Chapter 88

After leaving the Reapers, I returned straight to my own village without any further detours.

“Yes, it’s peaceful here.”
I saw some Ogres swinging their fists at each other as soon as I stepped into the village, but that was a daily occurrence.

If anything, it would be very abnormal if no one in the village was being punched.
And so the occasional shouting I could hear was no more different than the cries of a cicada to me. It was part of the scenery.

“Welcome back!”
As I walked down the path, Beka saw me and came running.
She was carrying something on her back.

“Ah, hello.”
It was surprising that in spite of knocking her into the ground nearly every day, she still kept coming.
All the other Ogres of her age were too scared to even look me in the eye.

“Huh? Were you off somewhere, Golan?”

What a terrible thing to say. She invaded my house all of the time in order to challenge me, but now she forgets when I happen to leave.

“I went to another town… But more important, what is that thing on your back?”
She was carrying something that looked like a Chimera.

“This? It’s a boar, a great snake, and a monkey. I hunted them today.”
“I see… Why don’t you carry them separately?”

She had shoved the snake into the boar’s mouth.
But as it was very large, only the snake’s head fit inside. The rest was dangling out.

The other end was wrapped around the monkey’s neck…she was using the snake to tie everything together.
In other words, she brought them back so that they looked like a single creature. It was quite surreal.

Beka was somehow much more sloppy than the average Ogre.

“Did you pummel all of them to death?”
“Did I? I might have just snapped them.”

When it came to pure arm strength, Beka was superior to her older brother, Saifo.
She could probably crush my hand if she shook it.

However, Beka moved without much skill to speak of, and so she had never succeeded in grabbing me.

I left her and entered my house.
“Welcome back.”
“Welcome back, Sir.”

Painy and Rig were in the house. Why?

“I thought that you’d be back today, and so I took the liberty of waiting here. I also prepared some food for you.”
That was my adjutant for you. He understood me well.

“Thanks, Rig.”
“Not at all. I expected you to arrive a little earlier, and prepared it in advance. So it might be a little cold now.”

“Yes, I stopped by the Reaper village. That’s why I was late.”
He was even thinking about the exact time I would arrive. I wasn’t sure if I should be impressed or scared.

“My village?”
“I met Ruma. I didn’t really have a reason for going. But I just thought that it would be good to see it.”

“I see. It is a very nice place.”
We Ogres found it much too gloomy, but I didn’t say that.

“By the way, I heard that there are Reapers from other countries that want to come here.”

“Yes, I was told about it the last time that I returned to the village. However, they said that this was not a tribe they had been in contact with before. And so there are many uncertainties about it.”

“Well, it can’t be easy to move from one country to another. They should come when they feel like settling down. …But more importantly, it looks like a war will be starting again.”

“Against who?”
Rig asked with a serious expression.

“The same country. This time, we’ll be invading.”
“…”
Rig and Painy looked very surprised.

“Lesser Demon King Leninoth is very powerful. Surely he is too powerful, considering the size of his armies?”
“That’s true. And so we have to prepare so that we don’t die, and so we don’t lose.”

While I said it was war, we wouldn’t actually move until Tralzard sent out his army to the border. We were wholly dependent on someone else.
If Tralzard didn’t distract the other countries, we would not have the courage to launch the invasion.

And if my plan was accepted, we had to lure Fara’s army into Leninoth’s country as well.

“There is a lot that we need to do.”
I would do anything to help raise our chances of survival.

“I will do my best.”
Painy said with determination.

The Reapers had finally found a place to live. She did not want to lose that.
And I didn’t want them to lose it either.

“It will be a very severe fight. However, we have plenty of time. Don’t stress yourself out. It’s too early for that.”

This was not a fight that we could escape.
And so we had to train. I could already hear the Ogres groaning and saying ‘again?’

I asked Rig to get me maps of Leninoth and Fara’s countries.
He said that they were at the castle, and so he went to fetch some copies.

In the meantime, I made the Ogres and Reapers undergo the exact same training.
To put it simply, it was training that did not use special abilities.

For some reason, residents of the Demon World tended to rely on their race’s unique abilities and skills.
It was something that set them apart from other races, so I suppose I could understand why they would want to rely on them.
But I wanted to change that.

One problem was that in spite of them being so reliant on these special abilities, most of them had not really tested them to see just how effective they were.
It was so bad that I wanted to yell at them.

For the next two months, I beat them thoroughly into shape. There would be no coddling in this army. Backs would be broken.

But then again, I might have been the one who really got stronger from it all.
Perhaps it was because the Reapers were already at such a high level. In a way, they were beating me into shape.

And like that, we finished our preparations. And then the order came for us to march. It was good timing.
I also got a report that said they had decided to use my plan.

And so began the plan to defeat Leninoth.

Next Chapter

Makai Hongi