Before me a large map of the city and its surrounds was stretched out on a table. Small sculptures were positioned along it depicting the location of our and the enemies troops. I stared at the map while absentmindedly rotating the pieces representing the Heroes in my hand. Since I was young as a part of my lessons, tactics, planning and war had all been drilled into me. But that didn't mean I had ever used them before. A mock battle was still a mock battle. Now I was dealing with lives. In my hand I had the lives of those directly related to me, on the board were the lives of the soldiers. One question circled my mind, how would I achieve victory with the least casualties?
If the civilians of the city weren't being held hostage, it would be easy to wipe the enemy. I highly doubted that they had anyone or anything that could fight me along with the Heroes and the Queen's knights. Excluding the hostages, the other limit was time. If we failed to remove the Miltis Empire in the next few days, their full army would arrive and then it would be become a situation Rentolt alone could not handle.
I reached over towards the centre of the map and placed the piece representing me. A small figure with horns growing from its head, the horns however had been broken. Lisanna had found it entertaining.
"Do you have a plan yet?" Alicia asked from beside me.
I was broken out of my reverie, "Not yet."
"Geez Sis, give him more time," Gary laughed.
"I was just asking…." Alicia became disheartened but I didn't have the time to cheer her up.
"Gary have you finished reading that book I gave you?" I held his piece next.
"Finished yes, understood, kind of," he replied.
"Go over the concept of mass stabilization," I placed Gary's piece next to mine.
"Can I ask why?"
"You'll probably need it soon."
"Okay," he looked at me with raised eyebrows then left the tent. It was the Queen's command centre but the only people here now were the Heroes, me and Gilda the Knight Commander.
"Gilda how many high rank magicians do you have?" I asked.
She picked up some pieces from the table and moved them towards me, "One from Sasren, and ten among our knights." It was a low number but not surprising coming from Rentolt. Their main force were knights, many of whom specialised in combating magicians. Magician's weren't as common here as other countries.
"I'd like their assistance, please gather them." I placed the pieces from Gilda around the city boundary. As Gilda left I began drawing on the map a diagram that connected the magicians to Gary. My expression soured as I finished, there wasn't enough resources.
"What's wrong?" Carl asked me as he and Sayuri came closer.
"Don't worry I can work around it." Now the problem was how to get inside the city without the Empire catching on.
A knight burst into the tent, "Her Highness summons the Heroes. A messenger from the Miltis Empire has arrived."
We quickly followed him to the outskirts of the encampment. The messenger was a plain clothed man. He was just a civilian being exploited. Noticing our arrival, Lisanna spoke to the man,
"You may begin your message."
He shivered and unrolled a piece of paper, "The General asks for the female Hero with black hair to enter the city unarmed. I-If not he'll begin killing us one by one," he had tears in his eyes. "You have till the sun sets to respond before the killing starts." Now the message was delivered he broke his composure, "Please, my family are inside still, he said he'd kill them first."
Lisanna frowned and passed me the paper, it contained the same message but also had the line, 'If he can't speak from fear.' The sun would begin to set in about three hours. It wasn't much time to even set up a proper assault. However hearing the news I smiled.
"You're doing it again," Lisanna whispered to me. I fixed my expression.
Sayuri was visibly put off, she had every right to be. The General was a pig that had forced her to strip.
"Dave why are you smiling?" Alicia reprimanded me. "This is terrible, if Sayuri goes in who knows what he'll try to do."
"And it's not like we can just let the people die," Carl noted.
I laughed, "The reason I'm smiling is because we just got a way into the city."
"But what about Sayuri?" Alicia's eye narrowed at me.
"By the time she's in any danger, we should be done and besides you'll be going with her."
"What?" Sayuri and Alicia both looked at me like I was mad.
After I had explained my plan to the people involved, there was one more step of preparation to do. The plan was to have Lisanna cover for me but due to some complications it ended up with Gilda covering for the both of us. Thus as the world began to shift back into order, I found myself looking at the familiar and comforting visage of my father working behind his desk.
"Master, good afternoon," Lisanna bowed as we appeared.
"I'm back," I waved.
Unfazed my father simply smiled, "Lisanna it's good to see you again. Congratulations on becoming Queen."
She laughed bashfully, "It was and has been a lot of work. I'm sorry I couldn't see you sooner but my father still holds most the power and he's been keeping a close eye on me. Also thank you for sending the demons for the mock subjugation."
"Not a problem. If it is to achieve the promise from ten years ago, I will do all I can," he put down his pen. "Now I'm sure you two didn't come for a simple visit."
"Well I came just to visit," Lisanna beamed, "I don't get many chances to be ferried around by Varry. Now where's Terra?" she looked around the room.
"She's playing with the guards in the courtyard."
"I'll be off then," she happily turned around but stopped at the door, "Oh and Varry don't get any funny ideas about leaving me behind. Remember I'm Queen now, me disappearing would be chaos."
"Yeah, yeah, just go," I motioned for her to leave. Now that she was gone I turned to my father, "Is Warten in the lab? I need to grab some stuff."
"He is, but remember to be careful with that 'stuff'," he picked his pen up. "Don't fool around too much."
"I won't."
With that done I headed to the lab. Sebastian spotted me and reported the new village's condition. There were a few problems but the people both human and demon were getting along moderately. As I walked through the castle, the maids and butlers bowed to me and I waved back. It had been awhile since I had seen many of them, but they greeted me with smiling faces and I returned the gesture. One of the better things about the castle and mansion was that my personal retainers included at least one of every tribe of demon, even the rarer ones. There were also many mixes among them and each one was at least the strength of an average senior Knight.
I reached the lab and entered without knocking. It was blindingly white and like last time a hulking ogre in a lab coat was joyously humming while fiddling with bits and pieces.
"Warten, good afternoon," I greeted him loudly.
He jumped, "Ah, First welcome home. Will you be staying longer this time?"
I shook my head, "Unfortunately not, I'm actually in the middle of a siege. Just need to pick up some equipment."
He put down whatever he was working on and ambled over with a smile, "Ask and you shall receive."
"I need the batteries for the cannon."
A surprised concern came across him, "What for? They can't be used without the cannon, unless you want to take that as well. Which I very much suggest you don't. The firing mechanism is very dodgy."
"Don't worry," I laughed, "I just need the batteries as a replacement for magicians."
"Oh that's fi-, what?"
"It would work right? They only need to last a few minutes."
He scratched his chin and grumbled, "It's not that it won't work, but whoever is setting up the spell will be taking on a huge burden." His beady eyes focused on me, "Well if it's you, there shouldn't be much of a problem."
"Great," I grinned, "I'll need at least four but I'd like two more just in case."
Warten led me to the storage room, the door was firmly locked but it registered our presence and opened easily. I waited outside as he brought six canisters about the size of my head.
"Your grandfather filled these just this week, so there shouldn't be any effects of decay yet."
I took them but because they had such a large mana density they weren't things I could shrink and put in my pocket. To that point I was given a large box and after saying a cheery thanks and goodbye, I left to find Lisanna. Honestly I did think it would be funny if I left her behind. My sister would be happy but I guess it would technically come under the Demon Lord kidnapping the Queen. Besides without her, I couldn't get the order to go through with my plans.
On the way to the courtyard a powerful burst of mana shook the earth. I looked out a nearby window and large cloud of dust had been upheaved. Due to the nature of the castle, sensory magic was disrupted but I could still feel two powers colliding nearby. Sure enough as I entered the courtyard I found the culprits. There was a mass of onlookers, our private guard and some of the other staff. In the centre was the Queen of Rentolt with her boot planted firmly on my sister's back.
She laughed, "You've improved Terra."
"G-get off me!" my sister squealed and waves of strength burst from her as she tried to free herself. "That's not fair, you said you'd go easy on me!"
Lisanna smirked, "I was."
Mana built up inside my sister as she became annoyed, I stepped in before she could release it.
"Okay that's enough," I clapped.
"Varry!" Terra perked up as Lisanna stepped off. She jumped straight at me. Now this wasn't a 'cute happy sister' jump. This was a 'I'm going to bring you down' jump. I flattened her to the ground mercilessly. "Geh."
"Just how are you trying to greet me," I reprimanded and let her stand back up. As soon as I did she spun around and tried to kick me. This girl had too much pent up energy. Trying to take advantage of me while I'm carrying this box, how shrewd. Her foot broke through one of my barriers and with that I sent her straight into the sky. Ah, that may have been too high… oh well, it's not like she'd die. More than a few seconds later she crashed into the ground.
"Owwie," she sulked while standing up shakily. "That hurt." Don't worry she wasn't that hurt.
"If you learned how to control your mana better you could have softened the landing." I glared at her, "You've been skipping your studies again."
She looked away guiltily, "But it's so boring."
Lisanna stepped in and patted her on the head, "If you don't study you won't even be able to win against me, let alone your brother."
"Haha, brother's a monster, studying won't help."
"Hey, I'm standing right here," I said hurt. "Anyway, Lisanna we need to head back."
"Already!?" Terra wrapped herself around Lisanna's waist. "But you just got here, I haven't seen you for ages."
Lisanna tried to pry her off with an empathic smile, "Right now Varry and I have work to do. I'll visit again soon."
"Can I come? I promise I won't be any trouble."
"No," I replied bluntly.
She let go of Lisanna and started to sulk again, but then in a sudden burst of energy her eyes lit up, "Heroes!"
"What about them?" I asked.
"You said you'd bring them next time you came."
"Ah, did I say that?" The Heroes were definitely not ready to come here.
"Varry lied! Lies are bad."
"Sorry, sorry," I bowed apologetically, which was kind of awkward carrying the box. "At least I bought Lisanna."
"Next time?" she looked at me with upturned eyes.
"… umm eventually." Err, she was puffing her cheeks. "Well time to go." Lisanna stood next to me and waved goodbye. In a flash we were back in my father's office and from there I set up a larger scale teleport to take us back.