The doors swing open once more as a group of cultists enters. As I only asked for the important leaders this time, the group presenting themselves before me is much smaller than the one before the Dark One.
They swiftly enter the room and prostrate before me while the doors close behind them. The 2 exceptions are the High Priestess, who kneels before me, and Lucy, who bows before me. I speak loudly and as authoritatively as I can: "Rise!"
The crowd quickly rises. I quietly use my index finger to signal Lucy to come closer. As she arrives next to me, I lean over and whisper: "What should I do next?"
She whispers back: "You should assign me as the chancellor. I have the necessary knowledge to temporarily rule and do most of the work while you learn."
Making Lucy the chancellor. Hmm, while that is the best option right now, it does have the risk of Lucy making decisions behind my back. Then again, even if I try to retain full authority, I have no idea how to use it anyway. "Alright."
I speak loudly: "It is my first decree that Lucy Chanllior is assigned to be my chancellor."
Lucy bows deeply and responds: "Thank you, my lord."
Others nod in acknowledgement as Lucy walks to my right. One cultist, in particular, pulls out a scroll and begins to write something in with a feather dipped in the ink jar that he carried along. Lucy orders aloud with a distinctively better authoritative voice than mine: "Introduce yourself and your role before the Dark Lord, starting with the most powerful and important."
The High Priestess comes forward first and introduces herself: "My name is Marie, it is an honor to serve you, oh great one. I can lead this branch in whatever way you desire. Other than that, I am also a capable necromancer by this branch's standards."
…
One by one, they each introduce themselves. I don't really have a significant interest in any of them. Though, I make a mental note to meet with the Master of the Lores, responsible for education, and the High Priestess, responsible for overall command. Lucy swiftly reorganizes them, removing some unnecessary and fusing redundant positions, such as the Master of the Rites, who is responsible for the rituals that they believe the Dark One enjoys. Unfortunately, the Dark One barely ever notices those, even then he doesn't care, as Lucy whispered to me.
After their reports on their current situation, more changes and reforms probably will be required. Oh and turns out the person writing into the scroll was the Masters of the Lores, he's just recording the events. Lucy tells them to write reports and deliver them to my office, which they have prepared for me. With that as the last order, Lucy declares the end of the meeting.
A group of servants enters after they leave and offer to lead us to our offices, which Lucy agrees to and waits for me. It takes me a while to realize that letting Lucy do everything kinda made me blanked out for a bit. Anyway, I agree and go along with them.
As I walk, I take a look at the interior of this castle. The hallways are clean and tidy. The stairs are balanced and of the same height and width. From what I remember about my world history, that's pretty odd. The offices are also well-kept and positioned directly opposite each other.
Lucy turns to me and says: "I actually have to leave for a bit. Please carefully read over the reports, I will explain them when I get back."
Then she draws up what I can only describe as a magical knife and slices open a portal. She quickly goes through it as the portal closes behind her.
The group of servants stare, wide eyes, at the closed portal for a moment. Then they jump up as they remember that I am still here. They bow and quickly leave.
I sit down on the chair they have prepared for me and lean back. Fortunately, they are still writing their reports, giving me a bit of time for myself. Time for me to wonder when did I start to be dragged along with all of this shit?!
The last thing that I can remember before getting here is that I was sleeping. I think? Actually, I can't remember. As for the Dark One's offer, why did I agree?! Wait, I didn't. Well, I would anyway if he asks, but I still don't know his intentions or whether he said the truth or not. Then again, considering how much this world differs compared to Earth, I can be even sure that he thinks the same way as me. Then again, everything I have seen so far kinda makes sense, so it would be best for me to just go along with everything until something new appears. That, and the reports are being brought to my table right as I am thinking about this.
A servant stands just outside the door, carrying a small stack of paper. When I glance at her, she nervously bows and continues to stand there. An awkward second passes before I remember that this is my office and allow her to enter.
If you are reading this, Dark One. I had not been considered a full adult or working before you dragged me here. I barely had a bedroom for myself.
Anyway, after placing the stack of papers onto my desk, she takes her leave. I pick up a paper and realize, fortunately, that I can read the contents. I quickly skim through all of them and then start over reading slowly because I am, as I have found out, not used to this language enough to actually read that fast.
Anyway, it doesn't take long at all until I meet the next issue, how long is a "foot" here? Alongside with all the other units of measurement that I don't know and hope to have been standardized. If these are also not standardized, well, that's clearly the first issue to deal with.
Ignoring all the ones that I can't understand and only caring about the ones that I do, I try to evaluate my situation based on my knowledge of playing Victoria 3. My military is, uh, eh, good enough, I think. I need to fix the bureaucracy, there's literally nothing here about units or equipment or logistical capabilities. There's only a few lines that can be summed up as 100000 brave warriors that will fight to the death for me.
Everything else seems fine, based on the summaries. The current system can and has sustained itself for many centuries. However, it also limits the population to about a few thousand humans at most. Thankfully, undead don't need food and are the vast majority of the workforce, doing most of the work to sustain the living. This allows the cultists to focus solely on learning how to create more undead and managing the undead.
Unfortunately, because the undead need to be boiled, there is a limit to the number of undead until the local forests start to decline from wood cutting. Not only that, there is a limit of how much hunting can produce until there is no longer enough wildlife to sustain itself. In fact, they have already reached the limit and are currently actively halting the population growth of both the living and undead. This must be resolved as a limit of the population is also a limit of the economy, tax revenues and military power.
Interestingly, monsters, beasts and animals are 3 separate categories for some reason, I should ask them later.
As for their external relations, they seem pretty isolated. They have no official contact with anyone and the few contacts that they had were entirely skirmishes with barbarians and heretics. I will interpret the last part as them not bothering to check who they were fighting against.
Hmm, Lucifer is not back yet. Should I wait for her?…
No, I should take initiative. I need to understand the units of measurement here, so I will go find someone to teach me. Now where am I supposed to go?
Grabbing the documents and walking outside of my office, I see 2 guards standing at both sides of the door. They bow as I pass by and then follow behind me. It takes me a full minute of wondering where to go until I remember that I have these 2 people here to ask.
"What are your names?"
They glance at each other and then one of them speaks to me: "Your greatness, this servant's name is Jugnson, his is Jainson. We are assigned as your bodyguards. We will do our best to fulfill whatever you wish."
Jugnson is the taller one, noted.
"Where is the office of the, um, Master of the Lores at?"
The one named Jugnson starts: "It is on the second floor at, uh, I think."
Then Jainson elbows him sharply in the stomach and continues: "Your Greatness, please forgive my coworker for his ignorance, we are not aware of where exactly his office is located at. However we do know who to ask about him and where he is right now so that your greatness does not have to wait for him to come back."
Hmm, competent. Jainson, noted.
"Excellent, lead me there."
He bows and walks forward as I follow behind him, the last guard following behind me. While walking, I see no new or interesting things to look at, so I try to think of something. Such as my action of asking the bodyguards for help, that works decently well.
Then there's my action of personally finding the Master of the Lores to ask about measurement standards. While it does indicate the importance I place on this, it is also slow and ineffective. I should have a group of aides to send out to gather less important information as needed. In fact, almost every management position needs a group of aides to minimize time wasted for transit that can be used for other work.
Though that is obvious enough that I am not surprised if everyone already has it, mine just hasn't been formed yet.
Back to the walk, Jainson leads me to a library. The doors are pushed open by Jainson to reveal…I'm not sure what I was expecting. Maybe something magical like in fantasy stories. Anyway, it looks just like a normal library lit by candles. The librarian glances up and is about to say something before freezing at my sight. Jainson walks up to her and asks for the Master of the Lores.
While they are talking, I look over some of the books here. Each one has a hard cover and is somewhat tied up to prevent damage. Reading the titles, I note that most are research papers, as in research papers of mages here. While there's some papers on other schools of magic, these are almost exclusively focused on Undeath and there's none of Holy.
Then a person runs outside as Jainson walks back to me, "The librarian has just sent a person to fetch him and respectfully asked you to wait here."
I nod and sit down on a chair. This should be how I deal with most future problems: send someone else to deal with it. Now that I have time, should I read one of those books? Nah, I lack the foundational knowledge to understand any of them anyway.
It doesn't take long before I hear rushed footsteps from outside the library. Then it pauses somewhere just outside the door for a minute before the Master of the Lores walks in. He approaches me and bows deeply, "Your Greatness, what are your orders for me?"
"I just need a few clarifications about these documents. In particular, these units of measurement." I point at the quantity of meat gathered this quarter.
"I, uh, well, this is the unit for weight. In this case, a pound is, well, a pound." He awkwardly and nervously explains, glancing at my face once in a while to check my emotions.
"No I, uh, do you have weights for a pound so that I can understand how heavy a pound is?"
His eyes lit up, "Ah, yes, right this way."
He leads me to a table, still in the library, with metal weights on it. He shows me the smallest one, "This is a pound."
I lift it up. Based on my vague memory of how heavy a water bottle is, this is probably 500 grams, slightly less.
"I see, what about a foot?"
"Here." He grabs a long stick nearby. It is about a quarter of my height, so just below half a meter. If the Dark One didn't change my height without me noticing anyway.
"Thank you, you can go back to your work now."
He bows and begins to leave. Just as he is about to open the door, I suddenly remember.
"Wait a second."
He turns around, "Yes, your greatness?"
"Normally, when someone, such as other masters, needs to ask you something, do they normally come to find you personally?"
He thinks for a second and then speaks slowly: "Normally yes, we are used to this place and each other enough to figure out where the others probably are."
"If I send a servant to deliver my orders, how will you, or others, react?"
He replies: "Well, we will do our best to fulfill the orders. There are times when we can't meet face to face so we send servants in our stead."
"Ah good, thank you."
He bows and leaves. Now, I need a secretary to actually send out in my stead. Hmm, maybe there's a document here about the procedure to create a new position.
—————————————————————
Elsewhere, in Punishia.
3rd person POV.
Lucy looks at the holographic projection from the orb, showing Danh's current actions as he reads the Black Bible. The Dark One stands beside her, watching with slightly more focus. One of his dark tentacles reaches out to touch the orb, temporarily canceling out the anti-scrying field around the Dark Lord. She says: "Seems to be doing pretty well by himself, don't you think?"
The Dark One shrugs, "I have seen better and worse, mostly worse, so better enough to me. When will you plan to come back for him?"
Lucy replies: "Tomorrow, or when he messes something up too badly, whichever comes first."
Her fingers move, drawing up a magic circle in an instant. The moment it's finished, her body disperses into a small cloud of colorful gases. 3 floors above, on a balcony, the air twists and concentrates into her form.
Glancing out from her high vantage point, she observes as several walking red behemoths pass through even larger portals. Below them, like ants, thousands of smaller creatures, from Hell Knights to Hell Husk, march through smaller gateways, led by their Devils. Each of those groups is small, though that matters little as the devils can always summon inferior demons for short periods of fighting. Speaking of the demons, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are still busy fighting each other to figure out who's in charge once they are going to get summoned to Livingior, lands of the living.
"Hmm, faster than I expected to be honest." The Dark One speaks beside her, appearing without the slightest disturbance of the air. He had actually managed to shock her off the balcony before, several times in fact. She just got used to it after the twenty-fifth time and is now always expecting the Dark One to just pop out whenever and wherever he wants without any indication.
Lucy nods, a proud look across her face, "Take a damn lot of rehearsals, but you requested it, so here it is."
The Dark One turns to look at the hordes, "Even then, this is only enough for a year at most, probably less. That's far from enough time for our Dark Lord to learn the job and rebuild his forces."
Lucy sighs, "I know, I have already called the rest of the high devils to arms. The Succubus Queen has refused to participate directly due to herself having to rebuild her forces, but she is still providing information like usual. The Taskmaster is barely doing his best to drag the rest of the hellspawns into line. Though considering how chaotic his forces are, I have no doubt that they will only be a major annoyance."
Lucy glances over the great fortresses in the distance. The Succubus holding is quiet, save for the few succubus rushing across the gates as a way to cross large distances without detection by the Goddess's forces.
On the other side, the Taskmaster holding is utterly chaotic with demons rushing in and out. The sight of behemoths accidentally stepping on some unlucky lesser demons is the standard as it is simply too tightly packed to even dodge. Fortunately, the lesser demons then respawn just outside the fortress, where the Taskmaster's devils whip whoever is not running toward the fortress. The Taskmaster doesn't care much about this. In fact, he spends the last 8 hours staring either at the Succubus fortress or the Centerway.
The Dark One snorts, or rather makes a snorting sound as he doesn't actually have a nose, "That's all they need to be."
"As for the half-hellspawn, the Demon Queen I mean," Lucy begins.
The Dark One interrupts, "I know, she can't do much more anyway."
The Centerway is just a giant pillar of liquid mana flowing upward and down. Whenever a demon comes to life there, it immediately gets sucked upward to Livingior. It leads directly to the center of the continent, the last territory in the hands of the Demon Queen. There, even the lesser demons can survive without needing the aid of higher demons and devils. Unfortunately, she has been boxed in and sieged for the last 6 centuries. While she has lasted thanks to an endless supply of man…demonpower, she can't expand any further.
"Fortunately, she drains quite a bit of their tax revenue on maintaining the siege on her land. Good enough for me." The Dark One continues as Lucy nods along.
They remain silent for a few moments, until the Dark One breaks it, "By the way, did you make sure to set up the gates to the correct places."
"Yes, it should be far enough from the 3 summoned heroes that they can't participate in any battle or care personally about the devastation that is being brought upon the land." Lucy answers.
"Excellent, I will take my leave then."
The Dark One promptly disappears to who knows where. Lucy thinks for a second and draws up another magic circle to teleport to the Succubus fortress. Showing up just before the grandest entrance, the guards step aside as she walks by. The butler helpfully points out the portal that will take her to the Succubus Queen and she enters.