Part 2 of 8
So what should I do? Well, right now, I’m trying to figure out if I can use egg revival again.
Egg revival is a strategy in which I transfer my consciousness to an egg that I created using the Egg-Laying skill.
Since I was able to use a similar technique to make clones, I’m thinking I might be able to put my actual self into one of those clones, too.
That way, even if my body is mortally wounded, I can still survive.
No reason to fear defense-ignoring attacks once that’s all set up again!
But as of right now, those clones are far from perfect.
If I had to transfer myself into a wimpy body that could easily be stomped to death by any random passerby…
…well, that’s not a very good idea if I want to live very long.
So I think I could pull it off easily enough, but there’s still more work to be done.
Anyway, that’s the current state of my work on the fighting side of things. But yes, I’ve made plenty of other progress, too.
Most importantly, the Evil Eyes.
I’ve been practicing seeing through things by doing everything with my eyes closed for a while, so now I can do it without even thinking about it.
Which means that I currently have my eyes closed by default.
Now I can’t accidentally make eye contact with someone and get gawked at!
Not that I ever made a habit of looking people in the eye in the first place.
Huh? Why, you ask?
Well, you normies might not understand this, but us shut-ins have a really hard time just making eye contact with people.
And holding eye contact while talking to someone is practically impossible.
I know that sounds pretty pathetic, but now all that experience avoiding eye contact has actually come in handy for keeping people from noticing my freaky eyes.
On top of that, since I can see through solid objects now, I’ll never turn a corner and crash into someone ever again.
Not that I was really at risk for that stuff in the first place, since I barely ever leave my room!
But still, x-ray vision is pretty handy.
I mean, that’s basically every pubescent boy’s dream superpower!
I can peek at people’s undies anytime I want!
Not that I’d ever want to.
…Hmm? It sounds like I’m not making very good use of this ability, you say?
Th-th-th-that’s SO not true!
I’m using the crap out of it, all right?!
Besides, now I see just like when I had Clairvoyance and stuff!
And I can also re-create Evil Eye effects, so now I have super-long-distance Evil Eye attacks.
I still can’t use techniques that are directly connected to the system, like Cursed Evil Eye or Sealing Evil Eye, but I can re-create the effects of Inert Evil Eye and Warped Evil Eye without a problem.
Annihilating Evil Eye? That one’s dangerous, so I haven’t tried it.
But still, if I use Inert Evil Eye to stop an enemy from moving and Warped Evil Eye to twist ’em in space, I can beat most opponents long before they ever get near me.
You could even say that I’m steadily regaining the power I had before I was deified.
I haven’t had a chance to test those powers for real, although I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Hrm. That means it’s peaceful, which is a good thing, right?
But still, I dunno… This “peace” has a very temporary feel to it.
Like, there is some serious unrest hanging in the air right now.
The entirety of the demon territory is practically crackling with tension.
The Demon Lord has been conscripting tons of citizens lately.
Demons have a way smaller population than humans, so they don’t have a lot of people to spare, since population equals productivity.
With a limited population, there’s inevitably lots of different places that end up shorthanded.
And yet, the Demon Lord keeps stealing people from their already diminutive workforce so they can fight in her army. Needless to say, her approval ratings have hit rock bottom.
But the citizens can’t rebel against her.
I mean, she’s the DEMON LORD.
That makes her a pretty big deal to demons. Like, the biggest deal.
And even if they tried, I doubt they’d stand a chance against this particular Demon Lord.
No matter how united they might be, I can’t imagine them ever beating her.
She’s strong enough to cause a natural disaster purely by accident.
But most of the demons don’t fully comprehend how strong the Demon Lord truly is.
So there are bad feelings all around, and they’re reaching a boiling point.
It might not be long before some demons might just try to defeat the Demon Lord and put someone else in charge.
I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be a coup d’état soon.
Especially since they’ve already gathered enough military strength to start an armed revolution.
How do I know that when I’m always holed up in my room, you ask?
Why, espionage, of course.
Since my survivability and battle readiness are on the rise, my next project’s gotta be gathering intel.
In war, whoever has the most information has the upper hand.
What are the enemy’s numbers?
Where are they located?
Once you know those things, you can plan accordingly.
And if you don’t have any idea what the enemy is doing, you’re already at a disadvantage.
Put another way, simply being aware of things like that gives you a massive edge.
Knowledge is power, as they say.
So I’ve been hard at work gathering info.
Where am I getting my information from, you ask?
From my little mini-mes!
Since they’re spiders and all, they can walk on walls and ceilings, and being palm size, they can easily be snuck into all kinds of places.
And everything these mini-mes hear and see is relayed to me in real time.
Could anything be more perfect for espionage?! I don’t think so!
The only problem is that they’re so weak that they’re very easily destroyed if someone spots them.
You know how I said they’d die if someone stepped on them?
Well, I was speaking from experience…
But even if they do get killed, I personally don’t feel any pain.
And on top of that, no one would suspect that such a small spider was spying on anyone, so it’s not like people get paranoid if they find them. At most, they’ll just assume it’s some new kind of monster or something.
Which means I can replace them as many times as necessary.
Not that it hurts to avoid being found.
Anyway, I’ve dispatched my mass-produced mini-mes out all over the place.
And just like that, all kinds of information started pouring in.
Everything from rumors among peasants to secret conversations between higher-ups.
I wouldn’t say I know everything that’s going on in the demon territory, but I’ve obtained a pretty substantial amount of information at this point.
Ideally, I’d like to send clones into the human territories and elf villages and stuff, too, but I can’t do that.
I figured it’d be too dangerous right now.
The human territory is ruled by the Church, and the elves are ruled by Potimas.
My poor little mini-mes would be way out of their league.
Besides, the only reason I can use them so freely in the demon territory is because their existence as spider monsters won’t necessarily connect them to the Demon Lord or me.
Even if they’re found, no one would suspect the Demon Lord or me of spying.
But if Potimas or the Church finds a strange little spider, they’ll immediately know what’s up.
And then they’ll come looking to destroy us.
And the poor little mini-mes will be mercilessly crushed without even gathering any information…
So in order to prevent that from happening, I’m going to hold off on assigning the clones any surveillance missions in the human and elf territories until they’re at least skilled enough to avoid being seen or get away safely if they are spotted.
Although I guess I could always let them get caught on purpose and practically declare that we’re spying on the enemy just to make them paranoid.
But that’s pretty risky, and it’d mean losing a perfectly good clone, so I don’t really want to do that.
Even these tiny mini-mes don’t come free, you know. I have to provide the proper materials to make their bodies, and it takes time and energy for them to hatch.
I get my supplies for that in the Great Elroe Labyrinth, where the white spiders provide me with plenty of monster corpses.
It’s not like I wanna eat monsters anymore, but they’re still a plentiful food source that’s rich in nutrients!
So be sure to eat a heaping helping of monster meat every day, kids!
Just watch out for poison!
Eat up, little mini-mes, eat up.
Come to think of it, they’re still technically a part of me, so it does mean that I’m also eating monsters in a way.
At least since they’re in spider form, eating monsters doesn’t seem to gross them out.
If they were human, I have to imagine they’d go on strike due to the sheer grossness of the food I’m providing them. So that’s a near miss.
They’re not spiders for any particular reason.
That’s just the way they came out naturally. If I tried, I’m sure I could give them human bodies instead.
But if I make them without anything particular in mind, they come out as spiders.
Does this mean that deep in my heart of hearts, I still identify as a spider?
I’m not sure.
But it’s not particularly a problem, so there’s no need to think about it too deeply, I’d say.
No matter what, it doesn’t change who I am on the inside.
Compared to finding out that I’m actually just D’s substitute, this is no big deal at all, right?
Besides, human bodies are super-inconvenient!
Why do they only have two legs?!
Obviously, eight legs are gonna be way more stable!
I can barely keep my balance on two.
And since my body-enhancement conjuring is unstable right now, running is a huge pain, too.
It’s like my acceleration can hit full throttle, but my brakes don’t work.
If I had eight legs, I could find a way to brace myself, but two legs? Forget it.
So I got to wondering if there was anything I could do about it, and what do you know, I found a solution.
While I was busy worrying about the whole situation, I suddenly noticed that my lower body had turned into that of a spider.
I essentially reverted to arachne form.
I don’t really know how it happened exactly, but if I just kinda strain my lower body like this—HRRRGH!—I can turn into an arachne at will.
My body is arbitrary as all hell…
As a sidenote, I thought that if I can transform my lower body, then in theory, I should be able to transform my whole body however I want, but it seems like I can only shift into arachne form.
I guess I won’t get to yell This isn’t even my final form anytime soon.
Technically, this arachne transformation is probably some kind of conjuring, but the rune construction or whatever seems to happen subconsciously, like when I make thread. So I don’t really know how I’m doing it.
I guess conjuring is a pretty mysterious art, since I can do things like this without even understanding how it works. But I guess it’s not any weirder than the concept of magic and conjuring in the first place.
At any rate, I guess that means I have some amount of close-combat capability.
I don’t think that’s going to happen very often, and in fact I don’t really want it to, but it doesn’t hurt to have a physical form I can reliably escape in.
I can transform into an arachne in an instant, so as long as I don’t get taken out before I know what hit me, I should be able to deal with most things.
Hmm? What am I doing about underwear?
Oh, well, I’m not wearing any, of course.
NOT! What kind of idiot do you take me for?!
Of course I’m wearing underwear.
I just store them away in an alternate dimension when I transform.
I’m not giving any sexy fan service when I transform, thank you very much.
I’m as thoroughly censored as a Sunday-morning anime!
And I’ve got ways to counter x-ray vision, too, by the way.
I’m always prepared for anything you might throw at me, especially if it’s something I can do myself!
Heh-heh-heh.
If you want to sneak a peek at me in some sort of lewd scenario, you’ll have to try a lot harder than that!
…Although I hope I don’t run into anyone who actually tries to do such a thing.
Serious opponents only, please.
“I’m coming in.”
“How about you don’t?”
As usual, Deadbeat invites himself to our tea party, and Vampy promptly invites him to leave.
Normally, they’d launch right into sniping at each other from there, but today I actually have some business with Deadbeat, so I’m gonna need them to give it a rest.
Before Vampy can open fire, I raise a hand to stop her.
She stares at me, shocked by my unusual reaction.
Deadbeat looks surprised, too, but then he quickly smirks triumphantly at Vampy.
That childishness is not a good look, if you ask me.
In response, Vampy… Uh-oh. She’s scowling and grinding her teeth something fierce.
I’ve never actually heard that scraping sound come out of someone’s mouth so loudly.
Uh-oh. Now her lip’s bleeding, too.
That Envy skill is super-scary!
Now, now. Calm down, will ya?
Come on—you’re even freaking Deadbeat out now.
At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before disaster strikes, so I’d better wrap things up quickly and get Deadbeat outta here.
So without further ado, I hand him a letter.
It’s made of my thread and contains my most earnest feelings.
It’s not a love letter or anything like that, though.
Deadbeat looks kinda happy, so I feel a little bad, but…it does say “to the Demon Lord” right there on the envelope, y’know?
Ah, he must’ve noticed that. Now he looks disappointed.
“What the hell is this? You want me to give it to her?”
Yes, exactly. You really can do it if you try, Deadbeat!
I nod an affirmative, and his shoulders slump.
Sorry, pal.
For using you as an errand boy and for getting your hopes up.
But he’s always bothering us, so I feel like I’m well within my rights.
Anyway, go on and deliver that now.
Shoo, shoo!
I wave my hand at Deadbeat to hurry, and he trudges out of the room, slouching sadly.
Well, that should make Vampy feel better.
“Don’t go giving him the wrong idea like that.”
Or not, I guess?!
Vampy’s voice is low and dangerous, like something rising out of the depths of hell.
No infant girl should ever sound like that.
Look, Sael and Fiel are clinging to each other and trembling with fear!
Riel?
She’s just grinning like an idiot, as usual!
Now, now. Calm down, will ya?
I somehow manage to pacify the sullen bloodsucker, and our tea party comes to an end.
Ugh. I managed to hand off my letter for the Demon Lord, but I feel like I made Vampy’s temper even worse in the process.
I thought having her raise the Heresy Resistance skill would work in the long run, but maybe we need to take some more drastic measures.
Vampy tends to get obsessively attached to the people she knows well.
Especially Mera, to an extreme degree.
We’ve traveled the world together, but we didn’t actually meet a lot of other people.
In other words, Vampy doesn’t have many friends.
So she gets extra attached to—and dependent on—the few people who are close to her.
Not that I’m one to talk, but I do think Vampy needs to meet some new faces.
I mean, I’m a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need friends, but Vampy’s just a kid.
Still, maybe that’s none of my business.
Vampy will be sent off to the academy soon enough anyway.
I guess that means I’m not the only one making plans for the future.
THE SLACKER DEMON LORD
As I relax in my office in the Demon Lord’s castle, my feet kicked up on the desk, the sound of thunderous footsteps reaches my ears.
They storm right up to my room and burst through the door without so much as a knock.
“It’s pretty poor manners to barge into a lady’s room without even knocking, don’t you think?”
“You call yourself a lady? Yeah, right. What a joke.”
It’s Balto’s younger brother, Bloe, who’s not even attempting to hide his disdain for me, as usual.
He’s mad that I showed up out of nowhere and assumed the throne instead of his big brother.
But Balto has been perfectly cooperative with me and hasn’t made any attempts to rebel. So I guess I’ll generously let his baby brother off the hook for his extreme rudeness.
I’m not mad. I’m sooo not mad, okay?
“So. You must’ve come here for a reason, yes? Balto’s not here right now, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Bloe hates me, so he avoids me as much as possible.
So if he’s here now, he must need something from me, or else he’s looking for his brother.
“I got sent here to give this to you, all right?”
Bloe stomps up to my desk and raises his hand as if to throw something down on it with all his might, then changes his mind at the last second and places it there gently.
What is this guy playing at?
“Um, okay. Thanks, I guess.”
“Mm-hmm.”
His voice is lacking its usual fire.
Was there a recent shocking development or something?
Well, I guess it’s not like I care how Bloe is feeling.
Looking at the object on my desk, I discover it’s an envelope containing a letter.
As soon as I pick it up, I can feel that it’s not ordinary paper. Judging by the smooth texture, White must’ve made it herself.
Now that I know who sent the letter, I open it and skim its contents.
“For real?” I mutter without thinking.
The several sheets of paper in the envelope contain the names of ringleaders who are plotting a rebellion, the head count and composition of their forces, the reach of their influence, how well supplied they are, and other detailed information.
I have no idea how in the world she found all this out or why.
White always manages to blow my expectations out of the water.
“Bloe.”
“Hunh?”
As Bloe starts to leave the room, I call out to him.
Incidentally, only a few scant seconds have passed from the moment Bloe handed me the letter to the moment I finished reading it.
So from Bloe’s point of view, he handed me the letter and turned to leave, and I stopped him almost immediately.
I’m only able to pull that off thanks to the Thought Super-Acceleration skill, but Bloe doesn’t know that, so to him it probably seems like I stopped him without bothering to read the letter first.
Not that I care what he thinks.
“Read this.”
Naturally, my demand makes a vein pop in his head, but that’s none of my concern.
“Listen, you!”
“Once you’ve read it, bring it to Balto. And give him a message for me. ‘Take care of it.’” Ignoring his blustering, I carry on with my commands. “Demon Lord’s orders.”
“Tch!”
Bloe grumbles a lot, but he does as he’s told. I guess he’s a good worker deep down.
As Bloe reluctantly reads the letter, his expression slowly changes from grouchy to utterly serious.
Although his brows stay furrowed the whole time.
“Is this true? You sure?”
Bloe looks doubtful.
But the sheer level of detail in the letter leaves little room for doubt.
As hard as it might be to believe, there’s so much proof that it’s all but impossible to deny.
Although I’m guessing Bloe is even more amazed because it was White who gave him this letter to deliver to me.
From his perspective, White probably seems like a secluded princess, not a combatant of any kind. She’s always holed up in the duke’s mansion, so he’s not exactly wrong.
In fact, even I don’t know how White managed to gather all this vital information, when she never leaves the mansion, or what motivated her to do it.
And if it’s a mystery to me, it must be even more confusing to Bloe.
“…”
Bloe walks out without another word, still staring at the letter.
Dude, at least say something.
I am technically the Demon Lord, aka your boss.
See, this is his problem. Even if he’s a good worker for the most part, he lacks common sense about stuff like this.
No wonder he’s not popular with the ladies.
Now that Bloe’s gone, I put my feet back up on the desk.
To be honest, I’ve got nothing to do, so I’m super-bored.
Well, I guess there’s plenty of things I could be doing if I wanted to, but it’s more effective if I don’t actually do those things myself, I think.
There are lots of guys like Bloe who despise me, even if most of them aren’t actively plotting to revolt.
Especially ’cause I’ve shown my true strength to only a handful of people, like Balto.
The demon race is a meritocracy. So of course the Demon Lord has to be pretty powerful.
And this power isn’t limited to just battle, either.
Balto’s political prowess is acknowledged as a kind of power, too, for example.
And the person who’s chosen as Demon Lord is usually a well-known, influential demon.
Someone who’s been popular since before they became the Demon Lord.
Most people are satisfied with that kind of choice.
But I’m not even a demon, and I’m not very well-known.
Yeah, I guess I’m decently famous as the oldest of the Ancient Divine Beasts, but nobody would draw that connection between me and the legends unless I spread the word myself.
To most demons, it probably seems like some random person of totally unknown strength and origin just showed up out of nowhere and became the Demon Lord.
It’s only natural that there’s gonna be tons of people angry about that.
And ultimately, that anger fuels the forces White found moving in secret.
So why don’t I just show them how strong I am? Because I don’t want anyone to flee.
It’s one thing to rule with fear, but if you add overwhelming military might to that equation, then it’s just going too far.
In theory, I’m strong enough to crush the entirety of the demon race all by myself.
And if push comes to shove, I’m willing to do exactly that.
What would the demon race do if they knew all that?
If they’d simply obey me to save their hides, that’d be perfectly acceptable.
But if they run away, that’s a problem.
See, turning the tables on would-be rebels who come after me is a piece of cake.
I’m strong enough to do that without breaking a sweat.
But if they scatter and flee in every direction, I’m screwed.
I don’t have the time or the manpower to chase them all down, round them up, and dispose of them.
It might be possible if I used my remaining queens and other offspring, but then the whole demons-versus-humans war would be over.
It’d just be me destroying the demons and then me versus humans.
I’d like to make that a last resort.
In order to go up against the likes of Dustin and Potimas, I want to use the demon race as a breakwater and as sacrificial pawns.
Which is why I want to hide my true power from the demon race as much as possible, while still ensuring that they obey my orders.
The fastest way to do that is to show my true strength only to powerful demons like Balto and Agner and bring them to heel.
If they’re following my orders, then their subordinates will automatically obey me as well. Like Bloe, for instance.
Of course, there’s still bound to be some people who are discontented about the current state of affairs.
When that anger reaches a breaking point—meaning, when there’s a rebellion or something—I’ll just show them a small measure of my power, enough to silence any demons who were doubtful.
The plan is to let the dissenters gather into a revolutionary army and then purge them all in one fell swoop.
Once I’ve wiped them out, it’ll prove to everyone else that I’m worthy of standing at the top.
I just have to be careful not to go overboard and scare people off.
It might be hard to strike just the right balance…
Or at least, that’s what I was thinking, until White laid the whole secret revolution bare before I even noticed it was happening.
Now we might crush them before I even get a chance to take the stage.
’Cause now we know exactly who and where they are, how strong they are, and how to beat them.
And since I got that information so far in advance, I can launch a preemptive strike whenever I want.
With everything laid out so clearly, you’d have to be the worst commander ever to lose this fight.
Now, even if I wanted to show off my power, I’ll just seem like I’m full of myself for showing off when victory’s already assured!
What is White thinking, being so thorough that it actually messes up my plans?
Now I don’t have anything to do at all.
Ughhh, talk about a pain.
…I’m not sitting around doing nothing by choice, all right?
There’s a very good reason I’m not working. If I go around taking care of things without justification, it’ll just make the demons resent me even more, so I really have no choice but to dump it all on Balto.
I mean, I played the part of the absentee Demon Lord so well that if I start meddling now, it’ll just make things worse.
I’m not slacking off because I want to.
I’m not. I swear.
LET’S TAKE ACTION
It’s been three days since I sent a letter to the Demon Lord by way of Deadbeat, letting her know that there were signs of a rebellion brewing.
A task force to take care of the rebels has already been formed and dispatched.
Damn, that was fast!
Should you really be making such a snap decision about this?!
Like, doesn’t it take more time to prepare for military action or whatever?
I used my clones to find out what was going on, and the answer is: They’re pushing themselves quite a bit.
Apparently, the Demon Lord dumped this whole situation on Balto, and he’s decided to deal with it by using blitzkrieg tactics.
The rebellion is taking their time gathering supporters and supplies in order to avoid suspicion, so I guess Balto wants to crush them before they finish amassing everything they need.
On top of that, the task force is going to great lengths to conceal the fact that they’re getting ready to deploy, all so we can catch the rebels by surprise.
Balto must be planning for a quick, decisive battle.
Well, I guess in his position, he doesn’t have much of a choice.
He’s supposed to be getting troops ready for the upcoming war against the humans right now, so he can’t afford to lose any manpower.
The longer he takes, the more time the rebels have to recruit, so he’s better off nipping it in the bud as soon as possible to minimize the losses.
If he’s lucky, that might be enough to scatter the remaining rebels before they can concentrate their forces.
But are they really gonna be all right if they attack in such a hurry? What about supplies and logistics?
I know what you’re thinking. Who needs that crap in a world with stats and skills, right?!
But war in this world actually follows the same basic logic as Earth, at least to a certain extent.
I mean, these are still flesh-and-blood people fighting, y’know?
They gotta eat or they’ll starve, and they gotta sleep or they’ll collapse.
Sure, there’s stuff like the Exhaustion Nullification skill, but only a handful of exceptional individuals have those kinds of abilities.
If you’re tired or hungry, you won’t be able to fight very well no matter how high your stats are.
Besides, the stats don’t actually make as big a difference as you might think.
Whether it’s humans or demons, most of them have stats under 1,000.
In fact, as far as I can tell, people who have even one stat that breaks 1,000 are seen as super-legendary fighters.
It really makes you realize how crazy the Demon Lord’s faction is for having several people whose stats easily break 10,000.
So anyway, triple-digit stats are pretty much the norm for your average soldier, which means they can’t do anything crazy impressive.
Yeah, they can wear a full set of armor and still run at top speed, but that’s basically the best they manage.
You don’t really see many people shattering the ground with a single punch, scorching their surroundings to ash with one spell, or any of that stuff you might see in overpowered fantasy stories.
I guess if there were tons of people with those kinds of awe-inspiring powers, fortresses and stuff would lose all meaning, huh?
The fact that fortresses exist means that they’re enough to defend against most things, or no one would bother building them.
Although I guess there are some fortresses like this one that have their defenses bolstered with skills and stuff, so they’re not really comparable to the fortifications you’d find back on Earth.
Hmm. Lemme think.
I guess if you consider the benefits of stats and equipment and exotic mounts and stuff, warfare here might be around the same level as, like, World War I or so.
Bows and arrows in this world are fairly comparable to guns, and you could probably consider magic as a kind of artillery.
Although, like I said, there are differences, like the defensive power of fortresses and stuff.
Huh? That all sounds pretty impressive to you?
I dunno, it’s pretty bottom-tier stuff from where I’m standing.
I mean, think about who I’ve been hanging out with, will ya?
You’ve got the Demon Lord, who can cause a natural disaster with her bare hands, and a bunch of other powerhouses who wreak mass destruction with the aftershocks of their attacks alone.
Compared to those beasts, being able to produce artillery-level power with your hands or whatever is small potatoes.
But anyway, to get back to the main subject, war in this world does have certain similarities with war on Earth.
From that perspective, it’s obvious that this attack is pretty rushed.
It’d be one thing if they’d been preparing in advance, but when they’re deploying out of the blue, it seems kinda crazy.
In war, as in any battle, it’s very important to prepare in advance.
Gathering troops, honing their abilities, acquiring equipment, and so on.
And then you’ve gotta come up with a strategy so that you can maximize their potential on the battlefield.
Sure, stats and skills can cover for shortcomings in those areas to a certain extent, but if you want your troops to perform their best, you’ve gotta make sure they stay supplied and rested.
The lightning-strike strategy Balto’s devised is going to take a toll on those soldiers. Will they be all right?
Well, I guess he wouldn’t give the go-ahead unless he figured it would work, but still.
Hrmmm.
Maybe I should check things out again.
The rebel army is currently gathering in a town north of the demon capital.
The soldiers are disguised as civilians to avoid suspicion, entering the town a few people at a time.
And they’re bringing in supplies and equipment slowly and carefully, too.
Normally, it would be incredibly challenging to detect their movements.
The rebels probably figured that by the time anyone noticed, they’d have assembled a sizable army and already be on the move before anyone realized what was coming.
Damn. I’m pretty impressive, figuring all that out in advance.
Thanks to my amazing powers of observation, now we have the initiative to make the first move while the rebel army is still preparing.
So it stands to reason that we’d want to attack as soon as possible in order to make the most of that advantage.
Thinking about it that way, I guess this blitzkrieg strategy isn’t so bad.
The only problem is whether or not we can actually win with it.
The northern town’s defenses aren’t particularly formidable.
Most demon towns, or really just all towns in this world, are generally set up to ward off monsters, not people.
That makes sense, since it’s typically monsters who threaten people more often than not.
You’ve gotta be prepared for that or your home will get wiped out.
There are exceptions, of course, but the majority of towns are equipped with defenses to match whatever monsters appear in their area.
The monsters that appear around the rebel town are mostly small to medium animal-type monsters.
They’re relatively weak and can serve as food, so hunting them is one of the town’s main sources of income.
If anything, they’re often attacking more than defending…
Anyway, that means their defenses aren’t particularly strong, just the bare minimum to prevent roving monsters from getting in.
So there’s no fear of them holing up to weather a siege or anything.
If they try to pull that, it’ll be easy enough to break through with a direct assault.
No need to worry about them dragging things out while the revolutionary army assembles in another area.
My hastily acquired knowledge of military strategy says that besieging a well-prepared enemy takes tons of time, and the attackers usually need way more manpower than the defense to have any chance of winning.
Not having to worry about that is a big advantage.
If it’s just gonna be a field battle, then the most important factors are the number of soldiers and the skills of the commander.
The soldiers’ abilities?
That’s important, too, but since they’re all demons, there’s not gonna be that big of a difference.
Since both sides are the same race and lead the same kinds of lives, their stats are naturally gonna be similar.
Of course, if there was a massive gap in stats, then that could decide the fight before it even begins, but there’s only a handful of people with those kinds of stats.
And even those guys only have stats that max out around 1,000.
There’s only so much you can do with those kinds of stats.
That means you usually never see whole armies getting crushed by a single person with some unbelievable power or anything like that.
With these kinds of constraints, victory purely comes down to the number of soldiers on each side and the smarts of their respective commanders.
In this case, we’re sending out about three times the amount of soldiers as the opponent.
And their commander is Balto.
However, it seems Deadbeat is the one who’s actually gonna be leading the charge.
I can’t say that doesn’t make me a little nervous, but given their overwhelming advantage in numbers, it’s pretty unlikely that they would lose.
Balto will be there, too, so he won’t let things get out of hand.
My only other concerns are what kind of toll the forced march will have on the soldiers and how reliably they can secure supplies.
They’re probably bringing food with them, but I’m guessing they’ll only have the bare minimum so that they can move quickly. It probably won’t be enough.
And I haven’t seen any indication that there are any plans for reinforcements.
Are they really gonna be okay?
You can’t fight on an empty stomach, you know!
But when I think about it, I guess that might not be too much of a problem, especially considering where they’re gonna be attacking.
I mean, the town to the north makes their living hunting monsters for food.
In other words, there’s food all over the place.
If they can secure food on-site, there’s no need to lug a bunch of heavy supplies around.
Come to think of it, I guess that was the case in a lot of the Earth’s history, too. Pillaging and war often go hand in hand.
…When you think about it that way, war is pretty tragic.
Huh? That’s rich coming from someone who eats her slain foes, you say?
Look, that’s a totally different situation.
Anyway, I assume Balto’s got countermeasures in mind when it comes to dealing with the fatigue of the soldiers, so I don’t need to worry about that too much.
Hrmmm?
Wait, does that mean they actually stand a pretty good chance of winning?
Well, they’ve got plenty of advance information thanks to me, so I guess they’d actually have to be shockingly incompetent to lose in this situation.
Not to mention, three very unusual individuals have snuck into Balto’s ranks.
Ael, Mera, and Mr. Oni.
What are you guys doing?
I mean, ever since Vampy sealed Mr. Oni’s Wrath skill, his strength is limited to what he can control, so he probably isn’t all that out of place among the demon soldiers.
And I guess Mera’s safe, too?
No, no, he’s definitely out.
Mera’s been secretly training to catch up with Vampy, and because he’s a vampire and all that, he’s a whole lot stronger than your average human.
He was even able to hold his own against Mr. Oni in his Wrath state, so that puts him above most demons, too.
And when you throw Ael, a literal monster, into the mix?
Okay, yeah. It would actually be harder for them to lose at this point.
Great. Nothing to worry about.
…Yeah, right. If anything, I’m even more worried than before.
I guess you could say I’m bugging out a little.
Except technically, spiders aren’t bugs.
Okay, that’s not that important right now. All that matters is that my spider senses are tingling, warning me that something’s wrong.
It’s never a good idea to ignore your instincts.
The whole reason I was contemplating Balto’s troops’ chances of victory in the first place is because I had a bad feeling about it.
My conclusion is that they’ve basically got this in the bag… But for some reason, I’m still uneasy.
Am I missing something here?
No… At least I don’t think so, but you can never be too sure.
I’ve been gathering information by sending out my clones as spies.
They’re palm-size mini-mes, so they can sneak into all kinds of tight spaces and overhear all sorts of things.
If nobody’s around, they can even look through documents and stuff.
They’re just not very strong.
They’re still so weak that if anyone finds them, they could squish my little ones with a single step.
So the priority has been to stay hidden while carefully collecting information.
It doesn’t actually damage me at all if one of my clones gets crushed, but I’d hate to see them go to waste after I worked so hard to make them.
Besides, I’ve managed to get plenty of intel without taking many risks, so I’m fairly satisfied with that.
But…what if something slipped past my information network?
If the rebellion is hiding some huge secret so thoroughly that I didn’t even catch wind of it, and it turns out to be a game-changing superweapon?
Logically speaking, it’s doubtful the rebels would have such a convenient trump card.
Judging by the numbers alone, Balto’s troops have a 99.9 percent chance of winning.
Still, I can’t just ignore this gut feeling.
My best bet is to watch over them from the shadows, since it’s not like I have anything better to do.
All right, I should get going, then.
Oh, wait a second.
I’ve gotta tell Vampy that I’m leaving first.
She gets reeeal mad when I disappear without saying anything.
“Excuse me? What do you mean, you’re leaving? Don’t be ridiculous. Obviously, I’m coming with you.”
I have no idea how she reached this conclusion. Could someone please explain it to me in a clear and concise essay format?
Vampy promptly picks up her beloved broadsword and stands next to me expectantly, as if her coming along is a done deal.
Ummm.
Now what?
Honestly, I don’t know what’s gonna go down, so I’d rather not take Vampy with me, buuut…
“Given the timing of this little trip, you’re obviously heading to wherever this so-called rebel army is gathering, right? Merazophis is going to be there as well, so there’s no reason for me not to go.”
Wait a minute. Vampy saw right through me?!
Since when is she smart enough for that?!
Hmm, I guess it’s not like she was ever not smart…
But still, I can’t help but feel that she figured out my plans based on some kind of animal instinct, not by reaching that conclusion through rational thought. Can you blame me for thinking that, though?
Besides, her excuse for feeling entitled to go along is still pretty stupid.
She’s coming just because Mera’s there, too…?
Um, it’s kind of a pain if you come along for such a stupid reason…
“What? Is there some reason I can’t come along? A reason you have to go chasing after Merazophis without taking me with you? Hmm?”
Eek!
Excuse me, Miss Vampy, do you know how dilated your pupils are right now?
Don’t look at me with that horror-movie expression! You’re freaking me out!
All right, fine! You win! I’ll take you with me!
As I frantically convey my surrender with various gestures, Vampy finally seems satisfied and resumes packing.
Phew.
This damn homicidal, lovesick, preteen vampire.
C’mon, rein it in. That’s too many weird traits in one person.
Besides, it’s not like anything would ever happen between Mera and me.
If she reacts like this to me, I’d hate to think what she might do if some unfamiliar woman tried to get close to him.
As far as I can tell, nothing like that is going on right now, but who knows what might happen in the future?
I mean, Mera’s kind of a catch.
He’s strong, has a good personality, and he’s easy on the eyes to boot.
If you just ignore the fact that he’s a vampire, he’s basically the perfect man, right?
Aside from coming with some major baggage in the form of a crazy little girl who will try to murder you if you get anywhere near him!
Poor Mera. He could be popular in theory, but that’s probably the worst thing that could happen.
I’d rather not see any bloodshed as a result of Envy’s side effects.
Ugh. But I guess I should be more worried about my current situation than long-term stuff like that right now.
If I’m going to bring Vampy, then I’ll have to bring the other puppet spiders, too.
They are technically supposed to guard me and Vampy, after all.
Hrmmm. Well, in that case, we should be fine as long as nothing totally crazy happens.
I mean the reason we’re going in the first place is because of my baseless instinct that something bad might happen…
So that we can be there to help if it turns out to be true.
Really, it’s just as likely that nothing’s going to happen at all.
There’s no harm in being cautious, but I guess there’s no point in being too cautious, either.
If something DOES happen, it’s every beastie for themselves.
Vampy’s the one who insisted on coming along.
Of course, I’ll keep an eye out to try to prevent anything like that from going down.
Also, I don’t wanna rain on her parade while she’s busy packing, but we’re not actually leaving yet, okay?
I’ve got the overpowered method of teleporting whenever I want.
We still have a few more days before Balto’s troops reach the northern town that’s serving as the rebel army’s base.
I fully intend to relax until then, all right?
So fast-forward: Balto and his troops should be arriving sometime tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’ve already reached the northern town with the help of teleportation.
I decided to come a day early to give us time to conduct some preliminary investigations and stuff.
So why didn’t I get here sooner, you ask?
Well, my clones have already done most of the investigating for me, y’see?
We’re really only here just in case something totally unforeseen happens.
It’s my completely baseless gut feeling, and that’s about it.
I figure we might as well take it easy.
So we’ve been wandering around sightseeing in the town, by which I mostly mean scouting. And boy, is there a lot of activity.
Well, I guess I can’t blame them, since there’s a small army approaching their town right now.
I’m sure the rebels figured they’d be the ones conducting a surprise attack, so they never would’ve imagined that they’d find themselves on the receiving end when they’re not even done assembling yet.
Now they’re busting their butts trying to ready the town for battle.
I guess they’re planning on turtling up for a siege, then.
That’s a little unexpected. How are you gonna hole up in a place with such weak defenses?
Well, I thought they were weak anyway.
But I was forgetting that this is still basically a fantasy world.
They’ve made a whole ring of walls frighteningly fast with Earth Magic, surrounding the northern town completely.
Not only that, but the walls are well-built, on par with modern architecture back on Earth.
It’s an amazing castle, constructed overnight, more or less. Even Hideyoshi would be impressed.
It’s purely for defense, though, so I guess it’s not as fancy as the historic castles of Japan.
Anyway, they’ve dispatched their speediest horses to the surrounding areas, telling the other rebels to gather in the northern town ASAP.
Looks like there’s gonna be a showdown.
But since this is an unexpected development, they’re working their earth mages half to death, so I wouldn’t exactly say they’re fully prepared.
For one thing, the soldiers seem ready to run away at the drop of a hat.
The townspeople, who weren’t informed about any of this, are even more distressed.
They don’t have any connection to the rebels, y’know?
Surprise! A rebellion was using your town as their base of operations, and now the Demon Lord’s army is coming to destroy them!
Yeah, talk about a shocking discovery.
You can’t blame them for freaking out about what’s going to happen to them.
But it’s not like this town just randomly became the rebel base. The lord of the town is actually a rebel leader.
That’s right. The truth is out: The leader of the rebellion is the lord of this town!
Say whaaaat?!
Yeah, okay, it’s not actually all that surprising.
You’d have to be either an important big shot or a total idiot to try to seriously consider overthrowing the Demon Lord: the very symbol of the demon race.
Fortunately, it’s the former in this case.
Well, it’s the latter if you know the whole story, but for demons who aren’t aware of the Demon Lord’s true strength, of course they’re gonna be tempted to rebel against her plans.
The demon race is barely getting by as is, and now the Demon Lord’s declaring war on humanity.
If you’re a town leader, of course you won’t just roll over and be like, Okay, sounds good.
A lord has a responsibility to protect their lands and people, after all.
While gathering information around the demon territory, I’ve discovered that high-class demons—the nobles, basically—are generally not corrupt at all.
That doesn’t apply to all of them, of course, but compared to humans, there are way more nobles abiding by the principle of noblesse oblige and properly fulfilling their duties toward the less fortunate.
That’s got a lot to do with the meritocracy of the demon race.
See, demons don’t get to perpetually keep their noble rank.
If their behavior is deemed improper, their land will be stripped from them in no time at all.
So demon nobles have to actually act accordingly: carrying out their duties, raising their children properly, and so on.
The latter is so that their children don’t end up getting the family land confiscated due to lack of a proper upbringing once the current generation retires.
As long as they get their kids a gifted education from a young age, which is usually affordable because of their resources, it should be easy enough to raise an upstanding adult.
And an upstanding adult is less likely to get the family chased off their land.
So for demons, passing down power and ability to their heirs is more important than blood inheritance.
Which means most demon nobles are pretty decent, since they’re careful not to raise fools.
By that logic, the lord of this northern town is bound to be a pretty upstanding and dutiful person, too.
In point of fact, he was doing excellent work up until now.
His rebel army was assembling stealthily and quietly, at least until I uncovered the whole shebang and squealed on them.
As soon as he found out the authorities were coming, he made a snap decision to turn the northern town into a fortress.
So he has the influence to gather rebels from all over the land to his banner and the flexibility to make quick, calm judgments as the situation changes.
Talk about excellence.
Well, excellent except for the part where he was stupid enough to pick a fight with the Demon Lord… No, I shouldn’t poke fun.
But, uh…he’s almost certainly screwed now.
I mean, Balto’s got Ael in his army.
Let’s not forget, she’s a beast whose stats are in the 10,000s.
Walls made out of Earth Magic? To Ael, those are practically thin sheets of paper.
Quite frankly, she could destroy this entire town all by herself.
Strategy and battle tactics fall apart in the face of that kind of strength.
When the difference in power is that insurmountable, it doesn’t really matter how excellent your commander might be.
I’m sure the Demon Lord just sent her along to be on the safe side, but, like, this is beyond extreme.
Especially when there are no less than three individuals with that overwhelming level of power in the same place at the same time!
And if you count Vampy and me, multiply that by infinity!
This is just overkill, then another layer of overkill on top of that.
Yeah, I’m not even really making sense anymore, but you get the idea.
And don’t you dare say What idea? to me right now.
Either way, we just have to hope that nothing happens that would justify sending in Overkill Squad.
How’s this gonna play out? I wonder.
“So it begins.”
We’re sitting in our room at the inn, having a leisurely tea party.
Vampy sips her tea daintily as she makes a deep-sounding comment.
Although there’s no real special meaning—the fight has literally just begun, that’s all.
How do we know that when we’re just sitting in the inn, you ask?
Well, Vampy has Panoptic Vision, so it’s easy enough to see what’s going on in the area even if we’re inside.
The way Vampy’s eyes are blankly staring at an empty wall is proof enough of that.
If it was anyone else staring into the distance and saying weird things, you’d probably think they were crazy, huh?
…Okay, everything about Vampy is crazy, so I guess that’s not too far off the mark.
Anyway, none of this matters right now.
I use my own Clairvoyance to check on things outside the northern town.
There, Balto’s troops have launched their attack on the town.
I’ve never actually seen this kind of large-scale battle in this world before, so while it might be in poor taste, I gotta admit I’m a little excited.
Huh? What do you mean, I do have battlefield experience?
If you’re talking about the thing in Sariella, that wasn’t so much a battle as a slaughter.
Part 2 of 8