Up until now, everything had gone according to plan.

Saiki Suzume's tiny, tireless feet (Undying Fortitude really was a convenient spell) had carried her all the way to her destination without any unforeseen trouble. She had crossed through the Black Gate, through the Forest of Corpses, past toxic miasmas pervading the Swamp of Drowned Men, down through the confusing and geographically-improbable landscapes of Dragon Valley, and through the hellfire of the Lava Mountains. When she first reached the Wall of Lost Hope, she had dared to dream that something might prove interesting or challenging, but, as always, she was disappointed -- the vast black crackling fog, shrieking with cursed energies, which covered the entirety of the Demon Lord's domain and made it impenetrable to ghosts and other agents of reconnaissance was no barrier whatsoever in person, and she strode right through it without even bothering to conceal herself. And thus, passing through the barrier and into the Demesne -- the hidden, unknowable realm where the demon forces resided -- she got her first glimpse at the environment beyond.

This was the point at which expectations diverged.

She had, unconsciously, been anticipating a stereotypical Evil Kingdom -- black skies, corpse furnaces fueling unholy energies, death and suffering in all directions -- and was, despite her best efforts, a little put off at the neatly-trimmed hedges and arrow-straight roads. But, she told herself, evil comes in many forms, and there was certainly no shortage of demons -- directly in front of her was a cute little security checkpoint, with climbing ivies and a sturdy automatic gate, manned by the requisite five-meter-tall slavering monstrosity (the fact that it appeared to be reading a paperback novel nothwithstanding). A lesser mind might have attacked immediately, but Saiki Suzume did not get where she was in life by thinking right up until it counted. Instead, she produced one of her diminishing handful of trump cards -- her invisible monocle -- and placed it primly over her left eye.

The monocle, which Nakano Megumi had not even bothered to give an impressive name, was simply a reverse-engineering and improvement of the Speculus of Distinction with which they had been examined upon their arrival into this world (plus a few tricks and surprises such as being able to see the target's enchantments and protections). She had, surreptitiously, tested it on various allies and monsters to independently confirm its functionality and reliability; and when it had proved sufficient in her estimation, she had secreted it away and done her best to eliminate any chance of it becoming known to anyone other than Megumi-chan. And now that she was here, with her four dimensional redirection bags (one holding the Cadaver King's entire undead army of outrageously high-level minions, one holding a truly mind-boggling quantity of hyperreactive plasma, one holding a direct portal to the bottom of the ocean, and one holding the required materials for a nice lunch and a picnic), she was ready to destroy the Demon Realm if -- and only if -- her on-site risk analysis met with her satisfaction. Blinking a little, she focused on the demon at the gate.

Name:

Adumbrax Nar Velkabin

Level:

843

Class:

Security Officer

Strength:

Rank S

Dexterity:

Rank S

Constitution:

Rank S

Intelligence:

Rank S

Wisdom:

Rank S

Charisma:

Rank A

Skills:

Security Policy (Rank S)

Unarmed Combat (Rank S)

Data Entry and Filing (Rank A)

Cooking (Rank C)

Gardening (Rank D)

Special Skills:

Fear Magic (Rank A)

Battlefield Destruction Magic (Rank A)

Unimpeachable Vigilance (Rank S)

Telepathy

Unique Skill:

None

Oh dear.

Still, this was not remotely beyond the realm of her expectations; her contingency plans had always contained preparations for such a situation (usually filed under 'let's hope not', but still), and there remained tools in her toolbox suitable for dealing with it. It did mean that a direct assault was out -- even wreaking massive destruction on the Demense's infrastructure would prove ineffective if the vast majority of its citizens had triple-digit Levels and a commensurate amount of hit points -- but the plan had always been to neutralize the Demon Lord directly, and she could still make a play for that. Removing and stowing her monocle, she brought forth another two unimaginably powerful items: the Navigator's Compass (a god-tier divinatory artifact which would tell her exactly where to walk to accomplish her objectives) and the Ring of the Deathwalker (which, among its many other abilities and properties, made her invisible to all sight and magical detection). Lifting herself into the air with an effort of will (the crafter of the Ring of the Deathwalker had had Opinions on its bearers getting caught because they left footprints or bumped into something), she cautiously drifted towards the checkpoint, unconsciously holding her breath as she did so. As she broke the plane of the attendant's sight, her heart tightened in her chest (it would have skipped a beat, but wasn't doing much of that currently thanks to Undying Fortitude), but the moment passed without incident; the guard's eyes flicked up, but then returned immediately to its book.

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Letting out a metabolically superfluous sigh, Suzume drifted onwards; passing the outer fortifications festooned with massive, glowing runed pylons, she swept like the wind past vast, neatly-trimmed fields of Accursed Grains, over geometrically-complex urban layouts of small, tidy little houses (whose rows and blocks formed great evil runes when seen from above), and around the vicinities of various schools, academies, and complexes (where young demons, barely two or three meters of towering blasphemous flesh, sat and took instruction and competed in festivals and ate ice cream). It was all a little droll for her taste, but she was here to destroy it, not to review it; patiently, she moved onward, as unseen as the wind and as unobtrusive as a shadow, until she reached the towering mass of black and twisted metal which dominated the landscape from the highest mountain atop the Demense's southernmost stretches.

Here, atop the great cliff which overlooked the southern sea, sat the Demon Lord's Castle -- a dull name if ever there was one, thought Suzume -- and its attendant sprawling, grotesque urban outgrowth of bases, offices, and other supplemental infrastructure required to run a modern war engine. She coasted past barracks and filing depots and warehouses full of staggeringly powerful munitions (making careful note of their safety features and proximities to vulnerable assets), through gate after gate of howling, sinister protections and deadly, unsleeping guards, and up towards the massive entrance which, security be damned, was visibly open and unlocked.

There was a bit of excitement as she approached it -- a large, heavy table made of some sort of rune-scarred oak crashed through a sizable glass window (with shards nearby implying this was not an infrequent event) and sailed quite majestically over a hedgerow and off a cliff into the sea. It was rapidly followed by a huge, bloated form, easily seven meters tall and almost as many wide, sporting great filthy claws and a long gray beard. Landing adroitly upon a particular stone in the garden, it shook its titanic fists and bawled what were clearly imprecations in an unknown tongue at another demon, bounding through the window in pursuit.

This one was eight meters tall, with huge horns that curled backwards like a ram's and a long, sallow face which bespoke an endless existence of misery was curtained on both sides by two meters of long, limp black hair. A slim, whip-like body corded with improbable masses of muscle carried it forward to land directly in front of the fat, bearded demon in exactly such a way as to prepare a powerful strike upon its wobbly belly, but a shard of glass from the window just happened to land under its forehoof at the precisely correct moment to send it toppling backwards onto its tailed ass. The fat demon began laughing uproariously, which incensed the horned demon even further; Suzume paid them no attention and levitated up, deftly taking advantage of the opportunity to gain ingress through the open window (in case the main entrance just happened to be more strongly warded than its appearance suggested).

Inside, the interior was vast and forbidding; stately giant-scaled offices quickly gave way to the rocky tunnels and trap-festooned recesses of a full-complexity dungeon, complete with thematically-arranged biomes and guardian beasts of various sizes and strengths. Suzume occasionally trotted out her monocle to assess their power, but quickly gave up (their levels all showed as '999' and she was pretty sure Megumi-chan's implementation was incorrectly truncating the data), and instead made her way down through the various levels, taking notes in her head as she went. The rocky tunnels turned to lava, then to fire, then to ash, and finally to cold.

The bottom level of the dungeon was ice-themed (looks like somebody read Dante's Inferno, she thought sourly) and narrowed further and further as she descended, finally terminating in a pair of great frozen doors. This was it. This was the final, final, final boss room, and she was determined to extract value from this outing; she'd slay the Demon Lord if she could, neutralize him if she could not, and gather intelligence if neither of those goals seemed possible. Steeling herself, she drifted forward and bumped into the unexpectedly solid surface of the door.

She blinked; a moment's self-inspection revealed that she was once again solid and metabolically functional, and a secretive attempt to cast one of her minor spells resulted in no effect. Antimagic, she thought to herself in satisfaction; it was a solid tactic when mages were the real powers in this world, and no doubt the Demon King was some sort of zip-code-spanning melee powerhouse who specialized in tearing weak and spindly finger-wagglers apart as they shrieked in agony about the impossibility of their defeat. But this was still (albeit only just barely) within the realm of her preparations; she had her wits, and that was really all Saiki Suzume ever needed. Confidently (but only just so), she put her tiny hands against the door and pushed.

It opened easily, silently; beyond was the great and terrible throne room she had pictured, exact down to the last detail. The great black iron throne was poised just so at the top of a series of skull-motif steps; guttering torches filled with cherry-red flames cast the entire place in just the right sort of sinister illumination. The effect was only slightly spoiled by the throne being empty; nevertheless, she soldiered on, striding in and closing the door prudently behind her. Invisible? she thought, peering at the throne, but it did indeed seem to be unfilled at present; on a whim, she bounded up the stairs and sat in it.

Wouldn't this be quite the twist, she thought to herself, if the Demon King never even existed, and this was all set up for me to take over? I'd be a quite excellent Demon Queen, I suppose, wielding the Heretical power of the Dark Ones and grinding my enemies beneath my superintelligent heel. I wonder if --

"Excuse me," came a polite and quiet voice from behind her and to the left, "you're in my spot."

Saiki Suzume turned.

Kholoth Rael Kheshnagon, Monarch of Fire, Bloodstained Lord of Unforgettable Sorcery and All-Seeing Keeper of Fears, was about two meters tall and looked exactly like one of the better class of vampires from her favorite sorts of popular culture; he was impossibly handsome, impeccably dressed, and had no demonic features whatsoever. Suzume quite lost the plot for a quick moment as she stared into his sparkling icy-blue eyes, which were deep-set behind elegant brows and long lashes fit to ensnare an errant gaze, but recovered quickly and raised an eyebrow with as much aplomb as she could manage. "Am I? I assumed from its unoccupied state that the office of its owner was likewise vacant."

Kholoth smiled -- a beatific, free-spirited, one might even say devil-may-care smile -- and responded with three words. They were perfectly normal, non-magical words; not arcane or secret or in any time-lost language. But their import shocked Saiki Suzume to her core; they upended every assumption she had had, cast every event and scrap of information in her entire strategy into a new light, and quite made a pig's breakfast of every plan, counterplan, feint, thought process, and fundamental component of her worldview. She sat, stunned, for a long minute as her brain repeatedly attempted and failed to process this information.

Then, at last, she twitched slightly; jerked, then rose with languid wonder out of the throne. She moved one step down the staircase, and Kholoth politely bowed as she did so, then took his seat upon the throne. She stared up at him, and he down at her; she was once again struck by his perfect figure, slender and regal without any of the bloated musculature or huge fangs or horns of the other demons. He looked, she decided, like a human, only moreso.

"Then," she asked, after another long moment of contemplation, "what do we do now?"

Kholoth regarded her; she regarded him back.

"I... have some bloodwine," he began, "as well as a chessboard and a small assortment of cheeses. And perhaps afterwards... we could make love?" He paused for her response, raising his own eyebrow.

With a pert and saucy grin, she darted up the steps and threw herself into his arms. "I thought you'd never ask," she purred.