The rough preparations for negotiations with the Gilbert baronial family were complete.
Now, all that remained was for the Gilbert baronial family to send some kind of signal.
That was the plan, anyway.
“Adventurers have been captured again?”
“Yes. Three of them.”
This was from my secretary, Lilith.
Three adventurers who did not seem to have been sent by the Gilbert baronial family had been taken prisoner.
“All three alive?”
“Yes.”
“Women?”
“No. All three are men.”
“.......”
I wondered if there was some reason they had been sent alive, but there was hardly any reason for Chief Adjutant Akamond to go out of his way to keep men alive and send them here.
“Did he order them to be kept alive so they could provide the succubi with food?”
“No. Perhaps they are meant to be used as hostages in negotiations with the Gilbert baronial family?”
“They’re only adventurers, though.... Wait. Could they perhaps have brought some kind of letter with them?”
That thought occurred to me.
“Did they put up a fierce resistance when they were captured?”
“No. Apparently, they surrendered their weapons with suspicious ease.”
“......Did they say anything else?”
“No.”
“Do we know who captured them?”
“The skeletons captured them. They are following Chief Adjutant Akamond’s orders, with ‘survival and capture’ as their highest priorities.”
“I see.”
Chief Adjutant Akamond had not sent them here ‘personally.’
He had simply given the order, and the skeletons had acted according to it.
“It’ll be faster if we investigate and report back first. We should check the prisoners’ belongings. They were confiscated, right?”
“Yes. The succubi are analyzing them now....”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Who is it?”
[This is Natalie, a supply soldier. I have something to report.]
Natalie identified herself as she knocked from outside the door.
There were supposedly monsters that could imitate voices, but—
“Tell her to come in.”
“Come in.”
Lilith was beside me.
Fortunately, the succubus who opened the door and entered was Natalie, the one who had been raped by me—though she insisted that she was not a virgin.
“What is it?”
“While stripping the men and changing them into prisoner uniforms, I discovered something strange.”
“Something strange?”
“Yes. There was writing on their backs.”
“...Wow. That really is just like Baron Gilbert.”
I could not help but laugh.
“Can we check it from here?”
“I will use magic to show you the image.”
Lilith immediately cast a spell, bringing up an image linked to the prison.
Mana billowed like mist, and soon the three adventurers inside the prison came clearly into view.
“Huh?”
“What is it?”
“No, those bastards are people I know.”
I knew them quite well.
All three of them had faces I was intimately familiar with.
If you’re wondering how I knew them—
“When I was still a porter, I lost three days’ wages because of those bastards. More precisely... a companion of mine who owed me that money was killed by them.”
“...Shall I kill them?”
“No, wait. It’s not time to kill them yet. Listen first.”
I calmed Lilith, who had immediately raised her claws.
“The Brown Wolf Mercenary Company. Three people, and they still went around calling themselves a mercenary company. They were cowards who looked out only for themselves, but they were also trash who preyed on weak adventurers.”
Once upon a time.
“I sensed something strange in their eyes and kept my distance, but a fellow porter like me accepted their offer and went into a dungeon with them.”
Porters tended to band together, and since I was human, too, there had been a few people I had been on fairly friendly terms with.
“But after entering the dungeon with those bastards, he ended up dead.”
“That....”
“From a human perspective, it might seem natural that the weakest one died. But one day, while passing through town, I saw the belongings of the man who owed me money displayed in a local pawnshop.”
We had not been particularly close.
Life at the bottom was such that you never knew when someone would disappear, so everyone simply survived by forming mutually beneficial relationships, helping one another when the need arose.
“I didn’t ask who they had bought them from. Getting entangled in something like that would only bring bad luck. Instead, I watched from a distance for several days. And then I found out. Those bastards were selling the stolen goods to that fence.”
They were not close enough to be called companions or friends.
Death was always a word that remained close to the lower classes.
“To think I’d meet bastards like them here of all places. And on top of that....”
I pointed at their backs.
“I never imagined Baron Gilbert would turn them into ‘human letters’ capable of delivering a message in exactly the same manner as the one we sent.”
There was writing on their backs.
The time. The location. The number of people.
Each of the three had a separate message written on him, which made me let out a hollow laugh.
“Instructor.”
Lilith turned her gaze toward me, her voice full of irritation.
“It’s dangerous.”
“It is.”
Time: immediately—eight hours from now.
“They have their lives on the line, after all. If they truly want negotiations, they want someone from our side to come out.”
Location: beyond the minor dungeon.
In other words, the Gilbert barony.
“They’re even saying only one person may come. This is....”
“It’s practically the same as saying they’ll kill them if necessary.”
Number of people: one.
“I can’t help it. I’ll have to go.”
“Instructor...?”
“Lilith. I have one favor to ask.... No, not one. Quite a few, actually.”
“You intend to go personally, Instructor?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t!”
Lilith let out a shrill cry and blocked my path.
“You are an important person, Instructor. Chief Adjutant Akamond himself called you a treasure. If you go before humans in person...!”
“First, I need something to conceal my identity so they won’t realize I’m human.”
I gestured toward my entire body.
“I don’t need anything elaborate. Just a black robe with a hood. And something to conceal my face... yes.”
An image came to mind.
“A mask. One that covers my entire face.”
“A mask shouldn’t be much of a problem, but....”
A mask and a robe.
Anyone would look suspicious wearing those.
It was important that while I might look human, I could also be mistaken for a ‘demonkin’ concealing his identity.
“Second. This is something we’ll probably need to get Chief Adjutant Akamond’s permission for, but I think I need something that can serve as proof that I’m a member of the Vampire Legion.”
They still did not know that we were the Vampire Legion.
They could guess, but they could not be ‘certain.’
‘Since we proposed a prisoner exchange, they might think we’re the Demon King’s main army, or they might assume we belong to another legion.’
Whether we were the Vampire Legion or another legion accompanied by vampires remained unknown.
“Third. This is actually the most important.”
I pointed at myself.
“I want full authority.”
“.......”
“I want to go into these negotiations with full authority over them. I’m not saying I want to represent the entire Vampire Legion or anything. I merely want to be the one who steps forward as the negotiator for ‘the mysterious group that took hostages and demanded the release of prisoners.’”
Whether Baron Gilbert himself appeared, or one of his representatives, I had to enter the negotiations as the person in charge.
“You know, nobles tend to look down on people who are technically human like them if they don’t consider them their equal.”
“.......”
“Demons are similar... No, perhaps not. Demon society’s hierarchy is largely determined by ‘power.’”
Humans and demons had different senses of hierarchy.
“Secretary. If a succubus much weaker than you dared to speak informally to you and refused to obey your orders, how would you feel?”
“I’d first think, ‘Has this bitch gone insane?’”
“Exactly. That’s what most people would think at first. But if you considered it rationally, another thought would naturally occur to you.”
“...‘What does this bitch have backing her to act so arrogantly?’”
“Correct.”
In more refined terms, it could be called one’s backing.
“Birth, status, or military force capable of taking your place, and so on. I intend to wrap myself in those things as ‘falsehoods’ and pretend to be a high-ranking demon.”
“.......”
“That will be the armor protecting me.”
For example.
“First impressions are important. What do you think they’ll think if I step before them trembling in fear?”
“You’ll be killed on the spot.”
“But what if I act confidently, like Chief Adjutant Akamond?”
What if I pretended to be a powerful figure like Chief Adjutant Akamond?
“...They would be nervous, wondering if you possessed something tremendously powerful.”
“Exactly. Humans, especially nobles, are like that. Those with ambiguous titles like barons are even more so.”
I had nothing but my dick, but even a man with nothing but his dick could still accomplish certain things.
“A man needs confidence in everything. I survived even that hellish sewer.”
“.......”
“I want you to trust me, but I also know what you’re worried about. What if this bastard tries to secretly run away to the humans?”
Just as I was taking a gamble, the Vampire Legion would be taking one as well.
“So I’ll put shackles on myself.”
“What?”
I had to show my resolve before the Vampire Legion could feel reassured.
“Put a magic necklace around my neck. One enchanted to explode if it isn’t deactivated within a set period.”
I would put on a bomb collar of my own accord.
“Once I finish the negotiations and return safely, you can deactivate it. If the negotiations fail and I’m captured or dragged away, then an explosion will occur in the middle of enemy territory.”
“.......”
“I’ll ask them to let me pray before the goddess statue before the time runs out. Or I’ll maneuver things so that happens. That way, we’ll be able to inflict significant damage on the goddess statue as well.”
“You intend to go that far...?”
Lilith ground her teeth as she asked:
“Why are you going this far?”
“Obviously.”
To have sex with the Vampire Princess, of course.
“Loyalty and achievements naturally come with rewards.”
* * *
After Lilith submitted the report, some time passed.
About three hours later, an item arrived.
“...These are the things you requested.”
Lilith brought over a box.
“Here they are.”
There were three items inside.
“......I understand the mask and the necklace, but this isn’t a robe. It’s a suit.”
A mask that could cover not only my face but also my head, with a black cloth attached to the back that could be tied in a knot behind my neck.
A necklace embedded with a magic stone that was unmistakably a bomb collar.
And... a rather antique-looking suit.
“Chief Adjutant Akamond said that human nobles assess their opponent’s standing through the quality of their suits.”
“.......”
As expected of Chief Adjutant Akamond.
“And this is a suit that Chief Adjutant Akamond wore in his youth.”
The suit was heavier than I had expected.