"Finally... I finally reached you..."

For the last several dozen years, humans and demons have been at war with each other.

The demons had all of a sudden decided to conquer human territories and take them over one day.

There had been mutual peace between the races in the past, but that was now nonexistent due to the advance of the demons.

"World peace" seemed like such a faraway ideal at the current time.

Due to the demons' continuous advances, a hero needed to be called in order to rectify the situation.

There wasn't enough mana or sorcerers to summon a hero from another world, so they had to settle for a hero from this world.

As stated by the prophecy given by a diviner, there would be a baby boy born one day with the crest of the hero.

Many people thought this was just ramblings from an old hag, but that was soon proven wrong.

A black-haired baby boy was born into this world with the crest of the hero on the back of his hand.

The young boy's name was Takei Tanaka.

Flash forward several years later, the boy finally reached the demon lord's castle after surviving many atrocious battles.

He was ready to kill the demon lord who had caused all of this chaos, the hero was ready to take the demon lord's life with his own hands.

"Demon Lord! Show yourself!" Takei roared.

As he entered the audience hall, Takei noticed that something strange was going on.

"Father, you need to stop this war! Our people and the humans don't want to fight anymore, there's already enough bloodshed!"

There was a girl that seemed to be about his age with some small black horns that was apparently arguing with her father.

If he remembered correctly, then this was most likely the demon lord's daughter, Akari.

"Close your mouth, daughter o' mine. I will not end this war until us demons have conquered the world. This is nothing more than a natural course of action that we were always meant to take."

Right next to Akari was none other than her father, the demon lord that Takei so desperately wanted to kill.

"Is that so?" Akari indifferently asked. "I guess this is where we part ways then."

Taking out two daggers, Akari dashed forward toward the demon lord with intense bloodlust in her eyes.

Even if they were father and daughter, it didn't look like she was holding back at all.

Maybe she could be an ally?

Takei thought it would be a hard task to take on the demon lord by himself, but it would be significantly easier if he had a partner to rely on.

Even if she is the demon lord's daughter, it doesn't sound like she wants any more fighting between the races...

As he pondered this, the demon lord barely managed to block Akari's lightning fast attack.

Takei had been in the room for a decent amount of time, but neither of them had noticed his presence yet.

"Perfect time for a sneak attack... [Invisible]" Takei whispered.

[Invisible] was one of Takei's most favorite spells because it was an incredibly helpful multi-use spell.

It would cloak the user and make it so that no noise could be heard from them.

Takei began to make his way towards the demon lord's back while he was occupied with fending Akari off.

However, the dauntless and frightening demon lord would not be felled by a spell of this simple calibur.

"Intruder!" The demon lord roared as he swung at the invisible air that was surrounding him.

"Tch... So close..." Takei clicked his tongue.

He was only moments away from landing a sneak attack on the demon lord, which made Takei incredibly frustrated.

"The hero...?" Akari's eyes widened.

Takei backed out of the range of the demon lord to converse with Akari for a moment. "Yeah yeah, I'm here to fight the demon lord. What about you?"

Depending on her answer, this could go two ways...

"I'm here to kill the demon lord and take over as the new demon lord. I want to end this war and all of this horrid bloodshed, a peaceful world is what I wish for," Akari stated.

Hearing her reasoning, Takei had only one choice to take. "Then, I'll lend you my strength. Let's take him down together!"

Unsheathing his sword, Takei dashed forward while chanting many spells. "[Greater Armor Penetration] [Protective Shield] [Slowness] [Stagger]"

He had managed to buff himself while also debuffing the demon lord at the same time.

Just before the hero's blade was about to make contact, the demon lord dodged and counterattacked immediately.

"Fast!" Takei grunted. "It's your turn, demon girl. Buy me some time!"

"Understood!" Akari replied.

Akari ran up and began to parry and block the demon lord's attack while Takei took some time to gather mana for his strongest spell.

My master had warned me against using this spell due to the immense strain that it would put on my body, but there won't be a better time than now to use it. A one-shot spell that has a high chance of hitting, all I have to do is endure.

"Alright, this should be enough mana," Takei said. "Hey demon girl! Run away!"

"Got it!" She yelled back.

Once he noticed that Akari was out of the way, Takei unleashed his strongest spell at his disposal. "Goodbye demon lord, I hope you rot in hell for what you've done..."

"[Extinction Ray]"

A ray of pure energy bursted out of Takei's hands and pierced the demon lord's body with incredibly accuracy.

As the ray continued to pierce the demon lord, the only thing that could be heard were his pained screams. "Arghhhhhh!"

After a few more moments, there was nothing left but ash on the ground at the location where the demon lord originally was.

"Haaah... We did it! Hero, we- Hero?!" Akari screamed.

As a result of using such an overwhelmingly destructive spell, the recoil was also overwhelmingly destructive.

Takei was barely surviving with an ounce of life left, as he collapsed to his knees.

I managed to survive the initial pain of starting the spell, but this recoil hurts like crazy!

Akari quickly rushed over to him and laid his head on her lap. "Are you okay, Hero?"

"Ah, yeah. Hurts like hell, but I'll probably be okay."

"Thank goodness, I thought you were going to leave me with cleaning up the aftermath of everything," Akari chuckled.

"Aftermath?"

Akari pouted and looked at Takei as if he was an idiot when he muttered something so obvious. "The world won't exactly be peaceful right away, you know that right?"

"Ah... I forgot about that."

"Don't worry, I found out that the easiest way to a peaceful world would be a political marriage."

"Political marriage...?" Takei asked, clearly not following the situation.

"Please take care of me, my dear."

"..."

It was at this moment when Takei finally realized what she meant.

My wife's the demon lord?!

—

Last SS for this volume.