“Pardon? Did you just say the hero soloed the demon lord?”
Grimm was the first to speak.
‘Yes?’
“First of all, what does soloed mean?”
He was playing with his fingers nervously. I found that to be odd, but answered him.
‘It’s like defeating a group of people by yourself.’
“Eh? He defeated the demon lord’s group by himself? Is that the [Four Heavenly Kings] you’re referring to?”
‘Well, they have the title heavenly king attached to them, yes.’
He put his hands through his hair, messing it up. I could see an absurd level of fear and anxiety on his face. His eyes scrolled about in his sockets as he muttered something. I couldn’t make it out so I read his mind instead, but that was even worse.
‘We’re screwed. She’ll come. She’ll find me. I don’t want to go back. No. No. Nyx. I will never see her again. Maybe if I leave to go get her now. No. That’s not how it works. The House heads are probably already after her. Tyvnn will protect her. I don’t have anyone else to w-‘
“Grimm?”
Ulva tugged on his cloak, bringing him out of his trance. For a moment, his mind was clear and the frightened light he had in his eyes was replaced by a calmer gentle red glow.
"Boss. This is bad.”
Finally, he looked at me.
‘How bad exactly?’
After my question, Grimm slowly proceeded to explain to me. Back in his home, the Realm of Eternal Night, there was a queen. So powerful some could say she was a goddess. She bore many titles, one of the more popular ones being The Queen of the World.
According to Grimm, she controlled the fate of the human world, having already put people in high positions that control the general direction in which humanity headed. She was also the one in charge of selecting a Demon Lord to keep the world in check, although this was supposed to be a secret.
If I was hearing right, now that the Hero defeated the Demon Lord before she had planned for it to happen, she wouldn’t be pleased. She would send people to either assassinate the hero or come down herself, though given the case that this hero was so strong he defeated the demon lord and his lackeys by himself, she might have to descend herself which could only spell bad news for everyone.
Then, there was also the possibility of her just sending subordinates to find new a demon lord, but if she chose the latter, we could rest assure they wouldn’t come here. The demon lord could only be a demon, so she would have to choose from the demon country. No one, not even Grimm was certain how she chose a demon lord, but there was one constant whenever a new demon lord was being chosen.
There was going to be a lot of rowdiness. Humans and demons would be fighting more frequently. The human kingdoms are already hostile to one another, let alone the demon kingdom. From the looks of things, the humans could actually lose this time. It was ironic that the demons who just lost their leader would be more organised now than the humans who have their hero and paladins.
Anyhow, if she or her subordinates came, they would definitely search for Grimm. Apparently, he’s a deserter. Vampires aren’t supposed to leave the Realm of Eternal Night, yet here he was. There were a few others also out in hiding, but his offense was even worse since he allowed them to use his blood to create more artificial vampires. The likelihood of them killing Ulva on sight was 90% according to him.
This guy was just giving me a reason to protect him at this point, but I didn’t mind that. Hopefully they would be too busy searching for a new candidate to be the demon lord to focus on us.
So, here was the current problem.
There were four obstacles separating the humans, demons and faeries.
Larm forest, the biggest forest filled with absurd monsters known as the Tyrants with their absolute control over the forest and the best kind of resources out there. Mystic Peaks or Demise Mountains as everyone termed it due to its insane monsters and mutants. The Dourean Desert with its harsh conditions, little to no water and sand worms that always cause problems for traveling merchants and armies. Then the Winter Zone, which is like the Mystic Peaks, but on steroids.
The best route out of these four was between the Mystic Peaks and Dourean Desert. There was the option of hiring Battle gods and War ogres to help with transport on the mountains, and in the Dourean desert, there was a group of human pacifists that had lived there their entire lives and give free help to any who try to make it across the desert.
There was also another way to get to the other side and that was through the use of the harbours at the New Kyoto Empire to the Faery Plains or Sundane Kingdom straight to the demon land. The New Kyoto Empire route was a no go because humans were allied with elves and the port led straight to the dwarves. Dwarves and Elves were mortal enemies and there were some issues happening there.
I’m sure you’re wondering what issue we have then. Allow me to explain.
We lost 2 tyrants in one flawless swoop. And not just any tyrants. We lost the strongest. Goliath and Minerva of which the only one who was actually feared was dead. Sure, the tyrants of all sectors were feared by adventurers, but even a tyrant has weaknesses. No matter how strong he was, if a human like say, the hero decided to fight him, he’d die. This was why someone like Krull had an army.
But that army could also be dealt with if the humans simply had a stronger army. Assuming the humans sent their paladins to attack all tyrants, they could easily pave a path to go to war.
Basically, the only thing that stood in their ways were Goliath and Minerva who had the skill [Overlord]. The other tyrants weren’t so lucky. Now, humans could come through Larm willy-nilly like it was no one’s business. Especially the West of Larm. More thieves, kidnappers, adventurers and generally humans were coming. It was going to get exceedingly dangerous for us from now on.
Well, maybe in the past that would have been the case. But I wasn’t going to let that happen. We could defend ourselves. We could actually ensure that Larm stays how it was originally. My only safe haven in this world. I was not about to let it get dragged into somebody else’s war.
All the problems I listed were from just the human side alone. I hadn’t even started talking about the demons and the Krull who might try to attack us the moment he notices Minerva is no longer around. Then there was the vampire queen.
I reassured Grimm that nothing would happen. An alert was sent to all familia members to meet me in front of the mansion by the next hour. I included Shiroi and she said she’d be back soon enough with a surprise. Not sure what she meant, I settled on waiting to see.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t spend some calming time with Ulva and sent her off with Grimm to ensure everyone managed to come for the meeting. Kawaii also helped them out.
Quickly, I teleported to the mansion’s kitchen where I saw kobolds cooking. They all bowed when they saw me, making me feel weird, but that wasn’t why I went there. I decided to give a majority of the corpses to the kobold chefs so they prepare a huge feast for everyone. The plan was to officially apologise to everyone for my stupid behaviour. At first, I hadn’t considered the prospect of betrayal being so terrifying till I met Makrov and saw what it’d done to him.
His brethren did a real number on him if he was around for centuries, plotting his return to power. So sad he would never be able to do that though. My mind went back to the egg eating Makrov in one gulp and I shivered.
Of course, I kept some of the corpses to myself, like the dragons and one of each monster I slayed. I would eat them later.
I called for Nukeme and Tsuna to talk about Oki. I asked them to monitor him further for me since he was planning on betraying me at some point. They agreed in a heartbeat. These two were the only members of the goblin captains I could 100% trust. Nukeme because of his cringy devotion to me and Tsuna because she generally didn’t care about anyone other than Shitsuke whom she believed I could save. Technically, I should be able to with the devil horn I got from Makrov.
But that was a one-way ticket in or out, so unless I found a way to use it twice, there was no way in hell I was telling her about it.
In no time, everyone had gathered up in front of the mansion. I saw Nukeme riding a giant rabbit. Arisu’s bunny form, with a large collar around her neck. Why this was the situation they were in, I was not interested in finding out.
There were the silver back pumas I hadn’t paid much attention to when I came back, but still no timber wolves. The harpies who never left the treasury were also busily annoying people. It was absolute chaos, but the tree nymphs and sprites helped in trying to maintain some order. They made their trees glow to make the place brighter and Diane herself presented herself in front of most people.
She had a suspicious look in her eyes. For once, she was unsure how I would act.
Yokino herself made an appearance with some of her generals. The amulet wasn’t on her anymore. She probably went to put it down for safe-keeping.
My little treants also came up to where I stood with their little twigs jumping about on their heads. There was something calming about looking at the big guys. They took up a position behind me like bodyguards and gave this menacing sort of look, but I doubted it scared much people.
I waited for a while, but Shiroi and her wolves were still a no go. Reiman’s rats were definitely hiding around. The goblins were scattered about into their respective tribes with their leaders and the few kobolds sat on the ground behind Inu.
I cleared my throat. It had been a while since I spoke, but I guess there was no point in not speaking.
“AWOOO!”
Before I could, there were hungry howls in the distance. The seemingly noisy crowd turned silent. An army of wolves approached. The predators of the nights of Larm in their full glory under the command of their glorious, venerable white furred leader, Shiroi.
And… another wolf?
<A/N: Hinotori's back with the crew. Yep, yep. Finally time for her to man up and do what she was supposed to be doing from the very get go. Its very apparent in this chapter, but things are only going to get tougher for Larm in general. Talk about the inconvenience in being convenient. Anyhow, post the next chapter, the story is going to be more focused on the human side of things, I think. And Hinotori's days will be summed up mostly. To the Kingdom Building lovers, I said it'd come and here it is. It took 200 damned chapters, but its starts now. And to the action lovers. We know I'm nowhere near the best when it comes to orchestrating interesting fights and even worse, we're not going to be seeing Hinotori fighting in quite sometime. Sorry about that, but don't worry. More characters are going to be introduced and more plot twists I hope you love. We have entered the Kingdom Building Arc. I don't want to say the actual name since that spoils what the country is going to be called, but you sort of get it. Holy sh-! I wrote a lot. Sorry for ranting. Thinking about how much more we have to cover, I can't help but feel ecstatic, especially since I personally didn't like Atlantis as much as I thought I would.
Anyhow, please give me your power stones, reviews, comments and golden tickets! Also, join the discord so you get early access to stuff like announcements and events and the soon to come character illustrations.
300 power stones = 1 extra chapter!
400 power stones = 2 extra chapters!
600 power stones = 5 extra chapters!>
