“Alright, ten plus Mimi should be a good number to begin with. Just to make this clear, I fully expect any and all of you to act like geriatric negacionists during this whole thing, ignoring any and all problems you have with trusting my word will be easily verified through the explanation itself and its logic. Which is why I'm skipping all of that and bringing in someone whose word you will in fact trust." Aki said, insulting and confusing the entire room filled with aristocrats as the ground next to him started shining bright purple, revealing a complex magical circle seemingly filled with garbled nothings.

Of the round table filled with ten people, half of them got up and prepared for combat at the blatant display of magic, only to be astounded as they noted the cheer concentration of Vil and Pride essence being released by the ritual circle. When the tall and willowy form of a demon started to materialize over said circle, they knew even less what to do.

A bit over two meters tall, haughty straight posture, with alabaster skin framing wiry musculature, limbs extending longer than a human's, dark eye sclera, long claws and talons that seemed impossibly sharp, no genitalia despite the masculine facial and muscular shape… 'if I guess by the vitality, size and essence concentration, he should be around level fifty, but with a higher life level.'

As he examined his summon, so too was he examined in turn, and what he saw seemed to confuse the demon.

"Tell me, overreaching sprout, why do you summon my presence." Ordered the demon as Aki gave him a curt and quick bow in greeting.

"Greetings kin of Pride. My summon had two intentions, the first being to establish a quick contract to have your august word to authenticate and criticize a presentation that would soon begin. The second is to introduce my current liege to your person in hopes of establishing further contracts in the future, using this situation as an example onto the proper etiquette of it." Gesturing towards the table, attention was quick to turn to the Demon king.

"The half blood welp? He looks like he could put up a fight, were he hale, but as it stand he just looks like a pile of essence." Sneered the demon. Before any of the even more offended demon-kin could reply however, Aki went on to answer himself.

"And yet you understand there is more to gain then what crystals his body may be worth. To work with a King entails more than just what your claws can cut for your path, and you yourself are no monarch yet. Besides experience however, I must explain that the current legacy of this empire is not complete, only the blood traces of some families can be noted and to summon their ancestors through the scraps present is simply not possible for the current me. Their culture and current war are prime grounds to start your legend, and respect, fear and deference should rarely be found lacking in rooms not filled with uninformed politicians."

At his suggestion, the reaver smiled with teeth not too dissimilar to Aki's, though the small opening meant it was easy to see the demon had more than one set in his mouth.

……………….

Surprise demon summoning out of the way, Aki gave his potential associate a small set of rules for their short engagement (no violence, speak only the truth as he knew it, correct any misinformation and stay after receiving his payment to discuss future summonings), and after a glance shared with each royal, minister and general present, he began writing on the big black board he had brought over to the whatever this medium sized room with a big crescent shaped table was by using his light magic to draw and write on air as he started to speak.

"Demons, much like elementals, spawn due to the confluence of essences, namely Vil, Sin and an assorted combination from the extra mental energy necessary to fuse the soul shards into a necessarily sentient being. As is most common, a demon will form inside of a birthing pool, a black sludge directly connected to the parallel realm of this Hell, but note that there is little chance that the surviving spawn will develop sapience. In either way however, these are what are called first generation progeny, spawn from Hell itself." With imagery and arrows pointing towards said drawing, he exemplified what he explained.

He gave a small pause and all people present looked at the Reaver present, who despite scoffing, nodded at the obvious question.

"I do not, obviously, know much of what happens inside of a spawn poll, but a dreamer I asked said that none who he'd thrown inside came back despite receiving an obvious infusion of essence." Commented the demon in question as he raised a claw, easily making the people present more convinced of Aki's knowledge. So the young man continued his explanation.

"For convenience's sake, I shall proceed to explain that despite many demons seemingly possessing humanoid forms or being able to obtain them being capable of reproduction, or rot and flesh manipulators capable of releasing vermin of seemingly demonic heritage, any 'living' being coming from any such demon will only be a third generation demonic entity, not really a demon, none of which have much separation from their spawner or the capability to even develop sentience, nevermind sapience. Neither Parthenogenesis nor vivipary nor oviparity are how demons actually reproduce their actual descendents."

Again, heads turned towards the only demon present, who was actually the only one to not particularly understand some of the words used for once. Not that he'd admit it.

"I have fought spawners and killed hordes of their drones myself. They are not demons. I know not about fiends or succuby however. Never bothered to ask before killing them."

"And you have no reason to." Aki nodded. "Rather, it is simply that due to their genitals and behavior they are more easily able to infect living beings that do in fact reproduce like this, creating mindless lackeys, bombs and easy to deliver demonic plagues, but such advantages only show themselves when in constant contact with other civilisations." His explanation received a nod from the demon, and distraught looks from everyone else.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"You spoke of first and third generations, where is the second?" Questioned the demon king after a bit.

"Yes, well, the birth of a second generation demon is little different from one of the first generation in that it also involves copious amounts of essence, a great willpower holding it together and soul fragments, but rather than Hell itself utilizing what it's connections offer, it is two or more demons investing from themselves into a new life form, guarded inside the Influence of one parent until they form well enough to start developing mentally, where they are then released from their direct supervision. The only difference in result between these methods of birth is that the latter is customisable with the essence usage of the parents, while the first is entirely random. As you might guess from the material and time investment, the second method is also infinitely more expensive, so younger demons are generally those that have survived their immediate surroundings and in some way integrated themselves into established societies, be it as predator or citizen of said locus of movement. As for demon-kin… pretty much third generation demonic parasites that failed to completely take over a fetus and were instead absorbed, the offspring of a fecunded demon womb made specifically to generate smarter minions, which is actually a big initial investment but can be accelerated by giving said minions reproductive capabilities, or demonically infused embryos that managed to not have their demonic lineage forcefully activated, creating a human, elf or beast with demonic characteristics, something that can be done through either contractual infusion of an already existing fetus or the killing of a raping demon that got overconfident, though as you can expect, the later is much less likely to happen or develop through a complete pregnancy due to the mother and any number of problems she'd lack help to deal with."

So as to finally get it all out of the way, Aki did not stop this time. Instead of the demon, all those present were looking at him instead. And he could honestly care less at the moment.

Sure, all of this was technically his job and responsibility to fix, but to begin with, none of these people trusted him, and the only reason this was even happening was that their ancestors failed to ward off the gods' attempts to whittle them down. Normally he would be perfectly fine with actually waiting out and shutting down any idiocy, but currently, he was in pain and spouting a massive headache.

His decisions were not the best and his emotional stability was even worse at the moment. He had, at the very least, summoned a demon he knew would be simple to take down if things went sideways, but otherwise, the only thing left for him to do in this room was to explain how to get rid of the demon, pay said entity with the essence crystals he'd forcefully condensed and leave the whole mess for other people to solve.

………………….

After saying 'goodbye’, it was easy enough to get himself a room for what he had in mind plus the simple ingredients required. The only problem with it was enchanting the ground for a more specialized privacy ward, which by using his specialized method didn’t actually take long, even if the mana cost hurt a bit.

“Now, it has been a rocky start, what with everything that has happened, and I imagine you want answers to both what is to happen and what has happened, but by my own contract's limitations and the sensitivity of the matters at hand, I am afraid that such must wait. Before i can properly instruct you we will need to perform a ceremony of a distant land which will be both used as a wedge to influence both my contract and as proof for any future ones you yourself may firm, as while not magical, it serves the purpose of following an established tradition that can be recognised by both of us. Are you willing to go forth with this?” He asked ‘Mimi’, the girl for once completely serious and focused, though she somehow still retained that youthful naivety of her character.

“I am ready master. I feel like this is the way forward that i had been searching for.” She explained, likely saying a truth so as to pass any sort of detection. He wondered what she thought as she went through with all of this.

Either way, they both went to the small polished stone counter of the small room, Aki placing the tool on the smooth surface and summoning the water to be heated rom thin air.

That they then proceeded to brew a pot of tea and arranged the room like completely normal people despite their considerable physicalities seemed to confound Mimi. By the time they were sitting in front of each other, Aki could barely contain his mouth from curling up however, as he did consider this an important moment. He filled her tea cup and signaled for her to fill his, which was quickly done.

Raising his cup with both hands, he chuckled a bit as the younger girl took a moment to realize she was supposed to copy him.

“With this cup I receive the task set upon me in good faith. With these hands I hold the future at bay so that you may grow on your time. With my emotions I choose to open weakness to give birth to strength. I swear it, I swear it, I swear it.” *Rumble* Finishing with his words, Aki drank his tea in one gulp. Smiling to his ‘disciple’, he waited for her to present him with what he had briefly explained was her part.

As anyone could probably guess, he was taking parts from several different rituals to forge this one, so the words in specific did not matter.

“And I, Mimi of nowhere, accept this opportunity for what it is.” She paused, frowning as she suddenly looked him in the eyes, words flowing again “I swear to do my best to use this chance to complete my mission. I swear to exploit this weakness and turn it to my own strength. I swear to not be helpless once more.” *CRACra Splurtle*

Blood flowed from her nostrils, eyes, ears and mouth, bile with red spots hitting Aki’s clothes as he held the convulsing young woman uptight despite her going limp sitting, her cup flying away as he’d kneeled the falling object as he moved too fast.

“With this offering, i mark you. With this suffering, i warn you. With this beginning, i swear to love you.” He muttered, pain wracking his body as the sudden infusion and subsequent removal of so much significance left him contract his muscles as if struck by lightning. “With this ritual, i take my first daughter from any who would dare hurt her and grant the Name of Asa, with the Title of Yoake no Yozora, after one of my favorite songs.”

By the end of his words, the average looking gray humanoid in his arms was unconscious and the system had a new message for him, but whatever it was, he needed to rest first. Being a single parent wasn’t going to be easy even with his adopted child being a teenager, but his uncle had long since taught him through example how to master the art of going more than thirty hours without sleep even with a normal human body.

You get good and complain through the whole of it while still being the best person in the room.