The Mighty Demon King and His Useless Subordinates: World Domination Can Wait Till Tomorrow - The Queen of Documents, the Tyrant of Typos

Shadowis stopped for just a moment as he opened the door to the Shobokuro. A sound. *Scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch*—something racing across parchment. The pen wouldn't stop. One, two, three—one in each hand, one clenched between her teeth—a small girl with pale aqua twin tails bouncing frantically and rabbit ears standing straight up was processing documents at a ferocious speed. Mileran—a demi-human race with long ears resembling rabbits, comprising roughly eight percent of the demon realm's population. He'd heard their administrative processing was one-point-five times faster than other races, but seeing it with his own eyes was genuinely bizarre. "...So you're the new recruit." The girl's head snapped up. Lavender eyes locked onto Shadowis, and in the next instant, her chair clattered as she stood. "Shadowis-sama!! I'm Mira Leira!! I'm sixteen years old, a Mileran, I'm good at document processing, I'm good at running, and my rabbit ears get caught on things a lot but I've gotten used to it so it's fine and——" She spoke so fast the end was unintelligible. Shadowis silently picked up a document from his desk. A budget authorization form for border defense—something that should have been processed before this morning's border survey departure. He read it through. Then read it again. "...What is a 'cup.'" "Huh?" "Border defense budget: five hundred thousand gold cups, it says here." Mira snatched the document and stared at it for three seconds. Her face turned red by degrees. Her rabbit ears folded inward with a soft *pat*. "...Sheets!! It should be sheets!!" "Sheets, yes." "Sheets!! I'll get it perfect next time!!" She pulled out a notepad and scribbled frantically. *'Cups → sheets, be careful.'* She even underlined it with a serious expression. Her earnestness came through. Shadowis silently picked up the next document. An instruction order for the subjugation unit. A command regarding border perimeter alert status. He read it through. "...It says 'issue cake alert status.'" Silence. "Oh." "Alert. Not cake." "Alert!! I'm sorry!!" More frantic scribbling. *'Cake alert is absolutely forbidden.'* She'd even drawn a picture. Why was there a cake drawing. Shadowis picked up the third document. An instruction regarding seal reinforcement at the boundary gate—this was important. He read carefully. "...'Reinforce the boundary gate seal—provided it's done moderately,' it says." "Huh?" "This 'provided it's done moderately' doesn't exist in the original. Did you add this yourself." "I didn't add it!! I just thought reinforcing it moderately would be more considerate——" "Don't think." "I won't!!" More notepad. This time three lines. Shadowis narrowed his eyes and confirmed the text from the corner of his vision. *'Moderately is forbidden. Seals are done with full force.'* ...Mostly correct. "By the way, who did you show that notepad to." "Huh? Viper-san! I thought I'd show my senpai to get some guidance and——" "What did he say." "He said messy handwriting is proof of concentration!!" "..." A pause. "Bring that guy to me later." "Huh, did he do something wrong??" "No problem. Just need to talk to him." Red pen raced across documents. Raced. Raced. --- In the corner of the desk, a念伝符—a disposable message slip where magically-infused characters automatically delivered across the demon realm—lay half-buried. Shadowis checked the sender. Seventh Gate Management Post, Administrator Gesso. An old-bone-race man who single-handedly guarded the boundary gate located deep in the Black Iron Forest Kazavald, sixty kilometers west of the Spiral Castle Graozarm. Estimated age over four hundred, tenure over fifty years, and with calligraphy so beautiful no one could read it—those were his defining characteristics. Shadowis picked up the念伝符 and spent thirty seconds looking at it. He couldn't read it. It was definitely writing. The lines were beautiful. But too beautiful to decipher. Something between art and cipher. Shadowis silently placed the paper in front of Mira. Mira picked it up. Her rabbit ears slowly tilted left and right. Moving her ears slightly, she traced the characters intently. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. "Um—near the Seventh Gate, unidentified magical reaction. Traces that appear to be seal leakage, suspecting external interference...maybe?" Shadowis snatched the paper back. Looked again. *(I could only make out the last two characters.)* "...How did you read that." "When people have really good handwriting, their stroke order is unique. Instead of just following with your eyes, if you read it like you're listening to the flow of sound, it becomes easier to understand." Shadowis spent three seconds processing that explanation. "I don't understand the logic, but it seems mostly correct." "I'm glad!!" Mira lined up Gesso's念伝符 with the seal power degradation document Shadowis had picked up in the hallway yesterday morning. Her rabbit ears perked up. Her lavender eyes narrowed. Her naturally spacey face became something else entirely, just for that moment. "...That's a thirty percent drop from last month, right." "It is." "But boundary gate seals normally only degrade point-one percent or less per year. Thirty percent means...half a year? That——" Mira looked up. The bright red face from before was gone. "Isn't someone deliberately tampering with this." The castle fell silent. The *scritch-scritch* of Mira processing documents had stopped. Shadowis's red pen had stopped too. *(This one——)* In three hundred twenty years of life, he'd never met a clerk who could throw out a line like that between document processing. "...You're coming with me today." "Huh, but there are still three hundred documents——" "I'll check the documents when we get back." Mira's movements stopped. She slowly looked up. Her lavender eyes were slightly glistening. "Shadowis-sama will...check..." "Let's go." "Yes!!" --- The two left Spiral Castle Graozarm heading toward the East Fortress Vorgant when the sun reached its zenith. The Third Gate—ninety kilometers east of Spiral Castle, the boundary gate connecting the demon realm to the human world's Granveria Holy Kingdom—they needed to directly confirm the seal's magical power degradation there. The seal placed after the Ash Covenant War—the great conflict roughly five hundred years ago when the demon and human realms clashed for seven years—was weakening at a rate that natural degradation couldn't explain. This couldn't be overlooked. Shadowis walked in silence. His deep purple short hair swayed in the wind. His black armor dully reflected the cloudy sky. The old scar on his left cheek flickered faintly with the play of light. Mira walked beside him, her rabbit ears bouncing, holding a parchment map spread wide in both hands. An hour passed. Shadowis glanced sideways. "...That map." "Yes! It's a map!! We're here right now and——" "It's upside down." Mira's hands stopped. She stared at the map. Tilted it left and right. Looked again. "Huh...but isn't a map easier to read with south at the top? That's what my teacher said!!" "Who's this teacher." "Um, the map-reading instructor at training——" "Tell me that teacher's name later." "...Did something go wrong again." "Maps have north at the top. Always." "I'm sorry!!" Mira frantically flipped the map. Then froze. "...Um, where are we right now." Shadowis surveyed the surroundings. They'd meant to go east but had veered significantly north. The demon realm's sky was always faintly cloudy and reddish-purple, but considering the sun's position—they were quite far north. In the distance, a familiar black haze drifted along the horizon. *(Rot Marsh Dromgal...the poisonous wetlands of the southern demon realm, but—if I'm seeing the southern landmark, then our current position is——)* Shadowis closed his eyes for a moment. "We lost three hours." "Three hours!!" Her rabbit ears drooped completely. Her tail went limp. Shadowis sighed so efficiently it barely counted, and silently corrected their route. --- After correcting course, they walked toward the proper Vorgant direction for about an hour when they found an old abandoned mine beside the road. A former excavation site. A mining tunnel where demon realm minerals had been extracted, probably abandoned over a hundred years ago. The stone entrance was crumbling, overgrown with grass. Voices leaked from inside. Low voices. Multiple. Shadowis raised a hand to stop Mira. Silently pointed to a rock outcropping. Mira nodded—unusually obedient—and pressed herself against it. Shadowis narrowed his eyes to confirm the figures inside the mine. Three silhouettes. All faces hidden by cloaks. Something glowing in their hands—magical artifacts. Stone-like in shape, but with complex magical runes carved into the surface. "...Boundary stone, seal-weakening type. One unit per fifty silver magic marks, deal's done." A voice carried out. Shadowis's eyebrow twitched slightly. Boundary stones—forbidden magical artifacts that weakened seals. Since the Ash Covenant, manufacturing, possession, and sale had been prohibited in both the demon and human realms. Three people were black-market selling them in an abandoned mine. *(So that's it. The seal's magical degradation isn't natural. They used these——)* Mira gently tugged his sleeve. She opened her notepad and wrote something. Her pen-hand trembled. Whether from tension or the cold air of the mine, probably both. Shadowis glanced at the notepad. ——Three useless-looking guys selling something that looks like it affects seals in the abandoned mine. Location probably north? "..." Shadowis silently took the notepad. "Never mind. I'll remember." "Sorry...but I'm better at observing than writing." "I know." Mira's eyes widened slightly. She'd expected to be scolded. Shadowis didn't particularly address her expression, just confirmed the three figures in the mine one last time, then silently gestured back the way they came. Don't provoke. Retreat for now. --- After putting distance between themselves and the mine, they emerged onto open rocky ground when Mira suddenly stopped. "Oh—speaking of bases." "Speaking of." "I didn't buy souvenirs, I just realized." "..." "Gram from the Shobokuro asked me to. I think there was a stall near that mine, should we go back——" "Don't go back." "But Fame-chan also——" "Absolutely don't go back." "...Understood." Mira's lips pouted slightly. Shadowis didn't answer and kept walking. Then he turned quickly. No one on the rocky ground. ——But something was there. Barely, just barely, the air density was different in one spot. The residual magical presence left after someone had been there. It was fading, but definitely there. One of the three from the mine had noticed their presence—and come out ahead to intercept them. Shadowis's expression didn't change. He kept walking. Mira beside him was still thinking about souvenirs, her rabbit ears moving left and right as she muttered to herself. She hadn't noticed. *(Purple Smoke Hand, then.)* The embroidery glimpsed on the cloak inside the mine—swirling smoke. He'd heard rumors about it in the demon realm's black markets. An organization specializing in magical artifact black-market sales, supposedly. But the scale of this operation was larger than the rumors suggested. If they were distributing seal-weakening boundary stones this systematically——. A name flickered through Shadowis's mind. No confirmation yet. But once that name surfaced, it didn't disappear easily. *(Not just black-market sales. Someone's behind this.)* A presence continued from behind. Mira remained oblivious, now theorizing to herself about what kind of inventory the stall near the mine had. Shadowis thought quietly, internally. *(This frequency of mistakes is headache-inducing. But—that one

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Episode 2

Name: The Mighty Demon King and His Useless Subordinates: World Domination Can Wait Till Tomorrow
Author: Novelia

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