A Night of Paranoia (4)

“I thought a martial artist couldn’t use magic and had no means of escape, so I was completely at ease... But back then, I never considered that humans might use items. Just as I was about to finish the martial artist off, they used an item called a smoke bomb and got away.”

Even now, Menou seemed to regret it; Menou clenched their teeth, their expression darkening.

“But I... figured that if the martial artist escaped, so be it. I didn’t really care.”

“They came back for revenge, didn’t they?”

“...You can tell?”

“If it had been the old me, I would’ve done so without hesitation. To deal with a dangerous demon... Well, I guess we’ve both changed.”

Remembering the past, Rex smiled wryly. Like Menou, Rex had never dreamed that his future self would share a bath with a demon.

“Then you can guess what happened, right? I was utterly defeated. Back then, I was intoxicated by my own strength, but... they made me realize the strength of humans... and the power of numbers.”

Even if demons formed a pack and acted together, their ability to coordinate was far inferior to humans’. That was because demons had no concept of roles. Every demon’s weakness was shared by all. Though demons were individually far superior to humans, humans could sometimes prove stronger by making use of one another’s strengths and compensating for one another’s weaknesses.

The people the martial artist brought along to take revenge on Menou were exactly that kind of group...