The door exploded inward with a deafening crash, splinters scattering like confetti as Loraine and the rest of the Hero Party stormed into Fujino’s shack.
“FUJINO TETSUYA!” Loraine roared, hands on her hips. Her golden hair shimmered with dramatic effect as she strode forward, her armor gleaming under the sunlight that streamed through the broken doorframe. “YOUR RETIREMENT PERIOD IS OVER! COME BACK TO WORK!”
Fujino was lying on his rickety bed, staring at the ceiling like a man contemplating his life choices. A long, drawn-out sigh escaped his lips.
He’d really tried, you know? To live a peaceful life. But apparently, peace didn’t come with a "Do Not Disturb" sign.
Loraine’s voice echoed in the room like a trumpet. She was so loud, it felt like the entire universe was reminding him that, no, he could never escape his past life as Demon Lord.
But Fujino wasn’t having it. He grabbed his pillow, held it tightly against his face, and screamed into it.
The room was deathly quiet.
“…Are you seriously going to just scream into a pillow?” Jelani, the assassin, raised an eyebrow. Her voice was dripping with sarcasm as she leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. “Pathetic.”
“Oh, please,” Fujino grumbled into his pillow. “I’ll scream as much as I want. You’re all here to ruin my peace and quiet anyway.”
Loraine was determined, though. “This is serious, Fujino! Without a Demon Lord, the entire world is in chaos! We need you back!”
Fujino’s voice was muffled but still dripping with annoyance. “I’m not coming back! What, are you gonna drag me out of my own home now?”
Jelani had no time for this nonsense. She slid a dagger between her fingers and threw it across the room, aiming directly at Fujino. The blade was sharp, precise, but…
Fujino, without missing a beat, grabbed the dagger out of mid-air—bare-handed.
“Not today,” he muttered, not even looking up from his pillow.
But then… something strange happened. The blade slipped out of his hand, and as he attempted to regain his balance, he accidentally fell right onto Jelani.
In the most unfortunate of circumstances, he ended up with his hand—right on her chest.
"WAH!" Jelani yelped in surprise, her body stiffening in shock as Fujino’s hand, completely by accident, sunk into her soft, assassin-approved cleavage.
There was a moment of stunned silence.
Fujino, realizing his current predicament, slowly began to withdraw his hand… but in doing so, he somehow managed to push her further into his lap, and that’s when everything went from awkward to utter disaster.
“No, no, no!” Fujino thought in panic. His inner monologue was a mess of conflicting thoughts. “This isn’t happening. Not in a million years. I don’t even know how—!?”
Jelani, caught between trying to maintain her cool assassin composure and fighting the overwhelming embarrassment of being in this situation, started to squirm. Her face flushed an intense red. “Get off me, you—!”
But as she tried to push away, her body collided with his in such a way that, to anyone watching, it might’ve looked as though they were trying to reenact a romance scene in the middle of a fight.
“Oh my god,” Loraine muttered, facepalming so hard her helmet almost fell off. “I can’t believe this is happening right now.”
Sirael, the elf mage, adjusted her glasses with all the grace of a woman who was entirely too used to witnessing uncomfortable situations. “Fujino… I think you’ve broken every possible concept of personal space in one move.”
Aurelia, the saintly healer, turned bright red. She clasped her hands in front of her chest as though trying to block the sight of what was happening before her. “I—I must heal this situation immediately!”
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“I don’t need healing,” Jelani snapped, her voice barely concealing the rage that was beginning to bubble up.
Rhea, who had been oddly quiet until now, leaned back against the wall, one eyebrow raised. “Well, this is… unexpected.”
Fujino’s hand was still in the wrong place, and his face was now as red as a tomato. He could feel the world collapsing around him. “This is… This is not how I imagined my life as a peaceful retiree would go!” he screamed inwardly. “I was supposed to be free from the chaos and the fanservice!”
The more he struggled to pull away, the worse the situation became. As his hands tried to move, he accidentally brushed up against Jelani in all the wrong ways. She yelped again, causing the awkwardness to multiply.
Loraine stood there, eyes twitching. “This is why we should’ve just kidnapped him from the start,” she groaned.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of chaos, Jelani shoved herself away from Fujino, causing him to flop back onto the bed, utterly defeated.
“I can’t deal with this,” Jelani muttered, storming toward the door. “Forget it. I’m leaving. I can’t believe you dragged me into this hell.”
Loraine, clearly trying to salvage what little dignity she had left, gave Fujino one last glare before turning to the party. “We’ll give him some space to cool off. This mission is far from over.”
Fujino, now lying flat on his back, stared at the ceiling once more. “I just wanted to grow carrots…”
As the door slammed shut behind Jelani, Fujino was left to his own devices, face buried in his pillow, body still stiff from the shock of everything that had just happened. His mind was still running on overdrive, trying to make sense of his own insane thoughts.
He lay there in silence for a moment, staring at the ceiling, his fingers twitching as the memories of his accidental… encounter with Jelani flashed through his mind.
I touched her chest. I touched her chest!
Fujino’s face turned so red it practically glowed. He clenched his hands into fists and shut his eyes tightly, trying to stop the mental images. No! I must not think about it. Not now. Focus, Fujino!
But it was already too late.
What kind of idiot am I?
His body twitched, his eyes rolling in every direction as he mentally screamed at himself. His inner monologue was losing the battle.
Fujino’s Mind: You’ve been rejected 50 times in Tokyo. 50. Freaking. Times. And now you’re in this absurd world where you’re the Demon Lord—except you’re not anymore. You’ve given up! And instead of worrying about some apocalyptic battle, your first real interaction with a woman was… a chest grab?!
His fists tightened as he started imagining Jelani again. Her eyes… the way her body felt against mine—no! I can’t think about this!
But it was so soft. It was like—
Fujino suddenly twisted his body, making strange, exaggerated demon-like faces as if trying to fight off the perverted thoughts creeping in.
“No! I am strong! I am a warrior! I am not some lowly pervert who—” His eyes bulged as a bizarre grin spread across his face.
But… her chest…
His face twisted into the most ridiculous anime-like expressions, one moment like he was fighting some cosmic evil force, and the next like he was trying to hold back a grin that would make any high school pervert proud.
Fujino's Mental Struggle
“YES! YOU CAN DO THIS, FUJINO! YOU ARE THE MASTER OF YOUR OWN DESTINY! You will not fall to these unspeakable thoughts!”
Then—wham—an image of Jelani in a completely ridiculous outfit popped into his mind. She was in a fighting pose, with her breasts absurdly enhanced and glistening in the sunlight, her daggers held aloft, with sparkles in the background.
“Ohhh... the thighs… the legs… the sharpness of those daggers…”
His mind spiraled further, and he groaned as his entire body froze, eyes bulging like a cartoon character. His nose began to leak anime-level blood that practically sprayed across the room.
He struck a pose. A demon pose.
“GRAHHHH! NO! STOP IT!” he screamed internally, while physically striking weird poses in the air. He lifted one hand as if casting a spell, his body moving in jerky, exaggerated anime fashion. “I WILL RESIST!”
But I can’t help it! I just touched a woman’s chest!
His face contorted into the most ridiculous expression possible, like he was fighting a great and powerful beast. His mouth opened wide in an exaggerated scream, as though he was facing an existential crisis.
Suddenly, the door creaked open.
Aurelia, the Saint of the Hero Party, stepped inside.
She froze in place.
Fujino was in the middle of another weird, hyperbolic pose—arms outstretched, face contorted in frustration, blood streaming from his nose like a damn fountain, his body twitching as if he were about to explode.
Aurelia’s wide eyes blinked in confusion as she watched him, utterly flabbergasted by his bizarre antics. She tilted her head, trying to process the scene. “MR Demonlord....? What… what are you doing?”
Fujino didn’t hear her. He was too far gone in his absurd internal battle. He struck another pose, this time holding his hands above his head like a demon lord in an epic battle stance.
“YAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! I WILL OVERCOME THIS!” he screamed dramatically.
Aurelia blinked again. “What… is happening here…?”
He froze mid-pose, his eyes catching Aurelia’s gaze. His face was still red, his nose still leaking blood. He slowly stood up, utterly confused by the whole situation.
But then, before he could react, Aurelia’s voice rang out—her face full of horror.
“Y-You’ve lost it completely, haven’t you?!”
With a shrill scream, she spun around, her robe swishing dramatically as she fled out of the room at full speed, yelling back as she did.
“We’ll come back! But for now… you need to stay away from Jelani!”
Fujino stood there, dumbfounded. The whole situation was so absurd that he couldn’t help but laugh weakly to himself.
“Well... at least I’ve still got some time to myself,” he muttered, wiping the blood from his nose as he slumped back onto the bed.
“She’s right. I really need to get a hold of myself. But damn… that was something…”