Back under my rule, demons were divided by meritocratic classes.

Sure there was a lord who ruled over the kings, who in turn ruled over administrators, but every member of the ruling class was designated to take those roles because they were capable of doing it.

Sure not all of them were specifically born to fulfil it like I was, but they learnt to fit into that role like a jigsaw piece.

Of course, if they were incapable of doing that the other members would discreetly get rid of them. Public unrest and distrust was the greatest threat to a recuperating company. The point of this rant was that we were sincere with what we did.

There was no power struggle. No one tried to take a higher position than the ones they were allotted. Because they knew that if they were to do something as pointless as that, I would personally destroy them.

Ultimately, fear bound our politics together in the past...

Nothing like the alliance that I am living in right now.

The alliance used to belong to the humans. Who accepted demons after the rest of humanity tried to exercise complete control over its nations. The demons existed to protect the humans and soon became citizens themselves.

It was an area of refuge, but also of constant war. It was only after the Sadou lineage and my family arrived that this chain of islands got stabilized.

There was never an ideal form of governance, and under the pressure of the original inhabitants, a system of nobles and commoners was set up.

On paper, setting up political institutions where a noble lineage protects the common folks sounds decent. Everyone who was not a noble would remain on an equal footing. And the nobles would have generations upon generations to build up a good image and rule effectively.

But that was all under the assumption that these nobles don't start playing their own little political game.

I wouldn't blame Sadou Jii. I mean the man came into a broken country and fixed their infrastructure as much as he could. And now it surely meets the needs of an interracial safe haven. His efforts were to make sure to rid the society of backward classes through their assimilation into the masses. This was what he believed would immediately up the alliance's prosperity.

And sure enough, the commoners became equal and have thrived since then.

But there was only so much he could do in twenty years, though.

The lack of monitoring for the nobles meant that ones in power like parading it. There was no reason for them to be tense anymore, after all.

His way of ruling became the opposite of mine.

I used fear to preside over the government. He used policies, to bring up everyone but the government.

This resulted in all the nobles becoming pretentious. Just like the human nobles of my era.

And just like them, the nobles of this era have also adopted a pesky tradition which is also the current ordeal that I was dealing with.

The ball.

"Wow! Mao-kun looks so cute!~" Mom tugged at the collar of my suit.

I looked at my reflection. I looked like shit and so did my hair. It was literally the same colour as poop. The bad, 'I had too much Mexican food' kind of poop.

I mean, that's what you get for mixing my mom's green hair with my dad's red hair. My face was fine, and my eyes were sharp. Both resemble my previous life to an uncanny degree. I would look decent if my hair wasn't like this.

But this was salvageable. The new world had something known as hair dye. I should be able to dye it in any colour I want.

Naturally, that realisation made me unbothered about my hair colour. On another thought, that might have been because of something even heavier weighing down on my mind than my hair.

5-year-olds had chubby bodies. So did I. I wouldn't consider myself overweight. That was the one thing I could control. Ever since that one spar, I at least made sure to keep my body in somewhat of a decent shape. But anatomy still held. I was chubby which made me sort of insecure.

On the bright side, Yuu-chan was fatter than I wa-

"GAH!" I felt a sharp pain in my side. "What are you doing?!" I looked at the doll-like girl next to me.

"Sorry, I just felt like you were thinking something unpleasant." She flicked her silver hair.

Ah, yes, she had silver hair now. How?

I don't know… she evolved I guess. She was a higher vampire now. Still not a devil though. If you were to ask me what that meant for her strength, I'd say that she could transform into a bat for a bit longer.

But more than that, it meant that she was the only one with silver hair in her family.

Sort of like if she was adop-

"GAH! What now???"

"Blame yourself for never learning from your mistakes." My skin was getting pinched harddd.

"I am sorry just let me goooo. UUUU!"

I don't know about anyone else, but I expected my parents to step up against the abuse I was facing right in front of them. But all I got was their delighted faces as they saw two childhood friends 'play' together. They ignored my suffering altogether.

"Is he ready?" She asked Mom cutely. The change in her attitude when dealing with adults always vexed me.

"Yes... are you going to take him?"

"Unnhn."

"Well, you two can leave on your little date then."

Ughh... why did she have to put it like that? There was no way I'd go on a date with an unlovable prick like thi-

"Let's go." She grabbed my fixed collar and dragged me out of the room.

Well, I couldn't really deny her if she kidnapped me now, could I?

We walked down the spiral staircase that led to the palace's hall. A red carpet, chandeliers, banquet, basically everything you would imagine.

The occasion was my coming of age. When anyone of higher society turned 5 they would hold a ball to break in the new blood. Sort of like a debut. I turned 5 last weekend. You probably don't even need to ask how over the top that party was.

It put even this ball to shame. My parents desperately needed to learn that material goods wouldn't increase my adoration for them any higher than it already was. In that sense, I was more mature than them.

Yuu-chan and I assimilated into the crowd and headed straight to the food section.

"You probably know why I dragged you here, right?" Yuu-chan whispered while standing in front of the buffet. She was trying to look embarrassed but the sparkle in her eyes gave her intentions away.

"You're eyeing on my portion I presume."

"Of course, I'm eyeing on your portion! Why else would I spend time with you? I wouldn't be caught dead eating two people's worth of meal... so I'll get a plate and finish it. Then you get a plate and I'll finish that too."

"You pig."

"Shut up! All this exercise turned my stomach into a well. I wasn't like this! I could survive a week without food, but now the stress from child growth and power growth is killing me."

"Still a pig."

"Just get the damn plate already!" She shoved me into the line.

Despite my clear refusal, I got forced into offering my meal to the princess. Who in turn discreetly gobbled it down.

I thought that this whole process would be a chore and that people would pester me, but it turned out the only person they recognised was Yuu-chan. And she was busy hiding her presence. I couldn't blame them, I did live a moderately secluded life and next to no one knew my face.

By the time Yuu-chan finished both her meals, Mom and Dad came down from the room along with the royal family.

That's how highly they were placed. Heads of the military. The highest martials.

Ah! Speaking of which, the high society was divided into martials and nobles. Nobles ruled states, martials protected them.

{a/n: that's enough world-building for a single chapter.}

Mom and Dad instantly found and walked up to me. As they started paying more attention to me than Yuu-chan, a wave of whispers started circulating around the hall.

"How do you like this Ma-kun? All these people came here for you?" Mom bent down and looked at me.

Came for me? My ass. These clout hungry losers came to leech of my connection to you two.

"It feels good." I replied half-heartedly.

"That's great!" Both of them looked at each other until Dad spoke again.

"How about you introduce yourself?"

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that.

"Yes, in a minute."

[HOW DO I DO IT?!] I grabbed Yuu-chan's shoulder.

[Have you never introduced yourself in your previous life? Just do it normally..]

[I have… but back then I scared the piss out of people. How much presence should I exert?]

[I don't know, you don't have much of a presence anyway. Just do it as courteously as you can.]

[So with sincerity?]

[Sure, go with that.]

At first, I wondered how well a 5-year-old would speak, but judging by this era's standards, 5-year-old nobles are insane. The others slightly older than me were drinking sparkling juice out of a wine glass next to me.

"Huff…" This was getting nowhere. I had to let some of my true personality out someday. It might as well be now.

I started walking onto the stage, meticulously piecing together a sentence.

As it turns out different bodies had different adrenaline responses. I could feel my nerves build up unlike the entirety of my previous life. I shook my head and the thoughts away.

"LET ME PRESENT TO YOU- ASAMA MAO!" The announcer announced.

Standing atop the stage and looking down at the crowd gave me a wave of nostalgia. I was ready.

"I- Asama Mao, son of Asama Yiho and Asama Shiino, the head of the martials give you the humblest of greetings to everyone who took their time off to gather here on the occasion of my 5th birthday. I hope that you have a pleasant stay here."

The room went silent and then a high pitched falsetto radiated through the hall-

"Sheeeeeeeeessshhhh!"

Laughs and clapping filled the hall. More laughs than clapping, though. Even Hero Wench was laughing from below.

FOR FUCKS SAKE! SO MUCH FOR SINCERITY! THESE ASSHOLES! MILLENNIALS CAN ALL GO SCREW THEMSELVES!

{a/n- The rest of the party was a mess. A fun mess.}