A banquet of Demon Lords.
To make my way to the event, I passed through the forest with
We were riding on Veldora, zooming along, so the travel time wasn't all that long.
When I caught sight of the wetlands below us, I was genuinely impressed by the speed.
After all, it would normally take two to three days to reach the wetlands from the edge of the forest. From when we departed, it had only been about an hour, I figured.
Veldora had complained about having to grow to his proper size, saying it was a hassle, but I'd made him bear with it since
Actually, now that I think about it— "Ramiris, were you actually planning to walk to the venue?"
I asked.
There was no way she'd make it in time, no matter how you looked at it.
Ramiris's response was: "Huh? Nah, I just kinda wander along casually, and then someone always comes to pick me up!"
It was an oddly convincing answer.
This girl was always getting lost, so it had become an unspoken agreement that someone would come to fetch her.
Someone with spatial transfer abilities would be dispatched, presumably.
So then, where exactly were we headed right now?
A bad feeling crept over me, so I asked Ramiris.
"Huh? How would I know something like that?!"
I'm gonna smack you! You're the one guiding us here! I almost shouted it out loud but gave up.
That was just how she was.
So there was no real need to force ourselves to fly there. With that in mind, we descended to the ground and decided to take our time, enjoying the scenery along the way.
We walked at a leisurely pace, following the road.
Beyond the Great Forest of Jura, this was already demonic territory.
That said, it wasn't as if things were drastically different.
The concentration of Magicules was higher compared to areas with human villages and towns, but it wasn't uninhabitable.
The rocks along the roadside hadn't turned into Magic Ore, which pretty much confirmed that.
As for naturally spawning monsters, there probably weren't that many, were there?
When I asked, Veldora explained: "Oh, even in what you'd call monster territory, as long as it's not a Demon Lord's dwelling or directly governed domain, ordinary humans can live there without any problems. As long as the regulated tax to the ruling Demon Lord is paid, their safety would be guaranteed by the Demon Lords."
Oh, is that so. As expected of the Master — so knowledgeable! That was what Ramiris said, but I ignored her.
Why don't you know this stuff yourself! If I pointed out every little thing like that, I'd never hear the end of it.
"However, there were supposed to be Demon Lords with unclaimed territory as well. Those I've actually fought against were the Giant race, the Vampire race, and... the Demon race, I think. The ones I've fought directly as Demon Lords were
Dagruel and I had a one-on-one — that was a fun one.
As for Luminus, that家伙 turned the entire Vampire kingdom to ash, and she flew into a rage and came straight for me, so I had to retreat. What a guy who couldn't take a joke. And ever since then, even I don't know where Luminus's territory is.
There was also the king of the Demons.
I've had skirmishes with groups of Demons on several occasions, but I've never fought the king.
His fortress is on the continent of eternal permafrost, but it's cold out there. Nobody lives there.
It'd be boring to go, so I never did. And besides..."
There, Veldora trailed off vaguely.
"Well, there's no need to go to someplace with nothing there! Qua ha ha ha ha!"
He laughed it off, trying to change the subject.
But still, it seemed this old man had already managed to anger at least one Demon Lord.
If your entire country got turned to ash, you'd be furious too, of course.
And the Giant race Demon Lord who went toe-to-toe with Veldora sounded like bad news as well.
Something seemed to be going on with the Ice Continent, but there was certainly no need to go out of one's way there, and nothing to think about.
Still, these Demon Lords seemed to have more power than I'd expected.
If I kept using the kids as my baseline, I'd be in for a rude awakening.
I should probably use Milim as the standard instead.
Even in my current evolved form, I wasn't sure I could win against Milim in a fight.
We'd sparred a few times, but she hadn't been serious at all back then, and I simply didn't have enough data.
I could probably beat her in the state she was in when we sparred, but I had no idea how much she'd been holding back, so it would be best not to get ahead of myself.
Still, I couldn't believe Milim had agreed to my subjugation.
There was definitely something behind it, but negotiating with her or turning her to our side through diplomacy — that all seemed completely out of reach...
The most plausible explanation was that there was some reason rooted in Milim's own will.
Well, there was no point dwelling on it now.
I'd judge the situation when we met.
With that, I continued along the road while listening to Veldora's stories, heading in a vaguely forward direction.
If Ramiris's words were to be trusted, we should eventually receive some kind of contact from a Demon Lord's envoy.
Just like that, enjoying the peaceful scenery as we strolled along, I spotted two men approaching from up ahead.
They appeared to be heading straight toward us.
One was a tall, burly man with brown hair, and the other was a slender, green-haired pretty boy.
Were they here to greet us? As I watched, thinking as much— "Yo! Ramiris, how've you been?"
"Hoh! So it really is Veldora! You've been well?
That Demon Aura is incomparably weaker than what I remember. Your aura felt similar to Veldora's, but I thought you might be someone else!"
That was how they addressed us.
"Oh, it's
"Oh, Dagruel! I was just talking about you a moment ago."
I wasn't sure if they were here to escort us, but they were clearly acquaintances.
We exchanged greetings for a bit.
When I introduced myself— "Huh, so you're the star of the show this time? So, why are you being targeted?"
"Ah, nice to meet you. I've never heard of a slime rising all the way to Demon Lord."
They were surprised, naturally.
As for why I was being targeted... that was the big mystery.
"Yeah, I have no idea..."
With that, I gave them a condensed explanation of everything that had happened so far.
At the same time, I had them tell me about their own past encounters with Ramiris and Veldora.
They were a pretty easygoing pair. That said, they weren't showing their full strength at all.
As expected of people who held the title of Demon Lord.
Based on what I'd gathered from our conversation, the conclusion was...
I couldn't let my guard down, but it didn't seem like the Demon Lords were nearly as unified in their will as I'd feared.
Case in point, these two couldn't believe that
I was supposedly the one who killed Carrion, but they were satisfied with Gruus's testimony that it wasn't true.
However, if I hadn't been able to prove that, the subjugation motion might have passed by majority vote.
The tricky part was this: if you declared yourself a Demon Lord and then defeated someone who challenged you, that was fine. But if you assassinated someone and then declared yourself a Demon Lord afterward, that was unacceptable.
This policy was apparently based on the principle that a Demon Lord must be strong!
So this time, since the story was that I had assassinated Carrion, the Banquet of Demon Lords had been activated, and the subjugation resolution would have undoubtedly been approved.
Five out of the nine remaining Demon Lords — excluding Carrion — would have needed to raise objections, so it almost certainly wouldn't have been overturned.
It was the right call to announce my participation after all.
Which meant I had been neatly trapped in this whole affair, but...
A slow anger began to well up inside me.
I'd never met the culprit, but it was
The problem was Milim, who apparently sympathized with him. If I could resolve that, the Demon Lords' anger wouldn't be directed at me.
Picking fights with all the Demon Lords was practically suicide.
The two in front of me had unfathomable depths to their power, and there was no point starting unnecessary conflict.
If they came at me first, that would be a different story.
But as it turned out, things could be resolved simply by talking.
These two believed my story right away.
Maybe they were just simple-minded, though.
Veldora told Dagruel that he was in the middle of training to suppress his Demon Aura.
Apparently, he'd encountered a scripture that had prompted a change in perspective, and he'd been working on stopping his aura from leaking out normally.
His plan was to unleash it all at once when an opponent underestimated him and scare them witless.
For the townspeople, this actually made life more comfortable, so I supposed it was a good thing in its own way — but the reasoning was a bit odd.
It was somewhat unsettling knowing exactly which manga had given him this idea.
So this was what they called "manga brain"...
Dagruel was deeply impressed by this advice and nodded thoughtfully. "I see!"
That said, as a member of the Giant race, he apparently tended to lose control of his power when enraged, so he didn't normally radiate aura like crazy.
In fact, right now he was only emitting about the same level as an ordinary person.
I wasn't sure Veldora's advice would actually help him— "So, by controlling my anger, I gain even greater power!"
Somehow, a conversation I really didn't want to hear reached my ears.
Hey, hey, hey!
A Demon Lord whose fury was literally called "the wrath of the earth" — there was no way he could control that enormous reservoir of anger energy!
On top of that, the last thing I wanted was for a Demon Lord who could go one-on-one with Veldora to get any stronger.
Apparently, he grew massive when enraged.
Right now he was already over two meters tall, but in a berserk state he apparently grew to five times that.
A twelve-meter giant rampaging around — what a colossal nuisance of a Demon Lord.
When I'd been introduced to him earlier, I'd sincerely thought it would be better if someone like that never came to town.
It seemed the conversation had moved on to Dagruel aiming to master anger control, but that was none of my business.
As long as he didn't come complaining to me if he failed and ended up rampaging through his own country, I didn't care.
As for the other Demon Lord, Dino...
He was chatting with Ramiris in a friendly manner.
They seemed to be on good terms, and the conversation was flowing well.
Apparently, Dino had been in Ramiris's care a long time ago, and he treated her with surprising courtesy.
"Hey, Ramiris. You've shrunk since last time, haven't you?"
"Can't be helped! I've only been reincarnated for less than fifty years!"
"That's inconvenient. Your memories carry over, right?"
"My memories do, yeah. But my spirit degenerates along with the body. Well, I'm the strongest type, so maybe this handicap is necessary to keep things balanced!"
"Keep telling yourself that. If you said that in front of Guy, you'd get plucked bald."
"Bah! Are you stupid?! I know better than to say that to Guy's face! I'm not going to claim I could one-shot Guy or anything!"
Over here, they were having just as lively a conversation.
Hearing the name "Guy" had put Ramiris in a panic. If even that loudmouth had someone who scared her, Guy must be seriously dangerous.
I quietly made a note in my mental notebook: "Guy = dangerous."
Small, diligent efforts like this were how you avoided danger. An idiot couldn't do this.
The conversation shifted to their subordinates.
Ramiris was showing off Beretta nonstop.
"This is how I can get back at every Demon Lord who ever called me a shrimp or a loner! You'd better realize you're powerless in front of Beretta too!"
"Huh? Is it okay if I break this thing?"
"Excuse me?! Of course not!
If you break it, I'm telling Guy, and he'll deal out the iron-fist punishment!"
"Also, wait — isn't this thing seriously insane? Looking closer, it's actually insane!"
Up until that point, Dino had been half-asleep with his eyes narrowed, but now they were wide open.
Flattered by his reaction, Ramiris puffed out her flat chest — well, she didn't really have one — and boasted: "Right? Right, right? Well, with this, my influence is going to grow even more."
I was the one who made that, you know. Oh well.
It was unclear whether Beretta was tired of this, but he maintained his silence.
After some time had passed, I decided to voice a question that had been nagging me.
"So, where exactly are we headed?
We were just wandering along the road, but do you two actually know where the venue is? Also, didn't either of you bring any attendants?"
From the looks of it, they'd just been casually strolling on their own.
At my question, the two exchanged glances and burst out laughing simultaneously.
According to them, they'd set out early to avoid oversleeping. Then they'd spotted us, and the plan became to join up with us.
It seemed neither of them knew the way to the venue either.
But they were just being nonchalant about it.
"Sooner or later, someone will come to guide us."
Since I was getting tired of walking anyway, we decided to take a tea break.
I pulled out a table set and a mat from my stomach storage and set things up.
In hindsight, we could have just waited in town since someone was coming to pick us up.
But well, meeting two Demon Lords had to count for something.
I spread out the bento that
She'd made a generous amount, so two extra people weren't a problem.
The taste, meanwhile, earned rave reviews.
As expected of Shuna.
Incidentally, I had not let Shion do any cooking.
The flavor was guaranteed, sure, but flavor alone wasn't enough.
She apparently had the Unique Skill "Chef," but since she lacked the basics, it was a wasted talent.
Enjoying tea after the meal, I asked: "So, do the attendants know where they're going?"
The attendants, it turned out, were three of Dagruel's sons, a general, and a warrior chief — five in total.
The general and warrior chief had attended several times before, so they'd be fine.
The sons were attending for the first time this time. Dagruel said they'd probably cause trouble.
I wondered if that would be alright, but it was someone else's problem, so I kept my mouth shut.
Dino, it seemed, had no attendants at all.
Apparently, some Demon Lords traveled without attendants. Milim had been the same way, so it made sense.
Incidentally, there was a reason for the specific number of allowed attendants.
Apparently, in the past, a newly appointed Demon Lord had brought a hundred elite soldiers to show off his power, and...
They'd come into contact with the despairing aura of a Demon Lord whose country had just been burned to the ground, and every last one of them was wiped out.
So a rule had been established: if you brought anyone, they had to be at least High-ranking Demon-class.
According to that now-fallen Demon Lord, the elites he'd brought were indeed High-ranking Demon-class, but nobody cared about that, and he was ignored.
In any case, from then on, the number limit had been imposed as a way to prevent foolish posturing in advance.
It was said to be common among new Demon Lords who lacked confidence.
As we were having this conversation, I suddenly sensed a distortion in space.
It looked like our escort had arrived.
A sinister-looking gate materialized before us.
A beautiful woman clad in black — underworld attire — stepped through the gate and bowed.
"I have come to escort you, Lady Ramiris.
If it please you, your companions are welcome to join as well."
With that single statement, she stepped aside and waited by the gate.
She was thoroughly suppressing herself. The level of discipline was remarkable — clearly top-notch professional service.
And one more thing.
This maid exuded a level of Intimidation comparable to the Demon Peer
She was obviously a dangerous opponent.
"Oh, it's
"I... for someone of my station to worry about my Master would be presumptuous beyond measure..."
"Oh, right. You never change, do you? Oh well."
With that, she fluttered her way toward the gate.
We followed behind her. If we got left behind here, we might never find the venue.
Still, this maid was apparently another subordinate of this Guy fellow.
It seemed Guy was also a Demon Lord, and if at all possible, it would be best not to antagonize him.
Well, it depended on the situation.
It was time to steel my resolve.
What awaited us beyond were the rulers of this world.
But there was nothing to fear.
Because I, too, had become one of the strongest in this world.
I steeled myself and passed through the gate.