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Chapter 100: Welcome to Hell: Walled Off

“They are proceeding well, Superior Quinmorada’qualticularoohdodonmi’asmomonomomonminmi’oohdoohdimyuumyuuquanquimi’jinndarrqyuqyakwuquoquanki’miminanmujardinmani’quokinwukanquokokanki.”

“Give me specifics. Your history with this case fills me with no confidence when hearing that things are proceeding ‘well’. Is Arlan Nota close to death?”

“Fucking– How do you expect me to know that?” The Devil shook his head. “We have defenses set up. He’ll probably die soon. We’ll see–”

“Xhag.” His superior stared at him with a look of warning on her face. “I am aware you’ve been spending quite a bit of time in the Overworld around the Humans. I am aware that they have a… certain way of speaking. I am aware you are so weak-minded so as to allow yourself to be influenced by them and adopt that way of speaking. However, I am not aware that I have ever authorized you to speak to me in such a manner.”

He stared at her. He’d slipped up again. More and more, he found himself speaking and thinking using those words that the Humans did. At first, he’d just spoken to the Humans that way so they’d fully understand that he was above them. Then, he spoke to his underling Demons. Now, he was having trouble removing such casual prose from his vocabulary. “I’m sorry, Superior–”

“You’re sorry? I assume you mean ‘formal expression of apology.’ Xhag, you must become aware that I could have you executed for the way you’ve spoken to me.”

“Ah– yes. A most formal expression of apology, Superior Quinmorada’qualticularoohdodonmi’asmomonomomonminmi’oohdoohdimyuumyuuquanquimi’jinndarrqyuqyakwuquoquanki’miminanmujardinmani’quokinwukanquokokanki. It will not happen again.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t execute you. For now. But I fully intend to give you a fate worse than death if you do not succeed here. Kill Arlan Nota before he escapes to that other Human territory, or you will face severe consequences.”

The Devil fought back a scoff. As if he wasn’t already facing severe punishment with this overwork they were forcing him under. All he wanted – more than anything – was for this to be over.

“Don’t disappoint me, Xhag. You can give me your report later, since it seems like for now, you’ve accomplished nothing of note.” His superior waved her hand, shooing him out of her office. “Get back to work.”

So the Devil sat back down at his desk, surrounded by his ‘peers’ in rank only – he was obviously still better than them. He, of course, wouldn’t be doing his copying work. Instead, he needed to make some calls.

Talking with the Overworlders over communication crystal had become one of his main time-sinks ever since he ordered the wall to be built, and if he was being honest, it’d become a bit of a relief to talk with them instead of his fellow Demons. At least they weren’t so particular about his language.

“Update me on how things are going,” he said once the crystal connected. Humans apparently didn’t have ready access to this technology, so it took some time to get them used to it.

“Hello? Is this thing on?” The elderly voice of Winic Vigandoth echoed through, and the Devil’s coworkers stared at him, annoyed. He didn’t have a private office, so any time he made a call, everyone else had to listen.

“Yes. It’s on. Give me an update.”

“Hold on,” he croaked, and there was a staticy shuffling sound, like someone was rubbing their sleeve up against the sound-sensitive crystal. “There, it’s cleaner. Should transmit signal better.”

The Devil winced at the loud noise. “...The cleanliness of the crystal has nothing to do with the sound quality.”

“Hold on, hold on, let me just get this last smudge off…”

“You don’t– listen, just give it to someone else. I’ll get the report from them. Is, uh… Keiki Umesai around?”

“Ah, yes, sir. She just got back from a scouting mission. I’ll find her right away.”

Winic Vigandoth was one of the many leaders of the wall project. He was one of the only people who truly understood that Enchanted rock they’d pulled out of the royal vaults – the one that generated the shield. So, even though he was a bit strange, he was integral to the functioning of the project. The rest of the leaders had a bit more common sense, though, so he liked to speak to them rather than Winic.

These leaders, unlike the people that’d been in charge of the previous kingdom projects, had been hand-picked by the Devil. Before, when all he interacted with were those fucking idiots who sided with the dead King Koinkar, he absolutely hated interacting with Humans. But now, it wasn’t that bad anymore. At least they were competent.

Winic Vigandoth had been some court Wizard wasting his talents on research instead of actual military expansion. Sure, he was eccentric, but he also knew more about magical artifacts than anyone else – even if he tended to get the wrong idea every now and then, like his strange superstition about the communication crystals and keeping them clean. Keiki Umesai had originally been assigned to be a military strategist – yet another waste of talent, as she was clearly much better fighting battles herself, rather than telling others how to do it.

There were a few other leaders of the wall project, not all as high-Level as Winic and Keiki. Some of them didn’t have Classes at all, in fact. That was something a few of the Humans seemed rather appalled at, actually. Something along the lines of ‘people without Classes shouldn’t run military operations.’ It seemed like the Humans thought they were too weak? But to the Devil, all of the Humans in the kingdom were pretty weak, so it didn’t make much of a difference to him.

Most of the strong ones lived elsewhere, and even the strong ones that resided in the kingdom to begin with left once they realized what was going on. After all, to become strong as a Human, you had to survive a long time – and you didn’t survive a long time by fighting battles that weren’t necessary.

But Keiki Umesai was at least smart. She knew what she was doing, and she knew how to do it well. So when he heard from Keiki on the communication crystal, he trusted what she said.

“Sir, the fugitive should have been here by now. To put it candidly, something has gone wrong.”

And that was not something he wanted to hear from a trusted source. “You haven’t seen any sign of him?”

“No, sir. We’ve begun sending out scouting parties, which I’ve led, but still haven’t seen him. We especially should’ve seen signs of his group if they were in the wasteland. There’s no cover to hide in.”

“And those scouts we gave the invisibility rings to?”

“One of them was captured, presumably questioned, then killed before we could retrieve him. So we’re assuming the fugitive knows everything he knew. We’re also assuming they have the remaining rings, so we have stopped sending out scouts. The fugitives know to watch out for them now, and if they catch more, they get more rings, which could be detrimental to us.”

The Devil frowned. “Okay. So where is he, then?”

“We don’t know.”

“Well, we have some ideas,” a new voice came in faintly from the background.

“Ah, Carison Aakbi,” the Devil recognized the voice. This man was one of the Unclassed he’d put in charge. This Human ran a merchant company that spread all over the kingdom. And he’d built it up from when he was just a peasant, scraping up enough money to eat by selling scraps out of the garbage that he’d cooked into edible – and even tasty – food.

Whether that’d be considered ethical by most was up for debate, but the Devil could appreciate someone with the ambition and intelligence to drag themselves up from nothing like that. When the Devil had first heard of the fact that, in Human culture, a person of trash birth could raise themselves up to become a king, he’d been disgusted. But now he understood it.

Maybe it was different for Demons. But with Humans, it really seemed like some were just born into unlucky circumstances, but were still intelligent and hardworking. And they deserved to see some reward for that diligence. So when he heard about Carison, who went from meager street-rat to influential merchant, he was eager to recruit him. It was relatively easy – all he had to do was get some money out of the royal treasury and wave it in front of the man’s face – and the Devil was glad to have him on his team.

“Where do you think Arlan Nota is?” The Devil asked.

“If people aren’t coming to your establishment, they aren’t just sitting around at home. They go somewhere else, instead – a competitor,” Carison said.

“And who would our ‘competitor’ be in this metaphor?”

“The ‘product’ we’re selling is passage through Kingdom’s Edge. We’ve just designed it such that the price is impossible to pay – take down the wall. We hoped we had a monopoly, such that the fugitive had no other options on ways to get through, so they’d have to pay our impossible price. However, it seems we do have a competitor, after all – one that’s offering a better way to get through. And that would be the being that’s been trying to take this wall down the whole time we’ve been building it.”

The Devil frowned. He’d heard about their issues with the Dragon, of course. They gave a report every time it attacked. He knew its attacks had been getting weaker and shorter, while the wall’s defenses were getting stronger and stronger. Sure, they had no hope of actually killing the thing, but he was pretty confident it’d get bored eventually. As long as they didn’t actively antagonize it and get the attention of the other Dragons – no way they’d survive an onslaught from multiple at once – it shouldn’t have been an issue. And since it didn’t seem to realize the wall repelled magical attacks much more effectively than it did physical ones, it most likely wouldn’t ever break through.

But if the fugitive worked together with it, they may have problems. Really, they didn’t even need to take down the wall at all. If the Dragon just distracted the soldiers in the wall, Arlan Nota could sneak by. Or, really, it could just fly them away.

The Devil wasn’t too scared of either of those things happening – the Dragon would only help them if they had something to offer, and the only thing they could offer would be helping it take down the wall – but the longer this went on, the more time Arlan Nota had to find a way through this.

“So you think he’s climbing the mountain to go contact the Dragon, then?” he asked.

“It’s a possibility.”

“Hm. Send a scouting party into the mountains and see if you can find him, then.”

“Sir,” Keiki cut in, “climbing the mountains would be suicide for an ordinary group of soldiers. Especially approaching a Dragon that’s trying so hard to kill them.”

“You’re not an ordinary soldier. Could you lead them?”

There was a pause before she eventually responded, “It may not be a good idea. If we’re too slow and the Dragon comes back for a full-force attack alongside the fugitive, if I’m not there to help defend, things will go poorly. It’d be an incredibly risky move to go off on this wild goose chase. I think we should stay back and wait for him to come to us.”

“We need to actively work to achieve our goals,” Carrison said, “not wait for them to be achieved for us. The fugitive will not simply come to us and die for the sake of our convenience. We cannot hole up and wait.”

“If Keiki doesn’t want to be sent out on the mission, I won’t make her,” the Devil said. She’d probably perform worse if he forced her out like that. Or just desert – he knew that a large part of the reason she was protesting was almost certainly because she didn’t want to personally put herself at the risk of facing the Dragon without the protection of the magic barrier. “Besides, I have some ideas for a couple other people that can lead this excursion.”

“Are you sure, sir?” Keiki asked. “Anyone you send out is likely going to be risking their lives. I’m not sure if anyone would voluntarily go out.”

“Oh, don’t worry. They’ve been learning discipline for the last week or so. I’ll send them over in a bit – you may recognize them, actually. You’ll hear from me when they’re on their way.”

“Okay, sir. Thank you.”

“Of course.”

The Devil hung up, then reached his Mana into the crystal once again to make a new call. This time, the succubus he had posing as King Koinkar picked up.

“Yes, Xhag’duulinithar’obaba’iidook?”

“I want you to get some people out of prison for me.”

“Of course, Superior Xhag’duulinithar’obaba’iidook. Who would you like me to order freed?”

“Take Ripley and Asmo out of their week of torture. And be sure to tell them the premature end is conditional. I’m giving them one chance to make up for their mistake in the past – letting Arlan Nota survive.”