Chapter 122: The World Expo (Part 4)

World Expo, Main Stage – 2nd Day

After a frankly unreasonable amount of pushing, shoving, threatening, and diplomatic coercion, Bub finally appeared on the main stage.

The response was immediate. The crowd surged forward, packed shoulder to shoulder in front of the stage, eyes bright with anticipation. This was it. The main event. The centerpiece of the entire World Expo.

Murica.

Bub stood at the microphone, shoulders slouched, radiating the unmistakable aura of someone who had lost an argument hours ago and was still bitter about it.

“Ah… test. One-two,” Bub said lazily into the mic.

The audience leaned in.

“Ah,” Bub continued, staring into the distance, “so… here we are. Presenting Murica’s greatness.”

“Sigh…” He sighed. Audibly.

Then he raised one hand toward the sky.

Right on cue, four F-16s screamed past the expo at low altitude in a tight, immaculate formation. The roar rolled over the venue like thunder. A heartbeat later, the formation shattered outward in a perfectly synchronized break.

“WHOAAAA—!”

Gasps rippled through the crowd. Some audience instinctively ducked, others clutched their head. A few simply stared, mouths open.

“Yes, yes,” Bub said flatly. “Those are F-16s. A multirole fighter aircraft. Workhorse of Murica’s air forces.”

No pause. No buildup. No pride.

Above them, the fighters began their aerial routine—barrel rolls, sharp climbs, aggressive turns that carved invisible lines through the sky.

“WHOOOOAAAAAA!!”

The crowd exploded with excitement again.

Then Bub killed it. Again.

“Yes, yes. Look at them doing acrobatic maneuvers,” Bub mumbled into the mic.

“Afterburner on. Vertical climb. G-loading within limits.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Rolling. Immelmann turn complete.”

The audience blinked. This was… not what they had expected.

---

Inside the production booth, Monny watched the stage in growing horror.

“That idiot fly,” Monny muttered, veins bulging on his forehead.

He clenched the metal chair beside him, making the chair bent.

“Now, now,” Levi said cheerfully, sipping his drink casually. “Don’t worry. I prepared something for this exact situation.”

---

Back on stage, Bub continued his lifeless narration.

“Yes, yes. Knife-edge pass,” he said as the F-16s sliced through the sky, wings nearly vertical.

“Angle of attack increasing.”

The jets executed the maneuver flawlessly while Bub sounded like he was reading grocery list.

Then suddenly—

“WOW! SUCH AN AMAZING PERFORMANCE!”

Phoebe, the Lamia MC, suddenly slithered onto the stage, practically vibrating with enthusiasm.

“Did you see that?!” she exclaimed, gesturing wildly upward.

“A knife-edge pass at full throttle! Wings nearly vertical! Holding impossible balance through sheer control and raw power!”

The crowd snapped back to life instantly.

Bub glanced sideways at Phoebe as she smoothly positioned herself next to him—squarely between Bub and the audience.

Phoebe took over without missing a beat.

“Now if you look up there, ladies and gentlemen,” she continued brightly, “the F-16s are exiting the airspace now. Smooth. Controlled. Violent in the most elegant way—this is what air superiority looks like when it dances!”

She threw her arms wide.

“Now give a round of applause for the F-16s!!!”

The crowd erupted with cheers, applause and whistles.

As the roar of approval filled the venue, Phoebe leaned closer to Bub and whispered with a grin:

“Don’t worry, Mr. Beelzebub. Backup is here.”

Bub stared forward, expression unchanged.

“…Hmph.”

The jets vanished into the distance as the applause continued.

“Thank you, I guess,” Bub said, wincing his eyes. “Why are you suddenly helping me?”

“B-Because I’m a professional!” Phoebe answered instantly with forced bright and cheerful tone to the Demon Duke in front of her.

She then casually looked toward the side of the stage. Hannya stood there with her usual flat, unreadable expression, holding up a check.

Two thousand dollars.

Phoebe’s eyes flicked to the number. She immediately flashed a thumbs-up and gave Hannya a confident “I’ll take care of it” look.

Then she turned back to the crowd.

“But that’s not the end of the show, guys!” Phoebe announced into the mic. “What’s a weapon presentation without showing the weapon being fired?!”

The crowd erupted into cheers.

“Now, since the firing ground is placed a bit far from here for safety reasons,” Phoebe continued smoothly, “you’ll be able to see it all on the big screen!”

The giant screen above the stage lit up, showing a single F-16 in flight. Unlike the earlier flyover, this one was clearly armed, missiles mounted neatly under its wings.

The screen split.

On one side, the F-16 cruised through the sky.

On the other, a hot-air balloon floated peacefully, its surface deliberately painted with a large, unmistakable bullseye.

“And on the screen next to it,” Phoebe said, pointing, “is the target. Now, this might surprise some of you—but the distance between the F-16 and its target is currently forty kilometers.”

A murmur rippled through the audience.

“Sounds too far, right?”

Before the thought could settle, the F-16 on the screen fired. One AMRAAM missile streaked away from the aircraft.

“But not too far for the F-16!” Phoebe said cheerfully. “Look! It’s already fired its weapon—and the jet is turning away now!”

On-screen, the F-16 banked and flew off in the opposite direction.

“Why?” Phoebe asked, letting the question hang.

The screen switched perspectives, now tracking the missile as it tore through the sky.

“Because with a maximum firing distance of forty-five kilometers,” Phoebe declared dramatically, “it’s a sure hit—without the pilot needing to pay attention to the target anymore!”

The audience gasped as one. Foreign officials could be seen leaning toward each other, whispering urgently.

Even after being downplayed to only a quarter of its true performance, forty-five kilometers was still an absurd range by Talvaris standards.

And then—

KABOOOOOOM

The hot-air balloon on the screen vanished in a violent fireball as the missile slammed into it.

“WHOOOOAAAAA!!!”

The entire venue erupted.

“SEE?!” Phoebe shouted, fist thrust into the air. “I TOLD YOU ALL IT’S A SURE HIT! NOW LET’S GIVE AN APPLAUSE FOR THE F-16 AND ITS MISSILE!!!”

Claps thundered across the venue, rolling over the crowd like a wave.

As the thunderous applause finally began to die down, Phoebe raised the microphone again.

“Now!” she announced brightly, “let’s hear from the chief engineer who made all of this happen!”

She excitedly lifted both hands toward Bub. A ripple of tension ran through the foreign audience. Not only was he one of the Demon Dukes—he was the demon duke responsible for Murica’s terrifying weapons.

“Sniff… sniff…”

The sound echoed through the speakers.

“Forty kilometers…” Bub sobbed. “Why forty kilometers…”

The entire venue froze.

“Eh? Uh…” Phoebe stiffened, staring at Bub.

The audience stared as well, utterly confused as to why a demon duke was openly crying on stage.

Phoebe slowly turned her head toward the side of the stage, hoping for some guidance from Hannya to handle this awkward situation.

Hannya looking back at Phoebe. Then, with calm precision, Hannya lifted the two-thousand-dollar check. And began to tear it.

A small tear welled up in the check paper. It was barely visible. Yet somehow, from many meters away, Phoebe saw it clearly.

Enlightenment struck.

“YES!” Phoebe suddenly shouted into the mic at full volume. “FORTY KILOMETERS—FOR NOW! AND ONE DAY, IT WILL BE WAY MORE!”

She pointed dramatically toward Bub.

“NUMBERS SO BEAUTIFUL THEY MOVE MR. BEELZEBUB TO TEARS OF PRIDE!”

“Aaaah!” A collective gasp of understanding washed over the crowd.

“NOW, BEFORE WE MOVE ON TO THE NEXT PRESENTATION,” Phoebe shouted again, “LET’S GIVE A HUGE CHEER FOR MR. BEELZEBUB!”

The crowd erupted once more, cheers rolling across the venue while Bub keep sobbing into the microphone.

Meanwhile, inside the production booth, Levi chuckled softly, clearly amused.

“Hmph. Good thing your incentives toward that MC worked,” Monny muttered.

“Kukuku,” Levi replied. “With this, everyone should feel much more encouraged to become our friends.”

“Heh. They should,” Monny added with a grin. “I wonder how the Concordat will react.”

And so, with Phoebe’s help, the Murican presentation—mostly military—continued smoothly, met with cheers and awe from the audience.

By the end of the second day, Murica’s showcase had achieved exactly the effect Levi and Monny had predicted.

That night, many foreign delegates contacted their homelands, urgently reporting what they had witnessed.

Kingdoms that had already chosen to join the Coalition felt relieved they had made the right decision.

Kingdoms aligned with the Concordat began to doubt theirs.

And the undecided kingdoms found themselves suddenly very confident that they now knew what the best choice was.

---

Trampton Hotel

However, Murica’s enemies did not appear threatened in the slightest—despite witnessing Murica’s military presentation earlier that day.

Inside a magical soundproofed room at the Trampton Hotel, Celeste’s Foreign Minister Ignacio and Elvandar’s Grand Magus Paerith sat at a polished table. Between them rested a portable mana-comm, its surface glowing faintly.

“The demons have finished presenting their power,” Ignacio said calmly. “As you predicted, most foreign delegates are now leaning toward their alliance rather than ours.”

“Well of course,” Raphael’s voice chimed in cheerfully from the mana-comm. “That was the entire purpose of the event.”

Paerith’s fingers tapped once against the table.

“And the support from your people for tomorrow’s presentation?” he asked.

“Everything proceeded smoothly,” Raphael replied. “Ten thousand believers have already gathered safely. They are praying and standing by to support tomorrow’s demonstration.”

“Very good,” Paerith said, his voice cold and precise. “Tomorrow, we will show the whole of Talvaris that magic remains the true—and highest—power on this planet.”

“Yes, we will, Grand Magus,” Raphael said without hesitation.

“Yes, we will.”

---

Somewhere in Celeste

That same night, far from the capital, a small but beautiful church stood quietly in the countryside. The surrounding grassland had been transformed into a vast encampment, rows of tents stretching across the field.

At first glance, it might have resembled a military camp—if not for the absence of weapons. The people occupying the tents were civilians, drawn together by the call of Raphael, one of the Seven Virtues. The Church’s childlike Holy Healer.

Inside one of the tents, an elderly woman coughed weakly.

“Cough… cough…”

The tent flap parted, and a young man hurried inside, carefully carrying a tray of hot soup and small medicine bottles.

“Mother,” he said gently, setting the tray beside her. “The priests brought soup and medicine after they heard you had a fever.”

“Ah…” the woman murmured. “Goddess bless them.”

“I still can’t believe we made it this far,” the son said quietly.

“I know,” the mother replied, forcing a faint smile. “The goddess gave me strength to walk all the way here. Cough… cough…”

“Don’t worry, Mother,” the son said, holding her hand. He smiled at her—warm, steady, and full of faith.

“Tomorrow, Priest Raphael will cleanse your body of all this illness.”

“Yes,” the mother said softly. “I believe so, my son.”

---

Not far from the encampment, Raphael stood before a massive structure draped entirely in white cloth. Priests and mages surrounded it, moving with coordinated chaos—chanting, adjusting runes, checking formations, correcting each other, and starting over again.

Raphael watched them work in silence.

He then turned his gaze back to the covered structure and smiled kindly.

“Tomorrow,” he said softly,

“we will show the world that holy power can never be defeated by the dark and the unholy.”