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“With this, I can finally go home… It’s been so long. I can see my wife again and everyone from the troupe, and I can also play video games again…”

I looked at Mephistophales, who was trying to end the conversation without asking.

Now… I’ve put my thoughts in order as what to do with him. I’ll leave it to the people of this world. After all, I can’t make a judgement by myself.

“Hm!? Is something wrong, Miss Alim?”
“No… I was just thinking… is it really fine if we end it like this?”
“W-what do you mean, Ayumu?”

Mika was perplexed, when I suddenly said something like this. Mephistophales, on the other hand, had a blank look.

“Well, after all. It doesn’t matter how much of a demon he became… what he did wasn’t merely on the level of bothering lots of people… You know that, Mika, don’t you?”
“Y-yeah. That’s clear, but…”
“To arbitrarily send someone like that to earth without any reproach from this country, especially its king… would it be alright… for just me to decide that?” I explained, while gazing at Mephistophales.

He, who’d been in high spirits until now at the prospect of going home, looked like he grasped that I was giving this some serious thought.

“Er… yes, you’re right. I have to agree…” he said.
“Besides, I also got you killed once, Mika, due to Mephistophales’ participation. Even if it was Samaeyl who directly killed you.”

I hugged Mika strongly, once more.
She feels pleasantly warm.

“Uh…”

“Because of that, Mephistophales… Wait, what is your real name…?”
“I-It’s Aijou Mitsuo¹. In Japan, I acted as the leader of a circus troupe.”
“…Well, Mr. Mitsuo. Please stay in this world for a bit longer. Then, you will be judged by the laws of the countries of this world. I cannot pardon you. Perhaps the king won’t do so, either. Because of that…”²　

I separated from Mika and brought the king’s corpse there in an instant.

“Let’s ask him, how he would punish you.”
“…Yes,” Mephistophales confirmed after a long pause.

The light of hope faded from his eyes.
He didn’t think he could go home immediately, did he? At any rate, let’s revive the king… Oh, but there’s something we need to do before bringing him back to life.

“Still, Mr. Mitsuo. There’s one thing we need to do before you’re being judged. Let’s make the item that connects world to world first. I’d like to remove Samaeyl from you quickly.”
“Of… of course.”
“Mika, though he probably won’t do anything funny, please watch out, so you can deal with it anytime.”
“Yeah.”

I removed Mephistophales’ restraints. It looked like Mika was keeping ready to shoot off magic at any moment, as I asked of her.

“Here, please drink this,” I held out an Amrita to him.
“That’s the one from before…”
“That’s right, it’s called an Amrita Potion. It’s an exceptional item that completely restores HP and MP, and returns the body to normal.”
“I-I see, then I’ll gratefully accept it.”

Mephistophales downed the Amrita Potion in a single gulp. Then, the wings on his back grew back. His magic power also seemed to return to how it originally was.

“…I got my MP back, right?”
“In that case, you know, make me create the item with your Forced Contract.”
“Yes, ‘Create the item to travel worlds’ for ‘my sake’!”

As he chanted that, Dark Matter spread out from me and, first something that looked like a stone statue, and then numerous sheets of paper appeared in front of us. Then, I automatically affixed all those sheets of paper onto the statue, forming a body.³　

My body moves on its own accord. As I thought, the Forced Contract is pretty scary.

When I took a closer look at it, once it was completed… it turned out to be Lord Jizou⁴…

Unconsciously, I turned in Mika’s direction. She looked as if she felt the same I did, when we exchanged glances.

“It’s… Lord Jizou, but why?” Mephistophales’ voice brought me back to my senses.

He also looked as if he had doubts. No one would’ve expected Lord Jizou to be a transporter.⁵　

Oh, and also after that. Since I was completely distracted by Lord Jizou, I forgot about it for a moment, but Mephistophales’ Forced Contract should require some compensation. I wonder how he plans to deal with that.

“Say, Mr. Mitsuo. What are the details of the contract?” I asked him. “Back then, you said you needed to pay some sort of price, didn’t you?”
“If I were to leave Anazumu, I’d lose my demon powers… you know. I no longer need them.”
“I see.”

Right after he said that, Mephistophales placed his hand onto Lord Jizou’s head.

“Besides, it should be fine, if I pour in the power of the demon god. That’s what the demon of prophecy said,” he added, as his hands laid on top of the statue.

I sensed the power of the demon god flow from those hands.

How in the world does that Lord Jizou function?

I was curious, so I tried to appraise it, but I couldn’t get any details. It was of divine grade, but there was nothing in the description column, except for “Jizou connects different worlds”.
Even I cannot fully appraise it, how strange.

Mephistophales finished pouring Samaeyl’s magic power into Lord Jizou and took his hands of its head. Moreover, it looked like his wings had also completely disappeared. The statue, on the other hand, started to shine.⁶　

“With this… is this alright?” he asked.
“Yep. Please let me restrain you again, then. Even if you try to resist, it won’t do you any good, alright?”
“…Of course,” he confirmed after another long pause.

While I restrained Mitsuo again, who was still in demon form, this time more lightly than before, I put the Jizou statue into my magic pouch for the time being.

…We should try whether we really can go home or not. Later.

“Then I’ll revive the king next and give him a status report. Since we can’t do anything about Mr. Mitsuo on our own.”

I took out an Amrita and made the King drink it.⁷ A few minutes later, he opened his eyes.

“Mh… oh, huh?”
“I wish you a good morning, your Majesty.”
“Oh, Alim…?! For some reason, a black haze fell from the sky, and then everyone…”
“I know. I am able to deal with it.”
“…From the looks of it, you are, aren’t you? However… can’t you tell me, what that was? I don’t understand the situation. Still, it looks like you were able to capture the demon who kidnapped Karua.”

The king glared at Mephistophales. I felt an enormous amount of magic power from him… He got angry, which was understandable. I unhurriedly told the king what happened, down to the most important details, leaving out anything about earth.

“I see… In other words, that demon was originally human?”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“Therefore… you thought to ask me, how to deal with him.”
“Indeed.”
“Well… personally, I’d say capital punishment. However, we will need to discuss this with the kingdom’s leadership. For now, we shall put him in jail. First… we should prioritize bringing the citizens and everyone back to life.”
“Understood… Then… Oh, could you please wait for a bit, your Majesty?” I called out to the king, who was about to head somewhere, causing him to stop.

Something just occurred to me.

“What is it?”
“Please give me some time… just a bit.”

I took Mika’s hand. She looked at me in surprise.
She probably can’t understand my intention.

“A bit… of time? Why?”
“I want to discuss various efficient tools to bring people back to life with Mika, your Majesty.”
“Hrm… Well, understood. Be as quick as possible, will you?”
“Thank you very much.”

I took out the magic room⁸ and went inside together with Mika. Mika’s face gave off a “What in the world is this about?” vibe, but in truth, I hadn’t shut us inside the magic room to discuss tools.

Currently, there is something Mika and I need to do in here, you see… Testing whether… we could go back to Japan before Mephistophales or not.

TL notes:
I’m curious if Alim will involve himself in Mephistophales’ trial. If he doesn’t, it probably won’t end well for the clown, seeing they now know that capital punishment becomes useless when people can simply be revived and thus might resort to something more extreme.

That is, of course, if Alim won’t simply go back to Japan with Mika, now that they have an interdimensional teleporter.

1. The original is 愛長 光. I checked later chapters, where he is called 愛長 光夫 and decided to check names for 光夫 instead of just 光. 光夫, the first name, could either be Mitsuo or Hikario. A (much) later chapter confirms his first name as Mitsuo. 愛長, the last name, doesn’t seem to exist in Japan. 長愛 is a last name, pronounced as Chouai, so I decided to switch the syllables (thanks to Kemm for pointing out, that the “ch” becomes a “j” in that case). 愛長 is apparently also a very old fashioned (and embarrassing) female name in Chinese.
2. This might also mean “I won’t forgive you and maybe the king won’t either”, though this doesn’t seem to be very in-character for Alim at this point.
3. In the original it says 地蔵 (Jizou) here, which doesn’t make much sense when he only takes a closer look in the next sentence and finds out it’s actually Jizou.
4. There are a few variations here in the original: 地蔵, 地蔵様, お地蔵様 and 幻転地蔵様. It refers to Jizou, a bodhisattva from Buddhism. It was previously translated as Lord Jizou, Phantasmal Jizou and Genso Jizo.
5. The original is 転送装置, which, according to Jisho, is the widely know Star-Trek transporter. Not sure if it was intended like this, it’s also possible to read it as two words 転送 (“transfer”) 装置 (“equipment”).
6. So, what happened to the demon god’s soul? Does she now inhabit a device that enables interworld travel? That honestly sounds like an awful idea.
7. There was a paragraph here about Alim going to fetch the king’s corpse, but he already did so earlier in this chapter, so I removed it.
8. There’s a typo in the original, saying “magic pouch” instead of “magic room”.