* * *
We found him in there—in fine shape, as well, despite my concerns.
“Phew! I thought I was a goner for a moment,” he said, not looking like he encountered anything more dangerous than a stubbed toe. Adalmann’s group was there with us; Ramiris and Veldora showed up later but left after they saw Gadora was okay.
“So what happened?”
“Well, I tell you, I went to the Imperial Council and argued against the war there, but I couldn’t tip the trend away, sadly. I expected as much, so I decided to go to Emperor Ludora one last time and see if I couldn’t appeal to him directly.”
He made the request for a meeting, which was accepted and scheduled for today. But inside the imperial palace, he said, he was stabbed by someone. This happened not even ten minutes ago. That definitely wasn’t all right; I felt guilty for asking.
“Oh… Right. I gave you a Resurrection Bracelet.”
“Ha-ha! Lady Ramiris’s powers are truly amazing. They saved my life, in fact. I thought something like this might happen, so I set up a return spell in advance.”
Judging by how healthy and unstabbed he was, I figured it was something like that. Pretty smart idea. If he could instantly teleport himself back to the labyrinth, the Resurrection Bracelet would save his life, no matter how badly he was hurt. Seeing a real-life example like this reminded me all over again just how effective Ramiris’s abilities were.
Still, though, Gadora’s a pretty nimble guy himself. Setting up spells in advance like an alarm… He taught those tricks to Razen as well, apparently, and I’d want to practice that later on. I had Hasten Thought, too, and combining it with this delay thing could produce some even bigger results.
“Who attacked you, then?”
There weren’t too many people in our nation who could kill Gadora. He was always on his guard, keeping up a pretty stiff magic defense, and I didn’t think he’d fail to spot a sneak attack in time, but…
“Well, the assassin managed to avoid my detection before they struck, so I wasn’t able to see exactly who it was. There is a suspect in my mind, but I must admit, it’s a rather hard-to-believe one…”
He showed me his back; there was a straight tear in his robe. His body was completely healed, but his clothing was still in the same condition. The tear was corroded in spots, too, so it clearly wasn’t just a physical attack.
“A single stab to the heart from behind, huh?”
“Your defenses were destroyed by magic, it would seem,” Diablo added. “Quite an interesting skill to use…”
It had piqued Diablo’s interest, and if so, this was no amateur assassin we were dealing with. I was sure the Empire had someone capable of killing me—maybe it was Gadora’s attacker, even, but I ought to have assumed there was more than that.
Gadora himself didn’t seem confident enough about his hunch to name a suspect, but he wanted to do some investigating, so I’d leave that to him. I didn’t think he was lying, and he honestly seemed perplexed about the whole thing. I wasn’t about to trust him immediately, but I figured I’d wait and see what happened.
“Well, I’m glad you’re all right, at least. It certainly shows us that the Empire shouldn’t be trifled with. Let’s all try to be a little more careful.”
“You are exactly right, Sir Rimuru,” Diablo agreed. “No need to risk our necks further with them. I am sure there is little new information to find, regardless.”
Gadora nearly died over the info he got for me, and I had to be satisfied with that. So after a few more kind words, I let him brief me on what he found.
As the old man put it, the Empire was making concrete moves toward war.
Whenever the Empire opened hostilities against another nation, they never bothered issuing a formal declaration of war. The emperor was defined to be the sole, unique presence that mattered, and they didn’t even recognize the existence of other countries. That, of course, was lip service; they had diplomatic relations with the Dwarven Kingdom, for one, and they didn’t meddle in their sovereign territory.
If the Empire decided to invade, it only did so after careful, prudent preparation. They didn’t declare war; they sent a letter advising the other side to surrender, and only once. If you followed it, fine; if not (as the stories went) the war was on, and they’d no longer show any mercy.
You really couldn’t get much haughtier as a nation—or more arrogant. If you’re gonna be such a bother, guys, don’t expect to make any friends in international society, okay? Not that they participated in it anyway. They hadn’t ratified any of the international law enacted by the Council of the West, so once they started a war, all bets were off. Post-defeat agreements? Prisoner handling? Prohibited actions during war? They followed none of those, part of why the Western Nations feared the Empire so much.
Which…yeah, I can see why. At this rate, they might try to justify the mass killing of civilians—and if you lost in war against the Empire, that meant losing everything. I doubted the word reparations was in their vocabulary—everything belonged to the Empire, so the losing nation would lose all their rights. If you wanted to reason with them, you had to at least fight them to a draw. We definitely couldn’t let up right then. We had to go in strong and cut out the root of all this evil.
Now that we knew the Empire’s direction, we switched gears into our own wartime proceedings. Our Control Center would now become a strategic headquarters—just a formality, really, but still an important one. Benimaru and Soei would be on standby there at all times, the latter using his replications to fan across the region for spy ops. That way, we wouldn’t have to rely solely on our Argos network, and with Moss’s assistance, he should be able to get some pretty accurate intel.
At this point in time, we had a pretty decent advantage.
Basically, in this world, war didn’t really begin until one army encountered the other. You could use scouts and long-range magic to try detecting enemy movements in advance, but conventional wisdom called for that only when the two sides were pretty close to bumping into each other anyway. The concept of information warfare was a thing here, but there wasn’t another nation on this planet with an enemy-monitoring program as thorough as ours. That’s what Hinata and Gadora told me, too, so I wasn’t imagining it. It was the golden truth.
“This… Are we seeing this from the air…?” Gadora asked, incredulous.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh…,” Diablo chuckled. “This is a product of Sir Rimuru’s magic. It requires merely a minuscule amount of magicules to trigger magic from beyond the stratosphere. Only a small number of people could ever detect this magic in motion. One would need a danger-prediction ability on the level of Ultra-Instinct.”
“Y-yes… Indeed. I’m fairly confident in my own magic detection skills, but this just seems so natural. I never imagined it was the work of any caster at all…”
“Precisely! Even an Arch Demon well versed in magic would overlook such a low-level spell. Truly wonderful. Don’t you agree?”
“I do, I do! This magic is simply mind-boggling!”
Diablo, for some reason, was now bragging to Gadora with the smuggest of grins. The old sorcerer was getting more and more excited as he concurred with each of Diablo’s boasts.
“Shion?”
“Right away!”
Diablo was going to be nothing but a distraction, so I ordered Shion to isolate him in another room. Now that things were quiet, we got to the business at hand.
This high-altitude monitoring system was just beyond cheating. I mean, think about it. Until this moment, we spent so much time fretting about which route they’d attack from, but now that seemed like a joke. We had a full video feed of not only the most likely routes but our entire border with the Empire, so we’d see everything from the moment they kicked off. It was like playing chess with a blindfolded opponent—they’d only know where their pieces were, and unless you were a real beginner, you wouldn’t even lose to a professional. They weren’t just missing a couple pieces—they were at a near-total disadvantage.
And of course, war has no rules anyway. If you win, you played it right.
Having the other side plot an invasion of our territory was scarier than I thought. It meant you’d have war on your own land, with no previous agreements. But I put up one rule in advance:
“No touching civilians!”
We, of course, would strictly prohibit ourselves from striking first. If we declared an end to hostilities, we’d refrain from attacking any further. I trusted that nobody would go against this and break the rules.
Now I had the cabinet of Tempest here in the Control Center. Benimaru was our commander, Hakuro our chief adviser. Rigurd was there, along with the heads of the three powers of government serving under him—Rugurd, Regurd, and Rogurd. Shuna and Lilina led the female contingent; they were alongside Rigur, our top behind-the-scenes man, as well as Kaijin and Kurobe. I had Vester and Mjöllmile in there as consultants; Gobta and Gabil had reported in as army generals, and Geld had taken time off from his work to show up as well. Finally, I had invited Testarossa and her two demoness friends—and I let Diablo in, too, figuring he had learned his lesson. He was standing amicably in his usual spot alongside Shion.
I also decided to bring Gadora and Shinji’s gang in as witnesses…and a bit later Masayuki, that font of morale for all of humanity, came in.
“Wait a minute. Why am I the ‘font of morale’ for anything?! Can you stop spouting crap about me like that? Ugh!”
Oops. Guess I was airing my thoughts out loud again. Masayuki looked pretty huffy about it…and for some reason, Gadora was staring right at both of us. Maybe something caught his eye, but I’d ask about it afterward.
That left two more people to mention—Veldora and Ramiris, our support staff. Beretta, Treyni, and Charys were also on standby in one corner. That was about all of them.
Giving a few pets to Ranga on the ground next to me, I looked around at my seated audience.
“I don’t need to tell you all why you’re here today. We’re going to hold a conference to work out our opposition to the Empire. Benimaru and I have come up with an outline of our strategy, but I want to hear your feedback on it as well. Don’t be afraid to speak up at any time.”
“““Yes, Sir Rimuru!”””
So the conference began.
Turning toward the screen, I saw it display crowds of imperial forces on the move—these metallic vehicles, whirring along as they ran on treads. They were tanks, and from what the image showed, there were around two thousand of them.
Whoa! I thought when I saw that. What are tanks doing there?!
Flustered, I asked Shinji’s group for some explanation. Through them, we learned that the Empire was using the knowledge—and science—of otherworlders to develop modern weaponry. They had internal combustion engines that ran on magicules instead of oil, charging up their energy through air circulation—allowing for cooling and magicule supply at the same time. A pretty well-thought-out system, in my opinion. These tanks were also pretty versatile; in terms of functionality, I’d say they easily outclassed the best tanks in our old world.
Gadora told us that the Empire analyzed a magical control reactor found in some ancient ruins and reworked them for modern times. They were also building up a supply of magic stones for fuel purposes, relying on the natural magicule supply for normal operation and the stones during battle. They could run at up to sixty-five miles an hour, and bad roads were no problem for them—they could even float in the air, a little above the ground, although it cost energy.
Frankly, I felt, we had fallen behind. If only we had worked on these… It frustrated me. Tanks, in a world of knights… It never even occurred to me. And I had trains and everything! I was one step away!
…But would you really develop tanks before cars? I didn’t think so. I mean, I’d need to think things over carefully before I even put cars into the mix. They’d be useful, but it was kinda like playing with fire. I was sure everybody would want one, but I didn’t think it’d be possible to dole out one to each person. We couldn’t tap our energy supply dry, so there was bound to be the haves and the have-nots.
It was a better idea, I thought, to develop our cities so you didn’t need cars. With trains, after all, things were a lot more convenient already. But maybe once our rail network was built out, I could develop luxury cars as a kind of hobbyist thing for the rich? Something you’d wanna strive to own someday. It’d give people something to dream about, and I figured something high-end enough to be a status symbol would be all right.
But that could wait until the war was over. After all, the tanks weren’t the only surprise.
They even had flying ships. It was hard to keep from shouting out, Are you kidding me?!
Those things would make transportation so much easier. If you used them in war, your supply problems were a thing of the past. If we could’ve taken air superiority for our own, I would’ve been a lot more optimistic. We need to develop those, I thought, but it just wasn’t too realistic yet. Flying airships weren’t something you could wrap up in a day. I think it was doable with enough time, but no development project ever went that smoothly. Every project took shape only with a trial-and-error process.
On this point, I really had to applaud the Empire’s R & D department. And hopefully nobody would chide me for thinking, Boy, it’d be nice if we could seize one of those intact…
But…man. If only I’d thought a bit more outside the box with my orders for things…but never mind. No point gnashing my teeth over it. But it was something for the future. Once this war was done with, I definitely wanted to start developing some more neat, innovative stuff.
So we saw the current state of the Empire.
I had been briefed on it in advance, but a lot of people in the Control Center were finding out for the first time. They gazed at the screen, mouths agape, not bothering to hide their surprise.
“The total size of the invasion force is estimated to be one million! I guess you can see that, but…I think the Empire’s military has been a surprise for us all, but we still have the advantage in this conflict, so don’t worry.”
The most important element of war was how well you could estimate the opponent’s fighting power. On that point, we pretty much stripped the enemy bare.
Raphael told me that the total count was a million, and that was a crazy number to deploy, but I didn’t think it spelled doom for us. That was simply how much leeway we had to work with.
“Gadora has informed me that the imperial military is composed of three major divisions. One of them is called the Armored Division, and that includes the tank force we see here. They call it the Magitank Force, and we can assume it’s the main source of their power.”
I explained the inner workings of the Magitank Force to everyone. But that wasn’t all of Gadora’s info. He had participated in their strategy meetings for me, and he told me everything that was covered. The Empire knew Gadora had deserted by now, so there was a chance they changed their plans, but I was sure the main gist was the same.
They had Yuuki over there, after all, and Yuuki was apparently angling to stage a coup of the Empire. I was sure he was encouraging the other division commanders to not worry about the surely dead Gadora—that ought to mess them up. Plus, as Gadora told me, the commander of the Armored Corps, a man named Caligulio, had taken the bait I laid out for him. He believed the Dungeon was full of resources and treasure, and he wanted to seize it before anyone else could. If so, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to change out the whole operation at this point, so chances were good that he’d take up Yuuki’s suggestions. Working on assumptions is a dangerous move, but seeing how Caligulio ran his force, it’d be easy to surmise what his army wanted.
Once I wrapped up my rundown, Gobta was the first to speak.
“Ummm, my force is stationed in the lodging town, but are they gonna be fightin’ those tank thingies?”
Very observant. In fact, for someone appointed a commander, this was a life-or-death question. Considering his long, documented history of sleeping through meetings, Gobta was showing some real growth. Sometimes, a guy needs a little responsibility to show his true colors—
“Isn’t that obvious? The job of your First Army Corps is to smash up this tank force!”
As my emotions got the better of me, Benimaru gave him the news. The shock made Gobta sway in his seat.
“Nobody told me…”
Yeah, I get it.
“So… So you mean we need to defend the town with our lives?” he asked, a look of death already on his face. I smiled back at him.
“Of course not! Based on what I know about the tanks’ abilities, I think you guys could win if you took the right approach, but who knows how many losses you’d take doing it… That, and defending’s always harder than attacking, and your Green Numbers without any battle experience are gonna be pretty fat targets for them. So no, it’s not a ‘to the death’ thing.”
I was trying to calm him down. Hakuro, who I assigned to support Gobta, was nodding at this; he must’ve caught my drift.
“Okay, so what are we gonna do?”
“That is the job of a general to work out…but I shouldn’t expect that from you first thing. Benimaru, if you could?”
Yes, I was lording it over him, but honestly, I was just as much a military amateur as Gobta. I didn’t know much about strategy, so I was leaving the nitty-gritty to Benimaru. But then, I enjoyed making life easier for myself. If Gobta could work hard and mature for me, I’d be able to kick back that much more.
So, hoping Gobta would put in a diligent effort, I listened to Benimaru alongside him.
“All right, Gobta. The lodging town’s a vital base for us, but losing it wouldn’t be a major concern. If they tear it down, we can rebuild it; if they capture it, we can take it back. The problem is the potential for civilian casualties, but Sir Rimuru has taken care of that. He’s already sent out the order for everyone to evacuate to the capital of Rimuru.”
Mm-hmm. The moment I knew the Empire was on the move, I had them begin the evacuation. It’ll take time, I’m sure, but it ought to wrap up before the Empire arrives.
“Oh, right, there weren’t a lot of folks around there…”
“I’m sure there weren’t. Your job’s to help anyone left in there evacuate to safety. After that, you’ll be heading here.”
Benimaru pointed out a spot on the large map we had spread out on the conference table. It was the Armed Nation of Dwargon—in particular, its central city.
“Huh?”
“Look at this image. The imperial force intends to split up and invade from several routes. Some of their units are already in the Forest of Jura, but the tank force hasn’t moved yet. Based on the direction of their advance, they’re clearly following the foothills of the Canaat Mountains. It’s not as thick with trees there, so the force won’t get bogged down as much.”
“Oh… Um, okay…”
“You don’t get it, do you? Ah well. Anyway, your mission is to defend the Dwarven Kingdom.”
As he spoke, Benimaru moved a peg representing Gobta’s force into the Dwarven Kingdom. Then he took another one out, symbolizing the dwarven armed forces, and placed it next to Gobta’s.
“You’ll be fighting together.”
“Ohhh…!!”
Now Gobta got it. His reaction was a mix of surprise and excitement.
This was another operation inspired by Gadora’s information; Gazel already gave it his blessing. As per our agreement, I informed him that the Empire was aiming at the Dwarven Kingdom—and as I promised him, I declared that we’d send him backup. Gazel, to his credit, had picked up on the Empire’s suspicious behavior; they had repeatedly asked for permission to march through. He was starting to get sick of constantly refusing them, but he could read between the lines—he knew they’d lose their patience and get moving eventually.
My offer was welcomed by him, and it’d give us a lot of benefits as well. We could always rebuild the lodging town if it was destroyed, but as we saw it, the Empire wouldn’t go out of their way to pillage it if no fighting occurred there. If we could get it back soon enough, I saw no problem with abandoning it for now.
“The Empire’s traveling through such a conspicuous spot because they wanna convince us they’ll invade there. With this much of a show, anybody would notice it.”
“Oh, so it’s one of those ‘show of force’ things?”
Damn, Gobta. Grasping the fancy concepts and everything. He must’ve been studying a little bit. I was impressed.
“That’s right. This route they’re taking is on the border between Dwargon and Tempest. Both countries are going to notice them; it’s a great way for them to gauge our moves. If it looks like we’re gonna meddle with them, they can use that as a pretext to start attacking. We’re forbidden from striking first, of course, so we’d start with a warning. Do you understand so far?”
“Yep.”
“Now, if we don’t make any moves, the imperial force will cross the Great Ameld River and reach a point that overlooks the main entrance to the Dwarven Kingdom. That’s a broad, grassy area without any trees, the perfect place to deploy an army.”
“Uh-huh…”
“Once they get that far, King Gazel’s not going to stay silent. He’ll face up to them with his own forces and try to negotiate. And it’s the same way with us. The Emperor will make enemies out of us and the kingdom at that point.”
Benimaru moved the pegs around the map to demonstrate.
“Sir Gadora said that the emperor’s wary of being surrounded by the dwarven and Tempestian armies, but as long as they cover this point, that can’t happen. Even if the other side stages a sneak attack from here, it wouldn’t mean anything tactically.”
A surprise attack involves striking the enemy when its guard is down. If the enemy expects it the whole time, it was not only meaningless, but it could be harmful.
“And so instead of that, we’ll assault them from the start. We’ll go right up, and we’ll smash them!”
Benimaru tapped Gobta’s peg against the Empire’s.
“Ohhhh!!”
Gobta sounded impressed. None of my other advisers seemed against it, but what do they think about our forces’ size difference?
“Third Army Corps General Gabil!”
“Sir!”
“Your role is to guard the evacuating residents. Watch from the skies for stragglers or people in trouble and help them out as needed.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Once you guide them to safety, you’ll travel over to Gobta to support him. If the timing works out, you’ll reach him before the Empire can.”
“Our force is the swiftest in all of Tempest. I promise you we will make it in time!”
Gabil looked confident enough about it, but realistically speaking, it’d be tough. I intended to have the trains running full speed to get the residents evacuated, but moving tens of thousands of people took time, and the Empire had frightening mobility.
Based on our calculations (which factored in their legion magic as well), we predicted that their army could advance a mind-blowing forty miles in a day. Right then, the Empire was stopped against the border. From there to where they planned to open hostilities, there were around 930 miles of terrain to cover. In about twenty more days, the imperial force would reach their destination. This dizzying marching pace was possible because each of their soldiers had undergone body enhancement surgery—or something like that. This apparently let them stay on the move for a week without food or drink, so their maximum fighting speed was even faster than that.
The tanks, meanwhile, could go around six or seven miles an hour without an external supply, and since atmospheric magicules were available day and night, they could take advantage of that to resupply themselves more fully when resting. No point exhausting your force before the war even began, after all. Gadora’s guidance along those lines seemed sound enough, so Benimaru and I used his assumptions for our calculations.
“…Thanks to that, the Empire could arrive at this point sooner than we expect. I don’t want anyone here to be caught by surprise!”
Upon closing that subject, Benimaru moved right on to the next one.
“So this is where the Empire will break out their main army, but as Gobta said, this is mainly a show of force—in other words, a feint. Their real breakout teams are going to move toward here!”
He took out some differently colored Empire pegs and spread them around the Forest of Jura. Their plan was to make us think the tanks were their main force, then place the brunt of their troops elsewhere. This was all plain as day in our monitors, so I couldn’t say the idea really wowed us.
“Now, even if things expand past what we’re expecting over here, we still have Geld guarding this terrain! Geld, I want you to call your forces back from their stations as quickly as you can.”
“Understood. I’ve already sent the Thought Communication. All my forces will gather up shortly.”
Benimaru and Geld were certainly on the same page; just a few words, and everything was set. I knew I could rely on him.
Now Benimaru looked back down at the map. “These forces are likely going to advance through the forest, trying to stay hidden. Unfortunately, Sir Rimuru’s Argos monitoring magic can’t reveal everything happening under the forest canopy. That’s where Soei comes in.”
Soei nodded and stood up.
“The forest is lush with tree cover and difficult to monitor from above. Even if we deploy all our agents, there’s too much ground to cover, and they run the risk of being found. So we’ve decided to rely on Moss instead. He’s capable of releasing a large number of tiny Replications and picking up all the information they take in. None of them can fight very much, but losing a replication won’t hurt us at all. Using that, Moss is currently monitoring the eastern Forest of Jura. He’s informed us that platoons of imperial troops are on the advance in there, and thanks to his surveillance, we can crush each and every one of them at will.”
He accentuated the point with a cruel smile. Kind of scary. Good thing he’s on our side.
Sure, we could defeat these small platoons all day—but it’s the big main force behind them that worried me. Benimaru’s strategy for that was to wait until they had gotten themselves assembled to some extent.
“If the imperial force is trying to reach the Dungeon, we’ll invite them in and take care of them then. If any remain on the surface, Geld’s Second Corps and my main force will hit them hard! That’s all.”
It was a very simple, easy-to-grasp strategy…but really, I was still worried about our size difference. Nobody had commented on that yet, but what did they think about it? Maybe I ought to have brought it up…
…but as I hesitated, the Control Center rang out with the cries of war.
“All right! If Gabil’s joining my team, we’re all gonna be okay. Victory’s in the bag for us!”
“I’m delighted to hear that from you, Sir Gobta! And I promise you that we’ll fight the way a winning army should!”
“I was worried we wouldn’t get to join in, but I knew Sir Benimaru would come through. He left us with the greatest honor of all—protecting the homeland. Trust me when I say we’ll make full use of our powers!”
All three of our generals responded to Benimaru’s call to arms. Even the nonmilitary folks were excitedly trading feedback with one another. There wasn’t a hint of pessimism—even the three demonesses were happily joining in.
But, guys… Again, the size difference…
I mean, yeah, I thought we could win this, too. I even felt pretty safe assuming we would. But I was far from anxiety-free—and yet nobody seemed the slightest bit worried. It was weird. Even Gobta was brimming with enthusiasm, his initial concerns now put behind him. He might’ve had Hakuro as his adviser, but I was still anxious about him.
“All right. So is anyone unclear about any part of Benimaru’s rundown?”
I prompted them all, but no one had any questions. Instead, Benimaru spoke for the group.
“Do not worry, Sir Rimuru. We are not at all worried about losing—not because we don’t think we’ll lose, but because we’ll devote every effort to the fight. We have ample enough reason to win, and we have a glorious battlefield waiting. If we lose, it just proves we were incompetent. We weren’t the fittest, so we didn’t survive.”
He gave me a refreshing smile. All the monsters in the room were exuding the same vibe, including Shuna and the other women. They weren’t afraid of losing; they were afraid of running from the fight. And more than that—I thought, vaguely at least, I was beginning to understand their feelings. I thought I did, and I decided to do what I could for them.
“Testarossa! Ultima! Carrera!”
“““Yes, sir!”””
The three demonesses immediately reacted. I had an order for them.
“Each of you will accompany an army corps and support their operations!”
“Absolutely, Sir Rimuru,” Testarossa replied. “I have Cien taking care of the Council, so until this war is over, I will gladly participate.”
“Finally I’m seeing some action! You’re in good hands, Sir Rimuru!” said Ultima.
“Hee-hee-hee…,” Carrera snickered. “You can expect great things from me, Master. Time to show off every ounce of my powers!”
The three of them looked up at me, beaming. I nodded back and gave out my assignments.
“Testarossa, you’ll join Gobta.”
“Gladly!” she replied.
Gobta looked significantly less convinced. “You sure about that? This girl’s never even fought before. Can she keep up with the First Corps?”
Sheesh. That was a pretty bold statement to make around her. I mean, I didn’t know these girls were Primals until just recently so I’m not one to talk, but Gobta’s sheer courage just floored me. She’s gonna kill you, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. After all, wouldn’t it be more fun this way?
“My, I’m glad to be of such help,” Testarossa said with a smile, but I knew I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t look her in the eye right then. Don’t worry, Gobta. I’m pretty sure she’ll accept an apology. Can’t wait for Gobta to find out who she really is, though.
By those standards, Gabil had matured a lot. He bowed his head to Ultima.
“I look forward to your support. I still have so many improvements to make!”
According to Diablo and my other sources, Ultima was the most brutal of the three demonesses. Carrera was the most likely to go out of control, but Ultima was still the scariest. I could already picture her following my orders but still keeping an eye on the side paths for some imperial soldiers to torture.
Gabil dealt with her correctly, at least. She seemed to like him a lot, chirping “Okay! I’m looking forward to it, too!” in her cute voice. I know Gabil had been working hard on his habit of getting carried away, and now I’d say it just saved his life. A little daily effort can accomplish so many things.
Geld, meanwhile, had no problem shaking hands with Carrera. They both had a kind of “noble warrior” aura to them. I have to say, though, I did a pretty exquisite job with these pairings. If Gobta and Gabil had switched places, I think Gobta would’ve been in mortal danger.
So I patted myself on the back as I gave them all a little pep talk. Nobody really knew who these demonesses were; I put a gag order on everyone who attended the meeting Guy crashed. No point terrorizing everyone for no good reason. I also told the trio to keep mum about it and take orders from the generals so they wouldn’t reveal themselves, but I was so sure they’d mess it up. It really scared me. Wish I didn’t have to know the truth about them…
…But ahhh, let’s trust them. Unless I told them to, I’m sure Testarossa and her friends would lie low. Either way, though, we had these three pairs in place, and with the demonesses accompanying our corps, I’m sure they could deal with any emergencies. That, at least, relieved me a bit.
“That settles that topic. Anything further to add?”
The rest would depend on the Empire’s moves, so they’d just have to play it by ear after that. It’d be important to work alongside King Gazel, so we’d need to hold detailed talks about that—but that was a strategic HQ job. Our generals had their own orders already, so if that was all, I was ready to adjourn.
But one person raised his hand up high.
“Um, could I say something?”
“What’s up, Masayuki?”
“Well, uh, I just had a question…”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Ignoring the question of why I’m a general for the moment, the Volunteer Army you gave me—um, I don’t think anyone said what its role would be or anything, but…?”
Ah, that? Yeah, I’m sure he has a few questions. Taking a high school–age kid and calling him a general would confuse anyone. Maybe you’d see officers his age back in the samurai era, but I didn’t think a kid who grew up during peacetime in Japan could keep up with it. But… You know, it’s hard for me, too. I turn around one day, and boom, I’m a demon lord. I didn’t have any helpful boss giving me a shoulder to lean on, either. Along those lines, I’d say Masayuki is pretty lucky, actually.
“Don’t you think so?”
“Don’t I think so, what? Can you please give me some guidance?”
Oh, right. Thinking all this won’t get it across to him. It’d probably sound like a bunch of excuses to him, but oh well.
“Well… You know, I felt kinda bad about pushing a huge amount of responsibility on you at once.”
“N-no, um…”
“But when it comes to reassuring the hearts and minds of our citizens, you’re the best guy we got.”
If we were all monsters here, a war breaking out wouldn’t be an issue at all. Their morale would be one hundred percent, and nobody would cause any trouble. Not so with our new residents. They’d be scared, anxious, disturbed, and some might turn to crime, even.
“So it’s at a time like this when I want you to exercise your powers and ease everybody’s anxieties.”
“I see… I think I can help you with that.”
Masayuki seemed to understand well enough.
“Ah-ha-ha! No need for modesty, Sir Masayuki! As a Hero, everybody knows—to say nothing of myself—that you’d hesitate to take the side of a single nation! But I hope you’ll still lend a hand to assist the powerless, the helpless among our citizenry!”
Mjöllmile’s eyes sparkled as he pleaded with Masayuki. He was still misreading the kid’s actual powers, but I didn’t see any need to correct him. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that Hinata had the wrong idea about him, too. What a bad dude, I thought as I watched the legend of Masayuki unfold before me.
“…Yes…”
He didn’t look too thrilled. In fact, I’d say he was pretty disgusted with the whole thing. I felt bad for him, but I really wanted him to pitch in.
“…So I guess my Volunteer Army will maintain public order?”
“Perfect. As you know, Ramiris will ensure that the damage to our town will be kept to a minimum. When war breaks out, you see, the capital on the surface is going to be quarantined inside the labyrinth.”
I told my cabinet about this already, along with other involved parties. I wasn’t keeping a tight cap on it, so I was sure the stragglers from our evacuation drills were spreading rumors about it. That was on purpose; I figured it’d help assuage people’s fears a little more.
“Hee-hee-hee! That’s right! I’m a pretty powerful fairy, y’know, but that’s all thanks to my master!”
“Indeed. I have lent a portion of my ponderous magicule force to Ramiris, allowing her to engineer this gargantuan feat. Call it a victory driven by friendship, if you will.”
It was Ramiris who did the required legwork to stuff the city inside the labyrinth, but it couldn’t be powered at all without Veldora. I had to honestly thank him for that.
“Thanks, you two. It’s a huge help.”
“Oh, is it? Aw, it’s no biggie! None at all! You can compliment me more if you like, though!”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! That’s right! Sing our praises to the high heavens!”
“Yeah, yeah, thank you very much!”
A couple compliments, and look at them go! But they really did deserve it. And even when the city’s sequestered in the Dungeon, you’ll still see the sky above. A lot of citizens won’t even realize anything is different. The Empire won’t bring any of its violence to town, and really, I was still astounded by it.
“But you need to remember, Rimuru…,” said Veldora.
“Hmm?”
“This isn’t too likely to happen,” Ramiris began, “but if my master was somehow defeated, and the Empire makes it through the hundredth floor, that’s going to eject the town back up to the surface. Kind of the rebound from expending all that effort, y’know?”
“Ah, that’s another concern, huh? But that’s based on the assumption that Veldora’s gonna lose, isn’t it? If it comes to that, I think the town’s gonna be the least of our worries.”
If it did, all of us would be fully devoted to the fight. We wouldn’t have the leeway to worry about what happened to the city, I’m sure.
“Not that I’d ever lose, of course,” Veldora boasted.
“Mm-hmm. We got the Ten Dungeon Marvels on the case, too, so I think we’re gonna be just peachy!”
Ramiris was right, certainly. I didn’t think Veldora would be playing much of a role. But if worse comes to worst…
“There’s always Masayuki, too.”
“Huhhh?! W-wait! Wait a minute, please! Peacekeeping is one thing, but what could I ever do if it came to that?”
We all nodded at Masayuki as he whined about never even leading an army before. Even Mjöllmile, as much as he worshipped the guy, could understand.
“Don’t worry, Masayuki,” I assured him. “I don’t expect you to lead an entire military force. I’m still discussing this with Hinata, but I’m asking her to send an aide from the Crusaders. I’m sure she’ll say yes, so you’re gonna have an assistant helping you out pretty soon.”
“Oh, you will? Well, that’s a relief.”
“And also—!” I added. “I’ll have the kids serve as your bodyguards, so they’ll keep you safe—um, I mean, you keep them safe, all right?”
“Wah-ha-ha! Imagine, being defended by the Hero himself! Those children couldn’t possibly be safer!” Mjöllmile roared.
“Of… Of course.”
Masayuki nodded, even as a bead of sweat ran down his temple. He knew what the kids were capable of, so he understood who was gonna be defending whom well enough. Plus, they’d have Chloe around, and I was sure she could keep them all alive if things got really hairy.
So that was everything we needed to talk about. We were fully prepared, but until the end came, there was no telling what could happen.
Besides… Well, it’s not like I didn’t have any concerns. Chloe, after all, had pretty vivid memories of my grisly death. At least one person in the Empire had the power to kill me—that was an undeniable fact. If they came for me, not even the Ten Dungeon Marvels could stop them. In fact…
Report. The Ten Dungeon Marvels were put in place precisely for that reason—to reveal the scope of the enemy’s powers.
That’s what I thought. At the end of the day, Raphael always put my own safety first, I guess. I appreciated it, but at the same time, I had to brace myself. I had to protect my friends, no matter what. I didn’t want any of them hurt thanks to something as ridiculous as a war.
And with that resolve in my heart, I ended the day’s meeting.
Masayuki did a good job addressing the populace, it looked like. Apparently, it turned into an “I browbeat the demon lord into swearing he’d defend the city” kinda premise.
“The Hero does it again!”
“What a role model!”
There he was, looking conflicted with himself as he basked in the adulation of Tempest’s adventurers and immigrants. But even his expression got misconstrued.
“My, doesn’t the Hero look so attractive when he’s scowling?”
“After all the promises he extracted from the demon lord, the Hero’s still not satisfied yet!”
“Indeed, indeed. Such a modest, reserved leader!”
“The Hero’s going to protect this town. Between the demon lord Rimuru and him, I’m not scared one bit of the Empire’s attack!”
“Yeah! Just leave it to them, and they’ll take care of everything!”
…That sort of interpretation. Now Masayuki’s reputation was better than ever, his mental suffering going completely unnoticed by anyone else.
And so as the populace went on with their normal lives, the moment finally came. The Empire made its debut, and our days of peace reached an end.
There, on a hot summer night, war began like a sudden dream.