Hero Esmeralda (2)
Lieutenant General Lilith, chief aide to Demon King Belphegor and a member of the Demon Army's Operation Staff, clicked her tongue.
"So the humans decided to move first."
They had failed.
And for the most absurd reason imaginable.
The plan to reclaim Jim had been scheduled for the moment the Hero Party left Fortress City Senoba. That much had been decided well in advance.
But luck had turned against them. The incident had erupted inside the fortress city itself, and the humans had pinned the whole thing on the demons.
A common, base tactic, straight out of humanity's playbook.
And to Lilith, such human tricks were old news. Unraveling the cause of the incident was hardly difficult.
The Saintess — Irina Saintis. If anyone's behind it, it's her.
To the world at large, she was revered as an innocent, noble Saintess, but in truth she was the very darkness of the church. Anyone in a position of any real power already knew as much.
Well, Jim probably knows it too. The Demon King designated her for special surveillance, so surely he must have thought something through.
Of course, Jim was not a person in any position of power.
Naturally, he had no idea. To Jim, Irina was simply a beautiful woman.
Unfortunately for Lilith, her expectations continued to pile higher and higher.
"Yes, the Saintess's schemes are already well known on our side as well."
Lilith smiled as she reviewed the outcome of the operation. Yes, she knew the woman called Irina Saintis well.
"Heh heh. And thanks to her, it's all fallen apart."
Knowing something and being able to counter it, of course, were two entirely different matters. Before her team had done a single thing, the human garrison had raised its alert level, and the entire execution squad had been wiped out.
It was, without question, a colossal blunder.
The root of it all was complacency — letting her guard down because there was still time until the operation was due to begin. It had taken the soldiers less than five minutes to come pouring out from inside the fortress walls and annihilate her execution team.
Just as Lilith was racking her brains over what to do—
"Ahem! Lilith, how are things going?"
Belphegor had bulldozed her way into Lilith's workspace to escape her vassals' nagging. She asked casually, as she always did, and Lilith answered with her usual cool composure.
"Of course, Your Majesty."
"Good, good. Now then — I've decided to trust you, so I'm granting you full authority over this. Keep up the fine work."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Lilith was a political appointee from the very start. She had spent her entire career performing the role of a cold, calculating commander so that no one would look down on her, and this occasion was no different. The act of pretending had long since sunk into her very bones.
And so it was only afterward that a chill ran down her spine, as she realized what she had just lied herself into.
There was no way she could admit now that she'd botched things spectacularly.
Everyone committed to this operation was either a rising star of the next generation or an established, battle-proven asset of the Demon Army.
As Lilith quietly turned a sickly shade of blue, a thought suddenly struck her, and she murmured:
"Full authority... Yes. With full authority delegated to me, I can still turn this around."
And so the snowball began to roll.
Roughly a day had passed since we left the fortress city when word came in from Lieutenant General Lilith.
"Ahem. Would it be all right if I stepped out to the restroom for a moment?"
Aside from the regular reports, this was an unscheduled contact — so it might be urgent.
"You're not planning to run away, are you?"
"Haha. Running away? In a place right next to the Demon Realm?"
Esmeralda said it with a bright, beaming smile, and I knew better than to test it. There was no escaping that easily in the first place. It was already the third time I'd tried and ended in humiliation.
If I got caught attempting it again, it would start raising suspicions.
"...Jim, just in case, I'll put a spell on you. Come here."
"That's really not neces—"
Milia cast her magic onto my neck.
Needless to say, she hadn't asked for my consent.
It felt suspiciously like a collar at first, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a one-time shield and alarm spell. Presumably it would activate automatically if my body came under threat.
"..."
And Irina Saintis — arguably the most dangerous one of all — was merely smiling her sweet, serene smile this time.
If she had offered to wrap me in some kind of divine barrier, things would have gone very badly indeed.
"Is that little weasel actually a demon heading off to meet his handlers?"
Tina's joking remark, delivered with a smirk, pierced my heart like a dagger — but it was fine.
She knew everything, and at the same time she knew nothing at all.
Once I had put a safe distance between myself and the party, Jim activated the communication spell from the Demon Army.
"...Communications security. Lieutenant Jim speaking."
Even with no one physically present here, my back bowed on instinct.
It was the textbook posture of an office worker cowering before his boss.
— Yes, Jim. This is Lilith. I received the report on recent events from a distance, and what a coincidence it turned out to be. We were just about to launch an operation of our own to rescue you, as it happens. Heh heh.
"Ah... I trust nothing ill has befallen you, ma'am?"
— Of course not. Heh heh. Did you think I would fail to notice something on that level?
Lilith was bluffing for all she was worth.
Jim was a being formally acknowledged by the Demon King. Exposing one's own failings in front of him would be tantamount to confessing directly to the Demon King herself.
The obvious answer was simply to act as if nothing had happened.
Wow. That's Lieutenant General Lilith for you.
Marveling alone at her bold declaration, Jim bowed his head even lower.
She was a demon working to rescue him. How could he not?
"Then you've contacted me because you've drawn up a new operation! Is there something you need my cooperation with?"
— Huh...?
"Yes?"
— O-of course. I was merely startled, that's all — I hadn't expected you to jump straight to business.
"Oh! I apologize! I wasn't thinking things through!"
Lilith had, in fact, been intending to offer excuses for the failed operation.
But there was one thing she had overlooked: the fact that Jim knew absolutely nothing about her operation.
There was nothing to apologize for in the first place. Jim had no idea that the execution squad had been wiped out by external interference.
Lilith, who had reached out like a guilty conscience avoiding its own shadow, belatedly realized this.
— No, it's quite all right. I was only intending to ask how you were faring.
"Oh! Thank you so much! I will continue to serve the Demon Army with my heart and soul!"
Of course, if the order came down to keep infiltrating the Hero Party any longer than this, he would quit the Demon Army on the spot. And if they threatened to transfer him to the front lines of the war against the dragons after freeing him, he intended to quit then, too.
Jim was, as always, nothing more than a typical sycophant whose words gleamed brighter than his intentions.
— About the operation. Hmm...
"Haha! Don't tell me there isn't one—"
— There is.
"Y-yes. ...My apologies."
— It's fine.
Jim had meant it as a joke, but the icy edge in her voice snapped him back to his senses. They were hardly on joking terms to begin with. This was a woman bearing three stars in the Demon King's Army, no less!
She was not someone the likes of Jim had any business bantering with.
— Ahem! The new operation is...
"Yes, ma'am."
— The new operation is, well...
"I'm listening carefully."
— ...We will split apart the Hero Party, then strike at the Hero alone.
Lilith voiced the best plan she could devise. The result of running her brain at full throttle!
Perhaps because, once it was out of her mouth, it sounded more plausible than she'd expected, Lilith raised her voice with confidence.
— The Hero Party was originally assembled from members drawn out of separate organizations. No organization would sit still and let its people carry on Hero Party activities over some trivial matter.
Yes — the Hero Party didn't travel as one unbroken unit. Each member carried their own social obligations and position.
— For instance, what if someone claimed they wished to see their hometown? Each organization's leaders would summon them back out of sheer indignation, if nothing else.
"My hometown, you say...?"
— The hometown from your infiltration mission. The stage you turned into ruins.
The party members were already stretched thin for time. Once that happened, each of them would have to depart to attend to their own duties at exactly the point when they'd normally be obliged to humor Jim's request.
Frankly, this was a scenario that only made sense if Jim's unreasonable plea were actually accepted — but Jim sensed possibility in it.
"Well, the Hero does have a righteous, tender-hearted nature, so a mere favor — not even a resignation — is something she'd likely grant."
If the reason for his attempted resignation turned out to be that he simply wanted to see his ruined hometown one last time, then even the Hero herself couldn't refuse the request.
Best case, they'd simply release him outright — though the odds of that were slim.
And if the request were granted, there would be no reason for the rising stars of every organization to tag along just to watch a mere porter visit his hometown.
Whenever the whole party wasn't present together, gaps opened up in every direction.
Though... this is an operation that already failed once. I wonder if it'll really work.
It had happened just days ago — the incident in which the operation team dispatched to rescue him, along with Lieutenant Colonel Extra, had all died. Back then, they had been aiming for a moment when only the Hero and the Saintess were present.
Ah — maybe they're planning to set a trap there in advance? Surely something I couldn't even begin to imagine.
He didn't know what it would be, but this was a plan drawn up by Lieutenant General Lilith herself.
Jim had plenty of lingering doubts, but he decided to let them all go.
— Ahem! So don't you worry, Jim. Just stay healthy and hold out. That's all for now.
Click.
Lilith severed the communication unilaterally, fearing that any further conversation would expose her incompetence.
Of course, that incompetence never came to light.
In Jim's mind, Lilith was already a master schemer of legendary caliber.
True, he had never once served under her command — but the simple fact that she was thinking of him, combined with the fact that she was a considerable beauty, was enough for Jim to set aside every question he had.
The beauty part mattered especially.
The moment she cut the connection, Lilith broke into a cold sweat as the weight of it hit her.
Even by her own judgment, the plan was far too crude.
"...It's not over. It's not over yet!"
Only now realizing that a nearly identical plan had already failed, Lilith gripped her trembling hands and thought it through. Yes — she had been granted full authority.
If the plan was lacking, then she would simply crush the shortfall under sheer military force.
"You there. Bring me the Commander of the 11th Legion."
Yes — this time, she would send a Legion Commander. Under normal circumstances, not even she had the standing to command one at her own discretion, but...
"Your Majesty! I beg you! Grant me another chance! Tell me — what did I ever do wrong?"
Not long ago, before Demon King Belphegor herself, the 11th Legion Commander, Eleven, had dishonored Jim. He was now in dire need of a chance to redeem himself for all of it.
"Heh heh. I see a way out!"
Lilith crossed her legs with a bewitching smile and preened, thoroughly pleased with herself.