#072 Resolution
#072 Resolution
If anyone scolds you for fussing over food in the middle of a war, that person will be the first to die from friendly fire the moment battle breaks out.
Humans have three great desires.
The desire for sleep, the desire for sex, and the desire for food.
Setting aside the sexual desire, the desires for sleep and food were the most fundamental forces governing human life.
So when I ruled over humans as part of the Demon King Army, the very first thing I tried to solve was their food problem.
-Captured humans! From this day forward, I, the Great Demon King Belphegor, take responsibility for your meals. Starting tomorrow morning, you will all receive three meals a day by ration! Hahaha!
-...Rations are better than what we cooked ourselves?
-The Demon King Army's baking techniques are...a revolution?
-The bread isn't dense and crumbly...!!
The foolish humans were delighted just by being provided bread that rose well enough to chew and swallow.
-There's meat in the soup...?!
-Huhaha! It's meat caught by the Demon King Army's roe deer hunters! Be grateful to the Demon King every time you eat!
-...There's more meat in this rationed soup than in all the meat I've eaten over the past month...?
The Demon King Army also provided meat by using those with considerable hunting skill.
And of course, the finishing touch was the 'Human Farm'.
-You are livestock!
-Eeek!
-Now, get to work! The Sandworms clear the wasteland, the Minotaurs plow the fields, you sow the seeds, and the Dark Elves bestow the spirits' blessings to help the plants grow!
-...What do we do?
-Harvest! Heh heh, thirty percent of what you harvest from this farm will be used as food for our Demon King Army, so work until you sweat blood and tears!
-Then what about the other seventy percent?
-You eat it.
The farm using humans produced far greater results than expected.
Once the food problem was solved, the captured humans lived with warm backs and full bellies, and their faith began to flow not to the goddesses, but to me.
And conversely.
I mercilessly rained food attacks upon my enemies.
Cutting supply lines.
Arson on food storehouses.
Releasing swarms of rats.
Dropping sand spirits into sacks of flour.
Grilling wild boar belly pork in front of isolated enemy positions.
Among all of these, the most effective strategy by far was the one that induced food poisoning in humans.
Rot.
We made the humans form special forces units to raid our food storehouses, and there we placed food that had been left at room temperature for long periods.
Our goal was to destroy the enemy's food, but the enemy's goal was to plunder ours.
'I showed them exactly what happens when you steal from others.'
Cheese that looked perfectly fine on the outside but had blue mold blooming inside.
Dried fish whose ingredients were actually fish containing deadly poison.
Mushrooms in a basket where roughly one in ten caused hallucinations.
Chocolate baked with powdered mint-flavored leaves sprinkled inside.
I carried out food attacks against humans in every conceivable way.
Behind that was Beelzebub's method—the tactic of making insects or maggots infest the meat humans would eat so they couldn't consume the food.
It couldn't be called aesthetically pleasing, but considering effectiveness alone, it was superior to any other strategy or tactic.
However, this tactic had a fatal weakness...
"Purification Rite."
It's a lost technique now.
What it is, is a technique of praying to a goddess to remove all corruption contained in foodstuffs.
To be precise...
'The miracle of time reversal.'
A miracle that turns even a rotten apple back to the time before it rotted, that returns spoiled meat to the fresh meat of the moment it was butchered.
Kalral.
The power of the 'Red Moon Goddess', the opposite of the Azure Moon Goddess.
On days when the red moon sparkles in the sky, if you place rotten food on the altar and pray, the moonlight returns the food to its previous state—a miracle.
The reason Beelzebub deliberately infested food with insects, and the reason I used poison-containing organisms for food attacks from the start, were both because of this.
A creature with a Mana Stone hiding in the food where the miracle should occur?
Or a creature that had poison from the very beginning even if time were reversed?
The miracle would not occur.
'Is it fortunate that the Church of the Azure Moon Goddess is dominant now?'
Looking only at the degree of miracles, the Church of the Red Moon Goddess's grace and baptism were marked by all manner of miracles, but it was a baptism that showed its greatest effect when humanity was truly destitute and impoverished.
In other words, once people had enough to live on, they stopped paying much attention to the Red Moon Goddess's protection.
Perhaps because of that.
Now that the Church of the Red Moon Goddess had relatively weakened, it was exactly the time for tactics once neutralized by that Church to shine.
'As expected of the Demon King Army's descendants.'
Even when borrowing and using another Demon King's tactics and strategies, they prioritize only 'efficiency'.
'The humans who fall for the same tactic the same way are the fools.'
You can be caught once.
You can be caught twice.
You can even be caught by the same tactic three times, so why would there be any reason not to use it now, five hundred years later?
Right.
A tactic from five hundred years ago.
It can be used as much as needed.
But.
'This isn't it.'
Infesting meat with insects is not my tactic.
In employing this kind of tactic, I chose the path of stealing faith from humans rather than tactics that provoked human disgust.
Tactics that aesthetically disgusted humans were discarded immediately if ineffective, and I never used them this aggressively.
If.
If someone was using tactics like these...
Beelzebub.
Either the original himself.
Or an avatar of the original.
"......."
It seems I may not be the only Demon King summoned to the surface.
The worst-case scenario is...
'Is this Acedia's doing?'
If they could summon the Great Demon King Belphegor, what would stop them from summoning the Demon King Beelzebub?
* * *
While I was thinking about the enemy's identity from various angles, Lucius came to my room.
"What's up?"
"Master, I have something to discuss regarding the black knight called Black Lotus."
"That female knight? Why?"
Could it be that Lucius was still harboring resentment over Black Lotus trying to attack me—a misunderstanding, of course?
If that were the case, it would be troubling; Lucius might have difficulty responding properly in a genuinely dangerous situation.
If misunderstandings about attacks meant to save allies became frequent—
"That woman is someone I know."
"...Someone you know?"
"Yes. She's an acquaintance from my hometown, from the Hero Village."
Hometown.
Acquaintance.
"...I don't think there are many people who match that description."
"Do you remember Droniel?"
"Who's that?"
"...She's the woman who grabbed me and talked to me at the end, when you told me we should leave quickly."
"Ah, that busty one."
I felt genuinely sorry for her, but I remembered nothing about her except her brown hair and absolutely spectacular chest.
"...I feel a bit awkward saying this, but wasn't she dead?"
"It seems she was alive."
Should I call it unexpected, or should I call it a happy situation?
Or should I be annoyed at the variable that someone besides us knows about the existence of the Holy Sword?
"It's really strange. It hasn't even been that long since we met her then, but she's become an incredible swordswoman."
"Excuse me?"
"Objectively speaking, she's far stronger than you. If we're talking purely about swordsmanship."
This was no time to spare his pride.
"Normally, building up your pride is my role as your master, but I'm sorry—making you face cold reality is also my duty."
"...Droniel is stronger than me? That's impossible. Droniel was just an ordinary woman who had never even properly held a sword."
"Exactly."
That was how she'd been when I saw her at the end, too.
"In my opinion, in cases like this the number of possibilities is really complicated. But there's one that's the simplest."
"What is it?"
"She was a swordsmanship genius."
That was the most likely explanation.
"Droniel...?"
"There are cases where someone who's never drawn a picture in their life suddenly tries drawing and discovers their talent."
"But..."
"It's hard to believe, but it's the truth. Droniel—she is stronger than you."
I could tell at a glance.
I could also tell from how she aimed her sword precisely at the venomous insect behind me.
"So now, what do you want to do?"
There was only one reason Lucius had come to ask me this.
What I thought of Droniel.
That was what he was worried about.
"What do you think, Master?"
"You're asking my opinion first? Naturally, I don't like strange variables appearing."
"By strange variables, you mean..."
"The fact that the Holy Sword's owner is Arthur Lucius—that coming out of Droniel's mouth."
I was able to hide it appropriately from Francis de Emery, the head of the Normance branch of the Adventurers' Guild.
Bareness also didn't know that Lucius was the Holy Sword Hero.
But Droniel not only knew that Lucius was the Holy Sword Hero—she also knew how he had awakened the Holy Sword.
That could naturally become a huge problem later.
Mainly as a 'hostage'.
"Setting aside Droniel's personal abilities, if Droniel were captured by enemy Demonfolk or something like that, what would you do? Would you abandon Droniel? Or would you save Droniel?"
"...If she's strong herself, couldn't she survive on her own?"
"That's not the kind of possibility we're weighing, Lucius."
When it comes to thinking about countless variables, the ways hostages can be used are even more numerous than that.
So a choice had to be made.
"Will you save Droniel, or abandon her?"
"...I don't want people to die."
"Then it's simple."
A conclusion was reached.
"Let's bring her along as a companion. How about it?"
"...That's a bit."
"Why? Are you not on good terms with her?"
"...It's not that we're on bad terms, it's just a little uncomfortable."
This was the first time Lucius had openly said that someone made him uncomfortable.
"Why?"
"When I saw her at the end, she seemed really affectionate."
"It's not that she's affectionate... haah."
Lucius scratched his head roughly and frowned.
"I'm worried she'll ruin the atmosphere of our party."
"Is she a bit like that...?"
"I'm a little embarrassed to say this."
Lucius clenched his fist and spoke.
"That girl likes me too much."
"...Huh?"
"She likes me far too much."
I understood well enough that I didn't need to ask, "What do you mean?"
"Aha. So there was a love rivalry over Droniel in your village? Droniel likes you, and the other men are jealous of you. So that's why you weren't on good terms."
"...Yes, that's right."
"But then, isn't that actually better?"
She seemed like the ideal woman for Lucius's harem, so why was he against it?
"...What if—this is really only a hypothetical—but what if Droniel, blinded by jealousy, attacked a party member?"
"That's certainly possible."
Not Lucius, but the case where a woman around Lucius gets stabbed.
"Lucius. There's a solution."
"What is it?"
"It's a simple method."
An incredibly easy method that also solves the problem Lucius is facing.
"You, Droniel, and Rosemas too. The three of you together, f—"
Pyat-pyat
I know because I've tried it.