Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 3

As I relax in my office in the Demon Lord’s castle, my feet kicked up on the desk, the sound of thunderous footsteps reaches my ears.

They storm right up to my room and burst through the door without so much as a knock.

“It’s pretty poor manners to barge into a lady’s room without even knocking, don’t you think?”

“You call yourself a lady? Yeah, right. What a joke.”

It’s Balto’s younger brother, Bloe, who’s not even attempting to hide his disdain for me, as usual.

He’s mad that I showed up out of nowhere and assumed the throne instead of his big brother.

But Balto has been perfectly cooperative with me and hasn’t made any attempts to rebel. So I guess I’ll generously let his baby brother off the hook for his extreme rudeness.

I’m not mad. I’m sooo not mad, okay?

“So. You must’ve come here for a reason, yes? Balto’s not here right now, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Bloe hates me, so he avoids me as much as possible.

So if he’s here now, he must need something from me, or else he’s looking for his brother.

“I got sent here to give this to you, all right?”

Bloe stomps up to my desk and raises his hand as if to throw something down on it with all his might, then changes his mind at the last second and places it there gently.

What is this guy playing at?

“Um, okay. Thanks, I guess.”

“Mm-hmm.”

His voice is lacking its usual fire.

Was there a recent shocking development or something?

Well, I guess it’s not like I care how Bloe is feeling.

Looking at the object on my desk, I discover it’s an envelope containing a letter.

As soon as I pick it up, I can feel that it’s not ordinary paper. Judging by the smooth texture, White must’ve made it herself.

Now that I know who sent the letter, I open it and skim its contents.

“For real?” I mutter without thinking.

The several sheets of paper in the envelope contain the names of ringleaders who are plotting a rebellion, the head count and composition of their forces, the reach of their influence, how well supplied they are, and other detailed information.

I have no idea how in the world she found all this out or why.

White always manages to blow my expectations out of the water.

“Bloe.”

“Hunh?”

As Bloe starts to leave the room, I call out to him.

Incidentally, only a few scant seconds have passed from the moment Bloe handed me the letter to the moment I finished reading it.

So from Bloe’s point of view, he handed me the letter and turned to leave, and I stopped him almost immediately.

I’m only able to pull that off thanks to the Thought Super-Acceleration skill, but Bloe doesn’t know that, so to him it probably seems like I stopped him without bothering to read the letter first.

Not that I care what he thinks.

“Read this.”

Naturally, my demand makes a vein pop in his head, but that’s none of my concern.

“Listen, you!”

“Once you’ve read it, bring it to Balto. And give him a message for me. ‘Take care of it.’” Ignoring his blustering, I carry on with my commands. “Demon Lord’s orders.”

“Tch!”

Bloe grumbles a lot, but he does as he’s told. I guess he’s a good worker deep down.

As Bloe reluctantly reads the letter, his expression slowly changes from grouchy to utterly serious.

Although his brows stay furrowed the whole time.

“Is this true? You sure?”

Bloe looks doubtful.

But the sheer level of detail in the letter leaves little room for doubt.

As hard as it might be to believe, there’s so much proof that it’s all but impossible to deny.

Although I’m guessing Bloe is even more amazed because it was White who gave him this letter to deliver to me.

From his perspective, White probably seems like a secluded princess, not a combatant of any kind. She’s always holed up in the duke’s mansion, so he’s not exactly wrong.

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In fact, even I don’t know how White managed to gather all this vital information, when she never leaves the mansion, or what motivated her to do it.

And if it’s a mystery to me, it must be even more confusing to Bloe.

“…”

Bloe walks out without another word, still staring at the letter.

Dude, at least say something.

I am technically the Demon Lord, aka your boss.

See, this is his problem. Even if he’s a good worker for the most part, he lacks common sense about stuff like this.

No wonder he’s not popular with the ladies.

Now that Bloe’s gone, I put my feet back up on the desk.

To be honest, I’ve got nothing to do, so I’m super-bored.

Well, I guess there’s plenty of things I could be doing if I wanted to, but it’s more effective if I don’t actually do those things myself, I think.

There are lots of guys like Bloe who despise me, even if most of them aren’t actively plotting to revolt.

Especially ’cause I’ve shown my true strength to only a handful of people, like Balto.

The demon race is a meritocracy. So of course the Demon Lord has to be pretty powerful.

And this power isn’t limited to just battle, either.

Balto’s political prowess is acknowledged as a kind of power, too, for example.

And the person who’s chosen as Demon Lord is usually a well-known, influential demon.

Someone who’s been popular since before they became the Demon Lord.

Most people are satisfied with that kind of choice.

But I’m not even a demon, and I’m not very well-known.

Yeah, I guess I’m decently famous as the oldest of the Ancient Divine Beasts, but nobody would draw that connection between me and the legends unless I spread the word myself.

To most demons, it probably seems like some random person of totally unknown strength and origin just showed up out of nowhere and became the Demon Lord.

It’s only natural that there’s gonna be tons of people angry about that.

And ultimately, that anger fuels the forces White found moving in secret.

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So why don’t I just show them how strong I am? Because I don’t want anyone to flee.

It’s one thing to rule with fear, but if you add overwhelming military might to that equation, then it’s just going too far.

In theory, I’m strong enough to crush the entirety of the demon race all by myself.

And if push comes to shove, I’m willing to do exactly that.

What would the demon race do if they knew all that?

If they’d simply obey me to save their hides, that’d be perfectly acceptable.

But if they run away, that’s a problem.

See, turning the tables on would-be rebels who come after me is a piece of cake.

I’m strong enough to do that without breaking a sweat.

But if they scatter and flee in every direction, I’m screwed.

I don’t have the time or the manpower to chase them all down, round them up, and dispose of them.

It might be possible if I used my remaining queens and other offspring, but then the whole demons-versus-humans war would be over.

It’d just be me destroying the demons and then me versus humans.

I’d like to make that a last resort.

In order to go up against the likes of Dustin and Potimas, I want to use the demon race as a breakwater and as sacrificial pawns.

Which is why I want to hide my true power from the demon race as much as possible, while still ensuring that they obey my orders.

The fastest way to do that is to show my true strength only to powerful demons like Balto and Agner and bring them to heel.

If they’re following my orders, then their subordinates will automatically obey me as well. Like Bloe, for instance.

Of course, there’s still bound to be some people who are discontented about the current state of affairs.

When that anger reaches a breaking point—meaning, when there’s a rebellion or something—I’ll just show them a small measure of my power, enough to silence any demons who were doubtful.

The plan is to let the dissenters gather into a revolutionary army and then purge them all in one fell swoop.

Once I’ve wiped them out, it’ll prove to everyone else that I’m worthy of standing at the top.

I just have to be careful not to go overboard and scare people off.

It might be hard to strike just the right balance…

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Or at least, that’s what I was thinking, until White laid the whole secret revolution bare before I even noticed it was happening.

Now we might crush them before I even get a chance to take the stage.

’Cause now we know exactly who and where they are, how strong they are, and how to beat them.

And since I got that information so far in advance, I can launch a preemptive strike whenever I want.

With everything laid out so clearly, you’d have to be the worst commander ever to lose this fight.

Now, even if I wanted to show off my power, I’ll just seem like I’m full of myself for showing off when victory’s already assured!

What is White thinking, being so thorough that it actually messes up my plans?

Now I don’t have anything to do at all.

Ughhh, talk about a pain.

…I’m not sitting around doing nothing by choice, all right?

There’s a very good reason I’m not working. If I go around taking care of things without justification, it’ll just make the demons resent me even more, so I really have no choice but to dump it all on Balto.

I mean, I played the part of the absentee Demon Lord so well that if I start meddling now, it’ll just make things worse.

I’m not slacking off because I want to.

I’m not. I swear.