I stood up, dusted off my knees and crossed my arms behind my back, then looked down at the magic circle I had drawn in the dimly-lit room. Since I was looking at both the physical appearance and the magical flow of the circle, my right eye glowed with a mysterious black light.

With a subtle smile and a satisfied nod, I retrieved my familiar black book from my [Storage] and scrolled through it until I found the page I was looking for. Open book in my right hand, I extended my left towards the circle in the same manner as the many times before, and as Lady Entropy’s signature black light gathered in my palm, I started my prayer.

“By the powers vested within me,

I beseech thee to manifest,

Darkness darker than the night and blacker than all.

In the name of the tower of the end,

Connect the shadows hither and those yonder,

And make them as one for your dark army.”

The magic circle, as usual, drank my mana as though it were nectar and converted it into that lovely black light. As before, the light soon obscured the inside of the circle, and it faded away only once I stopped supplying the circle with mana, leaving a veritable army in its place—if one were to go only off of numbers.

In other words, if one didn’t do this, the word they arrived at would not be ‘army’. In large part, this was due to the make-up of the group—after all, they had not been chosen based on combat prowess, but rather certain other factors which I figured would be more relevant.

Oblivious to my thoughts, the demons before my eyes got down on one knee, a hand over their hearts, and spoke.

“Your humble servants greet you, Demon Lord Astaroth!”

I looked over the group. There were several pale-faced, red-eyed vampires, all at least Count or Countess rank, and all with vile smiles on their faces. There were also many pointed hats and hoods in the crowds—Witches and Magi, obviously, and specifically those with a high teaching capacity.

At the front, my gaze was met by a pair of literal steel-grey eyes. These eyes, along with the equally grey face they were set into, belonged to a rather peculiar type of monster, which fell into both the categories ‘undead’ and ‘construct’.

Undead were non-living things with a soul inside of them—Zombies, Skeletons, Vampires, Cursed Swords, Living Armours, the like—whereas constructs were artificial creations made to perform certain tasks, the most well-known of which were Golems.

The combination of these two properties lead to the monster before my eyes—a Cursed Golem, the Chief Blacksmith, Rhud. Although Golems brought to mind an image of slow, hulking labourers, Rhud stood only at the height of my waist, barely taller than a Goblin. The shoulders, knees, and other joints of its ashen grey body were open, revealing several types of hinges.

“Your servant awaits your orders, My Lord.” It stared at me, unblinking—it was a golem, after all. My experience with Lady Entropy had given me the ability to read emotions off of blank expressions, so I could tell from Rhud’s eyes alone that it was rather excited to be relied on.

I turned around. “I am counting on you lot. Do not disappoint me.” With a dramatic flair of my cape, I led my servants to Sleehekt’s ‘castle’.

“Goblinoids of Sleehekt! You are weaklings!”

I addressed the whole of the village, which had gathered in front of me, from atop my stage, which I had made with [Darkness-Attribute Magic: Form Darkness]. Of course, their response to my statement was basically negative, ranging from terrified trembling to enraged glares.

“You are the weak, under attack from the strong! Under any normal circumstance, this would, naturally, lead not to a fight, but to a slaughter.”

Likely due to the oppressive mana my Demon Generals and I were spreading into the environment, the mood shifted a little from the ‘angry’ side to the ‘fearful’ side.

“Yet, there is still hope. The playing field is anything but level. It is a great advantage to fight a defensive battle. But more than that, there is another important factor.”

My speech didn’t exactly seem to be inspiring hope, yet, so I continued talking.

“That factor is me. The Demon Lord, Astaroth. In exchange for… certain rewards, my nation has agreed to help you. The elite teachers of my nation shall teach you, the elite strategists shall devise strategies and the greatest artisan among my nation’s people shall teach you how to make proper weaponry and armour. With these factors combined, you shall grow so much you will not recognise yourselves, so much the vile Heroes would not even dream of conducting another attack! Rejoice, followers of Gnome, for your goddess has enlisted the aid of Goddess of Darkness, Entropy, and we have come here in her name! Rejoice, for you shall live! Rejoice, for I am here!”

The mood of the crowd could now easily be described as ‘good’, or perhaps ‘uplifted’—a good portion of the Goblinoids was even cheering. Who was receiving the most praise was unclear, and I heard the names ‘Entropy’, ‘Gnome’ and ‘Astaroth’.

Tragically, no one cheered for Sleehekt.

“No, that is not the correct way. Use ten kilograms of grip strength more as you hit the iron,” Rhud said as it watched over a small group of Goblinoids, which were attempting to forge a proper sword.

“Te-ten kilo… How much is that?” a High Goblin asked, looking at the crude hammer it held in its hand.

“... Approximately sixteen point seven percent of a High Goblin’s average grip strength.” The moment of silence was caused by Rhud accessing a databank, which had apparently told it that a High Goblin’s average grip strength was sixty kilograms.

Although I wasn’t very knowledgeable about this sort of thing, I was pretty sure that was higher than an average adult male human’s.

“That… That doesn’t help…” a nearby Hobgoblin said. It held a similar hammer, and was working on a sword of its own.

“... In your case, it would be approximately thirteen point three percent of a Hobgoblin’s average grip strength,” Rhud said, causing a round of agonised groans from the poor Goblinoids.

As expected, my mental calculations weren’t good enough to figure out a Hobgoblin’s average grip strength from that.

“I do not think numbers mean much to the lot of them, Rhud.” I folded my arms in front of myself and pensively placed a finger on my chin.

My words caused it to crane its head in my direction in a startled movement. “My apologies, My Lord. Your servant was entrusted with this critical task, and yet…” Though its expression did not change, it was almost as if the light behind its eyes dulled.

I shook my head. “You are forgiven. It was not something you could have accounted for.” A lie, considering Goblinoids’ generally poor intelligence, but I was not about to point out my own lies. “Perhaps you could try working with examples, rather than numbers. Even for Goblinoids, that should be workable.”

“Your servant thanks you for the advice.” Its blank eyes lit up with ambition, and it once more turned to the Goblinoids. It closed its eyes for a few seconds, during which it likely ran some calculations, before speaking up. “Pretend you are crushing an apple.”

‘It’ll figure it out from here’—with thoughts like that, I turned my back to Rhud and walked away, going off to check on a number of the other activities which were going on.

“Put your backs into it!”

“No, no, a little closer!”

“Yes, right there!”

I found myself on the edge of the village, where my Vampires, many under the protection of their parasols, were commanding the lower-ranking Goblinoids in constructing a basic wall. Ideally, it wouldn’t be needed, but you couldn’t be too safe.

“How goes the work, you lot?”

Several of the lower-ranked, younger Vampires reflexively shot into a salute or a kneel, so I waved my hand to get them back to work.

One of the younger-looking and more attractive Vampires approached me and gave me a deep bow. I recognised him as Raoul, the only Vampire Duke in the group. His soft features and long, slender fingers gave him an almost feminine, girly charm, but the glint in his eyes and the nigh permanent, fang-exposing smirk on his face were characteristic of a true villain.

Incidentally, like Charlotte, he did not carry a parasol, so I assumed he had [Sunlight Resistance].

“The work is progressing as planned, Milord.”

“That is reassuring to hear, Raoul. As always, your results are splendid.” Truly, I was impressed they had managed to get this disorderly bunch of muscle-brains to construct a wall.

“It is hardly so impressive, Milord. We, too, are only following orders, after all.” I did not miss the twitch of his mouth as I complimented him, however. He gestured towards the Orcs and the Ogres, hard at work making a crude wall around the village. “As Milord can see, it is only at this level… But still, it is truly amazing, would Milord not agree? To think monsters as simple as Goblinoids could construct a wall, under proper management…”

I nodded, a wry smile on my face, as I looked back at the village. There was not a shred of logic to the construction of the huts that passed for houses—they were simply heaped together without any sense of cohesion. Some were mud, some were stone, some were even wooden in nature, and there were even large leaves draped over frameworks of wooden sticks. The only building with any architectural prowess to speak of was Sleehekt’s castle, and even that was nothing more than a pebble in front of Lady Entropy’s. Once more, I turned around.

The wall, although not much more than stacked stones in a wooden framework with dirt to fill the gaps, formed a stark contrast with the village—in comparison, the huts seemed like children’s toys.

“It seems the experiment was a success, then, and that is exactly why I praised you, Raoul. Since the work is proceeding as planned, I will be taking my leave.”

“As Milord commands, it shall be.”

I turned around and walked away, my head filled with thoughts. Mostly, they concerned the language spoken by the Vampires—that is, Charlotte appeared to be the only Vampire who did not speak in modern terms.

I decided it wasn’t worth my attention and headed to my next destination.

Although I was still a fair distance from the training grounds, with my vision, I could tell that the Goblinoids present ranged from the weakest Goblins to the strongest Trolls of the village, as well as that they had been split into groups of three.

Each of these groups was accompanied by a single demon—the demons Tempest had chosen on my orders, and thus mostly Witches and Magi and other such spellcasters.

Also present were Tempest herself and Davna.

“How goes the work, you lot?”

My words attracted the gazes of Davna, Tempest and many of the Goblinoids. The Goblinoids were slapped for their infraction and told to pay attention.

“Ah, Master,” Tempest said. Her dark pupils shone with a teacherly affection as she looked over the Goblinoids. “As you can see, we’re teaching the Goblinoids the ‘three-man cell’ tactic.”

“Combat in groups of three, is it… certainly, when dealing with an enemy stronger than oneself, it is efficient, assuming the enemy splits up into many individual units. It’s also simple enough for the Goblinoids to understand, where more detailed military formations could very well go in one ear and out the other.”

“Yes. There are several types of ‘cells’ we’re training—for example, melee-only cells, in which one member brings the opponent off balance, the next disarms and the third kills, ‘cells’ composed of only swifter troops for scouting purposes or ‘cells’ with one mage or similar so the other two can guard it. In a sense, I suppose… Yes, I suppose this is about the limit of what you can teach a Goblinoid.”

“They’re learning real fast, though!” Davna cut in, an unmistakable grin on her face.

Tempest affirmed her words with a nod. “Indeed, they are learning many times faster than we had expected.”

A sly smirk took control of my mouth. “You, too, would learn fast, if your life depended upon it. In any case, I see the work here is proceeding as planned—if anything, you are ahead of schedule. Good work, you two.”

Without a shred of hesitation, I stuck one hand under Tempest’s hat and the other between Davna’s horns—in other words, I placed my hands on their heads and gave them a few praising strokes. “Keep up the good work,” I said, removing my hands.

Naturally, unlike when the other party was a certain goddess, I did not dwell on the feeling of their hair, or any such thing.

Tempest adjusted her hat—that is, she pulled it down to hide her face—as she spoke. “Please leave it to me, Master,” she said, a faint blush on her face. I attributed it to the general lack of praise she received, given most of her experiments ended in an explosion one way or another.

Davna, on the other hand, displayed her glee with much more honesty. “Yup! We’ll keep working hard!” she said with a joyful tone and a face full of smiles, as though a child which had been praised by its parent. In many ways, she was more like a cute kid than a fearsome Red Dragon.

“I’m counting on you.” I headed towards the outskirts of the goblin settlement, beyond even the newly-constructed walls.