“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Aris said.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting anything from him, to be honest. His greatest weapon was that black man, and it didn’t work out. If he were smart, he would have bought time and sent to other kingdoms for help. Not that it would have changed anything, but that would have been the best route to take,” Silva said as he stood up from the throne and walked toward a window.
“Honestly, I can’t be bothered with that kingdom in the first place. But I need a home and a new place to create my dominance. I want to create a place never seen before, while still making it the strongest,” he said.
“All this will attract attention. Even the fact that you have taken over this kingdom will reach the ears of the empire and the holy kingdom. They wouldn’t want a demon king candidate staying in human lands, so for sure they’ll come for us,” Aris said.
“Yup, they will come for sure, but they won’t come too fast. You see, the issue with large countries and empires is their governance. Everything passes through several people before it is established, so it makes the whole process slow. Even with the veto power of the emperor or holy pope, it will not be fast enough.
Another thing that will slow things down is the scale of importance. Where will my issues fall on that scale? It might be the twentieth thing, even the hundredth thing. So they’ll have to handle the most pressing needs until they get to us, and then they’ll begin the discussion about what to do with us, which will take time.
“At the very best, I give it a full year before they fully move against me. Surely they’ll send some spies and warnings during that time, but when they’ll get really serious is probably a year from now.
And that’s more than enough time for us to grow too strong for them. Honestly, this estimate is very shaky and could change to half the time depending on certain situations,” Silva explained.
“Hmm, so our main and current issues are the closest kingdoms. They will surely launch attacks when they get the news. They will want to take advantage of the change in power and use the reluctant human to cause us issues and sabotage us. Then they’ll come themselves to finish the job,” Aris said.
“Yeah, you make a lot of sense in that regard. We will have to hold a meeting about this issue. But then, about the humans that were with us—many of them will not want to stay with a demon king candidate. And honestly, I don’t care; we need space for the kingdom we are going to build.
Some of the humans also have nowhere to go, so they’ll stay. But it’s still possible that they’ll sell us out, so we have two options to deal with this situation as best as possible.
“The first option is to threaten them and be strict, a quick and effective method but not safe for the long run.
The second is the show-of-love method: we make their lives better than they were under the former king.
The second method has a lot of issues, like the time required for it to work and the generational enmity against us. These will factor together to make them unreasonable and stubborn,” Silva explained.
“So what method would you be using for handling them?” Aris asked.
“Both, both of them. For the quick and effective way to handle the short-term issues like the close kingdoms that will attack, we will use force and threats.
Then, as we begin to fix the kingdom and develop it, we will slowly start showing them the care and love they want, and all that stuff,” Silva explained.
“And what if it doesn’t work? What will you do?” Aris asked.
“I’ll kill all of them. It’s that simple; everyone would just die, except for those close to me, and then we will build a kingdom for monsters like ourselves,” Silva said calmly.
“I see. So now that you have finally taken the kingdom, what is your next step?” she asked.
“Taking out the stragglers. I had Lily run a search through the kingdom for any hidden army base or security organization with ties to the kingdom. So now, we will quickly deal with them, taking out every one of them.
After that, we will address the kingdom and then immediately begin developing new laws, rules, and all that,” Silva explained.
“I feel the guardians will be able to handle all of that,” Aris stated.
“Yup, I’ll be leaving it with them and you. As for me personally, I’ll be going to train,” Silva said.
“Train? Where? What place could you possibly go to that has the resources to train you?” Aris asked.
“I have a place; it’s called the Void Labyrinth. I’ll tell you more about it on a later date,” Silva responded.
As they spoke, a portal opened, and Drake walked out with Elsa. Elsa ran and hugged Silva immediately when she saw him.
“I missed you a lot; you’ve been gone for almost a day,” Elsa said.
“I’ve been gone for longer, Elsa,” Silva said and patted her head. He looked up at Drake.
“So what’s the status of things?” he asked.
“All the dukes were captured; their families were allowed to go. We have basically captured the whole kingdom,” Drake said.
“Alright, I don’t want to kill the dukes; they didn’t really do anything to me, so we will seal their mana connections and release them,” Silva said.
Elsa suddenly looked up. She looked at Silva and spoke, “Daddy, didn’t the king have two sons and a wife? Where are they?”
Silva immediately realized he had overlooked that and used his sense to scan for people in the castle. After a few seconds, he found them hidden in a small secret room in the king’s bedroom.