First Eyna, now Stella.
He could still feel their lips and couldn't focus at all.
How could he not compare them? The soft, tentative kiss, and the forceful, desperate—
"KONRAD!"
The shout yanked him back from the clouds.
Realizing it was the schoolboy-sized Demon Lord pissed him off.
"What?!"
"Airhead," Midori-kun scoffed, arms crossed. "Been calling for ages."
Well, duh.
"I'm busy working out the logistics of your huge-ass horde," he grumbled.
And would have pointed at his proposal, too, had he written more than a single word so far.
Head too deep in the gutter. What was going on with his harem these days?
They've been acting like, like—
A harem.
"Here's what you asked," the Demon Lord threw him a scroll like he'd throw a bone to a dog.
Konrad blinked before realizing what it was.
"The census?" he asked, still a bit slow. "I wondered if our scouts got your numbers right. Estimated 'bout a hundred and fifty thousand horsemen—"
"Only in this camp. Yes," Midori-kun said, giving him a pause.
"W-what do you mean by—"
The look that little schoolboy gave him made his blood boil.
But at least he forgot about those kisses. Up until that moment. Crap.
"In this warrior camp," the Demon Lord repeated as if he were talking to a five-year-old. "Why? You didn't realize the only women here were the cooks and caretakers?"
"T-there's a second camp?!" Konrad muttered, eyes wide.
He could have thrown all his calculations out the window—
But thank the spirits, he hadn't done any yet.
"Don't worry, that one's small," Midori-kun noted. "Only the elderly and children."
Right. Nomads had families, too.
It made sense that he wouldn't keep everyone in a high-alert military camp.
In case someone attacked them with a giant golem, or something—
"So it's only about fifty thousand souls in that one. Unarmed, save for the guards."
"F-fifty?!" Konrad stuttered in disbelief. "Why do so many follow you?!"
Such a nomadic nation couldn't have sprouted from nothing.
"Huh? Go ask them," the Demon Lord shrugged it off. "They kept on coming, and rather than questioning it, I delegated my small tasks. Gave them food in return. That's about it."
Like hell it was.
This evil wizard from the legends, he already heard about as a kid? Feeding strays? As if.
"Don't know when they started stalking me," the schoolboy pondered like an elderly man. "The first group, like, fifty winters ago? When clearing that dungeon? Guess that impressed them."
Konrad shivered. His own first memories inside of one came to mind.
With the Griphlets, goblins, and all the meat-shield slaves the mercenaries brought along.
"You cleared one all by yourself?" he scowled. "As a hundred-and-fifty-year-old fart?"
The Demon Lord scoffed.
"Age's a mere number. Your wives are thousands of years old, too. Besides, I needed the core."
Right.
This whole invasion was to find more of those, then use them to teleport out of this world.
Which they had already done without them, as a freak accident, no less.
That raised some questions.
"So what's your plan now?" Konrad asked the first one that came to mind. "You'll have me babysit your followers and help seal Lucifer away. But then? What's next?"
The Demon Lord Blinked. Twice.
"I, uh. I guess all my old plans are obsolete now, huh?"
"What were those?" Konrad probed. "Defeating heaven and enslaving thousands of worlds?!"
Midori-kun furrowed his brows.
"Now, where did that come from?" he scoffed. "I mean, sure. Wanted to fight back against those puppeteers, but the rest? Me? Ensaving? What d'you take me for, child? A kind of monster?!"
"Your title is the Demon Lord of this world, you know." Konrad rolled his eyes.
"And the heavenspawns call your first wife a greater demon," Maou snapped back.
Touche.
"It doesn't mean someone's evil. It's someone God designated as his enemy."
Wait, didn't he once have this very same conversation with Lily as well?
Oh. Oh no. Not good.
Now that he thought of her, the first thing he imagined was how she would react to those kisses?! Jealousy? Rage? Although, wait, wasn't she fond of the idea of him having a harem?
"KONRAD," the Demon Lord yanked him back from Gutterland with another shout.
"Stop yelling my name, damn it," he snapped back in kind.
But yeah, he still hadn't done much at all.
"So what will YOU do, then?" Midori-kun turned his own question against him. "You adopt the entire horde, and then you'll keep dancing as Gabrielle whistles?"
"What?! No," Konrad protested. "Well, unless she whistles in a way I like it."
Not that he could go against heaven's will. Not yet.
But he had Lily to do so, too.
She wouldn't let them use him as their pawn, right?
Not any more than they have already done, at least—
"No, thanks. I've wasted one too many lives on working for someone else," he said, putting his pen down. He didn't use it in a while, anyway. "I won't let their power play ruin another."
That said, his first life went to shit exactly because of Lily, rather than the angels, so—
"That didn't answer the question," Maou pointed out. "And I mean the technicalities, too. How are you going to take in all those men and women against the Church, and nobles' will?"
"The Church?" he repeated, surprised. "They didn't seem to give a damn about your invasion."
And even if they did, they had a truce or something.
Plus, the king outright invited the Demon Lord earlier.
If anything, now he'd finally do what his overlord wanted from the start.
And the other nobles?
"There'll be a huge political backlash, for sure," he pondered. "But doubt the heavens will let anything bad happen to me. Not when I'm oh-so-useful and convenient."
Though he said that without conviction.
He didn't want to make the same mistake, thinking he was irreplaceable and safe.
Complacency was death.
Worse. It could invite a slew of problems, as it did with Lucifer to his previous deathbed.
"What I'm saying is," the Demon Lord reiterated. "I won't stick around. And won't be a part of their heavenly games. I'll make sure I don't leave loose ends, but—"
"I should run?" Konrad summarised, raising an eyebrow.
Midori-kun scoffed.
"Not my words. But be free. You already know the spell, that—that bastard angel erased from my mind. But you could go anywhere. Why stay and struggle? It's their game, child, not yours."
Why indeed.
"Where would I go?" he asked, having thought about it for a while. "Here, I'm the duke of Halaima. I've an actual harem—" which he still couldn't get used to, "and I'm a pretty big deal."
It wasn't easy or convenient, but it was something he already knew.
Would it be any better or easier to start over from scratch?
"It's a life I built for myself despite everything," he claimed.
"It's quite a show, too," Midori-kun grunted, making Konrad laugh.
"Oh? And whose fault is that?" He shook his head. "No. I asked myself the same back on Earth. Used to live there—but it felt like my real home's Kasserlane now."
"Don't tell me. You'll turn it into a Utopia?" the Demon Lord teased.
That would have been nice, wouldn't it?
"No, but if I can't get what I want here, no way I could get it anywhere else. I have so much already. All I need is time to enjoy—"
Which, somehow, was always scarce.