The man sat alone, relaxing in an impossibly ornate room. He smiled, which was visible through his mask.
Elegantly, he waved a hand in the air, directing his servants to exit the chamber. They bowed to him, every motion carefully practiced, and left without a word. Just as they did, a jovial-sounding voice resonated from the previously empty sofa against the wall.
“Well, so much for Gelmud, huh? After all the help we gave ’im, he screwed everything up right at the last minute.”
The voice belonged to Laplace, bizarre clothing and eerie-looking mask still intact. The news he brought was grim, but he didn’t sound particularly affected as he walked up to the man.
“Pfft. It is not an issue. He died without breathing a word about our relationship.”
“True ’nough,” Laplace observed as he took a seat across from his conversation partner. “But after all that work setting it up, it’s gotta hurt that it didn’t result in a new demon lord, isn’t it? You wanted a demon lord that’d serve as your faithful servant, rather than having to work as equals with the others. That was the whole point, yeah?”
The man gave Laplace a fatherly nod. “It would be a lot easier,” he observed, “if you were willing to take that role for me.”
“Ooh, no thank you! Can’t say I’m up for taking on that kinda responsibility, no. Those guys’re a buncha monsters! If something went wrong, it’d be my neck on the line. I mean, the last demon lord that was born…”
“Demon Lord Leon. The human—Leon Cromwell.”
“Yeah…”
They could feel the temperature palpably drop around them.
✦ ✦ ✦
The one thing that any would-be demon lord had to bring to the table, above everything else, was strength. Real strength.
Nobody in this world was stupid enough to call themselves demon lords. Anyone who attempted it would attract the ire of the current ones at the top of the food chain and probably not live for much longer. But there were some out there who could rile a demon lord, then actually fend them off in battle. These were also recognized as demon lords for the force they so clearly wielded.
But for the past few centuries, no demon lord had been born with such latent strength. The last one was the former human Leon Cromwell. His almost eerie charm allowed him to attract an army of magic-borns to his side, one after the other, before he declared himself the lord of his little frontier territory.
This enraged one nearby demon lord, known as the Cursed Lord, and he immediately declared war on Leon—only to be beaten back, at great loss of life. Not by Leon’s army, but by Leon himself, acting alone. That was enough to make the “demon lord” title permanent.
Such a debut, based purely on shows of force, was a rarity. In most cases, if you wanted to safely stake your claim to the title, you needed the backup of at least three current lords. That way, if anyone tried fighting the new candidate, they’d have to tangle with his allies at the same time—so the theory went, at least.
Then a demon lord came along who figured he could game the system a little. Instead of engaging in tense negotiations and forming alliances with other demon lords, why not will a demon lord to life who was perfectly willing to do whatever you asked of it? It was a tempting thought, even if it risked the ire of one’s peers.
That was how this plan worked, then—to make the new demon lord birth look as natural as possible, so no one could possibly question its authenticity. Gelmud was key to that, and it was also key to make sure his own ambitions were stoked as much as possible along the way.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Well,” the man said, ignoring the sudden chill in the conversation, “enough of Leon. My real concern is that we have already reached out to two demon lords about this. I am sure they will be very disappointed to hear that the plan failed at this rather late stage.”
The plan was meant to be put into motion a full three hundred years after Veldora’s disappearance, set to unfold carefully over decades. But it was all over now, and the man would be lying if he said it didn’t pain him.
“Okay,” Laplace countered, “but look at these, will you? They’ll show you something pretty crazy.”
He produced a set of four crystal orbs. Three contained the stored visual records of three orc generals, while the other one contained Gelmud’s. Laplace had linked an orb to Gelmud without his knowledge as he handed him copies of the three others.
✦ ✦ ✦
Watching what the orbs contained, the man’s eyebrows arched upward in clear surprise.
The orc general orbs retold all their valiant glories in battle. Each one ended with the sight of the magic-born people who apparently defeated them, showing off overwhelming power as they did. They were ogre mages, a high-level race that the more elderly ogres might evolve into once every few centuries. With their abilities, they held the potential to be just as powerful as orc lords, even. They were fabled to crush the earth, rend the skies apart. And there were three of them recorded on these orbs.
That, and a magical beast the likes of which he had never seen before. It wielded lightning and gale storms with ease, putting it in the upper echelons of the animal kingdom. Perhaps a direwolf that had undergone some manner of untold transmogrification, but it was hard to tell from the visuals alone.
It was certainly well beyond A rank, though, and that meant there were four monsters in this battle that shot right past A and into the stratosphere. Gelmud never had a chance out there.
The real concern, though, was what the fourth and final orb showed. A single human being, standing tall in front of Gelmud. A child, it appeared, wearing a mask. But nothing at all was normal about him. It was more accurately a monster transformed into a person. If not that, a newly born hero.
Both men in the room knew that human summoners and otherworlders could often be gifted with astounding abilities. But a child would be too immature to take full advantage of them—and he or she certainly wouldn’t be participating in a war between magical beasts and creatures. Thus, by the process of elimination, they assumed this was some manner of monster in disguise.
It appeared from the visuals that this child had the four enigmatic creatures under his control. When the situation turned to battle, it was clear Gelmud was far out of his element. The image went black quickly—no doubt when some attack landed a telling blow upon him.
When all the orbs were sifted through, the man leaned forward and let out a long, deep sigh. Gelmud, an A rank, one of the greatest of those born of magic, had been overwhelmed by a child. A child with four upper-level magic-borns of his own. He was still unclear about the ultimate fate of the orc lord, but with this kind of force at play, he doubted there was much hope for him.
This kind of force. A force that could no longer be ignored.
“Pretty crazy, eh?”
“Yes, very interesting,” the man ventured with a smile. “So…what now?”
Laplace took a moment to answer. Two demon lords, just as powerful as he was. And the person he had mentioned the potential birth of a new demon lord, too. There was much to consider.
“Well, keep the ship afloat for now, is what I’d say. If you think you need any help, you’ll get my regular discount, okay? Take care for now, Clayman.”
He disappeared, leaving the man—the demon lord Clayman—alone in the room. He replayed the orbs several times over, thinking quietly.