“Yeah… I got a feeling Rimuru’s gonna grow stronger before we can get ourselves fully back in order.”
“I agree. That demon lord has the uncanniest luck working for him. He’s assembled quite a number of magic-born, and he’s even tamed the Storm Dragon himself…”
“To tell the truth, I think a frontal assault would be a pretty bad idea.”
“I…wouldn’t go so far as to call it unwinnable. But no, I doubt Cerberus would survive when the dust settles.”
“Well, no point fretting about it. We’ve got time to work with. We can think about it.”
“That we can. Things will remain rather chaotic for a while to come. Joining in the fray could burn us badly.”
“Mm-hmm. I used Hinata to get back at ’em a little, but that sure didn’t work out, huh? It’s too dangerous to make any other moves. Better to lay low for a while.”
The boy smiled, not seeming to care too much. Damrada thought things over as he returned the smile. Then, he seemed to remember something.
“Still,” he glumly stated, “I have to say, the Five Elders were all bark and no bite. Going on about how they would destroy Hinata—and look how that worked out, huh? With both surviving, I’m sure they’ll work out their misunderstandings. That could end the whole rift between Tempest and the Holy Church before too long.”
“I thought that would happen,” the boy replied with a chuckle. “Rimuru is too generous to humankind. I didn’t think he had it in him to kill Hinata. I was kind of hoping that generosity would spell his downfall, sooner or later…but perhaps he wasn’t that generous.”
“I think the Five Elders were aiming to conspire with Rimuru so they could keep a lid on the Storm Dragon.”
“Well, if that was all it took, we wouldn’t have any problems right now. I had you keep close tabs on them precisely because I figured they’d screw it up.”
“Ah, I see. But that saved me in the end. If you hadn’t contacted me, sir, I would’ve had to duel Hinata herself in front of Rimuru.”
Perhaps, with some more luck, he wouldn’t have blown his cover. But he wasn’t optimistic about his chances fighting Hinata. He deeply appreciated the boy’s advance warning about the danger… Although, of course, the danger only came about because of the boy’s orders. If Hinata hadn’t been fed false information, Damrada never would’ve been revealed at all.
Still, this was nothing that troubled Damrada deeply. The orders of the boy who led Cerberus took precedence over everything else. His mission, after all, was no less than to conquer the entire world—a goal Damrada shared. He adored the boy. With him, he felt, this childlike dream of world domination could really happen. That was why he never questioned any of the orders he received.
“If I had lost you,” the boy casually said, “my plan would’ve been sabotaged beyond repair.”
“Well,” Damrada replied with a bold grin, “at least I managed to escape for you.”
One did not become the leader of Cerberus solely through business acumen. It took real talent to make the powers that be in the underground bow to you.
The boy, perhaps knowing this, let a devilish grin creep onto his face. “Ha-ha-ha! But don’t go all out or anything, all right? Because that’s the absolute last resort. So let’s just sit and watch a bit. I look forward to seeing how this struggle plays out—especially since there’s no real power involved.”
Going all out, as he put it, meant calling upon every asset Cerberus had on hand. That required bringing the two underbosses not in the room, people directly below the boy himself, into the fold. There would be nothing “covert” about the results. It could lead to a full-blown war that involved all the Western Nations.
Damrada nodded at the boy, knowing that wasn’t what he wanted. “In that case,” he said, “it might be best for me to return to my native land.”
“Yeah, probably. You said she didn’t see your face, but this is Hinata we’re talking about. She’s probably got her sights on you, and that makes open activity difficult. No, better to have someone else step up. Although…”
Damrada knew what the boy was getting at. Cerberus had three underbosses—Damrada and two others—and one of those two was a problem.
“Let’s not ask Vega to fill in for you, huh?”
“Very well,” a convinced Damrada replied. “In that case, Misha, then?”
“Yeah. Let’s go with that.”
The bosses were nicknamed the Gold, the Lover, and the Power, the three symbols of a man’s greed. Misha, the Lover, was someone you never wanted to let your guard down around, but she at least listened to reason. Vega, the Power, was a handful. He was a living, breathing personification of violence, as his name suggested. Damrada could do nothing to sway his mind; he only listened to direct orders from the boy, who knew that well enough and didn’t want Damrada to deal with him.
“That sounds good, sir. So how should we wind down the slave trade I had been working on here?”
“…Oh, right, there was that, wasn’t there? The Orthrus Slave Market always was a pain to deal with. Let’s shut it down. I never liked slavery anyway.”
“Mmm. I have no objections, but are we just going to release all the rare monsters we circulate around Misha’s Echidna Club?”
“No, anything designated confidential should be treated the same as always. We still have a link to the Rozzo family; we might as well use it.”
“Very well. I’ll leave the rest in your capable hands,” said Damrada before he took his leave.
The boy closed his eyes, gleefully moving the mental chess pieces around in his brain. Then he heard the tapping of footsteps. His lips curled into a smile as he spoke to the woman behind him, a secretary.
“You were listening, weren’t you, Kazalim?”
“I sure was, Boss. Why are you intent on dismantling Orthrus now?”
This was Kazalim, a trusted confidant and adviser to the boy.
“It’s simple. I
