Minute Mage: A Time-Traveling LitRPG Progression Fantasy

Chapter 27: Welcome to Hell. Get Ready to Die!

A Devil sat at a desk in a damp, dark room. The papers and reports he had once diligently read and responded to were now piled in a corner, long forgotten.

Instead, the entirety of his days were consumed by managing military resources, troop arrangements, and battle plans. He planned on sending forces to every settlement in the Koinkar Kingdom, and he needed to manually select which forces would go where, at what time, in what order, and so on.

Of course, his main target was where the Human – Arlan Nota – currently was: the city of Carth. He was constantly changing, finalizing, or requesting something that had to do with the Carth attack.

And now, he had to make one last finalization. One of his requests had gone through twelve total stages of confirmation, and was currently awaiting its thirteenth and final signature. And it had apparently been passed so high up in the chain of command that the thirteenth Demon had no idea what it was even talking about. He evidently had more important matters to worry about than simple prison breaks.

But that didn’t mean the request would be rejected. Instead, it meant something arguably worse – the Devil needed to go and personally explain the situation to this superior. This was one of the last things he needed to do before the attack commenced. In a few hours, Arlan Nota would either be dead, or he'd be alive. And that simple distinction – a single Human's life – would determine quite a bit in the Devil's life. At least, in a few Overworld hours. To the Devil, who lived in the Underworld, the wait would feel longer. Yet more time for him to sit and wait in nervous anticipation.

But for now, he needed to go speak with that superior. He walked out of his personal office and into the larger structure outside. The hundreds of underlings sitting in the massive stone room glanced over at him, but he waved them back to work. In an instant, the scratching of pens filled the room once more.

He glanced along the walls of the room, looking for the correct door. There were at least a thousand of them, all inlaid into the rough stone walls next to each other with tiny metal plaques above them to say which was which. The Devil’s own office was through door 214.6b – all the 214s were for private offices, but his office was the largest. He was the manager of this prison complex, after all.

He scanned the nearby doors. The 771s led to the different paper import chambers, doors 300 through 409 led to all of the different ink import chambers, with each individual number corresponding to a different color of ink, door 999 was for executing insubordinate underlings, etc.

The door he was looking for was 125.66t. That one would leave the offices and lead through a few hubs, so he could get to his destination: the fifteenth army of the 7th Circle of the Underworld. The Devil would need to borrow some troops from them to use in the Overworld. The 7th Circle was fighting a few of the other Circles of the Underworld – it was always so difficult to keep track of the shifting alliances and wars between all the Circles – so they wouldn’t spare much, but the Devil really only needed one soldier. Well, ‘soldier’ was a bit incorrect. Maybe ‘weapon’.

The rest of the troops, the Devil had gotten from the other armies for his Circle. Mainly just some basic grunts, but they should’ve been more than enough to handle this mission.

The Devil really hadn’t been given many resources to pull this off. It made sense – getting back the power stolen by Arlan Nota wasn’t a very large priority, in the grand scheme of things – but it still frustrated him. Billions of soldiers in the armies of the 7th Circle, and he only got thousands? The acquisition of this last weapon should've made up for it, though. That is, as long as he could actually convince this higher-up to let him have it.

The Devil pushed through the heavy door and entered into a long stone hallway that sloped slightly downward and extended on for a bit, before coming to another door. He walked through. There was sense to the hallway’s length, of course; each of these hallways were an exact length of a number of paces equal to the number of stacking positions of power required to be allowed to walk through them. This one was 18 paces long, which was a bit below the Devil’s position, so he was safe to walk through. If he hadn’t been authorized, the Enchantments lining the hallway would’ve caused him to implode.

He walked through the next door and into a hub, about twice as large as his own personal office. There were a few dozen doors lining the walls of this room, too, each specifying different destinations with the familiar numeral plates. And, of course, in the middle of the room was a hall monitor.

Hall monitoring was one of the few occupations that had no ties to a Demon’s race. Diviners were the only ones that could divine, Devils were commonly assigned to middle management, all Gargoyles were given copying jobs, and so on. The reason for this was simple: normally, a Demon’s job was a source of pride. They were to work with zeal. It was their purpose in life.

But to be a hall monitor was a punishment. If a Demon behaved poorly enough, they would be demoted and thrown out here, tasked with ensuring nobody was running through the halls unallowed. There were some ways to subvert the hallway Enchantments, after all, so these hall monitors were the last line of defense. And, of course, they could also provide directions to any Demon who lost its way in the maze of halls. Though, to do something as stupid as forget where you were was humiliating in its own right. Especially since you’d have to resort to asking the likes of a hall monitor for help. Most wouldn’t even want to look one in the eye, much less speak to them.

At least, that was what the Demons were told. The Devil knew enough to know that the issue of people exploring where they shouldn’t wasn’t nearly large enough to station a Demon in every single hallway hub. No, they were there to be shamed. Every Demon to walk the halls – so, basically every single Demon – would see the hall monitors as they walked. The shamed Demons, put out there to do nothing but be a warning to the others. Don’t do what I did, they seemed to be there to say.

The hall monitor for this hub was an Infernal – one of the main grunts in the armies of the 7th Circle. It was a big hulking thing with copious amounts of muscles upon muscles stacked on every one of its limbs, and sunken, black eyes. It’d probably deserted from whatever army it worked in or something, and now it was stuck here. Sitting with absolutely nothing to do, for days, weeks, months, years. It just looked at the Devil with a dead expression while he walked through the hub and into the next hallway – labeled 3.2a.

He walked through the same-y hallways and hubs, each with a defeated hall monitor inside, as he made his way to the superior’s office. Eventually, he walked through one last door and arrived into an area that wasn’t another hub. He stepped onto a metal catwalk that was suspended over a gigantic cavern, so large that he couldn’t see any of the walls, other than the one he just came through the door of. He also couldn’t see the ceiling, or the floor for that matter – the catwalk was suspended high enough that basically nothing was visible.

Well, nothing was visible except for the tangle of other catwalks suspended through the same room. There were hundreds, all snaking through, some above the Devil, some below, and some crossing and creating intersections with the others.

In the distance, the Devil could hear the echoes of noises in the room, probably coming from people on the floor. This was one of the training areas for the fifteenth army, so there were shouts and crashes and explosions constantly ringing out from unseen spars and field tests.

He was almost to his destination, now. From here, he just had to find the superior’s office. He’d never even seen the Demon in person, so he wasn’t entirely sure where the office would be.

“Well,” he muttered to himself, “time to get searching.”

It took him another hour to find the right office, with the assistance of some other Demons he crossed on the catwalks, but eventually he got there. He opened the door and walked inside.

The first thing that struck him was the office’s massive size. It must have been 4… no, 5% larger than the Devil’s, at least! Truly an incredible display of status.

And, of course, there was the Demon occupying the office. He was a Fiend Magus, a Demon that specialized in the summoning and control of other, less powerful Demons. Considering the superior’s incredible status, the Devil doubted he actually did much summoning, though. Specifically, he was the General Lieutenant Coordinator, 32nd class, of the fifteenth army of the 7th Circle of the Underworld. Needless to say, he was much higher up than the Devil.

Fiend Maguses were somewhat similar-looking to Devils, but had some key differences. Where Devils were completely bald, Fiend Maguses had a natural crown of horns growing from their skulls. The actual number varied, but it was usually around a dozen curved horns sprouting from the sides of their heads and pointing upward. This one had thirteen, it seemed, completely circling his head. The superior was sitting at a desk, reading through a report. He didn’t seem to notice the Devil’s entering.

The Devil bowed. “Formal expression of greeting, Wortinwukaito’shizazukarwintowrochi’wrochiwrantishokorinkinamlitep’voxhizuwranjulimono’zaxaruluionomran’walaxivintoproligunt’kuntoiwar’enuminonoplaxxiuntepinarntinum’wastiunintiuninpronviaxtrunwia.”

“Greeting,” the superior said without looking up. “Name?”

“My name is Xhag’duulinithar’obaba’iidook’naisantipoduun’torobaroxhixhonxhaxintep. I am here to speak to you about my request. For the Supreme one.”

“Mm. Remember reading that. Why should I care?”

"The Human has stolen the power of Temporus. That lost power could interfere with our operations here. As such, I believe we should allocate some number of resources to reclaim it, superior Wortinwukaito’shizazukarwintowrochi’wrochiwrantishokorinkinamlitep’voxhizuwranjulimono’zaxaruluionomran’walaxivintoproligunt’kuntoiwar’enuminonoplaxxiuntepinarntinum’wastiunintiuninpronviaxtrunwia.”

“Could we not just wait for the Human to die of natural causes? Remember hearing they perish rather quickly.”

“Formal expression of apology, superior, but time flows differently for the Overworld. Even if the Human did not magically extend his lifespan, if he lived to eighty years, it could take half a millenia from our perspective. That would almost certainly cost us more resources in the long run than if we just spent them now to kill him and get it over with.

“Hm. And you want the Supreme one to do this?”

“Yes, superior Wortinwukaito’shizazukarwintowrochi’wrochiwrantishokorinkinamlitep’voxhizuwranjulimono’zaxaruluionomran’walaxivintoproligunt’kuntoiwar’enuminonoplaxxiuntepinarntinum’wastiunintiuninpronviaxtrunwia.”

“How long did you want it for, again?”

The Devil blinked. The superior really didn’t remember that? It was all over the report he’d written. Well, he supposed the superior must have been pretty busy, since he was higher in rank. …But then again, the Devil always felt like he was put under less stress the higher up he got. Other than right now, when he was trying to plan this invasion on top of doing his normal job, he felt like the hardest time in his life was when he was a lowly office grunt. Well, whatever. He shouldn’t’ve been questioning his superior’s competence, anyway. “I had requested the Supreme one for ten Overworld-equivalent minutes, superior.”

“Mm. Too long. You just said the overworld experience time at a longer rate, right? That’d be, like, half an hour for us.”

“...It’d be closer to a full hour, superior.”

“Exactly my point. Much too long.”

“I see, superior. Formal expression of apology for wasting your time. I will take my leave–”

“No, no, not yet. See, I’m a generous man, and I’ll still give it to you for a bit. You just need to convince me first.”

The Devil frowned. “What would you need for me to convince you?”

The superior finally looked up from the paper he was reading and stared right into the Devil’s eyes. His lips curled up into a cruel smile. “Beg.”

The Devil grit his teeth. Was this man seriously holding back something that could help the entire Demon race for his own ego? He initially wanted to report him for abuse of power, but then he remembered that the report would have to go through all thirteen levels of confirmation, like all things, and one of those levels would end up being this exact Demon. So, it would obviously be rejected.

He almost considered walking out right there. But he needed the Supreme one. If this assault didn’t go well, it’d be bad. He suppressed a sigh. “Please, superior Wortinwukaito’shizazukarwintowrochi’wrochiwrantishokorinkinamlitep’voxhizuwranjulimono’zaxaruluionomran’walaxivintoproligunt’kuntoiwar’enuminonoplaxxiuntepinarntinum’wastiunintiuninpronviaxtrunwia, I plead that, in your infinite kindness, you grant me access to the Supreme one.”

“Hm. Not very enthusiastic. I’ll give it to you for ten Overworld seconds, instead of minutes. How about that?”

The Devil bit down on the inside of his mouth, hard. “Yes, superior Wortinwukaito’shizazukarwintowrochi’wrochiwrantishokorinkinamlitep’voxhizuwranjulimono’zaxaruluionomran’walaxivintoproligunt'kuntoiwar’enuminonoplaxxiuntepinarntinum’wastiunintiuninpronviaxtrunwia. Your generosity is appreciated.”

“Good. Nothing further to discuss. Leave.”

The Devil marched down the many hallways on his way back to his office. He groaned, rubbing his hands against his face as he walked. This wasn’t really because the meeting had gone bad, though. Sure, that superior was rude, and it would’ve been better to have gotten the Supreme one for longer, but that thing existing in the Overworld for ten full seconds would be more than enough to wreak havoc.

No, he was upset about the fact that the call he’d just finished was the last step needed to prepare for the invasion. The armies had been constructed, each human settlement had been assigned the forces it would be attacked by, and the Demon soldiers were lined up and prepared to change realms. Once the Supreme one was on standby, the attack would start.

And the Devil couldn’t be more stressed.

He wasn’t worried for the invading Demon forces. Well, they were certainly in danger, sure. Many of them were headed straight into the territory of Human Classers with dozens upon dozens of Levels under their belt – the Devil had done quite a bit of research on the Human Class system in preparation of the invasion, so he knew how big of a deal it would be to go up against a force like that. However, no matter how powerful the enemy, the Demon soldiers would almost certainly be safe from death.

The way that Demons entered the Overworld wasn’t by simple travel. The Demons were sophisticated enough in the ways of magic that they could – with the help of numerous powerful Spellcasters – project a part of themselves to the parallel plane. The projected Demons would be able to perceive and exist in the Overworld, but their true selves would be safe in the Underworld.

Now, sure, it would still be incredibly unpleasant if their projections were killed in the Overworld – it was a piece of them, after all – but it wouldn’t kill them. Put them out of commission for a few weeks? Definitely. Damage them so severely that they are permanently unfit for battle? Possibly. But not dead. They could still do paperwork, at least.

There were cases when Demons truly traveled to the Overworld, bringing their entire selves along with them and dealing with the consequences of being mortal in such a chaotic realm – Temporus had done so, after all – but the projection method was much safer and more standardized.

In truth, what caused the Devil so much stress was simple worry. Worry that the invasion wouldn’t go as planned. Worry that this fugitive, Arlan Nota, would somehow fight it off. Worry that he would get stuck dealing with this nerve-wracking Temporus case for even longer. In short, he was stressed out about the possibility that he’d get stuck with more stress.

What a predicament, he thought to himself. But really, now, everything’s in place.

In just a few hours, the moment of reckoning would be upon that Human. All the Devil had left that he could do now was sit back and watch the spectacle.

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