We were silent for a moment. The junior baron had probably been lost in thought.
How the civil war would ruin Frank's fate, and what would become of his own domain if he got swept up in it. The village had already fallen into a full festival atmosphere, buzzing with noise. But the noise only made the junior baron's heart heavier. How long would this peace last...
Meanwhile, I was thinking that the soup was really delicious.
Hmm, it had chicken in it, so this must be chicken soup. But every vegetable imaginable was floating in it. The proportion of chicken was really quite small. Could this dish truly be called chicken soup? That, indeed, was the question...
"Thanks to you all, we've been able to breathe a sigh of relief. If winter had ended like this, the village's mood would have remained endlessly somber."
"If our pilgrimage has been of even a little help to you, that alone makes us happy."
Why on earth was soup named after the meat in it... To find out, I took another spoonful of broth. It was delicious. Fine—I'd just name this one "delicious soup" and be done with it.
"Thanks to your visit, all the villagers will be able to welcome spring with lighter hearts. You can call it good fortune. You have my thanks."
"Not at all."
It wasn't that I was being inattentive. I was thinking far more seriously than the junior baron. I was trying to defend the rights of vegetables against human prejudice. That was infinitely more important than Frank's fate. This was the difference in caliber between a junior baron and a Demon Lord. Hmm, should I dip a piece of bread in the soup this time?
"There's something I'd like to request of you."
"Anything within our power."
Why did this man keep talking to me? I was currently deep in thought about the unequal perception between vegetables and meat, all through the medium of the soup before my eyes. Stop interrupting me.
"Strangely enough, goblins have started running rampant since last year. Normally, monsters hardly ever appeared around here—because there's a Demon Lord's Castle nearby."
"Monsters tend not to stray far from the Demon Lord's Castle."
The Demon Lord's Castle was brimming with mana. For monsters that lived by absorbing mana, the Demon Lord's Castle was essentially chicken soup. It was only natural they wouldn't want to leave.
"Exactly. But suddenly, monsters started appearing. It must be that the Demon Lord on this side moved his monsters to coordinate with the Crescent Alliance Army."
Junior Baron Versi had put forward an interesting theory. Namely, that the Crescent Alliance Army would attack the human forces' front lines, while the Demon Lords positioned inland disrupted the rear. Wasn't the Demon Lord in this area doing the same thing?
Sorry to disappoint, but that wasn't the case.
The reason the monsters are running wild is simple — the chicken soup is gone. Can't really blame them for being upset about that.
There was once someone who had a conversation like this with me.
— Where is your Demon Lord's Castle located?
— In the Frank Empire... in the Loren region, halfway up Mount Raelia...
— Impressive. What villages are near the Demon Lord's Castle?
— Pomethra, Campagnule...
The Loren region. Junior Baron Versi's domain. The village of Pomethra.
This was the land where the seventy-second-ranked Demon Lord — Andromalius — had resided.
Humans still don't know that Andromalius is dead. The Demon Lord's death caused the Demon Lord's Castle's mana to vanish all at once, and that's why the Goblins are running wild. Andromalius died not in the Human Realm but in a city within the Demon Realm. Of course the Junior Baron wouldn't know.
Andromalius had stuffed the Goblins into mines and made them work around the clock to raise gambling funds. Those Goblins must have come pouring out of the Dungeon.
I wiped the corners of my mouth with a napkin and thought.
'In a Dungeon Attack, the hero's village gets ravaged by Goblins. First things first — I need to check whether the hero's village has taken damage or not...'
When I killed Andromalius, the quest breaker hadn't activated. Back then, I didn't yet know that a Demon Lord could shatter a quest. I was relieved. But after I learned that quests could be broken, a question started gnawing at me.
Why hadn't a notification popped up saying I'd destroyed the hero's quest?
The trigger for the protagonist becoming the Hero lies with the Demon Lord Andromalius. Andromalius mercilessly crushes the protagonist's village — a frontier hamlet — and that's how the protagonist comes to harbor a grudge against the very existence of the Demon Lord. If Andromalius disappears, the protagonist's path to becoming the Hero should disappear with him.
'But the quest wasn't destroyed.'
Whether Andromalius is gone or not, is the protagonist still destined to become the Hero? Or is it that even without this particular protagonist, other humans would step up and carry the hero's quest forward...? There are many possibilities.
Regardless of the answer, my task was the same.
I had to uproot the seed that would grow into a Hero.
To that end, I coordinated with the Liberation Alliance and set our route to pass through here. Arriving in Junior Baron Versi's domain was no coincidence. At this very moment, with both the Demon Lord's forces and the human forces growing weaker by the day, the human most likely to become the Hero was the single greatest threat to our future security.
Let's eliminate them by any means necessary.
"Very well. I shall subjugate the Goblin village. This must be the Goddess's will as well."
I took a final sip to wash down the last of the wine.
"However, please assign me guides who are proficient with the terrain. There may be bandit camps or slash-and-burn settlements along the mountain foothills. We could end up in an unintentional skirmish, depending on how things go."
The crimson liquid in my glass reflected my expression back at me. The face staring back from the wine's surface wore a devoutly serene smile, like that of a truly pious priest.
We rested for a full day.
The lord's steward had brought back a large haul of supplies from Baekdo, so the feast carried on late into the night. The dwarf mercenaries took the lead in running the celebration. Thanks to that, not only did the villagers not resist the lodging orders — they were each clamoring to host us in their own homes.
Around noon, we departed to cheers from the villagers, as if we were their own army setting out on a campaign. The two men hired as guides were middle-aged hunters, the kind who had mental maps of every landmark etched into their brains.
"A slash-and-burn settlement, you say? Well, there is one."
"Seems like they're from some foreign country. Leave them alone, and they'll fight the monsters themselves, so the lord has been letting them be."
That had to be the place.
I split the party into two. I put Zachary in charge of the mercenary company and sent them toward the Goblin village. The rest — that is, Jeremy and the assassins — were to follow me. When Zachary asked why I was dividing the forces, I answered him thus:
"You lot overslept and delayed our march. The Goblin village only has about twenty members. If we all march together, we'll slog through an entire day just to subjugate a single settlement. It's inefficient."
"Mm."
Zachary nodded.
"Fair enough. We did receive the villagers' support, so we ought to deliver results worthy of that."
"This is a matter of our credibility. If we want to be hired by lords going forward, we need to get the first button right. Coordinating with the other Demon Lords to run deception campaigns — that's for later. For now, we work honestly."
"Understood."
Half of that was a lie, and half was the truth.
My plan was to cooperate with the inland Demon Lords and destroy their territories. But I couldn't show our true colors from the start. I had to be patient — wait until the lords placed great trust in our mercenary company. Subjugating Goblins was easy work and perfect for building credibility.
On the other hand, I didn't fully trust Zachary.
Zachary was an ardent republican — someone who acted according to ideology and conviction. If I said I wanted to wipe an entire village of slash-and-burn farmers off the map without any explanation, he would push back immediately. Even if I tried to convince him that the village contained a boy who would one day become the Hero, and therefore needed to be eliminated now, would Zachary actually accept that?
In that sense, Jeremy and the assassination squad were more convenient to use.
Assassins were accustomed to killing people without any reason. When their employer gave an order, it was their duty to carry it out without suspicion. And sure enough, when I told her I needed to erase a slash-and-burn village from the map, Jeremy nodded without a single word of protest.
"I believe Your Highness has a reason."
She said it with a wide grin. That was all. She couldn't have been a more reliable subordinate.
After following the guide for about three hours, we spotted the slash-and-burn village through the foliage in the distance. Smoke from cooking fires curled lazily into the pale sky. People in tattered clothes shuffled between tent-like dwellings.
"Jeremy. From this point forward, I order the annihilation of the target before us."
I lowered my voice and gave the command.
Jeremy glanced at the village.
"Simple. Thirty at most, and only about ten young men. Give me five minutes, and I'll clean it up neatly."
She replied without wiping the smile from her face. Despite her expression, I still couldn't feel a trace of emotion from her. Even in the moment she drove a blade into someone's neck, Jeremy probably wouldn't radiate a single shred of killing intent.
"There might be people not in the village right now."
The original protagonist had happened to be outside the village when the Demon Lord Andromalius attacked the slash-and-burn settlement. That was how he survived the monster assault. There was no guarantee it wasn't the same situation now.
"I want every human with a foothold in this village annihilated."
"Then what should we do? Wait until evening?"
"No. I have a good plan."
I pulled a magic scroll from inside my coat. It was the intermediate Teleport Scroll that had given me opportunities time and again.
"With this, I'll summon my golems."
"You want to attack the village with golems while we spread out in all directions to secure any potential survivors?"
"You're quick on the uptake. I like that."
Jeremy smiled.
"It's my area of expertise."
"Remember this: never let your guard down. Among the enemy, there's a boy—still young, but a monster who will one day dominate the continent. A boy. If you spot him, don't approach recklessly. Call me first. Understood? Do not engage him on your own. Ever."
"......"
Jeremy's gaze shifted. The eyes that had been sizing up easy prey now belonged to a hyena hunting lions. There was not a shred of protest—no complaint that it was just a boy, no dismissal of what he could possibly do. She accepted my words in full and adjusted her mindset accordingly.
"As you command."
Twenty assassins, Jeremy included, vanished without a sound. When I turned around, the guide had already slumped to the ground, unconscious. No one else was around. Truly the deadliest assassination squad in the Demon Realm.
I drew a long, deep breath.
The Hero.
From a slash-and-burn farmer to a mercenary, then into the eye of the princess, gradually seizing military authority, and ultimately toppling both the Frank Empire and the Kingdom of Bretagne before slaughtering all seventy-two Demon Lords one by one... a monster among monsters. I had controlled him as a player back in the day, which meant I knew better than anyone just how absurdly powerful he was.
Starting now, I would kill him. I, who once was the Hero, had now become the Demon Lord—and I would destroy him.
Everything was for the sake of my survival.
"Archistus."
The scroll tore apart and erupted with white light.
On the desolate mountainside, colossal figures of stone descended. My subordinates, now accustomed to summoning, watched as I pointed a finger at the pitiful little farming village below.
—Kraaaaaaa!
The hunt began.