BETWEEN MONSTER AND MAN

Clayman was never one to place too much trust in his strength.

He was the demon lord who took over all of Kazalim’s lands. Once Kazalim was defeated at the hands of the demon lord Leon, all the people who served him came to rely upon Clayman for guidance. The domains of the two lords wound up being merged under Clayman’s rule, something none of the other demon lords voiced any complaint over. It all happened fairly quickly, thanks to the ever-careful Kazalim’s preparations in case the worst came to pass.

This resulted in a large war chest for Clayman to work with, allowing him to build a first-class force despite being a relatively new member of the club. Financially speaking, he was number one in the group—or to put it another way, Clayman was the demon lord who best knew how to manage his money. He engaged in under-the-table trade with the Eastern Empire and had a roaring business going with the Dwarven Kingdom as well. Taking advantage of both trade connections allowed him access to the newest weapons and armor from both east and west.

He took advantage of his access to past relics and magical armor to boost his war power. It proved to be useful bait to make power-hungry magic-born do his bidding. His riches attracted them right to him, ripe for using and abusing. That was how Clayman preferred to do business, and it didn’t mean he was stingy with his earnings. He lavished his forces with gifts, carefully meting them out so he could establish a vast network of coconspirators in nations across the world—none of whom even knew one another’s faces.

Everything was going the way he planned it. His ultimate mission, to gain access to every piece of information and place the entire world under his rule, was already halfway complete.

The only thing Clayman lacked, he knew, was power. War, in the end, was ultimately a game of numbers—that was his reasoning and also the rationale for why he never overestimated his capabilities. No matter how much power he had built up, he knew all too well that he could still falter in the end. That was how much of a shock the demon lord Kazalim’s defeat was to him, although Clayman did feel he was a little too unprepared for it.

So he established roots at the core of each geopolitical force and gradually, carefully, expanded on them. And now, Clayman had new strength to tap, truly decisive strength. That was the demon lord Milim—capable of enough overwhelming violence to stand head and shoulders above the other nine. Carillon, whom Clayman appraised as stronger than him, barely put up a fight. She destroyed his nation completely by herself.

And now that he had the power he lacked within himself, Clayman could feel his mood soaring to the skies. He had always wanted to defeat Leon, and now he believed that desire was within sight.

Before that, however…

Heh-heh-heh. How nice to see that boy came to the same conclusion that I did. Have the hated Holy Church fight against the magic-born Rimuru—that’s the best way to sap the strength of both sides.

Have them crush each other. No need to go through any pain themselves.

To make that happen, we need more information on the Holy Church’s internal workings. Could they truly be connected with the demon lord Valentine…? If we can convene Walpurgis right when we send Laplace back in, there’s little doubt that security will be lighter. A fine plan of action!

He brought a glass of wine to his lips, savoring the taste and basking in euphoria.

The wine was a hundred-year-old vintage, old enough that one could almost taste the time and labor put into it, to say nothing of the aroma. Only the most carefully picked examples reached his cellar, carefully stored to ensure only the highest of quality, waiting ever so patiently to be served—all this, just for the sake of Clayman. To him, all of this was a given. It was perfectly natural for him to believe that, for a mighty king like him, only the best would be appropriate.

He let the aroma settle in his nose as he began to think.

“So what should be the pretext of this Walpurgis…?”

It was set for one week from now, at night. It would be a new moon that night, the time of the month when the power of vampires was at its weakest. Every measure had to be taken to ensure Valentine couldn’t flex his full muscle. The main question to figure out was the motivation—the reason why all these demon lords were coming together. He squinted, staring into thin air.

“…If we are going to attack,” he whispered lightly, “now is the time. We could take this chance to seize Carillon’s territory as well.”

“Sure, Clayman, but ya just got ordered to sit tight for a spell, didn’tcha?”

Clayman smirked at the voice that apparently came from nowhere. “You’re here, Laplace? Just as rude as always, I see.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice me. You were that lost in thought?”

“Heh-heh-heh. Can you blame me? I have been granted the opportunity twice to awaken to my full demon lord self, and I lost it both times out of my failures.”

“Ah, no need to stew over it. The way the president sees it, the Eastern Empire’s gonna go on the move soon enough either way.”

“I’m sure they will. But you see, Laplace, I’ve come up with a wonderful idea. The Beast Kingdom’s capital might be gone, but there are still a plethora of weaker races residing in its hinterlands. Perhaps I could swallow up Carillon’s territory before the other demon lords can, gather the survivors together, and kill them. That should be enough to trigger my awakening. A smart plan of action, don’t you think?”

“Whoa, whoa, kinda pushing it a bit too far, eh? I mean, killing innocent people when we still don’t really know what sets off the whole thing?”

Clayman winced. It was not the enthusiastic agreement he was expecting.

“That’s rather out of character for you, Laplace. Do you sympathize for them? The weak are there to be exploited. What could make them happier than dying for my sake?”

“Maybe, but you already killed thousands of human slaves, and that didn’t amount to nothin’, either. How’s this gonna be any different? I tell ya, it’s not a good idea to push it right now. You needa think a little more and take your time with this!”

Laplace was right. Clayman had a history of purchasing slaves, then murdering them. The number had indeed grown to several thousand, but the effort had yet to make Clayman a true demon lord. Having this pointed out to him did little to change Clayman’s mind.

“Don’t be silly, Laplace. I was their owner, and I am free to handle my purchases any way I like. If killing a thousand isn’t enough, we’ll go with ten thousand next. We know that human souls are required for the awakening. There is no need to restrain ourselves with the weak!”

He paused, letting his arrogant theory sink in Laplace’s mind.

“Besides, this plan of action is good for him, too. I’m planning to launch this Walpurgis on the pretext that there’s a new force in the Forest of Jura whose leader has declared himself a demon lord.”

“Right, that’s fine and all, but that ain’t gonna be any reason to invade the Beast Kingdom, is it?”

“Oh, but it will be, Laplace. One of my agents, Mjurran, was killed by someone while on a covert mission. I plan to declare that it was then when I realized the demon lord Carillon had turned on me. No one should have any complaint about me taking over Carillon’s territory to gather the evidence I need to prove it. After all, I was the one who suffered the loss.”

Laplace scrutinized Clayman’s words. Eurazania was adjacent to the lands ruled by Milim—hardly a ruler who cared much about things like “gathering evidence.” The fact that Milim had defeated Carillon was really all Clayman needed to back up his alibi. He could even say he sent Milim over to investigate, for that matter. That way, Clayman’s forces could go through Milim’s land to reach the Beast Kingdom, and no one would have any reason to object. And once things were at that point, fabricating some evidence would be the easy part.

There was nothing unnatural about any of this plan. But Laplace still didn’t think now was the time to act.

Aren’tcha panicking a little too much, Clayman? Not that I’m gonna change your mind anytime soon, but…

“Yeah, what you’re saying all makes sense…”

Then Laplace recalled something that had nearly slipped past him.

“…but hang on, she’s been killed?”

He knew full well that Clayman thought extremely little of Mjurran, but Laplace thought of her as a decent, trustworthy magic-born. In Clayman’s bureaucracy, she was one of the five fingers, the highest echelons of leadership. She wasn’t too good in a fight, but as a wizard who could handle almost any situation, she was highly valued as rearguard support. Plus, she often had handy advice for Laplace and the rest of the Moderate Jesters, even if she acted like she hated it.

More than anything, though, Mjurran had common sense. Laplace gave her top marks for that.

“Ah yes,” the unmoved Clayman replied. “I don’t know what that disappointed tone in your voice is, but yes, she’s dead.”

“Huh. She died, eh…? You’re sure about that?”

“Mm? The Marionette Heart I implanted in her broke. Her real heart, which I kept here, crumbled into ash and disappeared. So yes, I’m quite sure, thank you. Her role in my outfit was over anyway, so you could say it was good timing.”

The flatness of Clayman’s report saddened Laplace a little. “C’mon, Clayman,” he chided, “would it really hurt ya to be a little sadder when one of yer best people passes away?”

He used to be a better man that that. Ever since he reached the demon lord ranks, it’s like he’s grown more and more twisted…

And this wasn’t a phenomenon limited to Clayman. Well near everyone in the Moderate Jesters—the group that Laplace called home—seemed to begin warping a bit personality-wise, as he saw it. Laplace himself was the same. He certainly had no business criticizing Clayman for it, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that Clayman had fundamentally changed.

“Ha-ha-ha! Oh, you’re too kind, Laplace. Did you know that Teare said the same thing earlier? ‘You need to treat your tools right,’ she told me, ‘or else they’ll fall apart.’ I believe she learned that from you, Laplace? But that is exactly why, if a tool falls apart on you, you have to make the perpetrator pay for it. I can atone for the tool as well, then, can’t I?”

The sight of Clayman’s artificial smile made Laplace give up pursuing the question any further. “…Yeah. I’d like to keep her death from going to waste, at least.”

“Of course you do. I thought you would say that.”

Another smile.

Not quite how I meant it, Clayman…

It generated a wealth of mixed emotions in Laplace’s mind. He shook it off, wondering if there were any cracks in Clayman’s plan he had failed to notice.

“But y’know, Clayman, about that Walpurgis… Isn’t anyone else gonna complain atcha about it?”

“Oh, they may.” The smile disappeared from Clayman’s face. Now it was twisted in unwavering confidence and warped desire. “But now that I have Milim at my beck and call, I can just toss her in their direction, and that’s it.”

Laplace turned pale. “Now wait a minute! That’s dangerous talk, there! He said there’s a chance Milim could go berserk, too, didn’t he? Just because the president built that Artifact doesn’t mean you can get away with relying on it for everything.”

“It’s going to be all right, Laplace. Milim fully followed my orders.”

“So I heard. But she also went off script and made that crazy war declaration, didn’t she? She’s ancient by demon lord standards; she’s got to have a hell of a lot of resistance against outside influence. If you come to rely on that lady too much, I think it’s your neck on the line, y’know?”

But Clayman had little interest in the impassioned warning. “Are you envious, Laplace, that Milim is under my full control?”

“No! I’m saying that they call it a ‘trump card’ ’cause you save it until the final deal!”

“Enough from you. You have nothing to worry about. He wishes to see me awaken as a true demon lord. To do that, I will overrun the Beast Kingdom. If anyone stands in my way, I will show you just how easily I will mow them down.”

“Hang on a sec! He and the president just told you to sit tight, didn’t they? What you needa be thinkin’ about right now is how we’ll navigate this Walpurgis thing!”

“Trust in me, Laplace. If I merely sit here and do whatever Lord Kazalim tells me to do, that will not fulfill his goals for me. Now is the time to go on the attack!”

That was enough to fully shut down Laplace’s desperate protests.

In the end, Laplace was unable to stop Clayman. They were in agreement on some things, and it wasn’t that Clayman was wildly diverging from his orders. But Laplace just couldn’t shake the premonition that something was up with the demon lord. So he spoke once more.

“Listen, Clayman. Lemme ask you one more thing: Did you really decide on this plan of action on yer own free will?”

“What are you talking about, Laplace? There are two people in the world who can give me orders: Lord Kazalim and the one who resurrected him. You should be more aware of that than anyone.”

He was right. If Clayman saw nothing wrong with his scheme, Laplace had no authority to intervene. He had his own work to do, infiltrating the Western Holy Church a second time.

“All right. No worries, then. I need to get goin’, but you be careful, too, okay, Clayman? Now’s not the time to be too reckless. Whatever ya do, don’t letcher guard down.”

With that final warning, Laplace took his leave, allowing Clayman to refocus on his own thoughts.

Did he mean to accuse me of being under the influence of another? Ridiculous. Or perhaps…is he worried that I will reap all the spoils of victory for myself, because I have Milim’s powers to use as I please? Hardly like him to be jealous…

Clayman never overestimated his own strength. The self-confidence that controlling Milim gave him, however, had emboldened him. And now, it had made him take the words of Laplace, his most trustworthy of confidants, and dismiss them as mere jealousy against him.

It was with some disappointment in his friend that he took another sip of his wine. Now, however, it was bitter. The mellow sweetness from before was nowhere to be found.

…Curse it all!

Suddenly, Clayman threw the glass in his hand against the wall. His anger was making him act out, following orders given from emotions not even he could understand.

The force of the outburst made the bottle of first-rate wine on the table shatter. But Clayman didn’t care. Instead, to calm his nerves, he took something out from his pocket—a mask molded into a smiling face.

“Don’t you worry, Laplace. I’m going to make this awakening work, and then I will have the world in my grasp. All right, Laplace? I’m not going to lose this again! So this time, at least, let’s all be one happy family together…”

There, by himself in that room, Clayman reminded himself of the hopes hidden in his heart—rubbing the mask softly, as if running his hand over a precious treasure.

Right. First decision: defeat the demon lord Clayman. That’s set in stone. If you got someone lurking around in the darkness, trying to pull off some grand scheme, better to rub him out ahead of anything else. Plus, now that I’ve declared myself to be a demon lord, I need ways to keep the other demon lords from taking action against me. Sacrificing Clayman should be a fine way to do that. There’s the other reason.

As long as we don’t know why Milim decided to pick a fight with Carillon, we can’t really rely on what she says. Time to throw my weight around a little and keep things from getting any gloomier going forward. Besides, Clayman just went too far. He needs to feel the retribution. To pay for what he did.

Moving on, our future direction. Yohm was a popular guy in Farmus, hailed as a hero by most. We’ll take advantage of this to have the current king of Farmus released from imprisonment and forced to come to the negotiating table. I want the kingdom to be a thing of the past by the time we’re done. Beyond that, we need to figure out how to deal with the Western Holy Church, as well as send out declarations to the nations we’ve signed pacts with so they’ll know our take on matters.

We had a lot to talk about. Something told me it was going to be kind of a long meeting.

I kicked things off by taking a report from Soei. Clayman was on the move, apparently, and we needed to hear all the details and confer over what to do. Thus, I was on my way to our main meeting hall, expecting to meet with Tempest leadership and the Three Lycanthropeers.

As I did, my Universal Detect sniffed out a group of fifty or so approaching town. Huh? Oh, it’s Fuze, guild master from the kingdom of Blumund. Before long, our security team had us all face-to-face. He pushed through his own soldiers to see me, his face grim.

“It has been much too long, Sir Rimuru. I am only glad that I made it here in time! We have come to satisfy our duty under the terms of the security agreement signed between Blumund and Tempest, and I feared I was already too late.”

He smiled as he spoke, but he still looked at me intensely, and the soldiers surrounding him looked ready to face death at any moment. Each was fully equipped, heavily armored, and prepared for war.

“Whoa. The guild master himself? What on…?”

“Ha-ha! No need to put it like that. Thegis is ready to take over my post, should it come to it. I’ve heard many things about this town from our merchants, that sneak Mjöllmile in particular. You’ve been engaged with the Kingdom of Farmus, it seems…”

Huh? Ummm…?

Come to think of it, I suppose it had been about ten days since we brought our visitors from Blumund back home. Did they immediately suit up and come running to our aid the moment they heard the news? Great if they did, but…

“…Even if we lack the time to erect a defensive wall,” Fuze feverishly continued, “it would be best to build a circle of personnel around the city to beef up our defenses. It doesn’t look like Farmus’s main force has arrived yet, but there is no telling when their vanguard troops may reach us. We’ve passed the date of their war ultimatum, yes?”

The steely resolve in his eyes seemed clear to me as he said his piece. Well, not just “seemed.” They were clear to me. He had already willed his guild master’s seat to Thegis. I guess he really was here to fight to the death for Tempest.

But um…you know… It’s all kinda over already. And with the way Fuze and his soldiers were all decked out in their finest equipment, ready to fan out the moment I said the word, I wasn’t too sure how to give the news.

“Or perhaps you actually intend to seize the initiative and attack first? I have to tell you, Sir Rimuru, that could be a brash move. According to our intelligence, we have confirmed sightings of an army nearly twenty thousand strong. We lack the numbers to defeat them in a frontal assault. Over the past few days, I have been working my connections—I now have a team of three hundred adventurers on standby. They may be few in number, but I assure you they are at your beck and call. This may be a protracted war; our best bet might be to use the forest landscape to wage a guerrilla campaign…”

Fuze was wholeheartedly devoted to us. Almost to the point where I wondered if he should be, really.

“Still,” he confidently concluded, “it gladdens my heart to be able to fight alongside the beasts and creatures who call this forest home.”

Now it was even harder to tell him. The Tempest leaders around me were stone silent, and the contingent from Eurazania was visibly confused. This stuff was already in the past for us all. Like, I wasn’t expecting them to actually lend us support! I know we had that treaty, but it had more than enough loopholes in its interpretation to let them weasel out of this stuff. But, however few, Fuze still got a bunch of fighters together and zoomed right over here. I was kinda happy to see that, but—

“…Ah, what a fine town this is. Beautiful buildings, well-designed houses, paved roads… It pains me to admit it, but it is far more splendid than anything one could find in Blumund. I can understand your reluctance against turning it into a battlefield. But we must hold out and await reinforcements! Our king has promised to deploy our knights, and while it will take them time to prepare—”

“Ahhh, Fuzie, one moment?”

I hated to do it, but I had to stop him, or else we were gonna be here all day.

“Yes, Sir Rimuru? Did you have a suggestion for our strategy?”

“Um, yeah, our, our strategy… Like, if you wanna call it that…”

“Is this something to be kept secret from us? Certainly, I can understand your suspicion, but I hope you can place your trust in—”

“N-no, no, Fuzie! I really appreciate what you’ve done, but it’s all over now!”

“Huh? Over? How do you mean?”

“Um, how to put it…? Well, to sum up, I kind of killed ’em all!”

“…Um? Them all? Them all, who? What are you talking about?”

I could understand his confusion.

“I mean, um, the army from Farmus you were talking about? I killed ’em all!”

“Wh-whaaa?!”

That was about all the utterly shocked Fuze could choke out. Yohm stepped up to give him a pat on the shoulder, while Kabal offered a few condolences of his own.

“No, I bet he wouldn’t believe it,” commented Elen.

“Nope,” Gido added.

Nope, indeed. It hadn’t even been two weeks since that war declaration. I suppose Fuze figured their main force would reach Tempest in a week, so we’d buy two or three days of time in open-field combat and prepare for a siege in the worst case. Considering how the war should’ve started days ago, and we were totally serene about it, I figured he had to think it was at least a bit weird by now—but seeing all of us assembled like this, he must’ve assumed we were about to sally forth and attack, or something.

In his eyes, we went from dealing with a delayed Farmus force to the war being in the books. That was a lot to take in at once, wasn’t it?

“The other day,” Rigurd finally began, “we sent my son Rigur out to you to give the news. You two must have missed each other along the way, I fear. But it is just as Sir Rimuru says. The war is already over.”

Between his and Kabal’s and Elen’s supplemental commentary, we managed in a little over a few minutes to convince Fuze that we weren’t pulling an elaborate prank.

“You must be joking,” I heard him whisper under his breath, but time heals all wounds and all that.

The fifty fighters accompanying him weren’t too enthused about it, either, so I ordered our soldiers to take them to our barracks and let them rest up. They looked exhausted enough to collapse on the spot, limp and lifeless. Hearing that there wasn’t any war to fight would cut the tension in pretty short order, I thought. They had apparently been relying on natural trails in the forest instead of the highway, in order to avoid encountering Farmus forces, and all that bushwhacking in full armor couldn’t have been fun.

So the fighters all muttered their thanks to us as they marched off to their quarters. All that remained was the hangdog-looking Fuze.

“Why don’t you get some rest, too, Fuzie?”

“Yes…” He nodded at me. “Yes, this has put my mind in quite a state of disorder. If I could lie down for a bit…”

But just as he was about to walk toward the barracks, another guest interrupted him with (im)perfect timing.

“Oops. Here’s someone else. And who could it be but…”

“But?” Fuze asked, stopping as he heard me mutter. He should’ve kept going. Once he saw who it was, resting was the last thing on his mind—because standing right there was Gazel Dwargo, king of the dwarves himself.

Something I had noticed a while ago: Having my Magic Sense skill evolve into Universal Detect had made my ability to grasp my surroundings far more accurate across a much wider range. Despite how far away they were from town, I could spot the squadron of Pegasus Knights flying in remarkably fast.

Report. Thirty knights incoming. The individual Gazel Dwargo is confirmed to be in the vanguard position.

The ultimate skill Raphael, Lord of Wisdom, gave the report as if nothing could be more trivial.

With this upgrade in accuracy, I was now able to detect and identify people I had met before. That’s incredibly convenient. Convenient…but with this range, easily enough to cover the whole town and a great deal beyond, I’m starting to think this is literally too much information. To be frank, I’m getting sick of all these reports, every single time.

So could you keep ’em a bit more on the brief side, Sage…um, I mean, Raphael? To be exact, you can report in when someone’s approaching only if they’re malicious or harmful to me or whatever.

……Understood.

It felt like Raphael really wanted to say something back there, but nothing to get worked up about. It’s always best to assign all the dirty work to someone else, if you can. Leave it to Raphael! That’s my motto.

So I turned my skill down to the minimum setting as I awaited our guests. Since it was the skill performing the ID for me, I could rest assured that these were no impostors. But before I could even tell Fuze, the Pegasus Knights flitted down in front of us. King Gazel dismounted first.

He smiled the moment he spotted me. “Ah, Rimuru, nice to see you again! So I hear you’ve become a demon lord?”

Oh, that. I thought he’d want a word about that. Didn’t expect him to fly on over himself, though.

“Ah, yeah, kinda. There’s been a lot of stuff going on around here, Gazel, so I figured I’d become a demon lord.” I gave him an awkward grin. “Not to make you feel unwelcome or anything, but we were just about to all meet up and discuss our future strategy.”

“Well, perfect! I would be happy to join this conference,” he declared, like it was his god-given right.

It was right about then that Fuze, exhausted and ready to cry, came up to me.

“Demon lord…? What in heavens is that all about?!”

He had heard our conversation from the side, and I could tell he wasn’t about to let it slide. Yeah, I didn’t really talk about that, either… Going in depth right now would just be a pain in the ass, but Fuze wasn’t going to accept a polite no, I could tell.

“Sir Rimuru, I find it hard to ignore what you just said! Because it sounded very much to me that you have become a demon lord—or something to that effect…?”

He was shaking from head to toe, about ready to pee his pants.

“Um, if you needed a bathroom, it’s down this street and—”

“I do not need a bathroom! I never said anything about a bathroom! This ‘demon lord’ business… Tell me what you mean by it!”

I suppose that feint didn’t work. Fuze was clearly starting to lose his temper, and his real personality was starting to show itself.

“Oh. Um, yeah, demon lord. Well,” I replied as breezily as possible, “I’m one of ’em now.”

This, sadly, didn’t end the topic.

“Ha-ha-ha! Rather poor taste for a joke, wouldn’t you think? I was hoping for a more serious answer from you…”

Ugghh, this is such a pain. Do I have to start from the very beginning before you’ll get off my back? And now I could see Gazel looking curiously at me, too. So as much as I hated going through all this in the middle of the street, I gave them both a quick recap.

Once I wrapped up, I noticed Fuze was muttering to nobody in particular, eyes glazed over. His mind must’ve shut off in an attempt to avoid the reality of it all. At least he wasn’t lecturing me or anything. Leaving him to his own ranting, I turned to King Gazel again.

“By the way, Gazel, are you sure it’s all right for a king to slip out of his own kingdom that easily?”

It was a sincere concern of mine. Not that I’m one to talk, but the king was being allowed way too long a leash, wasn’t he? The Armed Nation of Dwargon, in terms of national power, had to be several dozen times stronger a nation than ours. Wasn’t the king going out on trips whenever he pleased kind of a problem?

“Pfft. What is the issue? I have a decoy fully serving for me!”

Huh? I thought decoys were meant for, like, drawing the attention of assassins away from the real thing or something? Or were they meant for playing hooky like this? I wasn’t too sure either way, but whatever. Gazel had Pegasus Knight captain Dolph with him, along with quite a number of his trusted companions. For a security detail, it was almost too extensive.

“Regardless, Rimuru…” He turned his now-kingly eyes toward me. “The report Vester sent me three days ago—that was no mistake, then?”

“Oh, you mean the twenty thousand—”

“Wait, Rimuru. I had heard the Farmus force had gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Do you know something about that?”

“Uh, missing?”

Huh? What was he talking about?

“The way Vester phrased it,” he slowly continued, “a force of some twenty thousand troops simply vanished before they could reach this town. Do you have any idea what may have happened to them?”

He gave Vester a sidelong glance out the corner of his eye, the silent pressure he emitted almost making his subject collapse to the ground. I joined his gaze. Vester vigorously shook his head at me.

“I received the report as well, Vester.”

This was Vaughn speaking, admiral paladin for the dwarven army and sworn friend to King Gazel; and to Vester right now, a source of terror.

“At the time, I believe you told us that the Farmus force had disappeared, and you were investigating why. The report was curious enough to us that we decided to venture over ourselves, but is this the explanation?”

His annoyance might be understandable. I had just brutally massacred a force of twenty thousand, and Gazel and Vester were trying to kind of gloss over it.

“Well, yes, um, the cause still isn’t quite known yet…”

Vester began choosing his words carefully, trying to guess at the intentions of his dwarven friends. He was a quick thinker like that, already trying to bury the lede on what I had done.

“Fool!” I heard Gazel whisper to me. “If you tell the truth here, you’ll become an enemy to all humanity—or if not the enemy, a symbol of terror worldwide.”

Yeah, I guess so, come to think of it. Someone who can kill in the five figures on one go was scarier than a nuclear bomb, really. The fewer people who knew about this, the better—and certainly, nations and people who weren’t directly involved at all didn’t need to hear the story. The Kingdom of Farmus attempted to invade monster lands, only to go completely missing due to an unknown incident or incidents. That much was the truth, decent enough to spread across the land.

There’s Gazel for you. Far more shrewd than I would ever be. Which means I now have to walk back what I just said a moment ago. Ugh.

I didn’t mind if the townspeople knew; that wasn’t the problem, and it was too late now anyway. Nobody was about to go blabbing it to the general public regardless. The main issue was Fuze. I gave him a glance; he was still in a state of panicked confusion.

“Ummm, Fuzie?”

“Sir Rimuruuu…”

So now what? I just declared to him that I wiped out the entire Farmus military by myself. Should I laugh it off as a lie?

But as I thought about it, Fuze sighed and raised his arms up. “I heard nothing. And of course, I don’t think my fighters in the barracks will remember anything by tomorrow morning. We’re all so exhausted right now, we must be hearing voices in our heads.”

Guess he’s staying mum for me. He seemed remarkably more aged to me now, sorrowful. I suppose he found this the most convenient way to solve the problem—and certainly, the best way to tie up all the strings here right now.

“Hee-hee-hee-hee… In that case, allow me to visit them to make sure,” Diablo offered. He had sidled up next to me out of nowhere with that smile on his face again. Funny guy. The perfect butler. You could ask pretty much anything of him, and he’d do it. At the moment, he was gleefully taking care of the assorted errands I asked him to do. I think I might have heard him whisper “I am quite gifted at altering memories” to me just now, but let’s pretend I didn’t.

Fuze had mixed feelings about it, I could tell, but he was willing to deal with it as long as his people were safe. He understood King Gazel’s take—the fewer people who knew, the better. When politics get involved like this, governments might not be afraid to shut witnesses up permanently, after all. Maybe it’s smarter to shut your eyes now and again.

Still…

“I will not question how my fighters are handled, but I insist on joining this conference of yours.”

It sounded to me like this was one point Fuze refused to negotiate on. His eyes were resolute—he must’ve figured the topic of our meeting wasn’t something he could afford to be in the dark on.

“All right.” I shrugged. “I want you to believe that I’m not hostile to humanity. I won’t keep you out.”

And so, Rigurd guided Fuze to a waiting room. Since we now had a dwarven contingent participating, we needed to set up a larger meeting hall for everybody, and in the meantime, they could all probably use some rest.

“Hmph,” grumbled Gazel as we saw them go off. “You trust that man, Rimuru?”

“Yeah, he’s safe.”

Fuze was a trustworthy man. I was confident enough in that.

“Mm. Then I suppose the problem is those people.”

He turned his attention toward the empty space behind us. Um, or was it empty? I turned around, surprised, only to find an unfamiliar group watching us. There was a well-dressed gentleman at the lead, his face well-defined; he must have been very popular with the opposite sex when he was younger. His eyes were notably sharp, and he was flanked on both sides by five or so guards, all outfitted in similarly fine gear; perhaps high-ranked military officers or the like.

The group was clearly well trained, and…man, they were right behind me this whole time, and I never noticed? What the hell happened to Universal Detect, man?!

However, I was the only concerned witness, it turned out.

Report. No clear hostility detected among the group.

If that’s what the somewhat pouty Raphael had to say, I could believe it. Maybe this was my fault. I did just tell it to stop giving me reports all the time. I suppose “malicious or harmful” is a bit too vague to make much sense of. Raphael had a right to be angry, perhaps.

Sorry, I said to myself. Go ahead and give the full reports from now on. It seemed kind of lame, really, apologizing to one of my own skills, but I at least wanted to express my feelings.

As I underwent this internal conflict, Gazel and the mystery group were already engaging each other.

“And you people are…?”

“Ah, I see it’s the emperor who enjoys hiding in his underground burrow! Very impressive, to see a coward like you provide backing to the ‘demon lord’ like this…”

The stern greeting did nothing to break the man’s easygoing style. He was clearly trying to goad the dwarven king while the officers rolled their eyes at him in exasperation.

Gazel, recognizing them all, flashed a bold smile. “Aha. You, then. The elf descendants whose heads are always in the clouds. Did you descend from that fancy tree city of yours, then?”

I suppose they all knew each other. Raphael was right—no malice to speak of; these two just didn’t get along too well, is all. Or more like they enjoyed arguing for the sake of arguing.

“Sir Rimuru, I believe these to be envoys from the Sorcerous Dynasty of Thalion,” stated Soka, one of Soei’s operatives. She had apparently brought these people here—and once the man recognized King Gazel, he immediately started giving him crap.

“You never change, do you, Erald?”

“Neither do you, Gazel.”

This was the way the two decided to greet each other, looks of sheer contempt on their faces.

“And that girl there is…?”

“Oh, hello there. My name’s Rimuru, and I run things around the forest alliance we have here.”

Erald, the squinty-eyed guy, had his eyes turned to me, so I gave him a casual hello. Any visitors from Thalion needed to be treated with the utmost courtesy—not that I really knew anything about manners or diplomatic customs or anything. Becoming a demon lord’s great and all, but it’s not like there’s an instruction manual for it. Hopefully I’ll track someone down who can teach me the finer points sometime.

Upon hearing my name, Erald suddenly tensed up—then opened his eyes as wide as he could. “You!” he bellowed. “The demon lord who seduced my daughter! I hope you are prepared to atone for that!”

He immediately began to cast what even I could tell was a vastly overpowered flame spell. Yikes. Chill out, dude.

Based on the knowledge I gathered, a flame spell on such a high level was one of the most difficult pieces of magic to pull off. The whole family of fire magic occupied its own branch in the tree of aspectual magic, starting with your garden-variety puff of Fire and moving on from there to Fireball and the more difficult Fire Wall and Fire Storm. The harder it is to pull off, the more of a boom it makes.

At the very peak of this scale lies what, for the sake of simplicity, I call “compounding” magic. Combining the burning nature of flame spells with the shock-wave effects of explosive spells, for example, can provide magic on a scale beyond either of the original two types. That was just the type of compounding Shizu was gifted at, come to think of it. The main difference was that she relied on an elemental spirit to power her casting. That’s not easy, not unless you’re as talented a caster as Shizu was, but once you have that relationship in place, the elemental will do most of the fine-tuning for you.

Compounded spells on the very tippy top of the scale like this were quite hazardous, because they required you to control the magic manually. But since they were not a part of any “official” magic family, they offered a great deal of freedom. You had full control, juggling aspects of the spell like launch speed, targeting accuracy, size and scope of the effect, and duration. If brute strength was all you wanted, you could level a town easily enough with one.

This, of course, came at some danger to the caster. You needed enough spiritual force to gather the required magicules together to keep the spell under control, or else it wouldn’t work, letting that energy run amok instead of being consumed—and potentially raze the entire area around you. It goes without saying that this sort of magic wasn’t something the general public saw much of—we’re talking literally military-grade stuff. You had to be at least an accredited wizard to be allowed to touch it.

It was absolutely not the kind of thing I wanted in my city, and now Erald was casting it. What was he thinking? It made no sense to me. And what’s he mean seduced?

The whole thing left me confused for a moment, but again, I shouldn’t have worried. From the side came a loud bang, like someone fired off a shotgun, and then Elen’s distressed shouting.

“Dad, come onnnn! What are you here for?!”

She barged in, looking livid, and immediately gave Erald a bop on the head before he could react. It was enough for him to come back to his senses. I suppose he was her father, then? And judging by the chewing out Elen was giving him, he must’ve been a bit regretful by now. Scary, isn’t it, seeing someone fly into a rage without warning like that? He seemed like such an intellectual gentleman, like Gazel. So much for that.

“Ah… Ha-ha-ha. Sorry about that,” he said with a cheerful smile. “I was informed that a demon lord had kidnapped my daughter, and I suppose I lost my cool for a moment.”

Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you get to cast maximum-force fire magic in my town. What a loony dad.

“No, my lord,” one of his men, a timid-looking assistant, coolly observed. “Our reports involved far more than that, but you jumped to a hasty conclusion.”

“See? I knew it! This is totally your fault, Daddd!”

I felt a little bad for Dad, visibly withering on the spot, but he had it coming. If anything, I wanted him to regret it even more.

“…You always were too overprotective a father,” Gazel said once things calmed down.

“I am not,” Erald fired back unapologetically. “How can I help it? Elen is simply too precious to me.”

“Yes, all children are to their parents, but… Ah, this is pointless.”

The way Gazel rolled his eyes told me that Erald was known for this. You can’t fix the fatherly instinct, I guess.

Once things had simmered down between Gazel and Erald, Elen stepped up to say hello, an elegant air surrounding her despite her rough adventurer’s garb.

“I am sorry I have been out of contact, King Gazel.”

“Ah, Ellwyn? I hardly recognized you! How grand it is to see you in good health. I see the years have been very kind to your beauty!”

“Keep your hands off her, Gazel!” Erald interjected, earning him another slap from Elen and round of admonishment from his assistant. Gazel just shrugged, apparently used to this act. If Elen’s on the scene, her father just loses all sense of self, doesn’t he? Not exactly the member of the intelligentsia I took him for at first. Better watch out for that.

“Sir Rimuru, this is Erald Grimwald, my father and archduke of Thalion.”

“It is an honor to meet you, leader of Jura and master of the monsters. As my daughter just said, I am Archduke Erald Grimwald. Please, just Erald is fine.”

So this guy’s an archduke in the Sorcerous Dynasty? That’s pretty high up there, isn’t it? Dwargon isn’t the only kingdom sending their big guns over to see us. I would later learn that he was closely related to the Thalion royal family—the current emperor’s uncle, in fact. That explained why he was acting so familiar and casual around Gazel. To put it simply, he was one of three most powerful people from his native country.

I could hardly hide my surprise. Does that mean…? Wow, is Elen some kind of crazy-influential fairy-tale princess?! I knew she was of noble blood, but not that much! She’s not far from the throne at all, lineage-wise, and she’s working as an adventurer? Talk about being given a lot of freedom! And I can’t be the only one to think it’d be better to put a stop to that, not that Elen herself would likely care. I imagined she probably had people keeping an eye on her, given how sure she was that the advice she gave me on becoming a demon lord would come back to haunt her. And all that trouble she gives Kabal and Gido, too. I really ought to reward them for that next time.

But for now…

“So did you travel here just to inquire about Elen?”

I doubted it, as I sized up Erald.

“Hee-hee-hee! No, of course not. As we consider how we should interact with your nation, I wanted a chance to see you with my own eyes—this leader that my daughter seems so fond of. Given the sense of authority you appear to bring to your people, I find it hard to believe you are a slime at all… But still, I feel I have a much more complete picture of your strengths now.”

He accentuated this with a nefarious-sounding laugh. I suppose that overpowered flame strike was his way of testing me as well. Me—and Benimaru, Shuna, and Shion adjacent; none demonstrated a hint of panic—it wouldn’t have; they had already seen he had no intention of actually launching it. Given how hotheaded they all were not long ago, that was some palpable growth.

“It was clear,” Shuna explained, “that you had far less than the required energy needed for the spell you were casting, once I read what it was.”

Erald grinned at this, a bit ashamed that his act was spotted for what it was.

“Well, I suppose I have quite a while to go, if you can see through me that clearly!”

“Not at all,” she calmly replied. “Between the speed at which you deployed it and the skill you showed at making it look real, it was an impressive sight to see. Considering the artificial body you possess, that level of accuracy is remarkable.”

“Oh? You noticed I was using a homunculus? Color me surprised.”

“Yes. It seemed to me you had fused your spiritual body into it. Very impressive. It would certainly take a nation of magic-users such as yours to pull that off.”

I used Analyze and Assess at Shuna’s suggestion. She was right; Erald had borrowed this body from somewhere else. His officers were all “real,” but once you reach the higher ranks of nobility, I suppose it paid to be careful. I had thought he was rather lightly outfitted for a summit with a self-styled demon lord. Maybe the dwarven King Gazel over there was the crazy one.

Still, it was really something. An elaborately fine-tuned homunculus, indistinguishable from a human being. Once things calm down, I’d love to learn how that works.

So Erald was here to size up our nation and its leaders. That and a few other things, too, I’m sure, but we can tackle that later. No need to force it out of him right this moment.

Since he’s here and all, I figured I might as well have him join the conference, so he’d have more stuff to judge us with. I wanted his take on our future direction as well, and this would be a good opportunity for that. It might result in us and the Sorcerous Dynasty becoming enemies, of course, but we’d just have to cross that bridge when we came to it.

Gobta ran up to inform me that the meeting hall was ready.

I was planning to have this be a more informal confab between Jura buddies, but things had changed. This really was a summit. Usually, with things like these, you’d have lower-level diplomats meet up first and agree in advance on questions to ask and topics to tackle, figuring out where there was room for compromise once both sides were aware of each other’s stakes. Here, though, there was no greasing the gears in advance. We’d be giving frank opinions to each other, and in the end, we’d pin down our federation’s future. It wouldn’t be going too far to call it a war of words.

Steeling my resolve, I headed for the meeting hall, ready to emcee one of the most important gatherings I—and Tempest—had ever experienced.

In later years, the event would come to be known as the Monster-and-Man Summit.

Siti Dara

Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.