-Ranna-

Since we were with Xania, Arana and I were allowed to enter the town of the gray demons without any trouble. We have been waiting near the southern gate for a few hours, and now, the one we have been waiting for has finally arrived.

"So that's the demon king wannabe?" Arana asks me with a sarcastic tone.

"Yes, that's Kalroth."

A group of around 200 armed demons just came through the gate, all of them are really strong looking. Clearly they're the typical elite force that's supposed to be really threatening but end up getting easily defeated by the heroes anyway. And yet, you can tell who the strongest one is just by looking at him.

Red skin, red hair, and red horns, the race of demons he belongs to is rare enough to not even have a name. With the exception of his head, his entire body is covered in bulky black armor, but somehow I can still tell how large his muscles are. He might not be an embodiment of terror like Luna, but the fact he is almost two heads taller than even her, making him tower over his followers, and the look of 'stand in my way and I'll crush you' in his eyes, makes him intimidating in a more mundane way.

Standing next to him there's a very old orc with a long beard that I remember seeing a few times before. And at the back of the group, there are around two dozen beastkin in chains, all of them carrying a fearful expression.

Arana taps me on the shoulder.

"Hey Ranna, is it common for him to take prisoners of war?"

"Not really... and those do not look like combatants, there are even some children among them. I don't like how this looks..."

When Arana heard that Kalroth would be coming back today from raiding the beastkin country, she immediately told us to keep it a secret from Luna. And after that she seemed rather eager to get rid of her, she even went as far as to link Longleg to her... I don't know what she's planning, but it cannot be anything good.

We follow them while making sure to not be seen. They stop in a plaza where Xania had been waiting.

"My lord. I'm glad to see that you..."

"Are the rumors true?" Kalroth interrupts Xania's greeting, looking quite unhappy.

"I'm sorry, what rumors?"

"That the queen of darkness has been stealing my subordinates, and that you ran away from her."

"That's... that's true. She was far too strong, my undead army was destroyed completely by her. I'll need some time to rebuild it."

"Your army was destroyed?" The old orc has a very unpleasant smile on his face as he joins the conversation. "How convenient, now you have a perfect excuse to not have to fight for lord Kalroth for a while."

"That's not it!"

"If you really fought the queen of darkness and lost, how are you still alive?"

"Well, I... she..."

"And, of course, now that you've lost your army you'll be relying on our lord to protect your tribe. Once again you're trying to take advantage of his power."

"Of course not! I..."

Before she could finish talking, Kalroth punched her in the stomach and she fell to her knees. That looked painful.

"So that's how it is, you want to take advantage of me, just like everyone else."

The idea of people taking advantage of him always seemed to make Kalroth unreasonably angry, I wonder what that's about.

"Wow Ranna, did you really help a scumbag like that rise to power?" Arana whispers to me.

"That was only because Felias said that she was planning to kill him anyway, so I didn't think that he would get far..."

"Still, would you like an opportunity to make up for your mistake?"

That sounds suspicious, way too suspicious.

"What do you want from me?"

"Not much, just a little help with my assassination plan."

I knew it! I knew that she was planning something bad!

"He's really strong you know. You won't be able to win against him."

"Assassination means killing him without fighting, and I have a way to do it."

"Are you talking about that sword? I guess it might be possible to kill him with that if you catch him off guard, but that won't be easy, and his guards will kill you as well."

"Not the sword, this."

In her palm, there's a small creature with many legs.

"A spider? That's your solution to everything."

"Indeed, there's nothing that cannot be done with the right spider. And this one is the right spider to perform an assassination, the black killer."

"That does not sound familiar."

"It was not easy to find, this is a very rare and unique spider. Its body is small and weak, it moves slowly, possesses no magic, and is easy to kill, and yet, its level is 141, do you know why? It's because of its venom and nothing else."

"A lot of spiders have venom."

"Yes, but this one's venom is far stronger, and its bite can pierce anything regardless of the toughness stat. Whoever gets bitten by this will die for sure. Well, except for Luna I guess. And it's also small and stealthy enough to not get noticed easily, I only need to place it on him and then I can order it to kill him at any time when he's far away."

"That's great, but what does that have to do with me?"

"I need someone who he considers an ally to get it near him, or else someone of his level would notice the approaching danger."

"You want me to do it? That's too dangerous. What if our sisters told him that I changed sides."

"How could they even do that when you're the only one who had any contact with him? And they don't even know that we want to get rid of him anyway."

"I guess that's true... but I would feel safer doing this when Luna is around."

"The entire point of this is doing it when Luna is not around. She could not handle something like this."

"So that's why you wanted to get rid of her..."

"How did you usually give him your advice anyway?"

"I just showed up, gave some advice, then turn into water and disappear being all mysterious."

"Well, that's perfect, here you go."

She gave me the spider, I don't feel comfortable holding something so dangerous.

"Still, there's no way this will work. A major villain like him cannot be killed in such an anti-climatic way."

"What are you talking about? Just go already!"

She pushed me! She actually pushed me! And now everyone has seen me. I stopped listening to them so I don't know what they have been talking about, but Xania is crying now.

"Ranna? It's been some time since you last showed yourself." Uh, now Kalroth has shifted his attention to me. "Do you have something to say?"

Uh, I need to come up with something fast.

"I'm here to warn you that the queen of darkness is here and plans to take over your territory. What that girl said was true, you should prepare to deal with her."

This feels like I'm selling off Luna, but I couldn't think of anything else and I might get Xania off the hook.

"Is that so..."

"If you don't mind me asking, who are they?"

Since I'm already here, I'll ask about the chained beastkin, they have been bugging me all this time.

"Since I have been turning many of my subjects into soldiers, there's been a lack of workers lately. So I decided to bring some of our defeated enemies to help."

"You're going to turn them into slaves?"

"If that's what you want to call it."

"You know that slavery has been banned in this continent for centuries now, right? The other countries will be outraged."

"So what? Even if I ignore all of their rules there's nothing they can do about it; that's what it means to be the strongest. The only reason why anyone would care about things like morals or rules is that they're weak."

He's even worse than I thought. Unlike Luna, this guy is exactly what his appearance suggests. This is what a real villain is like.

"Well then, that's all I have to say."

The spider jumped at him as soon as I got close enough, so my job is done. I turn into water and go back to Arana. Then he turns to look at Xania again.

"It looks like you were telling the truth. However, that means that you were defeated in battle again. You remember our deal, correct?"

"No! Please! I cannot leave my tribe!"

"I don't care about your tribe, if you're too weak to be worth having as a normal subordinate, you'll have to become a demon lord."

Is he really saying that she's 'too weak' because she lost against Luna? That's beyond unreasonable.

"Leave my sister alone!"

That boy, Rax, just came from nowhere and is standing in front of her sister.

"Who are you? Her brother?"

"The queen of darkness is too strong! You could not have beaten her either!"

"What did you say!?"

Kalroth grabs Rax's head and... the bastard smashes it into the ground with enough strength to make him bleed and lose consciousness. When he lifts his boot over him, Xania stops him.

"Please stop! He's just a child!"

"I think that I've changed my mind. Perhaps if I take this brat you'll be motivated enough to kill that so-called 'queen of darkness'."

"But that's impossible!"

"Then I suppose that this boy will have to pay the price for his sister's weakness."

After that we leave the town and go back to where Irvan is waiting for us, Arana looks really angry.

"Agh! I want to kill him so much! But now I cannot do it..."

"I told you that it would not work."

"If Kalroth dies after that scene, his goons will think that the gray demons are responsible. I thought that I could just wait for Luna to come back so that she could keep them in check. But if they have Rax with them they will kill him..."

"Wait, who are you saying that has Rax?"

Since Irvan was not there, I explain what happened to him.

"WHAT!? WHICH WAY DID THEY GO!?"

"I think that they went that way but I don't..."

Without even letting me finish talking, he turns around and flies away.

"What? Where is he going?"

"Oh, now that I think about it, Irvan played together with Rax for a bit back at the fairy village and they seemed to get along quite well."

Is that so? But I don't see what he thinks that he's going to accomplish...

Wait... I know what this is. This is the part when the protagonist is not around so until they come back the secondary characters try to fight the bad guy and get beaten one after another.

Which is probably not a good thing for Irvan...

forli

One thing about Ranna that you might not have noticed is that she's a bit genre-savvy and tends to lean on the fourth wall a bit without quite breaking it. Now that I  finally wrote a chapter from her perspective I made it a bit more prominent.

Now I'm going to complain about petty nonsense so feel free to skip this.

I got number 1 on trending the other day, I have no idea how since I had only released a single normal chapter. And just like every other time my story has been on trending I got a 1-star rating rather quickly, all the other 1 stars I've gotten for being on trending before got removed after a few days, but I'm never sure of when one is going to stick. That sucks because it makes me feel like being on trending is not necessarily a good thing...