About six hours after Mirage arrived at the training grounds did he finally transferred the last soldier.
「fuuuu, it's done at last。…… I drank too much of that Mana potion, my stomach feels bloated. 」
As he rubs his stomach, Mirage sat down at the spot with a completely exhausted look.
Originally, with Mirage's ability, transferring a few hundred soldiers is an easy task to carry out, so he shouldn't be tired here.
But, because the effects of the mana potions are slow and not instantaneous, it is necessary to pretend to wait for the recovery of magical power.
Surrounded by a few hundred brawny demon king's army soldiers, he pretended to be meditating by drinking mana potions after he transferred several of them, and over time he repeated the same action several times.
The training ground is not at all small, but the temperature and humidity of the surroundings naturally rises when a few hundred people gather.
Most of the soldiers are male demons who have a peculiar odor, on top of that having to drink the bitter liquid uncountable number of times, Mirage's pain is hard to describe.
「 But... I still can't take a rest. I have to go back to the castle and finish the reports. 」
When Mirage says he will go back to the castle, he is referring to his castle, the Shadow Castle.
The Shitenno( 4 heavenly kings) are the heads of a large army, and there are always many documents for their approval.
Although to some extent, it is usually handled by the deputy Astarte, but there are many important cases where the stamp of Mirage, one of the Shitenno( 4 heavenly kings) is needed.
「haa……Gate」
While letting out a voice that sounded tired, he creates a big rift in the space and started moving.
That figure hanging his head appeared so pitiful that it can be hardly related to the dignified image of the Shitenno(4 heavenly kings).
Mirage, who disappeared from the training ground of the Demon Castle, reappeared in his office in the Shadow castle.
「 Good morning, Mirage-Sama. Has the Demon King's order's been fulfilled? 」
As soon as Mirage arrived at his office in the middle of the night, he heard the voice of a girl filled with sarcasm.
The owner of the voice is dressed in a military uniform and is continuously moving her hands while dealing with the documents on the table.
Although she spoke to Mirage, who had transferred, her gaze remained fixed on the documents before her.
「un, Good morning, Tart-Chan. I just finished transferring the soldiers to the fort safely. Anyways, That's an awful lot of documents. Should I help you? 」
Mirage replied to Astarte, the girl who was clearing out the documents while making a grumpy face.
Sarcasm has become an every day thing, that now there is seemingly no excessive-reaction to it.
And when it comes to Astarte, who is regularly burdened by his responsibilities, Mirage acts carefully in his way.
「 Well, since originally these documents were meant to be handled by Mirage-Sama, I would by all means like to ask you to do it. 」
He was just being considerate, but it seemed he stirred up a hornet's nest and Mirage's next words seemed to have stuck in his throat.
「 Well, it is unavoidable since it is an Imperial order from Mao-Sama and speaking of unavoidable …......」
Unusually, she follows-up and Mirage felt relieved.
「 If you had responded to the call from the beginning, this would never have happened, what do you think of that Mirage-Sama? 」
The reality was not so sweet, and Astarte's eyes, who turned to Mirage, at last, appeared considerably cold contrasting to its original blazing red color.
However, he concluded that there was room for rebuttal and as such he boldly confronted Astarte.
「 I'm sure tart-Chan is right, but the working hours of the demon army are decided from sunset to sunrise or vice versa in the first place. I don't think there's any reason why they should be investigated for overtime. 」
Mirage spoke to Astarte in a tone of voice which made it easy to imagine him having a proud smile behind his mask.
The working hours in the organization called Demon King Army is determined by 2 shift system, in case of exceeding it, overtime is paid separately.
As most of the Demon tribes don't require sleep, such a system where the salary is quite high and the working hours are shorter than other jobs is quite rare, so it is very popular among the demons.
It can be said that one of the main reasons that Mirage joined the Demon king army was because he was attracted to its short working hours.
「 It is true for the ordinary soldiers, but Mirage-Sama is one of the Shitenno(4 Heavenly kings) and is in an administration position. According to the Devil King Army's labor laws, 41st Article 2nd clause, those in the supervisor or administrative position are excluded from the application of working hours, rest as well as holidays. That is to say that Mirage-Sama is habitually violating Military law. 」
Mirage wonders why this young lady can recite the meaningless Demon King army laws-the law applied within the Demon army and also was surprised about not hearing anything related to that.
「 Huh? there wasn't such an explanation when I became one of the Shitenno (4 heavenly kings). No, Mao-Sama is an evil person. As one would expect from the greatest of all the evil. 」
Although it is a demon, not a person, Mirage glossed over it and changed the topic. 1
In the first place, if there was such a rule, Mirage would not have become one of the 4 heavenly kings---no, he wasn't going to be from the beginning but would have resisted more intensely.
「 I don't know what place Mirage-Sama worked in before you joined the demon king army, but this is the same for all places, not just in the army. Working hours may differ, but the treatment of those in an administrative position is common in most countries whether they are Demons or for example sake humans also. 」
Since Mirage lived off of his parent's fortune, he had never worked until he joined the Demon King army.
Even when he started working as a Human—Falsa, as he had no intention of climbing up the ladder, especially the Administrative position so he didn't go out of his way to know about their treatment.
Even when Falsa became the head of the imperial court mages, although he was rather busy during the daytime, the people around him were careful not to force work on him at night as they feared his magic power.
These circumstances have also helped him, it is possible because of this that he can work as a different race during the day and night, though it has also resulted in him having no time for himself.
「Aaa- is that so, I didn't know that. Without knowing it, I seem to have caused Tart-Chan trouble. I apologize for that, and I'm very sorry. 」
It was quite funny in his outfit, but Mirage bows down to Astarte in a sincere manner.
On the other hand, Astarte is surprised that Mirage, one of the Shitenno( 4 heavenly kings), apologized obediently to his subordinate, her grim expression a little while ago collapsed, and her red eyes are wide open.
「 Nnn, in the first place the Mao-Sama has not questioned or judged any fault in you so it is not necessary to apologize to me. It is necessary to obey the law, but I also know that at times it is not all. If it is Known that, Mirage-Sama one of the Shitenno( 4 Heavenly Kings) bowed his head to me, I will be berated. I will also forget about this matter, so please raise your head quickly」2
After clearing her throat, even though Astarte's words contained her spite, and also as one would expect she was a little uncomfortable as she kept rattling on.
Although Mirage doesn't like to work, he doesn't like to bother others.
In particular, his lazy side is greater, but because he happens to have a feeling of guilt, so he cannot help but reluctantly continuing his current lifestyle.
「 I am glad hearing you say so. Let's put the papers away for now. 」
Mirage takes about half the documents at Astarte's desk, sat on the chair next to her and begins to check the contents of the documents.
Astarte stared at such an appearance of Mirage, rather awkward to be cut off.
「umm... I don't want to say this in this atmosphere, but that document has nothing to do with Mirage-Sama. If you want to help me, please let me handle it. I don't want you to make arbitrary decisions without checking it.」
It's not clear who is the boss.
Mirage returned the document without saying a word, and received an alternative bundle and resumed the confirmation.
The sound of pressing of the stamp, writing of letters and rubbing of paper resounded in the office for a while.
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[1.TL NOTE: in this line and the line before you can see Mirage referring to Demon king as an "evil person "and it can be translated also as "evil human", so I was confused at first whether to use human or person as it would be easy to understand the 2nd sentence if I use "human" but then when I read the exact definition of person(a human being regarded as an individual) I felt that both are well and all the same and I can replace human with person.]
[2.TL NOTE: here you may or may not have noticed that there is no full stop "." at the end of the whole speech, it is because Astarte is still talking and is interrupted in between by Mirage. ]
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