A Devil sat at a desk in a damp, dark room. This room was one he had spent the past while in. It’d been days—no, perhaps weeks, now. A month? He couldn’t keep track anymore. Especially with him going back and forth between Overworld and Underworld time so much recently, he had basically no innate sense of time passing anymore. And sitting in this room, almost completely unmoving, with nobody there to speak to, no routine to follow, he didn’t know the minutes from the days anymore.

He was in his assigned post as a hall monitor. The new position that had been forced on him as punishment for his complete failure with the Arlan Nota project. As a hall monitor, he’d been stripped of everything. His rank, his subordinates, his duties, his title, even his name. He was nobody. Nothing but a Devil, not a single thing to him to distinguish him from the rest of the masses.

And as a hall monitor, he couldn’t even interact with anyone anymore. At least if he’d been made into some lowly position like a copier, he would at least have something to do. As a hall monitor, his job description was literally to sit in a blank room and watch for people to walk through on their way to other places. Only, he couldn’t speak to them unless spoken to, and there were so many thousands upon thousands of hall monitor stations webbing through the Seventh Circle that the chances of someone actually coming through the Devil’s out-of-the-way post were practically zero.

And, of course, he was still under surveillance. So he couldn’t even act out, break something, wander around, without getting punished. And now, without a rank or a name, his position had been updated so that if he ever tried to even step out of his post without permission, he would be instantly killed by the Enchanted hallways.

He was imprisoned, and this was torture.

He’d heard of the Human version of what was being done to him, before—they called it “solitary confinement”—but at least when Humans were tortured like that, they didn’t have to continue going to work every day during their torture. The Devil had to sit up straight, sit at his desk, and look proper at all times. Even if he never saw a single person come through.

Some hall monitors got a slightly more cushy position—that is, they had a position that was slightly less of an endless nightmare—as they were put into more heavily trafficked areas, meaning they would occasionally see people walking through. They still wouldn’t be able to speak with those individuals, but they could at least see them. The Devil had clearly not been afforded that mercy.

He knew why, of course. He had quite literally spat in his superior’s face when she assigned him to his position. She didn’t have infinite power over him, but she certainly had the ability to pull some strings and ensure he got one of the worst spots possible for a hall monitor.

But the Devil didn’t regret what he’d done. Even as he sat now, for hundreds of hours straight, in this blank room at a blank desk on a lumpy, uncomfortable seat, not allowed to move, blink, or do anything at all, he didn’t regret doing what put him here. Literally shaking, sweating, teeth clenched in the exertion required to do absolutely nothing for so, so long, he couldn’t bring himself to say “I should not have done that.”

He had already been at rock bottom. Really, maybe his superior had already long since decided to send him here, before he ever said anything to her. And really, even if he’d been sent to a slightly better location as a hall monitor, he’d still have been a fucking hall monitor. Not much better. Still the lowest a Demon could possibly be sent to. Still the pariah, the worthless, the tortured. Still rock bottom.

And the thing about rock bottom was, when you were down there on the stone and someone decided they wanted to come to your level so they could gloat at you, mock you for being where you were…even if they belonged somewhere else, they were still down there with you for a moment. And during that moment, the least you could do was grab their head and smash their fucking skull onto the pavement.

The Devil had not hesitated to do so to his superior. Her pride would heal, but his memory of saying what he wanted to say, finally breaking a damn rule for once, and hawking that glob of phlegm into her eyes would last a lifetime.

That was the only memory that kept him sane. The tiny, miniscule exertion of the power he still had. Down here, in this blank room, that was what gave his mind its color.

So he sat for hours and hours, unmoving, simmering in his hatred.

Until one of those hours, one of those days, someone walked into the room.

The Devil’s eyes took a moment to focus at the sudden change in environment. He’d been so used to the scenery staying the exact same, his mind had effectively stopped paying attention to what he saw. So when it suddenly became important, it took a few seconds to adjust.

But when it did, what he saw disgusted him.

“Greeting, Devil,” his old superior said, standing in front of his desk. Her face was scrunched into a scowl, and it seemed as though she’d been stuck like that for the past few days, the way the wrinkles were etched into her face.

He just looked up at her.

“I will cut to the point,” she said, face unchanging. “I want you to tell me why there is a gigantic woman assailing our forces.”

The Devil blinked out of his stoicism. “W-what?”

His superior sighed. “There is a thing that destroyed several of our companies of Infernals, and is now at the gates of the capital, demanding to speak with our leadership. It said it gave us warning of this in advance. I do not remember receiving any sort of a warning.”

The Devil frowned. “Yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

His superior spoke through gritted teeth, “Do not be so casual in your speech with me, Devil. I advise you to try with utmost care to remember what this thing is. I may have gone easy on you for your disrespect before, but now your attitude is harming our operation. That will not be allowed to continue.”

The Devil let out a breath. “I’ll tell you what I know. At the very least, I don’t want yet another innocent Demon to get punished because you still can’t do your own job properly. But I really have no idea what this giant woman thing is. What’s she saying?”

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“It says it spoke with a Demon and told it to call off our forces. It gave this Demon a time limit of two weeks. This happened two weeks ago. As such, it is keeping with its promise to fight against us, now. As a Faerie Queene, or whatever it called itself, it is much too powerful for the skeleton crew we currently have running the Overworld operation to fight off.”

The Devil nodded slowly, realizing what she was talking about. …Right. The Faerie Queene. He had completely forgotten about her and the deadline she’d given, with the countless other deadlines and responsibilities given to him by leadership. Seemed like she’d caught up with them right as he was taken off the project. So, honestly, he’d kind of dodged the consequences there. That was nice.

“You recognize that thing?” his superior asked. “I am going to go ahead and ignore the fact that you did not inform us of this obstacle at all during your time as leader of the Arlan Nota case. Instead, I will graciously extend you the opportunity to tell us now about what this thing is and what it wants.”

“Well you’ve already said what she is. She’s a Faerie Queene. Lives in some tribe out in the woods, apparently they’re normally peaceful and basically do nothing but laze around as long as you don’t come near them. I met her a little bit before Arlan Nota entered the mountain range. We were trying to do that whole ‘burn down the forest around him’ thing, and it turned out their village was in the way. So I went in to try and convince them to step down.”

“And this was the result?”

“I did my best. She was pissed, alright? It was all I could do to get her to let us do our thing for how long we did it.”

His superior looked absolutely furious. “So you just pawned off the problem to your successors. You are an absolute disgrace, Devil.”

“Listen. She said she would only stand down once all of the Demons were out of the Overworld. So there’s not much you can do there. It’s basically just sink or swim. Either you kill her, or she kills off all of your forces. But I’m gonna tell you right now, I’m not confident in your chances. She’s pretty powerful. Sure, you could do it if you brought in the Supreme Hellion, or something, but just with a few Infernals? No way. She’s on the level of the Dragons, and you know how fighting those things went.”

His superior shook her head in incredulity. “So that is it. You caused a problem, refused to inform us of it, and now, when we are dealing with the consequences of your actions, you say that there is no solution. What did she tell you? Everyone can be reasoned with. She can be convinced to leave us alone. What does she want?”

“She wants you guys to fuck off from the Overworld. And honestly, I’m gonna go ahead and give you the advice that you should just listen to her. Does this shit really matter that much? Like, really. Think about it. Sure, at first, it was worth spending the resources on a few untrained Infernals to try and reclaim this asset and all that, but at this point? Maybe you just need to cut your losses. We’re doing okay without Temporus, is it really worth the hassle to get it back? Arlan Nota will eventually die of old age, even if it’ll take forever with the Endurance Stat making him live longer and our time difference in the Underworld and everything. But I mean, you could just wait it out, especially now that he’s pretty established in a safe place. Don’t you think the hours spent on this are better allocated?”

“Do not tell me how to do my management, Devil. You are not even remotely in the place to do that. I do not want your advice, I want your knowledge. What do you know about the Queene that could allow us to defeat it? Or work together with it, get it out, something.”

The Devil sighed. “...Maybe you could convince her to wait a little longer, or something. Like you said, she’ll listen to reason. Just don’t disrespect her. Honestly, having a time limit seems like it’ll be good for you.”

“What?” The superior’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m saying you need a fire lit under your ass. Seems like you’ve been taking a really long time just lazing around and doing nothing, while Arlan Nota gets all of this time to prepare. You think he’s spending it doing nothing, too?”

“We are regrouping our forces. Forces you allowed to be destroyed.”

“I’m the one who has the most experience dealing with that Human. If you want my advice, you listen to me. I’ve made my mistakes, and I’m trying to tell you how to avoid making them, yourself. If you’re dead set on killing that man, giving him time is not going to work. I guarantee you that whatever time you’re giving your own forces, he’s using it ten times more efficiently. Every moment I thought I had him, he was able to get through because I’d given him just a little bit too much time to prepare. Too much time to get stronger. You think you can give him months on months on months, and he’ll sit around and do nothing with it?”

The Devil shook his head, reliving all of the frustrations he dealt with.

“He’s a mixture of Human and Demon. I know both, and I can say that Demons are good because we work. Humans are lazy. We aren’t. That man? He isn’t, either. When I was chasing him so much that he couldn’t sleep, he didn’t sleep. When my forces were attacking him at every turn, he fought them all off, and then went to seek out yet more monsters so he could kill them, too, just to get even stronger. When I thought I was pushing him to his natural limits, he told me he wanted more challenge. So when you think killing that man will be even remotely as easy a month from now as it has been in the past? That’s how I know you have no fucking idea what’s going on here. You want my advice? Leave him alone. But if you really, really want to kill Arlan Nota? Fine. Do it now. Tell that Faerie Queene that she doesn’t have to worry about a thing, because you’ll all be gone in a few days, anyway.”

The Devil’s superior looked at him. For seconds—or maybe even minutes, his ability to mentally keep track of time was still pretty broken—she stared into his eyes with that unchanging scowl on her face.

Then she brought a communication crystal to her mouth. “Asmo? Yes, I’d like for you to go ahead and send a provisional force into the empire. Do reconnaissance as quickly as possible, find Arlan Nota, and send in a kill squad.”

“...Superior, I was under the impression that—”

“Yes, but the timetable has changed. You arrange that, and please inform our Koinkar that he will need to handle negotiations with the Faerie Queene.”

“I do not believe he will be capable of representing us well.”

“Tell it that it can promise basically anything it wants to promise. Just get the Queene to leave us alone for a little while. That is all.”

The Devil rolled his eyes. “Good to know you still have some sense to you.”

“Devil, you will face more punishment from this day on. I will ensure it.”

He rolled his eyes. “I offer you help, and get punished. What’ll you even do to me, anyway?”

Her scowl was somehow even deeper. “I do not care, Devil. I will make you suffer.”

With that, she turned on a heel and swiftly left the room.

The Devil sighed. How was it that, even when he was thrown in this prison, he still hadn’t been given reprieve from his old duties? Maybe he was going to be forced to deal with this for the rest of his days in the Underworld. There was no escape, after all.