"Marbas has called a meeting."
Barbatos retracted her whip and spoke. Forced into a session of BDSM play, I shuddered all over as I pulled my pants back up. The moment my pants settled over my rear, the stinging was excruciating.
"A meeting?"
"A face-to-face with Marbas, the whore, and me."
"Changnyeon" was Barbatos's word for Paimon. Not content with simply calling Paimon a "whore," Barbatos had developed the special compound "whore-plus-bitch." I cracked a small smile and spoke.
"Don't go. Marbas is going to try to mediate between you and Paimon. There's no need for you to leave right now. Wait a little longer and you'll be in a much stronger position, Barbatos."
"Hmm."
It wasn't just the Second Legion — the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Legions too. Once all of them had arrived, that would be the right moment to hold a meeting.
The more the Demon Lord's army grew, the less the Mountain Faction could play games with the Habsburg Empire. After all, the Demon Lord's army and the Habsburg Empire were supposed to be enemies. The Mountain Faction, which was simultaneously part of the Demon Lord's army and an ally of the Empire, would find itself in an impossibly awkward position… whereas our Plains Faction would gain the upper hand.
"Then I'll just wait here, I guess."
"Yeah. Time is on our side."
We decided to wait at our leisure.
Several days passed. The Demon Lords belonging to the Plains Faction had visibly loosened up. The agonizing debate between "a glorious charge to the death" and "staying alive, even if cowardly" seemed a distant memory as they strolled around the camp with ease.
Beleth, in particular, was in high spirits. Just as he had at the lord's manor in Brandenburg, he gathered a few Demon Lords and threw small banquets. Drinking in the field camp… well, as long as it didn't go overboard, it was fine.
But I really wished he'd stop forcing drinks on me. Beleth, the thirteenth-ranked Demon Lord, was the kind of guy who — if this were a Romance of the Three Kingdoms retelling — would be the Zhang Fei type: the sort who assumed everyone in the world was as hard a drinker as he was. This four-meter-tall half-ogre would hoist a one-meter-tall barrel of liquor like a weightlifter and down it in one gulp!
"Aaah. So the humans know how to brew decent liquor too, eh?"
"……."
I watched the one-meter-tall barrel being emptied in real time. I was speechless. Just how enormous did one's stomach have to be? If your stomach was so massive that it could handle a meter's worth of liquor without issue, could you even still call it a stomach?
"Burp."
Beleth belched. The foul stench of alcohol spread in all directions. I wanted to pass out. It was bad enough being forcibly dragged along while simply passing by, but now I had to endure someone else's breath on top of that — the world truly works in mysterious, wretched ways.
"Now then. Dantalion. You have some too!"
Beleth poured liquor into a cup with a generous splash.
"That's too much..."
"Come now! If you're a real man, you should be able to drink this through your nostrils!"
By his standards, being a "real man" apparently required being born with ogre blood. Unfortunately, I was only human. But the half-ogre before me seemed to have his eyes screwed on backwards, because he was treating me like one of his own kind. It was beyond unfair.
I sighed and downed it all in one gulp.
"Ohh."
The Demon Lords around us let out exaggerated exclamations. One of them spoke.
"Not bad. For someone who looks like a scarecrow, he can actually hold his liquor."
"Scarecrow, of all things."
If possible, I would appreciate being called the "princely type." The trendy look isn't those muscle-bound brutes like you. It's the delicate, fine-featured pretty boy look like mine. I'm serious. I'm not some reclusive shut-in — I'm simply a refined gentleman who happens to enjoy a life of solitude.
"Kuh, even Vepar lost! That's four knocked down already!"
"Hahaha! If you dare challenge me to a drinking contest, bring three times that many!"
Vepar, ranked 42nd among the Demon Lords, had collapsed. Besides him, three more Demon Lords lay sprawled across the floor. Every single one of them had challenged Beleth to a drinking duel and been crushed in humiliating defeat. They truly were a pathetic bunch. Why was it that drunkards looked pathetic whether they won or lost?
"Next, it's your turn, Dantalion!"
Beleth spat droplets of liquor as he pointed me out.
"Me!? Why me?"
"Because you're my little brother. If you're my little brother, you ought to drink as much as I do!"
A cup was thrust into my hands whether I wanted it or not. It was an enormous ceramic bowl, so large I suspected the kitchen had mistaken it for a serving dish. Beleth then proceeded to pour liquor into it.
"Tch, Brother. Even so, this is going too far."
"Mmmm? I can't hear what you're saying――?"
Damn it, was she seriously acting cute right now? I wished she'd bite her tongue and keel over dead.
……No. Stay calm. No matter how much of a big shot Beleth is, her stomach still has a finite capacity.
She'd just chugged drinks with four of us, so a good chunk of her stomach must already be full. Looking at it objectively, Beleth had no more room to take in liquid——in other words, my odds were perfectly good!
I let out a quiet huff of a laugh. This was the composure of someone who could use not just their body but also their head — unlike a warrior who only knew how to swing a fist.
"Very well. I shall claim the title of greatest drinker in the Plains Faction from you."
"Now that's the spirit! Kahaha, bring it on, little brother!"
I gave a yell and knocked back the drink in one go.
My memory went blank.
When I finally pried my eyes open, there I was — along with seven Demon Lords sprawled pathetically on the ground. Beleth wasn't among them. It seemed two more had been knocked out right after I went down. A total wipeout.
In life, you should never gamble on things you're not familiar with.
Despite this little incident……the overall atmosphere among the Plains Faction was excellent. The human and Demon Lord armies remained locked in a standoff, but there was no anxiety or defeatism anywhere to be found.
They hadn't let their guard down, either. They trained conscript soldiers. They fortified defensive positions. Relaxed but vigilant — the most ideal state was being maintained. The Demon Lords of the Plains Faction were, for the most part, seasoned veterans of war. They knew better than anyone when and how to ease their tension.
Troops continued streaming into the Bruno Plains, where we'd set up camp.
First, the Batavia Republic army arrived. When they joined up, the human forces across the plain erupted in cheers. Unlike the commanders who schemed about alliances, for the rank-and-file soldiers, humans were on humanity's side and Demonkin were on the Demonkin's side. Easy enough to welcome wholeheartedly.
Next, the Kingdom of Sardinia army and the Polithunia army rolled in almost simultaneously. Each fielded a force of around twenty thousand.
The display was staggering. The far side of the plain had become a literal forest of human tents and banners — a Sea of Trees. With this, the human forces had united five nations — Habsburg, Frank, Batavia, Sardinia, and Polithunia — into a colossal army of eighty thousand. Human morale pierced the sky.
For exactly four days, that is.
"My Lord! Get outside, quick!"
Laura burst into my tent in a panic. Thinking something must have gone wrong, I didn't bother asking questions and just bolted outside. And then I witnessed an astonishing sight.
"…A fortress?"
An enormous fortress was *moving*. Floating roughly fifty to sixty meters in the air, it was supported by six impossibly thin legs relative to its body. Howl's Moving Castle immediately came to mind.
Of course, beyond the fact that it moved, there was nothing similar about it. The fortress had a slender body and long legs. On top of that, three enormous gears, each as massive as the main structure itself, were embedded in the citadel, endlessly grinding away with a clanking, clattering rhythm.
I wasn't the only one stunned—monsters and Demon Lords alike had rushed out of their tents and were staring blankly up at the sky. Only Barbatos spoke with his usual composure.
"That's Valefor."
"Valefor? Ranked sixth?"
Barbatos nodded.
"That's Valefor's Demon Lord's Castle. The Mobile Fortress *Labyrinthos*."
Good lord! My jaw dropped. There was no such monstrous dungeon in the game. Valefor had definitely lived in a lavish palace-citadel just like any other top-tier dungeon. The only unique thing was that the palace sat in the sea, not on flatland… Wait. The sea?
I asked.
"Hey. Where does that Demon Lord's Castle normally hang out?"
"It's stashed away in the Germania Sea. Valefor guy absolutely loves the ocean."
"Oh boy."
So that was the situation. The terrifying Demon Lord's Castle was originally positioned in the sea—so from the surface it only ever looked like it was floating on water, but in reality it could walk around like this too. Even a certified Dungeon Attack addict like me had no idea that kind of setting was hidden in there…
The Demon Lord's Castle of the sixth-ranked Valefor was overwhelming to behold. This was an era without skyscrapers. In a lifetime, you'd be hard-pressed to see a building taller than ten meters. And now, suddenly, a structure sixty or seventy meters tall had appeared—one that moved entirely at will. The human army's morale naturally plummeted.
Incidentally, the sixth-ranked Valefor and the third-ranked Vassago together formed the Crescent Alliance Army's Fourth Legion. Just the two of them were treated as an entire legion, and at that size, you could hardly argue it wasn't legion-grade. Just think about it. An impregnable fortress that physically marches around on its own. The tactical value was beyond imagination.
And the very next day, the Crescent Alliance Army's Third Legion, led by the second-ranked Agares, arrived. Around the same time, the Frank Empire's main force also showed up. As though racing each other to arrive first, every military force on the continent was converging.
After a week, the traffic finally began to sort itself out.
The human forces stood as follows: the Habsburg Empire's army, twenty thousand; the Teuton Kingdom's army, twenty thousand; the Batavia Republic's army, five thousand; the Frank Empire's army, thirty-five thousand; the Kingdom of Sardinia's army, twenty-five thousand; the Polithunia Kingdom's army, twenty-five thousand; the Bretagne Kingdom's army, five thousand. A combined total of one hundred and thirty-five thousand troops.
The Demon Lord's forces were as follows: First Legion, thirty thousand; Second Legion, twenty thousand; Third Legion, thirty-five thousand; Fourth Legion, five thousand; Fifth Legion, five thousand; Sixth Legion, fifteen thousand.——A grand total of one hundred and ten thousand troops.
If you combined both armies, this was a war on a scale exceeding two hundred thousand soldiers. Whether in the Human Realm or the Demon Realm, every last chip had been pushed into the pot for this one decisive showdown.
Paimon's plan had completely gone up in smoke.
Ally with the human forces in a situation like this? First of all, it was clear that Third Princess Elizabeth did not hold real power over the human army——she was a seventeen-year-old girl, and not even the Emperor at that, merely a "prominent successor"——so how could she ever be recognized as the leader of such a massive army? It was unclear how far the human high command would cooperate with Paimon. If they didn't backstab him, that would be a blessing.
Besides, this side wouldn't just sit idle and let them. It was basically saying "go ahead and betray us if you think you can." Sacrificing only the Plains Faction's Sixth Legion might have been something the Demonkin could accept, but claiming you were going to sacrifice everyone from the Second Legion to the Sixth? No one in the world would buy that as "just a sacrifice."
They couldn't even come up with a proper justification. They'd just become irredeemable traitors, plain and simple.
"Old Man Marbas has requested another meeting."
Barbatos handed me a letter with a sly grin. In elegant calligraphy, it requested that "the commander and chief strategist of each legion gather in one place."
"I think it's okay for us to attend now, right?"
"Of course. Let's go and punch Paimon right in the face."
The two of us faced each other and snickered with wicked delight. We really looked the part of Demon Lords.
"Oh, right. But you need to look like you're about to cry as much as possible."
I gave Barbatos a heads-up.
"Our Lord Commander is an innocent and naive young lady who was nearly sacrificed by Paimon's sinister scheme. So really lean into the 'I've been wronged' look, got it?"
"Ha ha ha. Don't worry about it, you little punk. I can play innocent like nobody's business."
"Every innocent person in this world is dead."
"You wanna die first?"
We traded jabs with each other as we headed toward the meeting place.