By the time I returned through teleportation, the battle's outcome had already been decided.
The human race's army, which had lost the Hero and his companions, had lost all momentum.
Opposing them was the Tenth Army — the fresh, unscathed force that had been held in reserve behind the Seventh Army.
Moreover, every member of the Tenth Army was an elite I had personally trained.
With the Hero gone and morale plummeting, the human race's army had no power to stop the Tenth Army.
"Welcome back."
As expected of a young nobleman from a distinguished family — well, he still is one, of course.
Leading troops was second nature to him.
It's no wonder he was Fermina's fiancé.
Still, his training period had been considerably shorter than Fermina's, so his Status had fallen quite a bit behind.
Even so, he was roughly on par with the average soldiers of the Tenth Army, which just goes to show how much of a boost vampirism provides, along with his natural talent.
Though I suppose the other vampire senior was quite a bit further ahead, so Wald-kun was going to have his work cut out for him.
Checking on the other battlefields through my split bodies, I saw that the Second Army's position had been overrun by apes, the Third Army had abandoned their fortress and begun retreating, and the Fourth Army was falling back under Mera's orders.
The Fifth Army also appeared to have started their retreat.
The Sixth Army seemed to have received withdrawal orders from their vice-commander in place of the dead Shota.
The Eighth Army — Oni-kun had gone too far and annihilated them completely.
The First Army had collapsed the enemy's fortress entirely, courtesy of the Queen Taratect I had summoned.
It was fair to say that every battlefield was reaching its conclusion.
Here as well, the close-quarters combat was decided.
The Seventh Army, which the Hero had run roughshod over, regrouped now that their adversary was gone and launched a counterattack.
Working in tandem with the Tenth Army, they had almost completely mopped up the human race's forces that had pushed outside the fortress.
As for the ones hunkering down inside, without their Hero, they wouldn't hold out for long.
Not in terms of military strength, and not in terms of morale.
In the end, the Demon race had won in four locations.
The Human race had won in three.
And one was a draw, with both sides annihilated.
Hearing that, it sounded like it had been a close affair overall, but the total damage was heavier on the Human race's side.
Even in their victories, they had taken considerable losses.
That said, given the Demon race's smaller population, their own casualties couldn't be dismissed either.
Excluding irregulars like myself and Oni-kun, both sides had taken roughly comparable damage.
That, in and of itself, had been part of the plan.
The Second Army's "Boob Star Alien" had achieved a complete victory with an unexpected maneuver, but it wasn't entirely unforeseeable.
The real deviation from the plan was having to kill
We were fighting a war, so the possibility of Agner dying in battle wasn't something we hadn't considered.
But I never thought I'd have to personally put her to use and discard her like that.
This meant I'd need to accelerate the plan.
Originally, I had intended to have Agner and Balt together lead the Demon race going forward, but now that one half of that pairing was gone, reorganizing the Demon race would take considerable time.
Rebuilding the battered armies would also take time.
In a perfect world, I would have wanted to complete our defensive formations — wary of a human counterattack — before assaulting the
Perhaps I should accept that I'd have to reorganize just enough forces for the invasion of the Elf Village, and tolerate some shortcomings in our defensive posture.
I also had to consider how to deal with Yamada-kun, who was presumably the new Hero.
Under no circumstances could I allow him to encounter the Demon King.
I'd have Natsume-kun and my little sister carry out operations in parallel with the effort to crush
Natsume-kun had acquired the Sloth and Greed skills — two of the Seven Deadly Sins.
From there, he was acting on his own to secretly build up his power.
If I gripped the reins just a little in a direction favorable to my plans, he'd move along nicely.
I'd put my little sister in charge of holding those reins.
I also needed to pay a visit to the Divine Word Faith.
I'd have to explain the situation regarding the new Hero, and it was possible they'd cooperate once they understood.
Even setting that aside, I had promised them that once this war was over, I would march on the Elf Village. I'd need to coordinate the details.
When it came to dispatching a Demon race army into human territory to attack the Elf Village, the cooperation of the Divine Word Faith was absolutely indispensable.
If I really wanted to, I could teleport them there myself, but that would consume an enormous amount of energy. So if possible, I'd rather not.
Oh, speaking of Elves...
I also needed to analyze the cyborg Potimas body that the little vampire girl and Fermina had recovered.
Machines weren't exactly my specialty, but it was built using super-science that incorporated magical arts, wasn't it?
If that was the case, I should be able to analyze it at least to some extent.
By examining what magical arts had been applied, I could get a sense of how dangerous of an artifact it was.
The fight against the little vampire girl had already given me a rough idea of the threat level.
The problem was that I had no way of estimating how many of these super-science weapons the Elves possessed.
That was something I'd only find out by actually clashing with them.
Well, with the Demon King there and me joining the fight, we shouldn't lose regardless.
Then there was the matter of reviewing the System.
I hadn't anticipated the Goddess intervening.
Going forward, as I worked to dismantle the System, the Goddess might interfere again and throw a wrench into my plans.
To prevent that, I'd need to put some kind of countermeasure in place.
Unfortunately, I still hadn't come up with a concrete strategy.
Could I even stop the Goddess — the core of the System — from intervening?
But I had no choice but to try.
Damn it.
She really did a number on me.
Ugh, there's so much to do.
Way too much!
Why does it have to be this busy?
And it's all that damn Goddess's fault!
I'd never say that in front of the Demon King or Black, though.
Sigh — without some kind of reward, there's no way I'm getting through this.
Maybe I'll sweet-talk the Demon King into giving me some treats later.
For now, I'll hand off the fortress capture entirely to Wald-kun.
Yeah, let's do that.