As she was lying down contemplating her path, her thoughts seemed to circle back to the look the proprietess had given her before leaving, she wouldn't have become the demon king of her realm if she wasn't observant and careful afterall. There were too many mistakes in her recent conduct, and hence she believed she would draw some suspicion.
She believed she would be investigated in not long, if not tomorrow, but in the spirit of remaining consistent; she decided she would procrastinate the issue until tomorrow.
Thinking back to her current issues, most of them could be solved if she had a backer or organization helping her...
Thinking about it reasonably; in order for her to get that she would either have to foster an organization herself, or climb up the ranks of a current organization she could rely upon.
This became an issue for her to consider until she thought back to previous occasions of war in her past life, when faced with two choices, his simpleton squadmates would, characteristically, just say «why not both?» while the more thorough ones would occasionally question if there were only two options.
A simple line of thought had its' advantages too, with as long as she had lived, she had long discerned that being smart and being wise were two quite different things; and it was preferrable to be wise.
Returning to the problem at hand, she decided she would create a small dependable organization for safety and intelligence while joining a larger organization for benefits and an umbrella; a safety net that would prevent her from dying to bigger powers in her early stages.
But there were a few issues that would have to be adressed even then. What organization to join? How to blend in, especially considering her current looks? How to recruit dependable people? And how to establish her organizations' self-sufficiency. All of these were familiar issues as he had dealt with them before, though he did not have a lot of power, resources or trustworthiness now, compared to then.
Getting dependable subordinates would check most of those boxes though.
Having a general plan often helped a lot, as she already felt her mind bursting with potential paths forward, having thought through it she realized she had five general options with some nuance to them each;
She could enslave their minds, the guy who made the spell at his «Research and Development» branch was an idiotic genius for sure, he pioneered a whole field of extremely valuable research, but his enslavement spell made his slaves mindless so to speak; they would only do what you told them to, and you had to be very specific with your task, as their brain now worked to figure out how to efficiently execute an order it would often turn to loopholes if the commands weren't specific enough.
Her second option would be to use psychological suggestion to make her subordinates obedient, they would retain their individual capability to reason while being dependable, but this was hard and required time and a safe environment to instill.
Her third option would be to use a 'Contract'. This was a special system based off of the laws of the universe that would allow people to make deals with their lives at collateral, but she would then have to find willing contractees and also disguise the «deal with the devil» mark that would inevitably come from the use of the contract; on both herself and the contractee.
Her fourth option would be to create a cult, those were hard to control but would be very hardworking and reliable if she could control it. Overzealous fanatics were not entirely reliable though. It was more like they would rely upon you; or that was her experience anyway.
Her fifth option was the most straight forward of them but also carried the most risk; inspiring loyalty from good actions and wise commands. Without any fallback plan this was like asking to be betrayed eventually.
The two methods she favoured the most was the contract and the psychological guidance, but both of those required quite a lot of setup, you could afterall not force someone to take a contract, and even if you did, who knows if the person you contracted perhaps doesen't value their life at all? Not to mention all the preparation needed for psychological guidance.
Third came the enslavement spell, it had been improved upon so that you wouldn't have to be too specific, but the subordinates still ended up as a mindless husk, though there was no need to question their loyalty; were they really reliable? Not at all.
Adopting the perhaps not so simple plan of going with several of those at once, she repeated the mantra in her head; «Why not both? Why not both? Why not both?» while hoping it wouldn't be too much of a headache to create a reliable force.
Having made a temporary plan she was satisfied, but she still couldn't sleep properly.
What a cruel joke made by the universe; even the Demon king of sloth couldn't get some fucking shut-eye?
But she quickly realized that her instincts were preventing her from sleeping, she was probably in danger somehow. But without concrete information at hand she could only lie ready while feeling her instincts react to her sensory stimulus.
She was used to not worrying about anything so she didn't think too deeply into it or try to hide, perhaps a foolish decision made out of habit. Vesta did not think too deeply into it as she was dealing with 'mere humans'. Even though she was only a little stronger than the average soldier; her techniques and cunning gave her confidence. She had even scouted out the surroundings of this inn before choosing it; as it was both inconspicuos and convenient to escape from. Not long after her instincts made her feel uncomfortable; she heard a knock on the door.
She answered «Yes?», but the door remained quiet until a clicking sound was made, the door opened showing the proprietess escorting a military officer. The officer held a haughty smirk while explaining his appearance; «We had heard of several suspicious incidents and crimes happening around here lately and several of them point towards you, if you fess up now we might be able to reduce your punishment you know?», not only was he bluffing her, he even hinted with his actions that he was willing to take bribery or sexual favours.
After thinking about it for a little while she smiled and said «alright, come on in and have a seat.» as she did she grabbed his hand and led him into the room, she turned around to close the door on the proprietess and locked it before slowly turning towards the officer. The man had an expectant expression written on his face as he asked her; «So what will it be?».
Silence reigned as she seductively walked towards the officer, as she leaned in and whispered into his ear; the officer felt chills run down his spine, and then he felt no more.
«Death.» she had whispered.
After dealing with the corpse, she left the inn without checking out or anything, and continued her journey; this time at night.
Thinking back to this encounter; it had suprised her to some degree, she had never thought she would experience someone interested in exchanging favours for sex with her, it was not a common occurence for males afterall.
Well she wasn't complaining, it had made her predicament vastly easier to solve anyway.
One could hear a little chuckle drifting with the wind, and though it sounded cheerful, the backdrop of night and solitude made it far more eerie than it would of otherwise been.