The mid-day sunlight bled through the uncovered windows, filling Tanya’s office with a warm clear light. Her blue eyes and blonde hair both glimmered from the light entering from behind her as her elven ears poked out the sides of her head.

 

To her right was Gabiru, though posing as the human Kazuma. Despite his fairly casual and lightly armored attire, it was ultimately intentional for him to look that way. Unassuming yet visibly armed would go a long way for her. In Tanya’s eyes, it was best for their enemy to underestimate them and make bold and sudden moves. In doing so, leaving them vulnerable. 

 

Even in a homunculus like she was in now, Tanya could easily deal with the average person who tried to attack or intimidate her. But someone who is both smart and powerful could be a threat. Besides, due to how limited her homunculus body was, it was best to leave its defense to Gabiru when she could spare it. Gabiru was just as busy as she was after all, and while he could fly at a rapid speed to guard her, he still needed to at times be with his unit. She was basically working the poor dragonewt overtime, though she paid him handsomely for it.

 

To her left sitting at another desk was Mia, a woman with luxurious and well-kept blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed formally in a three-piece suit, happily working away at paperwork. Tanya wouldn’t blame anyone if they assumed that she was some noble, because, in the end, they weren’t entirely wrong.

 

The girl had grown up in the slums, effectively organizing a band of poor thugs into a large criminal organization that ran circles around the regional nobility. She was not born in the slums, however, far from it actually. Tanya knew of her true nature, not that even she knew. Finding and recruiting her was a massive pawn on her side, but one she was finding herself needing less and less. She could make a good figurehead, sure, but the time of feudalism was on the way out. She would make sure of it.

 

Mia was no doubt a brilliant girl, and her scheming potential had often rivaled Tanya’s own. Tanya’s new economic reach was spreading across the western nations fast, and while its initial growth and foundations were created by Tanya, the rest was accelerated rapidly by Mia. Tanya’s main contribution had been subversive, using her status as a Demon to aid poor nobles or merchants who sacrificed their gold in a summoning ritual she manufactured. In doing so, they bound themselves to her, and all she had to do was give them financial advice and favorable loans.

 

It was all because of Mia that Tanya was so easily able to multitask being both the Chancellor of Tempest and the head of a large growing corporation. The former was starting to require more of her time with Rimuru’s absence, but unsurprisingly a Federation designed to limit the actual power the central government has on its states can run quite well without the central government’s direct input. The fact that Tanya and Rimuru themselves only made up about a third of the Central Government also certainly helped.

 

Tanya’s mind for now wasn’t on the company, nor was it on Tempest. Rather her mind was focused on the Charybdis Core. She had to give a lot of thanks to her [Sage] skill for how well it allowed her to analyze things. For a while, she had thought it to simply accelerate her thinking capabilities, but more recently she had begun to look into its analyzation capabilities as well. Unfortunately, without its more advanced ‘Great Sage’ version, Tanya had been unable to automate the process and had to do it all herself.

 

She had learned quite a lot from the core itself. Mostly its implications for building bodies. She had been researching her homunculus since the day she obtained it. Being able to replicate it was something she was interested in, and if possible she wanted to upgrade it as well. Progress in that department had been steady, albeit slow.

 

Charybdis’ core however seemed to introduce numerous factors she hadn’t accounted for. Pooling together research she had done herself or heard from others from all aspects of her third life, she had begun to piece together a few possible blueprints for bodies.

 

Creating her own body would certainly bring its own benefits, allowing her to calibrate her homunculus more to her own needs and desires, but it also opened up the possibility of creating bodies for demons to inhabit. As a demon herself, she had been able to summon a few demons at times to provide some assistance in exchange for magicules. While they weren’t extensive, she did have some connections in Hell. Noir was a primary one, but she knew that would have its own implications, and he probably didn’t want to be summoned by her anyway.

 

Nevertheless, being able to create bodies that demons could inhabit was one thing, allowing her to effectively start filling Tempest with a population of Demons to serve it. Yet if she could modify the bodies to each serve a different purpose she could create what would appear to be strange robots or cyborgs but would actually just be Demons inhabiting a mechanical body. It sounded like something that would come out of the mecha anime she had heard about, but it was something that she considered very much possible.

 

A more fascinating possibility in her mind was if it was possible to create organic bodies for beings like Demons. Demons created bodies basically from corpses or magicules alone. All of them were created and could be freely modified off of the will of the user. An exception Tanya had found had been herself. Tanya was fused with a single organic body that she could not modify.

 

This caused her to theorize that under the perfect biological conditions, a demon could inhabit a biological body, fusing with it in the process. Yet despite this, Demons can’t usually just inhabit individual corpses, not in the way that they ‘fuse’ with it, at least. The missing factor, Tanya argued, was compatibility. Tanya had effectively fused with her own corpse, meaning it was as compatible as it could get. Demons were not biological creatures, they had no consistent image. In order to get a demon to fuse with an organic body, its structure would need to match nearly perfectly.

 

All of this was theories at this point, but something she would want to explore when she had more time. For now, her focus was on juggling her many jobs, and her hope now was to use her recent revelations and theories to try and devise a way to make the whole process simpler.

 

‘If I could make this homunculus mimic my own body, could I potentially create a way for both bodies to work autonomously? I suppose it may be more the structure of my mind than the body, but if I try to move some things around…’

 

She continued to mess with her own homunculus structure, messing with its mechanics and its functions, looking for some loophole in both her mind and the homunculus that may allow her to work in both her current body and this one simultaneously.

 

«Attempting to Acquire Extra Skill [Parallel Existence]... Failed»

 

‘Failed? Ah, I see… My soul is already a hodgepodge of skills, it's already overwhelmed as is. If not for the insane amount of magicules I have and that my body can produce, I probably wouldn’t have this many anyway. Let's see if there’s any that I’m fine to sacrifice to produce another…’

 

Tanya looked through her soul and her skills thoroughly, eventually coming to a clear consensus on all her skills.

 

‘I mostly use all of them, but the Extra Skill [Strengthen Body] and Unique Skill [Magical Enhancement] are no longer needed. Both were useful before I had my computation jewel, but now both are somewhat obsolete with my formulas. I basically have the skills required to make up for any loss that I may have from losing these skills.’

 

«Attempting to Acquire the Extra Skill [Parallel Existence] – Sacrificing [Strengthen Body] and [Magical Enhancement] to execute… Extra Skill [Parallel Existence] Acquisition Successful»

 

Tanya took a quick look to confirm the skill’s effects, realizing it was far more effective than she imagined. Where she had once assumed the skill would simply allow her to use her homunculus at the same time as her regular body, it seemed that the skill granted her another body to use. This gave her full access to her skills and strength, as well as providing a backup which her consciousness would instantly transfer to if killed.

 

Without hesitation she stood up quickly, causing Gabiru and Mia to turn in confusion as Tanya’s homunculus body was turned into her own. The once elven girl turned demonoid in a puff of smoke as the Homunculus was used to lower the costs of creating a completely new body from magicules alone.

 

Her blonde hair turned black as her white and blue eyes turned black and gold. The two were startled to see her change into the form while as her homunculus, though having both seen her true form neither were shocked at her appearance.

 

“Miss Degurechaff, what’s with that form?” Mia asked, looking confused as she had assumed Tanya to have inhabited her homunculus, not arrived there truly.

 

“It seems I’ve managed to acquire a skill that allows me to be in two places at once. I suppose trying to do so for so long has warranted results. I basically absorbed my homunculus to make creating a second body cheaper. With both bodies being autonomous I don’t actually need to worry about how to juggle my two affairs anymore.” Tanya explained as she immediately began messing with her skills.

 

“That’s wonderful news! I have some affairs I want to go over with you if you’ve finished your studies.” Mia clapped her fingers together with a wide smile. Tanya noted she had a love for paperwork that rivaled even her own bureaucratic expertise, to the point it was almost concerning how happy she was to have what most would consider a boring job.

 

“Very well. I suppose I’ve made enough progress for today to start on actual work.” Tanya muttered as she made a quick mental note of something ‘Seems to have a bit of delay when I use my skills. Best if I try to use my main body when instigating combat with a stronger foe.’

 

“Hey, you think I could learn that skill? It would be a lot easier than flying back and forth constantly.” Gabiru asked.

 

Tanya shook her head, “Hm… Thanks to Oberst I should be able to give it to you…” Using her Unique Skill [Oberst] she was able to basically ‘rent’ out skills to people temporarily. So long as someone was under her command she could give out skills as she wanted, to a certain extent.

 

Giving away resistances was easy enough, she had given all of her subordinates Mental Influence Resistance or Nullification, after all. Common skills were pretty easy as well, but Extra and Unique skills were really where she became limited in handing them out. Extra skills could only be handed out to so many people, often requiring a higher rank under Tanya’s command for them to be ‘compatible’. Unique Skills could not be given at their full strength, but they could be given to some of her higher-ranking subordinates.

 

There was also some degree of compatibility needed with the skill in question, so certain skills couldn’t just be given to whoever she wanted to. It was a complicated mess in practice, but Tanya had gotten around to understanding it. Using her skill, she was luckily able to pair it with Gabiru. With Gabiru having formerly been given the two skills she had just purged, Gabiru was more than compatible to obtain a new skill.

 

“There, you should have the skill. Unfortunately, you’ll need to fly your copy all the way back, so you can leave a copy here whenever you plan to return.” Tanya explained, glad that one affair was taken care of. ‘Now that Gabiru doesn’t need to fly back and forth as well I can probably afford to have the 203rd train a lot more. I’ll hand some training plans to Weiss, I’ll make sure he has clearance to request some artillery for it.’

 

Having gathered a bunch of papers, Mia rushed over to Tanya’s desk, placing countless binders and papers on her desk with a smile. Quickly, she flipped through all of them, eventually finding a file on the Kingdom of Falmuth.

 

“Well in Falmuth they seem to be starting a massive schism from the Luminous Church. It has gained a surprising amount of traction as of recent, and I’ve been using it to secure further support within our own influenced territory now that the Church’s influence has been culled.” Mia commented, pulling out a map that showed in elaborate detail all important aspects of Falmuth’s regional politics, particularly popular support.

 

Among the population of Falmuth there now seemed to be three major competing factors, the Luminous Faith, this new ‘Reformed Luminous Faith’, and the ‘Modernists’. The Modernists were Tanya’s own creation, a vague and widely encompassing ideology that pushed for the ‘acceleration of mankind’, wanting to do away with authoritarian systems in favor of liberty, democracy, and capitalism.

 

The ideology stated a desire to ‘push humanity into the stars’ which became a massive rallying point. For the millions across the world who have lived in a world that has been technologically and socially stagnant for centuries, the prospect of rapid change is appealing to many.

 

Unified under the symbolism of a gear, the ideology had its true founding in Tempest where it has basically become broken down into more specific sub-ideologies which formed the basis of Tempest’s political factions. As Tanya unified the idea of Modernism into a unified doctrine, even having herself and others write books about it, it began to see scattered support but none more so than in Dwargon.

 

Dwargon was already a fairly advanced nation, so much so that before Tempest it was probably the furthest ahead technologically. So when the innovative dwarves heard of an ideology that wanted to accelerate them further, they latched to it. It changed little within the nation of Dwargon itself, but it did prove a popular foundation for the creation of a capitalist sphere surrounding Tempest.

 

Blumund was next as it quickly became a central ground for politicians who supported the idea of congregating, meeting, and discussing. Though Tanya had manually facilitated many of these politicians’ careers, just as many had formed and joined of their own willing accord. Some were adventurers, others knights, some simple merchants or common folk with a desire to make change. Each one had problems with the current feudal and monarchical systems, wanting to do away with them in favor of democratic ones.

 

For Tanya, it was her most powerful weapon in the western world. For the western nations, it was their biggest threat. While Tanya had seen the ideology as a good foundation to eventually strike against the Church with, for the time being, it remained neutral to religion. In doing so, the nations failed to weaponize the church against the ideology. For the Luminous Church, it didn’t matter what government ruled the nation so long as they welcomed the Church.

 

While she had no intention to let the Church’s influence stay forever, she was content to let it be for now. Her sphere needed to grow stronger first, and there were other threats she had to contend with. Her most recent battle was over the Kingdom of Falmuth.

 

Tanya wanted every nation on Tempest’s border either defended against or otherwise neutralized. The Eastern Empire now faced a thick wall of fortifications and forest, the Demon Lords had either been aligned or faced similar defenses, and the Sorcerer’s Dynasty and Raja both faced a towering mountain range of natural defenses. There was only one nation that Tanya had hoped to turn into a buffer kingdom: Falmuth.

 

Unfortunately that had proven harder than expected. Though gradually falling from its former glory due to Tempest, Falmuth was once the richest nation in the west, only rivaled by Ingrassia. It was no surprise then that the nation was filled to the brim with people trying to control it from the outside.

 

Tanya seemed to have two enemies; the Rosso Family whose influence could be seen across the Western Nations, and the Holy Church whose influence controlled Falmuth’s upper politics.

 

It seemed now that for one reason or another, the Church had basically been ousted from Falmuth, an opportunity that Mia had used to push for their own ideology. Had it not been for the nobles aligned to Tanya holding back, there was a good chance the move could’ve drawn Falmuth into a civil war.

 

A civil war was certainly an option, but Tanya didn’t want it just yet, and if possible she didn’t want it ever. The best-case scenario for her was a Falmuth that fully and peacefully fell under her influence. Had she been in a rush to neutralize the state, she had a dozen ways to do so, but that wasn’t her goal. A strong Falmuth would prove a more useful puppet.

 

Looking down at the map Tanya found herself confused at just what could’ve caused the schism. The Church and the Rosso family might have silently opposed each other at times, but such a move that dramatic seemed sudden, not to mention ineffective. If their hope was to kickstart a schism across the western nations, it didn’t seem to be working. The Church almost seemed prepared for it.

 

“Just what was the schism about anyways?” Tanya asked with confusion.

 

“I believe…” Mia flipped through her notes and nodded, “I believe it was about the gender of the god Luminous, ma’am.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“What is it?” Mia asked, tilting her head.

 

“That's the stupid reason they started this?! What kind of idiot would believe a whole schism would start over something stupid like that?!”

 

“Apparently the head priest of Falmuth had spoken to the real Luminous and said he was a male, not a female. Successful or not, he has begun swaying most of the country to support it.” Mia explained.

 

“I see what it is then. I was worried the Rossos were making their move to consolidate Falmuth, but it seems that Falmuth is trying to consolidate itself. They’re probably tired of the Church’s influence so they made some dumb reason to break off from the church and create one that they directly control.”

 

‘Some kind of King Henry VIII scenario going on here it seems. Falmuth wants to consolidate its power away from the Church and the best way to do that is to make your own. But did it really need to be over something so stupid like God's gender?’

 

“The Rossos have been mostly silent lately, though we hardly have a great grasp on their sphere, so tracking their movements is difficult. They seem to be, if nothing else, at least partially supportive of the Schism, but that may just be for the sake of maintaining their sphere in Falmuth. There are reports of small enclaves of the Reformist Church appearing in some of the Rosso domains, but the priests trying to push them seem to always… disappear.” Mia explained as she flipped through a few of her notes detailing the situation.

 

Tanya leaned back in her chair, rubbing her chin as she contemplated options, “It seems the church is very insistent on stopping the spread of this alternate sect. I’m not so sure which side we should take. On one hand, a weaker church is probably better in the long run, on the other hand, the church is still too influential to take head-on.”

 

Mia shrugged, “I believe maintaining our current course of supporting religious freedoms is probably best. It's unclear if this schism will go far beyond Falmuth, and either way, it's best not to pick sides until the battle’s basically already over.”

 

Tanya leaned forward, bringing her hands together as she nodded, “I agree. Let the two dogs fight, I say. It is likely this will either destabilize Falmuth or the Church, possibly both. We simply need to pick up the pieces of the loser. Even in the worst case scenario, Falmuth will at least be diplomatically isolated, something we can still use to our advantage.”

 

“Very well then, we’ll have our nobles in Falmuth take a more neutral stance for now and see how things go. Any other topics you’d like a briefing about now that you’re back?” Mia asked with a smile.

 

Tanya considered a few fields she wanted to check up on. Her time handling Tempest with Rimuru’s absence had left her away from her company, leaving her unaware of progress. Now that she had this skill, there was no reason to be a shadow leader anymore, she could take full command of all affairs again. 

 

Of course, she considered it best to start slow. She had other affairs to handle, and there were a few more things to do before she could smoothly multi-task across bodies, but a start would get her in the hang of things. “How’s our economic sphere expanding? Specifically, Ingrassia.”

 

Ingrassia was effectively the economic center of the Western Nations. While Falmuth, more specifically its nobility, was richer due to the more valuable trade routes to Dwargon, Ingrassia was overall the actual economic ‘core’ of the West, much to Falmuth’s annoyance. Tanya knew that getting a strong economic basis in Ingrassia would prove the best foundation for a rapid expansion of her influence across the west. Securing a hold in Ingrassia was essential for plans going forward.

 

Mia seemed a bit frustrated as she picked up another binder, opening it and placing it on the desk. Turning it around for Tanya to see, she pushed it toward the demon as she picked it up and read.

 

Tanya read the report and gave a sigh of annoyance. In summary, their progress was ultimately stagnant. Considering the unforgiving nature of Ingrassia, even that could’ve been considered a victory in its own right, but the fact remained that at the current rate, it would take her years before she could even begin to capitalize off of its success.

 

“Seems going into the largest economy in the world is harder than we anticipated,” Tanya muttered, still reading over the finer details of it.

 

“Unfortunately it seems that while many of the other merchants and businessmen may not have as much money as we do, they have equal amounts of experience and far more connections in Ingrassia than we have,” Mia commented, sharing Tanya’s frustrations.

 

‘Sucks that we can’t get any noble connections in Ingrassia. It seems that a country that is economically stable and heavily influenced by the Rossos probably doesn’t need to summon a random demon to solve its problems. I’m not out of options, that much is for certain, but it does mean a quick and easy route to success doesn’t exist in Ingrassia like it does in other nations.’ Tanya mused, closing the binder and standing up.

 

“See if any of my merchant contacts have their own contacts or ties in Ingrassia. We might be able to use them to get a better foothold.” Tanya ordered Mia who gave a swift nod before rushing away to rifle through all the documents she had on Tanya’s contacts.

 

Turning now to Gabiru, she folded her arms, “Head to Tempest for training. Leave a body double here for now. Be careful when using your human form outside of this double from now on. Refrain from it where possible and use illusions when you can. You can have this body rest since I have some research I’ll head out to do so you’ll have nobody to guard for a while.”

“Some research? Shouldn’t I come too? I’m sure having two bodies with the skill to study could be useful.” Gabiru suggested as he already was preparing his few things to leave.

 

“It’s not about the body. I can analyze that on my own with my Sage skill whenever I have downtime, I have other research I need to conduct outside the TRI. I’ll introduce my findings to them when I’m ready of course, but for now, this research is my own affairs.”

 

Gabiru quickly saluted, “I understand, ma’am. I shall return quickly to Tempest!”

 

Gabiru quickly multiplied, another appearing next to him in a puff of smoke. Both forms remained in the human appearance, though the original one quickly set out in flight in the direction of Tempest as the other remained in the building.

 

Heading out herself, Tanya soared west, onward to her own endeavors as her other body handled another affair entirely.

 

[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]

 

The air cried out in roars of thunder, bullets, and explosions. Bullets pierced through the air all around the mages, each and every one of them dodging or blocking like their lives depended on it. In many ways, it likely did.

 

The mages were experts at this by now, but the extent of bullets being hailed at them mixed with how chaotic the entire situation was upped the difficulty ten-fold. Rather than simply dodging the bullets, they now had to stay a clear few feet away from them in an attempt to avoid the cylinder of scorching flames that followed it.

 

The bullets would often explode into fiery spheres of destruction before even coming into contact with anyone, expanding several feet wide requiring even further avoidance.

 

This alone was not enough to completely overwhelm the most elite unit of mages the Federation had to offer, but what made it worse were the countless spells and occasional other types of formulas that were used. Everything ranging from piercing spells that could break through their barriers to more conventional spells that hurled a wider variety of obstacles hindered them.

 

Their training had been difficult, and even under Tanya she had often made it challenging and pushed them to their upper limits. But with how busy Tanya was, her ability to plan for the more elaborate training that the early 203rd had seen in its earliest preparations was gone. For a while, the unit had been spared from her torment, but now all that could be heard was the occasional scream as another mage was taken down, often in immediate need of a high-tier potion.

 

All that could be heard over the screams, bullets, and general sounds of hell was a cackling coming from above as a white and red haired Tengu girl with eyes that reflected the redness of hell off of them laughed at their screaming. “HAHAHAHA! Your suffering is entertaining the others! Can you all really call yourselves elites with this performance?!”

 

The Tengu Momiji had been equipped with the best mage tech Tempest had to offer. It had taken her some time to get a grasp on it, but once she understood the fundamentals of formulaic casting, her vast magicule count aided in her accelerated understanding of it. It didn’t take her long at all to combine her skills with formulaic casting to create ‘infernal’ spells which she now used to torment the 203rd.

 

Flight was the easiest part for her to get a grasp on. The Tengu people all had wings, meaning flight was no hassle for them at all. While the flight gear meant to make her go faster caused her some trouble, with direct teaching from Tanya herself, she had learned to handle it quite well.

 

Tanya stood side by side with Hakurou and Benimaru as the three stood and watched the training from below. Tanya’s arms rested behind her back as she smirked, satisfied that her few-week crash course had managed to turn the girl into a perfect tormenting machine. She had plenty to learn about strategy and how to conduct proper training, but from Tanya’s perspective, simply throwing a bunch of chaos at mages tended to be the best training they could get.

 

With the power Momiji had, it was an obvious pick for Tanya to have her be trained herself in order to soon train the mages. With her father already an instructor to most of Tempest’s land forces, at least those that don’t use firearms primarily, she was eager to take on the role that would make her similar in any way to her father.

 

Benimaru had become used to seeing the Tempest army be tormented either directly or indirectly by the Chancellor. He recognized the value the training had, but always believed she may have been taking it too far. By this point he had grown to not care, however, simply accepting it as Tanya’s own way of teaching a very painful lesson.

 

Turning to Hakurou, he muttered, “Are you sure that Momiji is your daughter and not Tanya’s clone?”

 

“Hohoho, that impressed with my daughter’s performance, are you, young master?” Hakurou said with a smug smile, brushing his beard with his two fingers as usual.

 

“‘Impressed’ isn’t the right word. I believe ‘concerned’ would work better in this context. No matter, I trust Tanya's skill enough to believe she’ll turn out as a competent commander in no time. For now, though, I believe her more chaotic nature is best left to training.”

 

Tanya nodded, “Agreed. She is certainly skilled, but she needs to be taught a lot more before I trust her in charge of anything besides tormenting mages.” Turning from the battle to Benimaru, she added, “You were just at Veldoria, yes? How’s progress on the anti-air project they started the other day?”

 

“They’ve set up the main guns, but they’re still working on connecting it to that ‘automated system’ you requested. I did get to look at the room where they’re working on this system and I will say it's quite massive. It takes up the entire room, after all.”

 

Tanya nodded, “It's a rudimentary and early computer, far from anything I’m willing to start selling commercially. I want to make sure Tempest is in a completely safe position before I start handing out tech like that. Unfortunately, we have to start from the ground up with this tech, so I can’t just jump right ahead to modern computers.”

 

‘I really need to thank Rimuru for having Great Sage come up with some basic blueprints based off of a few of Rimuru’s memories. It's a shame Rimuru went into general contracting and not anything relating to computers. Had he, I may already be at the point of home desktops, but unfortunately, I’m stuck with the larger computers for now.’

 

“I’m not too familiar with all this research and tech stuff the TRI is doing there, but if it impacts the military I will strive to understand it to the best of my ability,” Benimaru spoke confidently.

 

Tanya waved her hand with a shrug, “Don’t overwork yourself there. It's nothing you need to worry about yet. For now, it's just meant to detect an enemy aircraft and shoot it down. Of course, it shouldn’t care whether said ‘aircraft’ is a plane, rocket, or dragon.”

 

Benimaru tilted his head, “I’ve heard some talk about planes, but what is a rocket?”

 

Tanya shook her head, “Nothing you need to concern yourself with right now. All you need to know is that Tempest is safe. I’ll be damned pissed off if something can somehow bypass all of our defenses.”

 

[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]

 

“It has been a bit of time since our last meeting, Guy.” The silver-haired ‘demon’ looked up at him from a small table with a wide cheerful smile and an excited glint in her eyes, “Here I was almost worried you’d never return to hear the rest. Glad my worries were unfounded. It’s no fun telling a story to yourself, after all.”

 

It had been a few weeks since the primordial had once been down here. The void was still as aggressive as before, still trying to tear him apart into nothingness, yet again he held on.

 

Taking a seat across from her, he folded his arms and looked at her, “Well, I can’t just leave a story without a conclusion. So, do you intend to continue today?”

 

The demon nodded happily, “Yes, yes. Now, we left off at Argent being given dominion over the surface, yes?”

 

Guy nodded, and so she continued, “Now uncontested on the surface, at least in regards to other demons, the Argent sought to create the nation of her desires. A nation where they would accelerate knowledge far beyond the limited capabilities of the world around them.

 

Above all, however, the Argent desired peace. Prosperity and growth could rarely come from conflict, at least not long and frequent ones, at least in her mind. As such, she wanted her nation to live in harmony or at least reluctant co-existence with humanity. In order for this to work, however, she couldn’t conquer a human nation to make it her own. In hopes of not aggravating any one nation, she found an unclaimed vast forest, making it her home.

 

With her closest, most loyal, and most powerful subordinates, she began to build this nation. Using a mixture of her own Creator skill and the vast veins of Magic Ore located within the nearby caves and caverns of the forest, the Argent built vessels for more of her kind.

 

Before long the nation’s population rose to dozens. Months later it reached the hundreds. A year later, it had reached the thousands. All of them demons, some old and high ranking in power, and others younger and easily pushed around.

 

All of these demons lived in harmony, creating a society of demons that would be seen as completely impossible by your current standards of demons. Of the demons in her new nation, most were of her own silver family, though some from other families did opt to join her as well.

 

This nation of demons continued to grow, but such a rising presence could not be overlooked forever. Soon enough, the Argent would face the might of the being who claimed the vast forest she built her nation upon: the Storm Dragon Veldora.”

 

As the demon stopped telling the story, Guy hid his frustrations at how short the story had again been. This segment didn’t tell him nearly as much as the last, but it did give him some insight into the nature of the Argent and the silver demons that seemed to be her family and seemed to include the newborn Demon Lord.

 

To confirm, Guy quickly asked, “I presume that is all for now?”

 

“Of course. As I said, I do like to drag this out as much as possible. I hope you understand, someone like me doesn’t get to interact very much.”

 

Guy nodded and stood up, “I suppose I do. I will return later. If nothing else, at least the shorter segments take up less time after all.”

 

With that Guy left, retreating from the void as he once more pondered the various questions that filled his mind.

 

[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]

 

Thanks to various editors and helpers on the Discord who helped with things like plot decisions, grammatical errors, and other aspects of the chapter:

 

Dragon1008, Terraman60

 

To join the discord for chatting, discussion, updates, or to apply to be one of the credited helpers, join the link below:

 

https://discord.gg/xcCvpSxmA7