Chapter 425: The Armor of Capitalism
After the egg-laying show with Halphas, I washed her body clean and returned to Ras Vegas.
"Legion Commander, we’ve been waiting for you."
An elderly man in a suit blending black and white, Cosplay, pulled back the tarp the moment I arrived. Beneath it stood a red mannequin dressed in a black suit.
"Good work. You reproduced it perfectly."
"It was only possible thanks to Lady Shaitan’s cooperation."
A black suit made from Andras feathers.
A white dress shirt made from harpy feathers.
And a silver necktie woven from dark elf hair, softer than silk.
A business suit.
For someone who had lived in the modern twenty-first century, this was far more familiar than steel plate; the armor that let me fight on the battlefield of capitalism.
"Unlike the Commander of the Legion of Pride, who wears a black robe and leaves a trail of blood, the Commander of the Legion of Wrath is smart and gentlemanly, and this is exactly the sort of attire that suits him. I’ll change now. Give me the room for a moment."
"You don’t require assistance? Even if not me, the other union members are quite eager..."
"This is one thing I must put on myself."
I dismissed Cosplay and the union members. Thanks to the slime shower I’d already taken, every trace of blood and Halphas’s fluids that had been caked on me from head to toe was completely washed away.
"Whew."
Before the suit. There was one item I needed to put on first, or rather, to strap on. I picked up Line, who had been waiting beside the suit.
"Line, are you sure you’re okay with this?"
"Yeah, I’m a slime."
Line was already waiting for me, fully formed. She could have simply attached herself to me, but she specifically wanted me to be the one to put her on.
"You just do it the same way you do it with Meri!"
"...I-I see."
I hadn’t known she knew about that. My cock was already stiffening, which put me in an awkward position.
"This is the real problem with wearing a suit."
You must never lose your temper while doing business. Getting angry is only permissible when a subordinate is completely useless, and by the same logic, my johnson needed to break its habit of hardening year-round.
A black robe can hide an erection reasonably well, but a suit can’t. Therefore, my ever-boiling wrath needed to be pacified at all times.
A slimefolk diaper.
Wearing a diaper as a grown adult was admittedly a little embarrassing, but if it was genuinely necessary for work, there was no helping it.
And the role of diaper went to Line, not Lime.
Lime had to remain in Raspica since she had to represent the barony publicly. That left Line as the only trustworthy slime available to hold my cock.
The Demon King would surely want to grab me and rip my head off if he saw this, but this was a commander’s decision made in the pursuit of victory in the war against the human alliance. Just as a general wears a helmet to protect his head, this was my last resort for guarding my vitals.
Slip.
No underwear. Line, who was going on next, would serve as both my underwear and my diaper. There was admittedly something a bit uncomfortable about it emotionally, but for a man who had already started with horses and worked his way into every conceivable orifice, becoming an underwear-fucker hardly registered as a problem.
"Putting you on, Line!"
"Okay, Dad!"
I wish she hadn’t said that last part. Holding back tears, I docked with Line.
***
News from the Sagittarius front naturally reached the Marquisate as well, but they had only suspicions with no hard proof.
"Orcs, Andras, a fallen angel, a giant harpy species.... The force composition is remarkably similar."
The Marquis meticulously analyzed the County’s defeat. And based on that analysis, he posed a question to the young man seated across from him.
"I’ll hear your thoughts. Do you believe these are the same Legion of Wrath we’ve been dealing with?"
"...I-I believe they are, yes."
Thoroughly cowed, the young man barely managed to speak while gauging his father’s mood. The Marquis fixed a stern glare on the young man, Andaihal.
"On what grounds?"
"A-Andras is a species that was first discovered in the barony. The fact that such a demon has appeared elsewhere means they must be the same faction."
"Wrong!"
Bang! The Marquis slammed his palm against the table.
"Demons emerge from every dungeon! The frequency may differ, but every dungeon is capable of summoning a wide variety of demons! How many times have I lectured you about dungeons?!"
"B-but organizing a force on this scale is surely..."
"You call a force of barely a hundred large-scale?! Monsters like that turn up in any dungeon! Fine, let’s grant your claim that the presence of Andras makes them the same faction. But there’s an enormous problem with that. ’They’ aren’t there. I’ll offer you a rebuttal. Can you identify the basis of my rebuttal?"
"..."
Andaihal tore at his hair, sinking into anguish. The Marquis, who had fathered this son late in life during the years when he had struggled with erectile dysfunction, desperately wanted him to find the answer.
Caught between a father’s wish for his son to walk an easy road and a Marquis house member’s wish that the man who should rightfully inherit the title display noble bearing worthy of representing the house, the seconds ticked relentlessly onward.
"Father."
Along with a gentle voice, Electra set down tea before them both. In front of Andaihal was a steaming cup of hot chocolate, but in front of Gotdaihal was black tea with a reddish tint seeping through it.
"Have some tea."
"...The color seems redder than usual."
"I steeped it a bit stronger. They say it’s good for blood circulation. Hoho."
"..."
The Marquis took a sip of the black tea. A rich aroma filled his mouth, and he waited for Andaihal’s answer until the fragrance had faded entirely.
"...I don’t know."
Andaihal had given up. The Marquis nearly clicked his tongue aloud, but out of consideration for his daughter-in-law, he swallowed his nagging along with the tea.
"Father, may I answer in his place?"
"You, Electra?"
"Yes. On the day of our wedding, you yourself said that a married couple is one body and one heart. There should be no issue with me answering on his behalf."
"Hm..."
The Marquis’s deliberation deepened. Electra clearly possessed a keen intellect, but he wanted his son to produce the answer. Receiving support from an excellent wife was certainly a virtue for a marquis, but the order of things was wrong here.
"Electra."
"Yes, Father."
"It is not my permission you should be seeking, but your husband’s."
"...My apologies. Lord Andaihal, may I answer in your place?"
Electra spoke in her gentle voice. The Marquis vaguely noticed that the look in Electra’s eyes was subtly different when she regarded him versus his son, but he immediately banished the sordid imaginings that surfaced in his mind.
His son was in the prime of his twenties.
He, by contrast, was a man in his seventies who could drop dead at any moment.
"Lord Andaihal? Your wife is asking you a question."
"...You may answer."
"Heh heh, thank you."
Since this was a son born late in life, right at the edge of his impotence, the boy weighed all the more heavily on his mind, and he couldn’t bear even the thought of wounding him. The Marquis forced down the churning in his chest and looked at his son as he asked.
"Well then, your answer?"
"Viewed broadly, the most significant factor is the absence of elves. What distinguishes those calling themselves the Legion of Wrath from other demons is precisely that they formed an alliance with the elves."
"Correct. Among these so-called Legion of Pride tormenting the Count, there was not a single elf. From this, we can deduce one thing. What do you suppose it is?"
"Uh, um, the elves became the Legion of Wrath’s sex slaves...?"
"Silence!!"
The Marquis exploded with genuine fury.
"How can your thinking still be so utterly filthy! Are you claiming the elves became sex slaves to orcs?! Them, of all people!!"
"I-I’m sorry!"
"Watch your tongue. I am personally acquainted with the elf who visited our castle, Elder Nifela. To say a woman like that became a sex slave to orcs is an insult to elves as a whole. How would that be any different from the witch Levis Ann?!"
"Please calm your anger, Father. Lord Andaihal was merely repeating what people are saying. Isn’t that right?"
"Y-yes. That’s... that’s just what people have been saying. Even the acquaintances I know personally..."
"I told you not to associate with them..."
It wasn’t that he objected to mingling with commoners. The Marquis was irritated that Andaihal had once again been running around with the back-alley thugs in the Marquisate.
"I am not nagging you about associating with people. I am telling you to be selective about whom you befriend! Why do you never listen to a single word I say?!"
Bang!
The Marquis struck the table and rose to his feet. Andaihal shrank down so far it looked like his shoulders might collapse inward, and Electra approached the Marquis and gripped his shoulders to calm him.
"Father, please settle down. If you get worked up... ah."
"...Ahem."
Perhaps the reason he was angrier than usual was the vigor beginning to surge through his body again. The Marquis, who hadn’t noticed it himself, and Electra, who had seen it with her own eyes, both grew mutually embarrassed.
"...Andaihal, if I die, you must lead this house. So please, live up to my expectations. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the house you will one day lead."
"Th-then couldn’t we just find my sister..."
"Do not so much as utter that rotten wench’s name. If I had my way, I’d expel her from the family this instant."
The Marquis growled and drained his tea in one gulp.
"Inform the head butler. It’s about time, so I’ll be heading out."
"Where will you be going?"
"The canyon."
The Marquis stared down into his empty cup and swallowed hard.
"I’m going to make a deal with the Legion of Wrath."
***
"Are you finished dressing?"
"Everything but this one piece."
The me in the mirror had become an orc in a flawless suit. Shaitan gripped the necktie I handed her and rose onto her tiptoes.
"Excuse me."
"By all means."
Neckties don’t exist in this world. But I had deliberately made one, and Shaitan, having been exposed to at least a little modern knowledge, tied it around my neck with practiced hands.
"I apologize for not being able to assist you directly."
"Not at all. Do you have any idea how reassuring it is to have you at the heart of the dungeon? It’s thanks to you that I can leave it behind today without a worry."
Cinch.
Shaitan pulled the necktie all the way up. The knot pressed against the base of my throat tightly enough to feel constricting, but that very constriction was the whole point of a capitalist knight’s armor when marching into battle.
"Lune, I’ll be entrusting the dungeon raid to you."
"Leave it to me. Do you know how many dungeons I’ve cleared with you, Master?"
Lune waved her bow, dressed in combat gear alongside the cookie elves.
Aside from Lune, the cookie elves averaged levels sixty to seventy and wore glossy bodysuits with a latex sheen. The outfits left every line of their bodies exposed, but their defensive rating rivaled dwarven heavy plate.
"Which dungeon is the target?"
"Rank seventy-two, Andromalius’s Dungeon!"
"Portal location?"
"Meri’s basement two! Return via portal in an emergency!"
"And most important of all?"
"Even if the enemy has a highest-grade magic stone, protect your life and your virtue and come back alive!!"
"Don’t get careless and don’t you dare die. Ideally, come back without a scratch. Well... with that one tagging along, it shouldn’t be too dangerous."
"Heh heh heh."
The demon woman Belial narrowed her black eyes and smiled brightly. The Belial I had originally captured (the naga) had devoured the newly captured Belial (the demon).
"I’ll prove my worth through this battle."
"Very well. If you bring Lune and every last cookie elf back alive and unharmed, I’ll grant you a Dragonian egg."
She had performed a synthesis-devouring just as Gremory had done with Valac. I led the raid party down to basement two where the portal was located.
"You’re here?"
Meri had also changed into combat gear and was waiting for us with a watermelon popsicle in hand. I ran my eyes over the forces assembled before the portal leading to Andromalius’s Dungeon.
Supreme commander, Lune.
Staff officers, Meri and Belial.
Forces: ten Slamia, forty cookie elves, and fifty ghouls led by Hases.
It might have seemed like overkill against a rank seventy-two dungeon, but this enemy had staged an uprising and climbed from seventy-two all the way to sixty-five.
"The enemy commander is absent. If anyone remains, it’ll only be the residual forces left behind after the vanguard departed."
Andromalius was our prisoner, locked up at the ranch. His subordinate Belial had stabbed him to death, and we’d kept him barely breathing to sustain his life. The reason: to keep the portal permanently connected.
"Loot and plunder to your hearts’ content. If any remaining forces are there, wipe them all out, and scrape up everything from their corpses down to the last lowest-grade magic stone embedded in the cave walls. And then..."
I twisted the gold ring on my finger with my thumb and smiled crookedly.
"Let’s sell every last bit of it to the Leo Marquisate."