It tells the story of Dariel, a member of the Demon race and aide to the four Demon Generals who lead the battle against humanity, after he's just been fired by the newest General, Bashbarza due to his lack of magical ability like most demons.
Out of a job and the laughingstock of the Demon Army, he chooses to wander until coming across a human girl named Marika and saves her from a monster. After receiving warm hospitality from Marika and her village (and discovering the shocking revelation he was actually human) he decides to start his new life there and doing what he can to use his newfound human-sided powers and years of administrative experience to better the ailing village.
Meanwhile the Demon Army soon faces severe consequences due to Dariel's absence and his greatly underestimated management skills that will soon lead to a domino effect of catastrophic proportions.
Tropes that appear in the series:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Blades imbued with Aura are capable of cutting things that cannot be damaged by an ordinary blade. The greater the amount of Aura imbued into the weapon by the user, the harder the object that can be cut. A Mythril blade imbued with Aura is capable of slicing through stone.
- An Aesop: Nepotism is unreliable. Being related or raised by a successful/qualified individual, or even being legitimately skilled in some fields, doesn't necessarily mean that you are the right fit for the specific job, however:
- In the case of Bashbarza, he was appointed on account of having inherited his father's fire abilities, Bashbarza's academic success and the assumption that he'd keep Dariel to maintain a stable bureaucracy. Instead, he fires Dariel out of petty spite and proceeds to hire random sycophants to posts that are well beyond their abilities.
- In the case of Dariel, his father-in-law passes to position of Lux Village mayor to him only after observing Dariel for several months and ultimately determining that Dariel really does have the charisma, kindness, combat skills and the administrative skills needed to effectively lead.
- Basically, if you want to recommend/appoint someone you know to an important position, limit yourself to only the people you can say for certain that they are fit for the job, don't even consider the people you like, but are inept.
- Big Bad: Averted Trope. It is next to impossible to pin the whole blame for the war between the humans and the demons on either side. Furthermore, while Bashbarza is The Heavy, his actions have ironically improved Dariel's life, not to mention that defeating him still leaves plenty of unrelated threats still active. At the end of the day, a combination of several generations worth of perpetual grudges, refusal to communicate and use diplomacy, lots of differently developed, yet mutual Fantastic Racism and a slew of boring yet important economic motivations are the main cause of the problems in the setting. Even when Alantsil concedes that Central Guild hopes to seize the Demon Lord and obtain his power and knowledge, there is still no single individual that can be considered as responsible for the war breaking out.
- Break the Haughty: Zebiantes starts off as arrogant and dismissive of Dariel as Bashvasa. However, getting intimidated by Marika, beaten multiple times in a duel with Dariel after he masters Aura, and nearly killed by Alantsil if not for Dariel protecting her causes her to change her attitude.
- Central Theme: Passing the Torch. Practically every character over the age of fifty in the story seeks to prepare a successor to take up their mantle, and all of those successors have huge responsibilities, burdens and expectations placed on them, with each case going differently:
- Granbarza wanted his son Bashbarza to continue where he left of and work in tandem with Dariel, alas this is also the only full-on failure to pass the torch;
- Smith passes his role of the mythril blacksmith to his disciple Sakai. Unlike other examples Smith passes away during the one year Time Skip and thus Sakai cannot ask him for advice, unlike all other successors who can still consult their still-living predecessors;
- Gilmas passes on the position of the Lux village mayor to his son-in-law Dariel. Unlike other examples, this was an almost ad hoc decision, with Dariel not even considering the mayorship until Gilmas assures him he has already demonstrated the necessary qualities for the job;
- The former hero Alantsil trained Laidy the current hero and passes on his position to her. However, he is self-aware of his Knight in Sour Armor status and warns his successor not to end up like him.
- The series also goes to great lengths to demonstrate how Boring, but Practical skills such as administration, collecting herbs, first aid and even simple housework can go a long way to make life easier, no matter how much one would take them for granted.
- Fantastic Racism: The humans and the demons look virtually identical, except that demons have Elemental Powers, while the humans use the aura skills. The demons view anyone who lacks magic as Pitiful Worms, while the humans see the demon kind as Always Chaotic Evil.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: The Demon King's appearance is different to everyone who looks at him. Bashbarza sees him as a young teenage boy, while his father Granbarza sees him as a large dragon. It actually gets discussed in the case of the latter, when Granbarza actually asks the Demon King when he started to use the appearance of a dragon. This actually impresses the Demon King, who explains that his appearance serves as a reflection of whoever is observing him. The immature and petulant Bashbarza sees a bratty teenager, while his calmer and more powerful father sees a mighty dragon.
- Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Marika breaks up the fight between Alantsil and Granbarza first by splashing them with a pitcher of cold water, then scolding them for fighting each other out of hatred in front of Gran, saying that as both are Dariel's father (Alantsil is his birth father and Granbarza his adopted father), they shouldn't set such a bad example for their grandson.
- Happy Fun Ball: The Hermes blade is an unassumingly short mythril blade, about the size of a dagger. It is laughed at by Fitbitan, who believed it to be a useless compared to his giant mythril sword. However, the Hermes blade has been specifically customised by Smith to work with Dariel's ability to use Aura, and is capable of shapeshifting into a larger mythril sword, or become a whip, easily shattering Fitbitan's blade.
- Human All Along: Having grown up alongside Demons, Dariel assumed he was a demon who was simply unable to use magic. It is only when he is granted the ability to use Aura that he finds out that he was actually human, as demons are unable to use Aura, and the process is one method that can be used to separate demons from humans.
- Master of All: After learning Aura, Dariel discovers he is capable of using all four types of Aura to masterful degrees.
- Mirroring Factions: The humans and the demons are much more similar than they'd like to admit, and for extra irony their respective flags are rather similar in style.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In order to get a enough mythril to complete a bomb he was making and fulfill the Demon King’s orders for mythril accessories, Bashvasa orders the Knocker miners to quadruple their regular output, something they simply aren’t capable of achieving. This and further mistreatment causes the Knockers to defect to the humans, costing the demons the mine. And to add insult to injury, the Demon King reveals the his orders for accessories were just him nicely trying to tell Bashvasas to stop making his bomb; he didn’t think Bashvasas would actually be dumb enough to raise the quota to such unsustainable levels.
- Olympus Mons: The Magical Beasts are powerful entities which have powerful elemental magic and are impossible to control with conventional magic.
- Outscare the Enemy: When Lady Zebiantes misbehaves after finding Dariel again, Marika's suppressed rage makes itself known when she fires a wine cork REAL close to Zebiantes' head with a BANG, missing her. She also gives a Death Glare that puts fear into Zebiantes as well. One final dig by Zebiantes earns her seeing Marika smashing down a pot near her, showing Marika's physical strength.
- Removing the Crucial Teammate: Bashvaza's choice to fire Dariel from the position of aide to the Demon Generals due to his comparatively weak combat ability and lack of magic ends up biting him (and the entire Demon Army) in the ass due to how good of an administrator and problem solver Dariel was behind the scenes.
- Dariel went out of his way to provide up to date Intel on the Hero Party and other human developments. After he left the Generals soon found themselves on the backpedal due to their new sycophantic aides not doing the same level of research Dariel did.
- Dariel was a great people person and could better negotiate with the lower ranks of the Demon race. Without him the Demon Army devolved into bullying and threatening their own subjects into meeting impossible demands and quotas. This action would cause the Knockers to side with the humans after Dariel comes to visit them, costing the Demon Army the vital mythril mine.
- Dariel was also an excellent accountant and manager, making sure supply and armament chains ran smoothly. Once he's gone the Demon Army finds itself in chaos as nobody is properly managing their resources or finances, and all together end up in dire straits.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Smith has a modestly long mini-arc, and passes away off-screen during the one-year Time Skip. However, by then he has already: made Dariel's signature weapon, trained his apprentice to take up his place and laid the foundation for the revival of the art of mythril weapon crafting after access to the material was already secured by Dariel, completing the necessary conditions for the Lux Village's economic revival.
- Super-Strength: Marika is absurdly strong for a woman her size, to the point that Dariel has nearly met death from her affections.
- Time Skip: Downplayed Trope. The story skips to one year after Dariel marries Marika. The only three important changes are that Gashita Took a Level in Badass reaching B-rank, Smith dying and Sakai inheriting his position, and to skip to the point where Lux Village has already decently developed thanks to an influx of people who came to live there following the recapture of the mythril mine.
- Tragic Bigot: Alantsil the previous hero has an overwhelming hatred of demons as one of the previous demon generals killed his wife and presumably his infant son as well. As such, he'll attack any he comes across as when he nearly killed Zebiantes despite the fact she wasn't threatening anyone. He starts to get better though after realizing Dariel was his long-lost son and bonding with his grandson Gran.
- Tragic Dream: Played With, usually Subverted.
- Smith gets his long-time wish to forge a unique weapon made out of mythril after many years of being unable to get even the smallest quantity of the material. Tragically, he dies barely a year after.
- Gilmas already gave up on seeing the Lux Village ever reach the level of prosperity that it once enjoyed, fearing that his generation would be the last to remember the better days. Thankfully, Dariel enables him to witness the village regaining its former glory with his own two eyes.
- Unfortunately Played Straight with Granbarza. He hoped that his biological son Bashbarza and Granbarza's pupil-but-practically-step-son Dariel would be friends and cooperate for the betterment of demonkind. Unfortunately, he greatly underestimated Bashbarza's resentment towards Dariel.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Do NOT insult Dariel in Marika's presence. You'll be lucky if scaring you is all that she does.
- War Is Hell: At this point, both sides seem to have forgotten how exactly the war between humans and demons even started with the war seemingly being maintained by sheer revanchism, Fantastic Racism and shady economic schemes. It takes Dariel forcing the human side to go along with negotiating a trade deal with the demons just to finally lay the foundation for actual diplomacy later on.
- World of Muscle Men: The majority of adult men are muscular, with several supposedly weakened/retired seasoned veterans well in their fifties having a Heroic Build. Even the Long-Haired Pretty Boy Bashbarza has a toned body with defined abs.
