Steve (or was it Sven?) won the first round just like I knew he could. There would be a total of five rounds, according to the lovely young fellow chatting in my ear while doing his best to ignore his master’s piercing glare.

          The final round would be between the winners of the first four rounds, regardless of which race they were. I was looking forward to an angel vs angel battle, but it would depend on who the demon-fellows sent up.

          “Speaking of which,” I turned to my other new little friend, “Quenloc, was it?”

          “Yes, Lady.” I snuck him another icy treat. His grin was a little similar to Blackie’s, “My master gave me the name when he took me in. ‘Said my old parents had terrible naming skills.”

          “Oh? Do you still remember it?”

          Babaris shifted his eyes over to the boy.

          “…my self-preservation urges me to say no?”

          “It was Sata.” Blackie half smirked.

          “Oh, you poor child.”

          “I didn’t get along well with my parents.” The lad sighed. I patted his head.

          “If my parents had called me Gaba or any variation thereof, I probably would have grown to try and kill them too.”

          “Wait, he told you about that?!”

          “Oh, look! The second round is starting!”

          “They’re remarkably efficient, even without you helping.” Blackie narrowed his eyes at Queny but otherwise kept his expression even.

          “That’s what Three and One,” He pointed to an older demon with a fair amount of black in his hair, “are down there for.

          “What about the rest, Two and how ever many you have lower than Bargrl?”

          Quenloc coughed lightly into his hand, “They are assisting that smiling bast-General with security.”

          “Lacie-boy?”

          He made a very poor attempt to smother a snicker, “Eh, right. Yes, your successor, General Lyciel.”

          “He seems to be doing a wonderful job, which actually brings me back to what I wanted to ask. Which fellow from your army is going out next? Anyone I would know?”

          “I think you misunderstood, Lady.” I passed him a small bag of hardened molasses, “Thank you, but I am not the General.”

          “Oh?”

          “I am a Duke, which means we don’t hold any actual positions. I am the Duke assigned to the army though the actual General is someone else.”

          “…oh?” I glanced at Blackie for clarification.

          Pelk grumbled and stepped forward. “Dukes are fighters that earn titles through strength and aren’t expected to do or answer to anyone, except technically the Demon Lord, so we don’t give them important positions that require intelligence so we don’t have idiots challenging, say, Accounting for example.” He paused to roll his eyes.

“The army is where the line gets fuzzy but it would be a pain to change the general every time we get a stupid upstart and have to reteach them everything so we just have a Duke assigned to certain departments to either protect the head, like Olven does, or have a separate, smaller unit that does whatever they want outside the normal routine like Quenloc does.”

          “When did they set that up?” We all turned to look at Blackie, who grumbled back at us defensively, “What? I don’t remember that system when I became a general, I took the position by killing the old one.”

          “…It was around two generations ago. The army assignment was created for Quenloc so it was rather recent?” Olven spoke slower than his brother and he glanced at Pelk for confirmation that he was correct.

          “…recent by that old monster’s definition maybe.” Pelk muttered to himself, probably not caring that we could still hear him.

          As we stewed with that information for a bit, the little thing Blackie sent out returned. Without them noticing, it crawled up his leg and settled down by his ear to debrief what it found. I leaned in to try and overhear, but apparently it wasn’t actually making any sound.

          Summoners. I rolled my eyes and huffed at him, doing some settling of my own with a small bowl of what smelled like berries individually covered in fried dough. They’d been put on what might have been the wrong plate, so they were frozen, but it seemed like it worked perfectly so it might have been on purpose. I would need to get Blackie to try this at home later.

          I didn’t recognize the pair down in the arena, but Sven/Steve and his opponent were getting patched up by the medics. The demon seemed a upset about the loss, but Steve had landed a heavy blow so he couldn’t fight the group too much. It seemed like he was begging Vel for something.

          Probably topics for us to talk about! I’m making all kinds of new friends today!

          “Boney.”     

          “Hm?” I smiled warmly at him.

          “Remember our plan?”

          “…yes?” Does that mean I couldn’t make a bunch of new friends?

          “New plan.”

          “Do I get to make a bunch of new friends?!”

          “Maybe, but it seems like we’ll be looking for one or two new friends in particular.” He tapped his horn with one finger, not looking as happy as I feel like he should be for someone with a new plan.

          “Friends, hm?” Glanced at the children that were confused, and worried, by our conversation.

          “I never could abide sloppy work. Negligent I’m all for, but sloppy?” He grumbled. “Well, for now let’s see how it pans out. No point of us going if the brats can solve this themselves.” Blackie raised an eyebrow at the group of sheepish children who looked like they’d been caught feeding their dinner to our pet hell hound, which had explained the stomach problems the poor dear had been having.

          “Fair enough, we are retired after all.” Smiling at them, the demons relaxed.

          Tavy’s shoulders slid forward a fraction as he muttered, “…we didn’t pack enough fire protection equipment did we?”