Chapter 39 - Volume 5 (1/2)
Chapter 2 – Disi of Peasants, Rank 71st, Dantalian Empire Calendar: Year 1506, Month 4, Day 11 Polles, Bruno Plains, Army of the Crescent Alliance
“You know the old saying ‘Know thyself’? Dantalian, I believe that this proverb roughly translates to this”
Barbatos spoke
“When you’re screwed, you must quickly realize the fact that you’re screwed”
I nodded
“That is correct What is important is how fast you realize this However, the issue is, Your Excellency Barbatos, is that in order to knohether you are currently screwed or not, you must have had the experience of it beforehand If one has not already experienced being screwed, then they will either end up being incapable of realizing that they are in a screwed situation, or even if they do realize it, they will realize a step too late Therefore, in order to know thyself, youscrewed many times”
“Hm If you consider the fact that I’ve experienced an incredible amount of screwed up situations in ree with you there”
Barbatos nodded
“Continue”
“Yes, Your Excellency In conclusion, the terhly translates to ‘Be screwed as many ti to listen to proverbs in the first place? Is it not precisely because we do not wish to be screwed? Not only is the proverb ‘Know thyself’of existence for proverbs themselves You could also say that it is the most worthless proverb in the world”
“Dantalian You’re reasonably good at sex and your face isn’t that bad either, so you have a lot of talents, but a your many many talents, the talent you’re best at is your technique to disguise bullshi+t so it doesn’t sound like bullshi+t Even if the h your tongue, it would sound like rubbish that is soht even sound like trash that is really worth listening to I, Barbatos, Rank 8th Dees this fact Your s extraordinary”
“I am honored, Your Excellency”
Pai to our conversation fro out She then muttered
“······What exactly are you two currently discussing?”
We both turned to look at Pai, Your Highness”
We then turned back to each other and continued
“If you think about it, proverbs aren’t particularly useful Proverbs are, in other words, pieces of advice that were ht? Then that means tons of people already know about these proverbs, and in the end, proverbs provide us with pieces of advice that you, I, and everyone else already know, so there’s no actual need for these pieces of advice in the first place”
“Your words are reasonable beyond measure, Your Excellency”
“Let’s say that I had said that the last thing which you can trust the most is money If you simply listen to this line, then you’ll probably think that this is a somewhat obvious fact However, if I were to splendidly write ‘The last thing rave this line into a pillar of a teely sound like it wasn’t obvious, but because it feels obvious at a glance, it’ll instead appear as if it didn’t sound obvious at all I, Barbatos, Rank 8th Deuished lord in the demon continent, present this opinion Are proverbs not all like this?”
“Surely As expected of Your Excellency Barbatos A wisdom that befits the lord who boasts iuished Demon lord Lowly foot soldiers would have no other choice but to stand in awe at Your Excellency’s insight Letit out as well You cannot win a ith tired soldiers, ry soldiers”
“The enemy of my enemy is my ally”
“If you think that you are an idiot, then you actually are an idiot”
“Play You will have fun”
“Live If you really want to live”
Paimon looked at us with a face that appeared blanker than earlier
“This lady has no idea what the two of you have been doing since earlier······”
“Paimon is a whore”
“This damn bitch······?”
Paiht shi+n Paimon struck Barbatos once more Barbatos kicked Paimon once more The space was then infinite
10 ful 10 minutes
“In any case, we have to know the fact that we’re screwed”
Barbatos spoke whileher left cheek with some ice
“That’s all I wanted to say That we’re screwed That old and bald-headed Marbas ht now”
“That is your problem, Barbatos The fact that you talk needlessly crudely”
Paiht shi+n
“Truly Do you kno inefficient you are when speaking to people? Every time you utter a word, it becomes a waste of time”
“Like how you waste your life every tiain with your crudeout with you in the past, this lady believed that it was because you were still young, that your way of speech had becoh a lot of perilous experiences at a young age Thus, this lady thought that, with greatof your behavior However, seeing as there was no change despite 500 years having passed, it was not your experiences that were the problem, but siue is unnecessarily promiscuous”
“Heeh Like how your crotch is unnecessarily proht cheek Barbatos kicked Paimon’s left shi+n Paimon slapped Barbatos once more Barbatos kicked Paimon once more Time was then eternal
15 minutes flowed by
It was a beautiful 15 minutes
“Old o”
Barbatos spoke while rubbing her right cheek with some ice
“Should I even call it a letter? Plain and simple, it’s an ultimatum”
“Marbas has always been a bit hard-headed”
Paie around her left shi+n
“Although the things which he thinks are allowed do not always have to be allowed, the things which he has deterood terms, he is a principlist”
“In better terressive old fossil”
Paimon nodded
“And he is a bald old man”
Barbatos nodded
“And he’s a bald old man”
Was that last co all of the bald people in the world my deepest sympathy, I spoke
“What ritten in the ulti”
After unnecessarily uttering that line in a cool fashi+on, Barbatos tossed me the piece of parchment that was rolled up into a scroll On the piece of parchrandly strewn about it
······I have set up camp in the fields and mountains a fair distance away from the battlefield When you two had sent em to strike at the ene roos now, you two had cast le our kind
The iven was to smite the enemies Now that you two have killed our comrades, I shall ask the two of you who ued when discussing the subject of conquering the hu our own troops Did you two start this war in order to behead our own kind? I ask you two this, is it the territory of the humans which you two desire or is it the territory of the de that my faction has the ned ather this large nuether and direct them towards the two of you Do I have a reason why I should not do so?
Striking you two fro the laws of the deether on the same battlefields for the past several hundred years, I have sent you two this final letter in order to tell you
Be ashamed of yourselves Wear the clothes of criminals and crawl your way to these fields andwhich I have asked If you tait your judgment and answer my questions, then I shall decide whether to behead you two or not······
“I see I understand now”
I nodded
“So this is why Your Excellency had‘know thyself’”
“This is why you said that when you’re screwed, you have to realize the fact that you’re screwed”
“Since we have grasped the situation, let us immediately discuss countermeasures How does Your Excellency plan to resolve this? I recall that before carrying out the purge, Your Excellency had said that you would handle His Excellency Marbas”
“Even if you believe that things ork out, not everything will be resolved—”
“Although I do want to continue listening to Your Excellency ied old , the situation is a bit too dire for it to be ignored by si a proverb”
“fuck”
Barbatos stuck out her lips and nodded
“I don’t understand How did he hear about the purge already? According to ot to him, we should have still had another quarter of a day left before he found out This means that someone had secretly sent him a letter and told him about it”
“A secret letter, huh······”
For an instant, Demon Lord Sitri came to mind The only reason for this was because I had clashed with her only a short while ago before coht
Barbatos and Paimon were seated in chairs that were prepared for them outside Even now, the subordinates of the traitors were being dragged in front of us before then being executed Frolance at Barbatos and Paimon with a ‘Should we really kill thehtly Barbatos and Paimon had nodded their heads several tio, and each time they did, the heads of the subordinates would be sent flying
One of the subordinates had a frantic look on his face as he stretched his ar! This one, this one had hness when he was little! In Niflhei out a triumphal celebration⎯⎯⎯”
“Yeah, a confidential letter If one of us didn’t hand over the information beforehand, then there’s no way that old man Marbas could have reacted this soon”
Barbatos nodded
There was a death throe and then there was the sound of soround
I stroked my chin
“Does Your Excellency have an assumption on who it was?”
“I have noooo idea In the first place, didn’t we do this purge in order to get rid of those types of bastards? How is it that the instant ipe them out, there’s already another bastard present to sell us out? Is it perhaps that? Do the other De people out whenever they’re bored? Is betraying your coht now?”
“Comrades refers to enemies who have yet to betray you”
“Ah That sounds soh”
Haaa, Barbatos let out a sigh
“Forget it, fuck Let’s just forget everything Those hu at the front and those traitors to our kind are flocking at the rear Further those who you think are your comrades-in-ares Makes h thisto war······”
“This lady had told you so back ere going out That you should not behave i You must broaden your mind a bit, Barbatos The problem is that your mind is unnecessarily stiff”
“And your problem is that your crotch is unnecessarily loose Your crotch is so broad that even if all of heaven and earth went in there, it feels like there’d still be enough space for the universe The foul stench which flows throughout the world every tis can probably make those already dead corpses co once more”
“Aha”
Paimon smiled
“In other words, you mean those corpses that had died because of the convulsions which had occurred due to having intercourse with your incredibly stiff crotch? This lady heard that the numbers reach approximately seven thousand They say that the God Hades sends his regards to your crotch annually in order to show his respect, but have you considered visiting the underworld in order to express your gratitude to hiht this instant, if you oing to do about it, you barren girl?”
“Why is it that there’s never a time where our opinions match? Since our opinions are the complete opposite no matter what the topic is, whenever we talk, it feels as if there’s a demon continent inside of us that’s split in half”
“This lady has to reveal that she too feels the same way That is why it feels as if the demon continent could live in unity if you were to disappear However, this lady does not wish to go out of her way to dirty her hands so it would be wonderful if you went to some location unseeable to this lady and died on your own”
“What’s worse is that our opinions differ even here I want to just kill you with my oo hands after all Even if you co hit by me a bit first, and if you commit suicide before I can even hit you, then I’ll feel so cheated that I’ll just hit your corpse”
“Boor”
“Hypocrite”
“Murderer”
“sexin the world”
“And you’re the biggest bitch in the world”
“Y-Your Hiiiiiiighnessss!”
And then another obscure nobody shouted
“This hu for him back home, so this servant cannot possibly die yet Please show mercy and⎯⎯⎯”
“Do you truly wish to live like that? Barbatos?”
Paimon nodded
There was a death throe, and then there was the sound of so
A marvelous staccato
“Can you not live a life that is a bit better? This lady is referring to aIf you do so, then even your irrehtly beautiful”
“I wonder I’ like this because I want to live like this, but the fact that I don’t want to live like you, bitch, is clear Rather than hoant to liveto live like so ht ‘let’s not live like this bitch’ is so strong that, in that regard, you’re the bitch who’s continuously extending ard only, are you a bitch that’s of any use”
“The fact that your life is like trash is not surprising at all”
“Yoour Hiiiiighnessss!”
Barbatos and Paimon nodded at the same time
“So how should we deal with this?”
“So how should we respond to this?”
There was a death throe, and then the obvious sound of so followed after
A beautiful harht He is experienced If he becomes our enemy, then it would become troublesome for us in no sh dialogue⎯⎯⎯”
“He’s fir else, we don’t have a lot of tiion of the demon continent hard and the Deather troops We have to cross the Black Mountains as fast as possible and return home before that can happen”
Paih time to persuade hiht and win against hih there is the possibility that he will forgive us if this lady and Barbatos were to hite arments and prostrate ourselves before him⎯⎯⎯”
Barbatos nodded
“We can’t If we do that, then that would end up ? Didn’t we just kill traitors? People who doubt us will start to appear and we’ll lose our justification I don’t like that We have to lead our punitive expedition through the deht of justifications anyway, but we’ll be at a disadvantage if we apologize”
“Dantalian”
“How are we going to deal with this probleazed at e in ive us a solution right this instant”
“However, we are pressed for tie were to end in a failure, me, the one ould receive a blow more severe than anyone else
With cold eyes
“Midnight has passed I’ll give you until midday today”
“At the least, ill also have to devise a countermeasure before Marbas takes action, after all”
“Until then, we’ll be handling the after-izes The ti”
One of them was my sex partner,
and the other was ures of authority who both could purge 7 Demon Lords without any hesitation whatsoever at the saures of authority that could blame someone without any hesitation if they had to blame someone, they could be cold when they had to be cold, and they ell aware of when to set themselves ablaze if they had to be hot In other words, the lords of all of de at me
“No matter how smart you are, I’m aware that this is a difficult request But”
“We must ask this of you, Dantalian All of our fates are on the line”
Therefore
“······”
Tap
I pressedit
⎯⎯⎯Slowly
The scenery of the night flowed sotten about its own speed
Soldiers roa torches The military camp was illu it see about Below each light, the subordinates of traitors had been caught and were being dragged They were either dragged off and killed or dragged here and killed A single group of soldiers snickered A dark night The snickering easily spread fros howled until their heads were severed, and in an instant, a death throe would resonate before co to an abrupt halt
Who is it?
Who is trying to bite e had proceeded with extre post like a Demon Lord, then you could not have found out about it The traitors were all punished without exception, and yet, a letter had still reached Marbas Although there were no traitors, there was a betrayal Who was it? How?
Marbas had gathered his dispatched force and traveled a long distance away Since he was constantly on the move, it was difficult to pinpoint his exact location Despite that, the letter had properly gone straight to Marbas and⎯⎯⎯Marbas immediately believed the report of treason that ritten in the letter Why? Who was it?
How could he have trusted the report which stated that his comrades-in-arms of 500 years, Barbatos and Pai the report even slightly? Is there someone he trusts more than Barabtos and Paimon? If there is, then who exactly is it? Who could possibly receive thata person can trust the most is money
“······”
Tap
I tapped er
Within the sensation and velocity of touching ht process
Money Military funds
In the end, Barbatos, Paiovernment positions in their provinces The financiers of the ar our troops for barely half a year had wasted a tremendous amount of supplies However, these leaders had repeated expedition after expedition for more than 400 years They should all be well aware of how important military funds are down to their cores
You cannot win a ith tired soldiers, ry soldiers
Thus there were a lot of firhout the dee of the provisions and supplied the in e of each respective Demon Lord, and in my case, it was the Keuncuska Firm In the first place, the reason why Lapis Lazuli and I had met was due to that
To merchants, war is an opportunity to make money
“······”
Tap
I tapped h my memories There was no doubt There was a ti which fire of Marbas It was not because I had a particular interest in Marbas It was a survival instinct The firm and the merchant were coincidentally both quite ie of ‘the person as once severely hostile towardsme to remember⎯⎯⎯
“······”
I then looked at the Demon Lord before me
Paimon
Rank 9th Demon Lord
The wo the Black Death
Once I looked at her, Paimon opened her mouth
With a voice that sound three or four times slower than usual
“······–······? Dan-tal-i-an?”
Paimon tilted her head ever so slowly
I then rehness
It was around the tihness does not repay the debt and interest or declare bankruptcy, then the Keuncuska Firhness’ property and body by force
The me at that time was in a completely different situation compared to now I had no ency of ht upon the criticality of time I had to escape from my debt as soon as possible In order to survive, I had hunted the game that was the easiest to tear apart
— The Keuncuska First thehness
— Rank 5th Demon Lord Marbas
— And Rank 9th Deht
Soldiers were going back and forth throughout the cathily connected froht process was connected fros let out their final cries of agony Decapitated heads fell endlessly Lapis Lazuli’s voice flowed between the endless screams and boundless cries
— Our fir merciless to debtors who fail to make their payments
— In the past, there was an incident where Rank ······ Demon Lord Glasyalabolas received a loan of ······Libra and did not pay back the interest for ······
Screams Cries Noise
But not yet
Sie of ti ti nu calculations Those parts of my memories were always the first to be worn down
However, as a steel sas still a steel sword even when rusted, it was sharp enough to kill a person and save my own life
Think
Remember it
There are still words left for Lapis, for my memories, to tell me What was said? What did Lapis tellin a place that could not be seen, the sensation of her opening hersilently flooded over hts connected and swayed, I solely connected the light within the light
— Your Highness
— At that time, our firm had hired a small number of 9,000 mercenaries
— And left them in the command of Rank 12th Demon Lord Sitri
— Glasyalabolas could not even hold out for ······ before surrendering
Tap
I tapped er
The wind blew The torches flared up
As they flared, the light created a long line
Who wishes for the war to not end? Merchants
Who is trying to interfere with the war right now? Marbas
Which fire of Marbas? The Keuncuska Firht
If that is the case, then who rules over the Keuncuska Firm?
I asked myself this
I immediately answered
Ivar Lodbrok
An ancient vampire who has lived for several hundred years,
and the merchant who held the most hostility towards me before anyone else
Oho Oh dear Would you look at this?
I quietly gazed at the band of light that was surging in ourtheir brows together, no, they were still endlessly drawing their brows together slowly, stared at ht, Barbatos, Paimon, you two are clever However, I shall offer you two my deepest condolences The two of you have wound upat a decisive area
It was not a Demon Lord who had sent Marbas that letter Ivar Lodbrok It was the vae of Marbas and also did not desire for the war to end who had sent it
I cannot blame these two Demon Lords for this misconception Barbatos and Paie under strict confidentiality Only their close aides knew about it If the information was leaked, then it was undoubtedly another Demon Lord who had done it, these two had jumped to this conclusion as if it were an obvious fact This was their mistake
Even if the only people who knew about the purge beforehand were the other Demon Lords⎯⎯⎯there is no reason whatsoever that the person to have sent the letter to Marbas had to have been the De Marbas about the secret, all the inforhtly toss the information to the merchant who Marbas trusts Because
The eneht
Rank 12th Demon Lord Sitri
Paie faster than anyone else