CH 88

After the demons accepted my resolution, my days have been busy.

“Maou-sama, regarding the demons that had been captured by the humans, we’ve made great progress in locating the whereabouts of a similar facility like the one we had infiltrated before. We’re creating a special rescue squad with demons specializing in stealth.”

“Ah, that’s good. Do you guys need my hand?”

“We have demons excelling in healing techniques so we’re fine for now but after we’ve succeeded in rescuing them, I’m sure your presence will bring great joy for the wounded demons later on.”

“Copy that. We don’t know how many demons are there so I’ll increase the size of the castle’s infirmary just in case. I’ll also make sure to add more medical staff to accommodate the demons you’re going to rescue later.”

“Understood.”

Chaos the lizardman bowed as he finished his report.

In this spacious audience hall, there were numerous demons coming and going.

Each of them were coming to discuss a problem that was hard for them to decide by themselves with me, Velke and Chaos.

“Maou-sama, I’ve returned from my journey to the far west region. There, I came in contact with a stone turtle tribe who were living  in seclusion. Their tribe has decided to pledge their loyalty to Maou-sama too.”

“Ooh, thank you for your hard work.”

“Stone Turtles are a species who almost never move for years. Please adjust your schedule according to your convenience to meet and talk with them in person.”

“I understand, I will fit it in my schedule. Who’s next?”

“Maou-sama, the castle’s financial situation has taken quite a plunge these days… The more demons we have, the higher the food expenses. I’m thinking of creating a large quantity of magic stones at once. Can you please gather the demons who are proficient in magic?”

“Gather the demons, huh…. The demons with high magical power are either in charge of teaching the children magic or checking the distributions of the demons or maintaining the castle’s defense so it’s a little hard to gather them all at the same time and place…. Ah! Jill! Joe! How’s the progress of the children’s magic training?”

The dark elf twins, Jill and Joe, came at the right time. 

The two of them were not only in charge of keeping watch of the castle’s defensive magic but they were also helping in the children’s magic training. 

These two knew very well how far the children’s magic had progressed.

“Their magic power has grown up a lot despite how young they are. If it’s only creating magic stones, they can easily do it.”

“Why don’t we set a magic stone competition between them?”

“Like the one who can create the most and the highest grade of magic stones wins? Sounds fun. We can add this as part of the children’s curriculum too.”

“Ooh! Then let me use the magic stones they produced! But it’s a shame… We can sell magic stones at a high price but… If we can’t process them ourselves, we won’t be able to get the best profits out of it.”

“If only Lugrant the craftsman had ten more hands…. That old dwarf, he can produce an ornament worthy of being a national treasure but it takes too long for him to finish one work so we can’t have him mass produce it….”

Collin shook his head, he seemed to be greatly disappointed. 

As a world famous craftsman, Lugrant took great care in each and every detail of his work, his focus in detail was really incredible… 

But of course his work can’t be mass produced.

“If only he’d take some students to teach…. Or rather, if only we can have a workshop so species like dwarf, pixie, or other demons with dexterous hands can take some lessons from Lugrant.”

“A lot of dwarf children are taking an interest in metallurgy. I will try to ask them for help.”

We had a lot of problems, from big ones to trivial ones but since our family was growing in size as well, I could utilize that to solve the problems we encountered.

I had to understand each and every one of their special characteristics but for me, the process felt like solving a puzzle, pieces by pieces, so I had fun doing it.

Well, of course there were some problems I couldn’t solve just yet though.

“Oi, Maou. I’ve been looking at the west, you see.”

“Oh! Alexius! Welcome home! So how is it?”

“There’s a small island on the west. The land has some room for development and there’s no one living there.”

“Oooh, sounds good.”

“It seems that the island is prone to natural disasters though, like volcano erupting, earthquakes, typhoons and whatever. So the humans have given up on trying to live there.”

“Sounds harsh…. I wonder if the demons can live there…”

“Natural disasters like that are nothing but a simple rain, shaking and a little bit of fire for us, demons. It’s not a problem at all.”

“No, hearing that from a red dragon who’s flying through the sky on a daily basis is a little bit…. I’m thinking of whether it is possible to move Maou’s Castle into that island.”

Yes, this forest was located right beside human’s town.

It was a good place to invite new demons but it has become a little bit cramped for all of us.

…. Not to mention, the Hero did try to invade this place once. 

In the end the idea to move Maou’s Castle came mostly because of safety reasons.

According to the System, moving Maou’s Castle was possible but because Maou’s Castle was directly connected to Maou, some preparations were needed before we could move it.

In particular, the Fountain of Life.

The Fountain of Life was extremely delicate, we couldn’t simply move it just like that.

A large-scale transfer magic was needed and magic with such scale required a lot of time and magic power.

“Next time, let’s go and check whether that place is suitable for us to move in or not. If the island is inhibited, maybe we can grow some corps outside of the castle. Right now we’re relying on trade to procure food like wheat and rice. If we could grow them ourselves, we would have less expenditure to worry about.”

“Sounds good!! Maou, let’s grow tobacco!! It’s a luxury goods so we can sell it to humans at a high price! And then… Grapes! We can make high quality wine from grapes! After we let it ferment for some time, we can sell it at a high price too!”

Collin suddenly exclaimed excitedly, his eyes were sparkling.

“No! We need to grow something to eat first!! Food first! Then we can think about other corps later.”

“Tch.”

This Cat Sidhe, who was in charge of our finance, became really fired up if we were to talk about making money.

—————————————————————-

By discussing with each other like this, we were able to find the solution to our problem one by one.

Well, there were some problems that we couldn’t solve even after discussing it though.

Especially our biggest problem, we still couldn’t find the solution to it……

“Uuuh…. In order to live side by side with the humans… We have to….”

I grumbled.

“We have to do something about the Hero first.”

Velke, who was looking over some documents beside me, calmly brought up another unsolvable problem.

I had gone and ran my mouth off in front of the demons but actually… I still didn’t know how to deal with the Hero.

“With the way we are now, it is highly unlikely he’d be willing to come and talk with us peacefully…. Maybe if we restrain and capture him and bring him to Maou’s Castle….”

“Do you have any plans in mind?”

Velke asked.

“Maybe if we use that powerful magic used to defeat the previous Hero….”

“The current Hero is too strong, our most powerful offensive magic will just bounce off of him.”

“Th-Then with brute force….”

“His divine protection is too strong. The sword will break if we try to cut him.”

Isn’t he too overpowered?! What kind of cheat is that?!

Did God give him the strongest cheat in return for his filthy pervert personality?!

“Ahhhhh~~~ Just one more step… I think just one more step then we can finally persuade the Hero…. I feel like we have this ‘something’ to use but I can’t put it in words ….”

Two parallel lines that would never intersect forever.

But, I had this feeling Killatur had started to get inclined to our side, just a little tinyyyyy bit though. 

Ahhh! I can’t think anymore!!

“Oh my~ Maou-sama, are you trying to come up for a countermeasure plan for the Hero?”

Viktor the Vampire suddenly appeared, in one swift motion, one of his arms was encircled around my waist while the other hand brushed against my cheeks.

I bet he’s going to tease me, maybe something like “after all that big talk, turns out you don’t have anything up your sleeve huh?”.

“You have to keep your promise, you know.”

I reminded him.

“Hm~ I don’t know about that~”

“………I will hate you, you know?”

I tipped my head to the side and stared at him with upturned eyes. 

“……….. I-I understand. Please forgive my imprudence.”

Viktor immediately apologized, his usual playful face turned pale.

Usually I always lose to him in an argument like this, it was rare for me to be able to get him back like this.

“If physical attack won’t work on the Hero, how about mental attack?”

“You mean something like mental magic? Like hypnotism?”

“Using mental magic on the current Hero is impossible. The divine protection from God rendered all mental magic useless against the Hero.”

“Then what should we do?”

“That Hero is deeply enamored with ‘Mao’, right? How about if we kidnap a human boy around ‘Mao’ age, disguise him as ‘Mao’ and kill him right in front of the Hero. I’m sure the Hero’s heart will break witnessing his favourite ‘Mao’ killed before him.”

“No! Absolutely not!!”

“Oh my~ What a shame~”

“Rejected!! That’s why, Doctor! Stop grinning while hiding behind the pillar while playing with your scalpel too!”

“Oh my~ What a shame~ Even though I’m already itching to show you how skilled I am in cosmetic surgery~”

That mad scientist….

These days he was allowed to perform surgery to tend the wounded demons for medical purposes only.

His eyes were sparkling with mischief after hearing Vii’s suggestion.

So dangerous… Really dangerous….

“Let’s find a more peaceful approach.”

“Maou-sama, if the demons want to have a peaceful solution….”

“In the end, I will have to brainstorm for more ideas, huh…”

My head throbbed painfully while I rejected the other demon’s dangerous proposals.