Barbato’s sat among the other eleven demon Legionnaires. While they were waiting for the new Demon Lord to finish changing clothes, they discussed their thoughts about him.

“He is far too weak-willed; he couldn’t even kill one of us after we offered our heads to him.” Adrammelech said.

“Yes, but he gave fair reasoning, we are worth nothing to him dead. He could be a strategist. Remember that all of the past Demon Lords knew nothing of this world before being summoned. Thus, he would need all of us alive before he can make a move.” Seir countered.

“We are testing him once more in order to understand if he is capable of being our Lord. If he is not then we will use him as a puppet. Do know we cannot kill him; he required over ten thousand slave souls in order to summon. That means he could kill us all by snapping his fingers if he so wished. Any attempt at killing him would result in a catastrophe that no demon has seen in over three eras.” Barbato’s explained.

“I understand that but how do you plan on controlling him if he is that powerful?” Camio asked.

“” Yes, how are you going to do that?”” Andras and Samael asked in unison.

“Slave magic is the only way but not the watered-down form that is used today. We will have to use the original form.” Barbato’s replied

“””””””””””......”””””””””””

“That is the only way,” Barbato’s said again. Then a knock came and slowly entered Aldua the maid.

“My Lord has finished and is here to see you, Legionnaires,” she said before opening the door and allowing Legion to enter.

“Welcome my Lord,” Barbato’s said, seeming rather cheeky despite what they were just discussing.

* * *

Entered the room, besides the demons, it held a table similar to the one in the courtyard. It had no real decorations as the walls were bare stone. The lighting came only from an oil fire bowl hanging from the ceiling. I questioned the safety of having a wooden table underneath an oil fire but wasn’t going to say anything. Barbato’s greeted me when I walked in a far more ecstatic tone than what I was ever used to from a normal person. Perhaps it was a cultural norm here but based on how embarrassed the others looked, I guessed it wasn’t. I assumed Barbato was just acting weird.

“Lord Legion, would you perhaps want to see our troops and current plans for the war?” Barbato asked. What was he expecting me to say? I didn’t know anything about a war nor did I know anything about them for that matter. I should just say what I think would sound the most appealing.

“Oh… Of course, I believe having a good grip on what I am working with would be phenomenal,” I replied. That said, I didn’t want to aid in any war, I don’t like the idea of killing people. Not listening though could bring death to an entire nation, especially if they see me as an asset whose word matters… but, I can’t kill anyone. An animal maybe, but never a human, heck even these demons I couldn’t kill. They have just as much personality as a human does, if not more.

After I spoke, Barbatos gestured to the table, on it was a map of the continent, or world, I wasn’t sure. Could be both as the entire map consisted of one one large land mass shaped similar to a crescent moon. One large gulf was in the northern middle section of the continent with a large peninsula sitting on either side. The land fattened up the more south it became, it was nearly parallel except for a very wide peninsula that sat at the southwestern side of the land mass.

“This is the world as we know it. There could be more out in the world but it hasn’t been discovered yet and what we don’t see on this map doesn’t concern us yet. We are simply looking at our foe that is before us,” he said, gesturing at the edges of the map.

“And where do we stand compared to the humans?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“We stand here, controlling this entire southwestern peninsula,” He stated, pointing to the southernmost third of the crescent moon. “Humans control from this part of the world, northward,” He continued, waving his hand from the edge of the Demon territory to the northernmost tip of the crescent moon. It sure does seem like Demons are the minority in this world.

“We intend to send troops to cut off the northwestern peninsula,” he explained further, pointing at the western side of the map after noticing my understanding.

“We know that if we can close off their travel by land then many of them will be trapped as they can only evacuate so many people by boat before we have taken the entire western continent,” Camio explained. He kind of sounded like Winston Churchill, but a bit more Welsh and a lot more scholarly looking.

“I see, but how many troops do we have to spare? If we send too many troops to take the northwestern peninsula, will we have enough troops to protect the southern border?” I asked. In all honesty, I just wanted to know how I could delay them from an outright bloodbath, for them or the humans, even if I’m just grasping at straws.

“See, only a master strategist would consider these things!” Sier exclaimed to the other Legionnaires in praise. The others shifted their gaze to her. Having all other eyes turn to her made her stare at her toes, avoiding their gaze with an adorably embarrassed expression.

“Yes you have told us he might be a great strategist Sier, but we have plenty of troops, my Lord. The three human cities directly north of us only have in total under ten thousand troops and between these cities are small farming villages that only contain a small handful of troops acting as guards. We have over forty-thousand troops, many of which have magic capabilities.” Barbatos replied.

“That is a fair point, but how many troops are to the Northeast, near the tip of the northern peninsula?” Barbatos and the others stayed silent for a moment before Samael spoke.

“The capital of the human kingdom is there, and boasts over eighty-thousand troops.”

“Well, then we stand no chance of winning against the capital and its troops. At least not without a well-formed defense and some well-placed spies within the capital. If you attack with what you proposed we would be far too thinned out as we could decimate and control the west but once the capital troops came from the northwest by land or possibly, from the east by sea. It would destroy our barriers and push our soldiers back towards the northern and southern peninsulas where we would be cornered and destroyed.” It seemed pretty obvious to me but I also played a lot of strategy RPGs in my past life. Hopefully, this will discourage them long enough for me to figure out how to stop this war completely.

“Phenomenally said my Lord. you have pointed out a grand flaw in our plan but what would you have us do instead?” Sier said, giving a sly smile at Barbatos who scoffed in return.

Crap, I hadn’t thought about that. What do I say? What would I do in my strategy game? “I have no idea… what do you suggest?” I said honestly. They did not expect me to come up with an idea right on the spot, did they?

“What if we sent several spies disguised as humans into the capital and have them slowly poison the water supply in and around the city? Not with a deadly poison though, just something that will make them fairly sick, Something that can continue to fester in their water. Once they are weakened, we can follow through with the attack on the northwestern peninsula, and if we feel ambitious, have the spies cause as much mayhem in the capital while they are all sick. This will allow us to take the capital city soon after.” Stolas offered with an extended wave of his hand.

“Splendid, we had yet to think about poisoning the water supply,” Shax said, or at least I think it was Shax. He hasn’t said much, I couldn’t tell if he is depressed or just doesn’t like to talk. His tall skeletal-like figure and creepy old radio voice made it difficult to see him as anything besides a psychopath.

“I concur,” said Barbatos. The others also nodded in agreement.

Now that that has been settled, I should probably ask any questions I have. “I’ve been wondering, how are more demons made?” they all kind of looked at each other for a moment before Merihem spoke. “Well you see, when a mommy demon and a daddy demon love each other very much they-”

“No, you don’t need to get into that talk. It’s the same as my other world. I had assumed as much since I had all my necessary appendages but I just thought I’d ask. Although, I wasn’t expecting a sarcastic answer.” I said, cutting him off.

“Are you perhaps a virgin my Lord? Perhaps Sier, phenix, or Andras could fix that for you.” Merihem snickered before the three women gave him the death glare. He decided to promptly sit down and shut up.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said, although a harem is the dream of almost every man in a fantasy realm, I am sticking to one person and the feeling has to be mutual. I couldn’t just tell a woman to be my bride or have a harem, because first off, only a douche does that, and second, I don’t think polygamy works.

A knock came from the door. “Enter,” Barbatos said, and in stepped a demon in plated armor. His helmet was made to fit around his horns which weren’t too different from mine and he seemed rather muscular. Of course, one would expect as much from a soldier as he was pale other than many different black stripes that looked a lot like war paint. He had wings but his seemed more like a crows than my bat-like wings.

“I have brought some thieves who stole from the fields to the east, sir Barbatos” he stated proudly and at attention.

“Good work. We will be out to see them in the main hall in a moment. Now leave us, sergeant,” Barbatos said.

“Very well, sir,” he replied, bowing his head and leaving the room.

“Well, it seems we are done here. We will show you the main hall, my Lord, and have you see to your first trial as Demon Lord.” Barbatos said. The rest of the Legionnaires stood up in suits and we all headed to the main hall.