A world unlike Earth — another world.

Here, ever since history began, war had run on unbroken.

One ending was never more than one beginning.

No — and as people went on taking even that for granted, they grew used to the ending of things too.

Madness, or sanity?

Well, either way, it was no longer any concern of mine.

I wasn't the one who chose this. As for choices — it seemed like I had some, but I never really did.

That was what it meant to be the one they called Hero.

Out beyond the Demon Lord's castle, many races were surely still fighting, split into friend and foe. …I had no way of knowing how that battle was going.

Because — my companions and I were fighting inside a sealed space that the Demon Lord had created!

And four against one, with the numbers on our side, we were doing nothing but defending against the Demon Lord's overwhelming power!!

"Hero-sama!!"

I heard Pricia the Princess's voice as she tried to back me up. But in the middle of close-quarters combat, support was out of the question.

My breath was ragged, and yet the Demon Lord pressed her attacks without showing so much as a drop of sweat. There was no way she'd leave me an opening.

"Hey — don't you have any regrets?"

Without once stopping her attacks, the Demon Lord spoke to me as though whispering words of love. This was always how she was.

As if to bewitch me, and at the same time as if to teach me the truths of the world. Not once had she turned hatred or hostility my way.

"Nothing but regrets!"

I was a clumsy man, after all. Regrets all the time. By now there were any number of times I wished I'd believed what the Demon Lord said.

"Hey, why are we even fighting, I wonder?"

"That's my line!"

The Demon Lord had never wanted to fight. And I, too, had tried to avoid it.

A battle that couldn't be avoided. The reason? A garbage reason.

There was no turning back now. The Demon Lord's face, certain of that, looked somehow lonely.

Then she stopped where she stood and began to chant a spell. One I had never heard before.

I drew up short on reflex and braced myself for whatever magic was coming.

"No, stop!"

"Quick, a defensive spell!!"

What was this? Filia — an elf, and a master of magic — cried out in shock like I'd never seen from her, and at the same moment the Saint, Sanctina, was moving to deploy her highest-tier defensive magic.

"Demon Lord, what are you—"

"The primordial magic the gods are said to have used. Sorry, if it fails."

No words came at the sight of the Demon Lord's gentle smile.

"Stop this! Do you mean to defy even the gods of the demon race!!"

The Demon Lord had never held any hostility, and now even the will to fight drained out of her. I faltered before her as she finished the incantation, but Filia was trying to stop it by any means she could.

But… her attacks, too, didn't reach the Demon Lord.

She had been waiting for this moment all along. Somehow, I was certain of it.

"Farewell. My Hero."

A parting greeting — and at those words I reflexively reached out my hand toward the Demon Lord.

Toward the beautiful, noble Demon Lord.

"…Demon Lord, prepare yourself!"

"Wait! Pricia. If we don't get her to tell us where we are, we'll never get home."

"Hero-sama! Hero-sama!"

I could hear everyone's voices. Pricia, Filia, Sanctina — they all seemed unharmed. The Demon Lord? Now that I thought about it…

Huh? What had we been doing???

Drifting in the haze, my head suddenly cleared, and when I opened my eyes… what I saw was neither the Demon Lord's castle nor the sealed space.

"An unfamiliar ceiling… no, that's not it."

This place was…

"Hero-sama!"

"Oh my, you're awake. Hero."

Mixed in with my companions' voices was the Demon Lord's. I sat up, and they were all close by. Pricia the Princess stood glaring as if squaring off against the Demon Lord — but the Demon Lord was sitting in the chair in front of the computer desk in the room.

The room was about eight tatami mats in size. And in it stood me and my companions, armed, and the Demon Lord in her dress.

It wasn't a big room to begin with, but maybe it was the first time I'd ever felt it was a little cramped. Was it because of the cardboard boxes I still hadn't finished unpacking?

"Hero-sama, are you all right?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine………"

Sanctina was checking me over for any injuries, but more than that, I was stunned by the sight in front of me.

It was my room, in my own home — the room I'd seen in my dreams over and over and over since I was summoned to the other world years ago.

"Is this some illusion of yours?"

"No, it's not. Looks like it failed. The magic. Seems the whole sealed space got flung here along with us."

I'd assumed it was the Demon Lord's doing, but apparently not. Though my companions didn't seem to believe her and were eyeing her with suspicion.

"Send us back where we were! Demon Lord!"

"Impossible. The mana here is thin. There's no way I could use magic that crosses dimensions. And anyway, I don't even know a spell like that."

"Then I shall have your head!!"

"Pricia, wait. What the Demon Lord says is true."

Pricia the Princess's will to fight hadn't dimmed in the least, but Filia and Sanctina, sensing that this was no time for fighting given how abnormal the situation was, were holding her back.

"Hey, Hero. This place — is it your homeland, I wonder?"

The Demon Lord kept her eyes fixed on me and gave voice to the answer she already held inside.

"That's right. It's my house."

"House? This slave's quarters, this storeroom of a place…"

I was a little annoyed at the Princess's rude words, but oddly enough, I could tell from their faces that the others and the Demon Lord shared much the same impression.

The world we lived in was different. In two senses. Those born into a different world — and me, a commoner, against my companions, who were born into the upper class.

"The rooms commoners live in look about like this back in your world too, I'd think. Hime-sama."

I wished she'd stop looking at me with pity.

Still, the Demon Lord, having taken my words for the truth, showed a smile that struck me as almost refreshed.

"This turned out a little different from the plan, but I'm finally free of being Demon Lord. Hero, I'll be in your care for a while — so treat me well, okay?"

"You—! What are you saying!"

"Since we can't get back, we've got no choice but to live here, right? I'm sick to death of being Demon Lord. I've finally gotten my freedom."

The Demon Lord, going entirely at her own pace, left the Princess flustered and thrown off balance. The Demon Lord had hated her position as Demon Lord. The Princess had surely sensed as much too — but she'd never really admitted it, since she'd suspected there was something behind it.

She took pride in her birth, her station, her rank, and she'd gone to the battlefield herself, risking her life more than anyone. As strong and noble as she was, that's how earnest she was, too.

For the Princess, the Demon Lord was probably the type she handled worst of all. Because no matter what happened, the Demon Lord never let anything throw off her pace.

"For now, do me a favor and don't fight inside the room. The house'll get wrecked."

That world and this one. Which was better, I wondered? About the same, I figured.

It was just that this world was hard to live in, too.

To think my first time home in ages would be together with my companions and the Demon Lord. Was this, too, the will of the other world's god who'd summoned me?