“Alright, next is the Dark Queen,” Zeke said smugly.
“My name will remain… Dark Queen,” she declared.
“My age is sixty-seven.”
“Sixty—WHAT?!
That’s ancient!” Zeke blurted out.
The very same punch that had defeated the Grand Beetle slammed straight into Zeke’s cheek, sending him flying.
He stumbled back with a swollen face.
“We demons live long lives,” the Dark Queen snapped.
“Three times longer than humans. My age equals a human in their early twenties!”
She glared furiously at him.
“So then… why won’t you tell us your real name?” I asked.
She frowned deeper, annoyance crackling in the air.
“I said I don’t want to. ‘Dark Queen’ is perfectly fine.”
“Oh come on,” Zeke said, narrowing his eyes like a pest who smelled weakness.
“We’re supposed to build a world where humans and demons coexist when we get back home, right?
How are we gonna build trust if you can’t even tell us your NAME?”
As expected from someone with a nasty personality, he knew exactly where to poke.
The Dark Queen clenched her teeth, then finally muttered, barely audible:
“…It’s Mao.”
“What?!”
Rigan, Zeke and I shouted in perfect harmony.
She glared at all of us.
“I said… Mao. That’s my name.”
Zeke froze for a moment.
Then—
“Pff… pffffHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Mao?! Like meow?!
The terrifying Dark Queen is basically—
Queen Meow-Meow?!
BUAHAHAHAHAHA!!”
He collapsed to the ground, pounding the dirt with both hands as tears streamed down his face.
Mao—that is, the Dark Queen—was trembling violently, trying with all her might to contain her fury.
But Zeke wasn’t paying attention at all…
Not to her rising killing intent…
Not to her right hand slowly overflowing with pitch-black magical energy…
“Meow-meow! Hey, Queen Meow—HAHAHAHA!”
“That is EXACTLY why I didn’t want to tell you my name!!”
With a roar, her magic-infused uppercut crashed into Zeke’s jaw.
He shot straight upward into the sky, a human rocket vanishing beyond the clouds.
Only a faint twinkle remained where he disappeared.
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