'Now, hold on, my lady. Even I can't handle Agares!'
'You don't need to be humble at this point.'
Laura grinned.
'You're someone important enough to dismiss even a deputy commander, aren't you, General? Compared to that, Agares may be powerful in personal combat, but she's merely a guest commander of Bretagne. She's no match for General Beleth.'
'...'
'Or... could it be that you intervened in my command despite having no confidence to face a guest commander yourself?'
Brother Beleth was drenched in sweat.
— Whoosh.
He turned his head. He looked at me with eyes begging for help. For the record, I'd already anticipated that gaze and had been looking in the opposite direction for quite some time. Man, this tent really is made with premium tiger skin... How much would this cost...
— Swish.
This time, Brother Beleth looked at Barbatos. But Barbatos wasn't the type to pick up on social cues. She was humming a tune and staring at the ground.
Sorry to Brother Beleth, but Barbatos and I both knew just how petty Laura could be. She usually let things slide, but the more laid-back someone seemed, the less tolerance they had for their personal boundaries being crossed. Look — didn't she chew Barbatos out mercilessly the morning after they slept together when she found Barbatos had disappeared? A wise man never approaches a woman when she's angry.
Brother Beleth's expression was colored with despair. Abandoned by both his younger brother and his lord. There seemed to be no hope.
'Um, Laura~.'
If only there hadn't been a unique angel in the Demon Lord's army.
'Yes, Big Sister Sitri. Go ahead.'
'That old man Beleth is definitely unlucky, but he still can't handle Agares alone. You'd just be wasting a valuable asset. Cut him some slack.'
Sitri clasped her hands together and gave a cute wink.
The Demon Lords could only be stunned. Sitri was a hardliner of the Mountain Faction, and Beleth was a hardliner of the Plains Faction. The two had clashed on every occasion. If you had to pick the one person here who would absolutely never support Beleth, it would undoubtedly be Sitri.
And yet, Sitri set aside personal feelings. She spoke purely for the sake of the entire allied force.
'...Big Sister Sitri is right.'
Laura spoke as if sighing. With Sitri of all people stepping up like that, even Laura couldn't insist on personal feelings.
'Demon Lord Agares is a formidable opponent. General Beleth is also strong, but facing her alone is an overreach. We'll discuss how to deal with Agares again later.'
'Th-thank you. Deputy Commander.'
Brother Beleth jumped to his feet and bowed to Laura. He'd been saved from death. That feeling radiated from his entire body. Laura accepted the apology coolly.
'You don't need to thank me. You should know well enough which direction to turn your head.'
'...'
'This concludes today's meeting. Be mindful of enemy movements. That is all.'
Laura stood up. At the same time, the Demon Lords seated at the tables rose. As Laura strode out of the tent with a flutter of her cape, the Demon Lords saw her off with a military salute. In that moment, the Deputy Commander's authority had been firmly reestablished.
'Ahem, ahem. Um. Sitri.'
Brother Beleth cautiously approached Sitri. Sitri tilted her head.
'What is it, string bean boar?'
'...Thanks for earlier. For helping me.'
Sitri furrowed her brow.
'Don't get the wrong idea. I didn't say that to help you. I was just acting like a total idiot from start to finish so nobody would call me stupid.'
'W-what did you say?'
'It's not like you could do anything anyway. One swing of Agares's halberd and you'd crack and go tumbling like a dog. Last time you charged at Agares all bravely, didn't she take your right arm off? That's about the level of a string bean boar, obviously.'
Sitri stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry. A vein began to bulge on Brother Beleth's forehead.
'It wasn't one swing... I lasted twenty exchanges.'
'Right. The Demon Lords who'll face Agares are already decided. You, me, and maybe a few others. If you can last twenty exchanges, it makes things easier for me. That's why I asked him to go easy on you. Don't flatter yourself, you impotent bastard.'
Sitri cackled with laughter and strode out of the tent. The Mountain Faction Demon Lords followed her, stifling their laughter.
Brother Beleth hung his head low. His shoulders were trembling noticeably. I quickly buried myself among the other Demon Lords and slipped out of the tent. Sure enough, Brother Beleth's roar came from behind me.
'GRAAAAH! Someday I'll cut you to pieces, you whore!'
Those were the major events over the past two weeks, one might say.
Laura located the supply depots and reorganized the internals. In other words, she clarified the allied force's operational objectives and consolidated the internal power needed to achieve them.
The outside and the inside. If either one collapsed, victory in war would be impossible. In that sense, the past two weeks couldn't have been meaningless for Laura.
'About Brother Beleth... wasn't I a bit excessively cruel?'
'It was a necessary measure. I have no room for fools who defy command — regardless of how powerful a soldier they may be.'
Laura spoke coldly.
'Barbatos, Paimon, and Marbas support me, but the other Demon Lords don't. They harbor doubts about my command. Would they take orders from a human girl? That's likely how they feel inside.'
'Well. Can't deny that.'
I gave a wry smile.
The Demon Lords were all bundles of pride. Even though the faction leaders had agreed, they wouldn't easily accept orders from a human girl. Demonkin and humankind had been locked in cycles of killing for thousands of years. The rift between the races ran deeper than one might think...
'It's not hard to understand. But war doesn't require understanding.'
Laura fixed her blue eyes on the horizon ahead.
'What's needed is results. Kill more, kill more efficiently, kill more ruthlessly. Any risk factor that interferes with the killing must be uprooted in advance.'
'So you deliberately set off Brother Beleth about halfway.'
'Yes.'
Laura had intentionally refrained from explaining the operation to the generals. Why did they stay quiet when their supply lines were raided? Why prepare for a long war when a short decisive battle was needed? Why build a fortress while simultaneously constructing rafts?
The generals couldn't understand. They must have been frustrated. Brother Beleth, with his volcanic temper, had been the first to explode. This was by no means a spontaneous act of defiance. Laura had deliberately provoked it.
'How ruthless, Laura. Since when did you become so adept at such vicious scheming?'
'The lord I serve happens to be an expert in this area. Just watching from the side, I picked it up naturally. Truly a magnificently ruthless lord.'
Oh dear — she doesn't lose in verbal sparring either. How bitter.
The day I'd surpass my retainer would never come again. That girl — the one who, on the night that changed our fates, had been baited by my casual provocation into nearly biting off her tongue — was gone forever. Now, standing beside me was only a commander who commanded an army of fifty thousand at the age of twenty.
Just then, something clasped my right hand tightly. Looking down, it was Laura's left hand.
'I'm not remarkable.'
Laura continued gazing forward as she spoke.
'I was born into a ducal house and spent fifteen years locked in a small room. The only thing permitted to me was a prison called a library. In my head, I debated philosophy and history, comforting myself that this was the only world permitted to me.'
The night sky suddenly brightened. The mages of Bretagne had launched spheres of light into the air. Presumably to illuminate the battlefield. They lit up the soldiers of Bretagne charging toward our lines, and the knights spread wide as waves.
'When I first left the estate, I was already a sex slave. Isn't that ridiculous? While I was a noble, I was confined to the estate. Just when I thought I'd finally be free, I became a slave instead. That was simply my fate. Freedom was never something I was permitted to have.'
For Bretagne! Long live Her Majesty the Queen!
The soldiers' war cries echoed. The thundering of hooves shook the earth in every direction. Knights began their charge with abnormally long lances. Against them, the legion commanders gave calm orders. Orcs hurled their long spears.
'Do you know? The moment I met my lord, my world finally blossomed.'
Long spears pierced through knights' bodies. Human bodies bent like sheets of paper and fell wretchedly to the ground. The hooves of warhorses behind mercilessly trampled the bodies left on the ground. The knights pressed on with their charge, heedless of their comrades' deaths.
'No matter what the world calls my lord — a vicious clown, an insolent cur, trash, whatever name you use — my lord is and will remain my lord for eternity.'
'...'
'Until this life reaches its end. My honor is solely my lord's honor, and everything I have accomplished is nothing more than what my lord has accomplished.'
I didn't answer. Instead, I gripped her left hand a little tighter.
I gazed out at the distant battlefield.
'Laura, I want victory.'
'If my lord desires it, I will bring a hundred victories.'
She answered immediately.
'I want to see Queen Henrietta in despair.'
'The Black Lily will be torn to shreds, leaving not even a trace before she perishes.'
'I want Agares dead.'
'Hmm — I'd like her skull as a gift for me.'
A puff of laughter escaped my lips. It struck me anew just how absurd a retainer I'd acquired. Truly a woman who played by unfair rules.
The two armies clashed. Lances and long spears crossed.
The knights' charge proved less effective than expected. Our forces had dug trenches and were defending from within them. Like a hedgehog, long spears protruded beyond the trench edges, and the knights — already struggling to get proper angles — couldn't exert their full strength.
It was Vassago who had dug the trenches at the crossing point.
During the two weeks of standoff, Vassago had used the Elemental King to secretly dig the trenches. The former third-ranked Demon Lord who commanded the Elemental King had growled about being reduced to mere digging.
But that old codger — once you gave him something to do, he'd surprisingly follow through. He grumbled, but he got his job done. He must have understood just how precarious his position was. Adorable, isn't it? This is why a person needs to know their place.
The knights attempted their charge three times or so. They wasted their lances with nothing to show for it.
Soldiers fell from their mounts in droves, pierced by the orcs' javelins. The combination of trenches and javelins was almost perfectly shutting down the mass charge.
Queen Henrietta must have been growing anxious. Even now, our forces were crossing the river using rafts and pontoon bridges. If the crossing was completed as is, the enemy would suddenly find themselves chasing after nothing. She would want to prevent that situation at any cost.
And Queen Henrietta truly held a desperate card up her sleeve.
'She's coming.'
'I can see her too.'
Despite it being the dead of night, a brilliantly blazing crimson aura. Riding a massive wolf, halberd in hand, a one-woman army against ten thousand — a mounted warrior in perfect unity with her beast —.
Demon Lord Agares was approaching.