Welcome to the Impregnable Demon King Castle - Chapter 217-1

217 – The One With Endless Potential (Part 1)

I’m currently in the Demon King Castle. Inside the council room dedicated to the use of the highest executives.

This is also the place where I met the Demon King for the first time.

I also made the Contract with Milla using the ring in front of the Recording Stone of this room. 

There is the Demon King’s throneroom, a long table, and five chairs.

Currently, all the seats are occupied.

The Vampire Queen Carmilla, the Demon of Love Sitri, the Reaper Knight Furcus, the Time Demon Agares, the One-Horned Dark Sorcerer Lemegeton, and the Demon King Luci.

The Demon King called us here and the reason is probably to discuss our party positions.

「Agares, you should leave.」

Agares is a Majin dressed in a tailcoat-like costume. A male in his late twenties, his silver hair is bed to the back, and has horns on both sides of his forehead. Horns that remind you of a goat.

「That’s foolish. There’s no way I would leave the Demon King’s side.」

Sparks flew between the two of them.

Sitri smiled with an embarrassed face and Furcus was eating the food created using the Culinary Cloche.

I also remained silent.

The standard rule of the All-Heaven Festival Contest is to participate in groups of five.

The reason I said “standard” is that there are some participants who are not bound by this rule.

The concept of this year’s festival is to determine the strongest and the tagline prepared was “Those who challenge the legends!”

First, the active Adventurers and Monsters are grouped together as contestants, then they’ll be screened to reduce the number.

Some of the remaining strong contestants will be made to fight the Legends, namely, the retired former Adventurers and former Monsters.

At the moment, they are still receiving applicants, but it’s not hard to imagine that almost all of the Adventurer parties who can make it will be there.

It is said that even only the Hero parties amount to tens of thousands, so the scale of the qualifying round will be quite large.

By the way, there is no special treatment for the top-ranked parties.

Even that Aerial party has to participate in the qualifying round.

In the previous tournament, the top-ranked Adventurers were exempted from the qualifying round, but this was a tournament to determine the strongest, so there was no need to do that.

There were many who hoped for an overwhelming victory by the top-ranked party, but there were also many who hoped for an upset by their favorite party, even if they lost in terms of ranking.

The expectations of the Monsters fans were also added to the mix, so everyone was excited even before the event began.

「W-what do you think about this, Sir Lemegeton?」

「Hmph, you’re just a Vampire that brought calamity upon herself. Unlike you, Sir Chief of Staff will never let his personal feelings cloud his judgment.」

「Wha…?! You’re the one who’s so self-interested saying that you don’t want to leave the Demon King’s side.」

「Hah, what are you saying? I merely judged that it would be better if I, a retainer with excellent strength, remained by her side.」

「Although I’m not sure about other Dungeons, in the case of the Demon King Castle, there is no such thing as the deeper the Stratum you’re in charge of, the stronger you are. Don’t delude yourself.」

「Hmph. However, just like how the title “the Weakest of the Big Four” has been said since ancient times, the member of the Big Four that fights the earliest against the Heroes often earns this-」

「Fufufu. Agares, it seems like you really want to see blood being shed, don’t you?」

In a sense, their quarrel is kind of wholesome because although both of them do not back down from their argument…

Carmilla doesn’t actually think that he’s a pervert and Agares doesn’t actually think that she’s weak.

If they were serious, they would have already made a move to remove the other from the Big Four.

They both respect the Demon Lord from the bottom of their hearts.

If the Demon King doesn’t think that they are suitable for this position, there is no way that she will allow that person to have this seat.

「I am aware that you guys love me. That’s enough of your petty quarrels.」

With just a single sentence from the Demon King, the two fell silent.

「The reason I called you here today is obviously that I have something to tell you about the festival.」

Our attention was focused on the Demon King.

「I’ve been thinking about it. If it is enough to form just one strong party, then we can just exclude one person from the people here to form the Party. However, I dare say that this will not be enough to defeat my grandfather.」

The Demon King loves the staff of the Demon King Castle more than anyone else.

After my master left, many of the powerful Monsters left as well.

After all, the only reason they stayed is that my master was their boss. 

When Fellow left, he also brought a lot of Monsters out with him.

Maybe they sympathized with his ideals, or maybe the rewards offered were really too good.

And the remaining Monsters and the Monsters that Luci gathered could not be parable to the Demon King Army during my master’s reign, no matter how hard she tried.

But that’s unavoidable.

Dungeon management is not so easy that it can be quickly rebuilt when most of the main forces are gone.

It might be easier to understand this if you imagine a sports team.

However, the Demon King and her subordinates continued to maintain their reputation for impregnability even in such a situation.

They still maintained the record of zero parties reaching the deepest Stratum.

Even though most of the Monsters are young and the tenth Stratum’s Floor Boss position was left to a human, the Demon King’s castle has fended off the invasions of all kinds of Adventurers.

But…

Even an achievement like that is nothing in front of that person.

The Demon King Lucifer.

There is no need for the word “candidate”. We can just call him this way and no one will object to it.

The strongest in the world.

The only existence that can be called that.

The All-Heaven Festival Contest is an event to see how the contestants challenge the strongest Demon King.

The threat is immeasurable since even the previous Big Four and Altreed party is joining this festival.

「I won’t force you, but I want you to form your own party and remain until the final round.」

「……」

I’m sure that each of the executives has different feelings at this moment.

「Understood.」

Furcus stopped eating and answered.

「Okayyy.」

Sitri responded with a smile while raising one hand.

「If this is what you want…」

Carmilla looked surprised but still nodded.

「I have no intention of leaving you. If it’s absolutely necessary, then give me an order.」

Agares refused perhaps because she said that she won’t force us to do this.

「…Haa. Understood. You can e with me.」

The Demon King smiled as if she had expected this to happen.

「Ma’am…!」

Her gaze turned to me.

「Lemegeton.」

「Yes. I’ve thought about joining a different party and there’s something I’d like to discuss with you concerning that…」

Only these members are present. So I didn’t bother to act out a Lemegeton-like tone.

「Okay, you have my permission.」

Before I started talking about the content, the Demon King already gave me permission.

…I guess she can see through what her subordinates are thinking about.

As expected of our King.

「Well then, e here.」

The Demon King spread her small hand and reached out to me.

I smiled and reached out my hand.

With this I…