Ugh! She absolutely hated awkward conversations with people she never bothered giving a nickname to. Plus that whole interaction was confusing which just added to the awkwardness. He clearly felt awkward too based on how tense the armored guy seemed to be.

Armored Guy… Eh, as good of a nickname as any. She really wasn’t going to add thought to the nickname seeing as how she had no real intention of having any more interactions with him. That and she was just being lazy

She continued to draw the summoning circle in the valley she had chosen to teleport too as she pondered that whole interaction.

When she stepped out of the portal she wasn’t expecting to see some armor with a soul attached to it practically prostrating themselves before her (not like she minded that kind of devotion but there was a time and a place for everything).

She was so caught off guard in fact that when she realized he was there she sort of just froze and stared at him, hoping he would say anything which would give an explanation on what he was doing. Alas he offered none and just kept bowing leading to a horrible awkward silence that seemed to stretch on.

She was never good at small talk or most social interactions honestly. Heck, if she was, she wouldn’t have bothered secluding herself in her pocket dimension for so long.

I mean, she strongly considered just disintegrating the Armor Guy just to be done with the whole thing but felt that probably would be an over reaction on her part so she eventually managed to squeak out a “What are you doing?” while trying not to die from embarrassment.

Then, the armor said something about protecting her gate which just confused her even more. Like why would she need someone to protect her gate? It was undetectable from just about any creature she had ever seen and even if they did somehow detect it there was no way they could get in! The only ones who could were her, her Tymbots, annnd… Thats It.

Well she supposed if you wanted to be technical, anything her Tymbots brought with them could also go through the gate but that didn’t really count.

As she continued to draw the unnecessarily complex summoning circle, (stupid demons and their theatrics) she scoured her memories trying to figure out what the hell Armor Guy was even talking about.

As she pondered, she seemed to vaguely remember a time when one her Tymbots brought her some decrepit dying old man (Why the hell it decided to bring her such a useless thing she had no idea)

The man had pleaded, telling her how he did not want to suffer so she decided to use him for an arts and crafts project she had been considering.

She had always wanted to see if human souls were capable of living in a vessel that wasn’t their own body. Plus this way she would be able to grant his wish as it’s not like one can suffer from old age and pain in a suit of armor.

So she took the guys soul out and fused it to some armor she had lying around when she tried to recreate an armor from a book series she really loved. Obviously she didn’t use her finished project, but rather a scrapped version of it. But it was still a nice piece of armor.

After she did her good act of the decade and ran a few tests on him to see how he adjusted. She threw him back outside and told him to just do whatever as she did not want him coming back.

I mean really, who on earth would want some blubbering crying weirdo distracting them from all the important stuff. Like reading or other arts and crafts projects.

How he got “guard the gate” from that was baffling. The man was clearly an idiot, but he was an idiot who clearly had so much gratitude towards her for saving his life that he started to worship her so she guessed she would give him a pass.

Though some good did come from that interaction as it gave her a really fun idea for her story! She was totally going to have a scary and powerful gate guardian the hero would need to defeat before they could storm the big bad's main lair!

Speaking of big bads. She looked down across the summoning circle she had just finished drawing. The stupid thing took up a good chunk of the valley.

When she had wanted to summon demons into her pocket dimension after arriving in this material plane so she could gather some rare material. She had to renovate the second floor just to have a room large enough for these stupid circles! The demons in the first Material Plane she had stayed in were not that picky over how they were summoned which just annoyed her even more.

But she was getting distracted from the main point which was demons! Demons were perfect for a big bad! Most people saw them as evil, malefic, sadistic, and all those other synonyms she couldn’t be bothered to think of. Demons, especially powerful demons, offer massive potential for the big bad in any story, and she had the perfect one in mind!

Well… Maybe not perfect but she couldn’t think of a better one that would fit her criteria so she had to make do with the options she had, especially since she had promised the Demon king she wouldn’t summon him again. (Whiny brat. It was only a few eyes, hearts and livers.)

Granted she could probably look into crafting a better demon but that would take time since she had never really bothered to make demon chimera so there would have to be some trial and error test subjects which would take some more time and she was impatient. She wanted to start watching the story play out now, as opposed to whenever she finally finished which could be one year to a few hundred give or take.

Letting out a breath (Which was really just some mild wind magic for aesthetic purposes since she didn’t actually have lungs to blow out air) she swelled her mana and poured into the summoning circle causing it to glow a rather lovely red. A small tremor shook the valley before a loud crack with an excessive amount of smoke burst forth from the center of the circle and there stood the silhouette of the demon she summoned.

If she was being totally honest. She would have actually preferred something a little more intimidating. But of the demons she could think of, this one was probably the most intimidating of the bunch unless you counted that Pus Bucket but even she thought he smelled bad which was certainly saying something since she didn’t have a nose. Plus he wasn’t really scary looking. Just ugly.

This demon that she had summoned however was called Rillan. A kind of squat looking thing barely passing twelve feet with four lanky arms that dragged on the floor. Bat-like wings that stretched fairly wide and a goat-like head with a mouth that ran all the way down its snout and even slightly down its throat. Honestly the only real thing she liked about his appearance was his tail that was a three headed snake.

“Wh-What are you doing?? It isn’t my turn yet!” The Big Bad Demon Lord voice came out in a shrill which was a little grating, she had forgotten how annoying this demon's voice was.

“It's not my turn! It should be Yauls turn! Send me back and summon him instead!”

She let out a huff (wind magic!) And issued a command “Silence!” causing The Big Bad Demon Lords mouth to slam shut. She really didn’t like his voice and definitely didn’t want to deal with his complaining.

“Good gracious, I did not summon you cause I wanted some of your organs. If I did I wouldn’t have summoned you in this valley and would have summoned you in the usual room”

The Big Bad Demon Lord's eyes widened and quickly looked around and seemed to relax a tad before tensing again and looking at her with some kind of new fear which she felt was rude. Was she really going to have to explain to a demon that she wanted him to be a demon??

“Would you please stop looking at me like I am going to torture you? I am not going to do anything bad.” Not like she had done anything bad to these demons anyways. They always grew back the organs she harvested. It was like a tree complaining when she broke off a branch.

“I just need someone to play the role of the super evil Demon Lord and cause all sorts of evil chaos… Stuff.” Describing what she wanted wasn’t her strong suit. Especially since she hadn’t really bothered with real conversations in who knows how long.

The Big Bad Demon Lord tilted his head in confusion causing her to let out a sigh (wind magic~) in frustration “you may speak now if you have a question”

“What do you mean by playing the role of a super evil demon lord?”

Why did every demon she interacted with lacked brain capacity? It’s a good thing she never needed to harvest their brains as she didn’t doubt they would be of especially low quality.

“Exactly that. I want you to rule minions. Cause havoc! Ham it up when the hero comes to stop you and your dastardly deeds!!!” She got more excited as she talked thinking about what was to come and tried to quickly rein in herself.

The Big Bad Demon Lord was giving her an odd look and had even taken a step back. Why? Just cause she had passion didn’t mean she was crazy!

“Look, I am going to provide you with some minions. They breed quickly and are good at menial labor. They will probably make decent grunt soldiers for a large army. Also I will provide you with some golems to help construct an evil super fortress! The bigger and more imposing the better! Also also I need you to breed with some of the minions that I am giving you so we can have special elite monsters that provide an obstacle for the heroes to overcome before they get to you! Also I need!”

She was rudely cut off by The Big Bad Demon Lord by raising all four of his arms “Wait stop! You aren’t making any sense! What the hell are you talking about???”

“Of for the love of!” Demons and their stupidity! She promptly stepped into the summoning circle and gripped The Big Bad Demon Lord on the neck with his matty fur. Dragging him down to the ground so his goat-like head was within reach.

She promptly placed her hand onto his head and with some powerful mind magic, forcefully put her plans into his head minus the ‘hes suppose to die in the end’ and ‘she will be sending a hero to kill him’ parts.

Granted her plans were pretty vague actually. Mostly build an army, create an evil fortress/city/country. Cause havoc and be super evil. The reason for this vagueness was she felt like it would ruin her immersion when she was watching everything later if things played out as she ordained and if The Big Bad Demon Lord knew what was going to happen to him in the end he’d probably be a little upset.

Once done with her spell she took a step back and glared (As best as one can glare without eyes) at him “there, do you get it now?”

The Demon Lord sat there in a daze, his eyes so vacant that it probably matched his actual brain capacity before shaking his head to snap out of it. “You… You are basically giving me free reign to cause as much havoc and chaos as possible?”

He finally gets it. Should have just used that spell at the start. “More or less, though I will have some occasional tasks for you to do but that won’t be happening for a few years outside of the building up a strong powerful army and a massive imposing fortress”

“Army… What are these creatures that are supposed to make up my army?” Now that the Demon Lord was finally starting to understand what she was saying, she could move on. Taking out one of her Time Prisons from her bag she examined it with amusement.

“Honestly I never thought I’d have use for these guys when I made them. Just got bored one decade and thought it would be fun. Stored them in a time prison after I realized I was a little too successful with their high breeding capabilities.”

The Demon Lord just looked at her confused but rather than explain things even more which would probably just be a lesson in futility. She tossed the cube a little ways off and spoke the phrase needing to break the enchantment of the time prison and release everything all at once “Oi! Wake up and come out of here”.

It should be noted she was in a rush when she caught them and couldn’t think of a better phrase when she stored them into the time prison since she didn’t want to risk some escaping and she’d have to spend who knows how long trying to capture/exterminate more and thus couldn’t come up with a more cool passphrase.

The cube cracked and shattered followed by a flash of light and the entire area was filled with a ton of humanoid bunny looking creatures lying down… asleep? Maybe some were dead but she was pretty sure most were asleep.

And when she said it filled up the whole area she meant it filled up the whole area. Their bodies seemed to have covered most of the stupid valley, many even lying on top of each other. Were there really that many in the time prison? Yeesh, no wonder she had such a hard time rounding all of them up in the first place.

She looked at The Big Bad Demon Lord with pride as she showed off one of her creations “I got the idea for their appearance after having experimented on a bunch of humans by giving them animal-like qualities. But I used bunnies as a base for these guys and wanted to try and make them humanoid.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She paused though as she looked at the Demon Lord and back at the bunnies “I am curious what your kids will look like, A mix of these chimeras with a demon lord could be rather promising. So be sure to show me when I come back at some point. I’d love to do an autopsy to get a better sense of their inner workings.

“Oh, and don’t worry about their lack of movement. They should be coming too in an hour…ish. Getting stuck in time stasis can make you a little groggy when everything starts resuming”

The Demon Lord stared at the sleeping (Dead?) creatures for a small moment before turning back to her “And the golems?”

Well it was nice he was keeping up with everything this time. She rummaged through her bag and eventually took out another time prison. She had technically made the time prisons initially to hold powerful monsters that could not be restrained by other means but quickly realized that worked far better as easy and convenient transportation and luggage carrier

Another quick toss, and the phrase “something something metal golems out” (she wasn’t feeling very creative that day) another flash of light and over a hundred metal golems stood before her. A few standing on some now certainly dead humanoid bunny creatures.

“Also I leave you in charge of giving these bunny creatures a name for their species. Make the name scary and imposing. Something to strike fear in the hearts of men”

The Big Bad Demon Lord simply stared at the golems for a long moment “and I am to use all of these to build an army, a kingdom, and to wreak havoc upon the world?”

“Yep! Should be fun for a demon like you right? Oh, but hold off for a bit. I will give you the word when and where to attack, after that you can go all out. But I want you to build up that army and kingdom. So just focus on that first.” She didn’t want The Big Bad Demon Lord to destroy everything before she could get everything set up and into place. Plus she didn’t want him killing a perfectly good Hero candidate.

He slowly turned to face her. His face was somewhat hard to read but that could have just been because it was a goat “is that all?”

“More or less, don’t sweat the details. Just let me take care of it all.” She gave him a reassuring pat on his head causing him to tense real quickly

“Oh right! Almost forgot.” She went through her bag until she found all the time prisons she had prepared for this and tossed them over to the Demon Lord “here you go. This should be enough material to construct everything you need. From buildings to weapons and armor.”

She gave a small stretch which she technically didn’t need to do since she didn’t have muscles but it was a fun gesture to do to show how hard she was working for others. Context clues were important for social interactions she read one time and wanted to put that in practice

“Anyways. Got a whole lot more to do and so very little time to do it in. So gotta go. Get to work building an army and making that imposing fortress! I’ll check up on ya in a bit and then you can get started with being a super big bad!”

With that she teleported away to her next destination with another small pop. Eager to take the next step of her masterplan!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Rillan watched the force of nature that was that Thing disappear before letting out a breath of relief he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. None of the demon lords, himself included, could handle dealing with that monstrosity. The day she anchored her pocket dimension onto this Material Plane was a day none of them would ever forget.

He took a breath to calm his nerves. Every time he was summoned he somehow forgot how uncomfortable just being in her presence was. He didn’t know if that was a spell of some sort or if her aura was just naturally like that. If the latter, then that would probably be even more terrifying.

Even now he felt like there was something suspicious about this plan of hers. He could never read her intent no matter what he tried to do. And he was honestly too scared to try that hard for fear of being put in an extra long organ harvesting session.

The demon lords often, albeit quietly, curse their king when he gave that monster the ability to summon them.

The deal he had struck had two simple terms if he recalled, and one was in return with the know-how to summon all of the demon lords, she would not summon their king again. Or at least not summon him to harvest his organs or deal any kind of harm to him.

He turned his head to the somewhat messy sprawl out before him. The bunny-like creatures seemed to be roughly 5 feet tall with bulky muscles lining all over their body with harsh bristly fur sticking out of their skin. Large sharp fangs seemed to stick out of the front of their mouths and he could tell from the way a few of them snored that their back teeth had molars that almost seemed ideal for crushing bones.

He had to give credit where credit was due, these creatures seemed like they would have amazing fighting capabilities with some proper training and equipment. Even if she hadn’t ordered him too he probably would have had children with them to create even deadlier creatures that could easily rip apart humans

But the most interesting thing was the golems he had been given. Standing nine feet tall in a genderless, featureless human shape, their silvery metal bodies gleaming in the sun.

The metal was very interesting as he couldn’t quite identify it but had a strong feeling that even if he were to punch the golem with his full strength it would only leave a small dent. At the end of their hands though were fingers that ended in sharp points. Good for carving stone and perfect for rending flesh.

He loomed his way over to the golems and looked down to the one in front before gesturing with one of his claws towards one of the boar creatures that was still alive but asleep. “Kill that one as quickly as you can”

Faster than even he would have given it credit for, it shot forward towards the sleeping creature and smashed it’s foot into its head with a satisfying crunch.Blood splurting out across the ground.

A slow burbling chuckle began to creep up his throat before his mouth erupted open, spreading open all the way down his snout. His cackling laughter echoing all across the valley causing the bunny-like creatures to slowly rouse from their sleep before looking around in bewilderment and eventually terror as their eyes landed on the golems and then the demon before them.

Rillan was pleased at this. These creatures at least understood who their better was. A sickly grin twisting across his face as his mind raced with the potential.

He finally had an opportunity to get back at that damn undead monster who had spent so much time torturing him. All for the sake of her “experiments” and her “Arts and crafts projects”. Just thinking of those lame excuses made him sick. She was clearly mocking them as she committed her torture.

He apparently had a bit of time to at least get a plan going. How he was going to kill her he didn’t know yet, but he had some ideas of how to start so long as he was careful.

He would need to locate where she had anchored her blasted pocket dimension. Aside from the fact that she had a ton of magical artifacts and all sorts of powerful creatures, potions and items that would make even the king of demons green with envy. He also just wanted to utterly trash her home and destroy everything she held dear.

However that would have to be a lower priority until he actually dealt with that damnable undead.

He would also need to build up an army, one that even she would hesitate to fight. And she thankfully gave him all the resources he could ever need or want. Practically dropped them on his lap begging for him to take them. It would delight him to no end to watch her struggle and slowly succumb to the army she had given him.

Now normally, when a demon was summoned they were unable to plan or conspire against the one who summoned them. Directly anyways. But that was if, and only if you established a binding contract of the demon to you after you summoned them.

If you were to break the summoning circle before you did this binding then you were basically at the mercy of the demon and they were free to do as they please.

She had just made one of the biggest rookie mistakes when it came to demon summoning when she walked into the circle breaking the binding to him. He was actually a little surprised that she hadn’t realized her mistake and quickly unsummoned him which made him think she didn’t view him as a threat.

An insult for sure but one he was oddly thankful for. That was another mistake that even veteran demon summoners forgot. Demons were always a threat, and the moment you let your guard down they strike.

The only reason he didn’t rip her apart right there and then was due to the fact that he was still too shocked and overwhelmed from everything that was happening. Then when he had a bit of time to recover from the shock. He didn’t want to risk getting dismissed from this new playground filled with precious little play things he could tournament.

Which led him to the final issue he currently had. Finding something to keep him tethered to this realm. A large risk many demon summoners had was that those who hunted demons often just targeted the demon summoner. Kill the summoner, the demon goes back to hell.

Really the only reason why so many demons would have a hand in their summoner's demise was usually because they despised being subservient to humans and returning to hell was far preferable. Plus, when there they usually would find the soul that summoned them and took great delight in inflicting punishment for their humiliation.

But he was a demon lord and a unique opportunity has presented itself to him. Being free to do whatever he could try and find something that could help keep him tethered to this world even after the undead abomination was dead. Then he would be free to conquer all of this material plane. A dream of any and all demons.

He had a lot of work to do it seemed. For now he would play nice, be the good little servant so she wouldn’t suspect anything. Especially since he doubted he would be ready when she checked back in later.

But he had every intention of crushing that damned woman's entire body in his jaws, and if that didn’t kill her. He’d throw her in the unending void where she can spend eternity. He actually quite liked that idea now that he thought about it. Perhaps her demise would even be met by a void spawn.

A slight shiver ran down his spine at the thought of one of those things and he shook his head to get himself focused on the task at hand.

Clearly she was overconfident in her abilities or had just simply grown too relaxed from all the times she had tortured him that she forgot he was a demon lord of this world. There was only a single entity above him in hell and that was the demon king himself.

His mind drifted as he thought about the demon king, the one who was basically responsible for the undead being able to summon him and other demon lords.

When he returned to hell after having conquered this material plane and having killed or tossed into the void that vile undead. He could easily see the other demon lords rallying behind him so he may overthrow the current king and he would take his rightful place on the throne as king of all hell.

There were probably several items in her little pocket dimension that could help with that also so before he returned to hell he would have to make sure to raid her dimension for all of its valuables but again, he would place that on the back burner for now cause he had something he needed to take care of now.

His head turned towards the bunny creatures. Many were huddled together scared while others seemed to look at him with eagerness. The golems stood as quiet sentries, awaiting for their next orders. Now what was the best use of these resources that he had been gifted.

Rillan cooed as he spoke to the bunny creatures, sending his intent into words to make the dull creatures understand him. His voice sending shivers down the creatures as they should.

“I am your master now, given as a gift by your creator to serve me and only me. Follow me and you will be able to bring this world down to its knees and destroy all who would oppose my will.”

“food?” His eyes swiveled towards one of the bunny chimeras that was in the front looking at him with awe. So these rabbits possess enough intelligence for speech, that would make giving orders easier.

“I shall give you all the delicious food you want. And there is no food more delicious for savage and powerful creatures like you than fresh human meat.”

That seemed to bring rapture to their eyes, nothing better than simple creatures being motivated by simple desires. They were already grunting and chittering to themselves. Clearly eager for all the meat they would be able to eat.

He decided to keep it simple and name these creatures Orants. He didn’t care about naming what would undoubtedly be canon fodder but orders were orders here. And the undead abomination told him to name them so he did.

He ordered the freshly named Orants to stay exactly where they were, an order they seemed happy, or at least indifferent to follow. He then turned his attention to the golems and time prisons that the undead witch claimed held enough supplies to create his own kingdom and army.

He moved to the golems that stood attentively and gave the order to half of them to spread out and secure the borders of the valley. Any and all living creatures to be killed and brought to the center of the valley to feed the Orants.

However there were so many of these bastards he would probably have to set up a far larger hunting ground. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to resort to animal husbandry and farming. But winning wars was far more about logistics than anything and keeping the Orants fed would be important. Hopefully they would eat more than meat though. Perhaps cannibalism would work too?

Shelving that idea he ordered the rest of the golems to be on standby. He needed to know what kind of stuff he was working with and then he could formulate what resources go towards buildings, fortifications, weapons and armor.

He walked over to where the time prisons were laying on the grass and reached down to grab the nearest cube. The grin that hadn’t really left his face began to stretch again across his snout. Now, it was time to see what sort of material she left him. He was utterly giddy that she had given him so many things that he could use to kill her.

He tossed the time prison a good distance away from him but then froze. A slow and infuriating realization began to dawn on him. She used a passphrase to unlock the prison for both the golems and the Orants. And both of the prisons had different phrases right?

Panic started to swell in his chest and he spoke the two phrases he had heard her say. None of the time prisons cracked or opened up and revealed the treasure inside. There was no flash of light and no large mass of material.

Rage boiled up within him as he knew what she had just done. That conniving monster was treating him like a horse, dangling a carrot in front of him so he would do as she says!

He clenched his fists and forced himself to calm down. It was not the time to let his anger grow. If he let his anger get a hold of him now he would undoubtedly lash out and now was not the time to do such a thing.

The question was why. Why would she withhold the key phrases for the time prison? Did she just take delight to dangle resources in front of him and not actually provide the means to get them.

That actually seemed the most likely, she probably took a sick delight and withheld the material in the time prisons. But also, she might have withheld the material until he proved his worth.

Those were probably the reasons or at least the ones that seemed most likely to him. To test his loyalty by the tasks she had given him without the resources and the sick delight of keeping them from him.

He clenched his fists again and slammed it into one of the golems standing at attention with a satisfying gong. The Golem flew through the air and smashed into the ground a good distance away but seemed to be relatively okay.

Huffing he turned to the rest of the golems with his nostrils flaring. “Listen up golems! I want you to start digging into the mountains around this valley, clear out all Flora and Fauna until it is bare!” If he couldn’t use the stuff in the time prison but was still expected to make a fortress and city then fine. He would carve it out of the damn mountains.

He would show her that he can accomplish everything she had tasked him and do so above her expectations. He would laugh in her face when he showed how much he had accomplished.

If anything this might work even better in his favor. Showing how good of a servant he was would help lure her into a false sense of security. Act like an obedient demon until it was too late. Then he would finally have his satisfaction.

Suddenly he heard some flapping sounds and turned his head to see two deformed humanoid creatures that were hovering roughly where the abomination had teleported out.

He didn’t even realize they were there in the first place but knew them well enough. She had called them Tymbots, which was a terrible name, and there was always at least a couple of them around her. She must have left them here for some reason. Likely to monitor and keep an eye on him.

He suppressed a shiver as he turned his attention away. They were so freaky to look at it.