The Elven Council President and the chief of the drakonids both stared at me for at least half a minute more than necessary, and at least a few seconds longer than I was comfortable with.

“Hurry it up, then,” I said, shooing them away with my hands.

They did not display any signs of change.

“Are you going to make me repeat myself?” I asked, clapping my hands.

“Ah.”

“Oh my~!”

At the all-too-familiar reactions, I could feel my eye twitch.

“Hurry. It. Up.”

The drakonids’ chief’s face reflected nothing but dumb confusion.

“Ah, you want us to provide our rewards ahead of time~?” the Elven Council President said, sauntering over to the elven shrine maiden—the girl they had called Feno. They crouched down and gently started shaking the young girl’s shoulders.

I could swear I heard the sound of grinding gears as they slowly turned into place inside the drakonids’ chief’s head, and soon, he, too, was attempting to wake his race’s shrine maiden.

A little surprising, perhaps, was that the both of them succeeded at their tasks within half a minute.

The drakonid shrine maiden—Ilgri, if my memory was not failing me—slowly sat up and blinked her red eyes a few times. I could pinpoint the exact moment she transitioned from “half-asleep” to “awake”, since the very second it happened, she shoved the chief’s hands off of her shoulders and pushed him away, her face flushed red as a tomato.

“Chief?! Wh-What’re you doing?!” she shouted, wrapping her arms around herself. “Could it be, you were tryin’ to take advantage of me while I was asleep…”

“No, no! I wasn’t particularly…”

I turned my attention away from the pair of bad comedians, and took a glance at the two elves.

Feno seemed more adept at waking up, since it took all of two seconds for her to lock eyes with Sylph.

“Ah,” she said, pushing her way past the Elven Council President, “Lady Sylph is here while I’m awake? How unusual. It’s nice to see you. How’ve you been? I’ve been well. We should meet up like this more often. Would you like to…”

I turned my eyes away from this one-sided conversationalist, too, and once more looked over the whole room.

“You lot, pay attention, now,” I said, folding my arms behind my back.

I failed to get the attention of anyone but my Demon Generals—even the idiot trio was distracted.

I stood still, waiting and occasionally calling for their attention, for at least thirty seconds more before deciding I had had entirely enough of this.

I shook my head, took a step towards the shrine maidens, and—

“That is enough of your poor comedy routines,” I hissed, grabbing the two of them by their necks and unceremoniously dumping them on the nearest sofa.

“The heck are you?” Ilgri asked, more questions than I could be bothered to answer in her gaze as she raised an eyebrow.

“What are you doing?” Feno said, “A shrine maiden’s body is valuable, you know. You shouldn’t just casually touch a girl’s body at all, you know, and especially not so forcefully. If you were saving me, it’d be one thing, but in this case, I’ll report you to the authorities-”

I interrupted her by raising a hand while I buried my face in the palm of my other.

“Shut up. Shut. Up. Both of you, just shut up and listen to me,” I said, half-growling.

Using my mana, I managed to actually get the pair’s full attention for the first time. A nice side-effect was that their faces paled.

“Good,” I said, my tone still unchanged. “Listen well, because I will not be repeating myself for the likes of you. I am Overlord Astaroth, envoy of Lady Entropy and he who will soon be the king of Eskaria, and…”

“And thus, you are helping Asami with her training.”

Explaining things to the pair had calmed me down quite a bit, to the point where I was no longer growling, glaring or pumping mana into the environment.

“So we’re supposed to help this girl, right?” Ilgri asked, seemingly for confirmation, as she looked at Asami.

“Sure, we can do that, no problem,” Feno said, “After all, even though she’s so young, she already feels strong. If we begin training her at an early age, she might become stronger than us? Are you sure she hasn’t received spiritual training before? It seems like she’d pick it up with-”

I raised a hand to stop Feno’s rampant mouth and gestured to Asami.

“Ah, sure,” Ilgri said, turning to the little lost lamb. “I’m Ilgri, Lady Salamander’s shrine maiden. I’m not really sure about all this, but it looks like you’ll be in our care for a while.”

Asami smiled and responded with notably more enthusiasm than Ilgri.

Feno, too, turned to her. “I’m Aldefeno Eleria Sylvam, and I’m Lady Sylph’s shrine maiden. You’re really quite lucky to get to learn from me, you know? I’m the most refined shrine maiden out there, after all. If you can learn them, I’ll teach you every technique I know. By the end, you might even be…”

“Ah… Eh… Alde…” Asami stammered, but Feno seemed to take no notice and rambled on.

«Just call her Feno,» I told the poor girl telepathically, «and it is probably fine to ignore her when she rambles like this unless Ilgri indicates it is important.»

Almost subtle enough to escape even my notice, she nodded.

“There’s still somethin’ I’m not sure about, though,” Ilgri said, turning her attention back to her superior. “Chief, why are we listenin’ to this guy in the first place? I understand he rules a nation on par with ours, but that doesn’t mean we have to do what he says, right?”

I felt my earlier impatience rising back to the surface, and it seemed the drakonids’ chief had gained the ability to read my emotions, since he quickly rushed over to Ilgri. “It is a repayment for dealing with our conflict,” he said, a certain rush in his voice, and he continued in a whisper, “plus, he managed to tame Lady Salamander, so I wouldn’t question the man…”

Since both Salamander and I were perfectly able to hear him, and he got so close to Ilgri that she shoved him away with a beet-red face, I would not say the whisper was a very good idea.

But regardless of that, it seemed Ilgri’s issue with me was not that I was a monster, but simply that she did not know me. Compared to the human-centric doctrine of the Holy Astal Kingdom I had honestly been expecting, this was… refreshing, to say the least. Perhaps it would not be necessary to take the whole world by force.

“Then, about Alpine and Nexu,” I said, once more returning my attention to the nations’ two leaders.

“Ah, of course,” the drakonids’ chief said, rubbing his back, “I’ll have some of my instructors teach the doggy some techniques. C’mere.” He gestured a ‘come here’ to Alpine.

“As you wish~ I’ll have some of our best seers tend to the young one’s training~,” the Elven Council President said, extending a hand to Nexu.

Nexu and Alpine looked to me for confirmation, so I nodded. “If anything happens to either of them, you can say goodbye to your heads.”

The drakonids’ chief swallowed, and then took Alpine’s paw and lead her out of the room. The Elven Council President soon imitated him, though without the nervous gulp.

“Then, I guess it’s up to us to guide you to the conference room,” Salamander said, nodding to me.

“You get,” Sylph said, tilting her head, “to be escorted by,” she paused in what appeared to be dramatic emphasis. “A pair of goddesses?” She puffed up her nonexistent chest. “Aren’t you-” she yawned, “lucky.”

“Like I said earlier,” Salamander said, raising an arm, “can’t you talk a bit faster?! I swear—!”

I grabbed the pair of goddesses by the scruffs of their necks and placed them just outside the door. “Are you going to make me convey my impatience again?” I asked, crossing my arms and tilting my head. “I would be more than willing.”

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The bickering morons obediently led me to the conference room.

“Right through here,” Salamander said, pointing to a set of double doors.

“Fancy, right?” Sylph asked, putting her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest, a smirk on her lips.

Though I hesitated to voice it, I internally rather agreed with Sylph’s evaluation—the doors, crafted from some manner of shiny wood and inlaid with golden decorations, were rather appealing. Given the wood’s natural appeal, they also fit in rather well with the rest of the organic building.

“The art’stry is… adm’rable,” Charlotte said, examining the doors from up close.

I probed through the door with my mana, and found a large number of responses, roughly split into two groups—fire on one side, air on the other.

“Hmph,” I said, “I suppose it is not bad.”

Sylph’s eyes reflected a remarkable amount of pride, given my words were barely even a compliment.

I clapped my hands before folding them back behind my back.

Charlotte stepped up to one door and Tempest took the other, and they opened them simultaneously to let me through.

Compared to opening the doors with magic, this was more visually impressive, after all.

With the assistance of the demonic mana my Demon Generals were leaking, I was easily able to use [Aura of the Overlord]. Of course, I made it rain down from above.

On the left stood the elves, behind a long table. The elves with particularly important-looking outfits sat behind the table, rather than standing, although the centre seat was empty.

On the other side stood the drakonids, glaring at the elves with their wings spread so as to look as intimidating as possible. Like the elves, the drakonids with more important-looking clothes were at the front.

This situation was, in a word, terrible. One-sidedly being forced to stand as the party you were arguing with sat pompously behind a table would annoy anyone, let alone the easily-provoked drakonids. Meanwhile, that intimidating display did not appear to be very effective, but it certainly did seem obnoxious.

Of course, the influx of our mana into the room, combined with the opening doors, drew no small amount of attention. Many gazes came our way, and I heard just as many murmurs and whispers.

“Who are they?”, “Terrifying…”, “A demon!”, “Isn’t that that darkness spirit?”, etcetera etcetera.

That last one seemed interesting, so I borrowed Nexu’s [Eyes of the Spiritseer], but I did not see anything other than green spirits around the elves and red ones around the drakonids, all of which seemed to be shying away from me.

Of course, my entourage, in and of themselves, caused quite a commotion.

The drakonids’ faces were fixed in Davna’s direction, expressions a delightful mix of fear, respect, awe and worship. A few of the less important-looking ones got down on their knees the moment they saw her. ‘Truly, this is the way the people are supposed to treat my precious Demon Generals’—I felt a strange sense of satisfaction along those lines.

The elves, on the other hand, were significantly less united, since they lacked a single target to focus on. That said, perhaps they had taken a liking to Tempest’s green hair, since it resembled their own green-blonde hair?

For some reason, Sylph and Salamander seemed to be waiting outside the door. Well enough, I did not care—they would probably step in when prompted.

I cleared my throat in a vague attempt to draw that attention to me, instead, and I was met with mild success.

“My dear…” I began, and I paused to search for the right word—several possibilities came to mind, such as ‘subcreatures’, ‘plebeians’ and ‘filth’.

“Commoners,” I eventually said, probably putting more emphasis on the word than necessary.

In a word, their reactions were enjoyable. In multiple words, they ranged from ‘indignation’ to ‘anger’ to ‘frustration’.

“I have been told you are having a bit of… trouble, so to say,” I said, my usual smirk making its way onto my face.

Reluctantly, a few members of both sides nodded.

“Then rejoice,” I said, my voice as tranquil as an undisturbed lake late at night.

I raised my hand to my mouth and chuckled behind it.

“After all, you do not have to think about it any longer.”

Some distrust and confusion mixed itself into the anger and indignation, and I even spotted a tiny sliver of hope.

“At your goddesses’ request—” The two of them stepped forward, prompting no small number of surprised gaps as they went through the door side-by-side without glaring at each other— “I have arrived to deliver salvation.”

Murmurs of surprise, fear and elation.

“In the name of the greatest goddess of all, Lady Entropy…”

I cocked my head backwards, narrowed my eyes, spread my arms to the side, and—

“Overlord Astaroth will solve your problems for you.”

—declared my absolute superiority.

…

Of course they would not accept it when I simply lorded it over them like that. Many of them looked rather dissatisfied, so I decided I would try and ease their worries.

“Any objections?” I asked, swinging my gaze across both crowds. “Do not hold back. I will not hold it against you.”

Several seconds of silence.

“... And neither will the two goddesses,” I said, gesturing. “Right?”

Sylph looked away with a lazy nod, and Salamander nodded to the crowd with a “Sure.”

Immediately, a number of hands and claws raised into the air.

I picked a random hand and pointed to the elf it was attached to. “You. Your problem?”

By coincidence, it seemed I had picked a rather important elf, with clothes a little fancier even than the other elves at the table. Also notably, the bulges on her chest marked her as the only elf whose sex I could discern with certainty.

She made a smile as though a businesswoman and spoke up, her voice ringing clear through the room for all to hear.

“If you don’t mind my asking, Lord Astaroth, Lady Sylph, may I inquire as to the locations of the Elven Council President and the barbarians’ chief?”

I looked to Sylph, who waited for at least five seconds.

“Out,” she said eventually before looking back to me.

The elf was clearly dissatisfied with this answer, but I ignored her petty sorrows and raised a finger as I spoke as if to lecture her.

“Your question brings me to my first point, miss…?”

“Aelrie. Elven Council Vice-President.”

“Miss Vice-President. Of course, this goes for everyone here,” I said, directing my gaze to the room at large. “From this moment forward, anyone in a position of power who utters a word that could cause international relationships to weaken will be expelled.”

I smiled a polite smile and narrowed my eyes pleasantly.

“In other words, anyone who has any such thoughts—”

And with that pleasant, friendly expression, I spoke—

“Please disappear from the face of the world and never return.”

A death sentence.