It was an obvious fact. The other side was currently in the midst of a bitter internal dispute. What would happen if the Demon Lord's army—an army that reeked of being humanity's common enemy just at the mention of its name—were to march forward at a time like this?
The Third Princess would seize the moment to monopolize military authority even further, brandishing "For the sake of humanity!" as her battle cry. Before that, any pretext whatsoever would wither into nothing. Be they nobles of old blood or anyone else, anyone who refused to cooperate with the princess's faction would be executed in the name of humanity. If we marched on the Habsburg capital now, we'd only be doing the princess a favor…
"On the other hand, if we do nothing and simply stay put, the princess will be the one who gets antsy. No matter how she dresses it up, the princess staged an illegal military coup. Her legitimacy is extremely fragile. At a time like this, she needs some kind of clear accomplishment to win the support of the people."
Such is the fate of every coup government. With weak legitimacy, there is no choice but to push through and smooth things over with a distinct achievement, no matter the cost. Expanding the rights of citizens, or reforming the economy.
The princess had seized military authority under the pretext of protecting the nation from the threat of the Demon Lord's army. So the accomplishment she needed to achieve was obvious. A military victory.
"The more we do nothing, the weaker the princess's legitimacy becomes. She swore she would defeat the Demon Lord's army, but the Demon Lord's army isn't actually approaching. Her political enemies will attack her for it. Eventually, a moment will come when she has no choice but to act. The princess's side will be forced to deploy their forces."
"Oh?"
Barbatos hummed a little tune.
"So instead of us attacking, we lure the enemy in?"
"That's right. And it would also help to spread some rumors while we're at it."
The Crown Prince had fought gallantly on the front lines and never once retreated, battling with valor. What was the princess doing? From the very beginning, the princess hadn't even participated when the Imperial army deployed. The Crown Prince's defeat was also because the princess had openly interfered…
"Well, I think that should suffice."
"Kekeke."
My plan was accepted immediately.
As I stepped out of Barbatos's tent, I let out a wry smile.
I had just lied to her. That entire story only held true if we didn't account for Paimon's First Corps. Even now, the 30,000-strong monster army led by Paimon and the Mountain Faction was marching hard toward this location.
The princess would propose a ceasefire within short order. Barbatos would tilt her head, muttering, "A ceasefire? Have the humans all gone collectively insane?"—but right around then, the First Corps appearing behind our Sixth Corps would formally accept the ceasefire agreement. In the blink of an eye, Barbatos would become the dog chasing a chicken that's already gone.
From the princess's perspective, then, whether we attacked now or didn't attack at all, it made no difference. If we attacked, she would use that as grounds to monopolize military authority and resist; if we didn't attack, she would simply wait until Paimon's First Corps arrived. She was no pushover…
But I had a few trump cards of my own. If you think I'll simply roll over and take it, you're sorely mistaken, Princess Elisabeth. And Paimon, too. I am a gentleman, after all. Leaving everything to the women would hardly do for a gentleman's reputation. I ought to escort them properly.
Just as I had anticipated, events began to unfold at a dizzying pace. In no more than a few days, Third Princess Elisabeth bluntly proposed a ceasefire to our corps.
Barbatos received the ceasefire proposal sent by the Third Princess and couldn't hide her incredulous expression. But the very next day, when a staggering force of thirty thousand monsters appeared in our rear, even Barbatos couldn't help but be thrown into a panic.
"……Huh? Why the hell are those Mountain Faction brats over there?"
A fierce debate erupted within the Sixth Corps as well. Had they slipped through the passage we'd carved out to get past the Black Fortress unopposed? Were they planning to crush the Habsburg Empire alongside us before marching on the Teuton Kingdom? None of the theories sounded particularly convincing.
Barbatos flew into a towering rage and dispatched an envoy to the First Corps, demanding to know what in the world they were playing about. That was the polite way of putting it—in reality, the message she sent was brimming with profanity. Paimon's reply was enough to make every Demon Lord in the Plains Faction lose their minds.
"Like hell that bitch gets to decide whether we have a ceasefire or not!"
The ceasefire resolution document.
It began with a clause recognizing the mutual rights of both the Demon Lord army and the Habsburg Empire, and at the end, the seals of the Habsburg Empire and Paimon were stamped properly side by side. The amusing part was that a space had even been prepared right next to them for Barbatos's seal.
For Barbatos, who had fought tooth and nail to cross the Black Fortress and claw her way through Austerlitz, this was a bolt out of the blue. Here she was putting up a desperate struggle, and suddenly a rival shows up and tells her to make peace with the enemy. It was preposterous.
Barbatos immediately roared that she would unleash the monster army and attack the First Corps on the spot. But when Princess Elisabeth herself appeared at the front, commanding an army of forty thousand on the march, Barbatos finally realized something was deeply off about the way things were unfolding.
"Wait. Sibaal, am I the only one who doesn't understand what's going on here? Huh?"
That day, the rain came down in torrents.
Barbatos hastily convened an emergency meeting. She wasn't the only one wearing a grim expression. The remaining eighteen Demon Lords all looked like crumpled aluminum foil. They had walked to the tent through the downpour and were soaked to the bone, which only seemed to make them look all the more furious.
"So the Empire bitch suddenly starts yapping about a ceasefire, the Mountain Faction bastards aren't heading to the Teuton Kingdom where they're supposed to go and instead come charging here—fine, maybe there's some reason for that up to this point. But why in the hell are the Empire bitch and the Mountain Faction bastards flanking us from both sides? Like hell this isn't a pincer attack?"
Barbatos slammed her fist into the ground. Her right foot stamped the earth floor clean through, pressing deep in its exact shape.
"That whore Paimon is borrowing the humans' help to swallow us whole, isn't she?!"
"Throw those son-of-a-bitch bastards straight into the fires of hell!"
Beleth snarled.
In response to those words, the Plains Faction Demon Lords began shouting one after another. The traitors needed to be beaten to death, every last one of them. It looked as though a single order from Barbatos would send them charging forward.
That was when I stepped forward.
"Everyone. Paimon is simply looking to profit from this conflict."
The Demon Lords' gazes all converged on me. Every last one of them carried a murderous look. But the longer my words continued, the more their eyes shifted—from killing intent to anger, and from anger to shock. By the time I finished, the tent had gone completely silent, as if the shouting match had never happened.
"However, Dantalion..."
Commander Zepar spoke with visible difficulty.
"I understand that whether we fight or not, Paimon stands to benefit. If we fight, she'll seize the opportunity to annihilate our Plains Faction entirely, and if we don't, she claims the credit for having 'occupied Human Realm territory.' But isn't Paimon betraying not just our legion, but the entire Demon Realm? Will our kin simply stand by and watch her commit such atrocities?"
I shook my head.
"Commander. It's been two thousand years. The Crescent Alliance Army has been failing for two thousand years. Countless demons have begun questioning the very purpose of the Crescent Alliance Army. They must be exhausted. If a ceasefire agreement is signed this time, the Demon Lords' army will possess territory officially recognized by the Habsburg Empire."
"Hmm."
"Rather than an uncertain conquest of the continent, demons will find far more appeal in firmly securing a definite territory..."
They would praise Paimon, who achieved this feat, as a great Demon Lord—proclaiming that the Crescent Alliance Army had finally borne fruit for the first time in its two-thousand-year history.
Commander Zepar understood my words and swallowed hard. Silence descended over the tent once more.
"...So that's what you're saying."
Barbatos, who had been sitting in silence, finally spoke in a strained voice.
"Whether we fight here or agree to a ceasefire, that bitch Paimon profits either way? And you're saying there's even less chance of the Demon Realm backing us now? That's what you've been telling us?"
"..."
Instead of answering, I lowered my head.
Barbatos's face went blank.
"No, how can—the traitors are the Mountain Faction bastards. Why? Why are we the ones being sidelined? Huh?"
She looked around at the Demon Lords in the tent one by one, as if seeking their agreement.
"We fought the hardest. Everyone, we spilled the most blood. We promised to fulfill the Demon Realm's deepest wish... so many comrades and subordinates fell on foreign soil... Why does Paimon, who just sat back and watched from the sidelines, get the support? Comrades. We just... we fought hard, that's all."
The Demon Lords lowered their heads to avoid Barbatos's gaze.
"Two thousand years is too long, so you're tired? Then what about us? For those two thousand years, we never stopped even when exhausted, we never gave up no matter how hard it got—we kept fighting... What about our resolve and our blood? We could have lived comfortably, throwing our weight around. We could have just played instead of drilling armies. But because of that damned duty of being a Demon Lord, we ran without stopping for two thousand years, without stopping... And now you tell us to stop? That the wrong ones aren't the traitorous bastards—that it's us?"
She slammed her fist on the table. Where her fist struck, the surface shattered into fragments that scattered everywhere.
"Don't make me laugh! How dare—how dare you treat our pride! Our blood and sweat!"
"...Your Excellency."
"In the first Crescent Alliance Army, I lost all six thousand of my troops! In the second, I lost my arms and legs! In the third, we went over two months without food rations and the army collapsed! In the fourth, we were annihilated because our allies abandoned us! The fifth! The sixth! The seventh!"
She screamed with a tearing voice.
"In those seven tragedies, who was it that actually bled? Was it the ones who sat back in the Demon Realm? Or was it the Mountain Faction bastards who only cared about their own interests? No. No, it wasn't! We—we were at the front lines! We were the most dedicated and the most courageous! And the reward for two thousand years of dedication and courage is just this—don't you dare tell me to laugh it off!"
Barbatos kicked her chair and stood up.
"Paimon, you bitch... Right, so you want a battle where we tear each other apart. Fine by me! How dare you take me—take our pride—for fools... I'll kill you."
She vanished outside the tent in a flash. Her footsteps were so resolute, yet somehow unsteady, that none of the rest of us—including myself—could bring ourselves to stop Barbatos.
We remained in the tent, but we didn't exchange a single word. Occasionally someone would let out a sigh heavy with regret. It was only after a long while that Commander Zepar spoke in a low voice.
"I think it would be better to call a ceasefire."
That was all he said. The Demon Lords seemed to understand everything from those words alone. I could see that they were all lost in the same thought. But the fact that they had to stop the war because a fellow Demon Lord had schemed against them—that truth was so devastating that nobody could bring themselves to speak.
Elder Beleth gritted his teeth.
"I don't even know if what you just said qualifies as something worth saying."
"Calm yourself, you mountain boar. You know it too—there's no answer other than a ceasefire."
"Right. Zepar, you brat. You're right that I'm ignorant. But there's one thing I know for certain—we've been humiliated, and we are warriors. Warriors do not endure humiliation!"
Beleth let out a roar.
And Zepar responded without backing down.
"So what exactly are you going to do if you don't swallow your pride?"
"Are you asking me? We fight!"
"And then what? Are you confident you can take on the First Legion's thirty thousand troops? It's not just the First Legion. You'd be pincered by forty thousand imperial soldiers. Thirty thousand monster troops against forty thousand human troops. This battle is impossible."
"A warrior fights until his luck runs out and dies—that is a warrior's fate! You may only ever pick fights you know you can win, but there are things a warrior must never concede! We crush them, and then we crush them again. That's all there is to it!"
Commander Zepar's face crumpled.
"You war maniac… Do you plan to annihilate the Plains Faction?!"
"A Plains Faction that has lost its pride is no longer the Plains Faction!"
The argument grew violent. In an instant, the Demon Lords split into peace advocates and war hawks. Insults flew from both sides—fools who couldn't plan for the future, cowards who didn't know when to fight. The majority favored peace. Only a handful of radicals, Beleth among them, were clamoring for a fight to the death. Of course—who would welcome a battle they were certain to lose…
"R-Reporting! We have an emergency!"
That was when the tiger-tribe officer burst into the command tent. He spoke despite the menacing aura of the Demon Lords. His report was urgent enough to cool the overheated atmosphere in an instant.
"Lord Barbatos has sortied alone!"