Chapter 6: Ch. 5

“It worked… the oracle spoke true.”

A single sentence at first, and then an explosion of excited chattering voices that overlapped, drowning out the meaning of one another’s sentences completely. Umemura and Murai were both clutching their heads, trying to adjust to the temporal distortion between realms and, probably, trying to stop from throwing up.

Vassago was fine, but he took advantage of the opportunity to crouch down and cover his face, peeking through his fingers at the room around him. A large hall built from a dark charcoal grey stone with veins of gold threaded through, glittering with crushed mwyn that had been polished into the surface. It was the kind of chamber created specifically to amplify magic.

A large summoning circle had been painted into the ground, much different than the one Vassago had used to escape the castle. There were modern runes that streamlined aspects of the spell, as well as marks he didn’t recognise. Perhaps he was on a different continent that was researching new branches of aetherology? By following the flow of magic through them, he could more or less recognise their purpose—some form of tracking magic.

Putting the pieces together, he realised where this design had come from.

His gaze trailed quickly over those gathered in the room. Extremely long cowls that draped all the way to the waist, multilayered robes with small bells sewn into the hems, veils covering the upper face so that only mouths were visible: acolytes of Ystar. That was a heavy-hitter among the pantheon. Worshipped as a patron deity of an entire kingdom; one that demon lands had a long history with, as direct neighbours.

If they were running the show, it meant they were acting as representatives of the whole kingdom.

“I apologise for being presumptuous.” The chief amongst the acolytes stepped forward, giving off pleasant metallic ringing with each step. “But I beseech you: please, save our world.”

“We already—urp—got the jist. Can we—hurk—have a moment first?” Murai asked, still down on his hands and knees as he fought against nausea.

It took a few minutes to adjust, after which the three were politely ushered into a side room to sit and gather themselves. Vassago stayed quiet, sticking close to the shadow of the large-bodied Murai in order to obscure his presence.

The results of discussion were more or less as he expected. He didn’t know exactly what the time distortion between his exit and re-entry were, but in the interim there had been massive upheavals to the world.

Monster growth naturally ebbed and flowed, reaching peak points of population explosion before naturally receding and leaving the world peaceful again. Yet recently it had become rampant, with monsters overflowing in population no matter how aggressively they were being culled. Additionally, their challenge rating had increased, with lower level monsters displaying more tenacity and toughness than was usual, and more higher evolutions appearing despite ostensibly being rarer.

Dungeons were also spiralling. The normal development of a dungeon was that it would gradually grow over the span of years, but with regular raids from dungeon clearance parties, the growth could be kept in check. But dungeons were growing at a faster rate than they could be cleared, and without regular clearance, the rating of the creatures within became higher and higher as they had time to mutate and evolve.

In the chaos, the demon kingdom which had been quiet and isolationist under the latter part of Vassago’s reign was now kicking up a fuss along the borders.

It did make him feel curious. Who took over after he left? Otho was dead. Rogemel had the strength to take it but not the cunning to keep it. Soriel? No, she was too subtle to want to launch an open war. Mhazael, then. They were ambitious and power hungry, but their head was empty of a brain. This thoughtless scheme suited them.

Or perhaps some young upstart he’d never even met before. This did smack of the hot-blooded foolishness of youth.

Vassago kicked his dangling legs as he sat on the settee, sipping the soothing herbal they had been provided. For the most part he went ignored, which was a novel experience. Normally his black hair and black eyes would mark him as an object of suspicion, yet the mere fact that he’d been summoned alongside the other two made people completely dismiss his appearance.

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“Well, I understand.” Umemura crossed his arms and raised his chin arrogantly, looking somehow handsome and valiant even in his puffy, frilly skirt. It was the kind of nobility of someone who was both used to and luxuriated in being the object of admiration. “You then received an ‘oracle’ from a god telling you to summon heroes from another world who would have the power to eliminate the threats, which ended up being us?”

Half right, Vassago thought as he sipped his tea. Probably the gods had told them something to that effect, but the real issue was that the current Demon King wasn’t doing their job properly and now the world had lost its natural balance.

“Yes. We know what we did was unforgivable, but without you our world is doomed.” The chief acolyte bowed his head, sounding genuinely contrite.

“Well, we’ll do what we can.” Murai looked completely hooked, showing a beaming smile.

Umemura stared at him, annoyed. “‘We’?”

“I can’t do this without you, Michi-kun!” Murai hastily threw his arms around the shoulders of the other boy, an entreating expression on his face. “You’re the smartest, strongest, coolest, wittiest, most capable—”

“All right! But what about the child? I still consider this kidnapping, by the way. You seriously kidnapped three minors, which is a serious crime.” Umemura sunk, exasperated and unable or unwilling to continue arguing against the relentless cheerful energy of his companion. His voice turned sharp and he displayed dark light in his eyes as he narrowed them at the man across from them. “The level of reparations I expect won’t be low in terms of local monetary value as well as housing, clothes, resources, and for the duration of our stay some kind of official position or title which will disallow us from being taken advantage of by any figures of status or power.

“Furthermore, while I don’t know what the local legal age of self-sufficiency and adulthood is, even if we meet it, he—” he gestured to Vassago, “—doesn’t, meaning that you created, if temporarily, an orphan of the state. He’ll need a guardian, someone trustworthy and reliable, lodgings, an allowance, and I also expect a title for him in order to avoid people deciding to take advantage of him just because of his age and outsider status.”

Vassago almost wanted to clap. The truth was that someone like Umemura was much more suited to being a ruler than him: that calm ability to immediately take as much advantage of your circumstances as possible, that easy and arrogant way of ploughing straight over any replies in order to maintain the momentum of the conversation, and that completely indolent expression of total arrogance that made it awkward to say “no” to.

For Vassago himself, he’d mostly just retained his grip on his rule through a combination of survival instinct to not get stabbed in the back and becoming very good at maintaining a stony expression. His facial muscles had even begun to atrophy.

“…We’ll do what we can.”

“Since ‘what you can’ includes non-consensual interdimensional travel, I have a great deal of faith in ‘what you can’ achieve.” Umemura sneered.

He’d be an excellent demon. However.

Vassago placed down his teacup, speaking up for the first time.

“No. I just want a letter of permission to join the Union.”

Silence fell as everyone in the room turned to stare at him in shock and confusion.

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