Although I had indeed finished the important introductions, I continued speaking before either Hero had had a chance to say a word. “As you already know, assuming you have more than three brain cells,” I said, “this is my throne room—a ceremonial location, more than anything. Well, that aside. Slayer. Grand Mage. There are-”

“W-wait a second, please!” the mage cut in, waving her hands in front of her face. “I, I’m not a Grand Mage or, uh, anything like that. Just an, uh, Archmage. And I, uhm, don’t think he’s a Slayer, either…” She turned her eyes briefly to the gruff-looking man next to her, and then to the ground.

With a chuckle, I shook my head. “Are you stupid? Those Azalyths limited not only your decision-making abilities, but also your magical and physical capabilities. In other words, they were hampering your growth.”

“St… Stupid…” she parrotted, apparently not having paid attention to the rest of my explanation. A little annoying, but no real trouble.

“Like I was saying,” I thus said, “there are a few paths open to you. You could follow in the footsteps of most liberated Heroes, and become some sort of mercenary or lone wolf. You could follow a different, more righteous goddess—say, Lady Gnome or Lady Salamander. And then, there is the final option, and my personal favourite.”

The newly-dubbed Slayer looked at me with a sceptical look and tapped his foot impatiently on the ground. “Let me guess,” he said. “ ‘Take thy rightful place at my side! Do so, and I will grant unto thee dominion over half this world!’—something like that?”

“Oh my,” I said, chuckling to myself, “a connoisseur. Well, you’re not quite right, but it’s similar. Follow Lady Entropy’s teachings, allow me to transform you into a monster—a demon, certainly—and become mine, heart and soul. You’d be the first to choose this, but… There is no denying you would gain great power.”

“Hmph,” the Slayer said, “big surprise there. Who’d want to serve someone as self-absorbed as you? I’ll be fine on my own.” His face betrayed a certain hint of arrogance—but unlike mine, born of power, it was the kind of arrogance you’d use to give yourself false confidence.

Though Davna slapped her tail onto the ground, seemingly offended in my place, the Slayer didn’t even look at her. How rude.

The Grand Mage seemed less decisive, her gaze floating between me, the Slayer next to her, and my Demon Generals—she seemed particularly focused on Tempest—and her hands fidgeting with her grimoire like there was no tomorrow.

I let out a sigh and shook my head. “I do not mind if you delay your decision,” I said. “Take a rest in the castle and think it over. We can afford a single human’s food expenses, even if it won't be… tasty for you. Though, at least tell me your name.”

“Ah, I’m, my name is, is Evyna,” she said, switching to a more formal speech pattern halfway through a sentence. “Thanks for, thank you for your, your hospitality.”

“Hmm.” I nodded to myself, then turned my gaze to the Ghost Maid who happened to be the closest to me. “You,” I said, pointing at her. “Guide our… guest to a guest room, would you? Use the less populous-”

For the second time in less than ten minutes, I found myself interrupted mid-sentence—this time, the culprit was the main doors to the throne room, swung open with quite some force and accompanied by a draught of cold air.

Cold for no reason, since the castle, while not necessarily warm, wasn’t that cold, either. I didn’t have much time to think it over as my attention was pulled away by an icy, echoing voice—which was also unusual, since no other sound had echoed.

“Are you forgetting about me, my liege?”

I decided the sarcasm in the last two words was the least of my problems as I looked over the newcomer who had so rudely entered without knocking. A skeleton, wrapped in a dark blue, almost purple cloak, with eerie cold blue flames in its eye sockets and a crown of ice on its head.

“Ah,” I said. “Philia.”

A figure known as the Ice Queen, the only currently existing Grand Lich, and my subordinate.

“My liege, surely you have not forgotten-”

“Kneel,” I interrupted.

“But my liege-”

“I said,” I repeated, and I activated [Demon Lord’s Authority], “kneel.”

I appeared to have put more mana into my voice than I intended, given not only the Ice Queen, but also the nearby Charlotte and a few Ghost Maids ended up kneeling to me.

Even kneeling, the Ice Queen did not forget to leave a sharp remark: “As always, you have no flexibility when it comes to formalities, my liege.”

I shook my head. “I cannot have them picking up your habits,” I said, gesturing vaguely at the room around us. “You may rise.”

The Ice Queen stood back up and cleared her throat.

You’re a skeleton, I thought, you don’t even have a throat. I decided not to voice my thoughts.

“Then, my liege,” Philia said, “surely you have not forgotten the final option for these two pawns?” I thought I saw the Slayer’s face redden slightly, but I didn’t spare the thought a second. “I refer, of course,” the Ice Queen continued, “to the option of having them serve under me.”

I could almost hear the question ‘Who is this suspicious person?’ from Evyna’s eyes, but the Slayer’s gaze towards Philia was significantly more… heated.

“Do my eyes betray me, or did this mortal man of flesh and blood fall for an undead?” Charlotte said, narrowing her eyes in an emotion of which I couldn’t tell if it was amusement or disgust.

“Uh, aren’t you, uhm, an undead too, miss, miss vampire?” Evyna responded.

The Slayer, ignoring his surroundings, decided now was a good time to speak up. “Madam Ice Queen… Nay, Madam Philia! My name is Richard. By all means, please grant me the honour of serving under you and, if possible, to be stepped on!”

Unsurprisingly, the Slayer’s declaration was met with several seconds of silence from every last person in the room. After those several seconds, the silence was broken by some manner of chattering sound from Philia’s skull, which I took as laughter.

“Very well, pawn,” she said, “you are honest, so there is no chance of betrayal. My liege, please allow me to take this pawn off your hands.”

“Evyna,” I asked, “was he always like… that?”

“I don’t, uh, don’t really know him, but I, I don’t think so,” she answered, and judging from the expression on her face, she found the situation just as hard to believe as I did.

“I… see.” A sigh escaped my lips as I shook my head and tapped my fingers on the armrest of my throne a few times. “Well, regardless of his… interests, if he is to be of even the slightest value as a servant to her, there is no path for him but to become a monster.” I chuckled and once again leaned my head on my hand. “I can arrange that… Though, of course, such things are permanent.”

“I don’t mind,” the Slayer said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to return to human society, anyway. Not now that I’ve-”

“Not another word,” I said, half-closing my eyes. I cleared my throat and stood up, taking a step towards the doors in the side of the throne room. “Then, you lot,” I said, “with me.” I turned to the closest suit of Living Armour and addressed it: “One of you, clean up the… mess. The maids can deal with the stains. Another one of you, lead the wolves to the kennels.”

The Living Armour raised its hand to its forehead in a salute as the visor of its helmet moved in lieu of a mouth—though, the voice it produced was more human-like than would be possible with just a moving visor. Thus, I concluded, it was magic. “As you have ordered, My Lord! The throne room will be perfectly clean within the hour!” it said.

“Those things… were alive…?” the Slayer asked, tugging at his own collar as he glanced around the room. It seemed he’d noticed by now that the Heroes’ party had been surrounded by enemy soldiers the entire time.

“So that’s why I felt mana coming out of them!” Evyna said, examining a Living Armour from closeby. Only when it moved to ‘look at her’—that is, it turned its head to face her direction—did she seem to realise she was inspecting a person from not ten centimetres’ distance and quickly took some distance, muttering some apologies.

I shook my head. “You two, quit stalling. I’ll leave you behind.”

Philia and Richard followed me without a word, but Evyna seemed to find it necessary to make some sort of comment. She mumbled another apology, and then went on to look at the doors I was heading towards—dark red, wooden, inlaid with golden patterns, maybe three metres tall—and the area behind my throne, where a dragon had been located up until moments ago.

“Uh, mister, mister Astaroth?” she said, fiddling with the clasps on her grimoire. “Will… Will your dragon fit through that door?”

A reasonable question, given Davna, despite being only an adolescent dragon, was at least ten metres tall—and quadrupedal, at that. Even discounting her tail, I estimated she was about twenty metres long. Well, even such size was not a problem, given…

“I’ll fit just fine, don’t worry!” a voice full of youth and cheer responded to Evyna’s query. The source of the voice was a young girl with ankle-length blazing red hair, split-pupilled red eyes and a body covered in scales. The scales ended around halfway on her upper arms, slightly above her knees and slightly below her neck, revealing smooth, fair skin, and two dark red horns sprouted from her head. The horns, the scales, the reptilian wings on her back and the thick, long tail extending from her lower back marked her conclusively as non-human, and she looked to be around fourteen years old.

Evyna, rather startled, practically fell backwards onto the floor, the only reason she didn’t being that I grabbed her by the collar of her outfit. “M, mister Astaroth,” she said, her eyes spinning, “who is this…?”

I shook my head as I put her back on her feet. “What, you don’t know the skill [Humanisation]? It seems I overestimated you, then.” As the name should make rather obvious, it was a skill that allowed non-humanoid monsters to become humanoid.

“No, no, I know what that is!” she replied, shaking her head as she separated herself from my hand. “But, uh, isn’t it usually only the, uh, really smart monsters who get that skill? Red Dragons are strong, but…” She looked the young girl up and down. The girl, in response, waved with a mischievous grin on her face.

“Believe what you will about a dragon’s intelligence,” I said, “this is still Davna.” By way of… proof, almost, I held up my hand in Davna’s direction, and she placed a finger in my palm.

“The… the same tricks,” Evyna said, nodding to herself. It seemed my whim had worked out.

“Ah,” I said, “before you almost fall on the ground again, that, over there, is Navillus. Of course, she doesn’t need a skill for it.” I gestured towards the gelatinous humanoid, ‘standing’ nearby.

Female in figure—a rather generous figure, at that—but rather than the colour of skin, she was an odd shade of turquoise. In addition, rather than solid, she was made out of some slimy substance—her legs trailed off into a pool of it, rather than feet—which, combined with her partial transparency, actually made it rather hard to make out most details, even for me. About half of the time, I found myself with little to no indication of her mood. Of course, being a slime, it was rather easy for Navillus to assume this semi-humanoid form, and even speak.

“Navillus thinks, it nice to meet you!” Navillus said, though there were a few indistinct glorps mixed into her sentence. The only response Evyna managed to produce was a small wave with a completely blank expression on her face.

Neither Richard nor Philia seemed interested, and I’d also grown rather bored of talking, so I decided to get going and opened the doors leading into one of the castle’s many gorgeous hallways. I spent a few seconds looking at my reflection in the floor and a few more at the night sky outside the window before moving on. Evyna seemed determined to walk by my side, which was rather hampered by the size difference between our steps. I found it difficult to hide the smirk it caused, so I decided not to restrain it—it didn’t seem like she noticed, regardless.

Behind us was Charlotte, skin white like wax and eyes red like blood. Her face lacked even the slightest trace of muscle structure or the smallest blemish—whenever I looked at her, the words ‘impossibly beautiful’ couldn’t help but rise to my mind. Her black hair flowed down to her hips and her mouth housed a pair of fangs, usually hidden behind her lips. Her dress fell well into ‘gothic lolita’ territory—black-and-white, excessively frilly and layered, and sporting several ribbons. Her skirt, falling to her knees, met and exceeded her black socks, and her sleeves met her gloves—basically, below her neck, not a centimetre of skin was exposed, save a little open patch at her right wrist.

Further behind her, floating in the air, followed Lilith, who still seemed mostly engrossed in her book. The only evidence she was thinking about anything else were her occasional glances up—likely with the purpose of preventing collisions. Her skin was dark purple, both her eyes and her shoulder-length hair were hot pink, a pair of horns adorned the crown of her head, she had a thin, heart-tipped tail—in short, a picture-perfect demon. The combination of a short-sleeved crop top, a pair of dark blue hotpants and a figure that wouldn’t lose to Navillus might lead one to the conclusion she was a succubus, but no such thing was true—she was a proper Arch-Devil.

The Ice Queen and Richard had chosen to walk behind her, and even behind them walked Tempest, who occasionally looked back at the throne room with slight regret in her tired eyes. Her waist-length, messy hair was a verdant green, and her eyes a dark shade of purple. She was clad in a slightly oversized lab coat—without safety goggles, of course—and on her head was a witch’s hat with a crown-like design stitched into it. It was clear not just from the bags under her eyes, but also from the way she carried herself that she hadn’t had a minute of sleep in quite a while.

After a few minutes of walking, during which Evyna attempted—unsuccessfully—to start a conversation several times, we arrived at a room blocked off by a pair of doors not dissimilar in size to the pair we went through earlier. Unlike the earlier doors, they were black, and they looked like they were made of some kind of metal, rather than wood. I knew the metal to be Black Silver.

Owing to the doors’ material, they were rather heavy, so rather than exert my physical strength for no good reason, I opened them using [Non-Attribute Magic], which could be used without chanting and using very little mana. At my gesture, the doors opened with quite some force.

For some reason, Evyna seemed rather impressed by my little display.

The room the doors opened into was dark—no problem for my [Night Vision] skill—even despite the candles on the walls, the walls were made of rather old-looking black stone bricks and the room lacked a single window. Most notable, however, was the large, dark purple magic circle on the floor in the centre of the room, perhaps seven metres across, filled with complex geometric patterns and peculiar arcane characters.

“Richard,” I said, “you stand in the centre. Yes, right there. Philia, over there…”

Like that, I positioned every relevant person in their appropriate location. In the end, this ended with Richard in the magic circle’s centre, the Ice Queen rather near him, and Tempest, Lilith, Charlotte and I around the circle, with matching distances between us. Navillus, Davna and Evyna had little choice but to stand in the corner and watch.

I used one of the skills every Hero possessed, [Storage], to make appear a book, black like ebony and bound in luxurious gold. Both the front and the back had patterns in that same colour, but no title was present.

With my goal in mind, I undid the clasp shutting the book and flipped through its pages until I found my target. I channelled mana into my right eye, black like the book, and extended my left hand forwards, pouring mana into the magic circle, too.

With a solemn voice, as if praying, I started chanting, the necessary words flowing into my mind as if straight from the book:

“By the powers vested within me,

I beseech thee to manifest,

Darkness darker than the night and blacker than all,

Call to thee that which dubs itself water

And use her power to give thy blessings

To this powerless, worthless mortal.”

Judging from her expression, Evyna was mildly surprised by the fact that the chant was comprehensible, unlike common magic, but I didn’t pay much attention to her. I was more focused on the display of lights before me.

That is, a peculiar black light wrapped itself around the Ice Queen as the magic circle greedily drunk the magic I was giving it, and the moment my Demon Generals decided to join in, that light intensified severalfold. A few seconds later, the light left the Ice Queen, taking with it a small ball of blue light as it moved towards Richard.

Both of the colours of light entered Richard’s chest, and his body started glowing in a way a human body definitely wasn’t supposed to-

The ‘crack’-like sound emanating from his rough centre told me my job was done.