Demon Lord, Discovering the World

"What do you mean by 'familiar'?! Soul and eternal loyalty are way heavier than a marriage certificate!"

The cat-eared girl, now known as Lizelritt, grabs my collar and shakes me vigorously.

Even in this era, they have marriage certificates, huh.

"Demon Lord, an outlaw... Well, I am the Demon Lord, so I guess that makes sense."

The Hero looks at me with a disdainful gaze, as if looking at filth. The contract is done, and it seems he can speak now.

And he seems satisfied with his own statement. Yes, I'm a bad guy, an outlaw, and a Demon Lord.

"As for what a familiar is... Well, asking won't help. You'll understand quicker through experience. Order: Lizelritt, sit, then shake hands."

Lizelritt, who was shaking me, sits down, aligning her four legs, and places her round, balled-up hand on the one I offered.

"Woof! ...Wait! Aaaah! Why am I obeying your commands!?"

After shaking hands, she's scared of her body moving on its own.

"Well, when you say 'cat,' isn't a familiar the first thing that comes to mind? And isn't absolute obedience to the master's orders part of being a familiar?"

"I don't get it at all!"

Lizelritt is almost in tears.

Hmm, explaining fantasy concepts to someone from a sci-fi world might be tough.

"Well, let's just chalk it up to falling for marriage fraud and resign ourselves to life, okay?"

I pat Lizelritt's shoulder with a gentle smile.

"Noooo! I just retired voluntarily from the mercenary corps, I can't resign myself to life, no way!"

She's crying on the ground... but somehow, I sense some resilience in her.

To voluntarily retire from work so casually... I shouldn't let my guard down after all.

It's embarrassing for a Demon Lord to be caught off guard by a familiar, so I'll have to be more careful from now on.

◇

After finishing her sobbing and crying, Lizelritt calmed down as well. Screams and tears make for a good reaction, thanks for that.

Once things settled down, it was time for introductions.

"I'm Igusa, the Demon Lord summoned from Earth."

"I'm Lime, the Hero also summoned from Earth."

"Ugh... sniff... I'm Lizelritt. Citizen of the Adram Empire. Formerly of the 1113th Mercenary Corps, I was a mechanic."

"Using titles every time is a hassle. Igusa, Lime, Lizel, can we just call each other by our names?"

"Yeah, that works better for me too."

The Hero's response is surprisingly indifferent.

Perhaps he's not convinced about the familiar situation, as his gaze still feels piercing.

"Yes... sniff"

Lizel is still not done crying. She really does react to everything.

If her speech ended with "nya," I might have been tempted to test her patience in an erotic way. I need to be careful.

"Well then, Lizel. Could you tell us about the situation in this country? Igusa and I were summoned with almost no explanation, so we don't know anything."

While sniffling, Lizel proceeded to explain.

Firstly, about Lizel's country.

They claim ownership of numerous planets and star systems, so it must be quite a large-scale nation.

Its name is the "Adram Empire." Despite being called an empire, it's not a dictatorship ruled solely by an emperor.

Similar to Japan in the original world, while there remains royalty and an imperial family as symbols of authority, the political system operates through planetary and regional representatives in an imperial parliament, akin to a representative democracy.

The country is one of the largest in the universe, but not the only one of its kind; it seems they are in a power struggle with other large nations.

What surprised me was that the majority of its citizens are not native extraterrestrials of the Adram Empire but rather humans of Earth origin.

From the perspective of the original Earth, this world is either a parallel universe or a far-future version, so it's honestly unexpected to find humans of Earth origin here.

About 1,200 years ago, humans of Earth origin immigrated here to establish the country. They created a nation, and hybrid beings called beastmen were produced by crossbreeding humans and animals for labor and companionship purposes initially, establishing a relationship of rulers and serving species.

Naturally, there were discriminations and such in the beginning, but over time, as interbreeding progressed, those distinctions faded away, and now they live together under the name "Adram people" without barriers.

Lizel also displays characteristics of a beast-type, so she's considered part of the Adram people.

By the way, Earth, far away, has been in isolation within the solar system for many years.

Active in the far reaches of the planet's sky are the fleets of the Adram Empire and, according to the Adram Empire's maps, located to the south—though it's space, directions are used for convenience—the fleets of the Feerheit religious state engaged in war.

It's been about 20 years since a space war of this scale occurred.

The Feerheit religious state is a united nation comprising many intelligent life forms despite being a single religion.

It operates under semi-autocratic rule centered around a pope and bishops, accepting any species into the religion or converting them regardless of their original beliefs.

While the proportion is not as high as in the Adram Empire, it seems there are also humans of Earth origin mixed among their citizens.

Regarding war, I, as the Demon Lord, was hoping for a total war where one side would nearly perish, but fundamentally, it's more about who gets the taxes and drawing lines between spheres of influence. It seems the impact of war is limited to economic effects on citizens, merchants, and corporations, and an increase in space debris and space garbage beyond that.

If civilians are killed, productivity drops, making invasion pointless, and stopping civilian economic activities causes tax revenue and productivity to drop, leading to multinational corporations being turned away and becoming miserable.

So, it's essentially a dry war where armies and army members fight each other and destroy each other's bases and ships.

Lizel belonged to a small mercenary unit that had contracted with the Adram Empire, a small assault landing ship with only two onboard aircraft.

Originally, Lizel had no intention of being a mercenary and thought she was applying for a normal merchant ship mechanic recruitment, but it seems she was deceived by the job advertisement.

The assault landing ship was heavily damaged soon after the war began, so her luck was still poor.

While maintaining combat aircraft during the sinking of the ship, Lizel seized the opportunity to escape alone (calling it a retirement bonus, according to herself).

It was good that she managed to escape from a sinking ship, but she encountered and was shot down by drones of the Feerheit side and crashed here where we are now.

◇

"Well, I get that you're proactive, but you sure have bad luck."

"Please don't say that, Igusa-samaaa!"

In response to my comment, Lizel started shaking my body again with tears in her eyes.

By the way, maybe it's because of the familiar contract, but she can't call me by my first name and has to use "-sama"... Did I set up such a thing in the familiar contract?

Anyway, about the star we were summoned to.

In this star, even within the Adram Empire's sphere of influence, there were humanoid intelligent life forms that resembled Earth humans closely enough to interbreed. ...That's in the past tense now.

Shortly after the founding of the Adram Empire, when the planet was discovered, its civilization was still in the medieval era, so they observed without making contact.

However, even after 600 years, the civilization remained in the medieval era.

I suppose there might have been fantasy elements like battles between Demon Lords and Heroes contributing to this stagnation of civilization.

Eventually, out of impatience, the Adram Empire made contact and rapidly pushed for modernization. But as expected, this led to overpopulation, environmental destruction, resource depletion, and eventually civil wars based on ethnicity and religion. It ended with contamination so severe that the planet became uninhabitable, due to fierce battles with dangerous weapons.

It's hopeless. Or rather, it's sad that there's no room for Demon Lords to manipulate or scheme.

As the planet's environment deteriorated and the population dwindled, the inhabitants abandoned the planet and scattered into the surrounding universe, including to the Adram Empire and the Feerheit religious state.

Listening to all this explanation, Lime looked into the distance with a sorrowful expression.

There's nothing more to say but "my condolences."

A Hero without any backing or anything to protect, just a homeless wanderer...

◇

"Nobody lives on this planet, huh?"

"Yes. Actually, nobody can live here. Even the pollution-resistant environment suits can't endure for long, so it's strange that living beings can survive here."

Lizel lamented with a sniffle. It seems she still hasn't fully believed in magic.

"Well then, I guess... We've decided on our immediate goal."

"Yeah. There's no point in being on an uninhabited planet."

Lime also seemed to agree. There's no work for demons or heroes where there are no people, and while they can manage with environmental adaptation magic, they don't want to linger on a polluted, uninhabited planet.

"So, should we think about how to escape from this planet? Lizel, any good ideas?"

"Even if I repair this child, it's impossible to escape the atmosphere... and with the low number of seats, it'll be packed to capacity just to fly."

Indeed, it looked tight enough with just Lizel on board; fitting three people into that cramped cockpit would be challenging.

"Did the mothership Lizel was on crash here on this planet?"

"Yes. We crashed within the atmosphere... and soon after, unmanned autonomous fighters for interception arrived, so we couldn't fly very far."

"Huh? Isn't that strange? Even though it's an assault landing ship, it's still a spacecraft. Why was it within the atmosphere?"

"Well, you see..."

According to Lizel's explanation, assault landing ships come in two types: one type specializes in close combat, deploying assault pods carrying marines to infiltrate and conquer from within enemy ships, while the other type descends from space to occupy ground facilities on planets.

The assault landing ship Lizel was on was a hybrid type capable of both.

"Was it a good ship you were on?"

"It's just that the model is old... Ships specialized in either type are much more advanced."

Being able to enter the atmosphere was advantageous for sneaking up on enemy forces, but they were quickly detected. Multiple descent pods equipped with unmanned autonomous fighters for atmospheric combat were dropped from orbit, and Lizel was overwhelmed by a swarm of these fighters.

"Can that assault landing ship escape the atmosphere?"

"Of course. It's inefficient to leave it just for descent."

"Well... Igusa, could it work?"

"Yeah, it's worth looking for. Lizel, do you know where the mothership crashed?"

If it crashed from beyond the atmosphere and turned into a meteor, it might still be salvageable.

"If the beacon identification emitter wasn't dead, maybe. If it's dead, I can't say how long it'll take to find... "

"Can you check?"

"Y-yes. I'll go... Why did I respond like that!?"

It seems Lizel is getting used to being my familiar.

While crying, Lizel fiddled with the fighter's equipment and quickly found the mothership's location.

If this fighter can fly, it'll take less than 10 minutes; if we walk, it'll easily take a week. Fortunately, since it crashed on the same continent, we won't need to cross the sea—no need to traverse a desert-like area filled with finely granulated, mobile pollution crystals instead of seawater.

"Lizel, can't you repair this fighter?"

"One of the two reactors is physically damaged. Even if it's secondhand or junk, we need replacement parts to fly... "

The engines of the fighter Lizel was on. It has two reactors; while one could suffice for gliding or emergency landings, both are needed for takeoff and ascent within the atmosphere.

Upon inspection, there were two spherical components between the wings about the size of basketballs. The one on the left side was significantly damaged, resembling a bitten apple, possibly from a direct hit by a beam or something similar.

"...Hey, Lizel. I'm not an expert, but why are critical components like these located here and exposed?"

"Originally, this type of fighter... is classified as Class 5... um, it's specialized for attacking reconnaissance and retaliation functions."

I see, it's specialized for reconnaissance... well, I understand why it's designed to assume it will take hits.

Apparently, being in this position and exposed maximizes operational efficiency and allows for higher output. Adding armor reduces output.

"But even so, having such an exposed weak point led to the model being discontinued. So it was carried by a weak mercenary squad."

"...I see."

Am I having too many illusions about aliens and future people?

Sometimes even future people and aliens create seriously silly things... Yeah.

Alright then... It might be possible with this size.

"How long has it been since it was hit?"

"Um... a little over two hours? What are you going to do?"

"Time-Space Magic Activate: Time Reversal"

I chanted the magic while placing my hand on the reactor.

Despite being an energy generator, it consumes magic power intensely.

Slowly, I rewound the reactor's time... back to its state before it was destroyed... and done.

It must have been destroyed in an instant. Once I reversed time to a certain extent, I restored it all at once. Like how a wobbly pudding returns to its original form, smoothly.

"Whaaaaat!? What on earth is happening!?"

"It's magic."

"It's magic, yeah."

"This is ridiculous! It's too unscientific! Why does something physically disappeared casually come back like this!?"

With tears in her eyes, Lizel shook her head, lamenting the gap between common sense and reality.

Lizel, you'd better throw away your common sense.

But don't throw away your common sense. It's more fun that way.

"Igusa, what kind of magic is this? I'm interested."

"It's a Time-Space Magic from the Law Magic Skill Tree. Spatial Magic LV10 and... I don't know the rest of the conditions. It consumes too much magic power, so honestly, I can't recommend it."

"That's a shame. I don't have enough skill points to max out Spatial Magic, so it's a waste."

Lime looked disappointed and lonely.

"Lizel. With that said, I'll leave the repair of the fighter to you."

I fixed the most critical part, but since it scraped the ground when it crash-landed, it will need some emergency repairs.

I cast the Environmental Adaptation Magic for the three of us again, extending the duration...

"Law Magic Activate: Environmental Adaptation V / Duration Extension VII / Increased Targets III"

Lizel took a sheet from her survival bag and lay down on the ground to take a nap.

With the contract with Lizel and the repair of the reactor, I did something unfamiliar that consumed a lot of magic power. I'm so sleepy that if I relax, I might just collapse and sleep right here.

Is this what it feels like when your MP drastically decreases and you feel exhausted in a fantasy RPG-like manner?

I feel like Lizel is still yelling something, but I can't fight off this drowsiness... Good night.