“Haaaaahhh…!” I heavily sighed, rubbing the side of my temples as I closed my eyes and tried to soothe the headache I was suffering right now.

It had been a few days already since the attack on my family and the saving of my daughter with the help of Althea. I had hoped that I could have some time of peace of tranquility after that, but not a day after that, and another problem came knocking down my door.

The Magic Red Zone I was in charge of was currently under siege, and I would know what a siege was from being a Siege Demon myself; however, I didn’t have the means to deal with this, as this wasn’t an actual war zone, but just an annoying zone.

I stood from my desk and looked out of the wide window behind me.

Below, the lobby of the building was packed full of people, and almost none of them were adventurers, explorers, or warriors hoping to go into the Red Zone. They were mostly government officials, social media personalities, news outlets, and even a couple of military officers; all of them hoping to get a scoop out of the Embodiment of Magic that suddenly appeared in this country.

And who could blame them? Her presence could be a hellish blessing or a heavenly curse depending on what she was doing over here, and right now, most people weren’t sure about it—myself included—so the only thing I could say to these people was that she’s just in the Magic Red Zone.

While thinking about these things, I saw a handful of people who were pushing their way around the people on the lower level, hastily going for the stairs, which likely meant that they were coming over here.

With another heavy sigh, I turned to look at the woman that had been helping me over the past few days. “Miss Gaos, I think we might be getting another group of visitors.”

She turned to look at me with the same nonplussed expression that she usually carried. She was quite the curious woman, as she was always able to handle almost anything that came her way without complaining nor being joyous about it. It was as if everything happening here was nothing more than an everyday thing.

Currently, she had her own desk inside my office. It wasn’t quite as big as mine since it was brought over in a hurry, but it did take up the space that I liked to use for my stretches. We had also brought over a couple of long couches for all the ‘important’ visitors, and a useless small tea table that was there so they would feel ‘welcomed’. All of this a suggestion by Miss Gaos.

Right as she was about to grab on to the office door, a handful of hard knocks came from it. She stopped momentarily, somewhat stunned from the noise, but quickly moved to open the door.

“Welcome, how can I be of—”

“Move over,” the older man standing in front of another two men commanded, pushing Miss Gaos aside, interrupting her in the middle of her speech.

I frowned as I looked at her stumbling to the side, but she didn’t appear to be annoyed by it. She said that she could handle these sorts of things herself, so I didn’t make a big fuss out of it right now… but I’ll definitely keep it in mind when dealing with this man!

The man that walked as if he owned the place was only slightly taller than Althea, with the same build that a man of that age and position would have, so not a threat to anyone. He was wearing an elegant dark gray suit that fit him almost perfectly, and his face was half-wrinkled, with a pale bronze skin color that looked as if the man hadn’t been under the sun for more than five minutes in his life.

He carried a rather demonic expression, which would’ve made the man much more agreeable for someone like me, but the very fact that he ignored Miss Gaos and pushed her aside like that would cause me to knock a few points down in ‘helping’ him with whatever he was likely going to demand out of me.

I put up the best demonic smile that I had, spreading my arms to the side in a welcoming gesture. “Welcome, what can I do for you?”

The man looked at me with a fierce glare. “It’s already been a few days, and there’s still no sight of the SSS rank legend, Asteora. My men have grown tired of waiting, and your lack of cooperation is truly not helping, Mister Azid.”

“Ahhh… well…” I replied, scratching one of my horns in an exaggerated manner, as if I actually cared about what this tiny man wanted. “We’ve been doing our best here, but really, you can’t expect us to go in there to look for her, do you? Especially with someone as important as the person you’re asking for, Mister…”

I acted as if I didn’t know who the man was, prompting his face to turn red like mine and the men that accompanied him to fiercely glare at me, with one of them taking a step forward with his chin raised up.

“It’s President Nule! And you shall respect him, else we find a way to knock you down from that position and place someone much more competent than you there—someone that’s not a demon and has the proper manners to speak to people!” the man barked.

But I didn’t really bother listening to what he said, so I simply looked at him. He continued to glare, but took a step back when the ‘President’ touched him on the side of the arm.

It wouldn’t be the first threat I got over these past few days, as they were coming mostly from owners of Magic Corporations and important businesses that thought they could just get what they wanted by pushing their weight around, but…

“Well, you may try to threaten me as much as you want, but I didn’t get this position by licking anyone’s tail, and praising anyone’s horns. You’ll have to change the country’s law if you want to fire me, and I doubt that you have that kind of power,” I said with a smirk.

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The ‘President’ clicked his tongue and shook his head as he glared at the young man. “We… didn’t come here to threaten anyone…” he turned to look at me, trying to be slightly more amiable. “But it is true that we’re an important company in the magic industry, and as such, we have the right to know when something as important as Asteora being close happens.”

I shrugged with my hands to the side. “Well, I’m sorry to say, but you’ll have to settle with the same thing that everyone else has: She’s currently inside the Magic Red Zone, and she’ll come out, when she comes out.” I looked down at each man again. “Until then, you’re free to wait in the lobby.”

The old man looked defiantly at me, clearly not satisfied with my answer. “Mister Azid, you—”

“Director Azid,” I interrupted, since this man was being way too rude, so why would I keep it nice?

“…Director… Azid… you’ll understand the importance of such an event, and I’m sure that you’ll know the benefits of working with us on this,” he continued, suggesting something that was likely under the table. “As a demon, I’m sure you’ll be able to see a good deal with just a glance, correct?”

I heavily sighed again, not hiding at all the annoyance that this was causing. For some reason, the humans of this world—especially the ones in these positions—usually thought that as a demon I would be swayed by ‘good deals’, which was nothing more than some corrupt thing that was likely illegal.

But I wasn’t one to do those sorts of things! How could I go back home and face my beautiful spawn of darkness and my cute little wife if I were to sully my good name like this?!

Thankfully, just as I was about to tell the old man to go to heaven, the phone in my desk started vibrating. I quickly turned to look at it. “Oh? Would you look at that, it’s the President calling—the actual President of the Republic.” I quickly grabbed the phone and brought it up close to my face. “You’ll understand if I can’t ignore this call,” I then looked at Miss Gaos. “Miss Gaos, if you could show these fine gentlemen the way out?”

“Right away, Director,” she answered with a business-like tone, gesturing with her hand to the door of the office. “Please, come this way. I’ll show you to the VIP room.”

The men seemed to want to argue about it even more, but I just ignored them as I turned around to look out the window, bringing the phone up to my ear and louding saying, “Hello? Yes!” followed by a loud laugh.

The men grumbly left the room and I was quickly left alone in my office.

From the other side of the phone I heard the cold, alluring, raspy voice of a woman. “Is everything okay? Why did you answer like that?”

“Hehe, I’m sorry dear, there were just a handful of annoying people in the office, and your call came here like a blessing from hell,” I said with a soft voice.

It was, of course, not the President of the Republic. But those other guys didn’t need to know that.

My cute little wife sighed. “I hoped we would be able to spend more time with you after everything that happened.”

“Yeah… but I didn’t think that the Hero’s best friend and mentor would suddenly show up here of all places and ask to go into the Magic Red Zone,” I said, scratching my horn, this time out of real bashfulness. “Hey, at least there’s something good out of all of this, right?”

“I can’t complain about the service here,” she replied.

Since I’d been forced to work overtime because of all the important people coming over to the Capital Magic Labyrinth, I hadn’t been able to go home. However, since my home had been wrecked, and my family had been attacked, I managed to force the Minister of Magic to give me a few things in return.

One of those was that my family was allowed to stay in a nearby hotel—a five star one, one of the most expensive ones of the country—and the state would cover all expenses that we needed. They were reluctant to do that, since just a day in that place would cost as much as Althea’s last paycheck, but since it was ‘an emergency situation’ with the Embodiment of Magic here, they relented and allowed it.

Better yet, the place was no more than a five minute walk away from where I was, so I could easily go see them at night.

“And how’s Miri doing?” I asked, as even in this ‘favorable situation’, I’d hardly seen her since.

“She can’t stop ‘wowing’ from the sights of the city on this high floor, but other than that, she’s been enjoying her television shows, and the boasting to her friends that she’s a special kind of demon,” Iggy said, and I could hear the sigh that followed. “I’ve been telling her not to do that, but it’s like it goes right over her head.”

I chuckled, shaking my head as I did. “I’m amazed our little spawn of darkness can even dare to ignore you.”

“Right… I wonder where she got that idea from…” she trailed off, suggesting that it had been me.

I awkwardly laughed. “I-it’s not my fault! I couldn’t say no to her when she gave me that ice cream in secret!”

Again, my Iggy sighed. “Well, as long as you’re not telling her to ignore me, then we won’t have an issue.”

“No ma’am! I’ll even be sure to tell her to listen to you when I get home!” I said with a firm and serious tone of voice.

“Speaking of that… until when is this whole thing going to last? You usually spend a little extra time at work, but this time, you’ve been gone for almost a full day,” she said.

I looked down at the mess of people coming and going from the entrance of the Magic Red Zone and the building’s entrance, all of them desperately trying to get information regarding the Embodiment of Magic—the SSS rank mage Asteora, as they know her in this world—and I really couldn’t tell until when this was going to last.

“I can’t say… this is a very important person we’re dealing with here, someone that in this world is much more important than even the Hero herself,” I said, placing a hand on the window as I sweeped my gaze over the people below once more. “Someone like that… I never thought I’d even directly speak to her.”

“The Hero of the Holy Gods… together again with her old friend and master… Do you think that… the same thing that happened in the past is going to repeat itself? That they’re going to start a war with our people?” my Iggy asked, the worry in her voice as clear as night for me.

I had to admit that it did look somewhat ominous when those two women were together again. It gave a feeling of danger when seeing them, but remembering Althea donned in the General’s armor, the dark powers that she wields now, and the way that she helped us get our daughter back, I couldn’t help but have hope that things were going to be different with her now.

“I don’t think so,” I said as confidently as I could. “You’ve seen that she’s changed. Even if we didn’t know her back in our world, I don’t think that if she was the same kind of person that she was back then, that she would’ve gone out of her way to help us—much less against people who blindly follow the Holy Gods.”

There was a moment of silence from my wife, which was promptly followed by a sigh. “I hope… I hope you’re right,” her tone then changed once more to a more calm one. “Anyway, when are you coming home?”

“Hm… I don’t know… but I think I’ll leave Miss Gaos in charge and sneak out to see you. She’s quite the competent woman and I think that—”

It was then that I noticed the people in the lobby stirring like a wave coming from the entrance of the Magic Red Zone.

“What happened?” Iggy asked, the worried tone back in her voice.

I followed with my gaze how people started rushing over to the Red Zone. And soon after, there was loud knocking on my door.

“I might be coming home sooner than later. It seems like a certain group of women are back.”