"So this is the heart of the Empire."
Marbas let out a bitter smile. Was it mere rhetoric, or a hint that he had seen through their intentions? If he had seen through them, how far exactly had he realized……
Marbas gazed steadily into Dantalion's pupils.
"The enemy has gathered a massive army. The King of Polithunia is personally commanding the troops. Unless reinforcements are dispatched from the center, it will be a grueling battle."
"No matter how large an army they muster, how could they possibly match Your Excellency Marbas alone?"
Those pupils, black as a well's depths, glittered with mirth.
It was those eyes. Dantalion's gaze held a half-fragile quality, like a harmless, defenseless herbivore. One would think he'd surrender immediately if you charged at him and sank your teeth in.
That was precisely why anyone who dealt with Dantalion ended up looking down on him without realizing it. But if you let your guard down and attacked, an absurd counterstrike would come back at you.
He blocked off every avenue so you couldn't use your weapons, then surrounded you from all sides. By the time you noticed, your limbs were already bound. He was like a spider. A venomous spider that bewitches the hunter's eyes……
Dantalion was one of two things. Either he possessed a natural gift for disguise, or he was a once-in-an-age actor so skilled he could manipulate even his gaze at will. Either way, he was an exceedingly dangerous sort.
"No matter how hard I try alone, I cannot rival an army of tens of thousands."
"I've heard that the greatest strategy of war is to win without fighting. I believe that Your Imperial Father is the foremost military strategist among the Demon Lords."
So he knew after all……
Marbas adjusted his monocle. Dantalion wasn't concerned about Polithunia's grand army — he was far more focused on Marbas himself. By saying that, he had declared that he saw straight through to their true intentions.
"I'm sorry, but I'll need you to step out for a moment. I have something important to discuss with Dantalion."
Marbas sent the other Demon Lords and commanders outside. The Neutral Faction Demon Lords generally harbored favorable feelings toward Dantalion, so they didn't mind leaving the respected legion commander alone with him.
The tent fell silent. Once the eyes around them had gone, Marbas asked bluntly.
"When did you figure it out?"
"The King of Polithunia has been raising his army, yet Your Excellency did not immediately call for reinforcements. I concluded that you had no intention of winning the war."
Dantalion answered immediately.
"You're hoping for defeat, not victory… So the question becomes — what benefit do you stand to gain from losing? Working backward from that, the answer isn't hard to reach."
"When you put it like that, it really does seem easy."
Marbas felt as though he'd been reduced to a child in an instant.
But the other party apparently saw it differently. Dantalion spoke with a grave expression.
"Your Excellency guessed that I would figure out your thinking. That's why you've been standing by and watching all this time, isn't it? Since we've each got a hold on the other's weak spot, I'd call it a draw."
"A draw…"
In other words, a worthy rival. Being told that you and I are on the same level could easily be taken as an insult, yet for some reason Marbas actually felt refreshed.
"I genuinely enjoy exchanging political strategies with Your Excellency."
Before he knew it, Dantalion was wearing a slight smile.
"To be honest, our comrades don't provide much in the way of stimulating entertainment. It does get dull from time to time."
"Hah. You treat the governance of an empire as nothing more than a game."
"There are far too many people in this world who confuse seriousness with boredom… Don't you agree?"
His tone was almost conspiratorial, as though whispering a secret. Marbas laughed despite himself.
"Fair point. A Demon Lord ought to be able to tell the two apart."
"You flatter me."
"However, Dantalion — I can't help but have my doubts. If you wanted to prevent my plans, you'd need to win this war, and for that, reinforcements would be essential. Yet you came here alone."
Marbas fixed his gaze on the other man, his eyes brimming with the question *What on earth are you thinking?*
"If I may, O noble Demon Lord — the reinforcements have already arrived."
"Oh? You're saying you alone are enough?"
The sheer audacity of the remark made Marbas grin with delight.
"Leave it to me, my lord. Polithunia's army of thirty thousand will not capture a single fortress. They'll retreat in disgrace."
Two months had passed since the Demon Lords' hierarchy had been re-established in the imperial palace. In that short time, the Demon Lord before him had seized power with absolute certainty. Marbas nodded to himself — watching that handiwork up close would be entertaining, he thought.
"Very well. What do you need?"
Dantalion spread both arms wide in a theatrical gesture. He lowered his voice and spoke.
"All of the Neutral Faction's forces."
Two days later, an army of fifteen thousand demons belonging to the Neutral Faction marched out.
As though they had been waiting for this advance, the king of Polithunia led an army of twenty thousand into the field. The two forces met on a vast plain as though by prior agreement.
A battle involving nearly forty thousand troops from both sides combined. The people of the continent, who had just begun to breathe easy thinking peace might finally come, were plunged back into unease. Each worried for their own safety and fixed their gaze on the Whisper Plains.
The two armies faced each other across the wide plain.
The sight of tens of thousands of troops spread out in formation was magnificent no matter how many times one saw it — more so on the very eve of battle. Anxiety, restlessness, excitement, fear — all those emotions descended upon the earth like a thick fog.
Most commanders cannot endure that crushing pressure. It is not because they are cowards. It is because they know full well that once battle begins, they will never be able to control this many soldiers.
Orcs, inflamed by the scent of blood, run wild without restraint. Goblins, with fresh meat before their eyes, charge forward to their heart's content. The Demon Lords who share their emotions are swept up in the excitement in turn. Without considerable experience, a Demon Lord's army devolves into a single mass of chaos and spirals out of control.
The intoxicating thrill of losing oneself — it was precisely this that so often drove Demon Lords to abandon reason and charge headlong into the fray.
But now the Neutral Faction stood in a solid, well-formed formation. A considerable time had passed since the deployment began, and not a single Demon Lord was pressing Marbas to attack.
The front-line units maintained strict discipline. A handful of young Demon Lords twitched at the corners of their mouths, unable to contain their bloodlust, but that was all.
Marbas and the other Neutral Faction Demon Lords watched the enemy army beyond the plain with utterly composed gazes. They exchanged occasional light jokes to help each other ease their tension.
One might call them seasoned veterans leading elite troops. They did not boast a string of brilliant generals and fierce warriors the way the Plains Faction did, but in a way, this was what a proper army ought to look like. No ordinary army would dare stand against them.
Still, they would be no match for an extraordinary army that defied the norm. In the game, Marbas led his forces against Elisabeth, only to have his head severed mid-battle by a Hero who charged forward with a suicide squad……
"The deployment is complete. What is your next move, Dantalion?"
Marbas wore an utterly relaxed expression. It was as though he were saying: from now on, whatever happens won't be my fault — it'll be your responsibility.
"Prepare a white flag."
"You intend to negotiate before the battle has even begun?"
"I'll go settle things with the King of Polithunia."
I rode out to the center of the plain with only three cavalrymen in tow.
One cavalryman carried a white flag, the emblem of an envoy. Another carried the red eagle banner of the Habsburg Imperial family. The last unfurled the standard symbolizing the Demon Lord Dantalion.
Right at the center of the plain where both armies faced each other.
Moments later, a group of cavalry rode out from the Polithunian side. Banners of red and white, the colors of the Kingdom of Polithunia. The white eagle and the holy knight — emblems of the Polithunian royal house.
The cavalrymen stopped at a short distance from us. Then a single rider urged his horse forward, slowly approaching ahead of the rest. I, in turn, rode forward to meet him.
Under the gaze of forty thousand soldiers, the two of us came face to face.
"Have you come to surrender, Demon Lord?"
Stefan Batory.
The giant of the East.
The greatest monarch in the history of Polithunia.
The imposingly built man twitched his black beard. The great king, with his golden cloak draped over his shoulders, sat tall in the saddle as though he and his mount were one and the same. His commanding voice rang in my ears like the clatter of small hooves.
He must be twice my height, I thought, and smiled.
"Your Majesty. There will be no surrender."
"If there is no surrender, then there will be war and nothing else. Courtesies have no place on the battlefield."
"Surely a king should walk the middle path?"
Batory let out a low "Heh" of a laugh.
"The middle path is merely a word used to dress up a result that achieves nothing. I have brought my finest soldiers here. I expect to be compensated accordingly."
"With all due respect, Your Majesty, I do not believe you came here seeking victory."
The Great King furrowed his brow in displeasure.
"I had not heard that a Demon Lord was prone to eloquent speeches."
"Your Majesty did not seek the consent of the assembly before dispatching your army this time. The declaration of war was not made in the name of the Kingdom of Polithunia—it was made solely in your own name."
Moving an army always requires enormous sums of money, and that money must be raised through taxes. The problem was that the assembly, composed of nobles, would not easily approve expenditures.
The nobles of Polithunia had agreed to levy a special war tax for the king. On one condition, however: they wanted at least the war to not be fought in their name. Even if a war broke out, it was the king's responsibility, not theirs.
It amounted to this: they accepted the necessity of war, but didn't want to hear the people's resentment. Well, the Demon Lords might think, "What's the difference between the king declaring war and the state declaring war?"—but the political arena of the Human Realm wasn't that simple.
"Great Batory. This situation is hardly favorable for you, I imagine."
The Great King gazed down at me with cold eyes.
"What is it you wish to say to me, Demon Lord?"
"When you cooperated with Consul Elizabeth, you surely did not believe the Empire would be guaranteed its international standing. That is precisely why you cooperated with her and established the anti-Crescent Alliance Army front."
But the tables had turned.
At present, the only nations on the continent hostile to the Empire were the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Polithunia, and the Habsburg Republic—just three. In this situation of growing international isolation, Great King Batory was undoubtedly troubled.
"What you desire is to fight a limited war against us and reach a limited agreement… to reconcile with us."
"On what grounds do you presume to read my intentions as you please?"
"Because Your Majesty has not requested reinforcements from any other nation."
If Great King Batory truly wished to fight a decisive battle against our Demon Lord Army, he would have advertised this war as "humanity standing against the evil Demon Lord Army."
Yet just as Marbas had not requested any reinforcements from within the Empire's own territory, Great King Batory had not put forward any pretext to surrounding nations either. He had merely led his soldiers under the name of the King of Polithunia.
That meant he had no desire to provoke international controversy and no intention of disrupting the current diplomatic landscape of the continent. Great King Batory was clearly not aiming for victory—he was aiming for an agreement.
The reason he wants a reasonable reconciliation with us is simple.
"You wish to gradually distance yourself from the Republic."
It's about discarding a rotten lifeline and switching to a new one.
Great King Batory let out a low laugh.
"Let us assume, as you say, that I desire a ceasefire. Then should we not fight all the more? It is impossible to conclude a ceasefire without any pretext whatsoever. I too need at least a modicum of dignity, after all."
As befitting a great king of a nation, he was quick on the uptake.
In other words, he wanted a ceasefire, but if he surrendered territory and meekly entered into an agreement, the surrounding nations would dismiss him as a weak monarch—so he needed to fight at least a little. War was inevitable as long as the minimum dignity could not be guaranteed. That was what he meant.
I bowed my head respectfully.
"Is there a way for us to become friends without shedding a single drop of blood, Your Majesty."