“There’s no telling whether Wallachia’s talents will extend to the tactical and strategic level, but if the three of us were to go head-to-head with her, she would probably win hands down.”
“You mean she’s stronger than you?! This mad ramen eater?! A girl who wishes three times when she sees a shooting star for extra veggies, extra oil, and extra garlic?!”
“I have a feeling you’re criticizing me, but I will forgive you, since the oil is spreading around in my head, and I can’t understand it!”
The lonely princess reversed the positions of the veggies and the noodles in her ramen bowl, capturing the splashed soup with the tip of her chopsticks and continuing to eat without getting a single stain on her fluffy pajamas.
“But in a group battle, there’s a chance that Heine might win,” Sylphiel noted. “If anything went, then I might be able to defeat her. It would be an issue of the power balance, although I could never match Wallachia in terms of basic strength.”
Riina’s expression darkened with anxiety as she listened to Sylphiel’s observations.
“B-but, Luri… Wallachia is certainly strong, but…isn’t Heine stronger from a tactics standpoint…?”
“……”
“Look at Hizumi. You can read her face. She’s thinking that there’s no way we can make Wallachia our minister of agriculture. Can’t blame her, since our pantries would be filled with homemade noodles.”
“I’m good at manipulating lives. I’m the Dark Lord of Death, so leave the matter of life and death to me. Hmph,” Heine said with a blank expression on her face, and she flashed a victory sign.
“Okay, then, if there are no objections, it’s decided.”
Thus, the six roles were established.
The discussion then turned to the class system of the demonic religion.
“Oh, hey, the thing about that Black Cat… Wasn’t it a class system based on familiar magic? I think there were three classes: Evil Spirits, Solitary Crows, and Black Cats, right? Hizumi, weren’t you three Black Cats?”
The three girls nodded, and Hizumi said, “To be honest, I don’t think we need this class system in our Sacred Yuri Empire. It’s pointless to rank the six of us. I think we can do without it for the time being.”
“I agree. Let’s get rid of all the needless details.”
Ruby and everyone else agreed, and the Alsuhariya sect temporarily abolished the class system.
The discussion promptly proceeded to our future policy.
“W-well, anyway, as the high priest says… We’ve dismantled the buildings we built, returned the units to their initial magic powers, and released the land we occupied… Hee-hee-hee… But the money and the magic we gained from all that has come back at once…so the national treasury is in a heck of a state…”
The screen came flying at me.
Sh-she was right. I had hoped to start fresh from zero, but I didn’t expect there to be so many zeros in our figures.
“What are we going to do with all this money?” Hizumi asked me, and I shared my thoughts.
“Choosing a path with shortsighted thinking and being flashy with large-scale moves would end in disaster. History has taught us that amateurs who don’t know how to spend money will go to hell when those funds aren’t used wisely. Standing out too much might attract the attention of other demons who will be awakened and attack us from multiple directions. A worst-case scenario is that the demon god will awaken, then it will be game over for us.”
Conditions did, in fact, exist in ESCO for the demon god to awaken.
The criteria were diverse, but one thing was clear: The demon god would not overlook any good deed that might change the world.
For example, if I tried to use this money to achieve world peace…? There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the demon god would rise and annihilate us.
“Oh, brother, you are so right.”
Alsuhariya made a rare appearance and yawned as she crossed her legs and floated in the air.
“I thought I’d warn you, since you’re such a rare idiot. Do not try to rescue everything, even those that are beyond your reach. That type of thing is what’s called being stupid, and it’s the path of destruction that fools who were called heroes followed in the past. If you don’t want the masses to manipulate you to suit their needs and die pathetically, you should at least differentiate between what you can and can’t rescue.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that, jerk. Go to hell!”
“Hah. I’m not too sure about that.”
Alsuhariya laughed wryly and disappeared, and once again, I made my intentions clear to the girls at our meeting.
“We’ll use the money and magic to run our state in the future. However, we will use whatever we can, and only to the scope of things that are within my reach.”
Within my reach. In other words, I would use our resources only to achieve a happy ending for a wonderful world with blooming yuri girls at the hands of Sakura Tsukiori.
Anything more would be an abuse of power. At least, that’s what I thought, and as Alsuhariya said, I must not confuse courage with foolishness.
For now, anyway.
“Good. I was worried for a minute there about whether you might want to do something impossible like awaken the other demons and launch a full-scale attack to defeat them or save all the yuri girls in the world.”
Hizumi frowned and shook her head when I fell silent.
“Seriously… Don’t even think about it…”
“Just kidding. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. We’ll continue to run this country at a leisurely pace until the time comes to do otherwise. The time will probably come when we’ll need all our strength.”
I grinned.
“Though that might happen sooner than we think.”
“…What do you mean?”
I started to explain—and Hizumi sighed, then massaged her brows.