by Fuse
“Oh? What’s that matter? It’s not like we’re actually doing anything in there. You just want to hop on over and scout out any magic-born who look decent enough to join our team, don’tcha? Though who’s to say what kind of unfortunate accidents may befall anyone who refuses. Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“No getting a head start on this, Carillon. If what I have been hearing from you all is true, your aim was to create a new demon lord that you could use as a faithful pawn, yes? And if you’ve failed at it once, then why not just recognize one of those magic-born as a demon lord and have it serve us?”
“Wow, Frey! You saw right through our scheme!”
She had demystified the core of Clayman and his fellows’ plan—to birth a demon lord that was putty in their hands. And Milim just went and admitted it. Now Frey would think she was right—and that was fine. It was still within what Clayman expected. If Frey was part of today’s summit, he had already assumed it would happen. No point hiding things, if Milim was wholly incapable of subterfuge.
“But we do need to investigate, yes,” he ventured. “Not to speak for Carillon, but there is no guarantee they will be cooperative with us. If the orc lord did win, however, he might be rampaging out of control now that his father Gelmud is gone.”
He wanted to keep the other demon lords from traveling over there before he was ready. Now, he watched them mull it over.
An investigation did seem to be necessary. Whether it was the orc lord or the other magic-born, the side that won the battle would now be more powerful than ever. It’d be nice if the demon lords could make them swear fealty, but losing any chance at that with some untoward gesture was out of the question.
They needed to assume that, at the very least, something at a sub–demon lord level of strength was now born. If they were to set up the board so they were guaranteed to dominate it, that was a tall order even for them. It would give them a leg up on the other demonic rulers of the land, but they also had to consider the substantial consequences if it didn’t work out. And if whoever survived the fray decided to call themselves a “demon lord,” there would be no choice but to give it up and punish that insolence. But now wasn’t the time for that.
The four demon lords glanced at one another, attempting to read one another’s minds.
Carillon, the Beast Master, had a good feeling about this.
He had spent several centuries ruling the lycanthrope race, waging several major battles that went well enough for him to expand his influence. That performance had earned him the endorsements of the dearly departed Accursed Lord and the demon lord Milim, ensuring his own promotion to the demon lord post. Leon, the one who defeated said Accursed Lord, assuredly had some objections about that, but he seemed to bear no anger or disgust toward the appointment. Survival of the fittest was the only ironclad rule here—and it had just been applied once again. Leon had no right to protest.
Besides, Leon was more than strong enough himself. Even after attaining his current post, he had never ceased to hone his skills. Carillon understood that Leon had several new, and powerful, allies on his side as well. Even as a newcomer to this echelon, there was no underestimating what this relatively recent demon lord could do.
Carillon had a taste for power—and powerful people. That was why he so readily accepted Leon. But that didn’t mean he stood by idly while Leon accrued more and more force. As a demon lord, he felt an obligation to retain an ample supply for himself. Enough that he didn’t have to submit to anybody else. Enough to protect the kingdom he controlled and smash anyone who dared to oppose it.
This was less about Carillon being nervous about his position and more him following his natural instincts toward increasing his strength. But the end result was the same. It made him a force to be reckoned with. One who constantly sought to take in more strength, never satisfied with what he had now. And now, Carillon had a very enticing offer dropped in front of him.
He had accepted Clayman’s invitation to the summit, figuring it would be a good way to kill some time. Three demon lords working in collusion could certify a new demon lord anytime they wanted—and if this new lord was willing to do all their bidding, it would grant them a decisive advantage over any other demon lord out there.
So Carillon was more than willing to go along with Clayman’s guidance. There were several reasons for this, but the main one was the absence of any rule stating demon lords needed to be friends. There were always disputes among them, and everyone knew that Clayman and Leon’s ran particularly deep. It was a given that they constantly schemed to undermine each other, taking pains not to leave any evidence behind. Their public faces were one thing, but under the surface, they were constantly trying to check each other’s movements.
Thus, Carillon was sure, there was no need to worry about Clayman going turncoat. Whether he could trust him was another matter, but in terms of using each other for the common good, he thought they had a nice give-and-take going. Clayman wasn’t dumb enough to lay hands on a cooperative demon lord, and the same could be said of Carillon.
As for the other two in the chamber? Carillon didn’t see much to worry about there. Frey, queen of the harpies, probably wasn’t interested. She had to be dragged in here by Milim, and she wasn’t even part of this plan from the beginning.
Besides, harpies were unique. Their society was completely classist, with winged creatures up top and everyone else down below. No matter how powerful an upper-level magic-born one may be, if they were wingless, they could not expect preferential treatment over there.
It looked like there was one winged figure among the magic-borns in the crystals…but Carillon didn’t think that would be enough to make Frey take action. Besides, he thought, if it’s just one, Frey can have it for all I care. Assuming it’s still alive. There were other fish to fry, other magic-born to lure. They didn’t know what had happened to the orc lord, but Carillon was pretty sure he lost—hell, if Frey wanted one of those guys, she could have them.
That just left Milim. Carillon thought about this for a moment. In terms of their personal interests, Clayman likely thought of her as an enemy, but what about Milim? She had a short fuse and you could read her like a book, but she was just as cunning as any other demon lord. But more than that, she was ever faithful to her own desires. She let her emotions carry her, making decisions practically on a whim. In a way, it was difficult to predict her next move.
Carillon did owe her, perhaps, for recommending him to the demon lord post. But, he thought as he gave her a look, I don’t know. I just can’t read her.
Milim appeared to be bursting with confidence, looking in utter awe at one of the crystal spheres. She was undoubtedly the demon lord most interested in this tale. It was apparently the magic-born Gelmud who approached Clayman with this idea of crafting a new demon lord—Carillon didn’t know if that was true, but it didn’t matter anyway.
Basically, if something piqued his curiosity, he leaped at it, and Milim was likely the same. She had been alive for a long time, and she hated tedium. If an enticing prospect came along, she’d greedily jump on it, not caring if the story were true or not. Plus, her power was the real thing, enough to let her avoid a certain level of countermeasures simply by steamrolling over them.
“Destroyer” was right—as a demon lord, Milim was the personification of pure force, almost unfairly so. And because of that, no matter how simpleminded she was, her moves were still hard to read. It was obvious she wanted to go off to investigate the scene. Her opponents’ strengths, and the danger involved, was no big deal to her. If whomever survived that battle won her heart, she’d be recommending them as a new demon lord—and if they didn’t, she’d kill them.
But she couldn’t do that this time. This was all unfolding in an inconvenient place. Simply entering the Forest of Jura presented political problems. Even Milim would have trouble indulging her curiosity if every other demon lord in the world was against it. A full investigation would be coming first.
Ca
rillon knew that Milim didn’t give a fig about boosting her own powers. The question was what Clayman would gain out of this. In his eyes, Clayman used his gentlemanly demeanor to hide his true intentions at all times. It was hard to tell what he was thinking—and even harder to trust him completely.
This would be a battle of wits, and on that score, Milim was too easily deceived to be much of a concern. Frey would follow whatever Milim did, so no point fretting over her. That just left Clayman. It was the natural conclusion for Carillon to make.
He licked his lips as he thought over his strategy.
Now, how to kick this off…
Frey, the queen of the harpies, had had enough of this. This wasn’t a conference she had any reason to be in. Milim had just forced her along for some inscrutable reason. “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! You need to relax a little bit!” she had said, not bothering to ask what Frey thought about it—to say nothing of the other demon lords.
Frey knew there was no point worrying about that, since it wasn’t like Milim would. But she didn’t like how she had been silently appointed as the demon lord to clean up the messes that followed wherever Milim went.
Besides, the timing couldn’t have been worse. One of the harpy priestesses had just prophesied the revival of a long-past calamity. A prophecy by name, perhaps, but it had already been confirmed. Reading the flow of magicules and the twisting and warping of space, she had confirmed the coming arrival—the arrival of the harpies’ natural enemy. The revival of Charybdis, the calamity-level monster that a long-lost hero had sealed away in time immemorial.
Charybdis was a great magical creature that ruled the skies in antiquity—one that could summon the shark-shaped megalodons to execute its bidding and make its tyranny complete. It would die and be reborn on a cycle of every few centuries, and Frey had been a demon lord for only a short time when it last resurrected, laying waste to a hefty chunk of her territory. In the end, thanks to the “hero” who wanted to put a final end to the cycle, Charybdis had been spirited away to a locked region of space, somewhere inside the Forest of Jura…and now that seal was about to come undone.
Having a hero’s seal unravel like this was unnerving enough, but Frey couldn’t shake the thought that Veldora’s disappearance was intimately related. Charybdis was a different creature from the norm, a so-called “crystallization” of evil thoughts. A sort of spiritual form created from a cloud of magical energies that sought to sow the seeds of destruction.
As the legend put it, it could resurrect itself temporarily inside a corpse whenever a great die-off occurred across the land—or so the legends went. In other words, it needed a bodily receptacle in order to be reborn…
Ugh, this is so annoying. Spreading chaos across the Forest of Jura and using it to give birth to a new demon lord? If I’d known about that, I would’ve put a stop to it before this happened…
She didn’t know what caused it, but Frey reasoned that the conspiracy Milim had engineered with the others was one primary factor in this. It irritated her to no end, thinking about it—but could she have stopped Milim, even if she tried? That wasn’t easy to answer, and there was no point dwelling on the question.
Frey had to come up with a response. Even a megalodon was an A-minus in terms of the danger it presented. The Charybdis it served was on a whole other level. It was far beyond what an A grade could even express, a force truly worthy of being called a calamity. Even the human nations had awarded it the rank of S, terming it the equivalent of a demon lord. It had no mind of its own, simply acting on its instincts, and that was really the only reason why it wasn’t called a demon lord itself.
And all right, maybe these were mere humans awarding these rankings, but it still annoyed Frey to be placed on the same rung of the ladder as this thing. But there was a reason for that rank. Those “instincts” were painful. It floated freely around the sky, randomly killing anything that grabbed its attention. Whenever it grew hungry, it would attack a city and eat its way through, consuming both human and monster at once. It was a menace on a level beyond what any orc lord could present.
The harpies were the rulers of the skies, and Frey had enough force to be termed their Sky Queen. Her magic was a force to be reckoned with, and her skills in aerial combat were outstanding. She was proud that she had never lost to any earthbound foe.
Combining these skills with Magic Interference—an ability unique to her race—she had the ability to annul any flight-based magic on the battlefield. That alone meant any foe not flying with physical wings would immediately be sent plummeting to their deaths. Even that may not be enough to kill a higher-level monster, of course, but for a human, the chances of survival were pretty slim. Even if one did, they only had so many ways of attacking a target that was high up in the sky. Meanwhile, she could rain down attacks upon those helpless ants below—an obvious tactical advantage.
Anything that couldn’t fly was no threat at all to her. Except for Charybdis.
It was massive, dozens of feet in diameter, and Magic Interference didn’t work on it. To put it another way, Magic Interference was an intrinsic skill to it as it was to harpies. The race’s flight skills gave it an insurmountable advantage in battle—losing that advantage was a telling blow. It made sense that the harpies saw Charybdis as their natural nemesis.
Of course, simply lying low and praying that this threat would never come to greet them grated on Frey’s pride as a demon lord. She wanted to do something about it, but attempting a full-frontal attack would result in unacceptably heavy casualties. That was what troubled her, and it was why she arrived at this summit in such a foul mood. If it weren’t for that resurrection, maybe she’d be a bit more eager about the whole-new demon lord plan, but…
She had noticed one winged figure in the crystal spheres. It made her think about the possibility that the magic-born had survived and grown more powerful, but she quickly dismissed it. Having one more magic-born means little, she thought. We have no idea how powerful it is in battle. A high-level magic-born has no chance against a demon lord–class foe. Even if it’s grown into a sub-demon, there’s no guarantee it’ll be friendly to our advances. What a pain. This would be so much easier if I could fight without all these…things holding me down…
Frey let out a dejected sigh. As a demon lord, she could no longer personally lead her armies into battle as queen. She had a responsibility to keep her land and people safe, and that meant more than simply racking up victories on the field. No matter the sacrifice involved, Frey was strictly prohibited from joining a battle. Only when victory was assured could she take center stage.
There was just one sure method of defeating Charybdis. It was the first thing she thought of after receiving the prophecy she dreaded so much.
But…that?
Frey took a peek at Milim.
She was eagerly peering into a sphere, this demon lord on such a different level from the towers of strength around her. Carillon and Clayman don’t know what she’s really like. They’re too deceived by her external youth to read her true nature. And while she was technically a demon lord just like them, Milim was inherently different.
Milim Nava was special. Not like Frey and the other demon lord newcomers. She was one of the most senior demon lords out there, and she was from the dragonoid race. A dragon-born. Which made her a special S grade. The “Destroyer” name wasn’t just window dressing—it was said she literally destroyed a kingdom single-handedly, in the past.
She could fly, as well, using her own wings that she normally kept stowed away. Her body was strong—naturally, not by magic—and her skills in battle were almost unfair. Something like Magic Interference would never work on her. Milim was just as much a nemesis to Frey as Charybdis—and once again, she had dragged her over to something she wanted no part of. Frey just couldn’t defy her.
The whole summit was a distraction as she racked her brain for some way to deal with Charybdis. She provided a few hollow observations along the way, hoping the conference
would end soon.
But at the same time, she had another thought: If Milim could work with her, would that be enough to defeat Charybdis? She was impervious to Magic Interference, after all.
But it wouldn’t be easy. Demon lords were hardly one big happy family. You couldn’t just saunter up to one and ask a favor like that. They were more about using and abusing one another than asking nicely. They say the rich are smart enough not to get into street fights, and while that didn’t describe them exactly, they couldn’t be overtly hostile to one another. It’d just give space where the other demon lords could drive a wedge. It wasn’t worth the risk, and it could even provide that moment of weakness that would lead them all to their doom. That was the whole reason the demon lords had signed nonaggression pacts with one another in the first place.
Under those circumstances, there was no way she could ask a fellow ruler to slay a demon lord–class monster for her. And it wasn’t realistic to expect Milim to agree to that. There was never any telling where her own desires lay. There was a nation of people who worshipped her as the child of a dragon, and she granted it her “divine” protection. It was a peaceful, bountiful, and also deathly boring place. They had no military might, but Milim provided all the power they needed—no nation was brazen enough to challenge a kingdom under the direct protection of Milim.
In other words, Milim already had it all—power, riches, glory. She had no interest in conquering new lands, no motivation to forge alliances with other nations.
If I could just find something to make Milim take action, Frey thought, I think I could find a solution to this…but that’s easier said than done…