“So…” William looked around at the three others in the command tent, “Are we worried about the dragon?”

Lorelei shrugged, “There’s no way to know if it will be a problem. It was likely roused by all the military activity in the area.”

Lila nodded, “It wasn’t even necessarily our armies… When it flew away, it went far into the mountains where we haven’t yet gone.”

Jordan frowned, “Could there be some activity there we don’t know about? Maybe another pass…”

“Look into it.” William nodded. “Our next problem is how we’ll deal with the remaining lords. I’d prefer an option better than just throwing loads of soldiers at them to tire them out.”

“Can’t you fight them?” Lila raised an eyebrow, “You’ve become… terrifyingly stronger recently.”

William shook his head. “I can at most take on two or three at once… assuming none of them are stronger. With eight of the old lords left- seven if we discount the one in the fort by himself over there… That’s one for you-” he pointed at Lila, “One for you-” he pointed at Lorelei, “and… five for me?” William pointed at himself and shook his head. “We can deal with it if they conveniently split into two smaller groups, but they don’t even have much territory left to defend. There’s little reason for them to split up.”

“What about… umm…” Lila frowned, “Tiburcio? He held off one of them for a while, right?”

William shook his head, “He’s… not going to be able to recover completely in time…” William frowned deeply, “If at all. He’s the toughest person I’ve ever seen, but that only goes so far…”

“Speaking of recover…” Lila looked over at William, “How come you didn’t tell any of us that your arm was healed?”

“I knew.” Lorelei grinned mischievously.

“...” Lila sighed, “Anyway, you didn’t tell me or Jordan.”

“I said it wouldn’t be a problem in combat.” William shrugged, “I thought that was good enough.”

“You said it wouldn’t be a problem, not that it was recovered. You never used it at all. In fact… you still don’t.”

“Oh.” William nodded, “Turns out I’m left handed now.”

“... What.” Lila looked at William with a flat expression.

“Well, see, dominant hands are-”

“I know how dominant hands work!” LIla glared. “What I want to know is how it took so long for you to figure it out!”

“Well, you try being right handed for three lives. You get pretty used to doing things a certain way. With all that practice, my left hand is only slightly more useful right now.”

“Umm…” Jordan seemed to want to say something, but hesitated.

“Hmm?” William raised an eyebrow, “Ah. Yes. I’ve lived three lives before this one. The first was… boring. The second I was titled an Archmage even without the ability to do magic. Then in the third I shattered the Demon King’s soul, and now I’m me.”

Jordan’s eyes widened, flickering between William’s serious face, to Lila and Lorelei… and to Chris. Jordan finally regained words again, “I heard the… Demon King… made a staff like that. However, he never used it. There was also something similar in the hands of… a human Archmage once.”

“That’s pretty much it. Chris wasn’t a big fan of the Demon King, so he helped me destroy him. Well, to be honest without Chris I wouldn’t be standing here today.”

“Chris…” Jordan frowned again, “You say that strange name like… it’s a person?” Chris moved from his standing position to tap Jordan- firmly but not too painfully- on the head. “Umm… he… is a person?” Chris tilted forward and back in a facsimile of a nod and glowed in acknowledgement. “Alright.” Jordan took a deep breath, “I suppose this explains many things.”

William nodded, “There are some good reasons I’d rather not see humanity wiped out.”

“Are you sure… I should know this?”

“It’s a little late now, isn’t it?” William shook his head, “Besides, you’re my best and most loyal commander. Are you more likely to betray me now that you know I will definitely be able to come back for revenge?”

“Well… no. That sounds like a terrible decision. Though, I suppose that explains why so many people remained… somewhat loyal to the Demon King.”

“That’s right. On a related note, that is why it is so important to kill all of the old lords… in a special way. They have some potential to reincarnate with memories and their strength.”

“Ah. And that would explain how you’re doing things… and why just swarming them and killing them that way isn’t any good.” Jordan nodded. “Err… I’d prefer to remain ignorant on the details of how this works for various reasons…”

“That’s reasonable,” William nodded, “Though I should note that all of the worst people to know how to do so came up with a technique first. Then they went around destroying the souls of every human they could get their hands on- and quite a number of gevai too.”

“That latter part seems like the sort of information that would be useful as propaganda…”

Lorelei took the chance to chime in, “We made some use of it, but most people don’t have concrete knowledge of souls. They would not generally assume they can be destroyed, or that there would be any purpose to it.”

Jordan nodded. “Without the existence of… the Demon King, I would have had little reason to believe in souls. Even so, I never really thought about them as relevant in any other case. Anyway…” Jordan looked toward the battle map, “Back to the old lords… since we can’t rely on single combat- the old lords have already refused it before- we can assign groups of regular lords to defeat them or hold them off… We have enough that they should be able to do so. We have enough momentum that nobody would care much about the ‘unfairness’... and if we win we can deal with complaints afterwards. Unless anyone has a better idea?”