The Overlord’s Aim

It had already been two months since the former territory of the Kingdom of Lumoria was pacified… and now, rather than being called the former territory of the Kingdom of Lumoria, this land had come to be known as Einheria.

Einheria’s population had reached 1.2 million in humanfolk alone, and its monthly mana stone income had also gone over 12 million.

It might not look like a bad income at all… but since it was the kind of income that would vanish just by raising my Wisdom by 1, it was far from satisfactory.

Well, as for mana stone income, in order to expand it even further, I had already put one plan into motion, and it was currently working out quite well… but I would explain that another time.

And as for races other than humanfolk… well, goblins, that is, we had managed to discover about two hidden villages within the country.

I dispatched Bangagonga and had him carefully explain Einheria, and also the mana collection devices.

Since the circumstances were different from when Bangagonga himself was involved, they were not very willing to believe it, but even so, there was no way that the problem of conflict with humanfolk and a means of resisting Frenzy would not be appealing, and after several rounds of negotiation, the two hidden goblin villages moved in their entirety to the castle town of Einheria.

Well, neither settlement had that many people, so in terms of mana stone income they could not even begin to compare with 1.2 million humanfolk, but helping goblins was not a bad thing when considering what lay ahead. And I had made a promise to Bangagonga too.

I had also had them investigate information on fairy-folk other than goblins, but since the diplomats were currently busy with another matter, no especially promising information had been obtained there.

For the time being, I thought we might be able to get information soon on the harpy settlement to the south that Bangagonga had mentioned before. That too was thanks to the plan I had been setting in motion since pacifying this land… but that was irrelevant right now.

More important than any of that was this!

“Am I really being called the Sexual Harassment Overlord behind my back!?”

I asked Fio that while bowing deeply toward her.

“You ask that the instant you see me…?”

Of course I did. How much did she think I had hunted monsters over these past few months just to ask this question?

“No, well, I know because I have been watching… but have you not been trying a little too hard?”

Fio let out a sigh that seemed to say from the bottom of her heart that she was utterly dumbfounded.

After months of hardship… after having that outrageous bomb dropped on me that day, I had spent my time constantly paying attention to my line of sight.

Frankly speaking, I had been living my daily life under even greater tension than when I held audiences with Viktor and the former Lumoria nobles.

In order to preserve my mental balance… every night before going to sleep, after fluffing Lumina, I prayed that I wanted to meet Fio in a dream and talk to her.

If I heard that monsters had been spotted in the east, I went there, and if I heard that a horde of monsters had appeared in the west, I went there… and though sometimes it turned out to be bandits rather than monsters, the Overlord had slain every last one of them.

And now at last, at last today, I had achieved a reunion with Fio… naturally, there was only one thing I could ask first.

“I’m already at my limit! Please… before the Overlord’s reason disappears… tell me!”

“No, but then what are you planning to do if I strike the final blow and tell you that yes, you really are being called that?”

“…”

“More to the point, the fact that you’re asking me that means you more or less know the answer already, does it not? You just want reassurance. You want me to say in one word that those girls are not saying anything like that about you.”

“…Well, that’s true enough.”

Certainly, somewhere in my heart, I believed that Ilmitt and the others would never say such a thing about me. But… to say that aloud…

“Even while being convinced that absolutely no one is saying strange things about you, you still seek that guarantee from someone else… that is shameless beyond all measure.”

“…”

I somehow felt like I was being called a tremendous coward…

“I am indeed clearly calling you a coward.”

“Guh!”

The Demon King’s merciless strike gouged into the Overlord’s heart!

“…You still seem to have plenty of composure, though, do you not?”

“Filone-san… no, Filone-sama. I can only admire the compassion in your heart, you who activated a ritual even at the cost of your life for the sake of the Demon Kings of future ages.”

I would not call you a shitty-salty Demon King anymore, so please forgive me.

“A simple apology from the heart would be better than garbage like that spilling from your mouth.”

“Then…”

“Whether I forgive you is another matter.”

“Guh!”

So narrow-minded… not that I would ever think such a thing, so please forgive me…

“Well, I am magnanimous, you know? My heart is broader than the sky, my thought deeper than the sea, and I am a perfect Demon King who possesses both a beauty that makes the sun pale and a transience like the moon, so it is not as though I could not forgive you.”

…Empty. I had to empty my heart. I had to mobilize the full power of my Overlord force!

Do not think about anything. It was fine, Fels, you could do this!

“You are exactly right.”

“I could feel an incredible amount of internal conflict from you… but very well. As for the matter of people speaking ill of you…”

A-At last, I would be freed from the hell that had tormented me for these past few months… no, even if they were not saying it behind my back, that did not mean it was okay for me to shoot out sexual-harassment gazes… but at the very least, perhaps I no longer had to live under this degree of tension… so thought the Overlord.

“It is true.”

“You liar!?”

Ilmitt… Lynferia… Otonoha… Ururu… there was no deeper meaning to the order in which I called their names, but… seriously?

“That was a lie.”

“So it seems Demon Kings really are the scourge of the world! Perish! Demon King!”

“Though the world be vast, I imagine you are the only one in it who ever tried to defeat a Demon King for a reason like that.”

Fio said that while sneering at my fury.

“You worthless Demon King…”

“Hmph. Whatever you say to me now only sounds like the barking of a loser.”

“Damn you…”

It felt like my guts were boiling, but… she was right that there was no point in saying anything now.

“Well, they are not saying it at present, but perhaps it would not be strange if they did start saying it tomorrow, you know?”

“…Was I really that close to the danger zone?”

“No? If anything, Ilmitt in particular… no, I shall not say that.”

“Hey, do not bring up a name and then stop halfway like that.”

I rebuked Fio after she for some reason suddenly fell silent mid-sentence.

“My tongue simply slipped. Pay it no mind.”

“…”

“More importantly, are you sure it is fine for you to be taking things so leisurely?”

“Hm?”

Fio asked that while wearing a slightly serious expression.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I know what you are thinking, so it is fine, but… I mean the matter of the war.”

“Ah.”

Only then, once she said that, did I finally understand what she meant.

At present, Einheria was in the middle of a splendid war.

The enemy was a nation adjacent to Einheria, which, seeing us as being in turmoil, crossed the border to snatch away some territory.

“One nation would be one thing, but your opponents are three nations. Is that not a little too many?”

“Well, that just meant they wanted territorial expansion that badly. It was truly wonderful.”

“Northeast, south, northwest… to be invaded by three of the five neighboring nations, you certainly were popular.”

“I deliberately made the defenses near the borders look thin. And the first nation gladly came charging in.”

Einheria declared that it had annexed the Kingdom of Lumoria, and at the same time withdrew the territorial armies that had been stationed at the forts near the borders.

Naturally, from the perspective of the opposing countries, they must have thought that troops had no choice but to move because of turmoil in the center.

In truth, the army was being reorganized, so the information from their spies probably only served to support what they had seen: that the troops near the border had disappeared.

In the midst of such a perfect opportunity, the first to act was the Kingdom of Fregis to the south.

They raised a great army of forty thousand and violated Einheria’s border.

The military power of the surrounding nations was roughly on the same level as the combined national army and territorial armies of the Kingdom of Lumoria, so forty thousand was a scale approaching nearly half their entire force.

In response, Einheria sent out twenty-five thousand troops, confronted the army of the Kingdom of Fregis inside the border, and was currently locked in a back-and-forth struggle.

Seeing that Einheria had only been able to send twenty-five thousand troops against the Fregis invasion force of forty thousand, the Kingdom of Est to the northeast must have judged that moment a golden opportunity.

Several weeks after hostilities broke out in the south, the Kingdom of Est then crossed Einheria’s northeastern border with an army of thirty thousand… Einheria attempted to repel this with ten thousand troops, but almost simultaneously, the Duchy of Yuran in the northwest now rose in arms as well.

From an outside view, it looked as though we were being beaten to an utter pulp.

To put it in terms of Nobunaga’s Ambition… it was like having Matsudaira, Saitō, and Kitabatake all invade right after unifying Owari.

Ordinarily, there was no way to win.

“One can catch a glimpse of your rotten personality… by deliberately pitting fewer troops than the enemy, you were advertising to the other nations that you had no room to spare, were you not? Just as you intended, the two northern countries saw it as a chance to snatch some territory and happily rose in arms… but the former nobles, who had been told nothing, must have been unable to rest easy at all.”

“If I told the nobles my aim… well, they would not have relaxed completely, but they might still have thought of it as part of a plan, and there was a danger that the tension on our side would not be conveyed to the enemy. And if they did not invade, we would lose the justification for what came next… it was a baited invitation, basically.”

“A justification, hm…”

“Preferably, I had wanted all five of the surrounding nations to invade, but it looked like the two countries to the southeast and southwest were not moving, so I was planning to launch a counterattack soon.”

Naturally, the ones I had sent to the borders were my own people.

I had intentionally prolonged the war with fewer troops, trying to make the other countries think, Now might be the chance to seize some territory, but… it seemed the remaining two countries had no intention of attacking, so there was no point in dragging the war out any further.

I intended to swiftly annihilate the invading armies… and then, in the same stroke, crush those three nations.

Heh heh heh… this would let me increase the population in one quick stroke… since their military strength was on par with that of the Kingdom of Lumoria, their populations were probably around the same too.

Population four million… no, could it go to five million…?

Fifty million a month… splendid… this was the Overlord’s population increase plan!

The operation was named “You invaded us, so you can’t complain if we invade and wipe you out in return, right? ~ Your Citizens Are My Citizens ~.”

“…Your sense for operation names is catastrophic, but the way you have obtained your justification is truly devilish. It is a power play possible only because you understand the overwhelming difference in strength, but have you gained a little confidence from fighting the Kingdom of Lumoria?”

“Well… yes. In the beginning, I moved quite cautiously, but I came to understand that our power was exceptional in this region. That ridiculous dragon helped with that too.”

After all, that dragon had been talked about as a threat to the surrounding nations as a whole.

If the only armies around were ones that could not defeat that thing, then it would be harder for us to lose.

“If this battle helps the installation of mana collection devices progress, then for me there could be nothing better. Still, do not overdo it, all right?”

“Yeah. Right now, the children who can fight are away in various places, so while I still have room to spare, I will not overdo it.”

At my words, Fio showed a slightly troubled smile.

“That is not what I meant… but very well. It is about time for today, but… one last thing. You already seem to have realized this, but I shall tell you just in case. Hunting ordinary monsters is not all that efficient for meeting me. If possible, it would be better if you fought Frenzied monsters.”

“I figured as much… well, it is not as though those are easy to find, but I’ll do my best.”

“Mm. I shall look forward to the next time we meet. Though, of course, I am always watching you.”

“I would rather you show a little restraint there…”

I had no idea whether my mutter reached Fio or not… because I was already awake from the dream and lying in bed.

Well, even if she had not heard it, she would understand what I was thinking.

Now then, that aside… my mental burden had been lifted.

“What a refreshing morning… the world looks beautiful.”

The Overlord’s battle was only just beginning!