There are times in one's life when it is appropriate to take pity on your friends. Loss, obviously. Traumatic experiences. Love troubles. Sickness. I suppose you could fit the mother of all hangovers into that last category, if you really tried and squinted a little.
I wasn't feeling particularly merciful, though.
That's why I slammed the plate, piled high with the most nutritious and magically potent food money could buy, down onto the table. The sudden noise made the major pain in my ass wince and bury his face in his hands with a groan.
I went for the kill immediately, pitching my voice just right to deal maximum psychic damage. "What's wrong, your majorness? Does your head hurt? Want Bronwynn to kiss it all better?"
The major disappointment tried to glare at me, but the second his eyes were exposed to the light, he groaned some more and covered them again.
Served him right! The major… I was running out of puns that covered his current legion rank, but dang it, I'd come up with some more later. Anyway, Glaustro was still out of commission, almost a full twenty-four hours after our meeting with the general.
"Mercy…" my major mumbled brokenly, then winced again when I made sure my newly claimed chair was extra screechy as I dragged it closer to him. "Mercy!"
I scoffed, but I did stop trying to make him suffer on purpose. Though my bitterness was on point, it wasn't like he could have said 'no' to General Naberius.
He definitely could have stopped after the first glass of wine, though. I figured he had thrown caution to the wind since he couldn't do a thing about his situation. But again, bad Glaustro!
Still, I relented and let him wallow in his misery while we waited. The others were all away, even Mia. I had been elected official defender of his major ass while they completed the tasks they were assigned.
Mia was currently visiting logistics for resource claims, seeing as she could maintain a bored façade for as long as might be required. Hopefully, that would make the clerk in charge give up on trying to annoy her away and thwart us again.
Methialia was visiting demons she knew who might be inclined to join our legion. In light of Glaustro 'accepting' his offer, the general had hinted that all of our ranks would be rising soon. A higher rank meant more subordinates. And needing more subordinates meant a ton of work for all of us.
Bronwynn, meanwhile —
The door to the private room we'd booked in a small restaurant banged open, revealing the harried form of Glaustro's lover. Bronwynn looked like he had fought a rabid horde of imps for the potions he was hugging to his chest. But before I could ask what had happened, he slammed the door closed and bustled over, laying his bounty out on the table.
"Here, start with this one," he said hurriedly, shoving a potion in Glaustro's direction. "Follow up with this, then this, then this. And then we…"
I tuned him out, gazing at the impressive regimen of at least twenty potions arrayed on the table.
Glaustro didn't even try to protest. He just grabbed the first potion in line and started chugging. By the sixth or so, he was actually starting to look less like a corpse and more like the competent major I'd come to know and appreciate.
"Ugh… Never again. Never. Again. He can hold me in contempt. Kill me. I don't care. It has to be better than this…"
"I don't know," I drawled, making no effort to conceal my amusement. "Your soul looks a lot shinier than it was yesterday."
This was true. I had no clue what the wine was, but its effect on Glaustro's soul was profound. This was the soul of a noble demon, mind you. A Viscount. But in spite of Glaustro's power, the wine had visibly grown and toughened his soul.
He wasn't at the peak of Viscount all of a sudden or anything. Still, he was definitely pulling towards the middle of the pack, if the radiance of other Viscount-level souls I'd seen was an accurate guidepost.
"Okay, enough of this." Glaustro paused between potions to take a deep breath. "What did I miss? I… can remember most of our visit with the general, but things were fuzzy towards the end there."
I smirked. "Mmm, they would be. Long and short of it is, he got you to agree. Apparently, he'll be 'working to set us up as the best possible choice for his successor.' I'm guessing that means you'll eventually be made the fifth lieutenant general? Not sure how he expects to do that, or if he's planning to get us to off one of the others instead, but it probably won't be pleasant. For us, I mean."
"That is a fair assessment." Glaustro winced, squinting at the world despite all the potions. His soul was still unsettled, rippling ever so slightly like sloshing water, so I suppose that was to be expected. "Naberius will not pick me unfairly. If he wants me to succeed him, then he'll make it so that his choice is uncontested."
"Meaning?" Bronwynn ventured cautiously, hovering around Glaustro like a hummingbird too scared to land on a flower.
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"Meaning, we'll get the hardest assignments. We'll be pushed beyond what would be expected of us normally. He won't hand things to us directly, but he'll position us to succeed." Glaustro sighed wearily. "That does mean we might all get killed along the way, though."
I grinned, trying to lighten the mood. "Well… We've done a decent enough job of surviving this far."
"Too good a job, apparently. People are still upset about our success. No one did anything while I was out there on my own, but there were… whispers." Bronwynn's arms were crossed defensively in front of him.
"We definitely should have tanked the Breskwor conflict, preferably after plundering the world for all it was worth," I grumbled. "Then Naberius wouldn't have been able to send us to Desire. Speaking of… how are things in that layer? Any news?"
I was stuck on a few things that had happened there once the invasion wrapped up. Desire had pushed hard to retaliate against the Seraphim's meddling, and apparently was hurt quite badly. She was also rinsed for all she was worth, though the compensation had yet to trickle down to us mere soldiers, much to my annoyance.
Yet in spite of all that, Desire herself was actually in a better position than she had been when it all kicked off.
It was still only rumors, but everyone agreed that whatever she'd done towards the end of the conflict had allowed her to tear the portal rift away from Cradle's control. She had temporarily sealed it after the fact, but Desire now had a hand on the trigger of a major invasion.
An invasion that would take the attacking army straight into Cradle.
Oh, I had little doubt that the angels had the area on the other side locked down something fierce. You didn't need a brain to know you should guard against a major security risk like that. However, a strong enough demonic force could still push through and take the fight to them.
Like, say, a united force of legions.
That's why a lot of the layers had backed off on the harshness of their demanded compensation. From what we were hearing, at least. Already, Grand Dukes were circling and courting Desire. The portal was in her lands, after all. Anyone who wanted to join the potential future invasion would need her approval.
Honestly? Even with the Conner-unpleasantness towards the end there… good for her!
Just as I was about to get into the subject with Bronwynn and my rapidly recovering major, the door opened again. I felt a flash of irritation that it was Methialia entering and not Mia, but the guilt that followed let me tamp the Emotion down. It helped that the demoness looked exhausted.
"How did it go?" I asked, more to be polite than out of any real curiosity.
"Eh. Could have gone better. Could have gone worse. People are wary. Rumors about us are still flying all over the place, and a lot of people have pulled back with a wait-and-see approach. Always plenty of desperate demons, though."
"I don't think we can only fill our ranks with the desperate, Methialia," Glaustro reprimanded, even if his voice didn't have any real heat in it. "But they'll do, for a start. Anyone with real power and potential?"
"A few. You'll need to meet them, though. And we'll need a confirmation of things first, of course. Can hardly start recruiting all over the place if we still don't know whether it will be necessary."
"We have some openings in our army anyway, but true enough." Glaustro looked between Bronwynn and Methialia expectantly. "Any word on when we can expect rewards, promotions, and the like?"
"Internal promotions? Soon," Methialia replied. "The general's been moving decisively, so I wouldn't expect new postings and promotions to take more than a couple days. Rewards from Desire? Could take a bit. A ton of Grand Dukes are apparently renegotiating the deals their representatives struck, and that'll affect our compensation, too."
We fell silent for a few moments as we all processed the news. Without direct confirmation of things, we were sort of stuck. We couldn't exactly seal ourselves off on Breskwor if the general was planning to send us on an invasion or something soon. With so many eyes on us, running to our world before getting marching orders would also look cowardly, so we were double stuck.
"I'll order more food and some non-alcoholic drinks, then." I moved to do just that without waiting for anyone's opinion. "I don't want us to hog this room without actually using it for its intended purpose. Might just help us think a bit better, too."
My great plan lasted until I opened the door, at which point I had just enough time for my eyes to widen before something white slammed into my face.
This was alarming for several reasons.
First, as a Baron, my senses had improved considerably. That meant that even if I couldn't react, I should at least have seen an attack coming. Second, whatever had rather harshly impacted my skull had been followed by several flustered-looking staff, all staring at me with growing horror. Finally, whatever had hit me directly in the forehead had also stuck to my face, covering most of my vision and radiating an unpleasant, sticky mana.
I said the only thing I could thing of.
"Ow."
My voice was dry, and deeply unamused. As I reached up and plucked the item off of my face, however, all other feelings gave way to confusion.
I was holding a bird. A very pretty origami bird, at that. It chirped, gave one final shake of its tail, and then unfolded into a pristine envelope with not a single sign of a crease anywhere. Written on this envelope, in cursive handwriting I didn't recognize, was Glaustro's name.
"I-I'm so sorry, sir," stammered one of the restaurant employees. "That thing flew in suddenly and slammed into the door of your dining room. Then it kicked up a fuss when it couldn't gain entry! We understand if —"
"It's fine. Really. Thank you for trying to manage whatever… this whole situation was. Could I bother you to whip up a repeat of our breakfast spread, please? We'll handle this on our own in the meantime."
I waved the letter vaguely, fended off their thanks, and retreated into the safety of the room we'd spent most of the day in.
"Letter for you, Glaustro," I said by way of explanation, then simply dropped the thing in front of my major.
His eyes narrowed at it dangerously as he picked it up. "I recognize the handwriting. It's the general's secretary."
"Oh? And why do you recognize it, hmm?" Bronwynn asked drily, only to smirk at the startled look Glaustro sent him. "I'm teasing. Read the letter?"
My major did, with only minimal grumbles.
Of course, the further he read, the more startled he looked. Vaguely ill, too, though the amused twitching of his lips betrayed that the letter didn't contain only bad news.
"Well? Don't keep us in suspense," I pushed when he finally put the thing down.
"Well… I am to be a colonel, apparently. That means you sorry lot are up for a promotion, too. Congratulations. More importantly, we have our new posting."
He paused dramatically, gauging our reactions. When he realized we looked ready to jump him, weapons in hand, he relented.
"We are in charge of the upcoming initiation invasion. We'll be leading a bunch of mortals into their first conflict."
"Oh…" I looked around. "Yay?"
No one appeared all that eager to cheer.