Following Haruki's death at the hands of the broken covenant, plenty of demons from his army were already led astray. Some rose to power with the help of their friends to control small sections of the three kingdoms still under Margarette's supervision.
"These idiots…" Feeling light-headed after watching numerous places being overtaken by rogue demons, Margarette turned her head away from the crystal globe. "How did Haruki even keep these idiots in line?"
Pressing her hand against her head, the only thing that came to mind was instilling a fear of their mortality, something Margarette wouldn't be able to achieve by herself. Turning her head to the side, she glanced up at the goblin queen still maneuvering the sights being shown inside the crystal globe.
"Looks like monsters are more loyal than demons, not like I had any doubt," drawing her hands away, she stopped projecting the images inside the globe. "Regardless, what's the plan now?"
Huffing out a sigh, Margarette got off the chair and started walking towards the exit to the dark room. Quickly grabbing the door handle, she turned around to the queen and gestured to follow her around. Nodding back at her, the queen followed Margarette as they went out of the vacant house and sneaked around through the streets of Marquis.
"We should clean up the streets a little before rendezvousing with the others," shifting into a stray demon with tattooed-on clothes, and a lascivious look, Margarette glanced back at the queen to remind her to change her appearance.
Noticing her gaze, the goblin queen reached for the golden necklace swaying over her supple green breasts. Clasping it between her fingers, she closed her eyes for a moment to imagine a convincing form that could be taken for a demon. Taking a spell to concentrate on it, the jeweled necklace enshrouded her in a dark red aura before shifting her body into a red-headed demon.
"This should be goo-" Opening her eyes all of a sudden, her newly grown horn bumped into a rope line hanging between houses to dry out clothes in the sun.
"Shsshh!" Covering the queen's mouth, Margarette stopped in her tracks and looked around the corner at a group of rogues she'd just seen in the crystal globe. "Familiar summon: Phoenix!"
Summoning the fire spirit out from her ring, she sent it right to the group to be incinerated in an instant. By the time they noticed the flaming beast of unquenching flames, their eyes had already begun to melt, and their bodies didn't last all that much longer either. Screaming in agony, they burned not even knowing what had happened or who'd assaulted them.
As the two kept sweeping the streets, the day began to take a turn for the night, and before long the screams of countless demons were heard in the kingdom Marquis for the last time.
"Hopefully the others got the rest," on her way to the inner parts of the castle, Margarette undid her mask and so did the goblin queen.
Greeted by the terrified human servants standing by the doorway, the two simply moved past them showing no worry or care for their safety. With the emperor's assault on Haruki, the terms of the treaty were no longer being upheld, and thus the only reason they were still alive was simply because nobody bothered to get rid of them just yet.
'We might have to start turning them soon, our numbers have willed a lot after Haruki's death anyways.' While contemplating their fate, Margarette finally noticed Asuka as well as Riley standing out the meeting room gates in the distance. Rushing to them through the corridor, she got to them as quickly as possible.
"How did it go?" Margarette asked, standing before them.
Her arms crossed, Riley leaned against the door before replying.
"The others seem to have returned to their territory, but we managed to convince Deus to help us since he no longer has control over any land in Scorchen Gaia," striking the door behind her with her elbow, Riley struck the entrance to the meeting hall open. "And he's promised to get the others to help as well since they can't just let the emperor get away with Asmodia's death."
Flipping around, she led them into the room and settled down in one of the seats in the massive
round table. Following suit, the others did the same and settled down facing each other.
"The streets of Marquis should be fine for the moment, but we still need to clear out Dolatia and Lamenia," mapping out a plan in her mind, Margarette began to unravel in front of everyone. "Once we're done gathering our support we can start leading an all-out war against the direct domain of the emperor."
"What about master? If we start a war while he's in the emperor's custody, I can't imagine things to be pretty then," Asuka asked, concerned for Haruki's safety.
"Atlas didn't kill him right?" The queen of goblins jumped into the conversation. "If he wanted to kill him then wouldn't he have done it already? And from what intel we've gathered so far, he should've been revived by now, so if Atlas really needed him dead, why would he revive him at all?"
Missing certain components of the emperor's plot, they were all wondering pretty much the same thing. Why would the emperor need their master, especially when he was a demon? What good could come out of this ordeal, and whether the risk of betrayal was worth taking remains to be seen by him.
"Probably to control demons instead of having to kill them all the time," standing by the gates of the meeting hall, Moriyana spoke her opinion with a smile. As everyone's eyes turned to her, she began making her way towards the roundtable, and in her tow, Athena and Alice came forward as well. Taking seats around each other, Moriyana elaborated on her theory further. "Demon can only be controlled by a demon lord with the same affinity as them, and now that master has killed Asmodia that title should be his once he wakes up from his cold slumber."
Her explanation being the most sound, everyone decided to accept it until some other clues for the same came forward.
"So we're just going to march in on the emperor's domain?" Asuka asked, still not too keen on the proposal.
"We can always create a distraction to get master out of there," holding her hand towards the goblin queen, Margarette pointed at the gold necklace. "Michael can potentially sense demonic presence, but if we send one of our monster spies disguised as the royal guards we might be able to slip under his radar."
"Or…" Propping herself up on her feet, Riley shot a keen gaze at her mother. Holding her hands spread wide, she almost seemed offended not being given the job of spy. "Or I, the best spy in all five kingdoms, can go there, right?"
With only crooked smiles and contorted eyebrows looking in her direction, Riley knew she still had no chance of going back to doing spy work just yet again. The blessing of the benevolent actor was still making her fight her carnal instinct which in turn made it a lot harder to keep her hands free of blood and guts.
"Riley, until Fay figures out how Stella's abilities are affecting you, we can't send you on any missions," Margarette replied visibly stern.
"Y-yeah…" Remembering the kind of stuff that Riley had told them, the queen of goblins felt a strange chill run up and down her back.
"Moving past all the spying stuff," slamming her hand on the table, Moriyana got everyone's attention back on her. "When are we pushing back against the emperor? Tomorrow, next week, next month? Sitting here thinking about it won't do anything so get the deadline set and shoot for it."
Taking a moment to assess everything, Margarette shut her eyes and began running all possible scenarios in her head. From being struck down before the attack commences to failing the offense against the emperor's army, and even running into countless problems while trying to get Haruki off the emperor's clasp, as it all played on in her head Moriyana spoke up once again to give the temporary leader some clarity.
"How about you guys worry about getting Haruki out, and in the meantime, I'll find a way to break the emperor's curse that'd been allegedly hit by?" Hearing Moriyana's proposal, Margarette opened her eyes and looked right at her.
"If you can still summon that marionette that multiplies indefinitely then perhaps we can finish up on our preparation in a week or so," Margarette replied, resting her head over her palms.
"Last I checked the portals to the otherworld were sealed off, but…" Having failed to summon the marionette before, Moriyana wasn't too sure whether this would work or not. "Let me try again."
Getting out of her chair, she moved away from the table and held her hand stretched right ahead. Concentrating her mana in her hands, she took a deep breath before summoning the creature.
"Marionette ballerina!" Thankfully, the portal to the otherworld opened up ahead, and the creature of dark dropped in like a rip from a tree branch. Elated, Moriyana began to smile before turning to the others. "Seems like Mother didn't close off the pathways properly."
"Or she opened it back up," Athena muttered without too much thought. However, as those words fell into the ears of all present, their mouths gaped open and their widened nervous eyes looked around at each other.
"She couldn't still be?!" Margarette exclaimed, slamming both of her hands on the table.
"I…Don't know," with little to no knowledge about the covenant signed by Haruki and Asmodia, Moriyana had no way of knowing whether her mother was somehow still alive or not. "Let's just focus on the job, the beast is here, so I want you all to work your ass off while I try to figure out a way to get the emperor's curse off of Master."
Not keen on indulging the matter any longer, Moriyana left the marionette in Margarette's care and ventured into the otherworld portal to find a way to get rid of the curse.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺