Chapter 4: 4- War

Just then, on Zagmuz's side, I had already changed my clothes and prepared myself, following his memories to see what was expected of me to wear.

Standing in front of the full-body mirror, that was for some reason there even in an army training, I took in what I looked like for the first time with my 'own' two eyes.

I surprisingly had much more humanoid features than would be anticipated from a demon prince, a typical humanoid body but it was a lot more muscular, one that wasn't to be expected from someone with the lifestyle of the previous owner of this body, the ears were long and pointy, not unlike the elves of this world, and my skin tone was blood red. There were also some hard scales covering my arms from the elbow down, and bright shining blue eyes.

Knowing that I didn't have much time, I took a deep breath before letting it go as a long drawn out sigh, I schooled my expression and then went through the extravagant tent's door.

I found the maid waiting for me outside the tent, and as soon as I stood in front of her she bowed as she said:

"This way your Highness."

I had her lead the way and took in the camp in interest, my tent was at the centre of the army, with the general and captains' tents all around me, we were well protected and some of our army's best elites were guarding and patrolling the ground. another thing soon caught my attention, some of the soldiers were already working on putting down the different tents, with the majority of them already down.

"We are packing already?" I asked the maid.

"Yes... Yes your Highness," she answered, and I decided to ignore her clear flinching and the trembling of her voice, "The general had us prepare for leaving as soon as possible."

I grumbled in response and chose to continue the rest of the way in comfortable silence, at least for me, the maid seemed quite uneasy.

My eyes wandered around as we walked, I was unconsciously searching for someone, a force of habit from Zagmuz's memories, I was searching for my bodyguard, Deraan, a man who had been Zagmuz's bodyguard ever since he could remember, and one of the few people the demon prince truly trusted and liked. Just a casual glance around was enough for me to realize that the giant of a demon wasn't there, I would have for sure been able to see him if he was, with his eye-catching body and all.

A bit of annoyance started building up in my heart as I noticed that, but I soon controlled my emotions and just grumbled a bit under my breath, not missing that the maid flinched again as I did so. I contemplated asking her where Deraan was but I decided against it in the end, it was clear that she didn't want anything to do with me and I didn't want to push things too.

We soon made it to another big tent, the one where the general who was supposed to be my consultant was. He was some new and upcoming general that had a bright future ahead of him, someone the envious Zagmuz didn't like a lot.

As we reached the tent, she bowed as she said:

"They are waiting for you inside, your Highness, your breakfast is also there."

I just nodded in response and pushed the cloth covering the door before going in.

I found myself facing a group of different demons sitting all around a round table, there were around 10 of them and even by going through Zagmuz's memories, I was only able to recognize three.

One was of course my so-called butler, Gorduf, the parudzu was sitting there with an expressionless face and with his hands under his chin, and that was when alarm bells started ringing in my head.

Gorduf was worried, and extremely so, Zagmuz spent enough time with the man to know when things weren't well just by the look on his butler's face and his mannerisms. And by how he didn't even look at him when he entered and how he kept his face down a bit, I knew that things must have just taken a turn for the worst.

Forcefully removing my eyes from him, I found the person I was searching for when I had left the tent, and seeing the giant of a man force a smile as he nodded at me, I knew that I was in some deep shit, things must be quite bad if the usually happy and wild giant of a demon was acting like that.

And lastly, I moved my eyes to the last person I recognized in the tent, General Kildor. He was mostly humanoid with a skin tone that was just the colour of normal humans, except that he had what seemed like tentacles that were around a finger thick extending behind his head, his eyes were also pitch black and had no white or irises, just pure blackness.

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As he met my eyes, I had to do my best to not let it show on my face how weird he seemed to me, something I found quite easy to do with Zagmuz. My other body though, shivered a bit and a bit of panic started setting in with him, it felt weird to have my bodies react in an entirely different manner but I got it under control before Lambert noticed anything.

"Your Highness," Kildor said as he nodded his head my way, his pointy and sharp teeth showing for a split second as he did so.

I moved my head the slightest as I nodded back at him before taking the seat at the head of the table, It was still empty and so I presumed it was mine. As I took my place, a soldier in armour came and started putting quite a big meal in front of me, something that wouldn't be expected to be in an army drill.

Feeling hungry from two bodies, and knowing that what I was going to hear was probably going to kill my appetite, I started eating without a care and without acknowledging the people in the tent more than I already did, something the petty Zagmuz would for sure have done if he was still in control of the body.

The food was tasty and I found myself enjoying it quite a bit... If not for the almost tangible heavy atmosphere I was feeling in the tent. I started wondering if I should probably permit them to start with whatever they wanted to tell me while I ate, unsure if that would have been something Zagmuz would have done, when that choice got taken from me.

"Y- Your Highness..." It seemed that Gorduf wasn't able to take the pressure of the other demons at the table throwing him and the giant glances, and was the first to crack as he started.

Bang!

He didn't get to finish as I slammed the cup in my hand on the table in anger and glared at him. Then mentally froze, I didn't mean to do that, I just felt a bang of anger expand inside of me when I was interrupted and couldn't help it.

Seeing Gorduf flinch a bit and the people on the table sit a little bit straighter, I decided to leave that for later and turned my attention to the people in the tent.

"So... What's with this?" I said as I scanned everyone in the tent, with my eyes stopping on Kildor for a few fractions of a second longer, "Why have you been souring my morning this whole day?"

"Your Highness," It was Kildor who broke the silence, his voice was even and he still had the same dead look on his eyes and the same dead expression, "you should know that this all had been done and set up by His Majesty, this meeting now was by his orders and what I'm going to tell you, till this morning, was only known by me and a selected few in the whole army."

The bad feeling in my heart started growing, and I unconsciously lowered the hand that was holding my fork to the plate, on the other side, even Dorian slowed down as Kildor had my full attention.

"... You see, his Majesty had me keep this a secret till we are far enough from home to tell you all what's really happening..." He continued.

With a lump in my throat, I looked at Kildor and asked:

"And... What is it that's really happening?"

Kildor looked at everyone in the room and said slowly:

"... We are starting a war on humans, and this," He spread his hands theatrically, "This is one of the armies that's leading the charge..."

Then he looked me straight in my wide wide eyes and added:

"We are invading Border Town."

Hundreds of miles away, in Border Town, Dorian froze as the blood left his face and his knees buckled under him.

I was leading an army to attack the town one of my other bodies was in.