Chocolate was too rare of a commodity to leave its acquisition to chance. Besides, Milim knew herself well enough to realize that it was only a matter of time before, in the heat of the moment, she would cause too much damage for an easy fix. Hence there was a need to get on the good side of two people; Mare and Buku.
Her first target, Mare, seemed like the easier one. He was shy and timid and easily put in place by his own sister, but she knew there was some defiance in the boy, and if pushed a bit too far he would rat them all out to Buku.
Just the other day Aura came dangerously close to making him call Buku with her dismissive attitude toward her brother. Luckily, she came to her senses and apologized before such a thing could happen.
Considering that her usual method of getting her way, intimidation, wasn't really an option in this case, Milim decided to go with befriending Mare. 'That surely won't be hard. The boy spends a lot of time in Tempest's library, helping with making copies of the books that were apparently coming from the place called Nazarick.'
She once asked Veldora about it, but her uncle just brushed her off and told her that it is a place where Momonga and others live, and only those from Nazarick can go there.
Predictably, she found Mare in the library, sitting on a puff beside a huge pile of books and reading without a care in the world.
"Heiya, what are you reading?" Milim greeted him in her loud and exuberant manner.
Startled, Mare almost dropped the book and looked up, "M-Milim! I… I'm reading Doctor Dolittle."
"Are there any fun fights?" She asked as she unceremoniously plopped down next to him on the puff. Since it was meant to be sat on by only one person, she ended up sitting very close to Mare, who was unsure of how to deal with the situation and just froze up.
Since she didn't get any answer from the boy, she took out the book from his hands and started to flip it. "Where are all the pictures? What a strange book." She finally remarked after finding scant few illustrations, not even remotely similar to the manga she was used to.
"I-It's a regular book, and the story is about an m-man who learns to talk with the animals and the adventures he has with them." Mare said, accepting the book back. His cheeks were getting reddish as Milim was sitting far too close to him, oblivious to how uncomfortable it made him.
"What's the point of reading such a book if there are almost no pictures?" She asked with genuine confusion.
"You can imagine the scenes in your mind when you read them." Mare explained.
"Imagine? Is that a skill you have?"
"No, everyone can imagine, you just have to try." Mare said, "Here, read this part." He pointed at the description of Dr. Dolittle and his daily walks with animals following him.
"Now what?" She asked.
"Now imagine how it looks in your mind's eye."
'My mind's eye? Oh, it's easy.' She made up the scene with the man in a top hat and all the small creatures following him. Sure she didn't know the place where it was happening in the book, but Tempest's capital worked as a good substitute.
Realizing how to read such outwardly boring-looking books, she started to read the story, sitting closely next to Mare. It wasn't as exciting as playing with Veldora or Aura, but in a sense, it gave a much calmer sense of enjoyment. The story wasn't about some great fighter defeating his enemies, but of a simple man having a wondrous adventure.
'This is actually fun.' Milim looked up from a book for a moment. There were thousands upon thousands of such books on the shelves. 'There must be so many other interesting stories written like this.
"Did you finish the page?" Mare politely asked, snapping her out of the wondering.
"No, wait!" She said a bit louder than she expected. "I'm at this part." and pointed to the middle of the page.
Mare patiently waited for her to finish and only then flipped the page. He, in fact, did so with every page as he clearly read much faster than she did. Immersed in the story, she lost all sense of time.
It was Mare speaking up once again when she snapped back to reality. "I have to go. Mom is calling me to have dinner."
"So soon? We just started." Milim said with a whine.
"We have been reading for three hours." Mare said. He then put a bookmark in the book and closed it. He slowly stood up and stretched.
"Huh!? Three hours? But…but…" Milim was lost for words. She jumped to her feet and looked out the window. Sure enough, the sun was already setting.
"I know. Time flies too fast when you read." Mare said with a hint of annoyance in his tone. 'If only I could slow down time.'
"Can we continue some other day?" Milim asked.
"Sure." Mare replied with a timid smile.
"But don't read it without me so we can continue at the same spot." She said with an uncharacteristically timid expression for her.
"Oh, then I will make a copy for you so you can keep track." Mare said and used Creation on the book and within a blink of an eye made an exact copy. He then took out another bookmark from his inventory and handed it to Milim. "You can keep track with this."
"Thank you." Milim said with a wide smile as she accepted the gift.
There was a certain charm in the timid boy. His calm demeanor had a strangely soothing effect on her. 'Tomorrow I'm playing with Aura but the day after that I could sit down and read with Mare.' It then hit her. 'How strange. Before, I never had to plan my time to spend it with other people.'
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Finding some common ground with Mare was easy, but Buku felt like a much harder nut to crack. After all, for some reason, even Veldora feared her. But that was no obstacle for the fearless dragon princess.
Knowing that Buku was in her office, Milim waltzed in without knocking, sporting a brash smile on her face.
Buku looked up from a letter she was writing and raised her eyebrow. "Milim? Did you need anything?" She asked with a professional tone. Even if she acted as a brat most of the time, Milim still was a Demon Lord and some base diplomacy was needed.
"Heiya! Just came to see how you are doing." Milim said cheerfully. Without invitation, she sat down in the guest chair and casually slumped down stretching her legs.
Buku put on a polite smile and said. "I think we can skip the setup and get right to the point."
"Wha-? What are you talking about?" Milim faked her surprise as best as she could. 'Damn that woman. She figured me out right away.'
Buku just smirked in response, took out a packet of chocolate, and put it on her table without uttering a single word.
"So you figured me out. Big deal."
"Well then, let's hear your proposal?" Buku said as she pushed her chair a bit back and put her feet on the table.
Milim just stared at her in stunned shock. 'Dammit, dammit, dammit. No wonder my uncle fears her. She got in charge without any effort. Now, what I was planning? Ah, right! To befriend her, but… she already knows why. Ugh, fine. I'll just tell it how it is.'
"How about I help you out with something and you look the other way when I get too enthusiastic about playing around." Milim said in a confident tone, regaining her composure.
"How interesting. But with what you would help me, exactly?"
"I dunno. There must be something. I'm one of the oldest Demon Lords, so I know a lot of things; plus, I am the strongest so I can help you out in a bind."
"Don't get me wrong. I found your desire to be friendly with me endearing, but I doubt you will spill any serious secrets over a bar of chocolate. We both know you are a lot smarter than you lead on." Buku said.
"You are right. I won't tell you things I'm not supposed to, but there may be something I could still help you out with" Milim gave her a genuine smile. "What do you want to know?"
"There is one thing…" Buku started. Being indebted to her might lead to some long term problems, but then again, she had not promised Milim anything specific. "I need to know how to stabilize otherworlders summoned as children."
Milim's confidence immediately deflated, "I don't really know anything about otherworlders." she said, crestfallen. 'How would I know about su…wait a minute.' She suddenly broke into a confident smirk once more. "But I know someone who knows! Demon Lord Ramiris helped Demon Lord Leon a few centuries ago with exactly the same problem. He wasn't a Demon Lord back then, but that's beside the point."
Buku's expression told her all she needed to know. She got her and got her good.
"So?" Her lips curved into a smug smirk that helped Buku regain composure.
"Aren't you a shrewd one? Very well… I can look the other way if you cause some structural damage, but I can't ignore you seriously injuring or killing anyone. That said, how do we go about contacting Ramiris, and why would she help me?"
"That's easy. We go to her labyrinth that now is located… in the Ulgrasia Republic. She is a friend of mine, so she will help us out."
"How do we get there, and is there anything else I should know?" Buku continued to question her.
"We fly there." Milim said, as if anyone could just lift off the ground whenever they pleased.
"Fly? Why don't we use transportation magic?" 'I guess I can just learn the fly spell and use Gate for the kids when we get there.'
"Flying is fun." Milim responded in an oddly defensive manner. There was something off about her behavior, but Buku decided to not pry deeper in fear of upsetting Milim and losing her chance to help the kids.
"Right… Now is there anything else?"
Milim looked up and stared into the ceiling absentmindedly for a while and then said, "Ramiris can be very childish sometimes, so maybe you will have to play some game she comes up with."
'If I wasn't in correspondence with three other Demon Lords, I'd start to think they all act like children.' "Got it. How long would it take us to fly to her labyrinth?"
"If you can keep up with me, no more than a few hours." Milim said with a smirk. 'There is no way she will be able to even get close to my top speeds.'
"Sounds manageable. Can we do it next week or do you need to set up things first?" Buku asked.
Milim meanwhile had gotten up from the chair and was subtly inching closer to the chocolate that sat on the table, tempting her.
"Oh, we could go right now for all I care." Milim said that to get closer to the table while Buku was preoccupied with questioning.
"Great. Then I'll prepare everything and give you a heads up when we can go." Buku said with a smirk, grabbed the chocolate bar and tossed it right into Milim's hands.
"Sure thing." She replied while tearing the package with predatory intensity to get to the desired treat.
There was still a lot to plan, but at least there was a clear way to solve the problem. 'These Demon Lords sure are a strange bunch, not what I would have thought of when thinking of a typical Demon Lord from literature or games.' Buku mused.
She gave Milim a few more packs of chocolate as a forward payment, and returned to composing a letter for Elmesia. A lot of work needed to be done before she set out to find Ramiris, and that meant she would have to do a lot beforehand and set up everything for her hopefully short absence.
Proofreading by Sad_Smiles, alassandro, Abbysalidiot, I AM THE STRING CUTTER, Somnium Hypnos, and Saphy.
AN: Thank you for reading the story, and if you have caught up to the latest chapter, you can check out my other work or join my discord server (Link is in my profile) where additional chapters are available.