Demon King Castles scored tremendous amounts of points and made it through the preliminaries!』

Beelzebub, Astaroth, Paimon, and Asmodeus are each the rulers of the North-South East-West Demon King Castles.

Each of the parties led by these Demon Kings all scored higher than 1500 points.

However, on this day, the party that gathered the most attention, pushing aside several other popular parties is none other than…

『We’ve touched upon the activities of several parties so far, but this next one took me quite a while to understand as well. The Demon King Lucifa party, of the Impregnable Demon King Castle, acquired a mind-boggling…』

The camera pans out, leaving as much space as possible for the number that is about to follow…

『…5000 points…!!!』

That’s right. Her Highness has acquired 5000 points.

In other words, they defeated everyone.

I watched the video but…what a sight it was.

The instant the match started, her Highness simply waved her hand and the entire field was engulfed in black flames, and in the next moment, the match was over.

She led a party consisting of one of the Big Four, the Time Demon Agares, the One-Horned Poet Amduscias, Lemegeton’s subordinate, and two giants who are normally deployed in the eleventh stratum, but the four of them didn’t move a muscle, as if knowing full well that it would turn out like this.

This was in direct opposition to how I preserved the Magical Energy in my horn, how Fenix, Wraith, and possibly Astrea as well, chose to fight without using their Spirit’s Magical Energy.

Her Highness unwaveringly unleashed the Magical Energy of her horns.

If the goal was to get through the preliminaries, then I don’t think the way we did it was wrong.

However, her Highness was sending a message.

A message to my master and to the world.

I am the strongest Demon King.

Milla and I are, once again, taught the true strength of our King.

And I was reminded of the true strength of my master.

Why? Well…I don’t really want to say it this way, but whatever her Highness can do…so can my master.

No matter how much she thinks she’s trained and grown.

It doesn’t hold a candle to my master.

That is how much of an absolute being he is.

And yet, this time, that is the person who is waiting at the very end.

The man who once disappeared from center stage is now stepping onto the stage of battle once more.

The All-Heaven Festival Contest is a battle to determine who is the strongest.

I don’t know what will happen in the main event, but I will probably have to fight my allies, depending on the situation.

Even so, when it comes to the right to become my master’s opponent…

…I won’t give it up to anyone.