WALPURGIS
The impossibly ornate door connected right to the
meeting hall.
A large, round table was positioned in the
center, with twelve evenly spaced chairs surrounding it. Ten demon lords were
on the invite list (with Carillon absent), so two of these seats would be empty
even if I took up one. Attendees sat in chronological order of their demon lord
appointment, and so I was placed right in front of the door—not that I minded.
My attention was focused in the room around me anyway.
On an occasion like this, I wanted to observe
my new colleagues as much as possible. Of course, there were only two people
here right now. One was Ramiris, at the seat of honor way on the other side.
She was seated and kicking her legs around, having a whale of a time, like a
kid on a car trip. I figured I could ignore her.
No, my attention was on
her right, at the seat directly facing me. There I saw a man with bewitchingly
attractive red hair. A man, definitely, but there was more than a touch of
femininity to his dashing good looks. His eyes were shut, but I doubted he was
napping.
One look was all I needed to know: This dude
was trouble. Analyze and Assess seemed to suggest that he wasn’t any big deal,
but my sixth sense was giving me the eeriest vibes with him. At first glance,
he seemed like an inexperienced kid, kind of magically strong but unable to
control his aura. Without the Great Sage’s analytical skills, I might’ve been
tricked—that was how crafty he was at hiding his true self, feeding the people
around him misinformation and making them underestimate his true skills. We hadn’t
even started fighting yet, and the battle was already under way.
It made me recall the mind-reading skills of
Gazel, the dwarf king. Kind of like my Great Sage, nobody would know you had
that skill unless you told them. It wouldn’t be until someone tried it on you
that you’d notice it, I think, unless it was a mind reading that went really
deep into your psyche to avoid that. As long as my latent resistance didn’t
fail me, I was pretty sure I’d be okay.
As a result of this, hiding your skills was
very important. You could also bluff people into thinking you had certain
skills or deliberately mess up a skill to make them think you were inept to
wield it. There were all kinds of ways to play with your opponents’ minds, and
that was exactly what this pretty boy was doing—tricking other people’s Analyze
and Assess skills to mess around with them.
My idea had always been to hide my powers,
keep my aura turned down as long as possible, and give the enemy zero
information to work with. This guy, meanwhile, was using his rivals’
data-gathering skills against them. It was a sort of screening process. He was,
in effect, asking his foes “Do you have the power to read me?” If they didn’t,
they were out of the picture; if they did, he’d gauge their response. If the fake
info he planted into their minds was enough to scare them off, they weren’t
worth dealing with in the first place—but if you did
notice his trick, that glance at the sheer depths of his powers would make you
unable to resist him.
But think of it like this. Even the data he wanted you to know about indicated that he had as much
magical force as Carillon. There was no way to guess how much he actually had.
Even if you understood his game, it was hard not to let it unnerve you a bit.
This was Guy, and he was clearly on a whole
other level.
By the time I was done
examining Guy, a large man lumbered into the room, bringing only one guest with
him. This was Daggrull, the demon lord giant whose overwhelming presence
dominated any room he was in. He immediately walked up and slammed himself into
a seat at Guy’s right, kicking back and putting his feet up. The empty space
between them must’ve belonged to Milim, indicating that the table divided demon
lords into two halves based on their order, with Guy on one end and me on the
other.
I turned my eyes to him. Guy was a tall figure
himself, but Daggrull was enormous, not to mention comfy-looking in his
specially made chair. Even something like this chair was an opulent-looking
magical item. This was Veldora’s favorite rival, and the magic with which he
presented himself definitely signaled to me that he could take on a dragon
type.
Plus, the amount of magicule energy on him was
just ridiculous. Was that higher or lower than Veldora’s? It seemed bottomless
to me, but it’d be hard to accurately measure unless I fought him for real.
Still, quality beat quantity. Just because he had a bunch of magicules on hand
didn’t make him seem that scary to me. The key was how well he used them.
Differences in skill level were a vital aspect of any fight, of course, and a
demon lord like Daggrull couldn’t be that unskilled. I suppose I’ll need to watch out for him, too.
Now another one came
in, a handsome, muscle-bound man decked out in some real fancy-looking threads.
He was tall, if not as tall as Daggrull, and his facial features looked like
they’d been chiseled. His short, curly blond hair looked wild on his scalp,
perhaps representing his violent personality. To put it simply, he had
Hollywood good looks, and he knew how to charm people.
I suppose, of course, the thing that stuck out
the most were the two fangs visible from his lips. He must’ve been the demon
lord Valentine, the vampire. He sat to Ramiris’s left, so in terms of the seat
order, he must’ve been about as old as Daggrull—that, or perhaps he just took
over for whoever he replaced. Not that seat assignments mattered that much.
What struck me more were the pair Valentine
brought with him. One was an elderly man, kind of a manservant type. Definitely
well-trained, unmoving and statuesque. His aura was restrained, revealing
nothing—the same strategy I used. The second one, meanwhile, was an
eye-catchingly beautiful silver-haired girl who seemed to shine like the sun.
Her skin was pale, and she had one red eye and one blue. There was something
oddly eerie about this girl, who appeared to be on the cusp of adulthood and
was clad in a maid-style dress. Maid dresses are like battle uniforms, as they
say, and it wouldn’t be odd for this girl to be pretty strong.
And these two were both working for this guy?
That’s a surprise. The girl, in particular, was just letting her gigantic aura
out all over the place. But—hang on. When our eyes
met, I was struck by the most uncomfortable feeling. Maybe I was imagining it,
but it seemed like she was changing the nature of her aura at random.
Understood. Analyze and
Assess indicates that the target likely bears more magicules than the demon
lord Valentine.
Ah, I
knew it. I couldn’t read her overall energy count, but it’s higher than
Valentine’s, the guy she’s serving. It was very
cleverly concealed—if you didn’t have an ultimate skill like mine, you’d never
spot it. But again, they weren’t really intent on hiding it—like Guy, they
wanted to assess you, see whether you spotted it or not.
Could this girl be the real
demon lord? Or perhaps the previous holder of this seat, the demon lord that
retired out. Maybe this is that “Milus,” the vampiress that even Veldora had
high praise for. The changeover happened more than 1,500 years ago, so perhaps
not too many demon lords knew about that—or did but were keeping mum about it.
Or didn’t care. Either way, better be careful.
Valentine, the current demon lord, was no
pushover himself. He had a heroic sort of ambition, even more than an
untransformed Carillon, so there was no reason to doubt his strength. And if
that wasn’t enough, she had that freaky girl with her. If it was her domain
that got burned to ash, it wouldn’t be strange for her to despise Veldora at
all. I resisted the urge to yell “Why’d you have to piss that
lady off?!”
At least there was one saving grace—who
wouldn’t mind dying by the hand of such a beautiful figure? (Quite a few
people, I imagine, but…) I’ll just have to hope she doesn’t
learn about Veldora and me—or if she does, that I don’t have to clean up the
mess.
After a little while,
the fifth person showed up—this one a loner, almost sleepwalking to his post.
He had two swords on his belt, but that’s it. Not much of an arsenal. I got a
quick glance at his eyes; they were light blue. His hair was a very dark shade
of purple with silver streaks in it. He still looked young to me, maybe even
high-school age, and he had well-defined facial features, although they were
spoiled by his sleepy eyes and general listlessness.
He stopped by Ramiris’s seat to say hello.
“Yo. Man, you’re still, like, the size of a bug, huh?”
“Oh, you trying to start a fight with me? Like
you could even handle me, Deeno.”
So person number five was Deeno. He definitely
seemed cut from the same cloth as her. Neither was seriously riled; they seemed
to just be screwing with each other.
“Why would I need to, dumbass? Like, it’s
totally obvious who would win.”
“Pfft! I didn’t realize you were in that much of a hurry to die. I’m in perfect physical form
today, I’ll have you know!”
“Uh-huh. Hey, haven’t you shrunk since last
time I saw you?”
“What do you want
from me?! I only just got reborn recently!”
When I asked her about it, Ramiris said she
had been resurrected around five hundred years ago. It would apparently take
her several centuries to fully mature. This seemed to convince Deeno.
“Ohhh, that’s why? That’s kinda a pain for
you, isn’t it? But you kept all your memories, right?”
“My memories, yes. But my spirit’s degenerated
along with my body… Ooh, but I’m still the strongest outta all of you! I need a
handicap like this, or it’s no fun!”
“Guy, I think Ramiris is sayin’ something? Did
you hear her just now?”
“Bahhh?! What are you, stupid? I know how to
pick my enemies, all right? I’m not saying I could KO Guy in one punch or
anything!”
A
bigmouth like her changed her stripes all too quickly. I guess that red-haired
guy really was Guy, too, and judging by Ramiris’s freak-out, he really was a
menace. I’ll just write “Guy = dangerous” in my
internal notepad. It’s little notes like these that have saved me from peril
more than once. You can’t underestimate the power of that.
The two kept on talking in hushed voices so as
not to rile Guy. They were discussing Beretta and Treyni, Ramiris’s guests, and
of course Ramiris was bragging up and down about them.
“Wha? Why’s a total loner like you got
attendants here?” Deeno complained. “You’re making me look like a dweeb for
showing up alone!”
“Hee-heeeee! Now I can get back at everyone
for calling me a little shrimp and a loner, you in particular!
Wait’ll you see how powerless you are against these guys!”
“Oh, you want us to fight? Is it okay if I rip
’em up?”
“Huh? Of course it’s
not okay! If you break them, I’m seriously going to tell on you to Guy and make
him make you pay for it!”
It’s like Guy was her big brother or
something. It was breathtaking how quickly she let other people do the dirty
work for her.
“…But really, man,
these guys are the real deal. Like, I looked at ’em for real just now, and it’s
like, damn!”
Beretta and Treyni silently nodded at Deeno.
They were far too good for Ramiris, really.
“Right! You see? You see, you see? Now I’ve
got some muscle to back up my words, know what I mean?” Ramiris stuck out her
chest (not that she had much of one) to show up Deeno. Their upgrades were
entirely my doing, but ah well.
Beretta and Treyni remained silent. They were
the perfect attendants. They didn’t speak, and the dozing Shion behind me could
definitely learn a thing or two from them.
Once he finished saying his hellos, Deeno stumbled
over to his seat. It was next to Valentine’s, making him another member of the
old guard. Deeno ignored Valentine entirely as he sat down…and immediately put
his head on the table and started sleeping. That
seemed kind of rude. Maybe demon lords didn’t make it a habit to say hi to one
another, and all those put-downs with Ramiris were the exception to the rule.
Deeno couldn’t have acted less interested in
being here. Showing up was enough for him, it seemed, but falling asleep
without even bothering to read the room was, in a way, incredibly
self-centered. Fearless, too.
I suppose that act had to be backed up with
some actual ability. Hopefully. Let’s go with that. He was
jamming my skills a bit, so I couldn’t be sure of what he had. He stared at me
with his half-open eyes whenever I tried analyzing him, so he had to have
noticed. That banter with Ramiris made me think he was pretty chill, but I
definitely shouldn’t put my guard down. Given the rapport he seemed to have
with Ramiris, though, I hoped I didn’t have to make him my enemy.
The next one through
the door was the empress of the harpies, the demon lord Frey. Milim told me
about her, and let me tell you, she was explosively
erotic. I wondered how she flew with those breasts; they must generate a ton of
wind resistance.
…Oops. My mind’s going off track. But can you
blame me? That was just the sheer impact of her appearance.
Once she stepped inside, her eyes turned first
to Milim’s empty seat and then to me. Even the way she turned her head was
mesmerizing. I mean, come on… And when she passed by, oh, what a wonderful
aroma she had on her.
As I basked in this, I felt something sinister
behind my back. Shion was clearly peeved. Must’ve noticed I was letting that
perfume get the best of me. Well spotted, Shion.
Riling her any further was too scary a concept to entertain, so I reset my mind
and got back to business.
Her magicule count wasn’t anything to write
home about—maybe smaller than Shion’s or Benimaru’s. Of course, Shion could
probably line up well with Valentine at this point, so I’m not saying it was that tiny. Quality, not quantity. It’d be foolish to judge
on this alone. In terms of chest size, meanwhile, it was really hard to pick a
winner— Oops. Better not think about that.
If I had to guess, maybe she had a lot of
hidden skills? That was the kind of concerning vibe I got.
What was worth noting
were her attendants. One was another big-breasted harpy, on the same level as
Frey. She was young, and her body was about as lascivious as they come. The
other was a large man, his magical energy on par with Frey’s. He had huge,
eagle-like wings sprouting from his back, so he must’ve been a male harpy. He
was a measure smaller than Daggrull but otherwise could give Valentine a run
for his money in muscles and good looks, although the lion mask on his face
made the latter part unclear.
Wait. Lion?
Report. According to my
analysis and assessment—
Yeah. No way, right? I
mean, this guy felt totally different from Carillon. It had to be some other
guy. I didn’t need Raphael to spell it out for me. I’m not that
dumb.
……
There was no way the
AWOL Carillon would attend Walpurgis with such an obvious ploy. He’d be more
careful with it, taking pains to act prudently. They say there are at least
three people in the world who look exactly like you, and I’m sure that’s the
story with this guy, too.
As I observed them, I
was struck by the odd feeling that a chilly wind was blowing over me. I turned
to find a blond-haired beauty coming in, blessed with looks that only the gods
themselves could have given her. She walked right up to me.
“…You are Rimuru?”
“Yeah, but—”
I thought about saying “Yeah, but who’re you?”
at first. I definitely didn’t know her—but then it dawned on me. There were
four demon lords left. Carillon was missing, and that just left Clayman, Milim,
and Leon. Leon was blond-haired, I think, and beautiful
enough that people called him the Platinum Devil… Hmm…
“…Oh, you’re Leon? Did you need something?”
“Yes, I am Leon. And no, I need nothing from
you. The sight of you brought back some memories, is all.”
It was him. He was
beautiful, so much so that you could easily mistake him for a woman. In my past
life, I probably would’ve been jealous enough to wish for him to get hit by a
truck. He was formerly human, I was told, but kept a majestic presence about
him—the majesty of a demon lord.
And I brought back “memories”? I suppose my
face was essentially Shizu’s at a young age. So Leon must have—
“Shizu’s dead, Leon.”
Seeing me simply conjured up old memories of
Shizu in his mind.
“I know,” he coldly stated. “And of course she
would be. She took in Ifrit but refused to become a magic-born.”
“She asked me to punch you out for her. Mind
letting me do that?”
I just kind of blurted it out. I wasn’t trying
to start stuff; I just didn’t like how Leon was talking about her. It was maybe
a little too direct, but Leon handled it with calm composure.
“No, thank you. I wanted her to live as a
human being. I even gave her Ifrit as a farewell gift. I see no reason why I
deserve a beating for it.”
What a disappointment. I figured he’d be
enraged, but he just calmly fired back at me.
“…But I do have a bit
of an interest in you. If you have an issue with me, I’ll happily invite you to
come visit. You can turn down the offer, of course, if you think it’s a trap.”
Talk about a one-sided deal. He was basically
daring me to chicken out. I had to accept it.
“All right. I’ll do that. Feel free to send an
invitation, if you get around to it.”
I didn’t say anything more after that.
Leon nodded, looking a little annoyed. “I
will. Assuming you walk out of this meeting hall alive, that is.”
With that blunt rejoinder, Leon settled down
in the seat just to my left. It was his way of saying our conversation was
over. For now, I was fine with that. I got to tell him about Shizu, and I now
knew that Leon wasn’t out to antagonize me. At least not here at the Council.
He wouldn’t have said yes to that invitation thing if he was.
Maybe it was just postponing the dispute for
later, but right now, I wanted to focus on Clayman as my enemy.
These proceedings all
unfolded in the hour after we reached the meeting hall at midnight. It looked
like the older demon lords had been guided in first, with me getting a head
start because I happened to be traveling with Ramiris. It wasn’t any official
rule, though, given that people like Leon could travel here themselves.
All that remained were Clayman and Milim. And
just when I thought the Council was about to begin, Benimaru tossed a Thought
Communication my way.
(Sir Rimuru, may I brief you for a moment?)
This hall seemed like it was in another
dimension of sorts, but I guess this link with Benimaru still worked?
Understood. A soul
circuit has been established with the monsters under your command. The link is
using this to allow your conscious to interact with them.
Oh. That sort of thing?
I guess this soul circuit got hooked up with
the gifts I handed out to everyone for my evolution. It didn’t seem as robust
as the connection I had with Veldora, but it was good enough for talking, at
least.
So I asked what was up. Apparently, the battle
ended less than an hour after it began—incredibly lopsided and pretty much as
we planned it. Our side had numerous casualties but no deaths. Clayman’s forces
had at least a thousand killed in action and over three thousand wounded. That
was fewer deaths than I expected, but in this world where you can always get
healed as long as you stayed alive, that much was a given.
Still, that was a massive, overwhelming
victory. We managed to take some prisoners as well, so I couldn’t ask for much
more.
Yamza, the enemy
commander, had turned into Charybdis for some strange reason, but Benimaru was
kind enough to vaporize the guy for me. Apparently. I’m not really sure what
all that meant, so I just kind of glossed over it for now.
…Or I wanted to. But how did he deal with
Charybdis’s Magic Interference?
Understood. A number of
Arts and skills combined with the unique skill Born Leader allowed him full
control over Hellflare.
Aha. So he used control
beyond what Magic Interference could handle to hit it with a direct, massive
wave of heat. Easy for me to say, but that has to require a hell of a lot of
talent. Benimaru’s gotten stronger than I even imagined. Pretty hot stuff.
One factor we didn’t
expect was the Dragon Faithful. They were reportedly a pretty formidable
fighting force, as you’d expect from Milim’s followers. We didn’t lose anyone
to them because they weren’t really out there seeking to kill…but I guess it
was my bad for not thinking about them. I figured a force of a hundred-odd was
no big deal, but I was wrong. Wars in this world depended more on the powers of
a few than the many, but my conventional wisdom from my old world was making me
forget that.
Lucky thing that didn’t result in any major
breakdowns. I’d have to be more careful next time.
Based on Benimaru’s
report, we had a general idea of Clayman’s story.
The force led by Yamza was marching on the
pretext of investigating Carillon’s betrayal. They wanted to collect evidence
that he backstabbed the other demon lords, killed one of Clayman’s top leaders,
and was connected to me. Well, not collect. More like concoct.
With our victory today, that line was cut off.
I didn’t know what kind of excuses he would come up with here, but I didn’t imagine
they would be well received by any other demon lord. Of course, I intended to
kill off Clayman in the end, and I was prepared to do the same to anyone who
got in my way. Let’s just try to steer this so I’d secure
victory here in the easiest way possible.
I’ll be counting on you, Raphael!
……
Raphael’s rarin’ to go,
too. That’s a relief.
Whoops, here’s another
report from Soei. Sounds like they’ve captured Clayman’s headquarters. Man,
there is just no mercy with that guy. Hakuro pitched in a hell of an effort,
too, but apparently Shuna shined the brightest in the fight.
Also, it turns out that I now have an army of
undead for some reason? I sort of missed the plot on that, and Soei was being
oddly vague about the whole thing, simply stating “Lady Shuna will explain the
details later.”
The most important thing, though, was that
Carillon wasn’t being held in Clayman’s castle. Plus:
(—We discovered the castle’s treasury, so
we’ve called upon Geld to begin the transport process. The room included some
evidence linking Clayman to the Moderate Jesters, which I think should help
your case.)
Wow. No mercy. We’re even pillaging Clayman’s
treasure vault. That doesn’t count as theft, does it? Oh, well. No point
sweating the small stuff. We’ll just call it collecting damages for all the
trouble Clayman gave us. There’s reportedly a lot, which should help our own
budget out greatly.
More important, however, was that dossier of
evidence. Benimaru had sent some over for me, and Soei had discovered some
more. All of it was now safely received in my Stomach, and with it, I should be
able to shut down the basis for any excuse he comes up with. It’d be important
to make myself look good around here.
So, much quicker than I
expected, we had thoroughly and completely crushed Clayman’s force. It’d remain
to be seen how he’d approach this Council, but let’s try using these
developments to my advantage.
…And then, just as I finished reading the
reports, Clayman finally appeared before me.
He was more handsome
than I pictured him—and high-strung. His clothing looked expensive, and I
suppose he placed a lot of importance on his appearance, because he was
sporting a whole array of Unique equipment that would make him a
more-than-decent fighter. It certainly befitted his image as a demon lord not
to be trifled with.
What struck me the most, however, was the fox
he was carrying in his arms. It was packed to the gills with magicules and
mystical force, maybe even up to demon lord levels. That was one of his
attendants, and I suppose a demon lord’s servants had to be pretty damn
powerful, too.
That, and I tried running an Analyze and
Assess on him, and something interesting caught my eye there. I didn’t want to
coast on this just because we had occupied his HQ. It was important to finish him
off right.
Anyway, Milim followed behind him, completing
the night’s attendee list.
All were real monsters, ready to burn you at a
moment’s notice. Doing the A and A once-over on Leon produced nothing useful,
either. It was kind of funny, seeing Raphael say that it couldn’t analyze
something. It meant he had an ultimate skill of his own, something on the same
level as mine.
Then I made a realization. Guy had let me read
fake info, but was that his way of fending off ultimate skills? If I couldn’t
use my ultimate to analyze something, it meant the target had an ultimate, too.
That may be why he was feeding me a bunch of nonsense instead—I just happened
to know it was fake nonsense because Raphael was smart enough to see that. If
it hadn’t noticed, I could easily have been tricked.
This meant, of course, that Guy had an
ultimate skill as well. I suspected Milus (?) did, too, and Leon definitely
did. An ultimate was several orders of magnitude more powerful than a unique
skill requiring an intersection of one’s attributes, luck, and a plethora of
incidental conditions. They were rare—uncommon enough that even a true,
awakened demon lord may not have one, and all were great as a last-resort ace
in the hole.
That was why I needed to be extra careful
here. That, and—ugh—it was safe to assume Guy knew I
possessed an ultimate now. Big mistake. My lack of experience playing this game
screwed me there. I was dealing with some of the orneriest demon lords out
there; I should’ve been more on the alert.
Still, what’s done is done. It wasn’t a lethal
mistake, either. I just needed to figure out how to deal with it. It’s easy to
hide mind-reading skills, just as Gazel did. Guy still didn’t know what type of skill I had, so I probably didn’t need to be too
hung up about it. Hell, I could even use this to make them think I’m a fool. To
be exact, I would direct Raphael to hide everything at all costs, but maybe
show off one ultimate skill that was okay to reveal as my trump card. That way,
I could still keep a few cards hidden at all times, right?
It was a gutsy bit of subterfuge, but I was
safe in pulling it off with the four ultimate skills I enjoyed. I was planning
on kicking up one hell of a storm in the upcoming battle against Clayman
anyway, which would make the debut of—
Suggestion. Hiding
Belzebuth, Lord of Gluttony would be difficult.
Yeah, I think you’re
right. It was a great offensive and defensive weapon, capable of consuming and
destroying nearly any attack thrown at it. Predation was a pretty core battle
tactic for me, so revealing Belzebuth seemed like a good idea. Let’s go with
that as my main battle weapon, keeping my other skills hidden until otherwise
needed.
I suppose I’m glad that I noticed the need for
something like this early on. If I got out of here safely, I’d need to rethink
my battle tactics a little. No point being reluctant to use my skills if it
wound up killing me.
After that moment of
regret, I saw one of the most amazing sights of my life.
“Move it, you half-wit!”
Out of nowhere, Clayman closed-fist punched Milim. That Milim.
“Sit yourself down, you stupid dunce,” he
said, ruthlessly bossing her around. I thought I’d explode in anger, but I held
it in. Not yet. Just a bit longer. I have to hold back until
I have the chance to declare it all, following the rules.
But what on earth happened to Milim? Milim the
Destroyer? If it was Clayman being punched, well, that’d just be Milim being
Milim. But this? Oh, man, I fear for his safety…
…and yet, despite this bout of violence,
Clayman didn’t look like he’d be decapitated anytime soon. Milim did nothing to
resist or complain about his treatment. She just followed his orders and sat at
her seat.
This is weird. Is she under his control after all? I may
have to consider the worst-case scenario here. And to add insult to
injury, some of the other demon lords, Daggrull and Deeno included, were
looking similarly flummoxed at this. Guy was stone-faced; I don’t know what he
was thinking.
Clayman, meanwhile, was looking like he was
king of the world, his superiority complex written all over his face. It made
my anger burn all over again… Don’t expect your death to be
an easy one, Clayman. You’ll pay for hitting my friend.
And with that oath to myself, Clayman’s death
was now set in stone. I had no intention of forgiving him, no matter the
excuse. But there was no need for panic. The Council had only just begun.
The event was attended
by a total of nine people, minus Carillon:
“Lord of Darkness” Guy
Crimson (demon)
“Destroyer” Milim Nava (dragonoid)
“Labyrinth Master” Ramiris (pixie)
“Earthquake” Daggrull (giant)
“Bloody Lord” Roy Valentine (vampire)
“Sleeping Ruler” Deeno (fallen)
“Sky Queen” Frey (harpy)
“Marionette Master” Clayman (walking dead)
“Platinum Saber”
Leon Cromwell (ex-human)
…And then, me—the
subject of this Council, the slime who’d dare call himself demon lord.
Raine, the maid in
Guy’s service, made all the above introductions in her clear, loud voice.
Leon was the one who piqued my interest the
most. I seem to remember his nickname being the Platinum Devil, but now he was
acting all cool and calling himself the Platinum Saber. He certainly looked
more the part of a dashing swordsman, but who thought up these nicknames
anyway? They didn’t make them up themselves, did they? …Well,
I probably shouldn’t comment, given my track record for naming things. Let’s
let that topic die on the vine.
After the intros ended,
Clayman stood up as the host.
“All right. First, thanks to all of you for
answering my invitation and coming here. It is now time to begin our festival!
I hereby declare this Walpurgis Council convened!”
Thus, with the chance for cataclysmic events
electrifying the air around us, the event kicked off.
Taking advantage of his
position as chairman, Clayman started things off by going into a speech, eyeing
all of us in order and looking supremely satisfied with himself. His eyes
stopped for just a moment when they reached Valentine, but maybe I imagined
it—that’s got nothing to do with me anyway.
Leon was seated to my left; the chair on my
right was empty, and to its right were Clayman’s and the absent Carillon’s
seats.
Clayman went on for a while, explaining
matters with an obvious sense of pride, and I diligently listened to all of it.
Here’s the executive summary:
• The demon lord
Carillon enticed me into declaring myself a demon lord. This allegation is
backed up by the fact that Carillon’s armies are stationed in our town.
• He then incited the kingdom of Farmus into
attacking the Great Forest of Jura, requesting my cooperation to fend them off
and using that as an excuse to meddle with human nations.
• After defeating
Farmus, I assumed the title of demon lord, enjoying Carillon’s support behind
the scenes.
This kind of
unauthorized collusion violated the demon lords’ agreements.
He was better prepared to make this argument
than I gave him credit for. It was all a bunch of nonsense, totally ignoring
the actual timeline of events, but proving that would be difficult. All of this
happened at the same time as the demon lords withdrew from their mutual nonaggression
agreement for the Forest of Jura, and (as he bluntly put it) there was no
excusing that. As if, you know, I cared about that.
“…That is the testimony I have received from
Mjurran, one of my advisers. However, upon briefing me about this, she was murdered—
by that fool over there, Rimuru. Thus, I decided to exact my revenge.”
What is he, a thespian? If not, he missed his
calling. He almost convinced me, even… Almost. I mean, Mjurran’s pretty alive
right now.
“Rimuru was conspiring with Carillon to make
an attempt upon my life. And with her last gasps of breath, Mjurran sent me a
magical missive to inform me of the plot.”
He paused a moment, pretending to be overcome
with emotion. His handsome looks certainly made it a moving sight, but it
mostly served to rankle my nerves.
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