I thought about the different scenarios that could occur based on the actions I could take. It was like a chess game, really.

Here was one of the many scenarios I thought about. If I supposed that the demon didn't know about the existence of Smoothie, and that I refused to become his underling, one thing he could do was to attempt to eat all my bodies with his soul eating ability. Since he could teleport, and possibly track my bodies with high authority abilities, it would still take some time. Meanwhile, I would have disconnected all my clone bodies from my main body and hid in my subspace.

No matter what, my subspace was the safest location. The issue was the contract. The contract linked him and I together in some way. After my bodies outside all died, eventually I wouldn't be able to fulfill the contract anymore. There was the possibility the contract could lead him directly into my subspace through some backdoor channel. Anyway, the moment I died would mean the collapse of my subspace.

I know too little about demons. What is their range of operation? What restricts them from simply destroying the world? Yes, the guardians but I haven't seen an actual guardian. To keep that demon in check must be someone of equal status.

The real question is: why did that demon pop up that time when I didn't call its name? I have no answer to that. Could it be my intent to hire a servant? Was it because that is De Planck's niche and my intent automatically triggered a response?

Thoughts popped in and out sporadically as I tried to re-organize everything in my mind. It was becoming such a mess. At some point, I had more questions than I had answers. I had more speculations than hard facts.

One at a time. Can I rid of myself of this |devious| trait? Possible but unlikely.

Next, can I defeat or escape from De Planck? Very unlikely, probably impossible until I know more about his abilities.

Next, can the contract be nullified at the moment? Possibly, but the moment I nullify it, De Planck would likely be immediately alerted. It would be a race against time hence I must resolve everything on my side before I nullify the contract. There's also the possibility that De Planck would try to force another contract on me.

If possible, I would like to transfer Smoothie's original body to somewhere safe. So far, I hadn't found anywhere that would be safe from demons. If I was given enough time to gain strength, I might be able to hold off that demon even before I evolve.

I wonder if I can trap it in my subspace and seal it away? How do you defeat a legendary demon anyway?

After hours of contemplation and sorting through as much information as I could, including all the knowledge transferred from Smoothie, I decided to end this meditation. Vorte would be my go-to person for more information. Speculations were fine in my opinion. What I needed was countermeasures and advises on fighting demons.

"Ah, I almost forgot to report to Kanoko first."

It was a close call but thankfully I remembered right after I exited my subspace. In real time, it had only been a minute since I entered my subspace.

I entered Kanoko's office only to find that it was empty.

I wonder where she went? Could it be that she's taking a break right now? Gasp, gasp! Is the world going to collapse tomorrow? Oops, perish such ominous thoughts.

Since Kanoko wasn't around, I didn't have anything better to do. Instead I teleported away and began spreading my clones like a wildfire.

I was in dire need of resources and mana. I didn't really know what mana was but in the event I was able to safely evolve, I wanted to have enough mana stocked up to ascend as much as I could into higher levels. That way, even if I couldn't use any newfound powers, I should be able to fend off dangerous beings like demons for a bit.

Seriously, I had a bad feeling about this whole evolution thing. Obstacles one after another just kept popping up. I could definitely imagine someone targeting me right after I evolve. After all, I had no reliable backing.

Anyhow, I had things to do.

Thousands upon thousands of small gatherer clones were simultaneous produced each minute within the barren desert. Each was merely fist sized and their only purpose was to absorb their surroundings. These clones were lined up in thick stripes along the border of the Grusia Empire.

This served two purposes. One was obviously because I needed mana and minerals. The other was to cut off the route by which the humans could invade by land either above or underground. The stripe was about three hundred meters in width.

As for the special clones I had deployed before, I destroyed them before I could forget about them. Otherwise, they might cause trouble for me later on. In the past few days, they only ate a couple hundred meters into the ground. Even if I left them, they would never reach the centre of the planet because they would end burning up from the heat underground.

From above, I guided the placements of my clones. The clones on the ground were also replicating at the same time. If I was looking from the side, it was like a gargantuan green wyrm was eating up the desert.

As time passed, with how numerous clones I deployed, their work speed was astronomical. Within an hour, the trench depth was able to reach a kilometer. My goal was around two kilometers in depth.

"Boys and girls, this is how canyons are formed." I announced proudly as I witnessed this impressive sight. Of course, this was just good old me talking to myself.

Speaking of canyons, I wasn't that far from the natural canyons to the south.

Anyway, instead of heading east toward the ocean, I dug my trench along the western borderline. The south was uncharted territory with too many powerful monsters to conquer. Though, I did include a few monster domains from the desert. As for the southwest regions of the empire, those were excluded since the two kingdoms were destroyed and gone. I didn't want to risk venturing into the current human territories.

As powerful as my [creation] ability was, in between, I had to replenish my water supply. Apparently I ran out of water to be able to create more clones.

After hours of work on this national scale construction project, I lost count how many clones I had created. I would say I was in the millions.

Once this was all done, I planned to collect and recycle my clones since I had trouble controlling all of them at the same time. Some were left where they were deployed to continuously absorb things until they reached the two kilometer depth marker.

Along the way, I found a few tunnels dug out by the human military near the tree line, and some within the forests as I expected. Although there were more much further north, those didn't seem to have anything to do with the recent invasion.

Anyhow, the deepest tunnels dug by humans were only a couple hundred meters below ground. Since I had plenty of mineral dusts available, I stuffed the tunnels on both sides with solid chunks of rocks created in my subspace. To add to that, I was careful to erase any onlookers and above ground military bases, but they were far and few in between. It was all because I didn't want any bystanders to report to their bosses of everything I did here. Well, their bosses probably wouldn't believe any of it either.  

Really, it was a necessary but a small evil! It should be overlooked. Instead I should be praised for my ground shattering project well done!

Again, someone like me didn't need to sleep, hence I kept going until morning came. It wasn't because I ran out of mana or anything but rather I thought Kanoko should be awake by now. The other reason was that I didn't know how far I was from the northern war theatre. I seriously had no intention of involving myself in another war especially given how it was above my pay grade and my capabilities. Although I wasn't explicitly told about it, the battleground to the north was likely many times more dangerous than the one I just experienced. If I accidentally got caught up in a battle between guardians, devils, and demons, I wouldn't survive.

Just before I went to visit Kanoko, as a courtesy, I filled the tunnels dug out by humans underneath Vera with mineral dusts to the best of my ability. I figured if there were too many tunnels, the ground could become unstable in the future.

I was such a sweetheart for doing all this!

I wonder if I'll get paid? Sure no one asked me to do it... But still...