“There is one place.” After a long bout of silence, Sapphire, who had remained rather quiet in the back, spoke up. “It’s a place you might be able to find more troops.”

Everyone looked in her direction.

“What place?” I asked.

“You defeated Demon Lord Aberis, right?” Sapphire asked.

I sighed, immediately knowing what she was saying. “You mean Alerith.”

It had been several months since I had dealt with Alerith. The Demon Lord Aberis had taken all of his demon knights and marched south, leaving the city mostly abandoned. Lord Reign hadn’t been among those identified after the battle, so my general assumption had been that Lord Reign had remained behind. It wasn’t clear if Lord Reign was an enemy working with the demon lord, a pawn of the demon lord, or even a puppet with no autonomy of his own.

The city had become eerily quiet in the last two months, and even Prince Edward didn’t know what was going on up there. The traveling guild had been shut down when Demon Lord Aberis made his move, and even after their defeat, the city remained cut off. That could mean that the place was ripe for conquering. If I could ride into Alerith and bring order to it, I might be able to raise a small army from whatever was left. Aberis under Lord Reign had been building forces. Most of them had been polluted by the demon knight token, but my experience was to the point that even if I found the demonic knights, I could fix their karma and restore them to normal.

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“So, it’s time to take care of Lord Reign,” Xin spoke out loud.

The first time I had tried to deal with Alerith, I had found myself over my head, and it had almost cost me. Yet, at this point, I had mostly ignored them because they weren’t even a threat. Now, it felt like it was a good time to finally visit Alerith and finish what I started.

“I wonder what they’ve been up to these few months.” Celeste pondered.

“Don’t we have spies in Alerith that can report what is going on?” Shao asked.

“Hmm? We do?”

“Oh… that’s right, there were those people who were fight managing for Carmine.” Miki nodded. “What were their names? Um… Drake?”

“…”

“Master, you did remember you had a group of servants working out of Alerith, right?”

“… I forgot.”

The girls couldn’t help but collapse. Thankfully, Elaya spoke up, trying to recover the situation.

“They went silent shortly before Aberis made his move.” Elaya shrugged. “Their life insurance crystals haven’t shattered, so they’re still alive. I just assumed they were in a prison somewhere.”

“Shouldn’t you have said something if three of our people were in jail!” Miki cried out.

“Well, it’s not like any of you were asking after them,” Elaya responded snobbishly.

“Still, we should care for our own, right? We need to seriously stop abandoning people!” Miki declared, causing the group to be silent for a moment.

“So… we’re agreed on Alerith?” I offered.

“Ignored? I feel bad for the male characters in Master’s lore!”