In the dark lord’s castle.

Atop a stage formed from flowing, pulsing darkness, surrounded by a magical barrier erected by a little dryad, stood a strange trio.

A pair of beast-children, dressed in peculiar perversions of school uniforms.

A snow-white Kobold with eyes black as the night sky.

As these three were the dark lord’s newest recruits, they gathered a fair bit of attention: a formidable number of curious demons had gathered around the barrier, some literally climbing over one another to get a better view.

The dark lord had decided not to mingle with such things and instead raised himself another platform of darkness, several metres in the sky.

There, he was joined by his treasurer, his army’s marshal, and the man who had trained the pair of beast-children. Although the latter two made sense, the treasurer might have seemed out of place—well, she was simply bored.

And, although she was concealed, the dark lord’s mistress—that is, the goddess of darkness was also present.

The stage, though it was mainly made of darkness, was covered in a small layer of dust and dirt—perhaps the dark lord paid more attention to the details than he let on. On it stood the only people in the area who weren’t wearing some kind of smile.

As usual, the children’s eyes captured not the smallest sparkle of light, which caused them to look rather unmotivated considering there was a mock battle about to take place. They unsheathed their swords, the boy placed his sheath on the ground, a distance away, and the two of them took on battle-ready stances.

The Kobold, in turn, lowered its body to the ground and adopted an almost feral stance than its usual bipedal gait. If one put aside its snow-white fur and glittering black eyes, it simply looked like a regular Kobold that had found a collar somewhere.

Of course, the weapons were genuine, and the Kobold’s claws and teeth were not covered in anything. ‘As long as any injuries can be healed, it’s fine’—with that kind of savage mentality, mock battles between demons were a far larger spectacle than those between the races of humanity.

“Begin.”

With one word from the dark lord, the battle immediately started—

Well, that didn’t happen.

The two parties stood still, observing each other.

The children stuck to each other, although their swords were not held in positions that were very suitable for teamwork.

Cautiously, the Kobold circled the pair, for some reason exposing its fangs even though its claws were its greatest weapon.

After perhaps half a minute, the girl kicked off the ground without warning, her figure disappearing from view into a massive cloud of dust.

Although the boy seemed to have anticipated her movement—he quickly adjusted his posture—the cloud of dust, which caused him to flinch and almost cough, seemed unexpected.

The Kobold narrowed its eyes and looked around, trying to find the girl. After several seconds, it got the brilliant idea of using its highly sensitive nose to detect her by scent.

Its nose twitched a few times as it closed its eyes and sniffed the air—

And it sneezed because of the dust. Due to the surprise, it fell to the floor, which in turn caused it to dodge the girl’s pair of swords by pure dumb luck.

The dark lord had trouble keeping his face out of the palm of his hand, and the expressions of his companions were hard to describe.

The boy, having recovered, decided to participate and, after a few swift steps in the Kobold’s direction, swung his massive, larger-than-himself sword down overhead.

Perhaps by instinct or reflex, the Kobold rolled out of the sword’s way and, with a swift jump, got back on its feet. The sword impacted the ground not ten centimetres next to it.

The Kobold growled for a few moments, observing the children, before deciding on a plan of action—it would try and rush behind the boy, using a paw to leverage its turn.

By what must have been another stroke of dumb luck, this succeeded, and it was able to assault the boy’s back before he could respond.

The first blood drawn in the battle, its brilliant red colour accentuated as it went from inside the boy’s black uniform to on the Kobold’s white fur, elicited some cheers from the audience.

The boy finally turned around and rammed the flat edge of his sword into the Kobold’s side, blowing it away without a shred of hesitation.

It somehow managed to avoid external injuries, and got back up on its feet.

The dark lord raised an eyebrow, and his goddess, too, found it peculiar, but neither of them decided to pursue the matter.

After some manner of unseen tactical judgment, the girl manoeuvred to the Kobold’s back in case it had to move backwards for any reason.

Grasping his sword tightly with both hands, the boy made another swing at the Kobold, once more sideways. The Kobold avoided this attack with a rather spectacular backflip—

Which landed it right on the girl’s head.

The girl let out a surprised yelp and fell backwards, somehow managing to keep ahold of her swords. Yet she soon abandoned them to push down her skirt, her face red as a tomato.

Since it lost its foothold, the Kobold, too, fell onto the ground with a surprisingly satisfying “thud”.

As could be expected, the audience’s general response was laughter.

A single, muffled clap from the dark lord’s gloved hands silenced the crowd and drew the three combatants’ attention.

“That is just about enough,” he announced in his usual, sharp voice, the expression on his face stuck halfway between scorn and pity.

With an elegant leap, he arrived at the only tree in the area and awakened the Dryad inside.

After a few words of conversation and, for some inexplicable reason, a one-sided hug, the Dryad dropped the barrier she had made and healed the wound on the boy’s arm.

“What about Alpine?” the dark lord asked, loosely gesturing towards the Kobold.

Subtly, barely noticed even by his goddess, he pulled a face when he saw it was still covered in blood.

Rather than disgust, it was more a face that said he found it troublesome.

The Dryad looked at Alpine and soon shook her head, mentioning she could not heal wounds she could not see, such as internal wounds. Without even giving the dark lord time to respond, she then dove back into the tree she had emerged from.

Unwilling to give form to the sigh in his heart, the dark lord turned to the three newest members of his army.

“You,” he said, pointing to the Kobold.

It performed what may have looked like a salute to the untrained eye.

“Although your claw technique is decent,” the dark lord said, folding his hands behind his back as he gained an arrogant smirk, “your situational awareness is abysmal. Where your enemies are, what is going on around you—work on those, and I may consider teaching you tactics. And if you are going to use your nose, look out for dust.”

The dark lord’s words, laced with scorn and contempt, simply caused the Kobold to bark and wag its tail left and right. It seemed his sarcasm was lost on it.

“Then, you two,” the dark lord continued, turning to the children.

Their salutes were several orders of magnitude better than the Kobold’s.

“Even if you know how to use a sword, that is useless if you cannot work with others. In other words, communication. Do not blindly trust others to know your intentions. Learn to communicate your plans. In addition, try to come up with a plan for dealing with unexpected situations that does not involve a meeting between the ground and your rear end.”

A haughty laugh left his mouth, speaking volumes of his feelings.

Unlike the Kobold, the children were capable of understanding sarcasm. The girl’s face went redder than it already was, and her ears drooped down. “Yes, mister demon king,” she said, dejected.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, one of his ears flicking a few times.

“And then,” the dark lord said, raising his voice for the first time as he dramatically turned around, “as for the rest of you.”

Some murmurs spread throughout the crowd as it was suddenly addressed, and a few demons gulped at his voice or pulled at the collars of their clothes.

“While I do not intend to punish you for your opinions,” he said, closing an eye as he swept a piercing stare over the crowd, “I do not suppose you are unaware of the consequences of ridiculing my direct subordinates or personal possessions.”

The crowd died down as quickly as the murmurs had started, and soon, it was nothing more than a group of demons collectively averting their eyes.

“And I do not believe I have to remind you how little they have trained. Considering that, I would estimate they are stronger than you when you had trained this long.”

His wicked smirk and arrogant laughter were truly a perfect fit for one another.

Once more, he swept his gaze across the crowd and, apparently satisfied, raised his voice.

“Then,” he said, his smirk warping into a grin, “for Lady Entropy’s sake, and for mine. Devote your souls, your bodies, your everything to us, and grow ever stronger!”

He struggled to hide his delight at the crowd’s elated response.

His beloved goddess found his ability to rouse a crowd so easily quite admirable, as she figured she would never be able to do something like that, and the dark lord’s treasurer, still standing atop the platform of darkness, let a few dignified giggles escape her lips as she watched the spectacle.

Neither his marshal nor the children’s instructor showed any particular response.

In that way, the demons of Eskaria’s army returned to their training in a much more enthusiastic manner than before. The dark lord seemed to decide the stage was fine where it was, because he simply walked off and left it there as he took the trio of combatants with him.

Of course, although he could not see her, the fact that his beloved goddess stuck by his side as he walked off prompted a wry smirk to form on his face.

To reward the three of them, the dark lord decided to give them as much food as they liked, and whatever they liked.

Their appetites were, to put it simply, frightening, as if one was dumping food into a bottomless well. The dark lord spent a few minutes pondering how fearsome their food expenses would be in a normal household.

He formulated an alternate theory for why, specifically, these two children were chosen to be sacrificed to him, but soon decided that perhaps it was better not to think about that.

With the internal relief that he would not have to prioritise either party, given there had been no real winner, he decided it would be fine for him to eat a bit as well. His marshal, who caught wind of this, decided to bother him for some food as well…

Like such, it ended up as a regular dinner for the dark lord and his aides, and the first of many that the children came to attend.

The moment dinner finished, while the maids were still busy cleaning off the table, the dark lord was approached by a maid who was notably different from the others.

Although the other maids were monochrome black-and-white, she had a blue tint, and wore a mischievous smile on her face.

“Speak,” he told her, apparently unaffected by her differences, as what may have passed to him and his associates as an interested smile played over his face.

Anyone who didn’t know him would no doubt call it a grin.

“There is a spot of trouble,” the pale blue maid said, near-silently giggling to herself.

The dark lord raised an eyebrow. “Elaborate.”

“There appears to be a small party of Heroes, Master Astaroth,” she said between her giggles, her smile growing ever more impish.

“I see,” he said, “in that case-”

“Ah, one more thing, Master Astaroth,” the maid said.

“Do not interrupt me, maid. Speak.”

“One of the Heroes is, wait for it… a Saint!” she said, her giggles dying down as her expression finally shifted from an ‘impish smile’ into an ‘impish grin’.

As the dark lord made his way to the throne room, he decided to ignore the fact that this was the second time, now, that he had to resist the urge to bury his head in the palm of his hand.