"Hmm."
Barbatos glanced my way, even adding a little hum for good measure. For someone so young, there was a disconcerting hint of allure in those eyes of hers. I sincerely wished she would dial back the sex appeal in official settings… but look—Beleth and Zepar were both squirming in their seats. When a child teases adults like this, it just doesn't fly.
"Our cunning little weasel of a Demon Lord, Dantalion. What foul scheme have you cooked up this time that you're raising your hand with such confidence?"
I gave an embarrassed laugh.
"I'll use humans as the vanguard."
"Use humans as the vanguard? What do you mean?"
"The Margrave's army is composed primarily of knights and conscripts. The conscripts are villagers who've rallied together on their own, terrified of our Demonkin army. I'll convince those villagers. Our Demonkin army will not harm humans who surrender—we'll allow them to go on living as they always have. All they need do is pledge their loyalty to us. If their safety is guaranteed, they'd rather avoid war too. The Margrave's forces would be severely weakened."
It wasn't as though these peasants had formed an army out of some deep loyalty to their lord. Fighting the Demonkin army village by village was far worse than banding together at a single point to resist collectively. An army built on perfectly aligned self-interest—that was precisely why it wielded such strong cohesion. But it was also an army that could crumble the moment we offered an even greater benefit.
"The humans won't take us at their word that easily."
"That's exactly why we need humans to do the talking. If their own kind does the convincing, the humans will listen. As it happens, I have some suitable humans at my disposal. I'll use them."
I spoke, thinking of the villages surrounding my dungeon. I'd have Parsi and the others assemble a kind of envoys' delegation from among the villagers. They would tour the villages throughout the Margrave's domain and urge them to surrender.
"The villagers will mostly be skeptical, of course. Some villages will be receptive, others will be hostile. That's when I deploy a strike team. We sweep through the villages that came out against surrender—make an example of them."
"Would humans really cooperate that easily?"
Commander Zepar spoke.
"They hate us."
"Of course they do. But there is something humans hate far more. If we promise to shield them from that, they'll willingly submit to us."
"And what is that?"
"Death."
"……."
My words apparently didn't sound very persuasive, because the Demon Lords' reactions were lukewarm. Since there was nothing to lose by trying, it was adopted anyway. The results were exactly as I had predicted. Villages that showed even a hint of willingness to surrender were left unharmed, while villages that flatly ignored the recommendation were reduced to rubble — and plenty of villagers rushed to surrender after that.
Five days later, roughly two thousand soldiers out of the border countess's thirty-five thousand deserted. The border countesses, alarmed, swept through three or four of the deserted villages — the desertions had happened collectively, on a village-by-village basis — and razed them under the charge of betraying humanity. That was the mistake. When they attacked the villages, our Sixth Legion actually dispatched reinforcements to defend them.
We proved that we kept our promises to the villages. The border countesses, on the other hand, bore at least a nominal obligation to protect their subjects and attacked villages in order to maintain their armies. The conscripted soldiers revolted and deserted en masse. In the end, the border countesses' armies shrank to seventeen thousand. Before a proper battle could even be fought, their forces were cut nearly in half. Word had it that Count von Rosenburg coughed up blood from sheer fury. Pathetic.
The Demon Lord army was just as surprised by the unexpected outcome. They really hadn't done anything remarkable. They had simply sent envoys to recommend surrender, then protected the villages as stipulated in the surrender documents. That alone was enough to collapse the enemy, and the Demon Lords couldn't make heads or tails of what had happened. They looked at me the way people stare at a sorcerer.
I smiled and explained step by step.
"You've overlooked two things. The first stems from prejudice."
"Prejudice?"
Beleth spoke up on behalf of the other Demon Lords, questioning me.
"That's right. You've been treating the human army — consciously or unconsciously — as a single bloc. But think about it. How could that many humans possibly unite as one? They have their own class hierarchies, regional divisions, and contradictory interests. The only reason they came together was our Demon Lord army. Now that it's been revealed we won't unconditionally antagonize them, there's no reason for the common folk to resist us."
Humans are guilty of the same prejudice. Just because the Demon Lords are leading, they treat the Demon Lord army as a monolithic entity. But on our side, there are naturally opposing internal factions — the Plains Faction, the Mountain Faction. Of course there are. The Demon Lords had also unconsciously viewed the countless humans as a single species and never considered that humans could be divided...
This prejudice originated from the Black Mountains garrison. The mountain fortress defenders of the Black Mountains uniquely possessed an infinite sense of responsibility toward humanity. They believed that Demon Lords were unconditional enemies of humanity and that surrendering to such beings was inconceivable. No — only those who believed that way volunteered for the mountain fortress garrison... The human forces the Demon Lords always encountered first when invading the continent were the mountain fortress garrison, and that provided the preconception.
In Dungeon Attack, there is a scenario where the Human Realm splits apart. In the original story, too, these preconceptions crumble and the Human Realm divides in two. The faction that wants to cooperate moderately with the Demon Lords and pursue survival, and the faction that wants to annihilate them. I merely moved the originally planned scenario up a bit.
"Second, what you overlooked is fear. You have no idea how much terror the word 'Crescent Alliance Army' instills in humans. A human lifespan is typically sixty years at most. The Seventh Crescent Alliance Army occurred two hundred years ago. For them, the Crescent Alliance Army is a nightmare from the past, passed down only as legend. That nightmare has returned. If they could avoid it, they would."
Demon Lords have infinite lifespans. As long as nothing fatal happens, they keep on living. If the Demon Lords perceive this Crescent Alliance Army as a casual "Oh, another Crescent Alliance Army," humans perceive it as "The Demon Lords have allied and are invading?!" Just twenty monsters swarming a place is already a grave threat to a human village. Now imagine tens of thousands of monsters invading. There is nothing but fear.
You can tell just from the attitude the mountain fortress garrison showed in the Black Mountains. They never once expected us to be the vanguard of the Crescent Alliance Army. They only figured it out at the very end...
"As long as there's a guarantee they won't attack indiscriminately, from the villagers' perspective, there's little difference between a human lord and a Demon Lord."
Zepar nodded.
"I see. Precedent and perception, then... I almost feel sorry for the imperial army. Losing nearly half their forces without a single battle. Tactics are deception, after all. Having a strategist like you is a blessing for our Demon Lord army and a curse for the humans."
The Sixth Legion pressed forward without hesitation.
The imperial army now trailed the Sixth Legion in numbers as well. Imperial forces: seventeen thousand. Demon Lord forces: eighteen thousand. Monsters had always been overwhelmingly superior in soldier quality to begin with. At this rate, even in a siege, the Demon Lord army was guaranteed to win.
The Margraves retreated in fury. They even abandoned the border town, fleeing deep inland to join the imperial central army. Naturally, mass desertions occurred once more during this process. A quick tally of the deserters' information revealed that the army which had pursued the Margraves to the end numbered less than eight thousand in total. It was a great victory.
"Fuck, what the hell is this?"
Barbatos spat a curse at the victory he had won. Currently, we were gathered in the lord's castle where Margrave von Rosenberg had stayed. A reception room made of expensive marble. Barbatos sat on the Margrave's throne, wearing the most dumbfounded expression in the world.
"What the fuck is going on?! Were the Margraves this easy?!"
No one dared to answer rashly to Barbatos's roar. This was because the other Demon Lords felt exactly the same way. They, too, wanted to ask someone the same question.
I let out a bitter smile.
"It was a bloodless conquest. You could stand to be a little happier, perhaps."
I stood in the closest seat to Barbatos. This was an unspoken acknowledgment that I was the Sixth Legion's supreme chief of staff. Having successfully led the conquest of the northern region of the Habsburg Empire without shedding a drop of blood, this was only natural.
"No, what about the fucking suffering we've endured for the past two thousand years…? We've only succeeded in conquering this far three times, and each time we had to fight tooth and nail just barely to achieve it."
"If you're stupid, you suffer."
Barbatos's face was completely devoid of spirit. His mentality was collapsing in real-time. In truth, not just Barbatos but the majority of Demon Lords gathered in this reception room felt the same.
"So, what? Everything we've been doing for two thousand years was just pointless effort…?"
"That expression of 'pointless effort' is a bit rash, Your Excellency."
"…Your Excellency? What the hell is that?"
I produced a parchment scroll from my robes.
"The subjects of this land have resolved to enthronement you, Your Excellency, as the rightful and sole Margrave lord. From this moment on, Your Excellency, as Lord Count, bears the duty to watch over your subjects, and the subjects gain the obligation to respond to your summons."
"Uh, uh…?"
"Congratulations. You have become the first Demon Lord to acquire dominion over both Demonkin and Humans. Throughout all of history, only you, Lord Barbatos, have achieved such a feat. Henceforth, you shall reign as the eighth-ranked Demon Lord and the Margrave of Brandenburg."
I bowed politely at the waist.
"Wait a minute! Fuck, what kind of bullshit is this. Why would I look after those human bastards?"
"Didn't you accept their surrender?"
I said to Barbatos in a subtle tone.
"It's only natural that a noble would govern the people of the territory."
"Hey, Dantalion, you son of a bitch. Be honest with me. Did you plan this from the very start?"
"Didn't you yourself say that you wished to defeat von Rosenberg without falling into Paimon's trap? I merely acted in accordance with your wishes."
She fell silent. Because what I said was the truth.
"I'll only govern humans temporarily until the continental conquest is complete. Once we've turned the entire continent into a world of Demonkin, it won't be too late to dispose of the human race. Until then, we'll put them to use."
"Haah. This is weird. Something feels off, damn it. We won, so why do I feel so damn uneasy?"
Barbatos grumbled. She wanted no part of such meaningless, tedious work, so she dumped every last bit of the territory's general administration onto me.
The first policy I implemented was to mobilize troops and exterminate every wild monster inhabiting the hills within the territory. Since we hadn't obtained any human flesh from battles with human armies, we needed monster meat as a substitute. The sight of monsters exterminating other monsters left the territory's people astonished, yet they cheered "Long live the new lord!" for his bold and merciful policy. It supplied the army with food and won the people's hearts—killing two birds with one stone.
I stationed the eighteen-thousand-strong monster army in the town below the castle. Since the humans from that town had followed the Margrave, it happened to be a suitable garrison.
"You are insidious, my lord."
Laura said, watching me as I sat at the desk handling paperwork.
"In the end, you controlled this war from beginning to end. It will likely continue that way going forward."
"You flatter me."
I smiled warmly. I meant every word. I was simply reenacting what would happen in Dungeon Attack. People might call that cheating, but so what.
I had done nothing wrong.