No Flaws

Chapter 12

The man sat alone, relaxing in an impossibly ornate room. He smiled, which was visible through his mask.

Elegantly, he waved a hand in the air, directing his servants to exit the chamber. They bowed to him, every motion carefully practiced, and left without a word.

Just as they did, a jovial-sounding voice resonated from the previously empty sofa against the wall.

"Well, so much for Gelmud, huh? After all the help we gave 'him, he screwed everything up right at the last minute."

The voice belonged to Laplace

The news he brought was grim, but he didn't sound particularly affected as he walked up to the man.

"Pfft. It is not an issue. He died without breathing a word about our relationship."

"True 'enough," Laplace observed as he took a seat across from his conversation partner. "But after all that work setting it up, it's gotta hurt that it didn't result in a new demon lord, isn't it? You wanted a demon lord that'd serve as your faithful servant, rather than having to work as equals with the others. That was the whole point, yeah?"

The man gave Laplace a fatherly nod. "It would be a lot easier," he observed, "if you were willing to take that role for me."

"Ooh, no thank you! Can't say I'm up for taking on that kinda responsibility, no. Those guys're a buncha monsters! If something went wrong, it'd be my neck on the line. I mean, the last demon lord that was born..."

"Demon Lord Leon. The human—Leon Cromwell."

"Yeah..."

They could feel the temperature palpably drop around them.

The one thing that any would-be demon lord had to bring to the table, above everything else, was strength. Real strength.

The former human Leon Cromwell. His almost eerie charm allowed him to attract an army of magic-borns to his side, one after the other, before he declared himself the lord of his little frontier territory.

This enraged one nearby demon lord, known as the Cursed Lord, and he immediately declared war on Leon—only to be beaten back, at great loss of life. Not by Leon's army, but by Leon himself, acting alone

"Well," the man said, ignoring the sudden chill in the conversation, "enough of Leon. My real concern is that we have already reached out to two demon lords about this. I am sure they will be very disappointed to hear that the plan failed at this rather late stage"

"Okay," Laplace countered, "but look at these, will you? They'll show you something pretty crazy."

He produced a set of four crystal orbs. Three contained the stored visual records of three orc generals, while the other one contained Gelmud's.

The orc general orbs retold all their valiant glories in battle. Each one ended with the sight of the magic-born people who apparently defeated them, showing off overwhelming power as they did. They were Kijins, a high-level race that the more elderly ogres might evolve into once every few centuries. With their abilities, they held the potential to be just as powerful as orc lords, even. They were fabled to crush the earth, rend the skies apart. And there were three of them recorded on these orbs.

That, and a magical beast the likes of which he had never seen before. It wielded lightning and gale storms with ease, putting it in the upper echelons of the animal kingdom.

It was certainly well beyond A rank, though, and that meant there were four monsters in this battle that shot right past A and into the Special A rank. Gelmud never had a chance out there.

The real concern, though, was what the fourth and final orb showed. A single human being, flying over the battle field.

A child, it appeared, wearing a mask. But nothing at all was normal about him. It was more accurately a monster transformed into a person. If not that, a newly born hero.

It appeared from the visuals that this child had the four enigmatic creatures under his control. When the situation turned to battle, it was clear Gelmud was far out of his element. The image went black quickly—no doubt when some attack landed a telling blow upon him.