Konrad wasn't a criminal, nor did he want to become one. He could count all his run-ins with the law enforcement on one hand, including both lives. But despite all that, he was not a fan.
And that was a nice way of putting it.
The last time, Aset's town guard beat him half dead, thinking he was someone else.
Or there was a case when a US police officer held him at gunpoint for graffiti.
A fucking graffiti—which he didn't even do.
But he held the paint canister, and that was more than enough to treat him like a murderer.
Apart from dying itself, that had to be his most terrifying memory from that life.
At least of what he could still remember.
Oh, and surprise, surprise, it was Lily's doing. It happened during the last month of their dating.
She wanted to tag something, and he tagged along—pun intended—because why not.
Konrad was too much in love to think straight back then. He followed the girl everywhere, but, of course, she disappeared when things got hairy. Thinking back now, was she teleporting?
A useful skill for a prankster like her—and one that Konrad didn't have.
The gun-crazy cop detained and released him on bail, then sent him a hefty fine.
That became the final straw for his family, forcing him to pick between them and Lily. The very reason he cut ties with his parents for good, days before she disappeared.
Greatest life choices of all time. Although if he included trusting Lucifer—
Still in the top three. Along with quitting school, because they have suspended him next week.
But even after all that, he didn't blame her. He was still blind with the pink haze of love.
He blamed the cops instead, the unfair treatment, and hated them with a passion.
To this day.
So now, when the same Lily—well, Kaede—lay unconscious and couldn't teleport away, he was steeling his mind. His final mana transfer was a beyond-last-minute save.
Seconds ago, she was still a dragon.
Konrad expected the Japanese officers to storm the building with guns blazing, and—
He was completely shocked when it never actually happened.
While a few officers did rush in, they had no guns. Their main priority was to check if they were safe or needed emergency first aid. The girl could take an ambulance, for sure.
The seventy mana Konrad gave Midori-kun to heal her was only enough to close her wounds.
Kaede lost consciousness the moment she reverted to her human form.
But this way, the officers found three school kids and no dragons inside.
"How can we contact your parents?" a female officer in her mid-thirties asked. "Need a lift?"
"I live right across the street," the Demon Lord said, still out of breath. "And I'd rather not scare my parents with this. I'm fine. Unharmed. All I want is to go home and take a bath."
He was still clutching the garbage bags, the outermost layer of the roll singed from earlier.
"And would you mind answering a few questions before that?" she tried again, quiet and polite.
The exact opposite of every experience Konrad had ever had with the police.
Still, he had no idea how they could explain whatever happened here.
A good thing that Midori-kun did the talking.
"About the terrorist?" he scoffed. "He yelled something about killing Ryu-san—she's our classmate, by the way—then blew himself up. I only ever saw this kind of thing on TV."
Or not. It had to be the most terrible thing to say.
He listened to his bullshit with wide eyes.
The most outrageous part was how the Demon Lord mixed in some truth.
"Are you stupid? Why would a terrorist blow himself up right here, right now?!" Konrad snapped in Kasserlane's language. "They'd never buy this shit, and we'd end up in jail."
"Oh, do you need a translator?" the officer asked with a disarming smile.
No bad cop here, only a nice lady, no matter how much Konrad was expecting handcuffs.
"No, I can speak," he said, making his Japanese even more broken than usual. "Sorry."
By the time the ambulance arrived to take Kaede away, they synchronized their story.
Konrad did his best to tone down the initial crap the Demon Lord came up with.
"It could have been her ex," he muttered. "He seemed very upset and yelling. No, of course he didn't blow himself up. A terrorist, here? I guess he wanted to prank her, but it went south."
The last thing he needed was to put the entire government on high alert.
He was alive when a huge wave of terrorism shook the world.
Convenient as it fit this event, the long-term effects could have been crippling.
Because, yes. Out of mana, he had to think in the long term now.
"He had spiky dark hair and looked like a delinquent," Konrad finetuned his story. "He had a box in hand, and it went boom. Of course, he didn't die, but ran so fast, he left a shoe behind."
There. A jealous ex's prank went south. No terrorism here, no death—
Only a half-ruined store and a mysterious wave of security camera malfunctions.
That wasn't even Konrad's doing. If he had to guess, Lucifer covered his bases when he got here.
"Please contact us if you see that man again," the officer asked, handing them a card. "Stay safe."
And that was it.
He couldn't believe it, even after they climbed the six flights of stairs again.
They weren't suspects, were not detained, beaten, abused, or terrorised. Nothing.
A brand new experience, like a breath of fresh air—until reality crashed around them.
"We're so dead," Midori-kun pointed out while packing the last of the garbage bags. "I take it that was all your mana, huh? And now Lucifer will send his lackeys after us non-stop."
And no, trying to finish cleaning did not distract them from the fact, either.
"I hope Kaede will get better soon—but we'll have to cover for her, too," Konrad muttered.
Logistics. That he understood. It was something he could deal with.
And right now, the girl who paid all their bills was in a hospital.
The cops didn't even tell them where.
"Right, that, too," the Demon Lord grunted. "She'd work in the library tomorrow. You'll have to take over her flyer handout gig after school. The store—I doubt they'd open anytime soon."
"Hold on, that's not what I meant," Konrad protested, especially, "why the flyer gig?!" part.
Working in a library sounded much more like his thing. Handing out flyers to strangers on the street?! If Kaede's employers would even let them cover for her shifts in the first place.
"I need the library's Wifi for research," Midori-kun claimed. "I don't want to be here forever."
Not that either of them had any idea how to leave anymore.
It was impossible without mana. Did this world have none at all?!
Konrad was thinking about this on his entire walk home—clutching his phone with the GPS like a lifeline. When it rang in the dark, he almost launched it into space.
An unknown number, full of sixes.
Could it be any more ominous?!