90 The Necromancer and the Priestess 24

"After a night of thinking, I think that the best option is to negotiate a peace treaty." Yin Mei said, from where she was leaning on Leon's desk. Sitting on the sofa was El, sipping peacefully at a cup of tea, with Leon sitting across from him, staring wide eyed at Yin Mei.

"A... peace treaty? With the demons?" He said. This... wasn't this completely impossible?

Yin Mei nodded. The thing is, is that of the two options for the demons to lose or win, losing would actually be terrible. Yin Mei had considered this plausible before, but she forgot to take into account that the general of the demon army was El! Why the general of the demon army could be lounging here all relaxed and not over at the demon's main base camp and giving out orders was besides her, but she knew that if the demons lost the war, the brunt of the responsibility would certainly fall on El, and it would become difficult for him to gain the people's support.

As for the demons winning, this would be the best in order for Yin Mei to complete her mission, but there were issues with this as well. For one, Yin Mei didn't want to lose the support of these two important characters, Rosella and Leon. For another, humanity still had the power of a certain powerful protagonist called Kai. She was still thinking of how to get him to her side, so in that case, the demons winning wasn't actually the best choice for her here.

As a result, after thinking it through, Yin Mei landed on the third choice - a peace treaty between the two races.

She had thought about this before, that perhaps the hatred toward demons that the humans had was less than it had been several thousand years ago. That being said, it was practically ingrained into humans from a young age that demons were the "bad guy". But, this was still something of stories. Because of this, Yin Mei hoped that with enough persuasive power, it would be possible to convince the people that a peace treaty was the best possible route.

The problem was that... Yin Mei did not trust humans.

Back in the modern world, where things were much more progressive than in this world, discrimination and racism still ran rampant. Because of this, she was worried. But among the three options, although the third was the hardest, it was also what Yin Mei considered would be the best choice.

"This... wouldn't it be too difficult?" Leon said. He didn't immediately reject Yin Mei's proposal, but also didn't think that it would be possible to execute.

It would be trying to overturn years of conditioning that demons were the "villains".

"And, considering the loss that the demons took last time, they may be even harder to persuade," Yin Mei mused, looking in El's direction. He set down his tea cup.

"The demons believe it to be utterly humiliating that they lost to the humans. It would indeed be difficult to persuade them to enter a peace treaty." He said.

But, Yin Mei didn't want to give up so easily... She needed some sort of way to make this work. Was she being too greedy? "What was the reason that demons insist on invading this world anyways? After their last loss, they still insisted coming back. Is it just pride?"

"Perhaps in part, it's due to pride. But the other part is due to the fact that the human world is so abundant in resources in comparison to the demon world." El replied.

"... Maybe we can use that," Yin Mei mused, with a thoughtful expression. "Leon," She looked at Leon, who let out a sigh.

"Fine, I'll talk with the royal family," He said. As a former royal court mage, he was familiar with the members of the royal family. It would be necessary to hold discussions with the leaders of the nations in order to move through with this plan.

"Then all that's left is..." The two of them looked at El, who had on a thoughtful expression.

"... I'll work something out," He finally said, unable to say no to Yin Mei's puppy eyed expression. Yin Mei nodded. She would call this Plan Treaty of... Treaty of... Well, she would come up with a cool name later. For now, let's just refer to this as Plan Peace Treaty Between Demons and Humans, or PTBDH for short!

Mm, she nodded in satisfaction. If this succeeded, then all she would need to worry about would be starting a coup d'etat against the current king and stealing the throne back for her man.

Well, that is, if it succeeded in the first place.

What she would need was luck, persuasion ability level MAX, and some cookies. All the cookies.

But Yin Mei wouldn't rely on luck.

A couple of weeks later, she got the agreement of the royal families. The war had been delayed on both sides due to Leon and El's efforts. It was at a complete standstill, with both armies staring across at each other, but not making a move. Dissatisfaction was simmering, but Yin Mei felt the opposite.

She had the leaders of the nations agree with her, but she would still need to convince the people in order to get what she wanted.

As for that thing called luck, hah, she had substituted with a more useful thing called magic. The abilities of her aura, were really useful. And the only people who knew of this ability and could resist it were the high ranked members of the church. Which, she also needed to convince. But she had Leon deal with the church side - she suggested bringing in Kai, and knew that with the combined ability of the second and first male leads, there should be no problems.

Though the Bishop made for a pretty strong last boss, his influence had weakened since the incident of the demon unsealing.

The issue was that with the people, her magic was not so great enough that she could influence so many people. Especially if they went with a speech that would be spread by magic mirrors - basically, a live broadcast. It would be hard pressed to want her to be able to influence those watching through the magic mirror.

"How is it?" Yin Mei asked, talking to El through a magic mirror hanging on the wall.

He shook his head, sighing.

Yin Mei bit her thumb, her eyes narrowed. For demons, it would be hard to influence them with a light aura, as demons were naturally averse to the light affinity. In other words, it was all on El.

Yin Mei paced back to back, deep in thought. "Okay, okay, this is still alright." She trusted that El could do this. After all, the last boss couldn't be that easily defeated.

"El, what do you think is capable of persuading the demons? What would we have to do in order to gain their trust." Yin Mei said, placing her hands on the top of the stand the mirror hung over.

El seemed to ponder for a moment before giving an answer. "Most of the demon races respect strength. If a human appeared and beat the demon army's strongest soldiers in a fair duel, then they would very quickly earn their trust."

"What? Just that?" Yin Mei blinked in surprise. That was much simpler than she thought it would be! "Hm, but I guess demons are stronger than humans..." She murmured.

"Celes, you probably wouldn't be able to do it. Although your magic works well against demons, your style is too focused on support." El said bluntly, though Yin Mei could see the concern in his eyes - he was worried that she would charge right in and start demanding to battle against the demons.

But, Yin Mei nodded. Although compared to before, Yin Mei now knew more offensive spells, she was admittedly still a support focused mage. Because of this, she didn't doubt El's words. The better option would be to send... Kai?

Leon was okay, but Kai was probably the best choice. Firstly, with his protagonist aura, he could overcome most hardships (though Yin Mei was still worried due to her previous experiences, she decided that she should believe in the protagonist aura!). Secondly, he had a light affinity, which was stronger against demons, in comparison to Leon's space affinity.

And thirdly, Yin Mei just assumed that the demons would prefer to go up against a "warrior" then a mage.

"Okay. I'll find someone." Yin Mei nodded firmly. Now there was only the issue of convincing the humans. And convincing Kai.

But that guy shouldn't have anything against the demons. With his righteous personality, it shouldn't be that hard. He just couldn't see El's true appearance and figure out his identity. Oh, no, wait, that might be difficult, since El was the commander of the demon army!

Yin Mei sighed. Argh! Why do these missions always require so much thinking and strategizing! Was it too much to ask for a mission where she could just brute force her way through everything? Instead of having to do all this much planning... Her head was going to explode by the end of this...

A week later, Yin Mei had already given her speech. She had secured the support of the people. It was easier than she thought it would be. She had spend a long time writing up that speech with the help of everyone else, but she still didn't expect that. But this was good. It meant that she didn't need to do anything extra.

(A/N: fk writing that speech, sorry y'all but I tried thinking of one and it just sounded wayyyyy too cheesy and lame so I was like nope)

Yin Mei was currently standing in Leon's office, with Leon, Rosella, and Kai in front of her.

"Are we ready?" She asked, and Rosella nodded. Leon stayed silent, feeling that he needed appreciation for all the things he did, and Kai had on a serious expression as he gave a firm nod.

"Okay! Let's go." Leon constructed his teleport spell, and soon, they were in El's tent.

El was wearing a demon mask, Yin Mei's shoddy makeshift solution to not revealing his identity to Kai. Leon raised an eyebrow, not sure what El was doing, but didn't say anything.

"This is Azazel, the commander of the demon army and archduke of the demon empire. He's our supporter." Yin Mei explained to Kai, who looked toward El suspiciously. El nodded at Kai, not recognizing the man. He didn't say anything, just showing the four of them out. Guards surrounded them, completely covered head to toe in armor as they went to a fairly empty grounds where several people were waiting.

It really had the air of a duel!

Yin Mei felt kind of excited.

She never used to be a person who liked fighting, or even fought at all. But now, she thought that she quite enjoyed it. Perhaps because she was an instinctual fighter that it required little thinking, which was why she liked it.

No thinking! Sigh, what a dream! She also wanted to be able to not think when doing things.

But no. These missions, although they appeared simple, were much harder than expected! Always requiring stupid strategizing and planning and thinking. She continued to inwardly grumble, as the crowd roared and sent out one of their strongest fighters - a slender, sort of delinquent-looking guy with ram horns and feet.

He stretched his arms and legs, looking ready and excited to fight, a sneer on his face. There was jeering and shouts, as the demons made fun of them in their own language that none of them could understand.

El raised his arm, silencing them.

A barrier was raised up, surrounding the two, so that none of their attacks would affect those on the outside. He spoke, his voice slightly different than normal, almost as if he was using a voice changer, "No lethal attacks, first one to forfeit loses."

After a pause, he set his hand down. "Begin."