Chapter 3

I was eating under a canopy when a kobold approached me. He was a young one.

He told me that Guden had awakened.

“I’ll go when I’m finished eating.”

All that running on the battlefield and the Gekokujyo had made me hungry.

He would have to wait until I was done.

The kobolds always prepared the food.

They were no good in combat, but were skilled when it came to more delicate work. They were quite useful.

People tended to think that ogres just ate raw meat straight off of the bones, but that wasn’t true. 

Our food was properly cooked, and we even ate vegetables. Well, some of us, anyway.

When we ate, it wasn’t really about absorbing the nutrients from the food. We thought of it as absorbing the mana that the food stored. Nutrients were necessary to live, but it was large quantities of mana that made you strong.

Well, none of that was actually proven.

I left the canopy and saw that the young kobold had been waiting for me.

They had to take care of things after the Gekokujyo.

As they were not sure what to do with Guden’s unconscious body, I had told them to lay him out on a flat rock.

They had said they would take care of him, and so I left it to them.

I mean, they had started to lay down pebbles around his body at an equal distance. It resembled a sacrificial ritual, and so I just wanted to leave.

When I returned, Guden was up and sitting cross-legged.

He looked rather well for someone who had passed out after being strangled.

“Gahahahaha…I lost.”

He looked at me and admitted his defeat.

We demon folk did not dwell on the past after a defeat.

If you had any complaints, you could just fight again—another Gekokyujo. So there was no need to make things difficult.

“You’re a strong one.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

I had actually heard this many times since I was reincarnated.

But I didn’t believe it myself.

It was just that I knew how to fight, and had used a little cheat to get stronger.

“I will become your subordinate. And so you are the new Commander.”

“Thank you. It is with great humility that I accept this position.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just said something I had seen on tv once.

Unsurprisingly, Guden tilted his head in puzzlement.

“I will pass on the authority to you. Accept it.”

Guden removed a light red sphere that was near his heart, and then pressed it into my chest.

(So this is the power of control…)

I felt the red sphere becoming part of my body, and the power well up within me.

I could feel the power pouring in.

And so I accepted it all without resisting. I felt like something had been added to me.

(This is amazing… My power must be doubled, if not tripled?)

I was both awed by the power of the orb and also amazed that I had gone against someone with it and won. That was a close one.

“It’s all yours, Commander. Gahahahahah…”

As if he had now finished his duty, Guden walked away.

At first, I thought that he had gone off to eat, but was told that his neck might be broken.

I had used all of my strength when strangling him, and his neck had bent back, perhaps a little too far.

His neck was the first thing he complained about when he first got up, and he had stayed still for a while after that. It was amazing that he was even alive. There was probably a crack in the bones.