It seems that the entrance to the infernal caverns is just outside the town where the gray demons live. Arana says that she wants to visit them, so she came along and brought Ranna with her. Now she's trying to negotiate with Xania to see what we can get in exchange for my help.

"At the very least you need to promise that you won't launch any new attacks against us or against the beastkin country. If Luna redirects the leyline to your territory you won't need to fight anyway, won't you."

"I would like to accept that offer, but you need to understand that lord Kalroth is the one who has the last word on that and he will probably disagree even if I try to stop the fighting."

Normally I would have just helped without asking for anything in return, but Arana insisted that we should take the chance to make some demands. And she was right, when I was trying to convince her to stop fighting earlier she wouldn't listen to anything I said, and yet, now she's saying that she would like to accept our offer...

If I had offered my help in exchange for nothing this would not have happened, is it really possible to help people more by being less kind? This seems very counterintuitive.

"Just forget about that guy, you should just become Luna's subordinate instead. She's stronger anyway, and she would treat you better."

"Hey! Wait a minute! I don't want any subordinates. And if I steal the subordinates of a demon lord, won't he start to consider me his enemy?"

"Luna... what do you mean 'start'? You're also a demon lord, remember? Stealing the subordinates from another one is the same as a declaration of war, and you already did that with the fairies, it's a bit too late to worry about picking a fight with him."

"What? Xania, is that true?"

"Well, duh, why do you think that I was sent to deal with you?"

So I'm already in war with Kalroth? This is bad, I'm in a lot more trouble than I thought...

"Anyway, as I was saying, you should just switch sides. I could tell before that you were quite desperate to prove your worth to your boss. You will not have that problem with Luna."

"What problem are you talking about? It's normal for me to want to please my lord."

"Don't try to hide it, I know exactly what your problem is. You don't have the demon lord title, do you."

"..."

"Ara, what are you talking about? Why would not being a demon lord be a problem?"

"Because Kalroth is aiming to become a demon king, he needs as many of his underlings as possible to obtain the demon lord title. However, a demon lord is someone who gets other demons to follow them by using fear. Even if she's some kind of leader to the other gray demons, if fear is not the reason why they follow her, she will not obtain that title."

"Oh! I get it! You wanted to save your tribe from having to serve under some other demon lord, but you couldn't become one yourself. That's why you were trying to prove your worth in some other way!"

"The gray demon tribe number over 20.000 at the moment. I needed a truly impressive achievement to justify having so many demons without a demon lord..."

"Well, I can understand why he would be desperate to turn more of his subordinates into demon lords. By now he must be starting to realize that it's impossible for him to become a demon king."

"Impossible? Why?"

If he needs 1000 demon lords then he only needs a total of 1001000 demons under his command, no? I'm sure that there are at least a few millions in the demon wasteland alone, and he already rules over this place.

"Becoming a demon king is a lot more difficult than just 'becoming a demon lord 1000 times'. Do you remember what the definition of the demon lord title is?"

"Yes, 'An individual who has made at least 1000 demons swear subservience towards them through the use of power and fear'."

"Exactly, and that's not something that can be easily achieved by someone who's already working under a different demon lord. After all, if Kalroth tells some demons to obey the orders of one of his underlings, the reason why those demons will obey is that they are afraid of him, not of his underling, so he won't get the demon lord title. The only reliable method to get demon lords under his command is to recruit individuals who already have that title, but after a while, there will be fewer and fewer candidates to recruit."

"I see... I thought that it was weird that there are no demon kings when there are many countries with more than a million people living in them."

"And that's not even the biggest problem. The worst part is that demon lords tend to be very ambitious and prideful, it's not easy to keep them under the control of a single person. The more of them he gathers, the more likely it becomes for a group of them to team up and turn against him, even if he's strong, he might still lose if a greater number of demon lords properly plan their betrayal, and even if he wins, the number of demon lords under his command will go down."

"So that's why you don't think that this Kalroth guy can do it?"

"Yeah, it's just impossible for him. There has only ever been one individual who managed to obtain the demon king title in all of history. Power alone is not enough, you would also need charisma and intelligence, that's why most of the brutes who usually aim for that title don't even get close. In fact, the only reason why this guy even managed to get this far is that he had Ranna helping him."

"Wait, are you saying that lord Kalroth couldn't have conquered the demon wasteland without the help of this little girl? Are you joking?"

"Little girl..."

Oh, Ranna got a bit upset, that seems to be a sore spot for her.

"It's true, that guy is not very smart so he really needed me. Now that I think about it I should not have helped a bad guy like him, but Felias said that it was all so that she could take him down and take his place..."

"Who is Felias?"

"The witch of darkness, our oldest sister, and 'leader'. As I thought, this 'country' that Kalroth has created is dependant on having someone stronger than anybody else at the top. If someone even stronger came along and took him down, it would be easy for them to take his place without changing anything else. Felias never wanted Kalroth as an ally, her plan was just to use him as a pawn to take over the demon wasteland without having to dirty her hands, she has never been on this continent after all."

Just how strong is Arana's oldest sister? She's making it sound like she could beat that Kalroth guy easily.

"But we made it here before she did... isn't that quite interesting Luna?"

"I don't know what you're thinking but I want you to stop thinking about it."

"Here we are."

We finally reach an enormous cave entrance, it kinda looks like the mountain has a mouth... so this is the infernal caverns.

I can see the gray demon's town from here, it's a lot bigger than I thought and it's surrounded by a really tall stone wall. I guess that they must be used to battle.

"So I need to move the ending point of the leyline 20 kilometers to the north to make it go into your territory, correct?"

"Yes, but altering such a strong leyline would take a lot of magic power, are you sure that you can do it on your own? Why am I asking, of course you can."

"By the way. Was it true what you said about the devil at the bottom of those caverns?"

"I don't know, that's just an old legend."

Just a legend she says... but something about it makes me feel nervous for some reason.

"Alright Luna, me and Ranna will go visit that town over there. You can go and have fun in the extremely dangerous monster-infested caverns."

"Wait, I'm going alone?"

"Yeah, against monsters as strong as what's supposed to be down there, I would just be dead weight for you. And chances are that I would end up actually dead."

"But then how am I supposed to find my way in there!? You know that I always get lost easily!"

"About that... I suppose I have no choice..."

"No choice?"

Arana seems to be conflicted about something.

"The one you need to find your way is not me, it's this guy."

A spider jumps from her opened palm to my shoulder.

"Longleg? But wait, won't he also be in danger if he goes into the caverns?"

"That's the thing I didn't want to do... but I guess I have to. I will link him to your life force, that will make it almost impossible for him to die unless you die first. The problem is that to do that I need to unlink him from me first..."

"Oh, sorry about that."

I have no idea of what she's talking about, but it seems important to her so I'll pretend to care.

"Just promise that you will give him back."

"I promise!"

"And one more thing, I actually have no idea of what lurking in the depths of those caverns. I don't think it will happen... but the deeper you go the strongest the monsters get, and nobody has reached the bottom before. That means that there's a chance that you will encounter monsters strong enough to be a threat even to you. Keep checking them with your appraisal stone, and if you think that you are in any danger, forget about your mission and turn around."

"Don't worry, the moment I sense any danger, I'll run away as fast as I can."

"Right, I probably don't need to worry about that. I keep forgetting since you are strong enough to not need to fear any opponent, but you have always been quite the coward."

"You know... you didn't really need to put it that way."

forli

It's always difficult to think of a title for this type of in-between chapters where I take the chance to explain random stuff.

After reading the comments from last chapter I decided to call them leylines after all. I'll have to go back and edit the previous chapter when I have some time.

Also, I finally decided on a name for the witch of darkness which was long overdue as her sisters kept talking about her without mentioning her name which felt a bit awkward. I couldn't think of a name that sounded right for her using the naming theme I used for the rest of the witches, so I altered it a little this time.