Normally speaking, one would not go prancing around the capital of a nation one was at war with.

But in this situation, the war was, in a practical sense, already over. Certainly, there would still be a fight—but the conditions for the promise of servitude had already been met.

‘If the demon king defeated the warrior-chief in battle, the dwarves would become vassals’.

Indeed, that was all. That was the promise.

Dwarves were a proud race, in the end. They would keep their promises.

And the demon king had won. The warrior-chief was dead, his head separated from the rest of his body—the killing method that would even end an undead.

In other words, the demon king and his lackeys certainly possessed the right to walk about the dwarven capital as though they owned the place. Because they did own the place.

Normally speaking, the capital was a lively place. Dwarves would walk around chatting with one another, the sounds of blacksmiths’ hammers smashing down on metal would resound through the underground city’s halls, and there would always be at least a few drunks.

But every dwarf that laid eyes upon the demon king fell silent, the smithies had stopped their jobs and everyone was sober as could be.

“What a tedious city. Would you not agree, my friend?”

From underneath his mask, the demon king’s words resounded. He was not particularly shouting, but he often spoke with a relatively loud voice, and the entire city was, in essence, a network of caves—as a result, his voice echoed throughout the whole capital.

“Mmh… Can’t say you’re wrong, Asty. They’re normally a lot more interesting, though…”

By his side, a floating, purple catgirl. The only evidence of her feline nature was her tail—her ears were covered by a tall, military-style hat.

“I cannot imagine so. Even if the people are more lively than this, the city itself is drab.”

An absolute superior attitude, as though looking at the entire world from above. As though the world were a toy box. Words befitting either a god or a devil, depending on one’s perspective.

“The city itself? Whatcha mean?”

“Every house is the same. The only evidence I have seen of their technological advancement is that magic stone production plant. Apart from that, it is all the same as any other city, just without a sky.”

“Ehehe, well, if you put it like that…”

The catgirl—his ‘friend’—could not find it in herself to deny his words. And who could?

What did you tell someone who was bored with the entire concept of a city as the paradigm dictated it? One could not very well change the core concept of a city at a dime.

“Still, I suppose there is at least one thing I can praise the dwarves on.”

“What’s that?”

“The quality of their souls is quite admirable.”

He reached over and grabbed the nearest dwarf by the collar of their shirt.

“A stubborn tenacity, born of a childish refusal to admit defeat… It is something they all share. Perhaps they inherited it from Gnome when she created them. It would scarcely be the first time the attributes of a goddess have influenced the race they created. In any case, they are truly the ideal candidates for becoming immortal Einherjar.”

With a thud, the dwarf fell to the floor as the demon king let go. Without sparing them another glance, the demon king continued walking.

Indeed, he had promised the army a battle. A glorious fight.

And it could not very well be called glorious if the enemy army were not at the top of their game.

Thus, the dwarves had been given time to prepare. Time that the demon king now had to fill.

And his first activity had proven a disappointment.

With a frown on his face, he considered what to do next.

***

The second of the demon king’s Demon Generals.

Tempest Maleficum.

That was the name of a brilliant witch.

A witch who had, soon after becoming mature, ascended the ranks of her coven. Within five years, she was a Witch Queen.

‘As brilliant as she was mad’—those words were often used to describe her.

She didn’t mind, of course. If anything, she agreed.

Who, if not a madman, would come up with the concept of artificially creating Black Silver by dumping enough mana to kill a hundred men into a single ingot of silver?

And who, if not a madman, could not only make it work, but in a way that other witches could reproduce?

Indeed, she was raging mad.

For several hundred years after becoming a Witch Queen, she had worked and worked and worked, and thus created many things, most of which were without imaginable use.

But witches, fundamentally, were not creatures that could exist without other races.

Magi were monsters that used magic to destroy.

But witches used magic to create.

To create items, and to create spells.

But many items witches created would go to waste. That was simply the sort of race they were.

They did not live for the sake of using the items they created—they lived for that act of creation itself.

Thus, witch covens often formed symbiotic relationships with others. They would receive funding and materials, and in exchange, they would hand over the items they created.

The witches oftentimes didn’t want the items anyway, so it was a mutually beneficial exchange.

Yet the Maleficum coven existed for rather a long time without a benefactor. Part of the reason was simply that they didn’t need one—they possessed plenty of gold and materials of their own.

Yet the larger part was Tempest.

She was, in effect, the leader of the coven, as the witch possessing the highest grade. And the fact of the matter was that she was different.

She was mad not just in the concepts for her experiments. She was mad in her desires, as well.

Unlike other witches, she attached value to the items she created. Not in the sense that she herself wanted to use them, per se, but in the sense that she, at least, wanted them to be used well.

To put it in other words, she was waiting for a benefactor who would be able to make proper use of the items and spells created by her coven.

Thus, when she was scouted by the demon king and his vampiric servant, she was overjoyed.

She knew just by looking at them. They and the nation they created would be able to use her creations.

And she had never been more right.

Her method of creating Black Silver was used to build an army.

Her spells were used to rally monsters of all varieties.

He even went so far as to direct her.

Under his instructions, she created a way to artificially create the type of undead known as Living Armour. It was put to use to create an endless army of soldiers who knew no emotion but loyalty, who would never die and never falter.

She knew this was her calling.

That was the kind of woman Tempest was.

As one might expect, the looks the dwarves turned upon Tempest were fearful.

Although the rest of the demon king’s lackeys had advanced into the city proper, Tempest had opted to stay behind in the magic stone forge. After all, fundamentally speaking, she didn’t care about the city at all.

Unlike her master, she didn’t possess the ability to be intrigued by anything that happened to catch her interest. She had no time to look at something as frivolous as architecture.

Indeed, that was the only merit the city had to offer, really. Its architecture was slightly unique.

Of course, she had no plans to berate her master for taking a passing interest in unusual things. From the start, he had been a collector, who liked to have things simply to have them.

It was just that Tempest didn’t share that interest, so she had stuck around the place she found interesting.

And it was oh-so-interesting indeed.

This method of producing magic stones was truly fascinating.

Up until now, she had had only two ways of obtaining the things.

First, they were occasionally found in deep parts of mines. This was, in essence, the ‘conventional’ method of obtaining them, and why most countries treated them as such precious commodities.

The second method was to condense an absurd amount of magic power into one spot. This was an absurd method available only to Eskaria, because it possessed a multitude of witches—any normal country could never pull it off.

This second method was the main method Tempest used. She herself could produce perhaps three magic stones per day, though that would significantly limit her other magical abilities.

But this was truly a turning point.

With these tools, the dwarves could produce dozens of the things every day. If she replicated them and took them home, she herself could probably produce a hundred in a day, let alone the rest of her coven.

None of the dwarves had the courage to stop her as she boldly stepped forward—if anything, they retreated, took a few steps back.

Implicit consent to do whatever she liked, it seemed. A grin floated to her face.

“You.”

She grabbed the nearest dwarf by his collar and pointed to the machine.

“Explain to me how to use this thing.”

There was no room for refusal. He could tell—if he refused, she would crush his throat and ask someone else.

In an entirely different way from her master, Tempest was just as forceful.

“I see. That will be all.”

She tossed the dwarf aside like trash. He rolled across the floor, no doubt covered in scrapes and bruises, but at least he was alive.

After a few moments’ break, she used the machine. An experiment, just to see what would happen. If she could use it in the first place, and what the result would be if she could.

And the result was greater than she ever could have hoped.

“This will do… This will do, indeed…”

She took the resulting magic stone and inspected it from various angles, her eyes glowing purple as mana coursed through them.

“The purity leaves a lot to be desired, but… If it consumes this little mana to produce a stone of this size, I could very well produce two hundred in a day…”

Indeed, it was more than twice her initial estimate. This was a major turning point.

After looking over the magic stone a few more times, she crushed it to dust to reclaim the mana inside. It was not a perfect reclamation, but it was better than nothing—she wanted to have at least a little fun during the upcoming battle, so she wanted to spare every drop of mana she could.

The ease with which she crushed a magic stone, which was supposed to be harder than rock, sent a wave of unease through the crowd of dwarves. Were his lackeys all like this?

With a dark smile, Tempest looked over the machine once more.

If she could reproduce this, it would become entirely possible to start treating magic stones as consumables…

***

The three lieutenant-generals of the demon king’s army.

Unlike the five Demon Generals, they did not possess their position merely because of the demon king’s personal feelings. No, they had fought their way up, exactly the way any normal demon would rise in the ranks.

Kesthis, the Demi-Dragon whose spells could lay waste to any battlefield.

Grink, the War Ogre who could take on an army of a thousand of his own grade and come out on top.

Selaia, the Doom Lamia who was as proficient at healing allies as at cursing enemies, who even possessed the ability to proclaim death sentences.

These three stood at the top of the demon king’s army. Excluding the Demon Generals and each other, surely they could beat anyone.

As such, they commanded a fitting amount of respect amongst that army.

But this city had never seen them in action, and thus did not give them that respect.

They may have had radically different personalities—Kesthis, with his religious devotion, Grink, with his infamous muscle-brainedness, and Selaia, with her quiet gloomy aura—but there was one trait they shared.

A trait without which they would not command the amount of respect they did from the meatheads called demons.

They were all absurdly bad-tempered.

This could not possibly be a good combination with the dwarves’ infamous stubbornness. And yet, the demon king had not sent anyone to watch over them, and left them only the orders ‘do not kill a single soul’.

He had said nothing about property damage. By now, the three of them, travelling together, had probably wrecked more than a dozen stores.

And here came another dwarf.

“You three!” it said, “h-how dare you! Even provided you serve under our new lord, to destroy property like this is—!”

“Shut up, you godless worm.”

Kesthis. His reptilian eyes showed no emotion but contempt, and he looked about ready to kick the dwarf out of the way.

“Now, now,” Selaia said, “let’s calm down a little, Kesthis. Even provided he is worth less than the air he breathes and the dirt he walks upon, he’s still a subject to our Lord. By extension, that makes the garbage a subject of the Goddess, no?”

Indeed, she was normally quiet, but when she talked, she could talk.

The dwarf, perhaps having realised its mistake, took a step back. Yet it bumped into a tough wall that had not been there mere seconds ago. With a hint of hesitation in its movements, it turned around—

“You mind sayin’ that stuff again, twerp?”

A green mass of muscle stared down at it, a grin on its skull-like face, as it tapped a massive sword on its shoulder.

“Eh? Ah… N-no, it was nothing…”

The dwarf tried to back away once more, but this time, it collided with Kesthis’s blue-scaled body.

“It did not sound that way to me.”

Before it could get away, it found itself entangled in Selaia’s coils. At the same time, several nearby dwarves were also caught, obviously ‘by accident’.

Without a word, a dark smile floated to her face.

Indeed, the three lieutenant-generals had been told not to kill a soul.

But Kesthis had not been ordered not to burn down the houses of dwarves with impertinent attitudes.

Grink had not been ordered not to use a bit of good old violent persuasion to get people to understand his arguments.

And Selaia had not been ordered not to capture dwarves so that they would not run away, nor had she been ordered not to administer excruciatingly painful poison.

Indeed, their orders did not prevent them from harming—only from killing.

Was the demon king counting on his lieutenant-generals reading between the lines and leaving the dwarves alone?

Or, perhaps, had he calculated their personalities in when he gave his orders, so as to display their power and still be able to claim it was simply a case of orders that were not specific enough—?