"Why is it always you, Lilith?" Gabrielle moaned. "You have to ruin every plan I ever make."
Well, the little ginger didn't take such accusations lying down.
"Excuse you? This might have been last week for y'all, but it has been thousands of years ago for me. Old news. A bit unfair to scold me now, don't ya think? Not like you had plans back then."
Yeah. When you looked at it that way—
"She's right," Konrad decided to take her side, too.
He pulled her closer, protective instincts kicking in.
His hands wrapped around her small frame, and he took a deep breath of her cinnamon scent.
So warm, soft, and familiar.
But his memories from last week—or rather, their lack thereof—terrified him.
"Kaede was Lucifer's main target," he said. "His attempts to kill her—I don't know how close he had gotten. But for a while, I even forgot she existed."
The love of his life. How could that happen?
"Indeed," Eyna confirmed. "We, too, only remembered Lady Liliana's orders, but not her."
The little ginger blushed, melting back against Konrad's chest.
"To be honest, those attacks wouldn't be anywhere near enough to kill me as I am now," She mumbled. Was she trying to lighten the mood? "But as Kaede, well, I had much fewer options."
Gabrielle crossed her arms, still upset about this turn of events, but remained silent.
"Don't look at me like that," Lily pouted. She pulled Konrad's arms tighter around herself. "We still have that Ukrainian guy to find. That would make four of them. It's not like—"
"Five," he corrected, eyes narrowing.
The all-knowing greater demon couldn't count?
That thought alone was enough to stop her in her tracks and glare up at him, offended.
"I said four," she repeated, her voice fierce. "Ballsy, Controller, Meow Midori, and Strelok guy."
Konrad let her go, crossing his arms with his brow raised.
"What about me?"
The angel in the far corner sighed, pushing herself off the wall.
"She wouldn't allow you to partake," she said. "That's why we need more candidates."
"And I'm sure we'll find plenty," Lily grumbled.
She sprouted cat ears to nest against his chest again, but yelped when Konrad pulled away.
"I won't stand by and watch," he claimed, looking straight into her eyes. "I want him sealed, too."
It's not like some pain scared him.
Hell, he even let Stella syphon his life essence for the Demon Lord's sake. Of course, only once his wives left for their hunt. He doubted Lily would have let that happen if she were still there.
But he decided to put his heels down now, face to face.
"It's both my duty and self-defense," he said, causing his first wife to blush. "If there's any way I can fight back against Lucifer, I will. This is not up for debate."
Lily shoved him away, a stark reminder of his weakened state.
Not that she couldn't do that whenever she wanted, but it hurt even more than usual.
"How am I to argue when you're such a meowcho, damn it," she moaned, ears fluttering. "But then I'm also adamant to gather seven of his guys in total. For safety. So we'll need two more."
"Yeah, your math sucks," Gabrielle pointed out, rubbing her forehead.
That broke their spell.
Lily even spun around to hiss at her as if she had already forgotten where they were.
"Does it, now?! Elaborate, oh heavenly angel, where did I happen to mess it up?" she demanded, hands on her hips. "I even counted my Konny boy, so don't piss me off."
Explosive as always.
So Konrad hated to be the one to correct her, but—
"You counted us as if we had already found Strelok," he noted, and the little ginger froze.
"W-well, why not? It's only a matter of grabbing him like those two," she mumbled, waving towards Roach and Soap. They both shuddered, but only the blonde boy protested.
"It's not going to be that easy," he said. "He refused Master Lucifer's call for a reason."
She crossed her arms, nose pointing at the ceiling.
"Of course, he did," Lily stated. "That guy's the only one with real survival instinct. He didn't want to face the greatest demoness in history. You guys should've thought twice, too."
But the boy would only shake his head to her greatest annoyance.
"It's the exact opposite," he claimed. "He returned home because a war broke out in his country."
Konrad's eyes lit up.
"I saw it in the news," he confirmed. "When we were still there. So he wanted to fight?"
Gabrielle let out a long, painful sigh.
"Then he's as good as gone," she complained. That surprised him. "There's no way we'll find him now. Not in a warzone, with only a name, and—we don't even know how he looks."
Right.
If there was one thing he had learned in his second life, it was that wars were very different between the two worlds. Kasserlane had armies to maneuver, but Earth had long frontlines.
Messy and static ones, if he could believe the news reports.
More death and destruction every day than his meanest spell could cause.
"And since we don't know others from that world, that's a dead end now," the angel summed up.
"W-well," Lily cleared her throat. "We still have Meow Midori on this end. Did anyone ever bother to ask him if he knew more of Lucifer's puppets in Kasserlane?!"
"Hmm, I only know one who isn't already here," the Demon Lord in question claimed.
That made her jump, but Konrad did, too.
He arrived right on cue. And he had Stella, Welf, and Lady Helena with him as well.
What was it with everyone's perfect timing in this world?!
And if he thought his office was inadequate before, now he couldn't drop a needle in here.
"Who is it?" Gabrielle demanded, already in the fresh arrival's face. She was faster than all the rest of them. But, well, since she could stop time at will, that wasn't much of a surprise.
Midori-kun stumbled back, though.
As if he were still not used to his rejuvenated body. Again.
Or was it the archangel's immense pressure?
"W-what?" he mumbled, looking for an escape. "You didn't know? But you all met him."
Konrad furrowed his brows.
Someone he knew? From the kingdom?
With everyone waiting for his explanation, the Demon Lord broke into a holler.
"Can't believe you had no idea," he cackled, the first time he actually acted Demon Lord-like.
But it wasn't exactly the best moment. Lily was already at the end of her rope.
"Who the hell is it?!" she demanded, grabbing the schoolboy-sized mage's cloak.
He recoiled—or tried—but, unlike the angel, the little ginger wouldn't let him go.
"W-wait, it's Zoltan, of course. Zoltan Sudberg," he yelped, not very demonic anymore.
Still, the bomb he dropped stunned almost everyone.
"Z-Zoltan?" Konrad muttered, trying to put the pieces together. "No way, he'd never—"
"I've been making deals with him for a year before I even met you," Lily noted in disbelief, too.
Gabrielle crossed her arms.
"Are you sure? He didn't strike me as strong or carrying knowledge of another world."
"H-haha," Maou let out a nervous laugh, surrounded by them all. "I can't blame you for doubting it, to be honest," he said. "The poor bastard has no idea, either."