Chapter 401: Lack of Planning
"...You are..." I gesture to the man who appeared in my castle out of nowhere, I was busy adjusting the troops and solving some issues for the war and he came out of nowhere.
But since he brought a letter from Elena informing the maids that he could enter, I ended up bringing him to my office, I think Elena didn’t think I would return to the castle so soon.
"I am Raya Valeheart, your majesty, I’ve always wanted to meet the demon king in person, but I was busy...ah yes, I am Elena’s older brother..." As soon as he says this, he trembles as I look at him as if he were trash.
"I see...so you are from Elena’s family, the same family that expelled her for being weak..." I say, approaching him as he is bent over in front of the desk in my office.
"...Yes, that’s probably right..." He admits while I look at the colors of his emotions, it’s not that bad, it’s better than I initially judged.
"What have you come to do here?" I ask, briefly looking at some papers on the desk and then at him, I’ve already managed to expel the humans from the coast of my territory, now they are trying to return to the kingdom, but in a few days they will be killed by the divine beast of Delphina.
"I was fighting on the border with my sister, I came here at her request, she sent me back because she needs more troops...or they will have to retreat," He brings bad news.
’If she needs more troops...then she has started to lose ground...’ I think I trusted too much in Elena’s abilities, but she doesn’t have anyone absurdly strong on her side to really be able to expel the humans.
Besides, the humans have the angels, although in the original plan they would send few angels to the border, they are still trump cards against demons, and since they are very far away, I couldn’t affect those angels and force them to obey like the angels on the coast.
"Are you helping Elena?" I ask curiously and attentive to any reaction, no matter how small, anyway I was going to send troops to Elena even if he hadn’t come to ask.
"Yes, Elena is my sister and that’s why I wanted to help her, although my mother only sent troops to help you in the war, I still wanted to have a real participation and help my sister with what she needed," He speaks in a way that really reduces my anger.
’He...seems different’ My territory is divided into areas that each one governs separately following my orders, Calypso is the owner of the entire North, Thalor was the owner of the entire West, and Freya is the owner of the entire South and currently helps Aokitsu who has become the owner of the West in the future and Elena’s mother is the owner of the East.
Obviously, it’s all mine, it’s my territory, but it’s divided this way in case the demon king dies, each area still has someone taking care of it, but Elena’s mother didn’t come to help in the war, she only sent part of her army for me to use.
’The son has more responsibility than the mother’ Honestly, no matter how much Elena tries to defend her mother, that old witch is undoubtedly a stupid bitch who is stuck in stupid family rules and traditions.
"You can go back, tell Elena to hold on for at least two more days, I’ll send part of the troops by teleportation, and I’ll also send supplies to her," I say, returning to the desk.
"Thank you for your attention, your majesty," He speaks politely as I nod and return to the paperwork, Freya has already brought a large part of the army from the coast back to me.
And there are many more dead and wounded than I expected, all that great army I sent to the coast received 78% damage, with 27% of the soldiers killed and the rest wounded, which is a lot.
It’s more than 100,000 dead, and more than 200,000 wounded, it happens that without me and Lilith directly on the battlefield, the demons ended up still having many disadvantages.
’The versatility...’ Humans are much more versatile, with many different skills that end up being useful to them without having an exact pattern, and this caused much more damage than expected.
’Fortunately, this is not a problem’ We may have lost many, but the humans lost much more than us, and having retreated will cause that great army to end up with at least 98% of everyone dead if someone is lucky enough to survive.
But considering that a divine beast will attack the ships in the open sea, I think everyone will die.
"Raya, you can leave now," I tell him as he is still standing there, he gets up and starts to leave as I look at how many troops we have available to fight in total.
’3 million...’ I still have 3 million soldiers, but not all of them are fully prepared soldiers to fight, and some of them are soldiers who stayed here in the kingdom to defend, and this is counting the soldiers who are already with Elena.
’1 year...’ In 1 year, many demons reached adulthood, I’m glad that many demons have a fast growth rate, with some types reaching maturity 1 year after being born.
With this, I can recover a large part of the losses in the war in a maximum of 3 years, which is not that long, so I’m not worried about many soldiers dying when I can easily recover them with a little time.
’The biggest problem is...’ If we are attacked, dragons and elves are still not directly at war, that’s because all the races before I was born were in conflict, so they didn’t have the conditions to start an immediate war against me.
That’s why they used the time when the wars paused to focus on me and recover their strength, I don’t know when the dragons and elves will be ready for war, but if they enter now, it will be annoying.
"Haa...I failed to create a specific team to heal in the war," I admit my mistake, I focused so much on getting stronger and making my army stronger that I never thought of creating a huge team specialized in healing magic.
’I ordered training in the army with swords, lances, infantry, archers, attack mages among many other troops...but...I didn’t make anyone for the medical team...’ I feel foolish for having ignored this, creating only basic troops to take care of healing and medical supplies.
Of course, the reason I ignored this is quite logical, the logic is very simple, first I have absurd regeneration and ended up overlooking the fact that the majority do not regenerate.
Second, I had Lilith, and Lilith could literally use healing spells that would cover the entire demonic continent if she wanted to, she alone would be better than any team, and I never thought she would die.
In the end, it was...lack of planning to replace Lilith, this is a mistake I admit I made, I should have had a method to replace Lilith in case she died, and now I have this problem with few people with good healing skills.
’Isabel...’ I think of that blindly loyal human girl that I promised to take her virginity when I saved her in the past, she created my religion and gathered a good staff.
’Maybe I should have her train the healers...’ I decide to go to her, although starting the training now won’t be as useful in the current war, it can still be useful in the future.
’Elena has already given me a report and a large part of them ended up becoming demons because of that potion...’ Now I’m curious about what kind of demon Isabel became.
"Well, I should go to her as soon as I finish organizing the troop records," I murmur, knowing that I have to do this annoying office work while sending help to Elena.
Without these records and confirmations, I wouldn’t be able to notice important flaws or the real number of losses and gains I’m having, along with the fact that without these numbers I wouldn’t know how much food, weapons, and troops to send to each place.
’I have 3 hours to finish all the paperwork and go see Isabel, and tomorrow I already have to leave the castle and go help Elena with direct troop administration in the field’ It’s a lot of work, so I make an effort to finish everything, even if I can’t use one of my arms perfectly yet.
It still hasn’t regenerated, and this copy of an arm made of darkness is difficult to move, I can only hope that my body finishes regenerating my arm soon so I can finally do everyday things at least a little normally.
"Damn, this arm is crap!" I punch the desk full of frustration and fatigue with this useless arm, unlike the darkness wings that work well, the arm doesn’t have a nervous system or detect what I want.
The wings just need to beat and fly while tilting to change direction, but the arm is much more complex and needs function for each finger, and since the arm will regenerate in a short time, it doesn’t make sense for me to put effort into creating a good darkness arm.
"Haa..." I give up complaining about the arm and get back to work, I can feel the flesh inside slowly regenerating and rebuilding, at least soon I’ll have a new arm that will allow me to return to common activities.
’I’m so...tired...’ I practically didn’t stop, since the war started I was leading, fighting against the heroes and then came to lead again without even having recovered.
This is consuming a lot of my mind, I haven’t been sleeping properly for days and my body is all uncomfortable, along with the regeneration that is annoying because I feel every little piece moving and breaking my concentration.
’It’s a war...I shouldn’t expect it to be easy’ I guess that’s the obvious in the end of the day.