Surprisingly Useful Even Without His Dick
How much raw strength would it take to catch a fully armored knight charging at full tilt with a lance leveled—and hurl both horse and rider backward without taking so much as a scratch?
The answer was already decided.
"Hup. Do people around here not feed their horses hay? This thing's ridiculously light."
You just needed to be strong enough to lift an eight-hundred-kilogram white warhorse with one hand. And if you could pin a thrashing mount simply by pressing down on it…
"Th-those bastards…! They just threw the captain of the guard…!"
"Damn it! Charge them right now!"
"What? You idiot woman! How the hell is that even possible?! Didn't you see how many meters they just flew?!"
"So we just stand here and do nothing?! If we do that, we're all hanging! You know what happens when you abandon an injured superior and run!"
Typical humans. The moment their leader vanished, they started thrashing around like that. It was like watching a pack of starving monkeys. Savages with nothing going for them but numbers.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?! The person you just injured is the third daughter of Baron Arin, who rules this city! Assaulting a noble won't end with a mere hanging! We'll hunt down your entire family and—"
"Hmm, doesn't look like she's dead? I didn't throw her that hard."
Oh—thanks to the plate armor, the noblewoman's body was still twitching where she'd landed. Still, every bone in her body had to be cracked by now.
Besides, human nobles tended to be hardier than commoners. If she was a baron's daughter, her recovery would be better than average.
"Shut your mouth, you insolent criminals! S-submit to capture at once!"
"Capture? Please. Anyway—is this on the lord's orders?"
"It is!"
"Is that so? Then I'll go pay a visit myself."
"Yeah, go on, Val."
Dozens of soldiers raised their spears. The encirclement looked fairly well-formed—but I leapt in a single bound and soared over their heads.
Using a few of those heads as stepping stones, I bounded this way and that, and the cordon shattered in an instant. Within seconds the soldiers were screaming for someone to catch me, having realized I'd vanished—but ignoring Sloan wouldn't be easy for them either.
Let's see how well this city's lord has prepared against assassination. Ideally, she'd turn out to be another one of Lichtes's dogs.
I was fully prepared to kill her in the most miserable way imaginable.
Elkite Arin, Baroness of the city, was a lucky woman.
Under ordinary circumstances, she never would have inherited the city. Three greedy older brothers stood above her, each with a power base of his own.
She had been on the verge of spending her life in a convent—or being sold off as a wife to some neighboring lord—when the world turned upside down. All of her brothers were reduced to weaklings overnight.
Which meant their formidable factions weakened right along with them. Baroness Arin armored her loyal maids and staged an armed revolt.
She openly assassinated her now-feeble brothers and seized the right of succession. A few people voiced their discontent along the way, but she proved her worth with unshakable confidence.
Finally… I can do whatever I want.
She was no incompetent woman. If anything, she was more capable and clever than her brothers had ever been.
The moment she took the seat, she reformed a host of outdated policies and made the city prosperous.
On top of that, she hired mages in bulk, used the medicinal herbs growing wild in the nearby forests, and produced convenient potions.
She founded an adventurers' guild to clear out the monsters swarming the area, sold the byproducts to fill the empty coffers, and put that money into reclaiming farmland so the city could produce more food.
I don't want to die.
Then one day, devastating news arrived.
That vicious Demon King had declared he would attack this city. Why? She'd thought its rear-line position would keep it safe from assault…
This isn't my fault.
All she wanted was a peaceful life. To live out a glorious twilight of luxury on the taxes of a wealthy city, gorging on whatever food she desired…
So selling the city to the Demon King had been something close to pure survival instinct. She'd worked herself to the bone building the place up—she had no desire to die a hollow death. Of course, she felt a twinge of guilt about selling off a city her ancestors had protected for generations…
But in a way, wasn't this protecting the people of the domain? There was no way they could stand against a skeleton army over a hundred thousand strong.
"Hello."
Until the moment Vallitics slipped in through the window, that was what the lord had been thinking. She couldn't utter a word.
Should she call the guards? No—that would be a mistake. One wrong answer here and her head would leave her shoulders first. The dagger in that small man's hand was no toy.
And to reach the lord's manor without a single sound of approach? He wasn't human. Not as a figure of speech—he genuinely wasn't human.
"Smart call. Not so much as a peep. Correct answer."
"…"
"Ah, you can speak. Just don't say anything useless. You can tell the difference, right?"
The baroness gave a slight nod, then forced her mouth open with difficulty.
"Wh-who are you?"
"Who am I?"
Vallitics felt joy welling up from deep inside. How many times had these human bastards treated him with such disrespect? This was how they were supposed to feel—afraid.
So you were blind all along. You still don't know who I am, you lowly mortal?
"H-huuuhk…! Y-you are—!"
The wicked aura pouring from Vallitics's body… Compared to his kin it was pitifully weak, but more than enough to crush an ordinary human.
Ah. I'm exhausted… It's been so long since I released my energy, I'm getting anemic. This should be enough for her to figure it out…
Vallitics slowly circled the office once. Quite impressive. The kind of place that would make killing someone feel almost tragic.
"D-Demon King…"
"Wow. You already know I'm a Demon King?"
"O-of course."
Vallitics was weaker than a Demon King's direct subordinate. The demonic energy he radiated was correspondingly faint by comparison.
And yet this woman was terrified of the Vallitics standing before her. A leopard may be smaller than a lion, but that doesn't make it weak. Vallitics had more than enough skill to butcher an aging human.
"Then you must also know why I'm here."
"Of course! Before long, this city will belong to Lord Lichtes!"
"Aha. So the Demon King you've pledged your loyalty to is Lichtes."
"Pardon? Ah—is there something I don't know…?"
I'd suspected as much. So that was why that bastard had shown up—to devour this city. And I'd just happened to arrive here and drag Urk Heizen into the mix.
How inconveniently the pieces refuse to fit. Still, the plan has to move forward.
Lichtes's specialty was multiplying his forces with ease so long as he had living bodies to work with. The climate was cool right now—he could preserve an army of the dead with their muscles and nerves intact for a long time.
This city's finished, for all practical purposes.
It was a harsh thing to say, but with two Demon Kings already eyeing the place, hoping to survive was pure arrogance. Vallitics couldn't help but snicker.
And I've gotten myself into danger too.
Lichtes the Third didn't consider Vallitics one of his own. Neither did Urk Heizen.
Until now they'd left him alone only because of the rule against harming kin directly. Given the chance, they were the type of radical Demon Kings who'd start by killing any Demon King weaker than themselves.
Among Demon Kings, kin-slaying was special—so there was even less reason not to do it.
Look at him strutting around just because he got lucky and killed a few.
Remembering the days in the Demon Realm when countless Demon Kings slaughtered one another, Vallitics was seized by inferiority. Lichtes had been far too lucky. Truly.
"Um… Great one, what should I do from now on? Lord Lichtes hasn't given any further instructions…"
"Hmm, well? That's not really the important part. There's another Demon King after this city. Not me, of course."
"Th-that's—!"
Truthfully, Vallitics didn't want this city to fall. If it did, a massive hole would open in the human front lines, and Sloan might be destroyed before she even had a chance to grow.
If that happened, a weak Demon King like Vallitics was finished.
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed? Everyone in this city says you're brilliant. Use that head of yours a little harder! Haven't the greenskins in the forest been increasing little by little lately? Why do you think goblins started appearing in the complex waterways?"
The answer: to send an army through those channels. Lichtes had probably dispatched a lich to stop them. Vallitics made the guess and smiled thinly.
"Probably not much time left. Two days at most… as little as one, and tens of thousands of troops will come pouring in. Greenskins who live on human flesh!"
"Haaahk…"
"What happens then? This castle's walls are high, sure—but I wonder if they can hold back an army of tens of thousands. And even if you somehow manage it… harvest season is almost here."
The baroness clutched her head. Would Lichtes actually help her? Unlikely. The city was worth conquering, certainly—but if another Demon King publicly declared a campaign against it, Lichtes would almost certainly pull out.
"Th-then what was I even… what was all of this for…"
"Wasted effort."
"I-I've only just gotten my position stable. Why? It can't end like this! Nameless one! What should I do?!"
If he'd only come here to mock her, he could have waited until after everything fell apart.
Baroness Arin instinctively sensed that Vallitics had come to propose something. Her competence as a lord was showing itself here.
"You have two choices. The first is simply getting eaten by the greenskins."
"…You could have just said there was only one."
"Whoa, fair enough. The last option is to immediately announce that Sloan is the Hero and declare to your soldiers that you'll fight."
Her face went pale. Revealing that Sloan was the Hero meant defying Lichtes's orders.
But I have no other choice. I don't know why this creature is supporting an obvious enemy like the Hero…!
There was only one way she could survive. Proclaim Sloan as the Hero, raise morale as high as it would go, and drive the enemy back.
And if she refused… Vallitics would kill her. Because she'd be useless.
"I will follow your words."
"Good. You take instructions well. And you don't ask pointless questions either."
Vallitics was simply delighted. Now Sloan would gradually build her reputation as a Hero.
And once she did, his kin would come swarming like moths to a flame, desperate to snuff out that fame.
All Vallitics had to do was skim the profits from the middle. He grinned.
And if he had known that seven Demon Kings would appear before the castle walls the very next day—he never would have done it.