Konrad was falling—and he remembered.
Not his memories. At first, he couldn't even tell whose.
They started with a red dragon hatching from an egg, left to fend for herself. That should've made it obvious. But the scenery changed faster than Konrad could follow.
This dragon tried to befriend humans, but of course, they feared her.
All but the strongest—rulers, adventurers, and an ambitious mage in a green, pointy hat.
It didn't end well.
The sorcerer sealed her away, stealing much of her magic, leaving her alone for a century.
Then someone arrived to free her in the most, uh—
Damn, these memories were way too erotic for a dragon that never had sex.
Maple, that dirty leaf—
But right when he thought he figured it out—given that he had seen himself appear—things changed. Again. He saw two dragons fight Gabrielle, which made no sense. Did he see double?
There should've been only one Maple—sometimes already too much.
And the archangel? She was their ally, though she only cared about her own goals.
Hold on. How did he get here?
Better yet—where was that 'here' in the first place?!
'Konny boy, wake up,' a familiar voice demanded.
Familiar, but he still couldn't tell who it belonged to.
The first words were obvious—Lily was the only one calling him that.
Yet the tone was much more like the dragoness.
The two dragonesses. Dragonii? No wait, two Lilies?
'Don't think too hard about it, sweetheart. We can't break you out—so pull your weight, too.'
Break out from where?
Konrad did his best to remember, but the more he focused on the memories, the more he saw the dragon's instead. From the sudden changes, he might've skipped a few years, too.
She was alone again, but more determined than ever.
She skipped between the planes of existence, searching for—
Him?!
The appearance was less and less dragon-like. She wore her red-haired human form instead.
Or whatever the locals preferred. She changed from terrifying to cute, from towering to petite.
Already, when he first saw her take a human shape, Konrad thought she copied Lily.
But the similarities were even more obvious now.
She lost the sharp edges, the overemphasized curves, the over-perfected looks. She was no longer a copy of the woman he loved; she became her—the dragoness fading into obscurity.
With that shape forgotten, some might have even thought she was a mere human.
Others knew better—and she didn't exactly try to blend in, either.
"What have you done, demon?!" a heavenly character demanded.
The former dragoness was in an ancient world.
She pranked an entire civilisation, and God's angels surrounded her.
It wasn't Gabrielle—Konrad saw many similarities, but it was a man, twice her size.
"Demon? What's that?" the almost Lily asked with big innocent eyes. "I like the sound of it."
And that was all it took her to adapt this moniker.
She became Lilith, the Greater Demon.
And the world Konrad thought was ancient turned out to be Earth, thousands of years before he was born. An army of angels chased Lilith away, but she kept returning, searching for him.
Until one day, she found him—with a young, inexperienced angel close on her heels.
'Konny, sweetheart, I know what you're doing,' the same voice called to him, but it wasn't part of the memories. 'Of course it's not. But this is super embarrassing. Come on, wake the fuck up.'
The feeling of immense mana reached him like a brutal slap in the face.
The images scattered, the memories—or dreams?—fell apart, and he was alone in the dark, falling again. No, not exactly alone, even if he couldn't see anyone.
But he heard her voice loud and clear.
'Sorry, meow-t have overdone it,' Lily chirped. 'But you're awake. Blast open the darkness.'
'What? How?' he asked. Always the vaguest instructions. 'Which part of it? With what?'
He had the mana; he knew how to concentrate it, but—
The faint memories still lingered in the darkness.
He wanted to find out what happened and why.
'No, you're not,' the demoness grunted, running out of patience fast. 'I'm not digging in your memories, either. Be nice and come back, then you can ask whatever you want to know.'
So these were Lily's memories after all.
But they started as Maple's?!
The dragon and the demoness. They were the same—thousands of years apart.
'Yes, yes, you're a genius prodigy allright,' she scoffed, her praise not very genuine. 'But you know what prodigies do? They defeat Demon Lords, so get your ass back here.'
Maou Midori. Another time traveler.
'But if we fight, I can only lose,' Konrad noted, remembering the fragments of futures he had seen. 'He'll use me as a stepping stone to invade my world, and who knows what he'll do there.'
The darkness around him became even thicker.
He did not want to leave.
Not that he feared his own life. To some degree, sure—he only had the one—but the whole reason to face this mage was to save the world. Yet, if he had done that, the world would end.
'You shouldn't take everything Gabby says at face value,' Lily urged him.
'You said those futures were real, too,' Konrad reminded her.
Darkness or not, he could almost see her roll her eyes.
'Sweetheart, I lived through them. Every vision cut off at the most convenient moment—but there's more to them than you saw,' Lily whispered. 'Me, for example.'
The memory figments returned, stronger than ever before.
Lily herself projected them inside his head this time.
'I'll be frank, Konny,' she purred. 'If you don't come back to kick Meow Midori's ass right now, I'll stop existing. Not trying to blackmail you or anything, but that's a fact.'
'W-what?!'
He got all the motivation in the world to break through this darkness.
His love? Would she no longer exist?
'I'll tell you the details, but we're out of time,' Lily claimed. 'It doesn't help that our resident time-stopper decided to turn against us, so hurry. I need my husband to save me.'
That was it.
He concentrated all his mana into a single ball, compressing it to an atomic size.
The resulting explosion ripped the darkness apart, blinding him and everyone around.
Because yes, he was no longer alone.
He stood in his camp, terrified soldiers surrounding and training their spears on him.
Or rather, at the two identical dragons restraining his second wife.
"W-what the hell is going on here?" he asked, his footing a bit shaky after discharging so much energy at once. But his sword was with him—the mana replenishing itself from the adamantite.
"Act first, ask questions later," one of the dragons said with a grin. "You have a king to stop."
"You mean the Demon Lord negotiating with him," the other dragon corrected her. "Hop on my back, bossman. Good 'ol me will keep the archangel busy while we deal with this thing."
So that was Maple. It had to be, because Lily couldn't go anywhere near Maou Midori.
For a short moment, everything made sense.
"Let's go," he nodded, jumping on the dragon's back. "Before I'd think too hard about it again."