I retreated to my bedroom, closed the door behind me and entrusted my body to my bed.

That is, I tossed my crown onto its hook, took off my shoes and then entrusted my body to my bed, still ignoring the various metal bits on my uniform.

I sensed a certain person glide into the room and take a seat next to me, but I decided not to say a word.

Faced with her insisting, inquiring silence, I was forced to reconsider my decision.

“Although a body like mine should feel neither physical nor mental fatigue, I still cannot help but feel exhausted.” Somehow, I managed to prevent myself from sighing.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Lady Entropy nod in understanding.

“Training Kobolds is said to be difficult. Apparently, it mostly depends on their intelligence and how close their instincts are to the actual correct choice.”

Before I could ask her how she knew such a thing, a quip shot out of my mouth, as though by reflex: “In that case, this will go on forever.”

I could sense that had she been a normal girl, she would have snickered, and she raised her hand to her mouth. “You have to admit it’s trying hard, though. It really wants to be useful to you.”

“To us. And I was not denying its efforts, no,” I said, shaking my head. “It is just… exhausting, in several ways.”

“Several…?”

“No matter who it is, they will get tired of explaining the same things over and over. Even I, mighty as I am. To add, their ‘prayers’ were a bit… How do I put this, stifling…”

Once more, tranquil silence filled the room, broken only when she yet again moved those beautiful lips of hers.

“Is there… Anything, I can…”

Her voice died down halfway the sentence, and I could not make out its second half.

“Could I ask you to repeat that? I am afraid I could not quite make out the latter half,” I said, a wry smirk on my face as I gazed up at my bed’s ceiling.

“Is there… Anything I can, do for you?” she squeezed out, trying to look away. Given I could still see her eyes, I could not say it was going very well.

I retained my wry smile as I sat up and relocated myself a little to place myself next to her. The moment I did so, her eyes darted in a different direction, but she still gave me an occasional glance.

I did not dislike this behaviour—if anything, it was adorable—but it also gave rise to an insatiable curiosity. Thus, deciding to feed both my curiosity and my desire to see her act cute, I mussed her hair and spoke.

“I appreciate the offer, Lady Entropy, but I have a question.”

“Hm?”

“This embarrassment… To put it simply, it is new. This is by no means the first time you have offered me your assistance.”

“Ah-”

She froze.

Only when, after several seconds, I waved my hand in front of her face, did she return her consciousness to the present moment.

“That’s… Uh, well,” she stammered, her eyes darting all directions but mine as her ears fluttered up, down, up, down.

‘Despite her lack of a facial expression, she can be quite expressive sometimes’—with those kinds of thoughts running through my head, I decided simply to wait.

After what was perhaps ten seconds and several deep breaths, she composed herself enough to form a coherent sentence.

“That’s, uhm. We’ve never gone further than, uh… hugging and you patting my head, right?”

I nodded, using [Pokerface] to prevent a smile from breaking out on my face.

“So I figured you’d get, uh… backed up or, say, frustrated?”

I could no longer concentrate enough to maintain [Pokerface], and spent the next half minute with a hand in front of my mouth, looking away, to cover the smile I could not hold in.

That said, her decidedly uncharacteristic advances—to put it simply, they left me worried, despite how rude that was.

Thus, I decided to reply while using our bond to probe out her feelings.

“Please, do not worry about such things, Lady Entropy,” I said, pulling her towards me as I continued stroking her hair. “I shall tease you without end or remorse, yes, but with important things like these, I can have more patience.”

Yes. Such an important thing—if she did it simply while thinking only of my feelings, with no regard for what she herself wanted, there was no way I could accept that. I would hold back until the day she wanted this not for me, but for herself.

“I… Thought you’d…”

“Certainly, that line of thought is not wrong… But Lady Entropy. Please, do not think only of me. Think of yourself. Your own desires. Do not give yourself away to me for my sake. Do it because you wish to be mine. Yes?”

“I… Thank you, Astaroth. For… for thinking of me, instead of yourself.”

“Any time.”

Once more, as she nuzzled her face into my chest, the room returned to tranquil silence.

As I had expected from the start, training Alpine was no easy feat—leave alone my level, it would likely take me a week to get its claws to a useable level.

What did surprise me was the speed at which the children gained their new Classes.

About three days after they had arrived here, they approached me, a twinkle in their dead eyes, followed by the head instructor.

I looked at them without a word and nodded my head.

“Mister demon king!” Asami said after some silence, “mister head instructor told us to come see you!”

Her smile was almost literally blinding. A few theories about sunlight ran through my head.

“He said, ‘you’re done for now’, and pointed us your way,” Nexu clarified.

His face was a gloomy contrast with his sister’s.

I looked towards the head instructor, who nodded without a word and gestured as though saying “have a look”. I decided to look at their physical condition before appraising them.

“Give me your arms.”

The children gave me their arms.

The sight was rather surprising, and without thinking too hard about it, I lifted each child by one arm. It was a surprise they did not drop their weapons on the spot.

Light as a feather. A whole five kilograms lighter than they probably should be, if not more.

“Have you two eaten?” I asked, putting them back on their feet. “At all?”

“You told us to train until we got a Class,” Nexu said, setting his sword on the ground to rub at his wrist. “So we just…”

He gestured towards the bag which he was carrying when the two arrived at the castle, and which was now on the ground a little ways off.

I used [No-Attribute Magic] to pull it over to me and opened it up. As I had expected, a magical bag filled with food and drink.

Though I would be hard-pressed to consider this food and drink.

Bread, almost as hard as stone, stale water, unbelievably tough jerky, and old vegetables.

To put it simply, it was worse than even the lowest grade of rations available to my army. Worse than what I had given Evyna in her first few days. And certainly not food suitable for growing children.

“I cannot call this ‘food’,” I said, tossing the bag to a maid. “Thus, I cannot call what you two have been doing ‘eating’. A malnutritioned soldier is useless. No, worse than useless—a liability. There is a need to remedy this.”

I shot a glance at the head instructor, who rubbed the back of his head in shame.

“Mister demon king, could you at least-”

“I will now confirm your statuses,” I said, interrupting Asami. In the first place, this was clearly what she was going to ask for.

Name

Asami Dusthill

Sex

Female

Race

Beast-person, sheep-ram hybrid

Class

Demonic Swordsman

Skills

Demonic Swordsman

[Vile Swordplay] [Dual Wielding] [Demonic Cooperation]

Vile Swordplay

A version of the [Swordplay] skill obtainable only by those trained by monsters. In addition to ‘normal’ slashes and techniques, you are skilled at underhanded manoeuvres during combat. In addition, while wielding a sword, your physical parameters will improve.

Dual Wielding

Passive: you may use two weapons with the effort it would take a regular swordsman to use one. In addition, while wielding two weapons, your speed will increase and the weapons will feel lighter to you.

Demonic Cooperation

Passive: as long as you are fighting together with allies who possess a class with 'Demonic' in its name or a derivative of such a class, your coordination with them will improve, and you will be able to read their intent to an extent.

Skills from previous classes: Sacrifice

[Sacrificial Resolve] [Non-dangerous Presence]

Sacrificial Resolve

Passive: if you have a pure desire to offer yourself to a being stronger than you, you will find it easier to perform tasks you wish to perform for its sake and tasks it requests of you.

Non-dangerous Presence

Passive: others will subconsciously lower their evaluation of your combat ability. This skill does not work on those who are aware you possess it.

Other

[Mental Resistance] [No-Attribute Magic]

Mental Resistance

Passive: due to certain past events, you possess a resistance to negative mind-affecting status effects. In addition, you are incapable of sustaining mental traumas, and negative events will not affect your mental state.

No-Attribute Magic

You may use various spells that are not bound to any particular attribute. You may use these spells without chanting.

Unique Skills

[Mistress of the Cursed Arsenal] [Self-Teleport] [Clean Body]

Mistress of the Cursed Arsenal

Passive: while you are wielding at least five cursed items, of which at least two are weapons, your parameters will improve significantly and you will be able to communicate with the items. This skill does not grant you resistance to the items’ effects.

Self-Teleport

Teleport to the location of anyone who holds this skill.

Clean Body

Passive: no part of your body will ever dirty.

Name

Nexu Dusthill

Sex

Male

Race

Beast-person, fennec

Class

Demonic Swordsman

Skills

Demonic Swordsman

[Vile Swordplay] [Colossal Weapon] [Demonic Cooperation]

Vile Swordplay

A version of the [Swordplay] skill obtainable only by those trained by monsters. In addition to ‘normal’ slashes and techniques, you are skilled at underhanded manoeuvres during combat. In addition, while wielding a sword, your physical parameters will improve.

Colossal Weapon

Passive: while you are using a weapon that is at least three-fourths of your mass, it will deal increased damage.

Demonic Cooperation

Passive: as long as you are fighting together with allies who possess a class with 'Demonic' in its name or a derivative of such a class, your coordination with them will improve, and you will be able to read their intent to an extent.

Skills from previous classes: Sacrifice

[Sacrificial Resolve] [Non-dangerous Presence]

Sacrificial Resolve

Passive: if you have a pure desire to offer yourself to a being stronger than you, you will find it easier to perform tasks you wish to perform for its sake and tasks it requests of you.

Non-dangerous Presence

Passive: others will subconsciously lower their evaluation of your combat ability. This skill does not work on those who are aware you possess it.

Other

[Broken Mind] [No-Attribute Magic]

Broken Mind

Passive: due to certain past events, you have become completely immune to mind-reading of any kind, and attempts to affect your mental state or influence your thoughts artificially will almost always fail. In addition, all events are unlikely to affect you mentally.

No-Attribute Magic

You may use various spells that are not bound to any particular attribute. You may use these spells without chanting.

Unique Skills

[Wielder of a Massive Weapon] [Eyes of the Spiritseer] [Will of the Cursed Weapon]

Wielder of a Massive Weapon

Passive: while you are wielding a weapon which is at least your size, your physical parameters will increase drastically. In addition, if it is a cursed weapon, you will be able to communicate with it. This skill does not grant you resistance to the weapon’s effects.

Eyes of the Spiritseer

Passive: you are able to see spirits.

Will of the Cursed Weapon

Passive: while you are using a non-cursed weapon, it will wear and tear significantly faster than usual. However, cursed weapons will sustain no damage and remain as if you never used them. Additionally, you will gain some resistance to their effects.

Skills from previous classes only remained useable if either the new class was a derivative of the old, or if one held a particular attachment to their previous classes. It seemed they still very much saw themselves as sacrifices to me.

“Splendid,” I said, nodding to myself. “To earn Classes this quickly… Certainly, with this, you could become excellent fighters.” I aimed my attention at the nearest maid—the one I had tossed the bag to. I gestured towards the children, and her gaze followed. “Take them to the dining room and have my chefs make as much as they can eat. They deserve a feast. Afterwards, take them to the production area of the castle. Notify me once they arrive—it is time to give them their other equipment.”

The maid left, children in tow, and for the time being, I returned my attention to Alpine’s training.