“Phew, I’m tired..” Seran sunk down on the soft chair in the guest room prepared for them.

It was a reception room you would see in a castle, with Kyle’s group present, as well as the two dragons Irumera and Ghrud, and Yuriga. Klaus had left the room to confirm the luggage.

“To think those three from the pro-war faction would come to visit today of all days.” Yuriga reminisced about the previous get-together, sounding exhausted.

“Those three..I don’t know if I should be saying this, but they were on pretty bad terms, right?” Lieze commented while remembering them constantly clashing.

“Although they may all be part of the pro-war faction, they aren’t particularly close, no. Their shared goal is to fight humanfolk, but they each have their own reasons, and their personalities are different as well.” Yuriga said, evidently displeased. “ Thunder-Breath solely resents humanfolk as a whole, Flame-Eye wishes to raise her own glory and find more area for her fellow demons, but neither of them understands Luiza-sama’s grand-scale plan, nor do they plan to either.”

“So what about Three-Arms? Judging from his name, he should have three individual arms.”

When Three-Arms’ name popped up, Kyle suddenly broke his long silence and joined the conversation. In response to that, Yuriga showed emotions that were different but similar to anger.

“Three-Arms-sama..the name Three-Arms comes from his long tail, which he uses during a fight, almost like a third arm..or so they say.”

Judging from that way of phrasing things, Yuriga wasn’t too sure of that herself.

“Or so they say? You’ve never seen him fight?”

“Barely any demons alive today have seen Three-Arms fight. He fights alone without any allies, and the opponents he had fought..all died.”

Everybody went quiet after hearing Yuriga’s heavy words.

“He had been fighting as the close aide of the previous Demon Lord-sama and has continued to win. Nobody dares to go against him. However, as fighting is everything to him, he naturally is against Luiza-sama’s plan to build a friendly relationship with humanfolk. That being the case, we have to be careful of him. Of course, having respect for him or not is an entirely different matter.” Yuriga commented.

“I see. What do you thi—Hey, Kyle?” Seran called out to Kyle, who had been lost in his thoughts for a while now. “What’s wrong? You’ve been acting off ever since you saw Three-Arms. Like..you’re on edge or something. You were aggressive towards Ghrud as well.”

“..Really?”

Kyle responded to some degree, but he evidently wasn’t mentally present.

“I understand that he’s no small fry, but it’s not like we have to fight him, nor do we have to. No need to be this concerned about him.”

“......”

Kyle went silent. He was fully aware that his mental state was in disarray after being reunited with Three-Arms. He was the individual who caused great pain to Kyle. Even if there was nothing else he could have done, it still plagued him. However, all he could do was see Three-Arms off. He used all of his strength, even with a party of 30 allies, he merely grazed him. It was a faint injury, only slightly hurting Three-Arms’ shoulder. That was Kyle’s limit back at that time. Yet, Three-Arms found delight in this, and decided to leave Kyle alive for later.

‘I’ve grown tired of weak humanfolk, but you’re different. Become even stronger for me.’

Three-Arms left behind these words with a smile, as Kyle barely survived their encounter. Despite that demon being Kyle’s driving force, he was forced to watch him off with a smile, and even given a chance at survival by the enemy, Kyle was dejected beyond belief.

Yeah, there’s no reason to fight him, and only a fool would wish for needless fighting..

So Kyle tried to convince himself, but the itching deep inside of his body wouldn’t subside. At the same time as he was lost in thought, Yuriga called out to him.

“Flame-Eye rarely fights herself, so the only one I have actually witnessed partaking in a fight before is Thunder-Breath. His lightning attacks in the shape of his breath gave him his prestigious title, reaching from a close distance to long-range. He could easily fight a thousand humanfolk soldiers on his own, and most likely slaughter them.”

“That sounds like a pain, all right. With no magic or long-distance weapons, there’s no chance.” Seran commented after hearing Yuriga’s explanation, realising that he is a dangerous enemy to fight.

If his thunder breath attacks were effective even from long-range, close-distance fighters such as Kyle and the others were at a clear disadvantage, and blocking the attacks with their swords wouldn’t work either.

“So the only way to defeat him is from a distance. A surprise attack would be the best, but since he’s cautious with us around, that’ll prove difficult..Getting in close-range and finishing it with one attack probably would be the best.”

“Can you really talk? It’s not like we have to fight him, remember?” Lieze gave an exhausted comment towards Seran who was already coming up with strategies.

“I mean, it’s safe to assume that he’s intent on fighting us. His resentment towards us..or humanfolk as a whole, rather, was no joke. He might just ignore the Demon Lord’s orders to attack us directly.” Seran said with a serious expression, to which Yuriga agreed.

“There’s a good chance, indeed..which would be perfect for us, it would finally give us a reason to erase him.”

“Hey, what about us? We’re the ones getting attacked if that happens.”

“You won’t die that easily, am I wrong?” Yuriga calmly countered Seran’s argument.

At the same time, Shildonia was exchanging information with the two dragons. Ghrud showed a sour face, clearly uninterested to join the conversation.

“I see, so that’s why the Demon Lord called you here..” Irumera finished hearing about the circumstances from Shildonia, showing an expression of consent. “I get that she’s got her sights set on you, considering what you’ve done so far.” Irumera showed a faint snicker.

It appeared as if her evaluation of Kyle’s group had grown quite a bit compared to before.

“So you came here to look for this Juvars under Zeurus’ orders, huh?”

“Yeah..Zeurus-sama judged that it would be important for demons and humanfolk to negotiate further, and since Juvars-sama resides here, we were sent as messengers.”

“That Zeurus, so he’s finally decided to act.” Shildonia’s thoughts drifted towards her old friend, so to speak, as she showed a wry smile.

Zeurus probably realized that staying neutral before the great war between demons and humanfolk won’t benefit anybody.

“That reminds me, you two managed to use your humanification powers?”

“It’s been three months since. It’s not easy by any means, but we learned about it as it was deemed necessary. As Zeurus-sama told us, there will be more and more times we will interact with both humanfolk and demons. When talking, taking up the same appearance would make things easier to fit in.”

“I really can’t be bothered, to be honest. Damn that old man, what punishment is this..Making me look like this!” Ghrud complained as he always would.

It seemed like Irumera learned the ability to shapeshift out of her own desire, but Ghrud evidently was forced into this.

“Oh, so he actually gave you a punishment, I see.”

“Yeah. Normally he would have been forced to stay with him, but since that wouldn’t allow him to ‘reflect on his actions’, he forced this job as an envoy on him..” Irumera seemingly had a lot of trouble looking after Ghrud, letting out an exhausted sigh. “However, I couldn’t have anticipated Juvars-sama to vanish like that..”

“Hmm..I did meet them once before, but I couldn’t tell you why they’re up and gone now.” Shildonia crossed her arms. “At the very least, he wasn’t exactly friendly.”

“I just hope nothing has happened..if he were under the same situation as Ghrud was before..”

A few months ago, Ghrud had been controlled by the Mera cult, forced to obey their orders. Remembering this, Irumera grew pale.

“I don’t think that an Ancient Dragon like him would fall for such a thing..”

“Um, could I have a moment of your time?” Angela had stayed this entire time, now speaking up. “Would you mind introducing me to these dragons? It seems like you have been acquainted before this incident..”

“Hm..” Shildonia started thinking.

If she were to explain the circumstances regarding Irumera and Ghrud to her, it would reveal the fact that Kyle isn’t actually a [Dragon Slayer].

“..Well, nothing much lost.”

Angela had already partaken in a secret meeting with the Demon Lord, and she was moving together with them, so trying to hide it would only result in more trouble later. Looking over at Kyle, he was lost in thoughts as usual, so she decided to ignore him, and explained how Kyle actually didn’t kill Ghrud, and simply made him pass out.

“So that’s what has happened..Though I have to say, building connections not only with the demons but also dragons, what wonderful work as always.”

Even after learning the truth, Angela’s evaluation of Kyle showed no signs of having dropped. In fact, he may not have killed the dragon, but he very much defeated it, so it’s not as if his strength was to be doubted.

“Still, so you ran into the Mera cult, I see. We’re very active in trying to erase any sort of Mera traces in the Empire, but to think they had been active in the shadows of Eddos..” Angela showed a complicated expression.

With that timing, a maid entered the room to tell Yuriga of something, taking her away with her. After confirming she was gone, Kyle broke his long silence.

“Everyone..what do you think of the Demon Lord?”

It was a question he most certainly couldn’t ask in front of Yuriga.

“Well, I could see her being the Demon Lord for sure, she had the necessary charisma for it.”

Everybody agreed with Shildonia’s evaluation.

“But, that Demon Lord’s got something weird to her. How do I say this..she’s contradicting herself?”

“Yeah, agreed..Albeit trying to make humanfolk accepted amongst the demons, she sees humanfolk a bit too lightly. She apparently didn’t even remember Klaus’ name, so I feel like she doesn’t even care much.” Seran commented with the feeling of discomfort he picked up on, with Kyle nodding along.

“But there seems to be no mistake that she is serious about building a friendly relationship with us humanfolk..As proof of that, she’s trying to keep every human out of harm’s way.” Lieze argued, and Kyle also could see the argument.

“To me it felt like she was just doing the necessary work she needed to do to get to her final goal.”

“Yeah, it all feels a bit over the place. Despite being serious about her work, she doesn’t care much about the Empire being clearly hostile towards demons. Hence, I anticipated she would either try to use me or remove me from the picture, but..” Angela seemed like she felt something was off about Luiza as well.

Now that the princess of the Empire had learned about this secret plan, it would have a great influence on everything. Yet, the Demon Lord showed no plan of action.

“She should have realized that, but the fact that she practically didn’t even care about me was evidently weird.”

“There’s a lot of things I’m curious about, but..why does she even want humanfolk and demons to get along?”

Clearly, Luiza’s thought process was an irregularity amongst demons. Kyle was very interested in asking just what made her decide on all of this.

“That being said, asking her straight to her face is a bit..”

Judging from her personality, it was dubious if she would even answer honestly, and maybe her mood would drop being under the doubts of Kyle’s group, so the plan of asking her directly was something that needed more consideration before being implemented.

“Why not ask her during dinner later?” Seran nonchalantly commented.

“Maybe if the mood’s right..”

It appeared as if this dinner would give Kyle a considerable amount of stomach pain.

Once some time had passed, Yuriga returned, telling the group that preparations for the dinner had finished, and guided them to the banquet hall. Right as they were about to leave the room, Lieze called out to Urza, who stood a bit further away from everyone.

“..Urza, what’s wrong? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Her face looked awfully pale as well. Thinking back on it, Urza hadn’t spoken a word since they arrived here.

“Hey, you okay?” Kyle saw this, and panicked a bit as he approached her.

He regretted being so self-absorbed in his own feelings that he didn’t catch on to Urza’s condition.

“No, that’s not it..It’s just..the spirit power of water is strong here, and the remains of the higher-ranking water spirit that had gone violent here are interfering with me, so I feel a bit restless..”

It seemed like she was unable to explain it herself, but she tried her best to reassure them.

“I’m feeling well, so don’t worry about me.”

“If you say so..” Lieze still seemed concerned, understandably so, but since the person herself said this, she had to accept it.

“Ah, this isn’t even something bad. On the contrary, maybe..Hehe.” Urza seemed oddly happy, which made Kyle feel dubious, but she didn’t reveal anything more than that.