I stretched my slightly-stiff body as my consciousness returned to it and stepped out of the magic circle. Unlike a few days ago with Richard, when the Ice Queen had been necessary as a ‘gate’ of sorts to Lady Undine, the castle was infused with Lady Entropy’s essence, so I could move without a problem.

I looked over at Evyna. Similar to Richard, she was wrapped in light, which obscured her from my view. The time we had spent in the Godly Realm was only equivalent to a few seconds out here, so she would be here for quite a while longer.

“Defending a Goblin village, huh…” I muttered to myself, placing a hand on my chin.

Charlotte looked over at my words. “Doth something both’r thee, M’lord?” she asked, peering into my eyes from below with her ever-piercing gaze.

“What? A Goblin village?” Davna asked, also looking up into my eyes. Given her hearing, as a Red Dragon, was several times better even than mine, it was no surprise she’d heard my mumbled words.

“We’ve received a request from Lady Gnome.” I proceeded to lay out the contents of the request in as simple and quick a way as I could manage.

“Even though I’m already so tired?” Lilith asked, followed by an exaggerated, heavy sigh.

“Nay, nay, Lilith,” Charlotte said, “we cannot simply ignore this appeal. ‘Tis an appeal straight from the divine, after all.”

“To think you would receive an oracle in those few seconds…” Tempest mumbled to herself. “After all, Master is a truly amazing magical anomaly…”

She started muttering about things I didn’t quite understand, so I decided to ignore her.

“Can’t we just beat up the Heroes?” Davna asked, an excited smile on her face. “That’d be easy, right?” She reminded me a little of a young child who’d just been given a new toy.

I nodded. “Certainly, eliminating the Heroes should be simple enough. Yet, I cannot believe that such would do. Even if we defeat this group of Heroes, Lady Luciel will simply send more. And what’s more—something doesn’t add up. Lady Luciel should know, at least, that there are strong monsters in the forest—thus, there is a high likelihood this group of Heroes has some manner of support.”

Though this was all true, this was only half the reason I did not just agree to destroy the Heroes.

“Support? Made stronger? Then, beat up support!” Navillus said, raising her ‘arms’ up into the air.

“Support for an entire group of Heroes, is it? Mayhaps, a Saint?” Charlotte placed a finger on her chin as she voiced her theory.

I nodded and folded my hands behind my back. “Most likely. The Saint of Holy Blessings or the Saint of Exorcisms, perhaps… Well. Either way, if there is only one Saint, then I, the holder of another Aspect and fundamentally stronger than a human, should be able to deal with her. Yet, if possible, I would rather like to teach the Goblinoids how to defend themselves… and reap the rewards, of course.”

“So, uh…” Lilith averted her eyes as she attempted—and failed in a spectacular manner—to lean against the nearest wall. “Who’d the goddess say has to take the request?”

Her intention was obvious, but I had little choice but to let her down.

“The only person who really needs to come is me… But of course, I am allowed to take as many or as few people as I like. It goes without saying all five of you are going. There is scarcely any time to wait for Evyna, so she will have to stay behind…”

I proceeded to list a few groups of monsters that would be necessary for certain tasks—strategists, builders, teachers and such—before clearing my throat.

“Once you are done gathering the people I told you to, gather at the gates. Of course, that includes you, too, Lilith.” I turned on my heel with a raised finger, causing my cape to flutter theatrically behind me, and started walking away with large, confident strides.

“I shan’t disappoint thee, M’lord.”

“I will see what manner of subordinates would be most suitable, Master.”

“The Chief Blacksmith, right? Leave it to me~!”

“Navillus will eat! And then, Navillus will go to gate!”

“Really? Me too? But I don’t wanna~”

After a moment’s consideration, I snatched Lilith’s erotic-looking book from her hands. “Do your job. I’ll give it back at the gate.”

From the bottom of her heart, she looked devastated.

After paying a visit to the shrine to ‘pray for a safe journey’—in other words, to say goodbye to Lady Entropy—I once again found myself at the gates of the castle.

Briefly, I directed my gaze northward, towards a forest several times larger than our current destination. Tempest seemed to pick up on it and followed my gaze.

“The world tree, Yggdrasil, is it?” she asked, her eyes sparkling like a child’s. “Truth be told, Master, I’d love to go see it sometime…”

I chuckled. “You are not alone in that, Tempest… Well, I am sure a chance will show itself in the future. For now, we must set off.”

I flapped my wings and lead my Demon Masters to the east.

“Hey, uh, Master…?”

In mid-air, Lilith approached me and hesitantly tapped me on my shoulder. “About that, uh, book, y’know.”

“Ah, yes-”

Though I almost handed the book to her, I retracted my hand. I could use this to get some answers… With that thought in mind, I cleared my throat. “Lilith. Before I return this to you, there are some questions I would like you to answer.”

“Mm? Gotcha.” Though I doubted it was possible, she took on a pose even lazier than the one she already had. “Ah, if it’s about that, from top to bottom, my measurements are-”

I interrupted her by hitting her in the back of the head with her own book. “Imbecile. Be serious.” I cleared my throat and gathered the thoughts which had plagued my mind for a while into a single, coherent question.

“Lilith.”

“Y-Yes!”

“Why… Why do you work so hard for me? You lot—that is, you Demon Generals—are free to quit as you like. You’ve made clear many times that you do not like your work.” I paused briefly, to check on the other Demon Generals. None of them were in earshot, so I continued. “You are not motivated by promises of power, like Tempest, by trust and loneliness, like Charlotte, or even by personal attachment, like Davna and Navillus… What drives you?”

She locked up—well, she was still moving forward, but in relation to herself, she stopped moving. “Ah, uh… D’you remember how we first met, Master?”

“How we first met… If I recall, that would be at your village, when I saved you from that Hero and the Saint who accompanied him. Though he managed to seal away the rest of your tribe…”

“Yup, that’s right.” A sad smile made its way onto the devil girl’s face as she looked at me. “At the time, ya probably didn’t mean ta do this, but… when ya saved me, I was happy, y’know. Sure, I felt sad ‘n angry, too, but… for a few seconds, the happiness that I was saved, ‘n that I’d be able to depend on someone strong, it won. ‘N then after that, as ya can probably figure, I got guilty. Y’know, that I felt happy feelings, even though my family ‘n friends got…”

I nodded, to indicate I was listening.

“So I promised myself. In order to get over that feeling of guilt, ‘n in order to pay back my saviour a million times over, I’d serve him, ‘n do what he wanted me to do…”

‘That said, I’d have expected to have lewd things done to me’—she averted her eyes and laughed with that kind of line. It was likely a joke to lighten up the mood.

“I see. Serving another to get over one’s own feelings of guilt… Exactly the kind of selfish reasoning I would expect from a Devil.” She laughed again—it seemed my attempt at a joke was well-received. “Still,” I said afterwards, “if your goal is to get rid of the guilt, then surely serving me is not the only way.”

She nodded, an awkward smile on her face. “Sure, there’re more direct ways, but d’you really think I can beat that Hero? Or even find ‘im in the first place?”

“Hmm. I suppose that is true. Still, if we happen to come across him…”

“If that happens, I’d like ya to leave him to me, Master. Even if he’s not taken over yet, maybe we could make an exception ‘n...” Though her tone was calm and relaxed as always, her face was flushed, likely out of justifiable anger.

“Revenge is a natural consequence of a world in which conflict exists, and one of my largest motivations. I would be nothing more than a hypocrite if I denied yours. To add, someone who would seal away a whole tribe has no right to live, puppet or not.”

“Just what I’d expect from ya, Master, ya understand me completely. Thanks!”

Her face regained its regular complexion, so I passed her her book. Soon, her attention was glued back to its pages, and I turned my attention to the forest below. It had already transitioned from the purple, corrupt forest of my country of Eskaria to the proper, green forest that most people would think of when they heard the word.

After a couple dozen more minutes, I spotted a group that looked almost like a welcoming delegation, composed of a number of Goblinoids and headed by a lone, run-of-the-mill Goblin.

Going back in time, in a place the demon lord’s eyes and ears didn’t reach—the heart of the Great Borm Forest…

“Your, your Majesty!” a tiny, revolting green figure cried out, its toothy maw splattering drool all over the place as it shrieked at the top of its lungs.

“What? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

The responding party, also green, was surprisingly humanoid in appearance and voice and sat on a golden throne. On his lap sat a Kobold—humanoid, dog-like monsters, the size of a Goblin and hardly any more intelligent—which was occupying itself by rubbing its furry cheek across his chest and wagging its tail with reckless abandon. The humanoid’s response was to scratch the Kobold under its chin and stroke its head—it seemed ‘busy’ was a word with a wide definition in his eyes.

“Your Majesty, there are unknown monsters coming!” the small figure—a Goblin, of course—shrieked, its eyes widened in panic.

“Other monsters, you say?” the King asked, and a vile, playful smile crept onto his face as his hands continued at their work. “You know not to bother me about mundane affairs… so, this must be important. I permit you to speak. What kind of monsters?”

The Kobold, revelling in the King’s affection, climbed his body and started licking his face—to dogs, a symbol of submissive affection. Perhaps the same thing applied to Kobolds. Either way, the King did not stop it.

“All six of them are demons…”

The King narrowed his eyes, displeased. This was not ununderstandable, given the vagueness of the term ‘demon’.

“Ah, that is, I will now list what we know about them! There are a vampire-type, a devil-type, a slime-type and three human-types, one of which has horns and wings. And, uhm, well, if the reports are, uh, true, then I’m sorry to say, Your Majesty… they’re all, uh, stronger than you.”

The King paid no attention to the Goblin’s uncharacteristic levels of articulation and proper sentence structure—perhaps he had come to expect such. Instead, he strongly hugged the Kobold to his chest as he continued to stroke it. “Oh my,” he said, “how strong. In that case, it would not do to leave these guests unwelcomed. We must send a delegation of our strongest men…”

The Goblin displayed an un-Goblin-like capacity for strategic insight as it voiced its doubts. “But Your Majesty… Can we really afford to send out our strongest at a time like this?”

“Worry not, my dear subject,” the King said as his grip on the Kobold tightened. It, in turn, laid its arms tightly around him as well. “For monsters that strong, there are only two reasons to come to us with such timing. Either they have come to defeat us with minimal losses while we are engaged with the Heroes, or they have come by Lady Gnome’s divine providence, to give us assistance in our time of need. Either way, we have no choice but to face them. As such-”

The King proceeded to make a list of his underlings, most of which were of the more intelligent races among Goblinoids.

“-and finally, you will lead the delegation. Figure out what the monsters want. If they’re here to assist us, extend them every hospitality we can. Then, scram. I have business to attend to.” Without a further word, the King stood up and carried the—now blushing even through its fur—Kobold to his chambers.

“Y-yes, as Your Majesty the King commands,” the Goblin said to the empty room. His voice was one of slight disbelief—quite reasonable, given he was to meet with a group of guests far stronger even than his own King.

The poor Goblin’s lamentations went unheard as he trudged to the mages’ quarters.