Unification of the South

by Hyougetsu

  “You truly are a strange man, Sir Veight.”

  “Really?”

  Maybe it seemed that way because I’d been a human before. Well, as long as I was doing a good job I didn’t care too much. After all, there was always more work to be done.

  As I walked back to the viceroy’s manor with Airia, I discussed my plans with her.

  “Beluza and Lotz are both willing to join the demon army’s alliance. That just leaves two other southern cities.”

  “The labyrinth city, Zaria, and the city of craftsmen, Veira. Lord Aram is good friends with the viceroy of Veira, so I’ve asked him to negotiate on our behalf.”

  “Are you sure we can entrust it to him?”

  I was a little worried about leaving it all in his hands. Airia nodded and said, “Rest easy. Veira and Shardier are strongly linked via trade. I’m certain he will be able to negotiate a favorable deal, so long as the Demon Lord is willing to accept their conditions.”

  That reminds me, the glass Aram showed me when I first met him came from Veira, didn’t it? That was some good stuff.

  “Alright, I’ll trust him. What should we do about Zaria?”

  At that, Airia’s expression clouded over.

  “Zaria is the city that the Senate tries to exert the most control over. During the unification war, it was the site of a gruesome battle.”

  According to Airia, Zaria had been thoroughly sacked, and its walls reduced to rubble. While the city had been rebuilt after the war, Meraldia had refused to let them build new walls. However, that meant they were eternally exposed to bandits and monsters. When I asked Airia about that, she answered, “Zaria’s streets are designed like a maze, they twist and turn in random directions, with plenty of dead-end walls. All of the city’s residents live in three-story buildings or higher, the entrances to which are cleverly disguised.”

  “So instead of walls, they use a maze to confuse their enemies and eliminate them from above?”

  “Correct. Most of Zaria’s residents are skilled huntsmen and know how to use bows and traps. They show no mercy to their enemies, which is why the city is actually feared by bandits.”

  I get that they needed to go that far to survive, but it was still impressive how thorough they were. However, I had a feeling it’d be difficult to negotiate with hardened veterans like those.

  “Guess I’ll have to be the one to go.”

  “In that case, allow me to accompany you. I have been communicating in secret with Zaria’s viceroy, and they wish to meet me directly.”

  Surprised, I attempted to dissuade her.

  “It’ll be dangerous, you know? In case you’ve forgotten, you’re Meraldia’s number one enemy. Being out in the streets is dangerous enough, I cannot allow you to put yourself in peril.”

  “However, Zaria will be a difficult city to win over. Because of their proximity to the north, their situation is extremely precarious. If you mishandle the negotiations, it’s possible they’ll strengthen their ties with Meraldia instead. Furthermore, the things I wish to speak with Zaria’s viceroy about are classified. I cannot send anyone else in my place.”

  Though I was still a little worried, it was true that Airia was a skilled negotiator. She’d be reassuring to have around.

  “Can’t you invite Zaria’s viceroy to Ryunheit?”

  “Unfortunately not. Officially, Zaria is Ryunheit’s enemy. If its viceroy visited the demon army’s headquarters and the Senate discovered that visit, Zaria would be in a politically tight spot.”

  “True that.”

  Beluza and Lotz had allied themselves with us so easily that I’d forgotten that we were still technically inhuman invaders to a human land. That put us in a pretty bad position to be negotiating for peace. Meaning it might be best if Airia joined me. If I went alone, it’s possible Zaria’s viceroy would be intimidated.

  “Is there any possibility Zaria’s viceroy might be luring us into a trap?”

  “There is. The city is the perfect place for an assassination,” Airia replied coolly. She then added, “However, I doubt Zaria would wish to make an enemy of the demon army. Labyrinths may work for human enemies, but a city without walls wouldn’t stand a chance against werewolves and giants.”

  “True, tricks like those don’t work on demons. So are those guys smart enough to realize that?”

  I was relieved to know Zaria was someone we could negotiate with, but it seemed Airia thought I was foolish to have worried at all.

  “Zaria’s viceroy, Melgio, is an exceedingly cautious man. In fact, he has to be, or he wouldn’t be able to remain viceroy.”

  “Let’s just hope he’s not too cautious.”

  “That is one fear we share. But that is also precisely why I wish to visit in person, to show that we are resolved to our cause.”

  So we’ll be able to negotiate, but it’ll be tough. Before I could worry about that though, I needed to solve the difficult problem of choosing who’d serve as Airia’s bodyguards.

  Preparing for our secret meeting with Zaria’s viceroy proved more troublesome than I expected. I couldn’t afford to assign normal humans to be Airia’s bodyguards, but I couldn’t pick most demons either. They stood out too much, and this was meant to be a covert meeting.

  “I guess this means I’ll have to ask my werewolves again...”

  In retrospect, our race sure had a lot of useful traits. At this point, Ryunheit was protected well enough that the loss of some werewolves wouldn’t hurt its defenses, so I decided to take them all with me. I called Fahn to my office and told her, “Fahn, I want you to make a unit of all women. I think Airia will feel more at ease if she has other women guarding her. It’ll also make our negotiation partner less wary of us.”

  “Yeah, we can pretend to just be her maids or something. We’ve got seventeen women total, so we can make four squads.”

  Since nearly the village’s entire population had enlisted into the demon army, my werewolf force had a higher ratio of women than most other sections of the army. There were quite a few other divisions who were jealous of our abundance of women, but a good number of them were old grannies like Mary. In truth, all our women were either old like Mary, or young and unmarried, like Fahn. Incidentally, my mom had pushed herself too hard a while back and was now living a peaceful, retired life back in our village. My parents’ generation was the one who’d suffered the most living in that remote village, so a good number of them were too frail to fight now. Of course, if I started giving my own men impossibly difficult missions, they’d end up that way before long too. It was precisely because I wanted my race to have a bright future that I was being especially careful with the tasks I gave my men.

  “It’s possible we might be attacked while we’re in our human forms, so take that into consideration when picking your guards. Also, this is going to be a covert mission, so we can’t take too many people.”

  “In that case, I’ll pick our youngest elites and make a squad out of them. I’ll be the leader of the squad, right? Also, you don’t mind if I poach Monza for a while, do you?”

  “Yeah, feel free.”

  I decided to keep my nose out of girls’ affairs and let Fahn take care of everything on that side. There was too much about girls I didn’t understand, and I didn’t want to accidentally offend anyone.

  While Fahn was organizing her team, I went to find some bodyguards for myself. I’ll want people with sharp wits over those with sharp claws, I think. If we’re beset by assassins, quick thinking will save more lives than brute strength. In which case, Hamaam’s a good choice. Like Monza, he was skilled at tracking and stealth.

  Hamaam had come to our village from the desert, but before that he’d been part of a bandit crew. There was no one better at setting up ambushes than him. Furthermore he was one of the few werewolves skilled at fighting in his human form, since he knew how to handle swords and bows.

  His squad had picked up a few tricks from him, and they’d become skilled ambushers in their
own right. In fact, Hamaam’s squad had been come to be known as the assassin squad. While most werewolves were good at laying ambushes, Hamaam in particular was skilled at spotting them as well. Alright, that settles it. I’ll have Hamaam’s squad be my guards for this mission. One squad was also a small enough force that it wouldn’t seem out of place as a guard retinue for a viceroy traveling incognito. With this, we had two werewolf squads coming with us. The guys would look like actual guards, while the women would pretend to be attendants.

  For a secret visit, this was probably as large an entourage as we could feasibly hope to bring with us. Besides, these eight werewolves were more useful than an army’s worth of human guards. With them around, we’d be able to handle even two dozen assassins with ease.

  As for the rest of my werewolves, they’d just be accompanying us on the road to the city. Once we reached Zaria they’d remain outside, keeping our path of retreat secure. Of course, if we got ourselves too deep into trouble, I could also call them in to help us. Since they looked no different from humans normally, I doubted they’d raise much alarm. Perfect, that’s one thing figured out.

  Normally, my werewolves earned their keep by patrolling Ryunheit’s streets. If I was taking all of them with me, I’d need someone else to take over their jobs for a short while. I went out into the city to look for Baltze, who was in charge of the city’s safety. The Azure Knights also patrolled the city on a regular basis, so they were my first choice.

  As I expected, I found him in the city’s main guardhouse. He was surrounded by a few of his dragonkin soldiers. But something was off. He looked like he was carrying something with great care.

  “Sir Baltze, what’s that you have there?”

  I called out to him, and Baltze turned around.

  “Ah, Sir Veight. You came at the perfect time.”

  To my surprise, the thing he was cradling was a human baby. It was fast asleep. From the looks of it, it was old enough to crawl, but not yet old enough to walk. Baltze looked awkwardly down at the baby in his arms.

  “One of the townspeople asked me to look after her hatchling.”

  “Err, why?”

  “Her neighbor suddenly collapsed, so she needed someone to look after the child while she went to help them.”

  While Ryunheit’s original garrison had also functioned like the city’s handymen, I hadn’t expected the residents to treat the demon guardsmen the same way. Though, personally, I thought it was a good thing that the people were starting to see the dragonkin as no different from the rest of the city watch. Baltze kept his gaze fixed on the baby’s face, his expression serious.

  “Sir Baltze, is something wrong?” I prompted.

  “Oh, no. There’s nothing wrong... It’s just, I was thinking his face resembled the previous Demon Lord’s.”

  “Really?”

  Though I was surprised, I remembered that the idea of reincarnation had become something of a fad among demons recently. Originally, demons hadn’t believed in reincarnation. Most of them either believed that the spirits of their ancestors were protecting them from afar, or sleeping peacefully in the afterlife.

  However, humans did believe in reincarnation. They thought that the soul was immortal and indestructible, but while souls were reincarnated into new bodies, memories from their past lives weren’t preserved. After living together with humans, a few demons had converted to that way of thinking as well. Thanks to that, the astrologer Mitty was seeing a lot of demons visiting her for divinations as well. They all wanted to know what had happened to the souls of their dead friends or family. In general, most dragonkin had little interest in magic or spiritualism, but the thought that their beloved Demon Lord had reincarnated somewhere held a lot of appeal for them.

  I smiled at Baltze and said, “If he was reborn, wouldn’t he be reborn as a dragonkin baby?”

  Though since a human like me had class changed into a werewolf, it was possible Friedensrichter had ended up a human this time. Baltze shook his head.

  “According to the astrologer Lady Mitty, the reincarnation of souls can transcend species. Considering the previous Demon Lord’s star sign, it’s possible he was reincarnated into a human.”

  “Hahaha, no way.”

  I laughed off Baltze’s words, but privately I wanted to believe they were true. Baltze’s expression grew lonely and he said, “I still don’t fully trust humans. After all, it was a human Hero who killed our beloved lord.”

  You’ve got a point there. There had actually been quite a few demons who’d come to resent humans after the Hero had killed Friedensrichter. However, Baltze quietly added, “Alas, when I think about the possibility that the Demon Lord’s soul now rests in this infant’s body, I can’t help but pray he lives a happy and fulfilling life. It’s strange, don’t you think?”

  As I groped for a reply to that, a young woman came running over to us.

  “Sorry about that! Looks like the old man next door’s fine! He just had a seizure, is all!”

  Baltze turned around with a look of relief.

  “That’s wonderful news. Here, your son.”

  Baltze held out his arms, and the woman held out a package of her own.

  “Thank you so much for looking after him. We’ve heard that dragonkin love smoked chicken, so the old man told me to give this to you as thanks.”

  “Oh, I was only doing my duty. There’s no need to thank me...”

  Baltze seemed lost, so I decided to help him out a little.

  “That’s just how happy she is you agreed to help, Sir Baltze. It’s customary among humans to thank each other for favors, so you should just take it.”

  “I-I see. In that case, I humbly accept your offering.”

  Baltze couldn’t figure out how to take the package and let go of the baby at the same time, and began to panic a little. None of the dragonkin around him had ever held a baby before either, and they hesitated to lend a hand. Wow, you guys are hopeless. Alright, I’ll help, then.

  “Would you mind letting me hold him for a second?”

  While I hadn’t had any siblings in my past life or this one, I’d helped take care of a lot of babies back in the werewolf village. At the very least, I knew how to hold one. The tiny human baby passed from a dragonkin to a werewolf, then finally to his mother.

  “My. It looks like he was sleeping quite soundly in your arms.”

  Baltze breathed a sigh of relief as his burden was lifted.

  “I’m glad nothing happened to either your son or the old man.”

  “Sorry for pushing that onto you so suddenly. And thank you.”

  The woman bowed to us a few times, then went back up the street she’d come on. The dragonkin all slumped, drained.

  “To think being surrounded by an army of hundreds of humans didn’t make me nervous, but dealing with a single child did.”

  “You did well. I’m sure that kid will grow up to be a brave warrior after the time he spent in your arms, Sir Baltze, Commander of the Azure Knights.”

  “It would be wonderful if he did. Incidentally, did you think he looked somewhat like the old Demon Lord as well?”

  How the hell would I know?

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you.”

  Please don’t tell me he’s going to start asking me that every time he sees a baby.

  I didn’t even give myself time to rest, and I, Airia, and my 56 werewolves left Ryunheit the same day. With the exception of Airia’s secretary, I’d forbidden any other humans from traveling with us this time. If we were attacked, I wasn’t confident I’d be able to protect them all. As the ranking officer in charge of this mission, it fell to me to decide who to prioritize guarding in the event of an ambush. And if we did fall into one, I’d likely tell my men to keep Airia safe at all costs, even if it meant letting all other humans die.

  The authority to decide who lives and who dies was a heavy responsibility. For that reason, I wanted to take as few humans as possible. No one wanted to be told they we
ren’t as important, and thus expendable. Nor did I really want to end up in a situation where I had to say that. It’d leave a bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, because of my position, I’d have to if it came down to it.

  Which was why I’d had as many humans as possible stay behind. I’d probably have to keep it that way for all of my trips in the near future. Having Lacy come with us would have been a huge boon, but I couldn’t expose her to danger. Especially since she was a wanted traitor. The further she was from the north right now, the better. Honestly, since her illusions improved the more she traveled and experienced new things, I’d wanted to take her everywhere with me, but her safety was more important.

  My first impression of Zaria was that it was a weird place. The city itself was located in the middle of a wasteland, and as I’d heard, it had no walls. This was the first large city I’d seen in this world without walls. I guess unless you’ve got the Senate explicitly forbidding you from doing it, there’d be no reason not to build walls around your city. Every single one of the city’s buildings was three to four stories tall. The first two stories of all the buildings were made of sturdy stone, but the upper floors were made of brown, sun-dried bricks. A city with this kind of architecture was a rarity in this world.

  I had most of my werewolves stand by in the nearby wasteland while I, Airia, and our eight guards headed to the city. As we drew close to the entrance, Airia explained some more about the place.

  “The lower floors of most buildings serve as storehouses, and they’re made of stone to prevent enemies from breaking in. On the other hand, the upper floors are all residential areas, and they’re made of brick, which is easy to rearrange in case someone wants to remodel.”

  “I see. So the lower floors serve the function of a city wall.”

  The thick stone walls that made up the buildings’ foundations were strong enough that I doubted even a werewolf could break them. As we walked through the streets, the irregularity of the city grew more apparent. Though it was noon, the alleys were dark. Furthermore, they were so windy and twisting that it was impossible to tell where you were going. Especially since there were no landmarks to tell the different intersections apart.