Bofuri (The Strongest Shield Of Tensura)

Chapter 147 - One Hundred And Forty Seven

A white manor. A garden lined with colorful blossoms. The young girl’s smile and a boy watching over her. It was a vivid, unfaded memory of happier times, and he wished to gain that happiness back.

But it was difficult. He built a manor a city of gold, with a beautiful garden that seemed to re-create the paradise of heaven up above. It was even more splendorous, even more impressive than what his memories told him. But no matter where he looked, he just couldn’t find the final piece of the puzzle. Even with his power enough force to become one of the great pillars supporting the entire world he was unable to get his beloved girl back. If she couldn’t be found, the smile would never return to his face. He had, after all, established all of this for the sake of that one young girl.

His name was Leon Cromwell, a demon lord known as the Platinum Saber. And the name of the girl he searched for...

"Lord Leon, the Maple Tree delegation have entered our air space."

Leon rested his chin on his fist, leaned back on his throne like chair. His long hair tied back in a ponytail shone a beautiful gold color, a stark juxtaposition to the gloominess of his long eyes. Standing at attention next to him was Arlos, the Silver Knight, his adviser and one of his closest confidants.

Leon scrutinized Arlos’s words. This supposed meeting with Maple Tree, set up by them of course, he wouldn’t reach out to such a chaotic cauldron so readily, was to discuss a rather important topic, at least to him.

He wasn’t sure how they figured out that he was after summoned otherworlders, but they did, and then they asked for a meet between the two nations.

Kaede herself was an otherworlder, and from the look of things, Sally was one as well, if their reactions were anything to go by.

Was she looking for someone in particular as well? Or did she have a supply of otherworlders that she wanted to give him? So many theories, ones which annoyed the Demon Lord to no end.

Unfortunately, no matter how much Leon disliked getting involved with the likes of Kaede, the chances of finding the girl he was looking for, while slim, could be improved with whatever information Maple Tree had to give him, so he couldn’t just turn them away, no matter how much he wanted to.

Besides, his usual approach really had too many unknowns to it. In fact, the chances of success were astronomically low. It would’ve been foolhardy to expect success from the start. He was, after all, being far too specific with the type of summons he wanted.

He had sent orders to his team, having them perform summonings on multiple occasions. Over thirty summoners aided in the effort, and it took seven whole days to ensure that every required condition of Leon’s was fulfilled when conducting the ritual. But it still worked less than one percent of the time and since the same people couldn’t be involved in another summoning immediately afterward, they had only so many tries. Their chances were close to zero from the start.

Leon himself had conducted a few summonings, but every one of them failed. His last success produced Shizue Izawa, and sixty-six years had passed since then. The more you narrowed down the conditions, the longer the interval required between each attempt, and there wasn’t much reason to expect the next summoning to work, either. So he came up with the idea to perform "incomplete" summonings they could attempt with more frequency. The person Leon was looking for was still a young girl, so an incomplete summoning that resulted in a young child would boost their chances, no matter how slimly.

So his project spread across the Western Nations, as he engineered as many attempts as possible to collect as many children as possible...

As Kaede herself was an otherworlder, he had looked into her background, or what he was able to find, so he knew of her slavery at the hands of Falmuth, where she was supposedly killed when she rebelled with an army of steel demons.

All in all, he suspected that she would be against the idea of summoned otherworlders because of what happened to her. Yet she apparently wanted to discuss the process of summoning with him.

Mysteries, mysteries. So many, and so annoying.

"Send out their escorts. This is the first official summit between Eldorado, and another Demon Lord domain. Maintaining protocol is common sense no?"

Arlos nodded at his words. "Indeed, my lord. All of El Dorado shines under the light of your authority, and they shall be made to see its splendor under your guiding hand."

El Dorado, the land Leon ruled over, was on a continent of its own, separated by ocean from the rest of the world. In Earth standards, it was larger than Australia, and every inch of it was Leon’s domain. A gigantic active volcano was perched in the middle, constantly erupting the whole year through, but the ash it spewed was carried away by magically conjured wind, never falling on the beautiful central city. Nearby, the volcano had laid a vast variety of ore deposits, which were worked into assorted types of magical metals. The gold ore veins found there produced so much precious metal that Leon was secretly dealing some of it to human civilization.

The city was the pinnacle of glory, the crown jewel of a kingdom protected by magic.

"I will have some emergency defensive magic readied for deployment as well, and I will put our security protocols at their highest level."

"Yes, if you could, please. But things never work out the way you want, do they?"

"...What do you mean, my lord?"

"The Ruler of Maple Tree, the Demon Lord Kaede, supposedly defeated Demon Lord Guy Crimson."

Arlos’ eyes widened at the news. "But how can that be?"

Not even you would be so confident to believe that you could take on Guy Crimson and win, were the words that went unsaid, and Leon appreciated Arlos for not saying them.

"With Guy, it’s hard to know what exactly he meant but those words. He never clarified if it was in battle, but until proven otherwise, we shall assume so. Enmity with her and her nation would be unwise, so handle them with care. One’s own subordinate are a representation of themselves after all. Should trouble begin, it shall be from their position, rather ours.

I know Jaune, the Original Yellow, is slumbering in this land somewhere. I doubt she’s taken physical form yet, but... With the envoys, I won’t be able to leave from this spot for some time, so increase security there as well."

Leon groaned. It was all so ridiculous. Pieces were being moved so suddenly across the board, and everyone was beginning to become active, even the other Demon Lords as well as Guy Crimson.

Of course, he couldn’t care less what others did with their time, even if they started wars, it would scarcely reach Eldorado.

However, there was a slim chance that a war, would affect the girl he was looking for, so he had no choice but to involve himself in the end.

[xxx]

Tingle was the last one off the carriage.

She had been trying to finish before everyone else and had instead gotten her wing caught briefly on the door frame.

By the time she was standing on solid ground the rest of the Riders were already forming up around the diplomats and Kanade. Azeeza had appeared beside her without Tingle noticing and tapped her shoulder once to get her moving.

Tingle moved.

But she looked.

El Dorado up close was nothing like looking at it from the air. From the carriage window it had been a glowing thing on the horizon, something to observe from a distance. Down here it had weight and texture and smell. The stone beneath her feet was a pale gold color that wasn’t paint or decoration, it was simply the color of the material, dense and warm under the early morning light. The buildings visible beyond the platform were tall and precisely constructed, their surfaces carrying the same quality.

She idly thought about the barrier they had passed through upon entry.

They had seen it before they saw anything else. The carriages had been descending toward the continent for nearly twenty minutes when it appeared ahead of them, a vast dome of pale gold light sitting over the city and its surrounding districts like something placed there by a careful hand. Up close it had a texture to it that wasn’t visible from a distance. Not glass exactly. More like light with a shape.

The carriages had slowed and stopped just outside it.

Nobody had said anything. Cameron had closed his folio. Kanade had looked at the barrier from the lead carriage window with an expression Tingle couldn’t read from where she was sitting. The dragonflies had settled into a hover, their wings beating in slow patient rhythm.

They had waited.

Tingle hadn’t known what she was expecting. Some kind of signal maybe. A figure appearing at the barrier’s edge. A sound.

Instead it had simply opened.

They had flown through in silence.

Tingle remembered looking back once as they passed and watching the barrier close behind them with the same quiet finality. Seal complete. No way out except through Demon Lord Leon’s decision to allow it.

She had faced forward after that and not looked back again.

Pip chirped softly beside her ear now, pulling her back to the present.

Azeeza was watching her from two steps ahead. "Are you coming?"