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“You found the demon lord?” Daniel asked the small figure sitting on his shoulder. “My liege, couldn’t you have found her a few minutes ago before I revealed I stole her panties?”
“If you didn’t steal her panties, you wouldn’t have been outed as a pantie thief,” Apollonia said with a snort. “And I didn’t find her; she found me.”
“Are you unhurt?” Daniel asked. “She isn’t angry?”
“I don’t think she even has any emotions,” Apollonia said, shaking her head. “She kills without blinking an eye. She speaks without caring about being judged. She’s a lot different than what I thought she’d be. Normally emperors are supposed to be conniving and wise, right? They don’t survive the struggle for the throne otherwise.”
Daniel furrowed his brow. “She’s neither conniving nor wise?”
“She’s as pure as a child,” Apollonia said with a sigh. “As psychopathic as one too. I wonder what goes through her head.”
“Am I being ignored again? Who summons a devil just to ignore them?” the gorilla with a wolf’s head and spider legs growing out of its back asked. “Tell me where your target is.”
“Right,” Apollonia said. “I forgot.” She turned her head towards Daniel. “Go to my southernmost mansion but pass through and gather all the soldiers from my nobles’ territories, including their knights. You have one week.”
“You just said she’s like a child,” Tafel said. “Why do you want to overthrow her still? Can’t you just teach her how to properly govern her empire? Actually, other than the fact that she’s raising taxes, you haven’t given a real reason to remove her from the throne.”
“Do I need a reason to want to seize the throne for myself?” Apollonia asked, tilting her head. “It’s natural to want power. And I’ll be a more fitting ruler as well. Everyone wins if I become the new empress.” The tiny grand duchess frowned at Tafel. “I thought you said you didn’t interfere with the politics of other regions. You’re not thinking of stopping me now, are you?”
Tafel scratched her head. “It just feels a little wrong to not stop an army from chasing one person down,” she said. “It’s not very fair, you know?”
“Is it fair that she gets to rule the empire just because she was born into the right family? If you want to talk about fairness, I want to hear nothing of it,” Apollonia said, crossing her arms over her chest. “The world is inherently unfair; it is up to us, the residents of the world, to decide whether we want to resign ourselves to our given roles or not. Who says a grand duchess can’t be empress?”
Tafel frowned and rubbed her chin. “For some reason, I just don’t like your reasoning,” she said before sighing.
“That’s because you’re a queen,” Alice said with a snort. “It’s obvious you wouldn’t like someone saying they can overthrow your position if they wanted to. That makes you a tyrant, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I’m not a tyrant! My people love me,” Tafel said, glaring at Alice.
Alice raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s not because bad things would happen to them if they said they didn’t love you?”
Tafel stamped her foot. “I’m not that kind of person!”
“Vur told me the Tafel-method of claiming a throne involves finding the current ruler of the land and smacking them over the head with a sword until they surrender.”
Tafel’s eyes widened as she whirled her head around to face Vur. “Why would you tell her that!?”
“Dragons don’t lie,” Vur said, tilting his head. “Should I have talked about the moon instead?”
“Yes. Yes, you should’ve,” Tafel said before sighing. She placed her hand on Alice’s shoulder. “Look, there were circumstances around my ascension to the throne, alright? The demon lord is supposed to be the strongest demon, so anyone who can defeat them can become the new demon lord. And I defeated the previous one, so the throne became mine.”
Alice picked her ear with her pinky and flicked away the glob of earwax. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Do you know what you sound like right now? A big, fat hypocrite.”
“What’s with you recently?” Tafel asked, furrowing her brow. “Why are you always picking fights with me? First, it was the thing about taxes, and now it’s this. Did I do something to make you hate me?”
“Hmm…, no?” Alice raised an eyebrow. She smiled at Tafel. “Or did you? I wonder.”
“She’s upset you went searching for genies without her,” Mr. Skelly whispered in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “Despite how she portrays herself to be tough and independent, Alice has issues with abandonment. She’s like a puppy that way.”
“Who has abandonment issues? I’m not a dog!” Alice punched Mr. Skelly’s helmet, causing both the metal and his skull to fly off.
Daniel and Apollonia screamed at the sight, Daniel drawing his sword. “You killed a knight!”
“Uh, no, he’s already dead,” Alice said, waving off Daniel’s words with her hand. “Don’t worry about it.” She slapped the back of Mr. Skelly’s armor. “See? Say something.”
Mr. Skelly crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, not saying a word.
Daniel and Apollonia stared at the fallen set of armor before staring at woman standing over it. Alice’s eye twitched as one corner of her lips curled upwards, veins bulging on her forehead. “You damned skeleton! Stop messing with me like this!”
Tafel opened a portal and reached into it, retrieving Mr. Skelly’s helmet and skull. She pulled the skull out of the helmet and raised it up. “Look. He was already dead,” she said, waving the two items at Daniel.
Daniel’s eyes bulged, nearly falling out of his head. Mr. Skelly’s skull moved, his lower teeth clacking against his upper ones. “Avenge … me….”
Tafel met Alice’s gaze. Alice nodded. Tafel threw Mr. Skelly’s skull over her shoulder without looking and handed Alice the helmet. “I’m sorry for not bringing you with us to go looking for genies. I just wanted to give you some alone time with Mr. Skelly.”
“Really,” Alice said, her eyes narrowing at Tafel. “If you’re lying, I won’t forgive you.”
“Alright, I admit it—I forgot about you two when I heard about the genies,” Tafel said, biting her lower lip.
“I knew it,” Alice said. “You really did forget.”
“Speaking of forgetting…, was I forgotten again?” the devil asked, its face downcast. “Should I just go back home? I…, I wanted to succeed in my first contract.” It hung its neck, staring at the ground. “Maybe my sister was right. I really am just a useless devil with no presence.”
“Wait!” Apollonia said. “Don’t go.” She patted Daniel’s helmet. “Hurry up and follow my orders. I don’t know if the demon lord is really going to sit patiently at my home. The faster you get here, the better it is.”
“Ah,” Tafel said as Daniel leapt off the pile of rubble. “Should we follow them?”
“No,” Vur said, his head appearing behind Tafel and Alice. “We’re leaders. Leaders lead. We’ll go find the empress first.”