On the newly christened 'Niji's Mount', crisis unfolded. Before anything, I sealed off Niji and Yarko in [Yume Nasai] under Anime Girl's supervision. I made and cast the spell in [Yume Nasai] to make sure those two couldn't cause any more trouble. After I finished the magical seal in [Yume Nasai], I was left to face the rest of the trouble they caused. I managed Niji's Mount through the maids. Everything went downhill as soon as I started making decisions. It started because of the lycans and zombies. They didn't have food.

I'll say it again: the lycans and zombies don't have food. The upper floors are well stocked for obvious reasons, so the decision unfortunately fell on me to how to feed my populace of monsters. What food there was in the lower floors got ravaged or overeaten. And if there was anyone who resisted becoming a zombie or lycan they were made into a meal.

The maids said the kitchens were already barren. The hunger of these creatures is insatiable. When weighing the options, it looked like warfare was my only choice. Arm the lycans and zombies, send them to take over the rest of the city. Then, I guess, when the whole of Nephilz turned into lycans/zombies we'd have to move onto world domination. Eventually they'd all starve to death, the way they eat. Including the zombies. They run off the mana from the food, so learning that lead to my brilliant and sensible decision.

Supply them with the kitchens of [Yume Nasai]. So, I thought that would solve the issue. The issue of having a mountain of monsters under my sway, cursed with eternal hunger. Not really a solution. But it seemed like a solution at the time.

I ordered the maids of [Yume Nasai] to feed them. At the time, I already knew something was off. I didn't grasp what the next week would look like. I wasn't thinking that way at the time. Just managing Niji's Mount, or, escaping the problem, really, occupied all my thoughts, so I played the bandaid game of short term fixes, and it cost me.

Now, I assumed that since I had plenty of mana that the maids could just pull food from Anime Girl's dream world spell indefinitely. Unfortunately, I was correct. Unfortunately the food that came out of [Yume Nasai] is really high quality. I tried some myself and wondered what my concept of food was before I ate it. I couldn't go back.

The high quality and high volume of food— lead to mass overeating to death. And war from the healthy creatures slipping out for fresh meat, leading to more death. And the spread of zombies and lycans across the city.

It happened over the course of a week. Most of the days were filled with me hanging about in the tower, sleeping, or enjoying the countryside of [Yume Nasai]. I figured the maids had it handled, and I was lost over what to do about the whole Niji's Mount thing and the massacre and zombielycans etc. so, I felt I earned a break.

The homunculi war hadn't slipped my mind either so I flew around Nephilz, acting as pest control. Between that and my 'breaks' Niji's Mount boiled over. Stehy and the Maids could enter [Yume Nasai] at any time from anywhere, so there was no need for me to be physically at Niji's Mount. Some worrying reports had reached me, like:

"The lycans tore through all the food and ate a pack of zombies," or "a raiding party of zombies was discovered torn apart in the sewers under the Mount." I put them out of mind. I had homunculi to cull.

Beyond that, using Anime Girl's Busou spell to fly around had a placating effect on me, so, I may have heard what happened then gone on a pest control spree. I think that's exactly what happened. On the whole, Nephilz has less homunculi.

When I went out I had Anime Girl handle the brown and yellow Nana Daiba card. If I got attacked by that Psychic Ninja Moon Elf again I told Anime Girl to call Nana right away. I'm assuming the Psychic Ninja Moon Elf knew this, which is why I haven't seen it. Either that or it's using the ninja part of itself to watch as the city implodes.

The upper floors full of the, uh... yes. The upper floors were breached and cleaned out. Some of the maids were lost, while the ones with high combat ability made a mess. It was a big miss of mine to assume that maids with low-combat ability would be fine. I suppose this is the cost of incompetent leadership.

Stehy kept her distance the whole time. I figured she would say something, but I haven't seen her even once in [Yume Nasai]. Naturally, I'm avoiding her with a maid spy on her at all times, so I've been able to make it so she hasn't been able to say anything incriminating. I'm already in hot water as is with my own thoughts on the subject of Niji's Mount.

Which was why, when things really went south, I surprised myself by going to Stehy first. My maid spy tailed her the whole time, so I cornered Stehy sitting in her voluminous armchair by a roaring fireplace in [Yume Nasai], tackling her thighs and hanging on pitifully.

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"How many have to die? How many...?"

After I found out that Niji's Mount was now deserted and lycan/zombies were spread across the entire city, infecting the populace, this was my natural course of action. Complain to my justice loli. Stehy was stoic as she heard my confession.

Niji stopped reading her periodical. She folded it neatly and put it to the side, taking off some glasses with no lenses. I felt her staring at me. I smooshed my face further into her lap.

「I said, play the hero。Does this look like the result of heroism to you?」

"No. What was I supposed to do?"

「It's not a matter of 'supposed' or 'should have'。You have values。You tried to live up to them by letting the monsters live。That wasn't a mistake。A poor decision, after the fact, but not a mistake。 」

"And now the city is... and it's all my..."

「Fault is a poor indicator。I said nothing when you let Niji and Yarko go, I considered that a sacrifice for the future。Let one city burn so Wizard can learn。」

I pulled my head back. She knew. Oh. Wait, she planned this far ahead? Was it that easy to understand? Was I the only one who was completely clueless here? ... it... unfortunately... appears to be ... the case.

「The appearance of the Psychic Ninja Moon Elf is more worrying。」Stehy furrowed her brown eyebrows.

"Wait, what am I supposed to do now, then? Nephilz is doomed."

「You already know, right? Cull the unclean。Purge the lycans and the zombies。You're cleaning up Niji's mess, is all。」

"They used to be human!"

「Are you going to try to turn them back? You will be responsible for whatever they turn into when you use your magic on them。」

I thought of healing Negi. That didn't end well. Lots of mana, very little control. The problem kept reoccurring. Same problem. Eh. I really don't want to. I really don't. But I think it's finally time to go see Kirei. Hang my pride at the door, learn what I can from him.

There's already a lot, a lot of a lot of a lot, of dead, and, some were maids. That's fairly...

「Unforgivable。」Stehy said.

I crossed my arms under my chin, layering them between Stehy's thighs and my head.

"Okay. Okay. I'll clean up. And for the future, I'll just keep Yarko and Niji in [Yume Nasai] forever. That's for the best."

「You haven't heard?」

I felt the hair on the bad of my neck prickle. I looked up to Stehy. "What?"

「Those two broke out of your 'seal'。They've been coming and going all week, too。Anime Girl thought the 'seal' you put on them was too restrictive, Yarko told me。」

Standing up, I thought to ask Stehy why she didn't tell me. I remembered at the same time I'd been ditching her all week.

"How long did you know?"

「The seal was broken soon after it was put in place。」

Anime Girl! It was you, all along! Ah, damn. What have Niji and Yarko done all week? Is the world going to end?

「You look worried。Yarko said that both of them were to keep quiet, and I was tasked with watching them。Two maids were tailing them and reporting back to me all week。」

I braced myself for bad news. "What'd they do?"

「Niji hung out with our resident blacksmith and made some weapons and armor。She got some chess lessons from a bulter, as well。 Yarko went sailing, or, I suppose for her, piracy。The maid has reported in letters that she's being amicable and fair, and that no one good or innocent is dead。So far。 」

They didn't do much, did they? Why is it when Anime Girl asks they are suddenly on their best behavior, but when it's me one of them becomes a Demon King? This is unfair.

"That's great to hear. I didn't expect those two to behave. I'll let Anime Girl's behavior slide because it's Anime Girl."

「I think that's for the best。She's the one running the show around here, anyways。」

I felt a jab to my gut. The truth stung.

I left [Yume Nasai]. Activating Busou, flying high, I surveyed the seven mounts of Nephilz, one much darker than the rest.

"Anime Girl. Spell Request. Detailed targeting of lycan, homunculi and zombie presence in Nephilz."

I'll just ask her. I'll just ask Anime Girl to handle it.

"Oh, and can you target the Psychic Ninja Moon Elf too? Let's purge them all! Haha!"

[Nai wa.]

"Come on. It's just a Psychic Ninja Moon Elf."

Anime Girl groaned. It was an elongated groan. Somehow, I knew what she meant. She doesn't want to kill the Psychic Ninja Moon Elf. I assume she has Reasons. Good, well articulated reasons that our language barrier is preventing understanding. They are Moon Elves. Maybe she knows more than she's letting on. She let Niji and Yarko loose after I went through the trouble of sealing them.

I suppose this game was rigged from the start. Either I trust Anime Girl, or I'm lost. I closed my eyes and a user interface generated. Mana allocation and image were all done by her, so the aesthic design was pleasant. There's not much girlyness to her taste, though, I suppose that's a given since her taste came from me.

A big red button appeared. The map lit up like a christmas tree. Red were zombies and lycans, green were homunculi. I wonder why I didn't think of this before. I had [Tentacle Beam]. This is a revolution of Anime Girl Physics, or, at least, Nephilz is going to have a good light show tonight.

On the user interface, those who were infected and high intelligent homunculi were displayed as well. The high intelligent homunculi could wait, I'd go down manually and extract all the infected from the city with the help of the maids. That will be the grunt work, after I burn the unclean.

The targeting adjusted itself again, highlighting only stooge homunculi and lycan/zombies. For the spell, it's Anime Girl's, so I don't know the name. Because I don't know the name, I can't shout it like an attack. But, I can say what is traditionally said in times like this.

"Fire."