Confinement King

「Ahaha… Seriously…」

Despite my joking words, my tone is raised.

Incubus soldiers are kneeling on the fortress with arrows in their bows. And in the midst of them, I gulp.

Tension fills my face, and I look down at the enemy army filling the valley below and ponder.

How many of them are there?

Probably tens of thousands.

At the very least, ten thousand.

The crowd is as dense as the starting point of a large marathon.

I called them the enemy army, but after all, this is the demon world.

There is no way that they are human beings, but monster(Mamono) that I have killed in training many times in the past and now they are crowding together below us like an all-star team.

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In the center, marching towards the castle gate, is a group of Minotaurs.

On the right flank, a group of Orthrus, and on the left flank, a group of Cerberus, each approaching us.

And filling in the gaps are goblins, kobolds, and other miscellaneous subspecies.

Seeing that the goblins, kobolds, and ogres are all grouped together at the back of the line, the miscellaneous groups at the front are probably just an outcast youngster or probably like that?

Then, there are some empty spaces around the giant centipedes. I guess even monster find centipedes unpleasant.

「You’ve got company, Centipede(Kishijo)」

「Don’t lump me in with those!」

When Earthworm(Inui) talk lightly, Centipede raise her voices in disgust.

Well, I guess she really doesn’t like it.

「By the way, a hundred versus tens of thousands… isn’t that an impossible game? What are we going to do? Cockroach(Saito)」

「What are we going to do? We have no choice. We’re the decoys」

「For the sake of Confinement King-sama, we’ll do whatever it takes」

Slightly annoyed by Centipede who said it as if it was someone else’s problem, I turned around and nailed the battle maniac who is swinging her battle axe indifferently.

「Tapeworm(Eri Hotta)! Don’t ever run straight into them!」

「That’s what I mean by plunge…」

「I don’t mean that in a variety way! We’re just trying to buy some time!」

I repeat, hundreds versus tens of thousands.

Lili-sama’s position is so bad that she has to do such a reckless thing.

The war with Lord Andras, whose territory borders Lili-sama’s, is at a stalemate.

With most of the war effort being devoted to that side, a demon noble named Count Ose, with whom we had a non-aggression pact, has unilaterally declared the pact broken.

And unable to move their forces in the south, Count Ose’s army marched towards our territory. The situation is far from tight. However, Lili-sama ignores the approaching army of Count Ose for the time being.

She sent an incubus soldier who could fly to carry the four of us to the Carla Valley near Count Ose’s castle.

And almost at the same time we arrived there, this fortress appeared out of thin air.

I don’t know how it works at all, but I was told that the four of us are used as a marker to activate a part of the power of Confinement King-sama. This is probably the case. As expected of Confinement King-sama.

Well, a fortress has appeared right next to the enemy’s castle, it’s like a blade pressed to someone’s throat, very deliberately.

This is, of course, a decoy to fish out the remaining strength of Count Ose.

The four of us, along with a hundred incubus soldiers, were given the mission to keep the enemy’s forces busy for as long as possible. That’s it.

『It’s okay, Devi. Women are basically only used as their plaything, they won’t be killed that often, so don’t worry, Devi』

That’s what Lili-sama said, but I’d like to ask her for an hour what part of it is safe if it’s allowed. Then–

『Don’t worry. About a quarter of all of your body tissues are already Demon beast(Majuu), so you should be able to show your true potential in the demon world. Please look forward to finding out who has which Demon Beast in your body』

That’s what the Head Maid said, but… isn’t that too shocking? Seriously…

I mean we’re a quarter demon beast

Well… I had a hint of it, still…

At the same time as I let out an involuntary sigh…

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「There’s something terrible in here…」

Earthworm whispers to me.

When I turn my eyes to where she’s pointing, I see a huge nine-headed snake with its head raised like a sickle.

Perhaps that is the Hydra that the Head Maid had told us to be wary of.

And there is one on the right wing, one on the left wing, and one in the middle of the army of Count Ose. All in all, twenty-seven heads raised and stared at us on the castle wall with emotionless eyes peculiar to reptiles.

「I’ve never seen that demon beast before, yeah, it looks strong!」

The battle maniac let out a happy voice.

Well, I can only say, do what you want.

Although I said we had no choice but “we have to do it”, to be honest, I still couldn’t get my mind straight.

After all, this is a serious battlefield.

I was supposed to be just a student until a while ago, so why should I be standing here with a halberd, waiting for a monster to attack me?

But no matter how much I cried out, the enemy is already there.

I rubbed my forehead, which was covered in cold sweat, and with the sleeve of my maid’s uniform, gritted my teeth, looked down at the approaching monster, then raised my voice.

「Release the arrow!」

With that, the incubus soldiers began to fire their arrows in unison.

There is no need to aim. After all, there are no gaps. If you shoot, you hit. There’s no time to check if they hit or not.

In fact, the incubus seemed to be unfit for battle, and they looked even more miserable than us.

「Uwaaaaa! Die! Die!」

With shouting voices and trembling fingers, we pick up the arrows and release them without aiming, just repeating the action desperately.

The arrows fill the air like dots and land on the heads of the beast.

However, its power is not powerful.

Only a few of the smaller monster, such as the orcs and kobolds, fell, but the larger monsters, such as the minotaurs and ogres, still closed in on the gates like a pile of needles.

「Damn it! The gate’s in trouble!」

As soon as I heard such a voice coming from the center of the fortress, there is a thump! thump! and the sound of the gates creaking could be heard.

The walls of the fortress itself shook slightly, and the incubus and the others shouted, “What!?” as if they were choking.

But Tapeworm, who doesn’t even try to hide her excitement, asks me.

「C-Can I plunge now?」

「Of course not! Here, that barrel! Throw it down!」

This situation is, of course, within Lili-sama’s expectation.

So, on top of the fortress, there are several barrels filled with stone and earth.

The incubus dragged the heavy barrels with several people, and we held one barrel in each hand and threw them down over the heads of the monster crowding in front of the castle gate.

「Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!」

The sound of a heavy object hitting the ground, the sound of watery crushing, and the screams of monster can be heard. And a cloud of sand and smoke billowed up, staining the reddish-black sky in the late afternoon can be seen.

Just as I let out a sigh of relief after the sound of the gates being battered ceased, the urgent voice of an incubus rose up beside me.

「There’s a monster climbing up!」

With a panic, I peered down and saw a giant centipede snaking its way up the fortress wall.

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「Ugh… gross!」

「Get out of the way, get out of the way!」

As if to push aside the pale incubus, a desperate Earthworm carries a particularly large barrel.

Then, the liquid in the barrel is poured on the giant centipede.

As the giant centipede slid its legs into the slippery liquid, it swam half its body in the air, and each time it did so, it wriggled its countless arthropods and desperately attached itself to the wall.

「Ugh, Centipede! Your relatives are so stubborn!」

「I’m not related to it!」

Centipede lights a torch, shouting in protest.

And then–

「Eat this!」

Throws it down at the giant centipede, causing it to burst into flames.

Kishaaaaaaa!

With a painful scream, the flames engulfed the body of the giant centipede.

That liquid is oil.

As the creature burns, there is a sickening smell and black smoke.

The slender arthropods crumble into charcoal, and the monster falls to the ground, peeling away from the walls.

Then, the huge, burnt centipede writhed violently on the ground, engulfing several of the monster, and finally stopped moving.

「Haha, it’s working! It’s working! Bring me more oil! Pour oil all over it and burn it with arrows, yeah!」

The incubuses responded to Centipede’s excited voice, and the top of the fortress wall suddenly gained momentum.

At the same time, however, the sound of the Minotaurs rushing toward the gates began to echo loudly again.

The creaking of the gates grew louder and louder. The bolts on the side of the gate are screeching.

「C-Cockroach! Let’s set fire to the gate!」

Earthworm shouted emotionally, as her legs trembling.

「Don’t do that! If the gate is burned down, there’s nothing we can do!」

While this exchange was going on, the incubuses are now screaming.

「Hiiiiii! It’s coming! Hydra’s coming!」

When I turned my head to follow the gaze of the incubus who had shouted next to me, I saw Hydra approaching very close.

It’s so huge that it looked down on the fortress walls. The huge snake lifted its sickle head and glared at us.

The incubuses, literally stared at by the snake, forgot to move.

The next moment…

「Aaaaahhh!」

「Gyaaaaaaahhh!」

The nine heads of the Hydra opened their huge jaws and bit into the incubus one after another.

「Ah, ah, ah, ah…」

Before my eyes, Hydra swung the incubus in his mouth and threw them outside the fortress walls.

And then, one of its sickle heads looked at me.