Fortress LaPolca was controlled by magical beasts Spirit and Armor-type magical beasts.
In order to gather information on the Demon King's army, I sent B-rank Spirit Elie to infiltrate the LaPolca Fortress.
There was one building in the LaPolca Fortress that was particularly large. In order to obtain useful information about the Demon King's army, I had them head to the building, which even had a magical beast guarding it.
The magical beast on guard didn't stop Ellie from entering so brazenly.
Inside the building, deadly skeletons with swords were strutting all over the place.
(It's like we're in an enemy castle. Now, Ellie, find the kitchen. It's probably downstairs or upstairs.)
"Yes."
At Allen's direction, Ellie wandered around and searched for the kitchen.
She found the kitchen at the end of the second floor and walked in.
"Oh, what's the matter!? You haven't eaten yet?"
As soon as Ellie entered, a bipedal pig with a pig's face, a cook's cap on his head, and an apron on came talking to me from the back.
(Say 'The Lord asked me to bring some tea'... and act scared.)
Allen gave the order.
"The Lord asked me to bring some tea..."
As Allen told me, Ellie tells the pig-faced cook.
Allen was instructing Ellie with , while he was producing [Blessing of Heaven]s and hunting the magical beasts that escaped from Tiamo.
"What? I just served him a meal! Well, Lord Glaster was angry, though. I don't know who put you up to it, but you can take it yourself."
(I don't know what he is talking about. Is this Lord Glaster the boss of this fortress? Is he the boss of Rosenheim?)
"I'm sorry."
"Oh, wait a minute, I'll prepare it. You don't look familiar, but you're not too bad yourself."
The pig-faced cook quickly prepared 3 cups, a pot of tea, and pastries while casting a pitying glance at Ellie.
(Hmmm...he still doesn't feel any different about Ellie? Well, in a world that didn't have summons, the magical beasts can't recognize the difference between a magical beast and a summon. Elmea also bugged me about summons in the Appraisal Ceremony.)
Allen had been thinking about how magical beasts recognize their enemies in this world.
The magical beasts of this world would attack even if the opponent was a magical beast. He had also seen a group of Orcs hunting a Great Boar in Granvelle territory.
When he attacked the Demon King's army at night, he had seen many magical beasts stop and eat other magical beasts that were defeated.
In this world, magical beasts were not set up to attack only non-magical beasts in the first place.
Some say that the reason why the Demon King's Army was composed of B-rank and above was because C-rank and below were not enough of a threat to humanity, but Allen thought differently: even C-rank magical beasts were enough of a threat to those without Talent. In fact, he believed that the reason why C-rank magical beasts were not incorporated into the Demon King's army was because the minimum level of [Intelligence] that they can command was B-rank.
It's a world where the identification of enemies and allies was quite ambiguous.
If that was the case, he expected that if it was the enemy camp that was supposed to be leading the invasion operation of the Demon King's army and had many people with high [Intelligence], they would not suddenly attack him even if he put in a summon.
(Well, it doesn't mean I will be able to gather information.)
"Here, take this."
As a matter of course, the pig-faced magical beast tried to hand Ellie a tray with a tea set on it.
"Oh, um, where do I send this...?"
"What? It's on the fourth floor, straight ahead. If you make them wait too long, they'll kill you, so get going."
Ellie took the tray given to her and moved towards the 4th floor.
The room Ellie was told to go to looked like a meeting room or something, and there were 3 of something in there.
(Oh! Are these the Demons?)
In classes at the Academy, Allen was taught that the Demon King had Demons or Demon tribes under his command.
However, they didn't have much information about these Demons or Demon tribes.
The Demon King's Army was basically made up of B-rank magical beasts, and many of these were led by A-rank magical beasts.
It was said that there was very little information about Demon tribes or Demons because they were never mixed in with the magical beasts that invaded.
It was only when the Hero Helmios was able to penetrate deep into the enemy camp and destroy the magical beasts that the existence of the Demon tribe was revealed. The Demon tribe and the Demons were beings that had finally begun to come to light over the past 8 or 9 years as Helmios had been in the process of eradicating the enemy camp.
At the far end was a man with horns like a goat, sallow skin and silver hair. He looked like an old man, over 50 years old, and was clearly in a bad mood.
Next to him was a man who looked like his older brother who also had horns, the same skin tone hair color and long hair. This one had a look of annoyance at the old man who was snapping at him beside him.
Also sitting next to them was a large man with a hyena face who looked like he could reach 3 meters tall if he stood up. He looked more like a beast than a man. Ellie couldn't see his expression because his face was too far from human, but she was sure he looked calm.
(Hmmm, can the Demon tribes be divided into silver-haired, shallow-black types and beast types? Then the cook was also a Demon?)
Allen began to classify the Demons appropriately. Since they were sitting at the same table, he thought that the three of them held same position in the Demon King's army. If that was the case, then the hyena face must also be a Demon.
"Mm, who are you?"
Ellie was noticed by the old man in black sitting in front of him, and was asked while being glared at.
(Don't be afraid and act normal.)
Allen ordered Ellie to be act normal because there was no reason to be a frightened character anymore.
"I'm sorry, sir. Lord Glaster asked me to bring you some tea."
Ellie smilingly replied to the staring old man in black. In the first place, summons had no fear of death. Once their physical strength was exhausted, the experience they gained would be circulated in the Grimoire. So they were an existence that transcended death.
"That's good. Let's take a break, Lord Glaster."
(Hmmm... so the old man in black is Glaster. What are the other two's name?)
Glaster's brother said thank you for being so thoughtful.
The hyena face didn't seem to say anything.
With her back to everyone, Ellie tipped the pot into the cup and something purple and sludgy came out of the spout.
(What is it? A smoothie? Is it good for their health?)
As she looked at the tea, which looked bad, Ellie heard a loud bang from behind her.
BANG!
It was the sound of Glaster punching a wooden table so hard that his fist dug into it.
"Nephthila! You're late! We have to explain the reason for our defeat to the Demon General Razel, so why is the information so late? I've been told that the Demon General Razel has already asked the Commander-in-Chief for reinforcements!"
"I'm sorry. Almost all of the A-rank magical beasts have been defeated, and all of the B-ranks have been defeated."
(Glaster's brother is Nephthila. So, reinforcements have been decided already? Well, the Demon King's Army only has half of the 1.5 million remaining.)
The reserve troops of the Demon King's army was said to be around 4 million. Allen listened to their conversation via Ellie and pondered about at what time and how many reinforcements would be coming.
In addition, he learned from them that in the second Tiamo siege, the A-rank magical beasts fought until the end, while only the B-rank magical beasts fled. Allen also noticed that none of the magical beasts that fled from the siege were A-rank.
"As I said before, the reason is that the Spirit King has been promoted to Spirit God. That's why the elves got stronger and we lost."
The hyena face joined the conversation between Glaster and Nephtila.
"Yagov, isn't that a bit premature? The Spirit King doesn't have enough faith value yet, so he should still be a Demi-god. And I don't think elves become extremely strong just because he became Spirit God."
"So, was the Spirit Mage actually a Spirit Grand Mage? Or a higher level Druid appeared among the elves? I've heard that big ants and Dragons have turned into enemies."
(I'm starting to get excited about something I've never heard before. Now I know the names of the 3 Demons. Also, the boss of Rosenheim is a Demon General named Rezel?)
The 3 Demons:
Glaster, the old man black man, the boss of the 3
Nephthila, Glaster's brother, the black man
Yagov, the hyena face
Words Allen had never heard before, such as "Spirit God," "faith value," and "higher-level Druid" kept popping up in their conversation.
(I can sort of make sense of it, but I don't fully understand it.)
"It makes sense, but it's impossible, isn't it? There's no way that a higher-level Druid would be able to fight back against the Demon King's subjugation of magical beasts. And if there really were a Spirit Grand Mage, it would not explain why we were able to push so far."
They had already received reports of Dragons and giant ants being their enemy, but they didn't know why and and that was troubling them. Glaster wrinkled his brow and listens to Nephtila and Yagov.
They had information about B-rank Dragon and B-rank Insect, but they had not yet been able to confirm what they were. In a world where there was no concept of summons, it was difficult for them to understand what a summon was.
"Please."
Allen had told Ellie to pour the tea slowly to gather information, but if she's too slow, they would get suspicious, so she left the cup in front of the 3 Demons.
(They're not getting as much information as I thought they would. Well, I'm basically killing the information-gathering eyeball bats as fast as I can once the battle starts, but even then, it doesn't seem like much.)
Allen used his E-rank Bird and D-rank Bird awakening skills to hit the bat with the big eyeballs, which seemed to be gathering information, first.
Shooting down the bats were Formar's duty, whose range had reached 1 kilometer.
Allen had thought a certain amount of information might have leaked out because of the fact that they would sometimes fight on the ground , but it seemed that the information was not leaked to the Demon King's side as much as he had expected, perhaps because there were many extermination operations to recover the magic stones.
"That's the same as not having any information at all!"
Apparently, the conversation had been going around in circles. The Demons couldn't grasp the reason why they lost with an army of a million magical beasts, because they had been able to push the elves completely until then.
(As it turns out, there are no spies among the elves.)
Allen was worried that there might be spies among the elves.
This time, the Demon King's army moved quite quickly. The mobilization of 1,000,000 troops after their defeat in a single siege battle was something the elves could have lost if they had made a wrong decision.
That would mean that some of the elven Generals and elders were spying and extracting information.
That's why he thought the Demon King's army was on the offensive, fearing a rapid recovery on the part of the elves.
This infiltration operation was also meant to check for such traitors.
Naturally, Ellie would be sacrificed, but it would be a great thing to know who the traitor was among them.
However, the information about Ellie, who had been put on standby in the meeting room with all the cities Generals, elders and executives, had not been conveyed to these 3 Demons. There was also no sense of discomfort in the way the Demons treated Ellie.
(Well, maybe they're bluffing and are aware of Ellie and are trying to give false information to us. I've heard these guys have thousands of [Intelligence] after all.)
They said that most of the Demons were at least the equivalent of A-rank magical beast. Allen had heard that some of the Demons were close to S-rank or equivalent.
The status of an A-rank magical beast is about 3000 to 6000.
As Allen was thinking about this, the Demon known as Nephthila stared at Ellie.
