When the Pope finally made his move, he was utterly surprised when no one came to help. The King was gone, the Heroes never showed.

"Whatever. I'll just kill them and place someone else in their position! Men! Let's go!"

Instead of retreating, like a smart person would when something horribly wrong happened, the Pope pushed forward.

They hadn't even made it past the Undead, the third wave of enemies after the Goblins and Kobolds and Orcs and Lizardmen. (Two groups. G + K, O + L)

The Pope finally retreated after losing half of his men.

"This is okay, I can rally the people behind me and gain more followers as well as soldiers!"

But the truly loyal were still at the frontlines. He called them back home, which ‘angered' the Empire. They somehow set up a ceasefire with the Demons, which was strange. Even the Emperor was surprised at how easy it was.

The Empire then focused its efforts on taking down the Kingdom. They routed the retreating soldiers and requested they surrender.

Since the Pope had no more back up, his untimely assassination went about without many problems. The Church and its devout followers were disrupted, but the common folk had heard about Rotenburg and its amazing products.

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Many people had been saved by the wonderful medicine.

But in the most case of the peasantry, they didn't care who was in charge, as long as they got what they needed.

The King was relieved of his position and the Heroes were adopted into the Empire's army to be trained effectively. They had just power leveled by hunting alongside the Kingdom's finest, not actually earning any true experience.

However, the Kingdom was not taken over by the Empire.

Lord Beltos had swooped in and changed everything!

By the time everyone noticed, Lord Beltos had already ransacked the treasury and deployed his soldiers to take all the money in the land. He then spoke to the Alliance and the Empire and discussed selling land.

"Hahaha! What a riot! I like this Demon! Sure!"

This was the first time the Queen of the Fairies was intrigued. She didn't care about the land so the Empire received all of it except for Esthervale and Rotenburg. This domain came to be known as neutral territory that belonged to neither the Demons nor the humans but rested solely on Lord Beltos' shoulders.

More people came to work under him and more tourists came to experience the specialties. This No Man's Land became a hub of trade as the citizens supplied powerful medicine and strong equipment. However, some people wondered if there was any point in continuing the war.

A few weeks after everything settled down, they had their answer. The Demon Army had picked up their weapons again and readied for war.

People were conflicted since Demon Lord Beltos remained unperturbed by the war. No one dealt with him or his region, as even Demons began to move in. However, they were simple folk as well or just traveling by.

It became a place that most higher ups pretended did not exist, even though they went nearly every other week.

In fact, the Emperor and the Hero had run into the Demon King several times.

The opposing parties just smiled and went about their business.

It was a strange place.

All in the name of business.