“The king’s like, not here, bro,” Brad said, standing in the open gate of the castle. “He’s out of town.”

“Out of town?” I asked. “Doing what?” Was there a bodybuilding contest? Open robe and combat boot convention? Over protective father association meeting? I could go on.

“Top secret.” Brad shrugged two slimy tentacles that I would never be used to seeing. “Not even I know, man.”

“Wow,” Violetta gasped. “That’s our king for you. Always working to make the world a better place!” I wasn’t sure how she got that from anything Brad had said, but whatever.

“Alright,” I continued. “Well is there anyone else here I can talk to?”

“Oh! Oh my god!” It was Hadria this time. “Is Lyili here? I need to tell her that I’m her rival now.”

“Oh, Ms. Hadria.” Brad’s tone suddenly changed to sound a lot happier for some reason. “I didn’t see you there.” Really? The thing literally covered in eyeballs didn’t see the eyepatch wearing half vampire, half succubus standing directly to my left? I was starting to think that most of those eyes didn’t even do anything.

“Sup, Brad.” Hadria put her hands on her hips. “So is Lyili here? I need to tell her I’m her biggest fan.” So… not her rival then?

“Naw, she’s not here either.” Brad shook the top half of his weird gelatinous body. “The Princess and Prince are here and stuff if you wanna see them though.”

“Cool,” I snapped. “Take us to Princess Yaika then.” No way was I going to see Minzfel if I didn’t have to.

“Let’s see…” Brad suddenly yanked a clipboard and pen out of his body and held them up in front of some of his eyes.

“Huh. I don’t see you on the list, bro.”

Was this a fucking nightclub now? “You have... a list?”

“Yeah.” Brad flipped through the pages with a third tentacle. “The King said we need to make things more official.”

I was officially annoyed. Not only by the inconvenience, but by the fact that it sounded like they didn’t have any system for keeping people out before this. And if that was the case, why were they so butthurt about me showing up at Minzfel’s birthday?

I would deal with all that later. The fact that they had a list that I wasn’t even on was more infuriating.

“I’m the head of the ‘law squad’, aren’t I?” I asked. “That means I work for the king now. Why am I not on this stupid list?”

“I don’t know, bro...” Brad suddenly stopped on one of the pages. “Oh. Violetta’s on here.”

“I am?” Violetta gasped. “Wow. Me on the castle guest list?” Alright, I had a sneaking suspicion I knew who was responsible for this.

“Did Minzfel make this list?” I asked.

“Yeah, bro. He offered to do it,” Brad said. “He’s finally starting to show some interest in the castle’s guests, so I think the King is pretty stoked about it.” I had a feeling the only ‘guests’ Minzfel cared about were Violetta’s breasts.

The owner of the breasts in question smiled. “That was very nice of him.”

Hadria got up on her toes, trying to peak over at the clipboard. “Am I on the list?” she asked.

“Uhh… Yeah.” Brad squinted again. “I guess it was just Ryley that wasn’t on it..”

Ugh. Whatever. I didn’t have all day. Well, I guess I did, but as the leader of the law squad, I really shouldn’t have.

“My assistants are both on the list and you know I work for the king,” I sighed. “Can we come in now?”

“Oh yeah, totally bro.” Brad jammed his clipboard back into body. “Let me get the forms.” He reached back into himself and yanked out another one. “Alright, uhh…” Brad used his slimy appendage to click the back of his pen. “What is the nature of your business, man?”

End me.

“Oh, I can do this. We have, um... “ Violetta turned to me, almost stabbing me in the face with a horn. “Why are we here?”

“I need to ask them something about the queen.”

All of Brad’s eyes shot open. “Whoa, dude. Hold on a sec!”

“What now?” I moaned. Was talking about the queen conveniently off limits now?

Brad broke out in a chunky sweat. “I… I don’t think there’s a box to check for that.”

“I’m coming in now,” I said. “Whenever the king gets back from wherever he is, you can tell him I said your new system sucks.” With that, I walked passed him and into the castle.

“B-But Ryley…” Violetta’s voice sounded worried, but I didn’t care. What were they going to do? Put me in a guillotine? Been there, done that. There was only so much bullshit I could take in a single morning.

“Alright, bro, I get it. It’s not like I get to make the rules. I’ll bring you to the Princess.” I heard the sound of Brad frantically slurping across the floor behind me. I had no idea how they kept the marble floors and red carpet looking so clean.

Maybe Grand Slime fluid was like soap or something. Ugh. Maybe I would need to take a close look at the ingredients on the dish soap when I got home.

I stopped in place and waited for the three of them to catch up. When they did, we started walking again, Brad leading the way.

“Things have been pretty crazy.” Brad looked at me with his back-eyes. “The law and trial stuff you’ve been doing is making pretty big waves, bro.”

Yeah, no shit. I had no idea how they managed to even have a semblance of a working society before I got here. Either demons were a lot more harmonious than humans were or this world had been hanging by a thread.

“Any chance our squad’s going to get anymore members?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Brad said. “You’d have to hit the King up for that.”

“More members?” Violetta squeezed my arm. “Why would we… need more members?”

“More members would mean less work for us.” I meant ‘me’, of course.

“But that could change the whole dynamic!” Violetta’s voice only got louder.

“I could always just have my dad lend us some of the guys.” Hadria fiddled with her eyepatch. “I’m sure Inel and Bani wouldn’t mind. Koln too, I guess. Since you saved his life and all.”

Fuck no. If I ever had to see their tough guy faces again, it would be too soon. “Nevermind,” I sighed. Honestly, the last thing I needed was a bunch of insane demons fumbling around crime scenes and running around my house without permission. “Forget I said anything. We’re better off with a skeleton crew.”

“S-Skeletons!?” Violetta squeezed my arm even harder. “Why are you talking about s-s-skeletons?”

“...It’s just a phrase.”

“Hahaha…” Violetta wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. “Oh, Ryley, you’re so silly. There’s no such things as s-s-skeletons…”

First of all, I didn’t mean actual skeletons. Second, I didn’t feel like it was that unreasonable to think skeletons might exist in a world with talking pigs and crow-people. Third, skeletons absolutely existed.

“You do realize that there are four…” I glanced at Brad. “Er, three skeletons here right now, don’t you?”

Violetta jumped. “W-What are you talking about!?”

I was planning to make my next line ‘they’re right inside of us’, but she was so genuinely scared that I felt a little guilty. “We have bones inside of our bodies,” I said. “...Don’t tell me demons don’t have bones or something.”

“Of course demons have bones,” Hadria said.

“Of course we do,” Violetta echoed. “What do bones have to do with s-skeletons, s-silly!?”

“...Nevermind.”

We finally stopped in front of a white door accented in gold. Brad lifted a tentacle and knocked on the door. A machine gun blast of tiny little coughs came from the other side. Apparently that meant we could come in because Brad pulled the knob and pushed the door open.

The inside looked like a living room, with a large sofa and a pair of chairs around a coffee table. The room was painted in the same way as the door with white and gold. As extravagant as it was, it didn’t exactly match the torchlit stone corridors we had come from. If there was a interior designer squad, their leader needed to be fired.

The princess was seated on the sofa watching TV. As soon as she saw us, her eyes lit up like neutron stars in the cold, terrifyingly endless vacuum of outer space. Charming.

Yaika stood up as slowly as paint dries. “Whoa, Ryley’s back.” She paused for a moment. “Whoo-hoo!”

“Yep… it’s me.”

“Yaika, it’s so good to see you!” Hadria pushed past me and hurried over to the purple haired cultist. She threw her arms around Yaika and gave her a squeeze. “I have so much to tell you about!”

“Hadria too?” Yaika slowly reciprocated the hug. “Wow.”

“Hello, Princess!” Violetta smiled.

“They’re actually here to see you about something, Princess,” Brad said.

“Oh fun.” Yaika paused. “Did you fill out the paperwork?”

“Uhh…” Brad’s eyes darted around. “I was… just about to do that.”

“I’m sure you were.” Yaika stared wide eyed at him. “I’m… sure you were.”

“W-Well I’ll let you guys get to it then.” Brad slinked out of the room and shut the door behind him.

Yaika looked back over at me, her expression completely unchanged like it was painted on her face. “So what did you need?”

Holy shit, I had forgotten how terrifying she was.