Tanimaki Gets Snatched by a Steller’s Sea Eagle (Part 5)

Debiru once again cried out,

“Debiru Stack Smash!”

THUNK! THUNK!

With each thunk, the base of the tree was gradually chipped away.

Slowly, the nest descended toward the ground.

Inside it, Tanimaki and the Steller’s sea eagle chick lay side by side, both unconscious.

“All right! Let’s get out of here before the mother wakes up!”

With that, Mayutan swiftly hoisted the unconscious Tanimaki onto his back.

Debiru couldn’t help worrying about the painfully thin chick, but he hurried after Mayutan.

“Meow!”

Tanimaki’s eyes snapped open.

Mayutan and Debiru had taken shelter inside a safe cave, where they had been waiting patiently for him to regain consciousness.

“Did you defeat the Steller’s sea eagle, meow?”

Tanimaki asked as he sat up.

“No. We just knocked her unconscious and rescued you,” Mayutan replied.

“Meow?! Why didn’t you defeat her? I was about to be eaten!”

Tanimaki cried indignantly.

“There was no need to go that far. The eagle was only hunting because she needed to survive.”

As Debiru spoke, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.

Who gets to decide what’s good and what’s evil? Between the eagle and us, which side was right? Everyone just wants to be happy... but is it really impossible for every living creature to be happy?

Before he became the Demon King, Debiru felt that he needed to find an answer to that question.

Meanwhile—

The mother Steller’s sea eagle awoke and realized that her prey was gone.

She desperately searched for something else to feed her chick, but in the end, she found nothing.

Unable to endure the hunger any longer, the chick died.

Overcome with grief, the mother could not even cry.

She simply stared into space, hollow and empty.

—20 days until Tanimaki’s death.—