by Fuse
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Several days after losing regular magical contact, the people remaining in the kingdom were on pins and needles. Their proud, overwhelming force of twenty thousand couldn’t have been defeated, but there was no telling what sort of unexpected events may have transpired. There was no way to be sure if their king was safe, even—more than enough to fill any mind with suspicious doubt.
In the midst of this, Razen had taken Archbishop Reyhiem back home, using a Warp Portal to transport the both of them back to the castle’s warp chamber. A passing sentry had noticed their limp forms on the floor early in the morning that day. It threw the palace guards into a panic as they scrambled to identify them—Shogo Taguchi, the otherworlder, and Reyhiem, archbishop and His Majesty’s close confidant. The guards helped the latter up, still confused about all this, before noticing the box the boy took great pains to keep safe in his hands.
One of them looked inside, unprepared for the sight. He was an upper officer in the royal guard, known for courage and coolness under fire, but not even he could refrain from screaming in horror. There were strings of some unidentifiable organic matter connecting haphazardly from one section to the other, emitting a rotting stench—a twisted sight, like plucking all the organs out of a body and gluing them back together at random. The sole ruler of the Kingdom of Farmus had been reduced to a sickening creature, and no one could criticize that royal guard for so rudely screaming his head off at him. Attracted by the noise, others went to look for themselves and reacted the same way; the attendants and ministers were all thrown into utter chaos at the transformation of their lord.
Some screamed and sobbed. Some found themselves emptying their stomachs on the spot in fear. Some fainted entirely. None of them could believe this was their king. But this was reality. When they finally dared to come close enough, it was confirmed for good—this truly was Edmaris before them.
“What are you doing?!” one of the ministers shouted. “We must help His Majesty!”
That was the catalyst. At once, everyone sprang into action. The sorcerers who stayed behind in the palace tested out every spell at their disposal. The high-level priests of the Western Holy Church were summoned, each attempting their own healing magic. Faced with this object of primal fear, they tried desperately to restore the king to normal, faces straining at the sickening sight, attempting to keep their wits as they continued their work.
But nothing worked. No matter what they tried, they couldn’t save their king.
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Now Shogo had regained consciousness. He was immediately called in for questioning.
Razen felt a slight sense of sympathy there, faced with his former comrades. His fealty was squarely with Diablo, and he wouldn’t hesitate to betray them now. They would all face their fates alone, based on their own decisions—but Razen felt just a hint of pity for them. All of this was on Diablo’s orders, including his feigned unconsciousness. Everything was going to plan.
As Diablo’s servant, Razen had received a briefing on what his new master intended to do with this kingdom. He fully understood what needed to be done to achieve those aims. In a word, this land was to become the demon lord’s plaything. The moment Farmus was selected as a game board with everyone here as pawns, the history of the country as an ongoing concern came to an end.
But this was not necessarily bad news for its people. When told of the demon lord’s plans, Razen felt a broad sense of hope. Already in his mind’s eye, he could see the land of Farmus growing more prosperous than ever before. If achieving this goal meant toppling the current system in place, then so be it.
“Calm yourselves! This is Razen inside this body. I have taken His Majesty back to safety, with the kind assistance of a champion to our cause.”
“What? You’re not Shogo?”
“What happened to…? Ah. Yes, now I see.”
“Imagine, Sir Razen inside that impudent snit Shogo’s body! This will take some getting used to.”
Despite the initial confusion, the people in the chamber were convinced. Razen was, after all, a great magician.
“But you fled the battle? Does that mean our forces…Farmus’s forces have been defeated?!”
“What happened after that? You didn’t simply march back to the castle because you couldn’t eradicate the monsters, did you?”
The noblemen’s questions grew to a torrent. They were the leaders of the nation, although many of them secretly (or not so secretly) schemed to use this war as a cover for the profits they intended to make off it. Defeat, and the financial losses that entailed, were unthinkable notions.
“Silence, all of you! We must let Sir Razen say his piece!”
It was the Marquis of Muller who finally calmed the crowd. That, too, was part of the plan. Diablo had made contact with him the previous night via a connection to Fuze, guild master for the kingdom of Blumund. Things were all proceeding just as Diablo had pictured them.
Razen began by explaining how the king would be saved. A native champion named Yohm had apparently negotiated with the lord of the monsters, procuring some of their restorative potion that he would soon bring back to Farmus. Word had already been sent to the gate guards, ready to receive Yohm’s party at any moment.
He then moved on to what exactly happened to the Farmus forces. He did not get very far into the tale before the chamber erupted into shouting once more. All it took were three magic words: Veldora was reborn.
“That—that can’t be…”
“That evil dragon’s found new life in the monsters’ land…?”
“No… I thought Veldora had been eternally banished!”
“There is no time to waste. We must report this to the Holy Church and have them dispatch a Crusader group at once!”
“It’s all over! If Sir Razen speaks the truth, we have no means of resistance. The remaining forces in Farmus hardly number enough to put up a new defense!”
“He’s right! Bring our knights back here immediately!”
“Indeed. If our magical link with them is cut off, we must send a messenger for General Folgen!”
“There’s no time for such nonsense! We must flee this land before this knowledge reaches the general public, or we may lose any chance to do so!”
Chaos and terror reigned. Some professed the need to strike back; others saw fit to abandon the people outright and go into exile. Muller silenced them all with a thundering roar.
“Enough of this! Whether our knights are alive or not, the situation remains the same. Panic will accomplish nothing for us, Sir Hytta. Where do you intend to flee to? That Storm Dragon is a Catastrophe for us all.”
The noblemen regained their composure. Calmness returned for a moment, only to be shattered as Razen continued, explaining what had transpired in that faraway land—the sad (and entirely made-up) tragedy of how the entire Farmus force had disappeared without a trace, following Veldora’s revival.
The tale made all the present nobility fall silent. Nobody said anything. It was entirely preposterous, so difficult to believe, for everyone. Soon, they began asking Razen questions, attempting to come to grips with the situation.
“S-Sir Razen, is all of that true? We have no idea where any of them are?”
“Indeed. The battle between our forces and the monsters resurrected the sleeping dragon in his domain.”
“That, that couldn’t possibly be! The Western Holy Church declared him to be sealed away forever! Are you saying that was a lie?”
“No. They were right—Veldora had been extinguished from this world. But the seeds of the dragon species can never be fully removed. They are simply reborn elsewhere. It surprised all of us, though, seeing this rebirth take place so close to us and in such a short time.”
“Then what happened to the survivors, Sir Razen?”
“Yes! Is General Folgen still alive? How many forces can we still account for
?”
Razen solemnly shook his head. They had all died, thanks to an enraged Rimuru—such was the truth. But he had direct orders from Diablo to describe the fates of every fighter as unknown.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“As I said, I do not know where they are. The knights and monsters that were fighting on that land disappeared once Veldora revived himself. We were all that remained—”
“Ridiculous!”
“Just to be sure, you literally mean they disappeared? Not scattered across the land following a rout?”
“Our supply teams would have been stationed behind the front lines. Surely they must be safe, at least?”
Razen fell silent, eyes closed. Seeing this forced everyone to trust him at his word. The knights were all gone. One of the ministers fell to the ground, erupting in tears. He was the one who asked about the supply teams, in no small part because his son had been sent out on one of them, his first battle experience. Keeping him away from the front had meant pulling all the strings he could, but the effort had been wasted. He had only agreed to his deployment because this was supposed to be a raid, a journey to seize the monsters’ assets and kill with abandon. And now this. The despair came so unexpectedly, it made him cry almost instantly.
But even that tragedy was just one in a multitude. Approximately twenty thousand people were missing in action. It was a cataclysmic loss like none the nation had ever seen—and as “missing” as they officially were, nobody expected them home anytime soon. They were as good as dead.
And now all of them had connected that cataclysm in their minds with the revival of Veldora. They had all been sacrificed in order to breathe life into the dragon. To Veldora himself, that was nothing more than a hateful lie, but it was exactly what Rimuru and his advisers wanted. Diablo had just made masterful use of Razen to manipulate the thoughts and minds of the Farmus nobility.
Then, as if on cue, footsteps rang out from outside the throne room. Yohm and his team had arrived—with Mjurran as his chief adviser, Gruecith, his main bodyguard, and the sorcerer Rommel, his personal secretary. Taking up the rear was Diablo himself, dressed in his finest butler-style clothing but oozing a very non-butler-like arrogance from every pore. This chamber was not the sort of place someone as low-born as an adventurer could easily step into, but Razen had arranged for a guide to lead them in.
“Sorry I took so long,” said Yohm to Razen, “but I think I finally got the big guy to see things our way.”
He tried to hold his head high as a statesman, but his street-bred speech habits proved less simple to fix. Turning him into nobility was not going to happen overnight. His attitude alone made the other nobles question him.
“Who on earth are you?! Do you have any idea of your rudeness, commoner?!”
Despite being informed that Yohm’s party was here to heal the king, one of the ministers saw fit to chew him out. He was aware of Yohm the champion, yes. Yohm’s likeness had been passed around, so the minister knew exactly to whom he was speaking. There was no mistaking his Exo-Armor, either—but none of that mattered to him. This was the royal castle, and the rules of the common streets didn’t apply here. Yohm’s casual tongue was unacceptable.
This unnerved Razen. He turned a wary eye toward Diablo, gauging whether this tirade offended him or not. If the nobility was not fully prepared for this, Razen would have to shoulder the blame. He could understand the minister’s anger—it was a perfectly normal reaction to have, as he saw it—but now wasn’t the time for this. He regretted not being more thorough in his guidance.
“Lord Carlos,” he intervened, “please wait a moment. This group is the very one that saved us. They are the only ones who hold the key to rescuing His Majesty!”
“What? They saved you, Sir Razen?”
“As the so-called defender of our kingdom, Sir Razen, that hardly sounds like you. What is the meaning of this?”
Despite the noblemen’s misgivings, Razen was still the most powerful wizard in Farmus. There was no doubting his powers, and his track record in defending the kingdom from outside threats spread across hundreds of years. His words were not to be taken lightly, and so the nobility sheathed their swords for now. If anything, though, this response was merely a bluff in the face of the mortal danger this nation faced. If Razen had been saved, perhaps there was a way all of them could be, too.
As Razen opened his mouth to answer the question, another voice joined the conversation.
“Allow me to answer that.”
It was Reyhiem, the archbishop. He had pretended to be himself just revived this moment to come to Razen’s assistance. Relieved, Razen gave him a nod, then turned to Diablo, noticing his expectant smile.
“Yes? How was Sir Razen rescued, then?”
“I trust he has already told you about the Storm Dragon’s reawakening,” Reyhiem began. “The battlefield was intense, vehicles from both sides smashing against one another. Our side outnumbered theirs, but the monsters had the geographical advantage. It was a much harder battle than any of us expected, and there were many casualties on both sides.”
His voice echoed across the otherwise silent chamber as he continued, keeping a close eye on Diablo to gauge his response. The chaos on the battlefield was what revived Veldora, and when he emerged on the scene, both human and monster were sacrificed en masse.
“It was all Sir Reyhiem and I could do to keep His Majesty protected,” Razen said as he nodded. He was careful to emphasize that there was nothing he could’ve done to save them.
“Exactly, exactly. We were situated in the rear of the main force, watching in despair as the tragedy unfolded before us. Before the Storm Dragon, dooming our legions to death and crushing everything in his path, we all said our final prayers. But then, one rose up to stand between us and this merchant of death.”
Razen shot Diablo a glance, to which Diablo gave a self-satisfied nod back. It was just the signal he and Reyhiem wanted.
“It was none other than Sir Rimuru, the master of the monsters.”
“Indeed, it was. Sir Reyhiem and I were both prepared to die, but Sir Rimuru convinced Lord Veldora to calm his rage.”
“Convinced? He actually spoke with the monster?!”
“It would be suicide to stand before the likes of Veldora. Being exposed to all those magicules would kill most creatures.”
“How did he do it?”
The nobility was understandably surprised. If Veldora could be reasoned with, perhaps there was a way to keep him from laying waste upon the land. They looked toward Razen and Reyhiem with hopeful expressions. There was every chance that Veldora would spare Farmus, but it would be foolish to idly hope for that to transpire. But what was to be done, then? Nobody had an answer for that. Now that they knew a force of twenty thousand, including the king’s personal knight corps, had been literally erased from existence, nobody was reckless enough to suggest confronting the dragon. If they could negotiate with this threat, that was the best solution for everyone.
“You are all aware, I assume, that Sir Rimuru is also the overseer of the Forest of Jura?”
“Or so he claims, at least,” groused a minister. Diablo greeted this with a scowl that immediately filled Razen with alarm.
“It is no mere claim, Minister,” he said. “I have personally witnessed the town the monsters built, and truly, it is more than worthy of serving as the capital of any kingdom. But we can discuss that later. Regardless, Sir Rimuru has the dryads, the guardians of Jura, working alongside him.”
As he put it to the nobility, Rimuru used the dryads as a kind of interpreter for his talks with Veldora. That made it all the more convincing. The dryads were well-known for having the power to guard the lands where Veldora slept. They were classified as A rank by the Free Guild’s reckoning, and in terms of the danger they posed, Special A wasn’t out of the question. If they were serving this monster Rimuru, his powers must be at least as extensive as that. Nobody in the room had a problem picturing it
. They were all high-level nobility, and none of them were lazy with their intelligence gathering.
“I see…”
“So making him our foe was a mistake…?”
The ministers recalled how eager they were to invade the monster lands. They hated to face this reality, but it was a headache they all had to deal with now.
“This is ominous,” one of them muttered. “If it was possible to negotiate with this dragon, then antagonizing our sole potential inroad was a grave error, indeed…”
The rest of them went visibly paler. There was no way they could ask Rimuru to intervene on their part. At worst, he might even send Veldora over to Farmus to teach them all a lesson.
Then Yohm, summarily ignored up to now, walked to the center of the chamber. Ensuring all eyes were upon him, he began to speak, his voice calm.
“Um, yeah, so listen, you guys don’t have to worry about that. When I killed that orc lord, I was working with Rimuru the whole time. He’s actually a pretty openhearted guy usually, you know? In fact, he’s got a pretty keen interest in working alongside humanity—”
“Oh-ho!” Lord Carlos interrupted him, exercising every bit of his regal pretension. “Then let this man stand in for us and tell him of our demands. We will give you our demands at a later time, so please retire to another room and wait for us.”
Class is an onerous thing. Whether a champion of the people or not, Yohm was still a commoner, not even deemed worthy of a knighthood. Many in the room made no secret about how much they looked down upon him. Lord Carlos was an earl, among the most powerful in the Farmus bureaucracy, and the greatest example of how full of themselves the nobility often proved to be. This attitude would not normally be a problem in this chamber, but—again—now was not the time. Already, some of the other nobles were rolling their eyes at Carlos.
“Whoa, whoa, wait a sec. I said he’s usually openhearted, but not right now, you know what I mean? You all probably know why.”
“What?”
“You declared war on Rimuru’s nation, right? Bad idea, my friend. Rimuru lost some of his pals in that battle. He, um— He’s pretty pissed off.”