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South gate:

“Heh, going well, isn’t it?”

Gilmars and Lucifeyr exchanged blows with their swords. No matter how you looked at it, Gilmars had the upper hand.

Perhaps it was due to the state of affairs, but none of Gilmars’ party members interfered in his one-on-one fight with Lucifeyr. Another reason was, that they knew they’d only get in his way, instead of helping.

“Curses…”

Lucifeyr was awfully perplexed. The barriers that should have been destroyed by Beal, were instantly restored, but the main reason was, that the man, he was confronting, turned out far stronger than he expected.

Lucifeyr saw himself as the lowest of the low. However, in regard to his own strength, he was quite confident. In fact, he was the strongest among the four archdemons.

“Kh… Matchless Light!”

He turned towards Gilmars and fired off the strongest light attribute spell. Still, Gilmars handled his sword well, chopping up the ray of light and negating it completely.

“You… Even though you’re a demon, you use light attribute magic?”
“…Tch…!”
“What the hell, light attribute attacks against you aren’t very effective, and you started attacking with light magic right from the start… Are you really a demon?”

Gilmars’ doubts were right on target, though no one but Lucifeyr knew that.

“How persistent… I… have to do it… My true identity doesn’t matter. I… will bring you down!”
“…I see.”

Lucifeyr coiled an aura around his sword, readied it in an overhead position and struck. A single high-powered strike at what looked like the speed of light.

Gilmars, however, evaded that attack easily. Due to the miss, Lucifeyr’s stance¹ broke momentarily, allowing Gilmar’s to cut up his flank with his sword.

“Ghah~!?”

Lucifeyr’s expression warped in pain, but he immediately turned his body and thrust the word he was holding at Gilmars. But he never felt the stab connect. Gilmars had moved his body to the side, as if he knew this attack was coming, and then hit Lucifeyr on the side of his abdomen with the flat of the sword.

“Guh!”

Since that caused Lucifeyr to flinch momentarily, Gilmars aimed at the flank where he’d cut him before and struck him with a hammer, he’d taken out unnoticed.

“Argh~~!?”

At last, Lucifeyr collapsed.

“…Why… why can’t I win? I… I…”
“Well, it’s not that you’re weak, you know. I’m simply a bad match for you,” Gilmars explained, as he pinned the collapsed Lucifeyr down with one arm and pointed his sword at him.
“A bad… match?”
“That’s right. I can intuit my opponent’s next action. It’s thanks to my skill… Battle Master. Well, that’s not the only thing Battle Master does, but…”

With the hand that wasn’t holding a sword, Gilmars scratched his chin, where a beard was growing.

“In other words, it was impossible for you to beat me.”

Lucifeyr, perhaps because he sensed something from those words, immediately let the sword drop from his hand, and started to cry quietly, with an expression of resignment.

“I understand… Enough already, it’s my complete loss… I couldn’t even save the one I love… Kill me!”
“The one you love?” Gilmars asked. ” Is the demon god the one you love?”

But Lucifeyr shook his head.

“The one I love… is no demon. She’s a fully-fledged human.”
“Huh~… A human? A demon wants to save… a human?”

Lucifeyr closed his eyes slowly, as if he was thinking about something.

“…That’s right. But… that’s because I originally wasn’t a demon.”
“You’re… a former human, is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, it’s just like that. I was a man called Herrell who came from the Mephilad Kingdom. But now… I’m different.”

When he heard that name, Gilmars stared in wonder and surprise.

“T-then you’re… no, I should call you Sir²… Are you… the previous hero, Sir?”
“Me… the hero… You may be right. But now I’m one of the demon’s leaders.”

Lucifeyr, or rather, Herrell denied being the hero. He looked as if he didn’t want to be called that.

“Then, what’s the esteemed former hero doing as a leader of the demons?”
“…About that… It’s so I can resurrect the one I love… my fiancée… Elle³.”
“Elle…?”

Gilmars remembered that name… No, everyone who had this world’s general education, without exception, had heard this name once.

“You said Elle… Sir… wasn’t she the princess who became the demon god’s sacrifice back then?”
“That’s right… I wanted to save her,” at that, particularly large teardrops fell from Lucifeyr’s eyes.
“Say… Mr. Herrell, what in the world happened to you, Sir?”
“…You want to know? Let me tell you, then… what really happened a long time ago… at least from your perspective.”

TL notes:
Another episode in the “Master-skills are completely OP”-series. That definitely sounded like an awfully one-sided beatdown. Either Amon did a terrible job with his prophecies or the archdemons being defeated was part of the plan from the beginning.

Also, the orginal chapter title uses 堕天 (“fall/descend heaven”). 堕天使 means “fallen angel” (e.g. Lucifer in the bible).

1. Likely the same typo as last chapter, mixing up 体制 and 体勢.
2. Gilmars switches from the rough お前 “you” to the slightly more polite あんた “you”. To be honest, Sir is too polite for how he talks, but I’m not sure how to reflect the change otherwise.
3. The original is エル (Eru). This might also be “El”, “Ell” or directly “Eru”.