“Well, each clan pays a small amount each year in the form of taxes. Since most the youth train in the labyrinth, it was not hard for any one clan to amass a small wealth and since each clan takes care of its own lands, there is very little for the kingdom to spend on it, so we have been lax in taxes yet it still starts to amass over the years. A great portion of both your personal vault and that of the kingdom was gained during the time of the great wars before the kingdom was sealed off. Whenever we destroyed a city or army, we would take 20% of anything of value while the rest went to the human king and his men. At one time, we did pay a small tithe to the churches and human king, but it never amounted to much. Thanks to that, we now have what you see before you.”
“I see,” Ash said as he tried to imagine the grand battles that must have taken place in the past. Shaking off the thoughts, Ash started to look around the room. Most of the items were just for looks, but a few of them gave odd benefits. There was a small statue of an angel that could bless water and turn it into holy water to be used against the undead. There was also a gaudy cane that could increase magical power greatly, but the drawback was that it decreased your HP by 25%.
Ash picked a few items that he thought would make good gifts to Emelia. Before he was hesitant about using the contents of the vault as gifts, but now that he knew they were his and didn’t belong to the kingdom, he didn’t feel as bad. Though it still caused a slight twinge of pain when he thought about it too deeply.
Once he was finished, Ash headed back up the long stairs. Even with his boosted stats, Ash found them tiring, not physically, but mentally. One could only stare at the same blank walls while walking up the stairs for so long before his mind started to feast upon itself.
After returning to his room, Ash went to find his wives and pass out what he had gathered for them from the vault. Most of the women accepted the gift with a small smile and a bow, but Tolarea had to be the one to take it a step farther. Ash had picked out a large double sword that even with his enhanced strength would make his arms ache if he tried to use it for too long. The attack power of the large weapon alone was 120. It was far higher than his, but it did have a small drawback since it reduced agility by 15, but it increased strength 25. Ash didn’t find any single handed weapons that had drawbacks, but then again none of them seemed quite as good as the one he had found for Tolarea.
“Let us try it out,” Tolarea yelled as she pulled Ash outside the palace to spar. Ash didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. In the end, he just let her have her way. A good spar could do a lot to settle his nerves that were starting to press down on him once again.
Demonic Valor #10-3
The next day Ash woke when the muscles in his legs began to spasm, the night before Tolarea had not let him rest until they had fought five times. When he had finally thought it was over, she lifted him up like a newlywed wife and carried him to his bedroom for another kind of fight, leaving him more drained then if he had spent two days straight fighting in the labyrinth.
Today was the start of the war, even though there would be no fighting. The sage had called in all the clan heads and soon the palace would be filled with forty-two demons who each had their own opinions about the coming war. Ash was sure that more than a few of them would protest the demons helping out such a small land with nothing to gain from the fight, but Ash was resolute in his decision and he would not be swayed.
Today would be the start of his personal war against his own people. In Ash’s mind, the clan heads were much more qualified to make decisions than he was, but the sage warned against this way of thinking. “If you don’t take the country into your own hands from the beginning, then you will never be taken seriously,” the sage had said over and over. Ash understood what the sage was saying, but he was unsure if it was such a bad thing to leave the country in the hands of the clan heads. The ones he had met were all nice people, if a bit odd. In his eyes, they were much better than many of the nobles he had met when he had been in the human kingdom. Still, if he let the kingdom get too far out of his hands, there was no telling what could happen with Emelia and the war. There was even a chance the demons might decide to turn on the small duchy after the battle was over and force Emelia into the demon kingdom while giving her lands to one of the smaller clans and upgrading them to a major clan. From what the sage said, many of the smaller clans had once been major clans and vice versa. It seemed that every three hundred years or so, one clan would take the place of the other in internal wars though they were never as big as the one that was going on now and more often than not they were bloodless.
Ash took his meal in his room while he looked over the large stack of papers that had been placed on his desk during his absence. In the short time between the death of the previous Maoh and Ash taking the place as the next one, the sage had done most the work needed to keep the kingdom working, though in truth there was little to be done. Most the papers were simple requests from clan heads for one thing or another, mostly requiring the help of other clans. The Durmor clan needed three thousand enchanted bricks which meant Ash would have to request them from one of the two clans that dealt with such things. As Ash looked through the papers, he started to understand why Emelia always seemed as if she were working. For her, it was even worse since she couldn’t really trust any of the nobles since they didn’t think that a woman should hold the post of a leader.
In an hour, Ash had only gone through a tenth of the papers. Most of them were simple requests that Ash was sure the clans could take care of by just asking the other clan that dealt with what they needed themselves, but it seemed that many of the clans didn’t get along and often small fights would break out when opposing groups would get together. That was why all deals between clans went through the Maoh, otherwise the county would be constantly embroiled in small civil wars.
Rubbing his eyes, Ash stood up from his chair to find Tolarea standing silently behind him like a statue. “My lord,” she said with a gentle bow that didn’t fit her large frame.
Ash knew that it was expected that at least one to three of his guards were with him at all times, but it was hard to get used to it. Ash liked his privacy, but since coming to this world, it had slowly disappeared. First there was Emelia who was fine with him spending time on his own, which was one of the things he liked most about her, but she still demanded a small portion of his time. Next came Yuki who was loveable like a small pet, but at first she always seemed to be all over him, but that had changed once she joined the adventure school and had made a friend. Slowly Ash had gained more and more women around him, each vying for his time until he barely had a moment to himself to use the bathroom in peace.
Before Ash could say anything, a knock came at his door. “Come in,” Ash said without thinking.
When the door swung open, the sage bowed to him. “My lord, many of the clan heads have arrived and are waiting for you in the war room,” the sage said as he raised his head.
“How did they get here so fast?” Ash asked, his stomach starting to grumble in protest.
“All the clans have a small villa within the capital. Since you have not spent much time here, you should know that there is a large city not far from the palace. It is mainly inhabited by partial demons who do not fit in any one clan.”
“Do the clans force them to live there?” Ash asked as a bad feeling started to rise, but it quickly dissipated when the sage shook his head.
“No…Not in the sense that you are thinking,” the sage replied. “We once had humans living within our kingdom. They were servants and just simple villagers who did work that many of the clans were not so talented with. As I told you, we were created for war so farming and building were not our strong suite. After we were cut off from the rest of the world, there were demons who fell for the humans and now I don’t think we have a full blooded human within the lands. The clans don’t hate them or force them out. In fact, since they are skilled in areas that we are not, many of them hold great positions
within the clan’s eyes. That said, I cannot say that there are no demons who don’t look down on humans as inferior and the same can be said of those not having full demon blood, but they are rare and not the norm.”
Ash nodded his head. “I think you can find those among anyone or any race,” Ash replied. “Some people will always find a reason to dislike those different from them in any way. It is sad, but I think it is just a natural response from those with weak minds.”
“You might be right about that,” the sage said laughing. “Though I wouldn’t suggest you say that in public…or at least find a better way to put it into words. Otherwise the people who dislike humans will feel as if you are calling them idiots. Even if it is true, it would cause too much trouble to be worth the effort,” the sage added with a thinly veiled smile.
Ash had never been one to watch his words before, but then again he had never been in a spot where he needed to. He had many conflicting views from those around him, but that was to be expected considering that he came from a completely different world. He had given those feelings of his a lot of thought over the past year and he had never come to a concrete decision.
The more Ash had thought about it, the more he came to understand that morality was in a lot of ways in the eye of the people and person viewing them and when they were viewing them. There was no clear black or white and even calling it a shade of grey was not completely accurate. The question had been posed many times by many great thinkers and Ash knew that he was far from a deep thinker. In the end, all Ash could do was follow his own heart and try not to let the people and world around him change him too much, but he knew that he would have to change some, otherwise neither he nor those around him would be happy. He was still a bit stiff and felt out of place sometimes, but it was getting better with each passing day.
When Ash walked into the room, he found seventeen of the clan heads waiting on him. He recognized a few faces in the crowd, but most of them were completely unknown to him. Ash took a brief moment to look at each face, not to remember them, but to see their expression. As he expected a few of them looked more than a little displeased to be present. Sighing inside, Ash forced himself to walk forward until he reached his seat which was at a raised chair at the end of a long table with a map of the world etched into it.
Having never been in the room before, it was the first time that he had seen the large map. As he looked at it, Ash noticed that it wasn’t an old version and even had Emelia’s duchy capital along with all of the small villages that he remembered.
“As I said before, we keep a close eye on our neighbors, even if we are separated from them. Every three years, if there are any major changes in the land, we have people come in to update the map,” the sage answered his unasked question. “We never know if we were going to need it, but better to have it and not need it and need it and not have it.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” an older demon said gruffly.
“Why don’t we get this over with?” A demon with long red wings and silk black hair asked. “I don’t feel like babysitting the new Maoh all day while he plays war.”
“Barborus, if you are getting that crotchety then maybe it is time for you to ask the goddess to give you an eternal slumber,” a female demon with dark black skin and light grey hair said.
“Tenna, I didn’t know you were still alive,” Barborus replied. “I am surprised you haven’t asked for the goddess’s slumber yourself. Then again, given how nasty you are, even hell would spit you back out.”
“Enough,” the sage said, his tone even yet carrying a lot of weight within that one word. “We are here today to discuss the coming war. I know many of you have generations of animosity, but right now we must do our best to make sure that as few demons as possible fall during the battle. The only way to do that is for us to think of everything that might happen and come up with an appropriate response for it.”
“If you want to keep the demons from being killed, then just keep them from the human’s foolishness,” Barborus said.
“That isn’t possible,” Ash said slightly louder than he planned. Everyone turned their attention to Ash, who they were mostly ignoring before. “This war isn’t just two groups of humans killing each other, but about the rights of those bearing the blood of demons and that of the beast tribe.”
“I haven’t heard of that before,” Barborus said, the scowl on his face deepening.
“In a way, he is right,” the sage interjected. “As all of you know, for years we have been searching the human lands for those bearing demon blood and bringing them back here if they wished. That is because the humans treat our brethren worse than trash and they do the same with those belonging to our cousins the beast tribe. We have debated many times whether we should bring them into our land or not, but so far we have never come to an agreement on the issue, but I know all us believe that their treatment is detestable.”
“It is a shame that humans are so shameful,” another demon Ash had not seem before said.
“My wife Emelia believes the same,” Ash said, interrupting the group’s discussion. “She knew that I carried demon blood, yet chose me as her partner. We made laws to protect those with nonhuman blood, but the other nobles of the kingdom used this as a reason to go to war and demanded my head as recompense. If not for me, then this war would not have started and I will not leave Emelia with a fate I started alone. If the demons will not stand at my side, then I shall still go alone to fight my enemies.”
“Don’t say it like that my lord,” Celina said from behind Ash. He didn’t know when his wives had entered the room, but tried his best not to act startled when he heard her voice. “If you go to fight, then we will follow along with you.”
“Well said young lady,” Tenna said with a smirk to Barborus. “My lord, most of us have been clan heads for longer than anyone has a right to be alive so we tend to overthink things and since we have been separated from the outside world for centuries, we tend to forget the problems of others. Right now we shouldn’t be arguing about whether we should go to war or not, but how we will be fighting it.”
“Right,” the sage said as he started to place a number of stone circles on the map. Each stone had a different symbol etched into them and it didn’t take long for Ash to understand that the stones were meant to represent different groups or clans of demons. “We have already moved around two hundred demons to stay inside the walled city. They are acting like adventures who have moved there in light of the new laws offering protection to those of the demon race. We have also started to open up a tunnel into the human lands. It was finished not long ago, but it still two day’s march from the city so it won’t be easily discovered and given the limited movement in the outlying areas of the duchy, I doubt it will be at all unless we advertise its location purposefully.”
“Have any other moves been made?” another demon asked leaning forward in his seat.
“We have moved around four hundred demons through the tunnel and set up a small camp in the woods, but we feared to take more through. There was just too much chance of being discovered.”
“That fear would be alleviated if we used the Tao to cast and enchantment aura over the forest. It would keep out any unwanted visitors and then we could move close to two thousand troops over.”
Slowly more and more ideas were brought up and each time the sage would secretly pass Ash a note. Since only a quarter of the clan heads were currently present no final decisions were made but there was no rush. The plan was for the conference to last three days and once everything was finalized everyone would start moving. That still left them about three weeks before the fighting started, but it would be a tight fit as far as time went. The farthest clans would take nearly a month to arrive. They could use the large eagles to transport a small number of them, but the number of mounts were limited and even if they organized all of them, it would be less than four hundred.
Ash had asked why the demons didn’t breed more
of them. The answer was simple, the birds ate a lot and were hard to train and keep so they were mostly limited to less than ten per clan. The only one that had more than that was the Maoh who kept fifty of them to be used by himself, his wives, and his children. Ash wanted to use his personal mounts, but it was forbidden by their own laws and while Ash could countermand them, there would be few demons who would dare ride on one of the Maoh’s mounts.
It wasn’t the first time that the laws that had been in place bothered Ash, but he knew that he simply trying to force the issue wouldn’t work and would only end in him wasting valuable time.
Throughout the meeting, more and more clan heads began to show up and by the end of the day, only seven were missing and they were the ones that belonged to the clans that lived at the far end of the kingdom. The sage assured Ash that they would arrive by tomorrow morning. He hoped so, otherwise the war conference would have to be lengthened and though it would only be by one or two days, it was time that they didn’t really have to play with.
As he thought about this, Ash started to think he should have left his training a bit earlier, but the sage assured him that it wouldn’t have really have made much of a difference as they had to have enough time to inform all the clan heads of the coming meeting and that was only done a few days before he left for his own palace.
After the meeting, Ash ate a large meal with the gathered clan heads and they talked about his previous life and what his plans were for the demon race. When Ash mentioned that he planned to bring the demons back into the outside world, he thought he would receive more than a little dissension, but no one seemed to think it was a bad idea. In fact more than a few thought it was far past time they had joined the rest of the world instead of hiding away from it. Once that was passed, the tension that had been building with him throughout the day seemed to evaporate and Ash enjoyed the rest of the meal talking with the clan heads as if they were old friends.
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