Asmo sat at a desk in a repurposed King Koinkar’s quarters. “King Koinkar,” of course, had no need for these quarters anymore, so she was allowed to live in them instead. Well, what she considered “allowed to live in” others would consider “imprisoned in,” but what others thought was of no matter to her. She technically wasn’t allowed to leave while not under supervision, now that she was privy to such tightly-held secrets about the conspiracy surrounding the kingdom, but as far as she was concerned, that just meant she had more of an opportunity to push herself up in the ranks of the Demons.
Right now, though, she wasn’t actually doing any of that work. She was sitting at her desk, waiting.
Her new boss—Quinmorada-something-something—had just introduced herself as the replacement to her old boss. And apparently, that old boss had been sent on a mission to kill the fugitive himself. That certainly seemed like an airtight plan; Asmo had seen that monster of a Demon fight, and there was no way someone as weak as the fugitive could fairly beat him. However, Asmo had also seen the fugitive fight. And she knew he never fought fair.
So, while she had faith in the raw power of her old boss, she also had a glimmer of doubt. There was a chance this wouldn’t be the end of things.
Ideally, the fugitive would die here. What that would mean for Asmo would be that the Demons would have much less of an interest in micromanaging the Koinkar Kingdom. There would be no real reason to spend many resources in keeping a foothold in the Overworld, when they had wars to wage in the Underworld, so what would they do? Well, it wasn’t like they’d just pull out for good—why waste a perfectly fine opportunity to passively keep some influence in this realm? Especially if it didn’t cost anything.
And Asmo was the reason it wouldn’t cost anything. Even if the Demons decided to pull every single one of their troops out of the Overworld once the fugitive was dead, they’d have to leave Asmo here since she was Human. So, as the only one left, she would become the de facto leader of their entire branch dealing with the Overworld. If the Demon playing the part of King Koinkar left, too, there’d be nobody else to play ruler than her.
In short, she’d become the monarch of the entire kingdom.
Sure, she’d have some superiors above her making sure she never stepped out of line, but with no direct goal other than expanding the influence of the kingdom, she’d effectively have free reign. This was her shortcut to absolute power.
And all it took for her to get it was for one man to die in these next few minutes.
One thing that kept poking into her mind was the thought of Ripley Tenet, the woman that’d abandoned her. While under influence of her Berserk Talent, Ripley had stayed behind to continue the fight with the fugitive. Certainly not very surprising, given how Berserk affected the mind, but what was unexpected was the fact that Ripley never came back. If she just retrieved that ring she’d thrown off later, once Berserk had worn off, she would’ve been teleported back instantly. But she never did. Asmo came back to the destination and waited for her partner, but she never came.The logical part in Asmo was screaming at her that Ripley was simply dead. The woman stuck behind to fight someone, she lost the fight, she didn’t come back. Pretty simple argument. But…that just couldn’t be the case. Asmo knew Ripley. No way she’d just let herself die like that. She survived, for sure.
As for why she decided not to come back…well, there would’ve been plenty of reasons for that. Namely, the fugitive did the exact thing to Ripley that he’d done to Camilla before. He somehow convinced her to defect. One thing Asmo was kept in the dark about was what Class the fugitive had. She’d asked several times about it before entering combat with him—it was important to know things like that before battle—but they’d refused to tell her every time. All they told her was that it was Magic-Type, and some of the basic Spells and abilities he had.
Presumably, it was some sort of special or unique Class, and they didn’t trust her with that information yet. But she assumed his seemingly-silver tongue had to come from that. No way he just so happened to luck himself into saying exactly what would convince Camilla to spare him, and now, he apparently did the same with Ripley. Probably had some sort of way to see into the minds of his victims, or something. She wasn’t sure about that whole soul-stealing rumor that was floating around about him, but maybe it had some truth to it. Maybe he could steal peoples’ memories, or something. How else would he gain this impossible knowledge?
But her mind was wandering. Back to the topic at hand, Asmo needed to get Ripley back. She knew that, if Ripley was aware of the full truth, she probably wouldn’t want to come back—maybe that was what the fugitive had told her about to get her to defect in the first place—but Asmo didn’t care. Ripley would be coming back, and that was final. It was the only demand she’d made to the Demons when agreeing to work with them—Ripley had to stay safe and by her side.
Asmo stood from the wooden chair that’d been thrown into the room when she moved in, scooting it back along the pearly-white marble floor. Enough waiting. Whether or not the fugitive died, she needed to talk to the Demons about Ripley. She’d just do that now and get them moving as soon as possible. So she exited her room and swiftly moved through the many hallways, aiming for the audience hall. That was where “Koinkar” spent most of his time, mainly holding meetings with underlings and random nobles.
When Asmo opened the door, entering through the back of the throne room, she saw that Koinkar was, indeed, in the middle of a meeting. He sat on his throne in a perfectly-fake posture, feigning the physical feebleness that was characteristic of the old king. Sitting at the end of a table set in the middle of the hall was some well-dressed man with a trimmed beard. She walked up and stood next to Koinkar where he sat, nonverbally telling him she wished for a word.
He gave a miniscule nod, and looked back at the nobleman. “If you require more food, simply tax your peasants more. The higher taxes will encourage them to work harder to pay them and thus produce more.”
“If I raise taxes, the citizens of Willowdale will surely riot! I have already had trouble containing the villagers’ anger after your kingdom-wide tax increases, and they will not stand for another.”
Asmo watched as Koinkar gave a hint of a sneer at the man. “Remember your place, and remember who I am. As the king, it is my duty to ensure the entire kingdom prospers. Not to serve the interests of one puny settlement. You will receive no food rations from our stores, and if you continue to bother me about this, then perhaps another round of the draft will visit Willowdale Village. We always have a need for more soldiers, after all.”
The nobleman's face contorted with anger and disbelief. His eyes flitted to Asmo, as if asking for some form of assistance in this discussion. But she said nothing. She could sense his rising frustration, and wondered if the man would dare to challenge the king's words.
But then, to her surprise, the nobleman bowed and backed away, his eyes never leaving Koinkar’s face. “Of course, your majesty. I understand. I will see to it that my villagers work harder to meet their obligations.”
Koinkar nodded curtly. "See that you do. And if you fail, you know the consequences."
The nobleman turned to leave, and for a moment, Asmo’s heart threatened to give a pang of sympathy for him and his villagers, who would surely see their lord return and demand greater work and greater sacrifice from them. More would starve, more would die, and more would lose their family members to an uncaring leadership.
But in the end, she didn’t really care. It was only a temporary feeling that subsided soon enough, anyway. Of course, citizens dying was never good for a kingdom, but in this case, it was necessary. At least, there was nothing that the kingdom could have done for that village of Willowdale, even if they wanted to help. And the reason for that was simple. The food stores had run out. There was nothing to give.
Normally, using some magical preservation methods, the Koinkar Kingdom held a decent supply of food in several storages, kept in case of disease or famine. In emergencies, this food could be distributed into the economy at a low price to both stimulate any stagnant workforce, and to keep the citizens fed. However, this store of food had been sold already, and not to the citizens of the kingdom. All of the food had been sold off to neighboring countries to help fund the war efforts. Equipment, weapons, hired mercenaries, training, that was where the bulk of these resources had been going for some time now.
This was, of course, a horrible idea if the goal was to raise a healthy kingdom. The Demons clearly didn’t care about that, though, so they didn’t mind if the kingdom fell into ruin, as long as they accomplished their goal.
That was what’d been explained to Asmo during her debriefing. While she understood the logic, she didn’t really agree with it. Sure, it would work as long as the fugitive was killed in the next day or two, but if he wasn’t? Suddenly, the kingdom would be forced to fight a longer-term war after having destroyed all prospects of any long-term prosperity. Everything would be spent. And, of course, even if the fugitive was killed here and Asmo was left in charge as was her plan, she would also be left to clean up the mess that was made. So she didn’t exactly appreciate the Demons seemingly making as big a mess as they could.
“What do you want?” The being running Koinkar’s body said, breaking her out of her thoughts. Once the nobleman had left, he’d shifted his posture from the hunched, feeble slouch it was in front of others to the way the Demon actually preferred to sit—straight up with a scowl on his face.
Asmo frowned at the indignant acknowledgement. “Do not speak to me like I am one of your lackeys. We are equals in this war.”
The Demon snorted. “Sure. Listen, you can pretend you’re on par with us, but I’m not going to pay into your delusions that Humans could ever be equal to Demons. You’re a tool at best.”
Asmo just rolled her eyes. The Demon playing the part of Koinkar had this attitude for a while now, ever since it’d become clear that Asmo intended to actually play a role in this new chain of command and not just act as a mindless pawn. But their new superior, Quinmorada-something-something, at least acknowledged that Asmo had the same potential of any Human. At least, she did whenever she actually took the time to step in. Which wasn’t often. Normally, Asmo was stuck talking to this one.
“So, what are you here for, Human? As you can see, I’m in the middle of some very important meetings. If you have nothing significant to say, I’d suggest you allow me to get back to them. You are, after all, only hindering the cause you claim to support for every second you keep me occupied.”
Asmo fought back an audible sigh. “I am here to ask you about Ripley. If you have any soldiers to spare, it may be wise to send out a search team to—”
“Uh, expression of apology, but who is Ripley?”
“...Ripley Tenet. The other former royal guard, who went into battle alongside me. You have interacted with her on several occasions.”
“Oh, yes, yes, I think I may remember her. You Humans all look alike, anyway.”
“Okay. Anyway, she is currently missing in action after a fight gone wrong against the fugitive. We should send out a search team to—”
“Apology, she fought Arlan Nota?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t kill him?”
“...Yes.”
“So why do we care about recovering her? She seems rather useless to us, as far as I’m concerned.”
Asmo grit her teeth. “Her ‘use’ is of no concern. When I made my initial agreement with you, you promised that Ripley would be kept safe and kept unknowing of what is going on here. By allowing the fugitive to come into contact with her, you are threatening to break both of those promises.”
“So you plan to harm our cause just for your own personal interest?”
“I plan to hold you to our deal.”
“Hm. I’ll look into it. Maybe, sometime, if we can spare the manpower, I might decide to send out a soldier or two to look around.”
“Do not act like you can treat me like this. Do not act like there will not be repercussions for your attitude here. You may not think I am your equal, you may even think I can do nothing to harm you. But believe this: I will ensure—”
Asmo was cut off by a familiar chime, and a bright light coming from beneath Koinkar’s robe. They both looked down at it—that was Koinkar’s Communication Crystal. It was ringing.
He reached into his robe and withdrew it, answering the chime. “Hello, superior Quinmorada’qualticularoohdodon—”
“Don’t bother,” the voice of their superior cut him off. “We need to talk. Xhag is dead. And as such, there are going to be some rearrangements in the chain of command.”