"...Phew... I barely made it out alive... I really almost died that time!"
Inside a cave set a little apart from the bamboo grove near the marshlands.
Thick with the stench of monster blood, this place served as a rendezvous point for the other clowns. It was a cave Laplace had personally seized after killing off the wild monsters living there, and one of the few places in the great forest he could freely transfer to.
"Good thing I set up a meeting spot around here after all~ Then now, I should head back to Jistav and report to the boss—"
"N-no, wait...!"
"...?"
Laplace had already judged this operation a failure caused by lack of information. He had decided it would be best to abandon the plan cleanly and leave the great forest at once so that the boss could come up with a new one.
But Gelmud stopped him.
"...I-if we go back like this without a single result... I-I might be killed by him...!! You know that as well as I do!"
Him.
There was only one person in the world Gelmud, now even more swollen with vanity after becoming an executive under a Demon Lord, would refer to with that much reverence.
Clayman, the very one who had accepted him as a subordinate.
"This operation was my proposal from the very beginning. If he decides it was useless... then I... I-I'll definitely be killed...!!"
Clinging to false hope and expecting mercy from Clayman was no different from personally urging his own death.
It was a foolish thing to do.
After all, Clayman was a Demon Lord infamous for treating his own subordinates as nothing more than expendable tools.
"I have to produce results no matter what...! Even if I have to sacrifice all two hundred thousand of the [Orc]s!"
Right now, the most important thing to Gelmud, no matter what anyone said, was his own life.
He had not crawled through mud and filth to rise to the rank of a Demon Lord's executive just to die meaninglessly like this.
"......"
Laplace could understand, at least, just how desperate Gelmud was.
But understanding him and agreeing with him were two very different things.
"...Well, I get what you're saying... but still, isn't this impossible? If those monsters are really what we just saw, then no matter how many [Orc]s there are, they'd be about the same as wooden dolls to them, wouldn't they?"
The enemy's strength had gone far beyond the bounds of reason.
"Even with the [Orc Lord]... there's no way he can handle two monsters and a [Dryad] all by himself."
In a one-on-one fight, maybe.
But in this situation, with two powerful opponents who were at the very least his equals, even the [Orc Lord] was bound to be at a disadvantage.
...And yet,
"...What if... Geld evolves?"
Gelmud had no intention of giving up.
"If it's the power of the [Orc Disaster]... then he might be able to beat those monsters... No, he has to beat them...!"
"......"
Fear of death and the madness of survival.
Consumed by those two emotions, Gelmud's eyes no longer held even a shred of restraint.
He had decided to use the king who would become the new eleventh Demon Lord for the sake of his own survival.
'...He's completely lost it.'
At that point, even Laplace stopped trying to dissuade him.
Trying to reason any further with someone half out of his mind would do him no good,
and in the end, whether Gelmud's choice was right or wrong...
those monsters would prove it with their own hands.
A clown only needed to laugh, whether on the stage or behind it.
*
At that same time—
"......"
"...So it's finally starting."
"Now I can finally cut loose for real."
"Mm. Been a while since we've had a proper war."
The [Kijin], who had arrived at the battlefield a step behind Adelio, along with the fifty or so [Ogre] following them, sharpened their weapons and waited for the words of Benimaru, who stood at the front.
"......"
At last, Benimaru turned toward his fellow tribesmen who were looking at him.
Meeting their gazes head-on with eyes blazing like fire, he gave a short nod and opened his mouth.
"That's right. You all know it without me saying it, but from here on, it's our turn to strike back."
A counterattack against those filthy pigheads.
Thanks to Adelio and his group, they had avoided annihilation, but their fury toward the [Orc]s and the majin who had attacked them for no reason still remained.
"We have chosen a new lord, and we have newly evolved. This is our first battle under both. There's no need to hold back. Each of you... rampage as much as you please."
"Oooooooooh!!!"
At once, the warriors' roar rang out as they crashed into the [Orc]s.
A great tidal wave had arrived, heralding the entry of the [Kijin] and the [Ogre] into the battle.
*
And at the center of another battlefield—
"...I'm... hungry."
—ominous, flickering magic power surged through the body of the pighead king, the [Orc Lord], glowing a dark crimson.
"...Human, monster, I don't care which... Bring me food... bring me everything I can devour...!"
Having fallen into the same madness as the majin who had given him his name, he bared his savage tusks and roared.
That, as befitted the king of the pigheads, he would devour everything in this great forest.
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