Chapter 98: The Demon Lord’s Army of Dreams and Hope! Defeat the Arch-Nemesis Hero!

Meanwhile, who was most anxious about the revival of the Hero’s party?

It was none other than Sloth, disguised as the Lord of Bere.

‘Reina has escaped… The Hero has been revived… And the First Prince has been defeated, has he… Even for a useless human, I thought giving him that much leverage would be enough for him to ensnare her on his own, but he was more incompetent than I imagined…’

The bald lord sat in a dark room, listening to the reports of his subordinates who continuously brought new information. The main reports were about the conscription of Imperial soldiers and the internal situation, but whenever information about the Hero’s party was mixed in, the atmosphere grew grim.

“Is the execution team dead?”

“Yes… Both teams, the one in the Empire and the one we borrowed from the Kingdom, have been completely wiped out.”

“How troublesome. I had hoped they would work a little longer for us.”

A living suit of armor, one of the undead soldiers, knelt on one knee, concurring with his lord’s words.

“A team with a long and storied history, dating back to the days of the Demon Lord’s army. Their information-gathering skills and techniques for breaking opponents were exceptional. According to the reports, Reina still suffered from torture trauma and was on the verge of submission after just a week. If those fools from the Imperial army hadn’t interfered, we surely would have been able to break her.”

“But they failed… is that right?”

“Yes…”

“This place is full of incompetents. Not only did they let Reina, who would have become a splendid toilet monster for our Demon Lord’s army, slip away, but they also got our most skilled team killed… The First Prince is the same. I handed him a perfect card to bind the Hero, and he gets defeated so easily… Why didn’t they keep Gara in check in the first place?”

“He left for the countryside as soon as the party disbanded, so perhaps they thought he wouldn’t be involved in the current political situation.”

“And as a result, both Reina and the Hero were set free. Entrusting the Hero to the First Prince was my mistake. It might have been better to torture her myself here in Bere. Then, even if I couldn’t get Reina, I would have at least been able to play with the Hero.”

He grumbled about how nothing was going his way, but there was no sign of failure in his demeanor. The viscous substance oozing from one half of the bald lord’s head continued to squirm and writhe unsettlingly as it let out a small laugh.

“You’re lying.”

“Oh, you saw through me?”

“Of course. You don’t sound like someone who has failed. It seems you anticipated the First Prince’s failure.”

“Oh… you’re sharp… for a mere communication monster… Was I too obvious?”

“Why did you hand the Hero over to the First Prince? You must have known that man was more ambitious than he appeared, Lord Sloth… You must have predicted that even if he broke the Hero, he would treat her as his own property and betray us…”

“I handed her over because I knew.”

“Your composure implies you had another strategy, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Despite what I said, I never intended to imprison the Hero in Bere from the start. As for Reina, my plan was to bring her to Bere and use her as a weapon for all-out war once I received the report that she had been successfully broken in the Empire. But the Hero… she’s a bit different from Reina. That bitch was a bomb I planted in the Kingdom from the very beginning.”

“A bomb…?”

“Not in a physical sense. It’s a metaphor. Still, I’m confident it will be enough to make the Kingdom disappear.”

“Does that mean we can win?”

“I wonder?”

“What do you mean, ‘I wonder’…?”

The writhing viscous substance seeped back into the Lord of Bere’s head, taking full control of his body. The bald lord stood up and looked out the window. His smile vanished as he raised an index finger to scratch his temple, a troubled expression on his face. It seemed he was using another’s face to express emotions that were difficult to convey as a slime.

“Entrusting the Hero to the First Prince… up to that point, my plan was perfect. It didn’t matter whether he succeeded or failed in breaking the Hero. However, Reina escaping from that situation… that deviated from my plan. It deviated greatly… I was certain that a slut dragon with defeat masochism and torture trauma would break easily, but she escaped through a truly absurd miracle, as if to mock me.”

“Was there a reason it had to be the Hero, and not Reina?”

“Yes, well, I can’t say right now. So, this plan is half a success and half a failure.”

He sat back down, his expression sullen. The soldier looked up at Sloth and asked.

“So what happens now? What did you fail to achieve, and what did you gain?”

“You’re quite talkative for a mere soldier… I’d like to say that, but as the Hero herself once said, I’m the type who enjoys blabbering on about my plans. So, if you must know…”

All the monsters, who had been diligently scribbling away, stopped. They were the ones organizing the costs of operating the Imperial army and reports from various regions, but they all seemed interested in this story and leaned in to listen to Sloth.

“First, what I’ve gained… Driving the Hero’s party into a corner, throwing the Kingdom into chaos, and seeing the Hero in despair… these are all guaranteed. I’m especially looking forward to the sight of the Hero screaming in anguish.”

“Ooh…”

“If that’s true…!”

“Aaaah…”

Everyone rejoiced at the confident declaration from Sloth the Strategist.

The revival of the Hero’s party… the atmosphere had been filled with despair, but it seemed to change with this single statement.

—But.

“What’s the other half?”

“That’s right! You said you gained all that, yet you spoke as if you failed. What is the other half that you lost?!”

To this, Sloth replied, this time with a truly unsettling tone.

“Our lives.”

“……Pardon?”

“Our lives. I’ve wagered all of our lives. The lives of the Imperial soldiers gathered here in Bere, the remnants of the Demon Lord’s army, and everyone including myself… In other words, the operation is a failure. I’m disqualified as a strategist.”

His unsettling, flat tone dominated the room’s atmosphere, and everyone froze for a moment.

“…Huh.”

“W-wait…”

“What does that mean…”

“Why?!”

Everyone threw down their papers and cried out in protest, but the lord simply scratched his cheek and replied with a troubled look.

“Isn’t it obvious? The Demon Lord is gone, I’m the only one of the Four Heavenly Kings left, where is our combat unit? Our torturers? We even had to borrow an army from another country. It was a miracle we managed to capture Reina and the Hero by exploiting their weaknesses, but they still escaped… We finally managed to infiltrate a spy into the Kingdom, but they were lost to the Second Prince’s faction… What do we even have left?”

“Th-then…! This is just a desperate struggle, isn’t it!”

“Did you deceive us?!”

“—I never said it wasn’t. And I didn’t deceive you. I told you the complete truth and simply played the best hand I could.”

His easy admission did nothing to quell the unrest, and the suggestions flew in absurd directions.

“Then we should just run away!”

“Fortunately, the Kingdom hasn’t gathered its army yet! The Hero’s party is small! If we scatter in all directions—”

“It’s a desperate struggle either way. Without the Demon Lord, what meaning is there in our survival? The monsters created by the Demon Lord have limited lifespans, and without him, extending them is impossible… You all should know that an all-out war is our only option, right?”

“Then what was all that just now?!”

“How can you bring despair to the Hero?! How can you damage the Kingdom?!”

“How did you reach that conclusion?!”

“That’s a pleasure for later. Call it a final gamble before death. We struggle because, if things go well, we might just survive.”

“If things go well… you say…?”

“That’s right. ‘If things go well.'”

Sloth sat back down, crossed his legs, and let out a relaxed breath, his face finally at ease. His subordinates were still agitated, but they were reminded that, as he said, even if they fled, they would only die soon anyway.

“Those unreasonable bastards… can we even win…?”

“Maybe if we somehow hit them with a Level Drain and imprison them again…”

“They’d have developed a resistance to that, wouldn’t they?!”

“But since they’re human, if we torture them again, somehow—?!”

“Well, winning is probably impossible. They were the types to perform miracles time and again even during the great war, and we lack the national power and strength we once had. Especially the Hero… We held her captive longer than ever before, but the fact that we still couldn’t break her made me judge it as a hopeless case. Reina aside, the Hero has truly superhuman grit. She endured things that would have made me betray my cause countless times, and she was fine.”

“I heard about the torture inflicted on the Hero… They say her skin was completely flayed to turn her into a human instrument…”

“This time, they made her eat soup made from her own eyeballs instead of a meal…”

“And they fed it to her after splitting her tongue into a hundred pieces… Ugh…”

“When even that didn’t break her, they repeatedly ground her entire body to pulp and then healed her… They say it was even worse than what they did to Reina…”

Everything they said was horrific, but it had all happened.

This was just a part of the punishment the Hero suffered, all because of Tei’s mistake.

‘The very fact that she smiled and forgave her foolish younger brother for causing such a thing proves she’s not normal… That crazy bitch…’

From an angle his subordinates couldn’t see, he broke into a cold sweat and exhaled.

“A Hero is one who has courage, and that is why she is a Hero. That thing is a living monster of mental fortitude… She may pant and feign submission on the surface, but it doesn’t even take a second for her to change her expression and charge back at you. And if you kill her, she’s a nuisance who will just resurrect somewhere with Resurrection. She’s a true disaster.”

“What a monster.”

“And yet you can still bring her despair?”

“Even if the Hero despairs, our lives are forfeit, but it will be a form of revenge. I think she’s the perfect opponent for us to burn our final flame against.”

Then, he spread his palms open. It was as if he was declaring, ‘This is as far as I can take things.’

“We are cornered. However, in this desperate situation, is there anyone else who could have accomplished this much? Though our defeat is certain, we might survive if things go well… We will plant despair in that monstrous Hero… We will throw the Kingdom into chaos… I’ve done my part to get us this far, so shouldn’t you all do your best as well?”

“Yes… That’s right…”

“If it weren’t for Lord Sloth, we wouldn’t have even gotten this far…”

“I apologize for what I said earlier.”

“Indeed, we must fight, not flee!”

Somehow regaining their will, they decided to support Sloth even after hearing his confession. Those who had put down their pens began to rack their brains for ways to gather more soldiers, and they immediately presented Sloth with new plans to kidnap the demi-humans and other races who had escaped the Demon Lord’s army’s grasp. The atmosphere was heartwarming, but their actions were, as expected, those of an evil organization, utterly indefensible.

‘Huu…’

Leaning back in his chair, Sloth tilted his chin up and recalled his old comrades… the Four Heavenly Kings.

‘Sesta… always preying on the weak and utterly useless against the strong… What a fool, becoming the first sacrifice to a Hero who had just left her village… He was a good lad who often brought me human test subjects to help with my research on new status ailments, but he thought a fresh-faced Hero would be weak, charged in, and came back with his head lopped off…’

First, a goblin who looked rather vile.

‘Gast… a fool who committed all sorts of acts while stalking the Hero with a crystal ball, claiming it was for Ogas’s revenge, only to be killed by her younger brother’s holy magic… He was a great help in seeing through the enemy’s strategies, but his voyeuristic tendencies were his downfall… He heard Reina was engaging in public exhibitionism in the town square and ran out to see it for himself, only to fall right into a ridiculous trap… Logically, no one would engage in exhibitionist play in the middle of a war… which made his death all the more comical.’

Next, a blue-winged, bird-headed beastman.

‘Magak… you always did love human flesh. For someone so taciturn, you had the palate of a gourmet, a good fellow who would tell me which humans were the most delicious. To think you would lose in a duel… That human, Gara, I don’t know how he did it, but he even managed to bewitch you… First love, a confession, how many children you’d have… it was the first time I’d ever heard you talk so much about love… I promised I’d attend your wedding, but you just had to go and die…’

A two-headed female ogre.

‘And the Demon Lord, who led us all… He said he would turn humans into livestock and create a paradise for us, and then…’

Finally, an image formed in his mind: the five of them standing together amicably—himself, the other three, and the Demon Lord, who was obscured by a silhouette. It seemed like a heartwarming scene at a glance, but the background was dark, littered with corpses and stained with blood—a pleasant sight only for them.

“Lord Sloth?”

“Are you… crying, perhaps?”

“……No. It’s nothing. Some dust must have gotten into the eyes of the human I’m controlling.”

“Is that so…?”

Finishing his trip down memory lane, Sloth regained his motivation.

And then he declared powerfully!

“Everyone, let’s do our best and crush the Demon Lord’s army’s greatest and worst enemy—the <Hero>…!!”

“Yes!”

“Of course!”

“We will follow you to the end, Lord Sloth!”

At Sloth’s cry, everyone rose from their seats, their spirits burning as they united in purpose.

The Hero’s party was often highlighted for their defeats, but for that very reason, their opponents were always dead serious.

For the sake of their own survival, the Demon Lord’s army committed another evil deed today.