Episode 30
“I am Brody, a rabbit living in Asgard. However, I was kidnapped from there with my companion and dragged to the Angevin Sea, where I was thrown as food to a sea monster, and that is how I ended up here.”
She spoke with more earnestness when telling the back story of what happened, but the Dark Lord asked back in a meaningful voice after hearing Brody’s introduction.
“…A rabbit that lived in Asgard?”
Let’s say that, for some reason, the Dark Lord didn’t show any particular reaction to anything after that.
Meanwhile, Brody began to feel a sense of anticipation at the Demon King’s seemingly interested attitude towards her.
The one before her was the Dark Lord who ruled over the belly of this sea monster! So, if she told him their situation, wouldn’t they be able to get help somehow?
Besides, the Dark Lord spoke to her, a mere beast, and didn’t act as scary as his name suggests, so there might be a slight possibility.
“I…Dark Lord?”
Brody, who had made up her mind, called out to him earnestly. Her voice resonated with sorrow.
“Why are you calling me?”
The Dark Lord answered. Brody confirmed that he was listening and slowly opened her mouth.
“As I said before, we are innocent people who were kidnapped and taken here to be treated like this. So please, have mercy on us and help us get out of this deep darkness…?”
It was a remark made with a lot of tension, as she was worried that he might be offended by the request she made at first sight and reject it.
A voice that sounded like he was pondering was heard from the Dark Lord, saying, ‘Hmm…’
After some time, as she was waiting anxiously, the Demon King spoke to Brody understandingly.
“I understand your unfortunate circumstances, so I will think about it.”
It was an unexpected and truly compassionate answer.
Brody jumped up from her seat and bowed repeatedly toward the direction where the answer came from.
“Thank you. Thank you very much, Your Majesty, the Dark Lord!”
***
Kyle opened his eyes a day after they were eaten by the sea monster.
The first thing he noticed when he woke up from a long sleep, due to shock, was that the bindings on his snout and forelegs were gone.
“Kyle, are you awake?”
Brody’s voice was heard as she approached him after hearing the noise.
But when Kyle opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything, and panicked.
“Your Majesty, Kyle is awake.”
Brody’s voice was clearly heard right in front of him, but his nose was blocked by an unknown stench, making it impossible to detect her presence.
But before he could become confused, Brody came gropingly towards him and made her presence known with her forepaws.
Then she explained, just in case he was surprised and thought that he had become blind like her.
“Kyle, there is nothing wrong with your eyes, it’s just dark here. This is the belly of a sea monster.”
“Belly…?”
Ah, only then did Kyle remember what happened before he lost consciousness.
That memory of being sucked into the mouth of a sea monster was still terrifying even if he only thought about it.
When he shuddered without realizing it, Brody looked surprised and said to him teasingly.
“Don’t worry, Kyle. We’re safe. The Dark Lord is watching over us.”
“The Dark Lord?”
As he was about to ask what that was, he heard a clear cough from somewhere as if responding to her words.
Kyle was surprised that there was anyone else here besides them.
Then, Brody whispered to him as if warning him in advance.
“He is the Demon Lord who rules over the darkness here. You must never be rude to him.”
The Demon King who rules the darkness here?
Kyle frowned as soon as he heard Brody’s words. Unlike Brody, who had been scared from the start, his rational mind was starting to work properly.
The only reason it was dark here was because it was inside the belly of a sea monster.
But, there was a being that went through the trouble of trying to control something so obvious.
Kyle immediately suspected the existence of the Demon King.
“Are you really the Dark Lord, or just someone who was eaten by this monster like us?”
“Kyle!”
Brody shouted at him to watch his mouth, but the Dark Lord, who had already heard him, showed his displeasure.
“How dare you spit out such nonsense to me. How presumptuous of you.”
Then Brody hit Kyle’s nose with her front paw and kept apologizing to the Dark Lord.
“I’m sorry, Demon King. This is because this wolf has lost his fear. Please don’t be so angry.”
“Wolf?”
A slightly bewildered voice came from the Dark Lord.
But that was only for a moment, as he spoke calmly and with a commanding tone.
“I understand why you act cocky as a wolf. But you have to be careful about who you are talking to.”
Still, Kyle was unimpressed. If he was truly fearsome, he would have instinctively sensed his aura.
But the owner of that voice right now had no such presence or aura, and that made Kyle not even feel nervous.
Of course, Brody, the thin-eared timid rabbit who seemed to have already been brainwashed, continued to speak to Kyle.
“Kyle, you don’t know, but… You shouldn’t make the Demon King angry. I did that before and it almost caused a big problem. You have to be careful.”
Kyle was still curious about the identity of the Demon King who was showing his satisfaction at the words of the terrified Brody, but he decided to wait and see for now since he didn’t think he would do any harm, whether he was the Dark Lord or whatever.
It was Brody who broke the bonds on Kyle’s mouth and front legs.
She was still struggling to cut the rope that bound Kyle’s hind legs with her sharp rabbit teeth.
“Kyle, wait a minute. I’m almost done.”
There was a sound of rope being tugged hard. Kyle listened to the sound and was lost in thought for a moment.
The question of what this sea monster would do to them had been on his mind for some time.
No matter how much he tried to figure out what their intentions were, he couldn’t figure out whether they were trying to keep them here and digest them as they were or not.
Finally, Kyle turned to Brody and asked,
“Do you know where the entrance we came in through is?”
“The entrance we came in through?”
Brody looked up from where she was cutting the rope. It seemed as if she knew what Kyle was thinking just from the question.
“If you’re thinking of leaving through the entrance, then don’t. The Demon King said the entrance is in the ceiling.”
“Are you sure?”
As the distrustful questions continued, Brody quickly answered, fearing that the Dark Lord might have heard.
“Why would the Demon King lie?”
“You still believe what other people say after getting screwed by that reindeer? How are you so sure he isn’t a conman like that guy?”
“Kyle, watch what you say!”
Brody cried out in shock. She believed that the Dark Lord would help them get out of here.
But Kyle kept making arrogant remarks, so she was worried that the Dark Lord might get angry and change his mind.
And that anxiety became reality because of Kyle’s rudeness.
“Hey you!”
The Dark Lord was angry when he heard Kyle say that he might be a fraud.
“I’ve been putting up with your rudeness for a while now, but you’re getting more and more extreme!”
Do you really want to taste my wrath?
A loud voice echoed through the room like thunder. Still, Kyle answered as if nothing had happened.
“Show me.”
Brody grabbed the back of her neck. She eventually went to where the Demon King was and cried out, lying flat on her stomach, to beg on Kyle’s behalf.
“We were wrong, Demon King! Please take away your wrath!”
But it seemed too late. An unidentifiable rumbling sound echoed through the sea monster’s stomach, and then the walls and floor of their stomach began to rumble.
“Your Majesty! Please forgive us!”
The situation was the same as last time, but Brody cried out desperately at the more violent movement. But there was no answer.
All that was heard was a frivolous scream, different from any voice she had ever heard before.
“Kyaaa!”
What is that? Could this be the Demon King’s voice?
But there was no time to wonder as the stomach that had been moving began to twist and the walls collapsed.
Inside the churning stomach, Kyle, Brody, and someone unknown were all entangled together.
The stomach twisted and tangled them like that. Soon it started pushing them somewhere.
“Aahh!”
A cacophony of screams echoed through the air, and they were swept away, along with the gastric juice, down a long passage.
Then, a flash of pure white light appeared from somewhere, and in that moment, their bodies were pushed out of the sea monster’s mouth.
Kyle and Brody fell to the cold floor and immediately felt the extreme cold. Their eyes hurt so much from suddenly coming out of a place where there was no light to a bright place that they couldn’t open them for a while.
After some time, they carefully lifted their eyelids and before them stretched out a vast expanse of blue sky and white snow-covered land.
While they were looking around wondering where on earth this place was…
“Ugh, ugh.”
The two of them turned around at the strange sound they heard, and blinked at the sight of a small animal that seemed to have come out of the monster with them.
It was a pure white animal with four legs and a long tail.
This animal had a fish head larger than its body around its head, and now it could not stand properly and was lying down struggling with the fish.
“Leave me alone! Oh my, I’m dying. Hey, someone pull this thing out of me.”
“D-demon King…?”
Brody opened her mouth, recognizing the frivolous voice that the Dark Lord often used in that infinite darkness.
Kyle and Brody quickly looked at each other in bewilderment.
Kyle walked over to him, throwing away the severed rope around his hind legs to walk properly.
Then he grabbed the fish head stuck on his small head and pulled it out with his mouth.“Ugh!”
Soon, a small head popped out of the fish’s head, and then the body twisted backwards.
“Heh, heh, oh my, I’m alive… .”
The two of them looked at the face of the beastman who had collapsed in the snow, panting for breath as his small body sank.
He had small, round ears and a sharp snout, making him look like a dog.
However, his snout was shorter than that of a dog, and his overall appearance was
closer to other similar animals.
After a while, the identity of the most likely animal came to Brody’s mind first, as she frowned and said.
“A fox?”
Yeah, a fox.
The identity of the terrifying Dark Lord was none other than a fox.
***
TL:
I am back! Working on the other chapters and will publish them successively through today 💕
