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–––Ditoner’s viewpoint

“Wh-what?!”

An uncomfortable feeling assaulted my body as a loud explosion shook the city and woke me up. I ran to a window to see what was happening, and noticed that the front gates of the former governor’s mansion, the place I was occupying now, had been blown off.

“An enemy attack?! I thought we still had some time before the human army arrived here. Hey!”

I turned around looking for my servant I had posted here just in case. I found him lying on the ground like we left the naked women we had captured. I ran to him and picked him up by the neck of his clothes, shaking him awake. His breath was irregular and forced.

“What happened?!”
“…Ditoner…Sir… The enemy attacked. A weird light passed through the entire city and suddenly my body…I started shaking like crazy. I think it’s their magic…some form of holy magic…”
“Damn it!”

I threw my useless servant away, picked my sword and headed to the mansion’s gates. Attacking the city I had conquered meant they really wanted to get on my bad side, and I would never let anyone who belittled me escape alive. If they were men, they would get tortured for the rest of their short lives, and women still had some use in them before we fed them to the monsters. My head was boiling as I was about to rush out of the mansion, but I stopped when I saw a certain woman.

“Tsk, what are you doing, Lacus?”
“Now now my dear Ditoner, you should learn to share your fun with others.”

I thought she had gone to bed a long time ago, but her bad habits stuck like glue, her hands still covered in half-dried blood from her stupid games.

“The enemy is here, right? And they have a magician casting a spell over the entire city. Maybe they’re a hero?”
“Who knows. And it doesn’t matter. I’ll butcher anyone who dares disturb me.”
“Then I’ll go with you. I don’t care whether you lose or win, I just want to see what kind of visitors we got. Maybe I’ll find a nice toy amongst them too.”
“…Do as you wish.”

Either way, I had no way of stopping her once her mind was set on something. She was my overseer after my past failure, and she was much stronger than me, so even if I wanted to stop her I had no way to do it.

I left the mansion and headed to the source of the uncomfortable feeling inside me. On my way there I saw a considerable amount of monsters and demons collapsed on the ground and unable to move. It was clear at least someone there was strong, considering they had managed to neutralize this much of our troops. I also heard a lot of noise coming from the city’s front gate. Many of the humans we had captured had escaped during the commotion. I did not like that, but I had to overlook it for now. I would take my sweet time killing them one by one once I took care of the magic affecting the city.

“Woahhh, amazing! I think this is the first time our troops have been hit this hard?!”

Lacus seemed excited about something as she happily looked around. I was not expecting her to start shaking or anything, but I wish she had just a little bit of common sense. It was very likely we were dealing with a hero here after all. I put no effort at hiding my annoyance with her, and once she noticed she began laughing with a stupid voice and grating my nerves even more.

“Are you nervous, my cute Ditoner? I told you to not worry already! I’m here with you, if some scary magician appears I’ll jump in and save you!”
“Shut up! I can take care of myself!”
“Huh, alright then.”

This woman had a knack for rubbing me the wrong way. I wanted to be done with this country as quickly as possible and be back to Lord Trianf’s side soon. But I had to take care of the enemies in front of me first. I began running faster, ignoring Lacus as I went ahead.

§　§　§

–––Lacus’ viewpoint

Lord Trianf personally ordered me to watch over Ditoner and collect information from him. I already had a rough guess at how strong that hero group he encountered before was, there were five of them, and four of them were so weak I did not even have to think about them. Since Ditoner was able to stand his ground against those four, I could afford to ignore them without them becoming a threat. But the last one was different, that girl called Lapis or something.

Everyone outside the Haunted Lands had lost a lot of spells throughout the years, but she was able to use everything, from Flight Magic to powerful spells that could instantly kill armies of monsters. Her gaze alone was enough to make Ditoner shake and keep him at bay, so I could not afford to be careless with her. But there was a catch, they were from Boraule’s hero’s party, and I could not imagine them caring enough about a foreign country to meddle with us, so the chances of running into her here were quite low. Still, Lord Trianf is a very careful man, so he sent me with Ditoner just in case, as superfluous as it might be.

“But still…”

I looked at Ditoner running past me. I knew of no other demon who was as easy to read like him. He was ambitious, treated those weaker than him like insects, but always acted respectful and obedient with those stronger. His personality was always straightforward, as if his brain was just one more muscle in his body. Sometimes I really wished he could gain just a hundredth of my beloved Lord Trianf’s prudence.

“There they are! I can see them!”

Ditoner had spotted the enemy and ran even faster while unsheathing his sword. As always, he wanted to start the attack immediately, even though having a short chat with the enemy makes things more fun. I sighed as I matched my pace to his, and when I thought I could start checking out my targets, he stopped dead in his track, as if his feet had suddenly been buried into the ground.

“What’s wrong with you?! Don’t just stop like that.”

I said that as I peered into his face, which showed me an easy to comprehend image of his mind. He went from rage to fear. Was there really anyone strong enough to make him feel that way in the enemy’s ranks? I followed his gaze to figure out who had gotten him like that, and it was a group of girls.