The Fox Hole 138

Chapter 138:

– Haru –

Ok, take two as far as clothes go… I thought to myself.

The replacent outfit was, in a word, perfect.

I stood in Rimuru's office turning slowly in front of a full-length mirror that one of the hobgoblin attendants had wheeled in, and I genuinely could not find a single flaw. Shuna had promised fifteen minutes. She had delivered in twelve.

Where the cosplay version had been bought off so overpriced ani rchandise website, this was woven from what Shuna had called "Magisteel Thread," a composite fiber reinforced at the molecular level to be roughly as durable as enchanted plate armor while remaining as light and flexible as silk.

And the tails accommodation. Gods, the tails accommodation!

Every tailor I had ever worked with treated my tails as an afterthought. A slit cut into the back of the pants, maybe so elastic if they were feeling generous. Shuna had instead designed ten individual channels that fanned from a reinforced anchor point at the base of my spine.

She was making all my clothes from now on…

"This is incredible," I said, and I ant it with every fiber of my being. I turned to face Shuna, who stood with her hands clasped in front of her, her pink hair falling over one eye, watching my reaction with an expression of carefully restrained pride. "Shuna, I'm serious. This is the best tailoring anyone has ever done for in any dinsion. And I've had clothes made by yokai silk-weavers who've been practicing their craft for six hundred years."

Shuna's cheeks flushed a delicate rose. She dipped her head in a small bow that did not quite hide her smile. "You are too kind, Lord Haru. The material responded very well to your energy signature. Your magicules have a particularly harmonious resonance that made the weaving process quite... enjoyable, actually." She paused, seed to realize how that sounded, and her blush deepened by approximately three shades. "I an, from a technical perspective. The thread alignnt was very satisfying. Professionally."

Milim, still attached to my right arm, narrowed her pink eyes at Shuna. "Hmmmm. 'Enjoyable,' huh?"

"Professionally!" Shuna repeated, louder, her composure cracking along visible fault lines.

I decided to rescue her before Milim's jealousy sensors escalated from "yellow alert" to "I'm going to throw soone through the ceiling like I did to Veldora." I stepped back from the mirror and adjusted my collar, letting the gesture carry a casual authority I didn't entirely feel.

I looked like and was a Demon Lord.

I caught my reflection's golden eyes and exhaled.

Alright. I'm going to walk into a room full of ancient, paranoid, politically entrenched Demon Lords who could individually depopulate small countries. My plan is to cook them dinner and hope nobody starts a fight before dessert. My companions are a forr AI in a bunny suit and a newly evolved goddess wearing fake armor made of thermoplastic polyurethane.

I glanced at Sif.

Well. That particular problem appears to have been resolved.

Sif was standing near the far wall, and she was preening. There was no other word for it. The Goddess of War was now running her gauntleted fingers across the surface of her new armor with an expression of reverent satisfaction that bordered on spiritual experience.

The dwarven blacksmiths of Rimuru's settlent had taken one look at what Cortana put Sif in and reacted with the kind of visceral horror that only master craftsn could feel when confronted with an abomination against their art.

Three of them had physically recoiled. One had actually placed his hand over his heart as though witnessing a funeral. Another had whispered sothing in Dwarvish that I didn't speak but strongly suspected translated to a prayer for the souls of whoever manufactured that travesty.

They had then, without being asked, without accepting paynt, and with an urgency that suggested the continued existence of Sif's plastic armor was a personal affront to their ancestors, dragged Sif into their forge and produced a replacent set in just under forty minutes.

I studied the result with the discerning eye of a man who had spent enough ti around beautiful won in various states of dress and undress to recognize deliberate design choices when I saw them. All of this was legitimate, combat-ready equipnt forged by master artisans at the peak of their craft. It was also, without any question whatsoever, designed to be as revealing as physically possible while still technically qualifying as armor.

The dwarves had been horrified by fake armor. They had been deeply, personally offended by the concept of a warrior goddess wearing thermoplastic polyurethane. But they were still, at the end of the day, n of culture.

I caught the eye of the lead blacksmith, the one with the geotric beard, who was standing near the door with his two assistants. All three dwarves wore expressions of stoic professional satisfaction, the kind of face a master craftsman makes when he knows he has produced sothing truly exceptional.

I shot them a wink.

All three dwarves simultaneously gave a thumbs up. The lead one added a subtle nod that communicated, louder than words: We got you!

"This is magnificent," Sif declared. She twisted at the waist, testing the range of motion. She drew a practice swing with an imaginary blade and the armor moved with her as though it were part of her body. "True craftsmanship. True tal. True protective enchantnts layered into every surface." She turned to face the dwarves and placed her fist over her heart in what was clearly a formal Asgardian salute of deep respect. "You honor , Smiths. These hands know the language of the forge. On Asgard, work of this caliber would earn you seats at the king's table. Although the king is an… asshole… so I wouldn't recomnd that, but I'm sure you understand my gratitude all the sa…"

Hehe… Sif swore…

Sif then seed to notice the exposed thigh situation for the first ti, looking down at herself with a small frown. She turned her leg slightly, watching the play of light across bare skin between skirt plates and greave tops.

"Although," she added, her frown deepening by a fraction, "the coverage ratio between upper and lower body seems... deliberately asymtrical."

"Ventilation," the lead dwarf said instantly, with the smooth confidence of a man who had rehearsed this excuse. "Magisteel retains heat during extended combat. The thigh exposure allows for optimal thermal regulation."

"Thermal regulation…?" Sif repeated flatly.

"Battle-tested design philosophy," the second dwarf added.

"We have centuries of empirical data to support," contributed the third. “Don’t go questioning master smiths if you’ve never been behind a forge!”

Sif stared at them for a long beat. Then she glanced at , and my face was carefully neutral except for the slight twitching at the corner of my mouth. Then back at the dwarves.

"...I will accept the explanation," she said finally, with the air of a woman choosing to believe a lie because the armor was too good to argue about. "The craftsmanship speaks for itself."

Cortana, who had been leaning against the wall watching this entire exchange with undisguised amusent, caught my eye and mouthed, "Thermal regulation?" with both eyebrows raised and a grin.

Rimuru's voice cut through the mont. "So. Are we ready?" This was a man preparing to walk into a room full of potential enemies and pretending he wasn't nervous, because showing nervousness to a room full of Demon Lords was roughly equivalent to bleeding in shark-infested waters.

I t his gaze and nodded. "Ready."

"Born ready." Cortana pushed off the wall and sauntered forward, her blue bunny ears bouncing with each step. That wasn't all that bounced of course. "Well, technically I was manufactured ready. Then I was evolved ready. Now I'm physically-embodied-and-looking-incredible ready. It's been a whole journey, honestly."

Sif drew herself to her full height. Her eyes, frad by the minimal costics Cortana had applied earlier, burned with sothing between anticipation and hunger. "I am Sif, True Goddess of War," she stated, and the words carried a new weight they hadn't possessed an hour ago. "I stand beside my Lord and I am prepared for whatever cos."

My left ear twitched. My Lord? She had started doing that soti in the last thirty minutes. I decided not to address it right now.

Milim bounced on her heels, still magnetized to my arm. "And I'm Milim! Obviously! I'm always ready!"

"Yes, Milim," Rimuru sighed with the particular fondness of a man who has heard this declaration approximately eight hundred tis. "We know."

We were about to move toward the teleportation array when a voice rang out.

"Wait! Wait, please!" Shion spoke up. "Lord Haru! I heard that you'll be cooking at the Demon Lord gathering tonight to impress everyone, and I think that's such an amazing and wonderful idea!" Her violet eyes sparkled with an earnestness that would have been charming if I did not possess extensive docunted evidence of what happened to people who consud her cooking. "And I just wanted to say that I would be honored, truly honored, to assist you in the kitchen!"

I felt every muscle in my body tense at the word "assist."

Shion didn't notice. She was too busy puffing her considerable chest out with pride, the apron she was wearing was straining valiantly across her breasts, as she delivered what was clearly a rehearsed speech. "As you may know, I recently acquired a unique skill called 'The Cook' during our city's last evolution event, and I am happy to report that my culinary abilities have improved dramatically! My food is now perfectly edible! One hundred percent! Rimuru himself has confird this!" She shot a look at Rimuru that dared him to contradict her. "My skill ensures that everything I make is technically safe to consu and nutritionally balanced! I am, if I may say so myself..." She placed her hand on her chest with theatrical gravity. "...an amazing chef."

Silence filled the office.

I stared at her. It was the flat, unblinking, thousand-yard stare of a professional chef who had dedicated multiple lifetis to the culinary arts hearing soone claim that a magical skill made them an amazing chef.

"Shion," I said.

"Yes!" She bead.

“I have no doubt that The Cook makes your food technically edible. I'm sure it's nutritionally balanced. I'm sure that anyone who eats it will survive the experience without requiring ergency dical attention, which is, admittedly, a dramatic improvent over your previous track record."

Shion's beam flickered slightly as she tried to determine whether this was a complint.

It was not.

"...But here's the thing, Shion." I leaned against the edge of Rimuru's desk and crossed my arms over my chest. "A skill that makes food edible doesn't make you a chef. A microwave makes food edible. A campfire makes food edible. Boiling water and dumping rice into it makes food edible. Edible is the floor. Edible is the absolute bare minimum starting point that you have to clear before the actual craft of cooking even begins."

Shion's expression was transitioning through several stages. Confusion. Dawning realization. The early tremors of a pout.

"And even if we set aside the fact that your food is, at best, technically not poisonous anymore..." I paused for emphasis. "There's still the matter of presentation."

Shion went very still.

"Your food, Shion. The way it looks."

"...What about the way it looks?"

I held her gaze with unflinching directness. "I have personally witnessed grown n, battle-hardened warriors with iron stomachs who have eaten raw monster flesh on forced marches, take one look at a dish you prepared and physically retch. Not from the taste. Not from the sll. From the appearance. Your cooking looks like sothing that already went through a digestive system. Twice. Your rice balls look like tumors. Your curry looks like it was excavated from a swamp. Your soups have colors that don't exist in nature and shouldn't exist anywhere. You once made a salad that Benimaru described as, and I'm quoting from mory here, 'an affront to vegetables as a concept.'"

Sowhere behind them, barely audible but unmistakable, a sharp intake of breath.

Benimaru’s expression was the expression of a man watching soone say out loud the thing he had been thinking every single day for months and had never once had the courage to voice!

"Furthermore," I continued, warming to my subject because if there was one thing I could not abide it was culinary diocrity wearing the skin of expertise, "being a chef isn't about a skill. It's about years of practice, understanding of ingredients, knowledge of technique, respect for tradition, and a creative vision that transforms raw materials into art. I'm going to walk into a room full of Demon Lords tonight and cook them a al that will make them forget about politics, grudges, and the overwhelming urge to murder each other for approximately ninety minutes. That requires a lifeti of mastery. Not a random skill popup."

Shion's lower lip was trembling. Her eyes glistened with the unmistakable incoming tears. She turned to Rimuru with the devastating, weaponized pout of a woman who knew exactly how effective her sad face was. "Rimuru-samaaaa! He's being an to ee!"

Rimuru's eyes darted to Shion's trembling lip, to my flat stare, to the ceiling as though seeking divine intervention, and then back to Shion. "There, there, Shion," he said, patting her arm with the careful gentleness of a man defusing a bomb and that bomb was a busty oni. "I'm sure Haru didn't an to be harsh. He's just... very passionate about his craft. You know how chefs are." Behind Shion's back, hidden from her line of sight by the angle of his body, Rimuru's other hand extended toward at waist level.

Thumbs up! It was small. It was discreet. It lasted approximately one and a half seconds before retreating back to Rimuru's side. But the ssage was unmistakable: Thank you. Thank fucking God soone finally said it. I have been eating that woman's cooking out of obligation and political necessity for months and every single al has been a trauma I will carry with into the next reincarnation.

I acknowledged the thumbs up with an imperceptible nod.

I decided this was an excellent ti to stop talking about cooking and start walking toward the teleportation array. I caught Rimuru's eye over Shion's shaking shoulder and tilted my head toward the door. Rimuru gave a grateful nod.

"Alright," Rimuru announced, smoothly transitioning from emotional triage to operational command with the fluid ease of a leader who handled both tasks daily. He stepped away from the still-fuming Shion and addressed the room. "I think we've had enough excitent for the pre-ga. Ti to go et the other Demon Lords."

The teleportation circle was built into the floor of the adjacent chamber. It was large enough to accommodate all of us comfortably, with room to spare.

– Cortana –

The world dissolved into streams of silver light as the teleportation array activated beneath their feet, sending them from Rimuru's office and hurling them across distances that Cortana's internal sensors struggled to quantify.

The journey lasted exactly 1.7 seconds by her internal chronoter before solid ground materialized beneath her midnight blue heels and the light collapsed back into ordinary physics.

Cortana blinked.

They stood on an elevated stone platform overlooking a vast circular chamber carved into the heart of what appeared to be a mountain. The ceiling soared hundreds of feet above them.

And then the power signatures hit her, and Cortana stopped thinking about the air entirely.

It was like stepping from a quiet room into the path of an oncoming freight train, except the freight train was invisible, silent, and coming from every direction simultaneously. Her sensory capabilities, already extraordinary from her origins as the most advanced AI humanity had ever produced and further enhanced by Ramiris's evolution of her into a High Spirit, strained under the sheer density of what she was detecting. Individual signatures blurred together at the edges like overlapping radio frequencies, each one broadcasting on a wavelength that her analytical mind struggled to separate from its neighbors.

She counted them. Isolated them. Ranked them.

And shivered. From the magnitude. From the sudden, humbling, deeply physical understanding that she was standing in a room with beings whose individual power outputs exceeded the combined military capacity of every fleet she had ever coordinated in her previous existence. The UNSC's entire naval arsenal, every MAC round, every Shiva nuclear warhead, every Spartan ever augnted, would not have made a aningful dent in the weakest signature she was detecting.

Focus, she told herself. You're not here to be impressed. You're here to make Haru look good.

She straightened her posture, squared her shoulders.

She glanced to her right. Sif stood with her chin raised and her dark eyes sweeping the chamber with the sharp, assessing gaze of a career soldier entering hostile territory.

To her left, Haru walked forward with his hands in his pockets and his ten golden tails fanning behind him in a slow, rhythmic wave that Cortana had learned to read like a mood ring. Relaxed movent, even spacing, slight upward curl at the tips. He was calm. Or at least performing calm convincingly enough that only soone who had studied his tail language as extensively as she had would notice the faint tension in the third tail from the left, the one that always tightened first when he was bracing for sothing he expected to be annoying rather than dangerous.

Rimuru walked beside him. Behind Rimuru, Benimaru and Souei flanked their lord.

Two new Demon Lords walking in with enough combined firepower in their entourages to level a small continent.

Rimuru glanced at Haru. Haru glanced back. A wordless exchange passed between them, the kind of shorthand communication that developed between people who had fought together, eaten together, and watched each other's loved ones nearly die on multiple occasions.

After you.

No, after you.

We go together, then.

They pushed through the doors simultaneously.

The Walpurgis chamber opened before them like the interior of a cathedral designed by soone who believed subtlety was a character flaw. The circular table dominated the center of the room.

The other Demon Lords were already seated.

Cortana's analytical processes engaged with aggressive enthusiasm. She had spent the past several days compiling everything she could find on the attending Demon Lords from Milim's briefings, Rimuru's intelligence reports, and her own conversations with various residents of the Jura Tempest Federation. The data was incomplete in places, contradictory in others, and filtered through the biases of sources who ranged from "reasonably objective" to "Milim, whose idea of a character assessnt was 'that guy's dumb' or 'she's cool I guess.'"

But it was enough to work with.

She began her assessnt the mont she crossed the threshold.

Guy Crimson. First seat to the left of the entrance, positioned at what functioned as the head of the table even though a circular table technically had no head. The fact that he sat there anyway and nobody questioned it told Cortana everything she needed to know about the power hierarchy in this room before she even ran her sensors.

Dagruel. Impossible to miss. The giant occupied a chair that had clearly been custom-built to accommodate his fra, which was roughly the dinsions of a small building..

Leon Cromwell.

Frey. The Harpy Queen.

Carrion. Everything about his body language scread when can I punch sothing?

Cortana sympathized. She had felt that way during roughly 73 percent of all UNSC staff etings.

Ramiris.The tiny fairy Demon Lord hovered near her chair rather than sitting in it, her diminutive form buzzing with restless energy. She spotted Cortana imdiately and waved with enthusiastic vigor, her small face splitting into a grin of recognition. Cortana allowed herself a small wave back. Ramiris had, after all, been the one to evolve her from code into flesh. That earned a wave.

Possibly even two waves, if Ramiris was having a good day.

Clayman. Cortana's gaze lingered on this one. He sat with an affected air of aristocratic superiority, his pale looks arranged in an expression of haughty disdain that he clearly believed projected power and authority. His fingers were steepled in front of his face. His posture was rigid. His clothing was elaborate and overwrought, layered with unnecessary ornantation. Everything about him was performance. His power level was the lowest at the table. Not weak in absolute terms. But relative to the company he was keeping? Clayman was a goldfish swimming with sharks and pretending the water was perfectly comfortable.

And then Cortana's sensors hit the anomaly There. Standing behind a seat occupied by a male figure she didn't recognize. A man of unremarkable appearance, average build, face arranged in a forgettable expression. He sat at the table as if he belonged there. His power signature was modest. Low Demon Lord class at best. Entirely appropriate for the gathering.

But the woman behind him was wrong.

She stood with her hands clasped in front of her, her posture the picture of deferential service. A servant attending her lord. That was the image she projected, and it was flawless in execution. Dark hair. Pale skin. Gothic-inspired clothing in deep purples and blacks that clung to a figure of striking, severe beauty. Her eyes, when they briefly t Cortana's, were the color of old athysts and held the flat, depthless quality of soone who had perfected the art of revealing absolutely nothing.

And her power signature dwarfed the man she stood behind by several orders of magnitude.

Cortana ran the comparison three tis to be certain. The woman's magicule density exceeded the seated Demon Lord's by a factor of roughly fifteen to one. The woman behind the chair was the real Demon Lord.

Cortana filed this observation away and chose not to ntion it aloud. She was confident she wasn't the only one in the room with sensors sharp enough to notice. Guy Crimson's half-lidded gaze had lingered on that particular seating arrangent with knowing amusent at least twice since they entered.

And Milim, despite her chaotic energy, possessed sensory capabilities that defied logical analysis. She almost certainly knew.

But nobody was saying anything.

Which ant it was politics.

And Cortana had learned from years of interfacing with the UNSC's admiralty board that when everyone in a room full of powerful people was collectively ignoring an obvious truth, there was usually a very good reason, and pointing it out was usually a very good way to make enemies.

Milim had released Haru's arm the mont they entered the chamber, transitioning from "clingy girlfriend" to "ancient Demon Lord" with a speed that suggested she had practiced the shift.

She bounced forward on her toes, planted a kiss directly on Haru's cheek with a mwah that echoed in the stone chamber with deliberate volu, then turned to face Cortana. And stuck her tongue out. The gesture was pure, unfiltered, elentary-school-level provocation. One eye scrunched shut, tongue extended to its full length, both hands brought up beside her head with fingers splayed. It lasted approximately 1.3 seconds before Milim spun on her heel and skipped toward her own chair with the carefree bounce of soone who had never once in her millennia-long existence worried about dignity.

Cortana felt her left eyebrow twitch. A muscle in her jaw flexed. Binary code flickered rapidly across her exposed stomach in agitated patterns before she forced it back to calm, steady loops through sheer willpower.

Childish, she thought. Petty. Immature. Completely beneath my notice.

Ok… She was absolutely going to get Milim back for that later!

Haru and Rimuru moved to the two remaining empty seats at the table. Benimaru and Souei took their positions behind Rimuru's chair.

Cortana caught the reactions as they settled into position. They were subtle, most of them. Quick glances that swept over Haru's entourage and then returned, lingered, and reassessed.

She understood why.

Several of the female attendants standing behind other Demon Lords were looking at Cortana with expressions she classified as straight-up Jealousy.

The blue-haired woman behind Guy Crimson was doing an admirable job of keeping her face neutral, but her eyes had swept Cortana's figure a few tis now. Frey's attendant, a hawk-featured woman with sharp golden eyes, had glanced at Sif's exposed thighs, then down at her own fully armored legs, then back at Sif's thighs with an expression that clearly communicated that is impractical and I refuse to acknowledge it looks incredible.

Cortana allowed herself a small, private smirk that she aid at absolutely nobody and everybody simultaneously.

That's right, she thought. His arm candy is hotter than yours. Deal with it!

Guy Crimson straightened in his chair. His crimson eyes swept the complete table with an expression of mild satisfaction, like a collector examining a full set. "I suppose we're all present, then," he said. His voice was smooth, rich, and carried effortlessly to every corner of the chamber without any apparent need to raise it. He gestured with one elegant hand toward Haru and Rimuru. "Our newcors should introduce themse..."

"WHAT IS THIS?!"

The interruption ca from Clayman, who had risen from his seat with enough force to send his ornate chair scraping backward across the stone floor. He jabbed one trembling finger toward Rimuru. "That sli!" The finger swung to Haru. "And that... that fox creature!" His voice cracked upward on the last syllable. "What are they doing sitting at this table?! This is a gathering of Demon Lords! True Demon Lords! Not every stray animal and amorphous blob that stumbles into a power-up and decides they deserve a seat among their betters!"

The chamber went quiet. Not the comfortable silence of agreent, but the loaded silence of a room full of predators watching one of their number make a potentially fatal miscalculation and doing absolutely nothing to stop it.

Clayman was breathing hard. He whipped toward Milim, and sothing in his expression shifted. The outrage fractured, revealing a substrate of genuine confusion and the first green shoots of panic. "And Milim!" he sputtered, his voice losing another full octave of authority. "What... what is the aning of this? I thought we had an arrangent! I thought you were..." He faltered, swallowed visibly, and lowered his voice to sothing he probably intended as a nacing whisper but which erged as a desperate hiss. "I thought you were on my side."

Cortana watched Haru's reaction from her position behind his chair. His expression had shifted at that comnt.

Milim, who had been lounging sideways in her chair with both legs thrown over one armrest, tilted her head back to look at Clayman from an inverted angle. She humd for a mont as if she were genuinely deliberating.

"Hmm. Hmmmm." She tapped her chin with one finger. "Oh! Right! That thing!" She swung her legs around and sat up properly, crossing her arms over her chest with an expression of magnanimous generosity. "Okay, so, I was totally going to pull this really great prank on you, Clayface–"

"My na," Clayman said through clenched teeth, "is Clayman."

"Whatever, Clayface." Milim waved one hand without breaking stride. "Like I was saying, I was gonna pretend to be under your dumb mind control thingy? The one you tried to use on at that eting with Frey and Carrion a few weeks ago?" She paused, tilting her head with theatrical thoughtfulness. "Which, by the way, using mind control on is hilarious? Because I'm, like, a billion tis stronger than you? So it was basically like a hamster trying to hypnotize a dragon." She shrugged. "But anyway. I was gonna play along and act all 'yes master Clayface, whatever you say master Clayface,' and then let you think you had this amazing genius plan going, and then at the perfect mont, right when you were doing your big villain speech about conquering everything or whatever..." She mid pulling back a fist. "'SURPRISE!' And I would have punched you through the floor and everyone would have laughed and it would have been the best prank ever." She paused. The manic energy dimd by several degrees. "But then I thought about it more," Milim continued, her voice losing its performative volu. "And Haru would have sensed sothing was wrong with the second he saw acting weird. Because he pays attention." She smiled. Not the manic grin. Not the competitive smirk. A real smile, warm and fond and slightly vulnerable in a way that looked profoundly strange on a being capable of cracking continental plates with her fists. "And he would have attacked you imdiately to protect . Without even thinking about it. Without stopping to ask questions or wait for an explanation. He just would have..." She mid a single devastating punch. "...Boom. Right through your face. Because that's what he does when soone he cares about might be in danger." She turned to look at Haru, and Cortana's emotional recognition algorithms classified the expression as "adoration" with a confidence rating of 98.7 percent. "And then the whole prank would have been pointless and sobody would have gotten hurt and there would have been a big ss and Rimuru would have been mad at about cleanup costs again." She spun back to Clayman with a bright, sunny grin that contained the destructive energy of a star going supernova behind a picket fence. "So I gave up on that plan! You're welco!"

Clayman's mouth worked soundlessly for several more seconds. "This changes nothing," he declared. His voice was thin but forceful, pushed out through a throat tight with barely controlled fury. "My plans are already in motion. Forces beyond your comprehension are..."

"Clayface." Milim interrupted him without looking up, picking at sothing under her fingernail with supre, devastating disinterest. "Just stop. You're making it weird."

– Haru –

I was going to be honest. I had absolutely no fucking idea what was going on!

Milim had just publicly dismantled whatever arrangent she apparently had with Clayman by cheerfully explaining that she had considered pranking him but decided against it because I would have punched him through the floor before she got the chance. Which was... flattering, I supposed, in the way that being described as a protective attack dog by your girlfriend was flattering?

The accuracy didn't make it less embarrassing.

Clayman was still standing, trembling with a cocktail of fury and mounting terror that I could sll from across the table. His carefully constructed aristocratic composure had crumbled. His eyes darted around the table, searching for allies, searching for leverage.

They landed on Carrion and Frey.

"It doesn't matter!" Clayman's voice pitched upward with the brittle conviction of a man clinging to a plan that was visibly disintegrating around him. "Milim was rely one component. The core strategy remains intact! Carrion! Frey!" He thrust one hand toward each of them in a gesture that was clearly ant to be commanding but landed sowhere closer to frantic. "You know what must be done! Support ! These interlopers have no right to sit among us, and together we possess more than enough combined strength to..."

"Eh!?" Rimuru leaned forward in his chair as he studied the two Demon Lords with sudden, alard intensity. "Carrion and Frey are under mind control? Are you serious right now?"

"Ah." Guy Crimson's voice cut through the murmur that followed Rimuru's outburst. The oldest. "So that's how it is." He sighed. "Clayman," Guy said, and the na landed in the chamber with the finality of a judge's gavel. "I tolerate quite a lot at these gatherings. I tolerate posturing. I tolerate threats. I tolerate Milim breaking furniture and Carrion challenging people to arm-wrestling competitions that crack the table. I even tolerate Ramiris talking to herself, which she does constantly and which everyone pretends not to notice."

"I do not talk to myself!" Ramiris squeaked indignantly from her hovering position. "I narrate! There's a difference!"

"What I do not tolerate," Guy continued without acknowledging the interruption, "is soone dragging puppets to my table and pretending they're participants. It's tedious. It's insulting. And frankly, it makes the wine taste worse."

He raised his right hand. The motion was lazy, almost dismissive, like a man flicking crumbs off his sleeve. Two condensed spheres of magicules materialized at his fingertips, each one no larger than a marble but pulsing with a density that made the air around them shimr and distort.

Guy flicked his wrist.

The spheres crossed the distance to Carrion and Frey in less ti than it took to process their trajectory. They struck both Demon Lords square in the forehead, snapping their heads backward with enough force to slide their heavy stone chairs several inches across the floor.

Carrion's reaction ca first. A snarl ripped from his throat that was more animal than humanoid.

Frey's awakening was quieter. The Harpy Queen's elegant face contorted through a rapid sequence of expressions: confusion, horror, realization, and then a fury so cold and controlled that it made Carrion's animalistic rage look warm by comparison. "How long?" Frey's voice was a whisper threaded with razors. "Clayman. How long have you been inside my mind?"

Carrion didn't bother with words. He took a single step toward Clayman's side of the table.

"Weeks—" Carrion growled. The word ca out guttural and raw. "I can feel it! Weeks of my own thoughts twisted into knots. Weeks of agreeing with plans I would have gutted you for suggesting. Weeks of sitting across from you and calling you ally while my instincts scread that sothing was wrong and I couldn't... I couldn't hear them." His fists clenched at his sides. "I am going to pull your spine out through your mouth, Clayman. And I am going to take my ti doing it!"

"Now, now." Guy Crimson raised one hand in a languid gesture of restraint that sohow carried more authority than a shouted command. "Settle your grudge after the eting. We have a schedule."

Leon Cromwell—who had been watching the entire spectacle with an expression of indifference—spoke for the first ti since we had entered the chamber. His voice was flat, precise, and utterly devoid of sympathy. "If you were too weak to resist his manipulation, that failure belongs to you as much as to him. A Demon Lord who cannot protect their own mind has no business sitting at this table."

"Leon speaks truth, though bluntly," Dagruel rumbled from his massive chair. "Mind control is a tool. An ugly one, certainly. But the sha of falling to it lies with the victim who allowed their guard to lower. In the old days, such weakness would have disqualified both of you from attending altogether."

Carrion's snarl deepened, but I noticed he did not argue the point. His fury redirected entirely onto Clayman, and I saw the calculation happen behind his eyes in real ti. He was a predator. Predators did not waste energy on argunts they could not win. They conserved it for the kill that mattered.

Frey inclined her head by the smallest fraction, acknowledging the criticism without accepting it.

And through all of this, I was standing there thinking—I still don't know what any of this has to do with …

Seriously. I ca here to cook and et everyone for the first ti since they were supposed to be curious about us. I had an entire ntal nu planned.

Instead, I was watching a man I had never t before today screaming about betrayal and mind control, and I genuinely, truly, with my whole heart, did not understand why I was involved.

Clayman disabused of that confusion. His finger jabbed toward my face from across the table, trembling with barely suppressed rage.

"You!" The word cracked from his mouth. "You think you can sit there in silence and pretend innocence? You brought that green armored monster into this world! That... that killing machine in its tal shell! It murdered my friend! One of my most trusted generals! One of my closest and most loyal friends!" His voice broke on the word "friends" in a way that sounded, despite everything, almost genuine. Almost. "He served faithfully for decades. He was brilliant. Irreplaceable. And your pet soldier put a round through his skull without even stopping to identify his target! As if Adalmann's life ant nothing! As if he were just another obstacle between your beast and its next objective!"

I blinked. I pointed at myself with one finger, my confusion completely unperford. "?"

"Yes, you! The fox! The one Milim keeps parading around like so sort of exotic pet she found in the woods!" Clayman's composure had abandoned him entirely. Spittle flecked the corners of his mouth. His careful aristocratic diction had degraded into sothing closer to a shriek. "You allied with humans! You brought soldiers from other worlds to fight my people! And you sit there wearing that smug expression as if you haven't been orchestrating the destabilization of this entire region since the day your disgusting little restaurant materialized in the Jura Forest!"

I turned slightly in my chair and looked at Cortana. She was already leaning toward . She murmured, her voice pitched for my ears alone, though I suspected half the Demon Lords in the room could hear her anyway. "He's talking about Chief. When we helped defend Rimuru's territory during the invasion a few weeks back, Chief cleared a fortified position on the eastern front. There was a clown commander. Chief put two rounds through its head and that was that…"

I turned back to Clayman. "Look. Clayman."

"It's Clayman!" he shrieked.

"That's... that's what I said?"

"You said it wrong! You said it like it didn't matter!"

Well, that was true…

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with two fingers. "Clayman. I'm going to be straightforward with you because I would really rather be cooking right now. The invasion of Rimuru's territory was an unprovoked act of aggression that killed thousands of innocent monsters, including won and children. My friends helped defend those people. If your general was commanding the invading forces, then he chose to participate in a massacre, and the consequences of that choice caught up with him. I'm sorry he was your friend. I an that sincerely. Losing people you care about is awful regardless of the circumstances. But his death is not my debt to repay, and you don't get to fra self-defense as assassination just because you're angry about the outco."

For one brief, fragile mont, sothing in Clayman's expression shifted. Sothing that might have been grief, might have been exhaustion, might have been the faintest recognition that the man across the table was not actually his enemy.

The mont lasted approximately two seconds. Then it died, and what replaced it was pure spite.

"Fine," Clayman said. His voice dropped to a register that was almost calm, which was significantly more unsettling than the screaming. "Fine. If this gathering will offer no justice and no allies, then I will settle my debts myself." He straightened, pulled his shoulders back, and pointed at Rimuru with one steady finger. "I challenge the sli. Formal combat. Here and now, before this assembly."

Rimuru's expression didn't change. He simply regarded Clayman and said, "Accepted."

Clayman's lips curled into sothing ugly. His gaze swung to . "As for the fox and his performing pets..."

My ear twitched.

"...my subordinates will handle your disposal while I deal with the sli. You aren't worth my personal attention."

I opened my mouth to respond, but a sound cut off.

It was the sound of a sword being drawn.

Sif had stepped forward. Her dark eyes were locked on Clayman with an intensity that I could feel against my skin like radiant heat.

"My Lord will not soil his hands on your servants," Sif continued, each word placed with the care of a mason setting stones. "He will not lower himself to acknowledge threats from creatures so far beneath him that he would need to dig to find them. If your subordinates wish to test themselves against the entourage of Lord Haru, Prince of the Yokai and a True Demon Lord, then they may present themselves before myself, and I will educate them on the precise distance between their aspirations and their abilities." She turned her head slightly. Not enough to break eye contact with Clayman, but enough that I could see the edge of her expression.

Guy Crimson leaned back in his chair. His eyes moved from Sif to and then back to Sif. "Well, well," he said, and his smooth voice carried a note of genuine interest that I suspected was rare enough to be noteworthy. "A True Goddess of War serving as attendant to a newcor Demon Lord? And not grudgingly? Not through coercion or contract or political arrangent?" He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his chin on his interlaced fingers. "Genuine devotion. Freely given." His smile widened by a fraction. "You must be quite an interesting man, Fox Prince... In my experience, gods don't kneel for anyone. Getting one to stand beside you willingly is a feat that most beings in this room couldn't accomplish with a thousand years of trying."

I felt my ears flatten against my skull in the involuntary kitsune response to embarrassnt that I had never successfully learned to suppress. My tails shifted behind in agitated patterns. "I didn't ask her to call that," I said.

"Which is precisely why she does," Guy replied, amused.

From my other side, Cortana leaned in just enough for to catch her whispered comntary. "He's not wrong, you know. The whole reluctant-leader thing you do is basically catnip for warrior won. You should see the naughty things Aela types in the group chat..."

"Thank you, Cortana. That's very helpful."

…The transition from "tense political standoff" to "hot pot dinner" took approximately four minutes.

I was fairly proud of that.

The mont Clayman had been dragged out of the chamber by two of Guy Crimson's attendants to the designated combat arena, and Rimuru had risen from his chair with a calm, almost apologetic smile to follow, and Sif had been striding after them, and Benimaru and Souei had taken up positions near the massive projection crystal that Guy's people had activated to broadcast the fights in real ti across the far wall of the chamber...

I had done the only sensible thing.

I pulled a portable cooking station out of my storage magic and set it on the Demon Lord table. The silence that followed was a different flavor than the political silences I had been swimming through all evening. This was the silence of confusion. Pure, unfiltered, utterly bewildered confusion, the kind that descended upon a room when every single occupant simultaneously encountered sothing so far outside their expectations that their brains needed a mont to recalibrate.

Guy Crimson stared at and the pot. "What," he said, and the single word contained more genuine surprise than everything else he had expressed in the last hour combined, "are you doing?"

"Cooking," I said. I had already unsealed the ingredients from my inventory. The beauty of dinsional storage was that everything stayed exactly the way it went in, which ant the bone broth I had spent six hours preparing two days ago in the Fox Hole's kitchen was still at a perfect rolling simr.

"He's cooking, duh!" Ramiris repeated from her hovering position.

"I ca here tonight with three objectives," I said, adjusting the fla beneath the pot until the broth reached that sweet spot between simr and rolling boil where the surface trembled but didn't splash. "Objective one was to support Rimuru, who is my friend. Objective two was to not start an international incident. That one is hit and miss I guess. Objective three, and I cannot stress this enough, was to cook for everyone!" I tapped the edge of the pot with my cooking chopsticks. The sound rang clean and true through the chamber.

"You are aware," Leon Cromwell said, "that this is the most exclusive gathering of power in this world. That beings have sched for centuries rely to observe these proceedings from a distance. That the table you are currently using as a kitchen counter has hosted negotiations that shaped the fate of civilizations."

I laid the wagyu slices across a wooden cutting board in a fan pattern, each piece overlapping the next by exactly one centiter. "And now it's hosting a hot pot. I'd argue that's an upgrade."

Leon stared at for three full seconds. Then he turned away with a barely perceptible shake of his head and the faintest, most reluctant twitch at the corner of his mouth that he suppressed so quickly I almost missed it.

Milim, who had repositioned herself from her designated chair to the one imdiately adjacent to my station, leaned forward and inhaled deeply through her nose. "Mmmmmmm." The sound was low, drawn out. "That's the good broth. That's the REALLY good broth. I can sll the marrow. And that weird flower thing you put in that makes everything taste like happiness."

"Chrysanthemum petals," I said. "From Amy-chan's personal garden in Takamagahara. She grows them herself between ani binges."

Milim spun in her chair to face the rest of the table. She slapped both palms flat on the stone surface hard enough to crack hairline fractures outward from the impact points and declared, at a volu calibrated to reach every ear in the chamber and possibly several ears in adjacent dinsions: "Okay so LISTEN UP because this is IMPORTANT! Haru is the best cook in every single world that his restaurant connects to, which is like a LOT of worlds, and I have personally eaten food from all of them, and NOTHING cos even close to what he makes! His food is so good that it literally heals people! It fixed a goddess's brain! It cured curses! He made an Endbringer... edible! He fed a whole city after a war! He cooked a LITERAL GOD and it was delicious!" She paused for exactly one breath. "He's also the best lover in all those worlds too! Like, by a LOT! He does this thing with his tails that makes your whole body..."

"Milim."

"...tingle from head to toe and you can't even THINK anymore and..."

"Milim."

"...one ti I ca so hard I accidentally exploded a house and..."

"MILIM."

She stopped. Blinked at with those big pink eyes, completely innocent, as though she had not just announced intimate details of our sex life to a table of immortal political figures.

"Too much?" she asked.

"The cooking part was fine. Everything after 'best cook' was too much..."

"But it's TRUE though!"

"Being true doesn't make it appropriate for dinner conversation."

Milim pouted for approximately half a second before her natural inability to maintain negative emotions kicked in. She brightened and added, "Not that the blue bunny girl would know any of that yet!" She shot a look at Cortana, delivered with a sunny smile: I have sothing you want, and I am very, very happy about that.

Cortana's tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth.

I decided to pretend I hadn't noticed any of this and focused on arranging the mushrooms in the broth, watching them bob and slowly absorb the rich, golden liquid until they turned translucent at the edges.

"Lord Haru." Benimaru's voice cut through the comfortable clatter of my cooking from his position near the projection crystal. "Perhaps we should be paying attention to the battles? Lord Rimuru and Lady Sif are currently engaged with their opponents!"

I glanced up at the projection. Two separate feeds were displayed side by side on the shimring magical screen.

On the left, Rimuru was fighting Clayman. I use the word "fighting" loosely, in the sa way one might describe a cat playing with a mouse as a "competition." Rimuru stood in the center of the arena with his hands still in his pockets while Clayman threw everything he had at him. Dark magic, summoned creatures, desperate physical strikes fueled by burning his own life force. None of it was landing. Rimuru wasn't even dodging most of it. The attacks simply slid off him, deflected by the passive barrier of a being whose power had transcended the scale that Clayman's abilities were calibrated to threaten. Every few seconds, Rimuru would tilt his head slightly, as though sothing had briefly caught his interest, before returning to his stance of relaxed superiority.

Clayman was screaming. I couldn't hear the audio from this distance, but his mouth was working overti.

On the right feed, Sif was handling three of Clayman's subordinates simultaneously, and "handling" was generous. She blocked a sword strike with her bracer, redirected the attacker's montum into his own ally, spun low beneath a magical projectile that sailed over her head and detonated against the far wall, then rose with a rising slash that disard the third opponent so cleanly that his weapon was in the air before he registered it had left his hand.

Her new Ultimate Skill was clearly active. She was reading their attacks before they committed to them, her body shifting into defensive positions a half-second before the strikes arrived, her counterattacks landing in the exact gaps that her opponents were about to create. She simply knew where the battle was going.

I turned back to my pot. "They've got it handled."

"But my lord," Benimaru pressed, though I could see in his eyes that he already knew the answer, "it is customary to observe the formal challenges during Walpurgis. To show respect for the combatants and acknowledge..."

"Benimaru." I dropped a handful of noodles into the broth and watched them unfurl like pale ribbons in the amber current. "Rimuru is going to win because Clayman is weaker than him by several orders of magnitude and everyone in this room already knows it. Sif is going to win because she is a Goddess of War with a Ultimate Skill fighting opponents who, and I an this with no disrespect to their dedication, are not in the sa weight class. The outcos are predetermined. The only variable is how long it takes, and I refuse to let my broth reduce past optimal concentration because I was too busy watching a foregone conclusion."

The other Demon Lords, I realized, had mostly stopped watching the fights as well.

Guy Crimson was studying my knife work with an expression I recognized because I had seen it on the faces of other chefs, other craftsn, other people who understood that true mastery in any discipline was beautiful regardless of the discipline itself.

Carrion had leaned forward in his chair, his nostrils flaring as the broth's aroma intensified. The beast king's survival instincts were clearly warring with his pride. His stomach growled.

Frey was watching the bubbling pot.

Dagruel simply waited.

And then there was the vampire girl. She was still standing behind her puppet's chair. Still maintaining the pretense of the dutiful servant attending her lesser lord. Still wearing that perfectly composed expression of neutrality that revealed absolutely nothing. But her eyes were locked onto the pot with an intensity that contradicted every other elent of her carefully constructed performance.

"Alright," I said, raising my voice just enough to carry across the table. "Fair warning. Tonight, I'm cooking exclusively for Demon Lords."

I set the first bowl in front of Guy Crimson, who raised one eyebrow.

I set the second in front of Carrion, whose hand was already reaching before the bowl touched the table.

Third to Frey, who accepted it with a nod of asured courtesy.

Fourth to Dagruel, whose bowl was roughly the size of a small bathtub because I had prepared accordingly.

Fifth to Ramiris, whose bowl was proportionally tiny and featured a miniature ladle that I had carved from bamboo specifically for fairy-sized dining.

Sixth to Leon, who looked at it as though it might contain a trap and then, after a visible internal debate that lasted four seconds, picked up his chopsticks.

Seventh to Milim, who did not wait for the bowl to be set down. She intercepted it from my hands mid-delivery, brought it to her face, inhaled so deeply that the surface of the broth trembled, and began eating with the single-minded ferocity of a natural disaster.

The eighth bowl I set in front of Rimuru’s empty chair for when he finished his battle.

Then I paused. Turned. And looked directly at the vampire girl standing behind her puppet. "Which ans," I continued, "if you're not a Demon Lord, you don't get any…"

The vampire girl's composure held for an impressive three seconds. Her red eyes t mine. I saw the calculation happen behind them in real ti, the cost-benefit analysis of maintaining a cover that had already been compromised versus the increasingly intolerable reality of watching everyone else eat while the most extraordinary aroma she had ever encountered filled her nostrils and clawed at her self-control.

The aroma won.

One mont she was standing behind her puppet's chair with her hands demurely clasped. The next, her puppet was stumbling sideways with a yelp of surprise as she physically shoved him out of the way, seized the back of his vacated chair, and dropped into it with the proprietary authority of soone reclaiming a throne.

"How did you know?" She fixed with a stare that was equal parts accusation and genuine curiosity.

"We all knew you were the real one," Ramiris chid in from her hovering position with the cheerful tactlessness of soone who had been alive long enough to stop caring about diplomatic niceties. The tiny fairy was already on her second miniature bowl, her small legs kicking happily in the air. "Like, literally everyone at this table has known the whole ti. It's one of those things where nobody says anything because the politics are complicated and also kind of funny? You should have seen Guy's face when you walked in. He did this little smirk thing. It was very subtle but I was watching because I narrate everything in my head and I needed material."

The vampire Demon Lord turned back to with an expression that had solidified into sothing between grudging respect and mild outrage. "Your food had better be extraordinary, fox. Because you have just blown a cover I spent considerable ti and political capital constructing, and if the compensation is anything less than the best al I have ever tasted, I will consider it a personal insult requiring redress."

"It wasn't really a secret, though," I said.

Her vampire eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.

I slid the bowl the final inch across the stone toward her. "Eat first. Threaten after."

She looked down at the bowl. The broth shimred gold. The wagyu slices had been simred to the precise point where the fat had begun to render but the at retained its blush of pink, each piece draped over a bed of glass noodles and crystalline mushrooms that glowed faintly blue against the rich amber liquid. A nest of julienned green onions floated in the center, garnished with a single chrysanthemum petal.

She picked up her chopsticks. She lifted a slice of wagyu, watched it steam for precisely two seconds, and placed it on her tongue. Her eyes closed. The reaction traveled through her body like a wave. Her shoulders, which had been held rigid with maintained tension since the mont she dropped her act, released. Her spine softened. Her chin tilted upward by a fraction. A sound escaped her lips that she absolutely had not intended to make, sothing between a sigh and a moan that she tried to suppress halfway through and only succeeded in making more noticeable.

"Oh," she whispered. Then, louder, with the bewildered vulnerability of soone encountering an emotion they had not prepared defenses against. "Oooooooh~" She opened her eyes. They were shining.

Around the table, similar reactions were happening...

"Thish..." Carrion managed around a mouthful of noodles, broth running down his jaw, "...is the besht thing I've ever tashted."

Frey ate with more restraint but no less impact. "Fox," she said quietly, her voice stripped of its earlier razor-thin hostility. "What did you put in this?"

"Love," Milim answered from behind her fourth bowl, noodles hanging from her mouth in defiance of every dining etiquette that had ever existed.

"Ingredients," I corrected. "Good ingredients, proper technique, and a lifeti of practice."

"I've dined at the tables of kings," Frey continued as though neither of us had spoken. "I've eaten als prepared by chefs who were granted centuries of life specifically to perfect their craft. None of them produced anything remotely comparable to this…"

Dagruel said nothing. The giant simply extended his bathtub-sized bowl toward , empty, and waited. His silence was his review, and the size of the portion he was requesting as a second serving was his score.

I refilled it without comnt. It was a good thing the small hotpot in front of was actually magically enhanced to have a much larger volu than it showed on the outside.

Even Leon Cromwell, whose emotional range appeared to span the vast spectrum from "indifferent" to "slightly less indifferent," had paused mid-bite with an expression of fractional, reluctant acknowledgnt. He would not complint the food. I was certain of that. But he would eat every bite, and he would rember this al for the rest of his extrely long life, and that was enough.

Ramiris had given up on her tiny ladle entirely and was swimming in her bowl. Actually swimming. The fairy had shrunk herself down to her smallest size and was doing a backstroke through the broth while nibbling on a mushroom roughly half her current body length. Her tiny voice echoed from inside the ceramic: "I'm never leaving this bowl! This is my ho now! Sobody tell my labyrinth I've relocated!"

I filled one more bowl. Larger than the standard servings. Extra wagyu, double noodles, a generous portion of every topping, and an additional drizzle of the Pandoran citrus ponzu across the surface.

I set it behind my chair where Cortana stood.

"For you, gorgeous," I said.

Cortana looked at the bowl, then at . She picked up the bowl and cradled it against her chest for a mont before raising her chopsticks.

The reaction from the other attendants was imdiate.

The blue-haired woman behind Guy Crimson's chair stepped forward with an expression of professional offense. "Lord Haru. You stated this al was exclusively for Demon Lords. On what basis does your attendant receive a portion while the rest of us are expected to simply observe?"

Frey's hawk-featured attendant folded her arms. "It does seem... inconsistent."

I looked at each of them in turn. Then I looked back at the beautiful Cortana in her sexy bunny outfit, who had paused with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth and was watching with blue eyes that contained equal asures of amusent and curiosity about how I would handle this.

"Because," I said, picking up my own bowl and settling back into my chair with the comfortable finality of a man who had never lost an argunt in his own kitchen and did not intend to start tonight, "I made the food. I set the table. This is my kitchen. Even if my kitchen is currently occupying the center of an ancient Demon Lord conference table inside a mountain in another dinsion." I took a sip of broth directly from the rim of my bowl. Perfect. The chrysanthemum had blood fully, the ginger was present but not dominant, and the marrow had given the base a richness that coated the tongue without heaviness. "In my kitchen, I make the rules. And the rules say Cortana eats…"

The other servants all glared at Cortana who just gave them smug looks in between her own slurps.

…Rimuru returned approximately four minutes later, stepping through the chamber doors with the easy confidence of a man who had just conclusively demonstrated his superiority over a political rival and wanted everyone to know he hadn't even broken a sweat doing it.

Sif walked beside him.

I stood from my cooking station and spread my arms. "Welco back, you two. We watched every single mont of both your battles, and honestly? Riveting. Edge of our seats the entire ti. Couldn't look away!"

Rimuru settled into his waiting chair, where his bowl of hot pot sat steaming and ready. "It was a good fight," he said, picking up his chopsticks. "Well. 'Fight' might be generous. Clayman burned through his entire reserve trying to land a hit that mattered, and when none of them did, he started burning his own life force to fuel increasingly desperate attacks. I gave him several opportunities to surrender. He chose not to take them." A pause. A shrug that carried no weight of guilt. "His choice."

"And what of his fate?" Guy Crimson asked from behind his own bowl, which was, I noticed with quiet satisfaction, nearly empty.

Rimuru's expression softened into sothing that was not quite pity but existed in the sa neighborhood. "Dead. I absorbed him. His magicules, his mories, everything. It was the cleanest option. Leaving him alive would have ant watching him spend the rest of his existence plotting revenge from whatever hole he crawled into, and nobody at this table needs that kind of recurring headache."

Guy nodded once, apparently satisfied with both the outco and the explanation. He returned to his broth.

Sif, anwhile, had positioned herself behind my chair with the rigid posture of a soldier reporting for duty after a successful mission. Her chest was puffed outward. Her shoulders were squared. She was, without question, waiting for to acknowledge her performance.

"And Sif's opponents?" I asked, directing the question to Rimuru but keeping my peripheral vision on the goddess.

"Decimated," Rimuru confird around a mouthful of noodles. "She took all three of Clayman's subordinates simultaneously. I caught the end of it on my way out. She had disard one, pinned another under her boot, and was holding the third at sword-point while delivering what I can only describe as a detailed critique of his guard positioning. It was..." He paused. "...Wait? Why are you asking? Weren’t you guys all watching our fights!?"

No one looked him in the eye. Except Benimaru and Souin, of course.

"...None of you watched?" Sif's voice had gone very quiet. The dangerous kind of quiet.

One of the attendants standing behind Frey's chair, the hawk-featured woman who had complained about not receiving food earlier, stepped into the silence with the timing of soone who had been waiting for exactly this mont to twist the knife. "That would be correct," she said crisply. "Not a single Demon Lord observed either battle in its entirety. They were all far too occupied with the fox prince's cooking…”

Sif looked at with an expression that hit sowhere in the vicinity of my solar plexus and twisted. "My Lord," she said, and her voice was carefully controlled in the way that voices beca carefully controlled when they were one syllable away from cracking. "Did you... did you also not watch my battle?"

Every tail I possessed went rigid.

There are monts in a man's life where honesty is a virtue, and there are monts where honesty is a weapon of mass destruction aid at soone who does not deserve to be its target.

THIS WAS EMPHATICALLY THE LATTER!

"I watched," I said, eting her eyes with an expression of absolute sincerity that I constructed from scratch in approximately one quarter of a second. "Of course I watched. Sif, you were incredible. The way you read that first attacker's feint and redirected his montum into his own ally? Textbook. And the disarm on the third opponent was so clean it looked choreographed. Your footwork has improved dramatically since your evolution. Bellona is clearly integrating with your natural combat instincts at an accelerated rate!" Every word of this was technically accurate. I had, in fact, seen those specific monts. What I was carefully omitting was the fact that I had seen them in approximately eight to ten seconds of total viewing ti, distributed across three brief glances between adding ingredients to the pot, adjusting fla temperature, and carving garnishes.

I felt guilty about it now…

Sif's expression underwent a transformation that I tracked in real ti. The light in her eyes reignited, not to its full previous blaze, but to a warm, steady glow that was sohow more affecting because it was directed entirely at . "You watched," she repeated.. A woman choosing to believe the thing she needed to believe because the alternative was unacceptable and the man saying it was the man she had decided to trust.

"Of course I watched," I repeated, and I made a private, ironclad vow to myself that the next ti Sif fought anything, even if it was a training dummy, even if it was a particularly aggressive squirrel, I would watch the entire encounter from start to finish without blinking.

She deserved that. She deserved to know that soone was always watching.

Cortana, standing behind my chair, leaned down until her lips were beside my fox ear. "Liar," she breathed, so quietly that only I could hear.

"Shut up," I muttered back without moving my lips.

"Your third tail twitches when you're fibbing. It's adorable."

"I will revoke your hot pot privileges."

"You wouldn't dare. I have the bowl and I'm not giving it back." She straightened up and resud her position of serene, bunny-eared composure as though the exchange had never occurred.

I pulled Sif's bowl from behind the cooking station where I had been keeping it warm. It was the second largest portion I had prepared. "For the victorious Goddess of War," I said, extending the bowl toward her with both hands in the formal offering posture that Yasaka had drilled into as a child and that I almost never used because formality made my skin itch. But Sif valued honor. She valued recognition. She valued being treated like the warrior she was rather than the accessory Asgard had tried to make her. So I offered her food the way a lord offered tribute to a champion, and I watched the last traces of hurt drain from her face.

Sif accepted the bowl with both hands. Her fingers brushed mine during the transfer, and I noticed that they lingered for a fraction of a second longer than the exchange required. She looked down at the contents. Sothing in her expression went very soft, very briefly, before the warrior's composure reasserted itself. "Thank you," she said. The words were simple. She raised the bowl, inhaled, and her eyes closed. The first bite produced a reaction that she clearly had not anticipated and was completely unprepared to suppress. Her back arched. Her grip on the bowl tightened until the ceramic creaked. A sound escaped her throat that was sowhere between a gasp and a moan, involuntary and shocked and tinged with sothing that made my ears heat up. "Blessed Norns," she whispered, her eyes still closed. "What manner of sorcery is this?"

"It's soup," I said.

"It is not soup." Sif opened her eyes. They were glistening. "I have consud soup. This is... this is..." She struggled visibly with vocabulary, a goddess of war attempting to express a culinary experience that existed outside her linguistic frawork. She settled on, "This is what Valhalla's feast halls aspire to serve and fail."

"Aww. Thanks, Sif."

The hawk-featured attendant behind Frey's chair made a sound of pure, unfiltered indignation. "This is outrageous! First the slutty blue bunny woman, now the goddess? Lord Haru explicitly stated this al was for Demon Lords only! On what possible basis does his own attendant receive preferential treatnt while the rest of us continue to be denied?"

Carrion's scarred companion shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "The sll is becoming genuinely difficult to endure."

I looked at the gathered attendants. I looked at Sif, who was eating with the focused intensity of soone who had discovered religion at the bottom of a ceramic bowl. I looked at Cortana, who shot a wink over the rim of her own bowl that said: Their suffering nourishes .

"My kitchen," I said simply. "My rules."

The collective glare I received from every unfed attendant in the chamber could have lted the table.

I chose not to care.

The al wound down gradually.

Ramiris had to be fished out of her bowl. Literally. Milim reached in and plucked the tiny fairy from the broth by her wings, dangling her over the table while Ramiris kicked and sputtered and protested that she was "not done yet" and "you can't evict from my own ho."

The vampire Demon Lord, whose na I had learned was Valentine, had eaten her serving in deliberate, savoring silence. She cleaned her bowl completely, set her chopsticks across the rim with precise alignnt, and looked at with an expression that had evolved significantly from her earlier hostility. "You are absurd," she said. "You are the most powerful chef I have ever encountered, which is a sentence I never anticipated constructing in any language. I will be visiting your restaurant." She paused. "That is not a request."

"Door's always open," I said. "Bring your puppet next ti. I'll feed him too."

Valentine's left eye twitched. Then the corner of her mouth curled upward by a fraction. "He prefers to be called my executive assistant."

I liked her.

Sif continued eating in blissful silence, her shoulder pressed warm and solid against my chair leg, and I decided that if nothing else happened tonight, this mont alone had made the entire gathering worthwhile.

Sothing did happen, of course. Because I was , and the universe appeared to operate under the fundantal principle that Haru is not allowed to enjoy peace for more than seven consecutive minutes.

The signal was Carrion's bowl hitting the table. Carrion was on his feet. "Fox," Carrion said. "That was the best al I have ever consud in my life. And I have lived a very, very long life. I have eaten the flesh of elder wyverns. I have feasted on the marrow of ancient beasts that went extinct before most civilizations learned to make fire. None of it. None of it compares to what you just put in front of ." He paused. Drew a deep breath through his nose. Released it through his teeth. "Which makes what I'm about to say sowhat awkward, because I would very much like to eat your cooking again." His jaw tightened. "But we have a problem, Demon Lord Haru."

I tilted my head. "We do?"

"We do." Carrion straightened to his full height, which was considerable, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I am Carrion. Beast King. Ruler of the beast nation of Eurazania. I have held the title of strongest bestial Demon Lord in this world for longer than most nations have existed. My people look to as the pinnacle of the natural order. The undisputed alpha. The apex of the apex." His slit pupils contracted. "And then you walk in."

Ah. I saw where this was going.

"You walk in here," Carrion repeated, his voice dropping lower, "as a beast-type Demon Lord evolution, as the 'Prince of Beasts,' and a power signature that every instinct I possess is screaming at to either flee from or challenge. And my instincts, fox, do not tell to flee. They have never told to flee. Not once in my entire existence." He unfolded his arms and cracked the knuckles of both hands in a sequence of pops that echoed through the chamber. "I cannot allow a rival beast king to exist unchallenged in this world," Carrion declared, and his voice carried the weight of a truth so fundantal to his being that denying it would have required him to stop being himself entirely. "It is not a matter of ego. It is the law of the wild. When two apex predators occupy the sa territory, there must be a reckoning. The weaker submits or is destroyed. The stronger leads. That is how order is maintained. That is how the natural world has functioned since the first beast drew breath." His eyes burned. "So I am challenging you, Demon Lord Haru. Formal combat. Right here, right now, in front of this assembly. Beast King against Fox Prince. For the right to claim the title of supre beast-type Demon Lord." He bared his teeth in sothing that was halfway between a grin and a threat display, every canine visible and gleaming. "And before you think about declining, know this. If you refuse, I will follow you through whatever magical doorway your restaurant connects to and challenge you again. And again. And again. Every day. Until you accept. Because this is not sothing I can let go. It's in my blood. It's in yours too, fox. I can sll it!"

He wasn't wrong. I could feel it. The mont Carrion had risen to his feet and locked eyes with , sothing deep in my yokai blood had stirred. Sothing old. My pupils had probably shifted to vertical slits, because the edges of my vision had sharpened in that particular way that only happened when my yokai nature surged close to the surface.

The entire table was watching.

Milim was vibrating. "Ooooh," she breathed. "Ooooh ooooh ooooh! Beast fight! BEAST FIGHT!"

I turned back to Carrion.

The Beast King stood across the table from with the patience of a man who had already decided the outco and was simply waiting for reality to catch up with his conviction. Co and prove yourself, fox. Show what those ten tails are worth.

"Fine," I said. Every one of my tails curled upward in unison, and the tips ignited with blue foxfire that cast shadows across the faces of everyone at the table. I cracked my neck. Rolled my shoulders. Let the foxfire climb a little higher along my tails until the blue light filled the chamber and made every crystal formation in the ceiling ring with sympathetic resonance.

Carrion cracked his neck in response. The sound was significantly louder than mine, which I found mildly annoying.

"Shall we?" I asked.

"After you, Fox Prince."

"No, no. After you, Beast King. I insist."

Guy Crimson sighed from his chair. "Would one of you please hit the other before I die of old age? And I'm immortal…"

– Rimuru –

Rimuru Tempest watched the Fox Prince and the Beast King walk side by side through the arena doors, and it occurred to him, with the quiet certainty of a man who had been collecting powerful friends the way so people collected stamps, that he was about to witness sothing genuinely entertaining.

On the screen, Haru and Carrion took their positions on opposite ends of the arena. Even through the magical projection, Rimuru could feel the shift in atmospheric pressure as both combatants began releasing their auras.

Rimuru settled into his chair and reached for his hot pot bowl, which was still miraculously warm. He took a sip of broth. Still perfect. He understood now, on a visceral level, why Haru prioritized cooking over everything else. If Rimuru could produce food like this, he might consider giving up political leadership entirely and opening a noodle shop.

"Do you think he'll go full fox form?" Benimaru asked from behind Rimuru's chair, his red eyes fixed on the projection with professional interest.

"Doubt it," Rimuru replied, fishing a mushroom from his bowl with his chopsticks.

Souei, the shadow ninja, materialized slightly more visibly than usual beside Benimaru. His opinion on the matter was delivered in characteristically few words. "The fox will win."

"Obviously," Rimuru agreed. "But Carrion knows that too. This isn't about winning. It's about establishing where he stands in the hierarchy relative to a new beast-type Demon Lord."

Rimuru took another sip and prepared to enjoy the show.

That was when the presence materialized beside him, and every alarm system his body possessed activated simultaneously. One mont the space to Rimuru's left was empty. The next mont, it contained a woman.

She was beautiful in the way that glaciers were beautiful. Pale skin that carried the faintest blue undertone, as though frost lived permanently beneath the surface. Her eyes were the pale, crystalline blue of ancient ice.

Those eyes were looking directly at him.

Rimuru's Raphael skill, which typically provided analysis with the detached efficiency of a supercomputer processing routine queries, did sothing it had never done before.

It hesitated.

The skill interface flickered in the back of Rimuru's mind, cycling through classification attempts with increasing agitation. The magical signature radiating from this woman was not rely powerful. It existed on a scale that Raphael's standard trics could not adequately represent.

Raphael trailed off, which Rimuru had not previously believed was sothing his skill was capable of doing.

Thanks, Rimuru thought drily. Really helpful. Exercise diplomatic courtesy with the walking extinction event. Got it.

"You are Rimuru Tempest, yes?" Her voice matched her appearance. Cool, clear, and carrying the implicit suggestion that she was accustod to receiving answers promptly and accurately and that providing anything less would be inadvisable.

Rimuru set his bowl down with a steadiness that he was privately very proud of, given that his internal monologue was currently screaming at a pitch usually reserved for fire alarms and surprise math tests.

"That's ," he said, and was grateful that his voice erged at its normal register rather than the strained squeak that his survival instincts were lobbying for. "Rimuru Tempest. Demon Lord. Sli. Part-ti political leader. Full-ti target for people who want to fight ." He paused. "And you are?"

The woman inclined her head by the smallest fraction. The gesture was not a bow. It was an acknowledgnt that he existed and that she had chosen to notice. "I am Velzard," she said. "True Dragon. The eldest among my siblings. And the one responsible for ensuring that the more impulsive mbers of our family do not destroy this world before it produces anything interesting enough to justify its continued existence."

Rimuru's brain processed the na. "A True Dragon," Rimuru repeated, managing to keep his voice level through what he considered a heroic act of emotional regulation. "That's, ah. That's quite the introduction. I've only t one other True Dragon before, and he was sealed inside my stomach for a significant portion of our friendship, so the social dynamics were a bit different."

"Yes," she said. "That is precisely why I am here speaking with you. I was inford that you are friends and sworn brothers with my younger brother, Veldora Tempest." The way she pronounced "younger brother" carried approximately seventeen layers of aning. "I expected him to attend tonight. He is, for all his considerable flaws, a True Dragon, and his presence at a Walpurgis gathering would not be inappropriate. Particularly given that his sworn brother is a newly ascended Demon Lord presenting himself to the assembly for the first ti." She paused. Looked around the chamber with the slow, thodical sweep. "And yet he is not here," Velzard continued, her tone cooling by several degrees in a way that suggested the temperature drop was not entirely taphorical. Rimuru could have sworn the ambient air around them actually chilled. "Which raises the question. Where is my idiot brother?"

Rimuru scratched the back of his head. His fingers found the spot where his silver hair t the nape of his neck, and he rubbed at it with the sheepish energy of a man about to deliver news that he knew would not be well received. "Yeah, about that," he said. "Veldora was definitely supposed to be here. "But then there was an... incident. Between Milim and Veldora. Involving a difference of opinion about Milim's boyfriend. And Veldora's protective instincts. And Milim's response to those protective instincts." He trailed off for a second before continuing. "Milim punched him through a ceiling and he went... sowhere. Over the horizon…”

Hehe… It was pretty funny.

He turned to indicate Milim's position and found that the ancient Demon Lord had abandoned her chair entirely. She was now perched on top of the table directly in front of the projection crystal, sitting cross-legged with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, her entire body oriented toward the magical screen.

"Milim," Rimuru called.

No response. She was locked in.

"Milim!"

Eh, good enough for …

"Milim, Veldora's sister is asking about what happened to him earlier. Can you confirm that you punched him through the ceiling and he flew over the horizon?"

Milim's response ca without her eyes leaving the screen, delivered in the distracted, automatic monotone of soone whose consciousness was approximately ninety-eight percent occupied elsewhere and was operating the remaining two percent on pure reflex. "Hmm? Oh. Yeah I did. I do that sotis." A pause. "He called Haru a bad boyfriend and said his cooking was 'adequate.' So I launched him. He'll find his way back when he gets hungry."

“And there you have it…” Rimuru finished with a shrug.

Velzard stared at Rimuru for a long, silent mont. She looked like she wanted to say sothing, or maybe she didn't? It was hard to tell with these powerful noble refined won that he was still getting used to being around constantly.

Then she turned and walked away back towards Guy. Guess it was the latter after all.

“I wonder if that was considered a good or bad first impression?” Rimuru mumbled to himself.

XXX