Volume 14 Chapter 14 Preparation For The Demon Continent Summit
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
*Kent’s Perspective
I left things at home to my mother-in-law and Kondrad, then grabbed Milly, Lina, and Valentina.
We pushed day and night, flying hard on Dragonewt express, and finally hit the capital’s palace──Eternita.
I’d already sent someone ahead to tell Shifa we were coming, so we got permission from him to bring the Dragonewt right into the royal grounds.
Since this was an emergency, I asked him to ditch all the fancy court stuff to save us time.
As soon as we landed in the palace garden, I marched straight for the audience chamber where Shifa was waiting.
When we got there, a bunch of ticked-off nobles and True Demon Kingdom soldiers──all drafted here at the last minute──whipped their eyes over at me the second I walked in.
Most of them were giving me that ‘Who does this vassal king think he is, bossing us around?’ glare.
Felt like the only people who actually got how serious this was were Shifa, Aldo, and my father-in-law.
…Yeah, this is bad… With this kind of vibe, will they even believe me?
Well, if things go south, I’ll just have to ask Shifa, Aldo, and father-in-law to throw their weight around…
The awkward tension in the room made me want to bury my head in my hands, but if I chickened out now, the Demon Continent could end up a wasteland.
No backing down──I had to get Kingdom to send their army, no matter what.
”Your Majesty Shifa! Sorry to skip greetings──this is urgent, so let me get to the point.”
”Very well. I’ve read your letter, Kent, so I’ve got the basics. But nobody here really understands how serious this is. Wake them up for me──make them see.”
The second I skipped all the bows and started talking, all the Kingdom’s retainers glared knives at me.
Decided to ignore their grudge for now──didn’t care if they hated me.
I had to get through to them, or they’d never realize the world is actually on the line.
”Got it. Today, we’ve brought in experts Lina Dorman and Valentina Ockini, who managed Arsella Dorman’s barrier. I want you all to listen to them and rethink things.”
As the introductions of the two end, the audience chamber starts buzzing.
”Lina Dorman is a direct descendant of Arsella Dorman, huh? Who is Valentina Ockini?”
Shifa glances at Lina and Valentina. Lina seems familiar, but Valentina doesn’t ring a bell.
Since Valentina is stammering under the Demon Lord Shifa’s gaze, I decide to fill in the blanks.
”Ms. Valentina Ockini comes from a line that’s been managing Arsella Dorman’s large-scale barrier facilities for generations. She knows why this situation happened and has valuable documents from Arsella. That’s why she’s here today.”
After explaining about Valentina, the buzz in the audience chamber grows even louder.
Already, in the Capital City, few remember Arsella, except for those well-versed in the True Demon Kingdom’s history.
So, in the chamber, those who don’t know about Arsella start listening to those who do.
”Oh, the manager of Arsella Dorman’s barrier facilities, huh? I didn’t know much, but I heard that barrier was stopping invaders from entering this continent when it was passed down from the previous Demon Lord…”
Shifa doesn’t seem to know much either, but it looks like there’s some knowledge about Arsella’s barrier passed down through the Demon Lords.
”Alright, let’s have these two explain the events and the current situation.”
”Mhm, granted. Everyone, be silent! Listen to what these two have to say.”
When Shifa told everyone in the throne room to quiet down, the crowd went silent right away.
Then Valentina started talking, going into the details about the barrier.
”Um… I’m Valentina Ockini. I was in charge of maintaining the barrier for Arsella, Lady Dorman. I really want to thank Margrave South District’s ruler, Kent Sir Blackdagger, for helping me out and letting me explain things here today.”
Valentina was so nervous, her legs were shaking as she bowed.
But even with the nerves, she sounded fired up──like she had to get the truth across, no matter what.
”I’ll… I’ll get right to the explanation. Lady Arsella Dorman set up a big, wide-area barrier over the Demon Continent more than 7 hundred years ago, right after the Second Divine-Demon War ended. After the war, when she became Demon Lord Arsella, she made the barrier to keep humans out. Up until recently, it was running fine. The humans from the Eastern Continent couldn’t get in at all. But… a year or 2 ago, the magic powering the barrier started acting weird. I’ve been trying to repair it, but we ran out of spare parts. I couldn’t even figure out why it was breaking. Then, villages guarding the barrier started getting attacked by ‘another world monsters.’ I asked Sir Kent for help, and right before we escaped the village, the barrier generators finally stopped working altogether.”
Everyone knew Valentina kept fighting to keep the barrier running until the very last moment, but hearing it said out loud really showed how serious she was.
”…So, you’re saying the barrier covering the whole continent is just… gone now?”
An older noble from the same Rakshasa Clan as Valentina was the one who asked.
”Yes, that’s exactly right. The barrier’s protection over the continent is gone. Nobody could leave for the open sea before, but now… I think it’s possible.”
The moment they heard we could reach the open sea, the whole crowd started buzzing.
On the Demon Continent, unless you’re old enough to remember the way things used to be, everyone thinks the sea’s the border between this world and the next.
Word is, anyone who tries to row out gets turned back to land by a barrier──nobody can cross it.
So when folks heard the sea really connects to the outside, most of them were stunned──like their whole world just got flipped upside down.
Valentina (formal, steady): “And, there’s something else I must announce. The barrier erected by Arsella Dorman gave rise to the ‘another world gate’──the Abyss Gate. Now, because the barrier has collapsed, the cracks in time and space are growing, and that land is beginning to fuse with another world.”
Valentina was calmly explaining what she saw at the Abyss Gate, speaking straight to the kingdom’s nobles.
”Lies!! There’s no way this world is merging with some other realm! Isn’t it strange that the Abyss Gate──something that only showed up as a side effect of the barrier──even now hasn’t disappeared?!”
”It’s easy to call it a lie, but everything I’ve said is true. In a moment, Lady Lina will show you a recording captured by her magic tool. See it for yourself, then decide.”
She’d guessed someone would shout ‘liar!’──so for recon, she’d brought one of Lina’s magic recording gadgets (a video camera), just in case.
The video camera fit right in your palm. Lina kept filming all sorts of things, and I’d catch her at it every now and then.
Valentina gave Lina a little nod, and Lina shot me a look──a quiet order to help her set up the screen.
So Milly and I stretched the projection cloth tight, making sure everyone in the audience chamber could see it.
Normally, stuff like this would be left to the underlings, but since we didn’t bring many people to court today, it fell to Milly and me.
Once the screen was ready, Lina switched the video camera to projection mode.
A blue light flickered onto the cloth.
”Ready. I’ll start the show now.”
As soon as Lina finished setting up, she announced the start.
The fabric screen flickered, showing footage from the recon mission they did last time.
The sound was busted──guess some parts were broken──but the video itself was super clear.
The nobles from the Kingdom gasped and muttered in shock as they watched.
The video showed the surface around the another world gate, the Abyss Gate. There were tons of those ‘another world monsters’ swarming outside a building that sparkled silver in the sunlight.
And then, right there──a crack in time and space gaping wide. Out from the crack, the silvery body of an ‘another world monster’ slid out on a cart, getting hauled into place and pieced together right before their eyes.
”…Is──Is this real? So this… this is how those ‘another world monsters’ are made? I──I always thought they were born like normal creatures…”
”That’s what I thought too. But no, ‘another world monsters’ are manufactured. So if that factory in the video keeps growing, we’re gonna end up fighting thousands──maybe tens of thousands──of those monsters. And in the Southern Region, plenty of monsters live there already. Worst-case, Beast Monsters will start breeding like crazy, and the whole Demon Continent might get wiped clean of humans. Does that make sense so far?”
Faces of the nobles in the audience started to tighten. You could see the fear hit them──a cold, heavy feeling sinking in all around.
”Everyone, just as Kent said, I see this situation as truly grave. And honestly, it weighs on me to leave all the burden on the Margrave South District. Even as the True Demon Kingdom, once top dog on the Demon Continent, it just doesn’t sit right. So──I’m sending official letters to every country’s leader on the continent. We’re gonna hold a summit, sign a ceasefire. I want everyone living on the Demon Continent to come together and get through this disaster as one.”
Nobles crowded in the audience chamber started grumbling about Shifa’s ceasefire plan.
”Are you saying we should team up with Fabulanova and even Yaalan?! If we go crawling to them with a ceasefire, they’ll just walk all over us!”
One of the older kingdom nobles, all riled up, was just about ready to bite Shifa’s head off over the sudden ceasefire proposal.
Right now, the True Demon Kingdom isn’t officially at war with anyone, but they still saw Fabulanova’s Black Dragon Dukedom and Yaalan’s True Demon Dukedom as potential enemies. The nobles clearly thought that if they offered a ceasefire first, the other countries would try to squeeze something out of them.
”As for Lady Fabulanova, I’ve asked her husband, the Lord of Clayd, to talk things over. I expect they’ll join us, no strings attached. The whole Black Dragon Dukedom──my Margrave South District will handle them, so there’s nothing to worry about. As for Yaalan, I’m reaching out through Princess Flamil──she’s Lord Yaalan’s little sister, and also my concubine. We’re connected by marriage, so I doubt he’ll just brush us off.”
The Kingdom Nobles were expected to push back, so we sent envoys to the other nations ahead of time. We prepared the groundwork for them to attend Shifa’s summit and sign a ceasefire agreement.
Dee and Clayd were sent to the Black Dragon Dukedom, and Flamil and Carly to the True Demon Dukedom, all via Dragonewt Express. They should be serving them right now.
”Kent’s been taking care of things in my place. Now, we need to focus all our efforts on destroying the ‘another world monster’ and avoiding a global crisis. I’ve been watching the footage…”
Shifa’s words about defeating the ‘another world monster’ suddenly trailed off as she watched the image projected on the screen.
Hm?
What’s up with Shifa…? And why are the Kingdom Nobles staring so hard at the screen? Sure, there are combat scenes, but it’s not like they’re that engrossing…
Seeing everyone’s gaze fixed on the screen, I turned to look at it too.
But instead of a battle with the ‘another world monster’, the screen showed Lina’s half-hearted rescue operation at Felward Fortress, followed by some juicy scenes with my wives and concubines.
Stoppp! Eeeek!
In the middle of such a serious meeting, playing a porno? Stoppp!
”Kent’s known for being wild… I’ve heard he has hundreds of wives and concubines…”
”This is indeed a serious matter…”
”A crisis for the world… We must defeat it.”
Unsettling comments started coming from the Kingdom Nobles who were fixated on the image.
I signaled to Lina to turn off the video camera immediately.
But Lina seemed too flustered to stop the video, and the cold remarks from the Kingdom Nobles kept coming.
Finally, I managed to stop the video, folded up the projection screen, and calmly addressed Shifa as if nothing had happened.
”Ahem! We had some technical issues there, but I believe we managed to show you just how dangerous these ‘another world monsters’ really are. If they flood our world, humans can’t survive. Please──let’s make sure that never happens here!”
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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