< Evade the Hero and Flee! 203 #23. Policy Meant for My Dream! (10) >

What a miss! That’s just too bad!

If I only knew what might happen, I’d have recorded this with a magic tool or something! I should’ve played the BGM of ‘Tonight’s MC is [Pick Me]’ to this lovely 101 Dalmatians.. Oops, I mean, 101 demon kings! [1]

“I guess it can’t be helped, then?”

Even I never expected the first round of the recruitment drive to end with exactly 101 candidates, after all!

“Next time, I might as well select males and females separately, and then make the girls sing, ‘pick me, pick me’ while the boys will go, ‘me, just me’.”

The metal bat suddenly butted in. “Master? I have no idea what nonsense you’re spewing now, but I can already tell this one thing. Whatever it is you’re saying, it.. has freak-all to do with demon kings. Am I right?”

Tch! Pretty sharp, ain’t ya! No, hang on a minute! Even I don’t trust myself, so who would believe me in that case!

If one wishes to become a successful liar, one must fool themselves first. I can’t even fool myself, so how can I successfully scam other people?!

“Nope. Those things are vital to our causes. Building solidarity by making the candidates cry out, ‘Pick me, pick me!’ A non-living creature like you can never understand the importance of doing this!”

I confidently declared in order to fool the metal bat, but..

“I definitely don’t wanna know, though?”

..The metal bat curtly retorted straight to my face.

“E-excuse me..” Belegrea, our co-judge, addressed us with an awkward expression on her face as the metal bat and I began glaring and growling at each other. “It’s time to start the judging process.”

The metal bat and I went ‘hmpf!’ and turned our heads away to glare at the scene before us instead.

Which happened to be.. The super-massive audition that will change the history of the demon continent!

Kaku-San-Sei, Million Demon Continent! [2]

Subtitle: Demon King Produce 101!

“Let us begin.” Belegrea got up from her chair and strode forward.

She followed my command and passionately memorised the speeches I had written. And now, she was capable of saying stuff that I’d like to say, greatly decreasing my workload in the process! As expected of the first demon king I had personally selected!

“Alice picked her, not you, master! You don’t even have the qualifications to cast a vote!”

“Hah! My daughter’s wish is mine, and my wish is my daughter’s. As such, whenever my daughter does something, it’s the same as me doing something.”

“Apologise! You better apologise to my little sis working hard today, too!”

“Uh-huh! I’m also participating in a project that will change the fate of the demon continent! Can’t you see that I’m also working as hard as my daughter for the future of the demon continent!”

For clarification, my daughter was currently searching for an environment suitable for raising even ‘better’ chickens. She said she’d also investigate other farm products along the way.

My daughter was the only minister in charge of two departments, and her jobs made her super-busy. So busy that the time we spent together was gradually decreasing!

“I must hurry up with the creation of new demon kings and enjoy my retirement with my daughter. Why am I still working this hard at my age, anyway?”

“Master, from where I’m at, it looks like Belle is doing all the heavy lifting for you, though?”

“Oii, at least try to say her full name. It sounds like Bellend when you say it.”

The metal bat pointed at Belegrea passionately explaining to the crowd the importance of the new project and how much Demon God was looking forward to the results.

“Master, you come up with all these things, but she’s the one dealing with them all.”

*

#10 Their circumstance: A certain hero’s circumstance

“From this moment on, you shall ki.. Ahem, I mean, you shall now fight each other until only fifty-one candidates remain.”

He said ‘kill’ just now. He might have corrected himself in the middle, but he definitely told them to kill each other!

I was entrusted with managing this weird event called the Best Demon King Audition as an equally weird-sounding role of a co-judge. And that’s why I got to hear what my instructor said just now!

“And now, hurry and fight!”

Unfortunately, I seemed to be the only one to hear the ‘kill’ part of the instructor’s command. With just one command from him, the atmosphere in the venue began shifting rather eerily.

Candidates, full of smiles and friendly chatter only a second ago, began sharpening their auras and gauging the capabilities of others around them.

“Insane..!”

All these people were willing to risk their lives and fight just because he said so? What on earth was going on here?!

“I would never do.. Mm.. Huh?”

When I carefully thought about this, uhm.. Haven’t I done something similar to this before? No, my case was a lot worse, I think? Food was involved in my case, after all.

“Die!”

“How dare a mere weakling..!”

I bore witness to the demons crossing swords and hurling magic spells at each other from the closest vantage point. I was told that this test would be a simple demonstration of an individual candidate’s abilities, so how did it morph into a free-for-all deathmatch instead?!

“Senior!”

A blue-haired, red-eyed boy rushed up to me from the sideline.

“Rarel? What happened?”

This boy’s name was Rarel.

“I’ve brought you the message from the great, noble apostle of the Demon God, Lord Marx!”

Rarel’s voice was filled with respect and awe. So much so that this kid and the wannabe assassin following the Demon God’s wish to kill my instructor once upon a time couldn’t have been the same person at all.

As expected of the metal bat, then. To think that one could become a loyal servant just from a beatdown!

I asked Rarel. “What’s the message?”

“He said to observe the proceedings from the side and stop the test if you think we’ll see casualties.”

“Got it.”

I watched my much-younger junior at work bow to me and walk away before shifting my attention to the candidates. I wanted to find out if there were any ‘dangerous’ looking fellas among them.

“..And there are so many.”

Yup, there were many. Way too many, if you ask me.

[1]: ‘Tonight’s MC is [Pick Me]’ is my poor attempt at translating the name of the opening song for MNET’s idol survival show called Produce 101 season 2. The song’s official title seems to be [Pick Me] but the actual lyrics during the chorus are: “Tonight’s protagonist is me, just me.” Confusingly enough, though, the female version of the same programme’s theme tune is also called ‘Pick Me’, but they are two different songs. Also, the ‘pick me, pick me’ part of the lyrics from the girls’ version of ‘Pick Me’ is sung in English.

[2]: Kaku-San-Sei Million Arthur is a series of Japanese RPG games released by Square Enix. I’m guessing this is the game MC was talking about in the previous chapter..