The city was a forest, and power poles were its trees, cables stretching everywhere like a giant spiderweb. Humans, elves, goblins, and many other species spoke a hotchpotch of languages—elvish, Japanese, English, Chinese, dwarvish, orcish—as they walked the streets beneath swarms of surveillance drones.

“What—”

Aether neon signs in various languages jutted out from shoddily constructed buildings, their surfaces crisscrossed with steaming pipes and gutters reminiscent of veins.

The streets were littered with all manner of trash: old flyers, cigarette butts, empty cans, bottles of moonshine. Below a poster reading PUT A STOP TO HOMELESSNESS! PEOPLE ARE FREEZING TO DEATH ON THE STREETS! in elvish, the common tongue, lay a street urchin wrapped in filthy rags—it was difficult to tell whether the person was alive or dead.

All of this was decidedly different from the culture of any country Veltol knew.

“—the hell is thiiiiiissssss?!”

The Demon Lord screamed to the sky in astonishment.

This was the Cyberpunk City of Shinjuku. One of the biggest cities in the world, with a population of over three million people.

Veltol was on Kabukicho Street, the main drag through Shinjuku’s southern end and the city’s biggest shopping district.

Civilization had advanced too much over these past five centuries.

Throngs of people and ground vehicles navigated the streets, while flying vehicles and surveillance and delivery drones crowded the skies.

The Demon Lord was aghast at the fantastical landscape.

“This is how much that little island to the east has prospered…,” he murmured.

The Japanese archipelago that Veltol knew—the Myrd archipelago, that is—had been undeveloped land, used only as a destination for exile. Criminals there lived in caves, and that primitive state was the last he knew about it.

“The country located in Earth’s version of this archipelago was already highly developed. A paradigm shift occurred after Earth’s advanced scientific technology and Alnaeth’s magitech became intertwined, and development skyrocketed.”

“The mortals’ civilization is this advanced and yet the gods haven’t taken matters into their own hands…?”

“The gods are dead.”

The catastrophic planetary fusion affected more than just humankind. There were new denizens from a different world, an influx of unfamiliar religions. People’s values changed; various apocalyptic philosophies took root; morals and ethics were turned on their head. All of this cheapened the divine and debilitated faith.

The gods fell to degradation.

“Existing civilizations regressed heavily right after the Fantasion, which led many scholars to believe that had been the gods’ last show of wrath.”

“I see… So the world has really ended…”

Veltol’s words were tinged with sorrow.

His fight in the olden Alnaeth was not only a struggle against the mortals but against the fate the gods had created, too. And it had ended without him even knowing. He cast his gaze downward.

The people walking the streets looked absolutely bizarre to him.

“I see many people here have arms and legs that are rather…inorganic.”

Their extremities appeared to be made of steel or some mysterious black material.

“Indeed, they are using artificial limbs,” said Machina.

“Artificial…? Are they really? They’re quite lifelike.”

Prostheses existed even back during Veltol’s time but in much simpler and cruder forms, mostly just pieces of wood or bone sculpted to resemble the intended limb.

“Those are called magiprostheses. They use a metal armature for the bone, which is covered in artificial muscle made of synthetic mithril fiber. Aether is used to simulate the nerves, so these work exactly as real arms or legs when connected to the body.”

“This many, though? Is it because of the wars?”

“The wars have something to do with it, but I believe the main reason is most jobs around here involve physical labor.”

“So accidents are common?”

“That’s another part of it, but it’s mostly because of frostbite. Many of these people work outside the barrier, and it’s truly freezing out there…”

The city’s climate was certainly cold enough even for Veltol.

Even within the cryotolerance zone, you needed enough protection from the cold if you didn’t want your fingers, ears, and nose hurting. A regular person would surely freeze to death just staying put for a few hours.

“By the way, they call people with magiprostheses magiborgs, although some consider the term discriminatory as of late.”

“Hmm… And what about them?”

Here and there were folks wearing some sort of bucket-like metal tubes or helmets on their heads. Their bodies underneath their clothes were similarly metallic.

“Those are full-borgs, people who supplement their bodily functions with machines. It’s a sort of full-body version of the magiprostheses.”

“…Wait, wait, wait. Supplement their bodily functions? You mean their organs, too?”

“Correct. People who replace everything but their brains and spines are not uncommon.”

The machines Veltol knew of were much simpler and more primitive. It was easy for him to imagine how artificial limbs worked, but he couldn’t fathom how an artificial organ was even possible.

“There are also automata, which look just like humans. They’ve been getting quite advanced lately, so much so it’s hard to tell them apart from the real thing.”

Veltol also noticed that everyone had a piece of metal affixed to their nape. Machina had one as well, although Veltol couldn’t see it since it was hidden beneath her hood and long hair.

He wondered if that, too, was some sort of prosthesis as he stood dumbfounded, watching the pedestrians coming and going. He was so wrapped up in thought that he was too slow to notice someone walking right his way.

“Ah, Lord Veltol, you’ll—!”

“Tsk! Don’t just stand there blocking the way, asshole!”

The big ogre with an artificial arm clicked his tongue as he bumped into Machina, who had stepped in front of Veltol.

“Sorry, I had something on my mind. Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes, I’m fine. Forgive me…”

“Honestly, does that oaf not realize he just bumped into one of the Six Dark Peers?”

Veltol looked up at the thick clouds covering the night sky.

“…”

Then he smirked.

“Is something the matter?” Machina asked.

“I think it’s time to shake those foolish mortals to the core… Make them well aware of my triumphant return.”

“L-Lord Veltol?”

Machina knew very well he only made that expression when he was about to do something ludicrous.

“Hah!”

Veltol’s internal mana initialized and constructed a technic that expanded into a large, elaborate magic circle.

“Ell Stunna!”

As soon as he said those words, a pillar of light emerged from the circle, piercing the thick clouds and opening a big hole in the sky. Moonlight and starlight shone over Shinjuku for the first time in fifteen months.

Veltol had performed a method of aether-based phenomena modification. In other words, magic.

Magic involved the initialization of one’s internal mana followed by the construction of a technic using a spell. Next came the technic’s expansion in the form of a magic circle, then the incantation—reading the spell aloud—and finally, the proclamation of the maginom, or the magic’s name.

Those were the five processes needed for magic.

The Elderish spell names belonged to ultimate magic used by rulers since ancient times to demonstrate their royal might.

And Veltol didn’t need one of the five processes—the incantation.

Not even a demon lord should have been capable of skipping the steps necessary for magic activation. But Veltol, with his enormous mana capacity, natural affinity for magic, and ultra-high-speed magical processing output, was able to compress the most time-consuming step into the next one. The result: a quasi-omission of the incantation process.

That was what made the Demon Lord the Demon Lord. His forbidden secret technique: chantless magic.

“…Hmmm?”

Veltol looked up at the sky and squinted in dissatisfaction at the light shining through.

“I’ve gotten far too weak.”

The ultimate magic manipulated the weather on a scale big enough to get rid of all the clouds in the area, yet as he was now, he could barely open a hole in one of them.

“Is that…?”

Veltol looked through the hole at the dark red star shining beside the moon. It symbolized a bad omen in ancient Alnaeth.

“It seems I am not welcome in this world.”

The star shone mysteriously, sinisterly.

“Wh-what the hell?!”

“The sky…”

“Who’s stupid enough to manipulate weather with magic these days?”

Right then…

…a shrill siren went off.

Veltol’s magic had tripped the sensors that picked up anomalies in nearby mana. The commotion started spreading even farther.

“What’s that racket? It’s ruining my triumphant return. Has the concept of respect vanished while I was gone?”

“Oh no! You can’t use ultimate magic inside the city!” Machina flailed her arms in dismay. “The City Guard will come! Let’s get out of here!”

She grabbed Veltol’s arm and dragged him away.

“Wait, Machina, why should I be the one to flee?”

“Please! I insist!”

Veltol shook off his growing concerns and allowed Machina to lead him down the main drag through the throngs of people.

That was when he spotted it—something impossible in the crowds. A hooded man was approaching, his face momentarily visible when the wind lifted his hood ever so slightly.

“Huh?!”

Veltol couldn’t help but stop and look back as the man passed by, but he had already vanished into the crowds.

“Is something the matter?” Machina asked, puzzled as to why Veltol had stopped.

“No, it’s nothing,” he answered, shaking his head.

There was no way that man could be here in this world after five centuries.