1 Exterminating Monsters for a Living
“RUOOOOOOHHHR!!”
An otherworldly roar echoes all around me.
If I had to say, I guess the silhouette producing it looks sort of like a whale?
But that’s just a wild guess based on the general shape. From what I’ve seen, its actual appearance is a far cry from any whale.
To be honest, all they really have in common is a short but wide body.
We’re on land right now anyway, so a sea creature like a whale wouldn’t be here in the first place.
In fact, do this world’s oceans even have whales?
While I’m distracted with these stupid thoughts, the whale monster gets engulfed in explosions.
“RUOOOHH! RUOOOOHRRR!!”
The great big thing thrashes around angrily.
That alone is enough to crack open the earth around it and send shock waves in every direction.
Its body is huge, which is the other reason I compared it to a whale.
Seriously, it’s freaking huge. Makes me want to say, We’re gonna need a bigger boat.
When something’s got that much mass, it’s automatically a major threat.
So if I were to try again to explain this whale monster’s appearance, well…it’s still really hard to put into words.
The resemblance to a whale is all I can think of.
It’s hard to tell where the head ends and its body begins.
Really, the face is basically just a mouth—no eyes or nose that I can see.
And the mouth in question really just looks like a big hole.
Maybe it’d be more accurate to call it a giant worm monster or something?
Yeah, it’s got one of those huge yawning maws.
But this thing’s not a worm monster, and it’s got the limbs to prove it.
Its front limbs are like giant fins, and the ones it has in the back are like fish tails, attached to the end opposite the giant mouth.
So I guess…yeah. Overall, it still looks like a whale.
But I think it’d be a serious stretch to call this thing a whale!
“RUOOOOHHHH!”
Another roar bounces out of the whale monster’s cavernous mouth.
“Oh, be quiet!”
Vampy slashes at the creature to interrupt its roaring.
Her broadsword makes contact with its flabby gray skin but fails to cut through.
“Tch!”
As Vampy scowls, the whale monster lashes out with its fins.
Her body goes flying almost comically.
The monster leans forward in preparation to jump after Vampy.
But that slight movement is all it takes.
It’s thread.
Too thin for such a giant creature to notice without careful inspection, and now it’s wrapped around the whale monster’s entire body.
The net is being pulled tight by the puppet spiders, who have fanned out in all directions.
Together, the four of them have completely trapped the beast.
“RUOOOH!”
The whale monster emits a short roar.
A burst of chill air shoots out from the monster, freezing the thread and shattering it.
But then a single sword suddenly appears, slicing through the air.
It explodes. Flames shoot everywhere.
For an instant, the heat of the explosion crashes against the whale monster’s cold blast, but the latter wins out.
This thing’s stupid strong…
I guess that’s why it’s a legendary-class monster.
Yes, that’s right: This thing’s danger level is apparently legendary, meaning humans consider it unbeatable.
A single legendary-class monster is supposed to be strong enough to destroy an entire nation.
This whale monster is one of those.
It’s a living legend that’s survived in the northern reaches of the demon realm for ages, hidden in a wasteland where no one dares tread.
What is its name again…?
I feel like it was super long and hard to pronounce…
Hypo-something-or-other?
…Yep, let’s just stick with whale monster!
While I’m racking my brains trying to remember the stupid thing’s name, the battle rages on.
The lineup this time consists of Vampy, Mr. Oni, the puppet spiders, and Mera.
They’re all crazy fighters, and way stronger than the average human.
Together, they can even take on a legendary monster.
Although in terms of stats alone, the puppet spiders count as legendary-class, too.
But of course, legendary-class covers a pretty wide range.
For instance, even though they’re all legendary-class, there’s a world of difference between the puppet spiders and, say, Mother.
By the same token, the whale monster is far stronger than the puppet spiders.
I can’t use Appraisal anymore, so I don’t know the exact details, but I’d estimate that its stats probably average around 15,000. If the puppet spiders’ average is a little over 10,000, I guess that makes the difference a multiplier of 1.5 or so.
The puppet spiders alone wouldn’t be able to beat this thing one-on-one.
Of course, that’s why we decided to attack with a bigger group.
But in this world, you can’t predict the outcome of a battle based solely on stats and numbers.
There are other important factors, like skill quality and type matchup.
On that front, the whale monster is a fairly formidable opponent.
All spider monsters, including the puppet spiders, are weak against ice.
It’s not as bad as fire, but it’s still not something you wanna see if you walk on eight legs.
Plus, Vampy specializes in Ice Magic.
Using ice against ice isn’t gonna do very much.
In fact, I’d be willing to bet that the whale monster has a nullification skill for ice by now, meaning it wouldn’t do squat.
And judging by the way Vampy’s sword bounced right off earlier, it must be pretty resistant to cutting attacks, too.
In other words, this is a bad adversary for both the puppet spiders and Vampy.
Which would theoretically mean it’s Mera and Mr. Oni’s time to shine, but…
They’re both clearly not strong enough.
Mera’s always been the runt of the litter and all…
I mean, he works hard, y’know?
Considering he used to be a plain old human, I’d say it’s amazing that he can even hold his own in this earth-shaking battle.
He’s been working really, really hard.
The sad news is that alone isn’t enough to win in a situation like this.
He doesn’t have any way of doing real damage to the whale monster.
Mera seems to be aware of that, too. He’s just focusing on Healing Magic and giving support however he can.
As for Mr. Oni, well, at least he has attacks that work.
Like those exploding swords and stuff.
But even then, the pure insanity of the whale monster’s stats means he’s not really getting anywhere.
That cold-air blast did totally cancel out the explosion after all…
So basically, all seven of them are just barely enough to be an even match.
Damn, whale monster, you scary.
I guess it was bound to be super strong, though.
This monster is so ancient, we don’t even know how long it’s been here.
According to demon legends, it’s been holed up in the north since before people started counting time.
Even the Demon Lord says she doesn’t know how long it’s been around, so it’s gotta be pretty damn old.
And time equals strength in this world.
Just look at the Demon Lord if you need proof.
Live long enough and you’ll build up lots of experience points.
And naturally, your skill levels will go up a whole bunch, too.
Not to mention, this northern part of the demon realm is incredibly cold, although it’s still not as bad as the Mystic Mountains.
It’s a tough place for anything to call home.
So any creature that’s survived here for ages and ages definitely isn’t gonna be a pushover.
I’ve heard demons actually have a saying that goes something like, “Don’t wander up north, or Hypo-whatever is gonna getcha!”
All that means this thing’s strong and ancient enough to be a bona fide legend.
Oh? Vampy is attacking with her acid now.
The bloodred spray flies toward the monster, melting through the tough hide that no one has managed to even scratch yet.
“RUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHH!”
The whale gives its longest roar yet.
I guess that must’ve worked.
Of course, our leviathan foe isn’t just gonna take it lying down, and it lunges at Vampy mouth-first.
Vampy dodges it easily, and the whale monster ends up kissing the ground instead.
But it doesn’t just crash stupidly; it cuts through the ground as easily as butter, the earth disappearing into its mouth.
Then the whale monster rears back its head, and the dirt rockets back out of its mouth in a muddy stream.
Actually, is it a stream or a breath attack?
Whatever it is, it’s heading straight for Vampy.
“Wha—?!”
“Young Miss?!”
Vampy gets swallowed up by the sand.
Eh, she’s not gonna die that easily.
Plus, Mera’s already heading over to help her.
More importantly, I know I said that thing isn’t a worm before, but maybe it is kinda related to a worm after all?
What kind of evolutionary line would produce a freaky creature like this, exactly?
It’s a puzzle all right, but there’s no point thinking too hard about the mysteries of life.
The main problem at hand is whether we can beat the thing or not.
If you’re wondering why we’re fighting this whale monster in the first place, it’s so we can collect its energy.
See, there are other legendary-class monsters lurking in various uninhabited areas.
They’re all creatures just like the whale monster that’ve lived for so long, they’ve become too powerful for humans to take on.
The monsters in this world are programmed to aggressively attack humans.
That’s so they can either get defeated by humans or defeat the humans, growing stronger and perpetuating a cycle of dying and killing, killing and dying—all to provide the system with a steady stream of energy.
But once in a blue moon, there are monsters like this whale thing that keep surviving until humans can’t kill them anymore.
If these walking natural disasters aggressively attacked humans all the time, humanity would be done for in no time.
That’s why once a monster surpasses a certain level of strength, it’s programmed to aggressively avoid humans instead.
And that’s basically how legendary-class monsters work.
Although of course, it’s really just a strong mental suggestion to do that, so there are some exceptions that attack humans anyway.
Historically, monsters that act out usually get defeated by heroes, demon lords, or other legendary figures after a life-and-death battle.
If they were left alone, they would be a real threat to mankind’s continued existence after all. Of course people are gonna put their lives on the line to get rid of them.
Of course, the scariest monsters might get dealt with by Güli-güli (aka Black) or the current Demon Lord without anyone else knowing.
Anyway, since these legendary-class monsters have accumulated so many experience points, they create a huge amount of energy when you kill them.
So before we ultimately destroy the system once and for all, we’re trying to add on as much energy as possible by hunting down legendary-class monsters.
Plus, it helps level up Vampy and the others.
There’d be less energy loss if I just mopped the floor with these guys myself, though…since some of the energy becomes experience for our crew to level up.
But really, that’s well within our margin of error.
We decided it would be best right now to prepare for the final battle by improving our allies’ strength, which is why this group is taking care of the legendary monster hunting.
But if things start to get dicey, I’ll step in and crush ’em, of course.
Yep. Legendary-class or not, I can win without a problem the way I am now.
And since I’m watching over them, this is actually a pretty safe method of level-grinding.
Luckily, there hasn’t been any need for me to step in yet.
They’ve already defeated several legendary-class monsters as strong as this whale monster—and some were stronger.
A lot of monsters that were on their way to becoming legendary-class, too.
Of course, since we have four genuine legendary-class monsters on our side in the form of the puppet spiders, these would-be legendaries are no challenge at all.
In terms of strength, Vampy and Mr. Oni qualify as legendary-class, too.
And Mera… Well, he’s doing his best as a supporter! Yeah!
Listen, you’ve got it all wrong! Mera isn’t weak at all! These opponents are just too strong!
I mean, his stats average around 5,000 now.
That’s higher than Araba, you know? And if he’s stronger than Araba, he’s definitely not weak!
It’s just that the opponents we’re fighting are even stronger than that…
As their title implies, legendary-class monsters are the stuff of myths and…well…legends.
They’re not kidding when they say it’s impossible for humans to beat them.
Mera himself is insanely strong from the perspective of any human.
But even if he’s way out of their league, it’s not impossible for them to deal with him…
’Cause in the big battle with the humans a while back, Mera was forced to retreat.
Honestly, someone as strong as Mera getting driven away was a biiig surprise.
Even with an overwhelming difference in stats, it’s possible to make up for the gap with numbers and sheer determination.
Just like how we’re taking on this big guy right now.
As Vampy’s acid melts through the whale monster’s hide, the puppet spiders mercilessly rain poison on the newly exposed flesh, and once that slows it down, Mr. Oni comes in with his exploding swords.
Are you guys demons or what?!
…Yeah, I guess that’s exactly what the three of them are, more or less.
And the other four are spiders, sooo yeah.
Yep, they’re still spiders all right… It’s easy to forget since they look just like humans at this point, but the puppet spiders really are spiders.
Which means of course they’re gonna have poison.
They haven’t had much of a chance to show off the full range of their abilities, since their opponents just haven’t been strong enough to merit it. But the truth is, in terms of the sheer number of different cards they can play, the puppet spiders are pretty damn dangerous even by legendary-class standards.
They’ve got threads and poison to boot, plus their humanoid puppet bodies can use weapons and martial arts.
Their stats might be on the lower side for legendary-class, but their combat strategies are varied enough to more than make up for it.
Although the fact that they’re on the “lower side” really is terrifying in itself.
But even these terrifying legendary-class monsters are now nothing more than hunting fodder for us.
The whale monster’s giant body slowly tips to the side.
Before long, it slams into the ground with a mighty crash, sending tremors through the earth.
“Ugggh…I need a bath…”
“Excellent work, Young Miss.”
“Good job.”
Now thoroughly covered in dirt, Vampy seems more exhausted than satisfied.
Mera comforts her by praising her efforts, while Mr. Oni quietly nods at both of them.
The puppet spider sisters all high-five one another.
That whale monster had fairly high stats and resistances, but once you deal with those, I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Its main attack methods consisted of sucking things into its mouth and spitting them out at high speeds, like a certain pink puffball creature.
Other than that, its only moves were producing freezing air and using its huge body to thrash around.
Since its attacks were nothing special compared to its defense, we didn’t have too much trouble.
That’s just compared to other legendary-class monsters, though. Normally, one of these guys could easily take out an entire army, I’m sure.
Still lost in thought over all this, I walk over to the fallen whale monster.
I was watching from a slight distance, so I’m a little far away. Sure, I could teleport there in an instant, but it’s good for my health to walk once in a while!
“Ah.”
Vampy notices me approaching.
Then she looks back and forth between me and the whale monster, then at her own giant sword.
Oh, I don’t like where this is going.
“Say, I don’t suppose…”
“No.”
I shut Vampy down before she can finish her wheedling request.
“Come on, please? For me?”
She tilts her head and bats her eyes at me coquettishly.
Ugh. Ever since she learned how to make boys wait on her hand and foot at the demon academy, she’s picked up weird habits like this.
You really think that cutesy crap is going to work on me?!
“I told you, no.”
“Boooo.”
That adorable little pout isn’t getting you anywhere, missy!
Besides, I really can’t do it anyway.
In case you’re wondering, Vampy is asking for permission to harvest materials from this whale monster to make her weapon stronger.
Vampy’s broadsword was made from the claw of a legendary-class monster called Fenrir and enhanced with the scale of another legendary monster, the ice dragon Nia.
Thanks to all that, it’s basically a super-weapon, with incredible sharpness, high durability, and even imbued with the Ice element.
The whale monster is Ice aligned, too, meaning it’d probably be pretty compatible with the broadsword.
But I don’t even have! The ability! To process stuff like that!
In the first place, it was Black who modified the sword the first time, not me.
Just because I’m a god, too, doesn’t mean I can do everything he can do.
“Sophia, you sure you want to mix that thing with your sword?”
Noticing Sophia’s sulking, Mr. Oni throws me a lifeline.
He points at the whale monster; it was already hard enough to describe, but now its blubbery hide has been melted by acid, making it even look even more alien.
Honestly, it’s super gross.
“……”
Vampy looks at it and falls silent.
Then she slides away from me, giving up.
I guess she doesn’t want to mix something that gross with her beloved broadsword after all.
The fact that she didn’t think of this in the first place is so typical. Vampy never thinks before she acts, which is also how she ended up causing so many problems at school.
Well, I guess that doesn’t matter right now.
I go back to my business, which is teleporting the whale monster’s body to a separate dimension.
When you’re dealing with a legendary monster’s corpse, it still has a fair amount of energy even after its soul has vacated.
The soul gets collected by the system, but the body just stays there. And it’d be silly to just let that energy go to waste, so we put it to good use.
When I send the corpse into my storage dimension, it gets eaten by my little clones, and they absorb its energy.
Of course, we could send that energy into the system, too, in theory…
But I do want to use some of it to bolster our forces.
Now that’s how you make effective use of resources!
Even if it looks nasty, it’s still a nutrient-rich food source that provides lots of energy!
So quit looking at me like that, Vampy!
Once I teleported Vampy and the others back to the Demon Lord’s castle, I headed over to a human fortress.
Or I guess I should say a former human fortress.
Fort Okun originally belonged to the humans, but the Second Army conquered it in that big battle a little while ago.
Hrm. Then again, it might be more accurate to say the monkeys sent in by the Second Army conquered it, not the Second Army themselves.
Remember those monkeys that gave me so much trouble in the Great Elroe Labyrinth?
Well, they also live in the Mystic Mountains, so Commander Boobs of the Second Army lured them in and sicced ’em on Fort Okun.
The annoying thing about those monkeys is that if you kill even one, the rest of them will keep coming after you in waves…
Turns out it just happened to be the tail end of their breeding season, too, so there were tons of monkeys around, and they totally trashed the fortress.
That’s how the Second Army won without a single casualty.
There’s just one problem, though.
Namely, the monkeys. They decided to keep Fort Okun as their base…
Chasing them out should really be the Second Army’s job, but slippery ol’ Boobs managed to sidestep that responsibility.
Makes sense, I guess. She wouldn’t want to bring down a fortress unscathed only to lose a bunch of people fighting those monkeys. That might even produce more casualties than fighting the humans would’ve.
I mean, these monkeys are the ones who beat the humans.
Luckily, they’re just sitting around in the fortress and not trying to attack the demons. The Second Army has just been camping out nearby, ostensibly to keep an eye on them.
Although it’s pretty damn obvious that Boobs just wants to stay out of the Demon Lord’s sight, y’know?
I mean, she’s terrified of the big boss.
She’s probably hoping she can just hide out here on monkey watch indefinitely, I bet.
Not on my watch!
“I have written orders from the Demon Lord.”
Phelmina calmly hands Boobs the letter, then explains its contents shortly.
“It says to return home right away.”
Boobs accepts the letter silently, her brow creasing as she opens it.
Aside from a few formalities, it says just about exactly what Phelmina described—“Come back now”—and that’s about it.
There aren’t many extra embellishments, either, so it only takes a moment to read.
“But we have to monitor that fortress…”
“We in the Tenth Army will be taking over that role.”
Boobs tries to give an excuse, but Phelmina shuts her down. Boobs glowers at her.
“We’ll need some time to prepare…”
“Lady Sanatoria.” Phelmina coolly interrupts with her name as Boobs keeps trying to give excuses. “The Demon Lord has ordered you to return at once. If you disobey her…I’m sure you realize what will happen, yes?”
Boobs turns pale.
Not long after, she starts moving real quickly.
Her army gets it together in no time flat, and they’re on their way home before the day is out.
Talk about lightning speed!
She’s actually a fairly gifted leader when it comes down to it.
She’s good at giving orders, and she did take down a fortress without any casualties, even if it was by way of a crafty plan.
But the thing is, she’s just kind of a wimp.
I mean, she’s only moving this incredibly fast because she’s terrified of the Demon Lord.
Except the Demon Lord is gonna be waiting for her when she gets back anyway.
You gotta love the way she sets herself up for a fall by being too crafty for her own good.
But whatever does or doesn’t happen to Boobs isn’t my problem.
Once the Second Army gets out of here and there’s no one around to watch, that’s where my job begins.
“Well then, Tenth Army. We will now commence the operation to conquer Fort Okun.”
Phelmina leads the Tenth Army toward the fortress.
She made it sound like we were going to take over monitoring the fortress, but we’re not the kind of boys and girls to just sit around watching.
No, our goal is to wipe out these monkeys.
Following Phelmina’s orders, the white-robed soldiers march closer to the fortress.
The monkeys notice this and start throwing rocks, but my unit dodges them all easily.
Not that they’d take any damage even if they did get hit.
After all, those white clothes were specially made by yours truly, out of my own thread!
Their high defense is guaranteed.
I am technically the commander, after all.
I figured if I’m gonna be in charge of a unit, I better give them the best armor I can muster, so I made some top-notch stuff!
And yes, of course they’re decked out with the finest equipment, too.
Sure enough, once they reach the fortress, they start climbing the steep walls in no time flat.
Ignoring the rocks being thrown at them, they quickly make their way inside and begin the assault.
Although it’s so one-sided, I’d really call it more of a slaughter.
Those monkeys are definitely a pain, but that’s only because of their overwhelming strength in numbers. The biggest challenge in fighting them is that they just keep swarming, no matter how many of them you take down.
But no matter how big their numbers, there’s still gotta be a limit.
You just have to kill ’em until they run out, like I once did in the Great Elroe Labyrinth.
The monkeys in this fortress have already lost a bunch of their numbers in the fight against the humans.
And each individual monkey isn’t that strong on its own.
With all these factors in play, the group I trained can definitely come out on top.
The Tenth Army is a part of the demon army that falls under my command.
It’s a job the Demon Lord dropped in my lap a few years ago while preparing for the big war against the humans. Yeah, she kinda forced me to do it.
But really, it’s because I didn’t have a proper position in the demon army, and the Tenth Army didn’t actually exist as anything more than a name on paper at the time. She figured it was a perfect fit and appointed me commander.
The demon army has always had seven armies, but the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Armies weren’t actually functional groups at all. There just weren’t enough demons to fill the ranks, what with the population shortage.
But between the Demon Lord’s expansion policies, purging the rebels, structural reform, and all that jazz, she decided to form ten proper armies.
So she appointed Mr. Oni as the commander of the Eighth Army and filled the ranks with the personal armies of some lords who’d committed fraud and stuff like that.
Basically, it’s a bunch of soldiers who’ve been reduced to slaves only fit for suicide missions.
Since these guys are essentially disposable, Mr. Oni wound up using his exploding swords to blow up tons of people in the big battle, including his own troops.
The Ninth Army is a totally different situation; the soldiers are definitely…outsiders, to say the least.
After all, the Ninth Commander is Black, aka Güli-güli.
In order to keep an eye on me and the Demon Lord while aiding our efforts, he became the official Ninth Army Commander so he could hang out in the demon realm.
As for his army, it’s made up of his underlings—dragons and wyrms pretending to be demons.
They’re an unusual unit: Although they’re technically part of the same army, they don’t actually serve under the Demon Lord. This is also why the Ninth Army is the only formation that didn’t participate in the big battle.
Anyway, the Tenth Army was still without a commander, and I was without an official job title, so here we are.
But at this point, most of the available personnel had already been assigned elsewhere…
So the Tenth Army mostly wound up with little fledglings fresh out of the academy, people who couldn’t stay in other armies for various reasons, and so on.
Basically, nobody all that great.
The Eighth Army was already a collection of disposable pawns, but these people didn’t even fit in there.
But when you look at each of their histories, it’s actually pretty entertaining.
Especially my sub-commander, Phelmina.
Most of this girl’s life is a serious sob story, the kind you can’t even talk about without crying.
And it’s basically all Vampy’s fault!
Phelmina is a young lady from an important noble family.
She was even engaged to a similarly noble young man. Typical aristocracy stuff.
As such, she was raised from infancy to be a future leader of the demon race, undergoing all kinds of severe training. She was already talented to begin with, which meant her life was going smoothly until she entered the academy.
But that’s where it all hit the fan.
When she got to the academy, she met a suspicious young woman from who-knows-where.
You guessed it: Vampy.
A wild child who couldn’t care less about noble etiquette, she wreaked havoc at the academy in more ways than one.
Technically, Vampy is a noblewoman from an important family, too, but her home and family got destroyed when she was a baby, so she’s been a vagrant child ever since…
Not that it matters, since being from a human noble family doesn’t teach you anything about demon noble etiquette anyway.
Demons are more concerned with combat ability.
In that respect, Vampy got super strong in terms of stats and skills on our journey, and apparently, that seriously hurt the pride of her classmates.
Now, if that was all she did, it wouldn’t be so bad.
Squashing the pride of some little demon kids? Who cares?
If that was enough to keep them down forever, then they were never destined for greatness in the first place.
But that was nothing compared to the chaos she caused next.
What did Vampy do, exactly? Well, she used her vampire abilities to Charm all the boys into bending to her will and drank a bunch of their blood to boot.
…Yeah, I know. A lot to take in, right?
I mean, I guess that might be what vampires are supposed to do, but yikes…
Apparently, when vampires enter puberty, their thirst for blood gets a lot stronger.
For vampires, drinking blood not only feeds them but also increases their number of underlings.
So yeah, it’s like, y’know.
It sorta sounds like a certain sketchy kind of harassment, but I guess you could say they’re around the age where they take an interest in that kind of thing, right?
You know how it is!
Most people would be able to control themselves, but apparently Vampy was extra stressed for various reasons, and she just kinda went wild.
She Charmed all the boys and basically became the empress of the academy.
It was Phelmina who rose up against her.
Phelmina’s fiancé, Wald, was among the boys under Vampy’s control, and the whole ruling class of the demons was in danger, so she took it upon herself to get rid of Vampy.
Obviously, she failed.
Vampy’s legion of young men conspired against her, with Wald at the center.
They made full use of their family influence to put pressure on Phelmina’s parents and got them to banish her instead.
Incidentally, Phelmina’s family was a pretty important name among the demon nobles, too, but with similarly important families like Wald’s and others turning against them, they had no choice but to exile Phelmina.
And she got screwed over like this all because Vampy has connections to the Demon Lord.
If anything had happened to Vampy, there was no telling what the Demon Lord might do. Thus, even the adults who were free to choose all decided to side against Phelmina.
I, uh, I’m sorry about my crew…
Thanks to my friends, Phelmina got chased out of demon society.
I would’ve felt kinda bad leaving her in the lurch.
Coincidentally enough, the former commander of the Tenth Army that I took over was Phelmina’s father, so I ended up taking her under my command.
I mean, her handsome yet somehow unlucky-looking father begged me on hands and knees to take care of his daughter. What was I supposed to do?
Most members of the upper echelon of demon society sure seem to suffer a lot…
Although that’s mostly the Demon Lord’s fault!
…Seriously, I’m really sorry about my crew.
After that whole mess, Phelmina ended up being the first to join the Tenth Army.
Then other people in similarly bad situations joined, too, and the army started to take form.
Of course, the fact that all the members are here for messy reasons means they’re all problem children.
So what do you think is the fastest way to deal with that?
That’s right. The answer is give ’em a good thrashing until they obey you.
It’s important to get the upper hand early.
Once you drill it into their heads that you’re way stronger than them, they’ll usually do whatever you say.
Hmm? It’s barbaric to force them to obey me with brute strength?
I shouldn’t break them in like animals, you say?
Well, people are animals, too, in the grand scheme of things!
Besides, saying stuff like that will get some animal welfare groups after me next, right?
Yeah, yeah.
But this is a parallel world!
There’s no such thing as animal welfare groups here!
If there was any, maybe they should’ve protected me when I was a baby spider, dammit!
…Okay, we got a little off topic there.
So anyway, I use my overwhelming strength to make my new recruits listen to me, but there were still several problems.
One, we barely had any personnel. Two, they were weak. Three, no equipment.
There’s not much I could do about that first one. This army is already made up of the dregs of the dregs in the first place.
It’s inevitable that we wouldn’t have a high head count.
But the second and third problems were serious.
Well, technically they were only weak by my personal standards. They weren’t particularly weaker than other demon soldiers or anything.
But like I said, the Tenth Army doesn’t have many members.
What we lack in numbers, we have to make up for with individual strength.
We’re talking quality over quantity here.
As in, since I couldn’t get a higher quantity, I had no choice but to shoot for a higher quality.
And because the Tenth Army was formed last and barely has any people, we hardly get any supplies like armor and weapons.
Everything gets distributed to the other armies first, leaving next to nothing for the Tenth.
As a result, my guys get stuck fighting with cloth armor and tree branches, like the starter equipment in some game.
That only makes it even more important that each individual member of the Tenth Army is strong enough to make up for their crummy equipment.
Add it all up, and I had no choice but to train them!
So that’s exactly what I did.
Basically, I used the same approach you saw with Vampy and company: having them clean up some monsters and reaping energy for the system while we’re at it.
Ah, but I didn’t send them after legendary-class monsters or anything crazy like that, okay?
We started with the weaker monsters and worked our way up from there, of course.
I gauged the members’ strength and picked difficulty levels just low enough that they wouldn’t die.
Usually, I teleported all of them into the middle of a monster swarm, then teleported them home to rest once they were done.
Using my teleportation, I can send them to anywhere in the human and demon realms.
That makes it easy to visit monster-filled regions that neither demons nor humans would ever normally enter.
So I kept using my free army delivery service to drop my soldiers into the midst of monster hordes and bring them back, repeating the process to quickly level them up.
Thanks to that foolproof system, their levels went up really quickly, and they got stronger.
Then, once they had a certain level of basic strength, I subjected them to my personal training program.
In Vampy’s case, I had her train and then level up, but we had more time back then.
Training before leveling is really more efficient, but we didn’t have the luxury.
In order to make them as strong as possible in a limited time, the fastest method was to level them up quickly and get their stats to a point where they could keep up with the training.
If their stats were too low, my training regimen would just kill them.
Hmm? You can’t really call it training if it might kill you?
Well, yeah, why do you think I threw them into swarms of monsters first?
What? Normally that would be considered a death sentence?
…Well, common sense is for losers!
Even if all my soldiers look like their souls left them, what’s important is that they survived, leveled up, and made it back in one piece!
Nobody needs to know that I messed up my difficulty calculations a few times and almost got them killed.
Shh, it’s fiiine.
That just taught them how to run and hide from opponents they can’t defeat!
And here you see the results of that intensive training.
The huge horde of monkeys that was living in this fort has been completely wiped out.
Bravo! Clap, clap, clap.
“All clear.”
I nod at Phelmina’s report.
Excellent. That was great work.
Bwa-ha-ha! My Tenth Army has truly become a force to be reckoned with!
Incidentally, I solved our equipment shortage by going out of pocket.
Like I mentioned before, I weaved their white clothing with my own thread.
And I talked Mr. Oni into making weapons for them.
With his skill that lets him craft magic weapons, of course.
Thanks to him, the Tenth Army’s soldiers are actually better equipped than everyone else now.
Unlike the rest of the demon army, they don’t make a lot of public appearances; most of the Tenth’s activities so far have been for training, and a lot of the rest has been for my personal goals.
Which is why people apparently think the Tenth Army is some kind of secret information-gathering task force or something.
Hrm. Well, I guess I have made them do stuff like that.
Mostly related to the elves. I’ve had them track down elves who are still mucking about in demon lands and dispose of them if they find any.
As far as that goes, a lot of it was taken care of before the big war broke out thanks to the Colonel, also known as the late First Army Commander Agner, so there wasn’t much left for the Tenth Army to do anyway.
Which is why I sorta got carried away and sent them to hunt down elves in the human realm, too.
The only good elf is a dead elf, after all.
I used my teleportation to send my troops behind enemy lines, where they relied on their honed skills to conceal themselves, gather information, and assassinate any elves they found.
So yeah, I guess it’s true they’ve done some covert mission stuff before.
Phelmina in particular seems to have a gift for that kind of thing. She’s become an expert at sneaking up soundlessly behind a target and assassinating them without ever being noticed.
Since she’s been here since the birth of the new Tenth Army, she’s been trained longer than anyone else, and it definitely shows.
To be honest, she’s probably stronger than the likes of Commander Boobs.
Phelmina would probably win in a head-to-head fight, and if there’s no holds barred, I bet she could win even faster by killing someone in their sleep or something.
A young noblewoman turned assassin.
Yep, that’s pretty damn cool!
Phelmina also gives orders to the troops for me, deals with paperwork and other administrative stuff, and just generally takes care of communications in my place, since I’m so bad at talking.
Thanks to her strict upbringing as a proper lady, she’s great at all kinds of things.
At this point, she’s essential to the Tenth Army!
Which is why she was unanimously chosen as the sub-commander.
Ah, the only one who objected to that was Vampy, but I shut her up by making her kneel.
As punishment to Vampy for getting Phelmina banished and all that, I put a little curse on her.
When I say sit! she has to get down on her hands and knees.
It’s super handy whenever I need to punish Vampy for screwing up something or other.
And whenever Phelmina sees me force Vampy to kneel, it seems to cheer her up a bit, so that’s a nice little bonus.
Since the rest of the members of the Tenth Army all know what Vampy did to Phelmina, too, they’re always glaring daggers at our little bloodsucker.
The fact that Vampy doesn’t get discouraged or even seem to notice it is kind of impressive.
She’s got some serious guts, that one.
Meanwhile, Phelmina’s ex-fiancé Wald always has a stomachache or some nonsense.
He’s the one who got Charmed by Vampy in the academy and chased out Phelmina.
Now, that’s not his fault, since he was Charmed. He’s just a victim there.
But listen to this.
Even though the Charm effects wore off, he’s still pining for Vampy. He joined the Tenth Army just to chase after her, and he even talked her into making him a vampire.
He’s like an obsessive fan chasing Vampy around at this point.
And of course, the other Tenth Army members don’t exactly look kindly on that…
Not to mention that his ex-fiancée Phelmina, whose life he basically ruined, is now his superior…
So it’s not exactly a comfortable situation for Wald.
I swear, he looks paler every day. Oh, but that might be because he’s a vampire now, I guess.
Anyway, as I reflect on all this, I go around collecting the dead monkeys scattered in the fortress.
Demons aren’t going to eat monkeys, so somebody’s gotta do it.
That means me, or more specifically, my little clones.
I keep tossing the monkey corpses into the pocket dimension where I keep my mini-mes, cleaning up the fortress.
Not that we’re gonna use this fort anymore…
Because the Tenth Army is few in number, we can’t really hold and maintain a fort like this as our base. We’re just gonna leave it when our business is done here.
It’d be a waste to leave valuable manpower here. We might as well just give up on it and let some other demons use it for something more productive.
It’s not like the humans are gonna come try to take it back anyway.
How can I be so sure, you ask?
Because I’ve set things up to make it happen that way.
Heh-heh-heh.
Do you really think I’ve been sitting around doing nothing for these past few years?
Truth be told, the mastermind who’s manipulated the movements of not just the demon army, but even the humans, is none other than meeee!
DUN, DUN, DUNNN!
Man, it was a pain in the ass, I gotta say.
I had to teleport like crazy all over the place.
There were some serious machinations involved.
That big war between the demons and humans was one of the results of my hard work, see.
It took a ton of effort to get there, though.
I’m a very hard worker, if I do say so myself!
…But the hard work is still just getting started, as much as I hate to say it.
I’d better finish collecting these monkey corpses, reassemble the Tenth Army, and return to the Demon Lord’s castle, stat.
I’ll need my highly trained soldiers to help me out with the upcoming behind-the-scenes work. We can’t be wasting time in some stupid monkey fortress.
The war was definitely a huge event, but when you look at the endgame the Demon Lord and I are aiming for, it was just one step of many along the way.
There’s definitely no time to waste.
Not if we’re going to save this world from certain destruction.
So as part of the groundwork for that goal, I’m going to give the Tenth Army a highly important, top-secret mission.
Specifically, I’m sending them to the Analeit Kingdom, home of our buddy Yamada and his big brother Julius the hero, to destroy the place from the inside.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login