Chapter 321   - 320 - Drastic Changes

Point-of-View: Belia Lasmodeus

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How fitting this is...today is the 28th of May, just over a week after the attack on the Elves, and I was currently in the Rustlands' throne room, along with King Ocroed Rustlands, the former Queen Cusana Bronztan and the former Princess Agatha Silvland, who, of course, had been the main driving force behind motivating my Silvland troops to attack the Rustlands.

As for the former Prince Aguil Silvland, he was busy ensuring that his people didn't start any conflicts with the people of the Rustlands, since, you know...the people of Silvland firmly believe that they're 'God's chosen ones' or whatever and that all other people are inferior to them.

But his efforts weren't going too well...first off, he feels the same way as most of his people do, so I doubt he's trying all that hard to convince them not to provoke the Rustlands' citizens...and on top of that, the vast majority of the citizens of the Rustlands weren't the least bit happy with this turn of events.

After all, they're suddenly asked to get along with the same people who massacred many of their friends and family, there's definitely a lot of animosity and hostility between the two sides...and that's exactly what makes this so fitting...for me, anyway!

I mean, think about it...the Rustlands' overall firepower has definitely increased, and by quite a significant margin at that, but the tensions have increased by a lot more than that. There have already been plenty of brawls and conflicts between the Rustlands' citizens and the emigrated former Silvland citizens, a few minor protests and riots as well.

In other words...things were chaotic...which made this situation absolutely perfect for me. Unfortunately, none of the other higher ups of the Rustlands agreed with that notion, so I reluctantly agreed to find a way to keep things in check.

And I did that by establishing a task force made up of those that were completely neutral in this situation...namely, the Demons. The Demon Task Force consists of forty-two Demons, all of which had pledged their loyalty to me, and consisted of every single Demon that isn't in Abyss.

The task force excludes Druj though, since he's special. I'd decided to name his combined Dark and Light Magic as Paradox Magic, mainly because it sounds cool. His presence seems to be agitating the handful of citizens who came here from Goldway, but with none of Goldway's Adventurers still alive, they're no threat to him.

Speaking of Adventurers, the ranking system in the Rustlands had some pretty drastic changes once my forces were added to their equation. Specifically, the short-lived X-Rank was once again occupied and their S-Ranks had also gotten a couple of additions.

There were a total of four X-Ranked Adventurers, which excluded me. Shiro, Shin, Kyle and Lily, in that order, made up the X-Ranks. Meanwhile, there were eleven S-Ranks, though all the members of the Demon Task Force were easily all strong enough to qualify as S-Rank...in fact, they're all more powerful than the majority of the current S-Ranked Adventurers.

The Demons under my command are stronger than the Demons who were under Kuro's command. The main reason for that was the fact that the stronger Demons had greater pride, and regardless of how much Kuro powers up, and even taking the fact that Diablo coexists with him inside his subconscious, at his core he's still a human, so the especially prideful Demons couldn't accept him as their leader, regardless of whether or not they acknowledged his power...hm, technically speaking, I guess that's more arrogance than pride.

But I'm a Demigod, and more importantly, the being who created all the monsters including them, so they were a lot more willing to accept me as their leader instead. Plus I think they're enjoying the role I've given them, since they get to shepherd and boss around humans...though I did tell them not to abuse their power too much, since while that would be entertaining, it'd cause some annoying problems for me to deal with.

Admittedly, none of the Demons are as strong as any of the X-Ranks, but the strongest of them are still extremely powerful, on par with or even stronger than a Vampire Knight. Of course, they don't have the healing capabilities of Vampires, but then, if their host bodies get too badly damaged and stop functioning, they can just find a new one to possess.

Of course, very few of the Demons had actually found host bodies that maximize their potential and power, since those with stronger bodies and abilities often have strong minds too, and the risk of attempting to take over such people may outweigh the benefit.

Anyway, my point is, when it comes to power levels in the Rustlands, it's not the S-Ranks that are second to the X-Ranks, it's the Demon Task Force. As for the S-Ranks, the eleven that make it up include Hacte, Druj, Lidui Uensh, Cusnai Bronztan, Zave Inreck, Minise Mefvis, Marti Touw, Lonfi Nemowd, Niski Torfa, Oreg Dinwiy and Kalbowdi Payse, in that order.

I'm still not quite sure who most of those people are, and I'm pretty sure I've mixed some of them up...eh, whatever, they're pretty weak for the most part, they'll probably die soon enough, no need to learn all their names...

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Point-of-View: Cusnai Bronztan

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This is...uncomfortable...to say the least. About a week ago, most of the survivors from Silvland had been taken into the Rustlands...and things had been TENSE, and that's putting it very lightly.

While the Rustlands citizens were the ones who were showing the most obvious hostility towards the new immigrants, we former Bronztan citizens also had cause for indignation...after all, Belia, Shiro, Hacte, and Druj had all attacked us, killing many innocent civilians in addition to our Adventurers, and they then promptly wiped Bronztan off the map.

And of course, Druj was a major source of consternation for the former Goldway citizens, considering the fact that his host body was that of the former King of Goldway, Aurich Goldway.

To try and alleviate all those rising tensions, as well as raise our overall power level some more, the X-Ranks would be taking turns training and sparring with the S-Ranks, and there were also small parties and stuff being thrown for the regular citizens, with the aim of them mingling with their former enemies and forming some positive relationships.

Naturally, that hasn't gone too well, for the most part, a lot of those events had ended with violent fights and injuries. The pious and holier than thou attitudes of the Silvland troops certainly aren't helping matters, and the Rustlands' and former Bronztan citizens have also been far from cooperative.

Anyway, I was currently outside the walls of the Rustlands, for the training thing I'd mentioned...four of the eleven S-Ranks had opted out, namely Hacte Routh, the Demon occupying the body of the former King of Goldway, Druj, Lidui Uensh, of course, and Kalbowdi Payse.

It was perfectly safe to be out here, Elina Fenegus had cast several absolutely massive protective barriers around the Rustlands, but they didn't stop there...in order to prevent the Rustlands from running low on resources with no way to stock up, the barriers extended all the way to the swamp in the forest area, a few kilometers past the Goblin cave and a similar proportion of the snowy area.

I think it's safe to say that these are probably the largest barriers ever cast in this world. Elina and the Rustlands has benefited significantly from Belia Lasmodeus's knowledge, it's thanks to her that making these barriers was possible so quickly.

Getting back to the matter at hand, this was the first training session of this kind, so I had no idea what it was precisely going to entail...I was more than a little wary of the X-Rank whose turn it was to conduct this training...Shiro Blanc, the apparent clone of Kuro, with the opposite color scheme.

How did that even happen? All I've heard is that Kuro apparently said that he literally can't talk about it...which is kinda unsettling.

"Okay, listen up, weaklings...I don't really want to do this, but I suppose it's a good way to test out my physical boost and improved Wind Magic, so I guess I'll play along this once...I'm not going to give you some elaborate training routine, because no matter how much you train, you're not going to get all that much more powerful than you already are. So instead...learn how to beat someone stronger than you, or at least learn how to hold your own against them for a while and buy time for reinforcements or whatever," He remarked, as he narrowed his eyes at us, "So all of you, come at me at the same time, and no stupid safety barrier or whatever. If you're too scared then go right ahead and leave, it's no hair off my ballsack."

...ew. But ignoring that last part and his clear lack of motivation to do this, it's actually a pretty good training suggestion...thinking back to our fight against the Wind Sage, this kind of training is actually pretty perfect for us.

After all, there's no denying that the level of S-Rank no longer carries nearly the amount of weight that it did in the past, this world is unrecognizable in so many ways from what it was a couple of years ago or so, so many drastic changes have occured...and we need to adapt to those changes, or else...

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