The card she played was one I hadn't expected.
"There are several Goblin settlements near our Demon Lord's Castle. We need to make use of them."
"You mean use the Goblin settlements as reinforcements?"
I asked, somewhat taken aback. This time, I was genuinely surprised. It was the first time since our conversation started that Laura had struck a point my thinking hadn't reached.
There were indeed Goblin settlements nearby. Before I left for my vacation in Niflheim, I had gone around to the human villages, worried that an adventuring party might invade while I was away. The bait I'd dangled to win them over was the promise that "Goblins would no longer attack the village."
I furrowed my brow.
"Laura. Mobilizing untamed monsters as a fighting force is practically impossible. It's true that they generally have favorable feelings toward me, since I am the Demon Lord. But whether they'd lay down their lives for me the way the monsters under my command do — that, I seriously doubt."
"Militia members don't lay down their lives for the adventuring party either, do they?"
"Hmm."
The reason the militia members had joined the adventuring party wasn't some deep-seated loyalty. They were chasing their own self-interest. And if Goblins were given similar incentives, they too would participate in battle — that was Laura's argument.
"You, my Lord, prohibited the Goblin settlements from hunting humans. It was to win the human villages over to our side. So then, doesn't a simple logic follow? The human villages that have now turned against us can be hunted to one's heart's content."
"Hunting and war are two entirely different matters. Just because hunting is permitted doesn't mean we can force the Goblins to go to war."
Laura shook her head.
"Your premise is flawed."
"My premise?"
I asked, intrigued.
"What premise is flawed?"
"Why do you assume we need to force monsters into war, my Lord? This is but a humble word of advice from this girl. You are far too kind to monsters. Just now, you instinctively assumed that monsters were being pushed into a fight. What a terrifying misconception that is."
Laura pointed straight at a fairy sitting on my shoulder.
"You must not think of it wrongly! Monsters are not your pets, my Lord! Monsters, just like humans, are inherently fierce beasts — warriors who will leap onto the battlefield at any moment if it serves their own interests."
Her rebuke drilled straight into my skull.
Suddenly, the advice Lapis had once given me at the old slave auction house came to mind. I had been furious watching humans push the demi-humans around however they pleased. That was when Lapis had said:
"Excessively empathizing is unwise. The sort of understanding shared between gossiping women on the street, the rulings handed down by judges in a courtroom — none of that befits a sovereign."
"A sovereign must understand, but then he must judge."
I had thought I fully absorbed those words. Yet apparently the habit of unconditionally treating monsters as my own side still lingered?
"I can promise you this: if presented with the right incentive, the goblins will voluntarily join the war of their own accord — even if we try to hold them back. My Lord, please harden your heart. Whether human or monster, on the game board called war, they are nothing more than a single piece."
I acknowledged that Laura's words were a hundred times right.
Somewhere in a corner of my heart, I had still been looking at monsters through a soft gaze. I had only wanted to pit the villages against each other and let the seventy-man adventuring parties destroy themselves. I had never once considered the plan of using monsters.
Yet rather than shame, what I felt was pleasure.
"Compensating for the blind spots the ruler overlooks — that, too, is the role of a strategist."
I had never intended to shoulder everything myself. If I had, there would have been no reason to recruit Laura in the first place. I was the kind of person who carried far more anxiety than self-confidence. And now Laura was filling that very anxiety.
"My Lord."
Laura's green eyes locked straight onto mine. She was pressing me for an answer.
"...Hypothetically speaking, if we were to use the goblin tribe — what benefit would move them?"
"That too is simple."
Laura spoke without a single second of hesitation.
"Whether human or monster, other people's things always look bigger than your own."
A forest grown dense and wild without order. Parsi, the young village chief, pushed through the undergrowth with his cane, hooking aside clumps of vegetation. Every time a twig or the sharp tip of a blade of grass scraped his skin, he let out a string of curses.
"Dammit. You damn bug-eaten little bastards!"
He turned toward me. His bangs clung flat against his forehead, stiff with what looked like paste.
"My lord! Please, allow me to ask something."
"You may ask."
"Why me, of all people?"
I spoke as I followed comfortably along the path Parsi had cleared.
"You're the youngest and the strongest. I can't exactly use an old man as my guide, now can I?"
"Well, you could have just picked any hunter from the village..."
"Also, I find you rather likeable."
"Ugh."
Parsi recoiled.
But that was the extent of it. He had nothing else to say, apparently, and took it out on his walking stick, swinging it at random. The man who had no qualms about telling others exactly what he thought would clam up the moment someone was honest with him.
"Cute."
"Cu-cute? Did you just say I was cute?"
Parsi was utterly scandalized. He practically jumped up and down on the spot. His behavior was childish, befitting a hick from the mountains. Which, in turn, made me laugh. When you saw someone who bared themselves without reservation the way Parsi did, you couldn't help but feel fond of them.
"Ah, yes. You may not see it yourself, but you are quite cute."
"Damn it! Not once in her entire life did my mother ever call me cute! Are your eyes bad? If you tell me now that your eyes aren't bad, I'll still firmly believe they are!"
Parsi flinched with a sharp intake of breath.
"Could it be... my lord, you, you have... that kind of preference?"
"What kind of preference?"
"You know, where men are attracted to other men... people like that exist, don't they?"
Good grief.
I looked at Parsi with a look of utter exasperation. He must have felt embarrassed too, because he scratched the back of his head.
"Ahem, ahem. I'm glad that's not the case, then. I was worried for a moment there."
"Even if you were a homosexual, I would not be targeting your backside, so rest easy."
"My backside? What on earth do you mean, backside?"
It seemed this mountain village youth knew only that homosexuality existed but was completely ignorant of how it actually worked.
I grinned.
"Since ancient times, when two men truly, really truly fall in love with each other..."
Driven by an intellectual's sense of mission to educate the uninformed and a charitable concern for this simple mountain boy, I explained the process of how homosexuality worked in painstaking detail. Having once diligently attended a university elective on human sexuality, my explanation was both thorough and meticulous. Truly, there wasn't the slightest hint of personal interest involved. It was purely intellectual duty and compassion—nothing more.
The more my explanation went on, the paler Parsi's face became.
"Th-That can't be!"
He screamed as though he were about to faint. He looked just like a five-year-old boy who had just discovered for the first time in his life that girls don't have a penis.
"So you're saying—you're saying—they stick THAT into THERE!? Is that what you're telling me!?"
"To put it in more proper terms, the anus is..."
"Stop! Stoop!"
Parsi shrieked and clapped his palms over his ears. Judging by his reaction, this guy was a complete virgin. Cocky attitude or not, he hadn't even tasted a woman yet. He looked even cuter now.
"Please, do not use such vulgar language!"
"I don't know from personal experience, but word has it the pleasure is supposedly enormous."
"I refuse to believe it! My common sense—my common sense!"
"Common sense exists to be shattered."
I said coolly.
"Young man, open your eyes to a new world."
"I don't want any such world!"
The pure young man's scream echoed through the green forest. I'd learned through conversation that this towering furball was only sixteen years old. Same age as Laura. He had a startlingly aged face.
The forest was lush with greenery. Rain had fallen a few days ago, and the green had bloomed so vigorously it was almost frightening. There was nowhere moss hadn't taken root, and not a single tree stood uncovered by leaves. As if desperately trying to hold on to summer before it slipped away, the forest clung to its green with even greater tenacity. I had arrived in this world in spring, and now late summer was already drawing to a close.
— Crsh, crsh.
— Crshshsh.
Countless footsteps trailed behind us.
Good grief.
Was he trying to change the subject? Parsi glanced back behind us.
"Never in my life did I think I'd be siding with Goblins."
Around a hundred Goblins.
The main body marched behind us in two columns. The Goblins clutched rather primitive weapons — hand axes and stone-tipped spears. The notable thing was how many slingers there were. They shuffled along swinging their slings, and during the march they'd occasionally pick off a rabbit or a hawk. For reference, the weapon I carried was a crossbow. It was undoubtedly the most advanced weapon in this group.
Earlier, as a joke, I'd said,
"How are they even supposed to fight with those?"
When I said that, Parsi shot back with a frown,
"What do you mean? I don't mind the other Goblins, but I'd rather not mess with those sling-wielding ones."
"How strong can a rock really be?"
"Well now, my lord, you apparently don't know the taste of stones. The most terrifying thing in this world is a rock. Take one hit from those, and no matter how tough you are, you won't be going anywhere but the afterlife."
Is that so? I thought. Honestly, it was hard to imagine sling attacks being that powerful, but Parsi spoke with such conviction that I just let it go. If Parsi's boast was true, having Goblin slingers could only be an advantage in battle — never a disadvantage — so I sincerely hoped they'd fight their hearts out.
Regardless of their state of readiness, the march of over a hundred Goblins was a splendid sight.
"To think I'd be on the same side as monsters — it's a strange feeling."
"Are you scared?"
"Not so much scared as unsettled."
Parsi twisted his mouth in dissatisfaction.
"Who would believe that humans and monsters are fighting on the same side? They'd tell you to drop that absurd fantasy and move on. Honestly, I still can't believe it myself."
Fantasy.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead. There are two kinds of people in this world who seriously discuss fantasies. One is a revolutionary, and the other is a fool. Until now, I'd met both types. Jack was the latter. He was dead. As for the former—
"Someone's coming."
Parsi spoke, pointing behind me. I turned around to see Raura galloping toward us on a donkey. She passed right through the Goblin formation and arrived at my side in no time.
Raura dismounted elegantly before me.
"My lord."
Even to a layman like me, her horsemanship seemed to have reached a masterful level. The problem was that her mount was woefully lacking compared to her skill. A great calligrapher does not choose their brush, but a donkey was pushing it.
Raura paid no mind to such things and prostrated herself at my feet. The fairies that had been fluttering around her drifted over to me.
"Not a single Goblin tribe member has fallen out of formation thus far."
Raura used formal language. She did so because Parsi was standing nearby. I believed in keeping business and personal matters separate, so although her deferential tone felt a little awkward, I didn't let it show.
"Well done. Parsi, how much farther to the village?"
"Huh? Huh? Oh, not much farther at all."
Parsi, who had been completely lost in Raura's face, snapped back to attention and answered in a hurry. Apparently, having lived in a mountain valley all his life, seeing the beauty of a ducal lady had driven him half mad.
"If, uh, we walk for about one more meal's time, we should reach it."
"Good. Raura. This is to be your last report."
I patted her on the shoulder.
"From now on, you will march by my side."
"Understood."
I ordered the Goblin unit to advance quietly. Just as Parsi had predicted, the forest path soon came to an end.
In the distance, a man saw us and was startled. He looked like a woodcutter. He screamed at the heavens to go away, then promptly fled. He was too far away for us to snipe with crossbows or throwing stones.
"So the element of surprise is gone. Will it be alright?"
"There is no concern."
What could those wretches do even if they prepared now? We continued straight ahead until we reached the front of the village.