Three minutes until the morning assembly. Shadowis walked down the corridor. Only the faint scrape of his jet-black mantle against the stone floor echoed through the passage. Two meters ten centimeters tall, with a powerfully built frame. Deep purple short hair, crimson magic eyes. An old scar marked his left cheek, and beneath his mantle lay the faint trace of small black dragon wings on his back—marks from the night he'd suppressed the Iron Fang rebellion. His royal robes, embroidered with silver thread and deep purple-lined against black, caught the light with each step. The very presence of him seemed to make the corridor's illumination—the orange glow of magic stones set into the walls—flicker ever so slightly. It wasn't his imagination, Shadowis thought. He pushed open the doors to the Hall of the Void. A circular space sixty meters in diameter opened before him in silence. An obsidian throne sat enthroned at the far end. The ceiling was dim, its stone crafted to mimic the color of the demon realm's reddish-purple sky. This was Graozarm's symbolic hall—used for morning assemblies, conferences, and ceremonies. No one was there. Three hundred twenty years of life, and he still hadn't grown accustomed to this situation—though by now, even thinking such things felt foolish. Shadowis walked to the throne and took his position, clearing his throat once. "Today's agenda concerns the progress of our world domination plan—" His voice echoed through the sixty-meter space, was absorbed, and died away. Silence. Shadowis turned his gaze to the wall. A poster hung there. Handwritten, with slightly crooked characters. *'This Month's Goal: World Domination (Three Consecutive Months Unachieved)'* Beside the word "unachieved," a small crying face had been drawn in. Shadowis didn't know who'd drawn it. For three months, he'd been pretending not to see it. Before worrying about the mental state of whoever added it, he felt he should worry about his own. He slowly turned on his heel. --- Back in the Shokubokuro—the administrative building of Graozarm, a three-story structure where Shadowis's office occupied the first floor—he sat down before his desk. The chair creaked. More precisely, the documents creaked. They were piled beneath the chair as well. *(...The backlog isn't being processed, I know.)* He knew that, which is why he'd process them today too. A Dark Lord's duties encompassed full authority over military, administrative, and judicial matters. But in reality, document approvals and budget authorizations made up seventy percent of the work. His annual salary was one million two hundred thousand刻銀 in demon realm currency—roughly equivalent to one hundred twenty million yen in Japanese currency—but it was nearly consumed by the maintenance costs of Graozarm. The permanent staff was supposed to number three hundred, but currently stood at eighty-three. Not even thirty percent of the castle's capacity. The reason for chronic understaffing wasn't singular, but tracing it to its root led to that war. The Covenant War of Ashes—roughly five hundred years ago, when the demon realm and human realm had clashed for seven years in a great war. It began as a territorial dispute over control of the boundary gates, resulting in an estimated four hundred thousand deaths on both sides. This world was called the Dual Realm, with the demon realm and human realm existing as the front and back of a single land in a double structure. The two realms had been connected by seven boundary gates, but with the covenant's establishment, four were sealed. Currently, only three remained operational. Shadowis had lost many comrades in that war. Since then, the cultivation of the next generation had gone poorly, he thought quietly. The current incompetent subordinates were the result—he wouldn't say it aloud, but deep down, he acknowledged it bitterly. Well. In any case, documents. He took the topmost stack. A budget request form. As his eyes scanned through the numbers, he found an entry in the supplies section marked as highest priority. *'Roasted Fang Beans, 100kg (Urgent)'* It was written above the castle's defense budget line. Below the item name, in small letters: *'Submitted by: Viper'* Shadowis closed his eyes. He counted to three. Opened them. Fang beans were demon realm coffee beans—the commodity Viper had become passionately devoted to over the past year. The former chief Yuusha Hunter—the elite specialists directly appointed by the Dark Lord to intercept and eliminate "heroes" invading from the human realm into the demon realm—had discovered coffee, and as a result, one hundred kilograms of coffee beans had jumped to the top priority item on the castle's budget request. One hundred kilograms was probably not the annual consumption, Shadowis thought, but rather the monthly consumption. He was afraid to confirm. He moved to the next document. A boundary gate seal maintenance report. The three operational gates—the Third, Fifth, and Seventh—required regular confirmation of their sealing magic and reporting to Graozarm. This seal maintenance was one of Shadowis's most critical duties. If the seals broke, it could trigger a recurrence of the war from five hundred years ago. The problem was the report's contents. The Seventh Gate's administrator, Gesso—an elderly bone-tribe member, estimated to be over four hundred years old, stationed alone deep in the Black Iron Forest Kazavald for over fifty years—his handwriting was indecipherable. Too elegant. Written in ancient demon realm cursive script with such forceful brushstrokes that the lines overlapped, making it impossible to tell where one character ended and another began. Shadowis stared at the report for ten minutes. He could make out only two words. *'Goldfish'* and *'Emergency.'* *(Goldfish... emergency... A goldfish emergency? A goldfish emergency appearing near the Seventh Gate? Is goldfish some kind of code?)* The more he thought about it, the deeper the mystery became. Shadowis set down his quill and harbored slight resentment toward whoever had invented writing in this world. At the same time, he knew that念伝符—message papers infused with magic that automatically delivered themselves to the intended recipient—would be faster, yet Gesso always used handwritten reports. The man was conscientious. That conscientiousness was now becoming a source of the Dark Lord's headaches. Third document. The castle's monthly expenditure statement. He added the figures from the top. First line, second line, third line— Fifteenth line. He calculated the total. It was off by three hundred刻銀 from the actual figure. *(...Where?)* Where had the calculation gone wrong? He tried to search, but fifteen lines of calculations were laid out in fine print. Shadowis picked up his quill again and began reviewing from the first line. Three hundred twenty years—to be precise, three hundred twenty years—of life. He'd pacified the demon realm. He'd suppressed the Iron Fang rebellion single-handedly. He'd undergone the Crown Trial of the Abyss, offered his magic to the Furnace of the Dark Core, and obtained the seat of Dark Lord. His magic was said to make even the castle's stone walls tremble faintly. But he'd never imagined that his greatest enemy would be paperwork. Not once in three hundred twenty years. He set down his quill quietly. --- Then something fell onto his desk. *Fluttering.* A single sheet of paper. Folded small. When Shadowis unfolded it, short text was written on the surface in magic—a念伝符. It was from the garrison troops at the Eastern Fortress Vogarnt. The content was concise. *'Information: Claytion, Dawn Knight Commander of the Granveria Holy Kingdom, heading toward Graozarm. Traveling alone. Estimated arrival: this afternoon.'* Shadowis set the paper on his desk. His eyes narrowed. Claytion. The Dawn Knight Commander of the Granveria Holy Kingdom. That nation was the largest in the human realm, spanning roughly six hundred kilometers east to west with a population of three million eight hundred thousand, ruled by a Holy King. The Dawn Knight Order was its main force, commanding approximately eight hundred members. Claytion was their supreme commander. One could say he was among the strongest warriors in the human realm. And now he was heading toward the demon king's castle alone. *(...Declaration of war? Negotiation?)* Shadowis rose quietly. Something deep in his chest, something he'd kept sleeping for a long time, opened its eyes slightly. The part that never stirred during paperwork. Whether that was a warrior's instinct or something accumulated over three hundred twenty years of experience, he couldn't say. *(If we have a guest, the throne hall must be prepared.)* The Hall of the Void, readied for battle. As a Dark Lord, he would greet them with full dignity. He left the administrative building. --- The problem was that he'd brought documents in that morning. When Shadowis returned to the throne hall and opened the doors, he noticed immediately. Documents. There were documents. Three mountain ranges had formed. The document bundles brought from the administrative building, copies of budget requests, backups of seal maintenance reports, copies of supply order forms—all piled before the black obsidian throne's base, reaching roughly to an adult's waist. How this had happened, even Shadowis couldn't recall in detail. He'd simply noticed it was that way. *(Just clean it up.)* He began processing with complete composure. He reached toward the leftmost mountain, grasped a handful from the top, and the moment he lifted it, the mountain moved. It tilted from left to right. The left mountain collapsed onto the center mountain, the center mountain dragged the right mountain with it, and the right mountain swept along additional document bundles—from where, even Shadowis couldn't say—in a wave of paper across the entire throne hall. *Zaa, zaa, zazaza.* An avalanche. Small in scale, but qualitatively a complete avalanche. The moment Shadowis's gaze fell to his feet, documents were already sliding beneath them. His right foot, trying to brace himself, kicked at empty air, and his body tilted backward. His back struck the black obsidian base. *Gon.* A truly foolish sound. He slid downward into the flood of papers. His jet-black mantle was buried in documents, his deep purple hair disappeared beneath the paper sea. Silence. The Hall of the Void returned to silence. After a moment, the mountain of documents shifted slightly. A single hand emerged. *Poking up.* In its grip was a single quill, held as if he absolutely would not let go of this one thing, as if he'd rescued only this last one from the depths. The three-hundred-twenty-year ruler of the demon realm lay completely still beneath the documents. —Then. A knock sounded at the door. *Knock, knock.* Hesitant, but with clear intent. "...Enter." His voice came muffled from beneath the mountain of papers. The door opened. --- Standing there was a single man. A man in his mid-thirties, broad-shouldered. He wore white silver armor—the formal dress of the Granveria Holy Kingdom's Dawn Knight Order, which Shadowis recognized—though it bore scars in places. The left shoulder plate bore the marks of impact, and part of the waist belt showed signs of leather cord repair. Practical armor, worn in actual combat. A sword hung at his waist, but there was no sign of his hand moving toward the hilt. The man's face was square, his eyebrows thick, his eyes a pale blue-gray. His hair was a light brown, cut short, and his jaw bore the faint shadow of stubble. His first impression was "serious-looking," but deep in his eyes lay something weary, something carrying a hint of resignation. The man surveyed the room. Three mountains of documents, a sea of papers covering the floor, and a single quill protruding from the documents. After ta