THE OCTAGRAM

The moment I consumed Clayman, the red-haired demon lord Guy stood up.

“An impressive feat,” he solemnly intoned. “I hereby recognize your right, from this day forward, to call yourself a demon lord. Does anyone disagree?”

Nobody appeared to. I had passed the exam. That’s a relief, because—to be frank—goading the other demon lords into combat with me felt like suicide. I guess I never had much to worry about.

I undid the Barrier, allowing Ramiris to fly right up to my face, like she always did. “Ha-ha! I always knew you delivered the goods when the time came for it, Rimuru! In fact, I’d be happy to hire you as my apprentice!”

“Uh, I’m good, thanks. Find yourself another one.”

“Why?!” she grumped. “What’s the big deal? Why won’tcha just say yes like a good kid?”

“Hmph!” Milim proudly sniffed. “Rimuru’s my friend. I heard he doesn’t even want to get along with you!”

“What? No way! Hey! That’s a lie, right, Rimuru?”

“Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sorry, Ramiris, you aren’t part of our team!”

“Whaaaat? Hyah!”

Taking the bait, Ramiris launched a flying kick at Milim’s face. She leaned to the side to dodge it and laughed even harder at her. Huh. These guys are better friends than I thought.

Meanwhile, I noticed Veldora engrossed in friendly-looking conversation with the demon lord Daggrull, bragging about how he was training to keep his aura hidden. “You see him, Daggrull?” he said, pointing at me. “That’s how you do it.”

“Indeed,” the giant replied, nodding. “It was just for a moment, but I felt an explosive amount of magicules from him. Amazing he can hide it so well.”

Veldora had apparently been providing color commentary for my battle against Clayman. I really wish he’d knock that stuff off. That was exactly why I told him to keep watch in town for me.

Deeno, meanwhile, yawned at me, his attention span already waning now that the action was over. “Well,” he moaned, “it’s fine by me.” Weirdo. And a hard one to pin, too. I’m never sure what he’s thinking about.

To Leon, however, none of this mattered. “Heh. I don’t care who becomes a demon lord. Do whatever you want.” Talk about cold.

Frey and Carillon had no objections to my new title. Which left one person.

Valentine, who had remained silent until now, lumbered up to his feet.

“Mmmm. Personally, I would never want to allow a low-born slime to ever become a demon lord, but…”

Dressed as gaudily as a mighty emperor, Valentine sneered down at me. Guess he was a no, even if I was guaranteed to win by majority vote. No worries, then, I thought as I was about to turn my attention elsewhere, when:

“Kwaaaaah-ha-ha-ha! Are you insulting my friend, you lackey?”

Veldora turned his casual attention on the maid next to Valentine.

“Come on, Milus, you really need to train your servants better. Want me to provide a little education?”

Whoa! Hey! What the hell, man?!

“What are you talking about?” Milus returned Veldora’s gaze, her voice frigid and her expression icy. “I am simply a faithful attendant of Sir Valentine’s.”

“Heyyyy, don’t do that! Valentine’s hiding the truth, Veldora. You can’t say that!”

Um, Milim? Did you just kind of blow the door open on that, or what?!

I had a suspicion something fishy was going on with him, but I suppose I was right. This fetching young maid Milus was the actual demon lord, and now she glared at Milim, attempting to stab her in the chest with her eyes.

“Ah!”

Finally realizing her error, Milim began whistling a tune to divert everyone’s attention away from her.

Maybe it would’ve worked better if she could actually whistle, but no sound was coming out, and I doubted it’d make much difference. Milus didn’t seem the type to take a joke, and these antics weren’t about to calm her down.

She looked around the chamber, thoroughly annoyed, her eyes making her look like she planned to kill us all and hide the evidence. She looked hostile and dangerous, but luckily, she decided not to take on the entire rest of the room.

“Tch. Such a bothersome, villainous dragon. How long will he insist upon meddling with me…? And you’ve forgotten my very name, no less. How can anyone have such a gift for aggravating me?”

Now the atmosphere was very different as Milus—well, the demon lord Valentine, that is—spoke. It seems that Veldora was dunderheaded enough to misremember her name entirely, which did a lot to push her buttons.

“Enough of this,” she huffed. “You may call me Valentine.” Then, with a massive outburst of magical force, her appearance transformed, her maid outfit turning into a fancy Gothic-style dress. It was Change Dress in action, a neat trick Milim was adept at as well.

Yep. This was the real thing. The stand-in Valentine was a remarkable specimen himself, but his “maid” was on another dimension. Now we were greeted by a demon lord among demon lords, the ultimate personification of strength and beauty.

“You can leave ahead of me, Roy,” she ordered the kingly ex-Valentine.

“But Lady Valentine—”

“If I’ve been unmasked in front of this many people, there’s no point keeping up the charade.”

She glared at Veldora yet again. “It…it’s not my fault—I didn’t know,” he stammered, feeling out of sorts and trying to avoid her gaze. To Milim, meanwhile, it was already someone else’s problem. The topic was over in her mind. Selfish as always, I could see.

Perhaps understanding that more than most, Valentine seemed ready to drop the subject, as peeved as she was about all this. Shaking off her anger, she stood before Roy, now comfortably back in the servant role.

“Anyway,” she intoned, “there is something that concerns me. When Clayman looked at you, his eyes stopped for a moment, did they not? He might be involved with those cockroaches that invaded my domain earlier. I want you to return home and inform my people to step up our security.”

Guess Carillon and I weren’t the only guys Clayman picked a fight with. No wonder everybody hated him. Maybe he was just trying to discover where Valentine’s domain was—it was still a secret—but even for a data-gathering fiend like him, sometimes it was all too easy to step over the line.

“…Yes, my lady.”

Roy left the chamber alone, not questioning Valentine’s order for a moment. No, he had no business being on the throne at all. He really was just a political stand-in. It was, I suppose, a sign of Valentine’s power and influence.

Time to switch gears. I plucked the round table out from my Stomach and set it back in place. Good thing I thought about storing it before I smashed it up. If battle had broken out before the barrier was in place, I’m sure it would’ve been a mess. The thing looked far too fancy for restitution to be cheap.

All the demon lords sat back down at the table, while Guy’s two maids prepared some tea for us.

“Ah,” Leon suddenly said next to me, “I just remembered. I thought I had heard the name Kazalim somewhere before, but that’s the demon lord I killed, isn’t it?”

I thought I was gonna spit the tea out right there. How could he be so nonchalant with that?

“You know him, Leon?”

And how could Milim not know that? The other demon lords seemed similarly unfazed, many apparently clueless about the guy. Even Ramiris had completely forgotten. I thought she kept her memories whenever she was reborn? I wanted to poke fun at her about it, but that’d just be mean.

…So what’s Kazalim got to do with this?

…Understood. The word Kazalim was uttered by Clayman as he called for help.

Oh, right, right! Now I remember. He did scream something like that. I totally remember that, so hopefully nobody’s putting me on the same boat with Milim and Ramiris.

“So how is this Kazalim related to Clayman?” I asked.

“Kazalim is the Curse Lord,” Carillon explained. “You and he recommended me to this post, didn’t you, Milim?”

“Ohhhh, him! The Curse Lord, I remember. Huh. So that’s the demon lord Leon killed?”

So she knew him by his nickname? That made a little sense. But really, it’s not like Leon killed any other demon lords. If I had to guess, she probably almost forgot since it was just all too boring to her.

“Right. Kazalim was a walking dead like Clayman,” said Carillon, his voice a tad nostalgic. “A unique monster, he said, evolved by himself from an elf. I was kinda friendly with him, so that’s what he told me. The two of them must’ve been connected behind the scenes. Clayman took over Kazalim’s old seat, besides.”

Unlike Clayman, Carillon didn’t seem to have any bad blood for this guy. But hang on a minute. I almost let it pass, but if Kazalim’s a walking dead, too…

“Is Kazalim still alive? Maybe he just pretended Leon killed him, and he’s hiding out somewhere?”

“Yeah,” agreed Carillon, “that might be the case. He was a really sharp guy, you know? You had to be even more careful with him than Clayman.”

So maybe I was right.

“Well,” Leon naturally objected, “I don’t much like you phrasing it like I let him get away. He invited me to join his force, claiming he would help me become a demon lord. Turning him down would have led to assorted annoyances, so I decided to defeat him and seize his position. Whether he’s alive or dead, it doesn’t matter to me.”

Certainly, I could see it if Leon just wanted to stage a display of power without actually wanting to kill him.

“Whoa there, Leon. That’s exactly why Clayman hated you, you realize.”

“Hmph. Do you think I care?”

Yeah, to Leon, the whole subject was just an annoyance, no doubt. I didn’t realize Clayman was trying to put the screws to Leon, too, though. He was just trying to hit everyone up, wasn’t he? I was starting to wonder just how smart he really was.

Still, I was starting to gain a picture of what Kazalim and Clayman were up to. Leon had taken his seat here around two centuries ago, so maybe Kazalim got Carillon and Clayman into the club, then tried to earn a few more friends for himself. Clayman’s earlier scheme to turn an orc lord into a demon lord seemed like kind of a rehash of that—he wanted more people friendly to him, so he could wield more power at Walpurgis. Trying to build blocs of voters, like in an Earth government, was a surprisingly sneaky and non-demon-lord-like move, I thought. A pretty powerful one, too.

“Among Clayman’s allies were a group called the Moderate Jesters,” I said. “Those Jesters hinted that they had connections among the human world, so perhaps the resurrected Kazalim has taken human form, you know?”

According to Leon, Kazalim’s body disappeared after he was defeated. If he was alive again, it’d be in his spiritual-body form at first. It made sense that he’d then install himself into the physical body of something else. Reviving himself within the realm of a demon lord would lead to being instantly discovered, and considering nobody had found him yet, that theory could be safely discounted.

“You might be correct,” Guy unexpectedly stated. “Leon’s attacks have the power to destroy your spirit. If anything, I would mightily praise Kazalim for surviving. Plus, even for demons like ourselves, a full resurrection from our souls alone takes hundreds of years. I doubt a walking dead could ever perform it alone. Not without assistance.”

Walking dead, unlike demons, were dependent on their physical bodies. Full resurrection from the astral body took time, and if anything, Kazalim being alive would be a small miracle. So did Guy mean to imply that Kazalim had help? It all seemed connected, but for now, we had no further evidence to go on.

“Well, either way, I’ll just assume he’s alive and stay on my guard for him. If I just killed Clayman, he might be out for revenge.”

“Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Why worry, Rimuru? You’re a lot stronger than him now!”

“Milim,” I shouted, “that’s the exact kind of cockiness that leads to getting killed!”

Thanks to my victory today, Clayman’s forces were out of the picture. I didn’t think our foes would make any moves for a while, but we still had to keep a sharp watch out. Me alone was one thing, but I now had legions of friends to keep safe. We’d have to devote more resources to our defense and think up ways to handle the threats ahead.

After some more chatting, the Council continued. With the one who called it out of the meeting, Guy took over in his place.

“The main subject of this Council was Carillon’s betrayal and the rise of Rimuru over there, but those issues have been settled. Carillon has betrayed no one, and Rimuru has demonstrated ample power to join our ranks. Personally, I’d be happy to adjourn this session here, but an opportunity like this doesn’t come along every day. Does anyone have something they’d like to say to the other demon lords?”

“Could I, perhaps? Since we’re in the middle of this Council, I have a suggestion to give, or really, more a request,” Frey said.

“Certainly. Go ahead.”

Frey nodded at Guy. “Starting today, I’ve decided to serve Milim. As a result, I want to abdicate from my seat as a demon lord.”

Well. That was a bombshell.

“Whoa, that’s kind of sudden, isn’t it?”

“Wait, Frey! I didn’t hear anything about that!”

“No, because I didn’t say anything about it. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while, do you see?”

She squinted, as if looking at some faraway point. Then she laughed, like she was recalling something amusing.

Frey recalled a conversation she had with Milim, the one that made her decide to place her trust in the girl.

“Hey, Frey, you wanna be friends with me?”

“…Why are you asking me that?”

“Well, Rimuru and I just made friends! Friends are really great. If you ever have any trouble, you both help out each other!”

“Oh, really? Well, Milim…if you’re willing to help me out, then all right, I can be your friend.”

“Really?! Oh, I totally promise, of course!”

“You do? I’m glad to hear that. But I’m a pretty wary woman, so I’ll trust you only if you keep that promise.”

“All right! Hooray, we’re friends now!”

Frey had no trust in Clayman. That was why she believed in Milim, putting her own safety in the balance as she pretended to accept his terms.

What if Milim broke that promise? What if Milim’s mind really was under his control? The questions worried her, but Frey still placed her chips on Milim—and they paid off, big time.

That was the reason. The reason why Frey put all her trust in Milim, volunteering to become her servant. At that moment, a lofty queen who had never trusted anyone before in her life finally found it in her to believe.

Siti Dara

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