After that business with Esther and the conversation with the Demon King, I simply waited until I was sent to this village I'm now supposed to command. My expression the entire way was impassive and neutral.

I'm not sure what to feel. Why do I blame myself for this? I feel like it was my fault, and I should bear the consequences. So I just accept it in silence as I step out of the carriage, looking at the village where I'll be living from now on.

'It's small...' It's a small, quite antiquated village. Wooden houses, little ambient magic, and a road of poorly laid stone and rock that shakes any carriage passing over it.

"Does Evelyn-sama require us to do anything?" Eve asks as I look around. The demons in the village don't even glance at me while I observe the house that will be mine, a small mansion in the village center I can see from here.

"No, you can go with Syl'Vyr, Faye, and Clarissa to my mansion," I say while looking at the messenger who came with us.

He's a man with black hair and red eyes, large black horns, and a scaly tail like a serpent's. He has a sharp gaze with vertical pupils and a serious demeanor; despite a naturally slender and lean physique, he's elegant.

He's wearing black clothing with red details and a golden messenger's insignia stamped on the right side of his chest. His name is Leyhey Tyrk, and he's a 310-year-old tribal demon, one of the Demon King's messengers.

"Can I start leading immediately? And where are my soldiers?" I ask the messenger as the others head to the mansion.

"...From the moment you arrived here, you became the owner of everything. Do as you see fit. Your soldiers are in a temporary base 1000 meters from the village so they don't disturb the residents."

"...Okay then... where will you be staying?" I'm not exactly sure where he'll be in case I need to send a message.

"It depends. Normally, I'll be at your mansion, but I'll also be at the temporary base, or wherever else you are." He just summarized the fact that he'll follow me wherever I go.

"So, if I just call you, you'll deliver messages for me anywhere?"

"Yes, although of course I ask that you not use this service for unnecessary things. My priority function is deliveries to the Demon King... but if you wish to send something extra, I can take it along with main dispatches." He speaks while his tail moves softly against the stone ground.

'Oh, so he'll carry things for me as long as I send them along with something for the Demon King...' That's good. I remember the contents of Esther's books. I think I'll make one full report per month and send it to the Demon King along with letters for Esther.

"Then I'll head to the mansion... I need to deal with whatever my work is now. You're coming with me, right?" When I ask, he just nods as I look at the storage ring. The books I have will be the things that help me the most with this.

'Puppets... I need to create standard puppets...' So far I've only created living puppets, but there are also standard puppets, lifeless troops that merely obey orders. They can't grow their power on their own, but they can be mass-produced if I have the material.

Before, I wanted to use the golden apples as material, but now perhaps I'll have to use... fallen enemies and allies... It's disgusting. It's repulsive. And it's completely unethical. But I swallow my pride and my fear to try and change and impress Esther.

'It's strange... This feeling of guilt is giving me greater determination than I've ever had before... greater even than the determination to become a better person and not be a failure anymore...'

...

...

...

"Hey man, this is so boring. What's on for today?" I ask irritably, tossing a little ball against the camp wall. We've been stuck here for two weeks doing nothing.

"They said our new commander arrived today. She's one of the Demon King's daughters and is now going to lead the city and us in the fight against the angels," he says something interesting.

"Seriously? I thought the Demon King had just tossed us aside. After all, he sent us to this area without any chain of command. Honestly, if the angels attack without a commander here, we'll be wiped out..." I speak seriously.

"You're right. I hope this girl is good at leadership. If not, we'll have problems. And I hope she comes soon. It's already getting hard to control supplies. Three more days and we'll start going hungry because they're spending more than they should." He speaks seriously while I roll my eyes.

"This is what happens when they leave us here alone! How do they expect us to handle all this boring logistics stuff? Like, in the other area we were in before, someone always handled it! No one here knows how to manage and organize things." I complain, and he totally agrees with me.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't get your hopes up too high..." Someone cuts into the conversation. The two of us look at the girl who's also part of this battalion.

"What do you mean?" I question her.

"Evelyn Ashcroft. She's the one who just arrived in the city to be our general. And from what I know, she's the Demon King's failed daughter." When she says that, the two of us look at each other before getting angry.

"They sent a complete useless person to lead us?! If desertion wasn't punishable by death, I'd jump off this sinking ship!!" I say with a scornful smile.

"You shouldn't say that. It's a fact that this Evelyn Ashcroft is seen as a failure, but she's also the wife of Esther Ashcroft..." When she says that, the three of us get chills.

That name is really feared among the troops. Everyone knows who Esther is. Her military feats are absurd, and some of her tactics are still used today, along with some of her methods for interrogating prisoners and organizing military supplies.

"That sounds tense. Well, I guess we just have to wait and see, right?" the guy next to me says while I sigh, not wanting to pick a fight with someone as huge as Esther Ashcroft.

"What time is our 'commander' going to come see us?" I ask, frustrated. I don't want to be led by someone with a reputation as a failure, and I'm only not doing anything because now I know this failure is married to someone dangerous. Otherwise, I wouldn't even obey.

"We don't know yet. She just arrived in the village, so probably in two days?" the girl says, sitting down with us around the extinguished campfire while grabbing a metal can and opening it to eat.

"Leaving our new commander aside, how's the watch on side A? I don't want to get attacked by angels in secret. I heard they appear rarely around here, but they still appear."

"Besides, the village inhabitants said the last time they appeared, there were 700 of them, and that's kinda hard for us to handle, you know? We hardly have anyone who can fly or attack high up." She says something serious.

"700? Wow, crazy! That many? We need at least 10 of us to deal with just one!" Angels have a lot of advantages. Not only do they all have wings and generally know how to fly, but they're also usually just as good at magic as we demons are.

"Such is life. They're trying to invade at all costs through any place they find. By the way, I heard before we came here that the angels seem to be taking this war more seriously now, so angel attacks are only going to increase!" She says terrifying things.

"What a shitty time to be a soldier! Ahhh, I really wish I was retired," the guy next to me says as we all sigh wearily.

"Well, let's look on the bright side. We're not on the front line. Have you heard the crazy things they do on the front? By the way, the succubi are the weirdest of all! My brother was killed by one!!"

"He lost an arm and was put in the medical wing to be healed. When they found him, a succubus was having sex with him and he died from his wounds and loss of vitality!! And I heard that happens a lot because those wild beasts are always brought to the battlefield and released in certain situations!" When I say this, the girl in front of me looks disgusted.

"Seriously? Man, succubi are so gross. How can they try to do that stuff with people who are almost dead? I wouldn't have the stomach for it. Well, my turn to say something bad, huh? We also have the chemical bombardments they do when they want to clear large areas."

"I had a buddy who survived that and came back missing his legs. He said it was hell. The air felt like it was burning his lungs, while the ground was literally boiling and bubbling! And it gets worse! He said blisters were forming on most people's bodies and popping into acid while white gunk oozed from the wounds..."

"Urgh, that's so disgusting! How can you talk about that while you're eating?" My buddy next to me says to this girl who's telling this exact story while eating.

"Hey, I'm hungry, okay? I didn't eat anything last night! Besides, I didn't see it personally. They were just stories from a buddy who survived it."

"Tsk." I click my tongue, looking at the sun's position.

"Well guys, that was an... educational... conversation, but I have to go. It's my turn to patrol! And I don't want to get bombarded by light arrows if I let an angel slip by, right?" I get up to go do my job.

"Good luck out there," the two say at the same time as I say the same to them.

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