CHAPTER 319: MEETING

"Alright, let’s start this meeting... Aokitsu, could you please sit properly?" Elena says to me while I have my legs on the table.

"Why?" I say to her while my tail moves to the side.

"Because it’s improper to have you putting your feet on the table as if you own the place," Elena says seriously.

"Only you’re complaining," Kaelith, Freya, Calypso, and Lilith with her other heads don’t seem to mind.

"Even so, you should have the manners not to put your legs on the table. If Pandora were here, would you do that?" She questions.

"Obviously not, but she’s not here and Freya didn’t complain about it, and as far as I know, it’s Freya who’s responsible for me," I say with an arrogant smile.

"Take your legs off the table or I’ll kick you out of the meeting," She says seriously, knowing she has more authority on this matter.

"That’s unfair!! Why do you only complain to me? Kaelith is using a fucking vibrator on her intimate parts that won’t stop buzzing, but you don’t complain to her!" I say, hearing that annoying buzzing coming from Kaelith’s intimate parts.

"...Kaelith is... complicated, but what she does with her body is not something we should intervene in," Kaelith doesn’t seem to mind being exposed this way.

"Guys!! Let’s just start this meeting, we have things to do," Iris says, this girl is the new head of Lilith, now Lilith Nix Chaos Iris is a hydra with four heads, so things got a bit messy with the extra girl in the relationship.

"I agree with my dear little girl," Lilith says with a small smile while Iris beams.

"...Okay..." Elena ends up giving in while I keep my legs on the table, now that Lilith has intervened, no one will say anything else.

"We are gathered here to discuss the current situation of the kingdom, many things have been done thanks to Pandora’s ideas, but a new problem has recently arisen," Elena begins, throwing some papers on the table.

"...It seems the hunger problem continues..." Freya murmurs, seeing the papers, the increase in number due to the many beastmen has caused the food that was once stable to be in the red again, and Pandora is not here to solve this.

"So... does anyone have ideas to solve this hunger problem? Before it was all fine, but the beastmen have put us on the edge again," Calypso asks while everyone seems to be thinking about this complicated problem.

"Isn’t it just planting more food and hunting more animals?" I question, Elena sighs and looks at me as if I were a stupid idiot who only talks nonsense.

"WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM!!" I yell at her, this damn woman complains about everything I do.

"Freya, weren’t you teaching this girl things, shouldn’t she know more?" Elena speaks to Freya, ignoring me and rubbing her temples as if I were an annoying problem.

"For now I’m teaching her more about leading troops since she’s going to replace Thalor, so her information is limited," Freya says, taking other papers from the table.

"..." I feel excluded when the others also start reviewing the papers, I don’t know what to do and no one seems to pay attention to me.

"Tsk," I click my tongue while waiting, glaring coldly at that damned succubus.

"Haa..." Elena sighs, looking at me.

"Aokitsu, let me be clear, our lands are not suitable for growing food, the few areas where we grow food have been cared for a long time to be able to maintain stable plantations."

"There are no animals here besides monsters, unlike the territories of the other races, we are in a terrible natural location, there is really nothing stable here to serve as a food source," Elena speaks to me seriously.

"Hunting animals or increasing plantations is not possible even with magic, Pandora has already performed a miracle by generating a relic system to make the terrain more stable and fertile for plantations, it can’t be improved much further."

"Pandora herself took 2 months to create this so that it would work, there are many problems to consider when talking about planting food or hunting food in demonic territory due to mana and poison in almost everything."

"You who live in the castle don’t understand the difficulties that those who live out there faced before Pandora arrived," Elena speaks almost as if she is judging me.

"Demons are the race with the highest mortality rate caused by hunger, not to mention murder, death by poisoning, kidnappings among hundreds of other problems."

"Aokitsu, you have no idea what it’s like to not even have clean water to drink, since all the water in the demon territory is filled with miasma another problem Pandora solved by using relics that purify and destroy the miasma before the water reaches the kingdom.""

"We have many problems and you still don’t understand, you only see how inside the kingdom it seems like a paradise where demons are happy, fed, and with safe housing."

"You have no idea how terrible it was before Pandora showed up, did you know that after Pandora was born, the natural mortality of demons fell by 1200%?"

"And yet, only in the areas close to the kingdom do a high number of demons die, and in the areas far from the kingdom, an equally large number still die."

"..." I remain silent, listening to this sermon.

"I-It can’t be that bad..." I murmur, but she hears me and seems even angrier.

"Slave, do you like your people to be treated like a slave race by the others?" She speaks, irritating me.

"Don’t you like it? Well, just as you hate it, we hate that our race keeps dying, isn’t it ridiculous that we have 20 times more difficulty staying alive than other races?"

"Isn’t that absurd?" She questions me as the atmosphere becomes heavy.

"..."

"Are you telling me that just having Pandora made everything much better? Isn’t that ridiculous? She’s a single being!" I speak, finding this absurd, a single leader can’t have made so many changes.

"..." When I say this, I end up attracting a certain hatred from everyone in the room, making me feel wronged.

"Y-You’re just being prejudiced because I’m not a demon!!" I speak, trying to defend myself from the looks.

"You’re at this table with us, aren’t you? You have an important position in the kingdom, don’t you? You even gained partial control of a large territory of the demonic kingdom, is that really prejudice?" Calypso speaks to me, irritated.

"W-Well..."

"Pandora didn’t care that you were a beastman, she just saw that you were useful and decided to welcome you into her direct troops, just the fact that a beastman is at this table shows how we’re giving you huge privileges," Elena accuses me now.

"T-This is different!"

"How old are you?" Freya asks.

"... 780 years old..." I speak my age, not understanding what she wants to say.

"Pandora is 1 year old and a few months, during this short period of time she built a kingdom, fixed the problems of thirst and hunger, leaving them stable, won a war against a race."

"She defeated the anomaly that is the strongest human, became the current strongest monster on the planet, became a goddess, takes care of the kingdom’s policies even from a distance and has brilliant ideas to solve problems and minimize damage and expenses, and has many other things done by her that I can’t list to avoid dragging this meeting," Freya speaks with coldness.

"In less than two years, Pandora has accomplished more than you have ever achieved in 780 years, all by her own merit, effort and hard work, obviously she has talent, but talent alone is not enough when it is not applied with mastery," Freya finishes speaking and stares at me in silence.

"...B-But she didn’t do it all alone..." I murmur, still trying to seem right.

"You’re right, Pandora didn’t do it all alone, but she did more than 70% of all this without any help, all the ideas, the plans and the hard work initially came from her," Lilith speaks this time with a mature tone.

"What Pandora didn’t do alone was build the things, the kingdom was built with a lot of effort from everyone, the relics used in water and agriculture were also built by another person who is the demon alchemist, but all the original ideas were Pandora’s."

"None of this was thought of by others, Pandora may not have done these things 100% alone, but she knew how to lead, she had the charisma, talent and intelligence to make things progress."

"She is a good leader, a little tyrannical and authoritarian, but undeniably a leader who knew what to do, while you, Aokitsu, as a leader, failed in the only duty you had, which was to lead your race with mastery," Lilith now speaks a little more severely.

"Aokitsu, I suggest that before trying to give an opinion, you go to the library and read the books on the most recent demonic history, there it is written everything that Pandora has done, she is incredible, isn’t she? In less than two years she is already spoken of in history books, not that she knows about it," Elena speaks to me in a less severe way now.

"In these books, there are even details on how she came up with the ideas so that future generations can look and learn to do the same or even improve."

"We always catalog the ideas of each demonic king for future demonic kings to be inspired by, as well as promising young demons, now let’s continue the meeting without interruptions," Elena speaks as everyone turns their attention back to the papers.

"...I’m leaving..." I get up from the table, there’s no point in staying here when I won’t be of any use, it’s better for me to go read those books and see why they think she’s so perfect and incredible.

In my view, she just seemed like a powerful leader, and for beastmen, strength is all that matters, which is why I accepted how things are, I can’t understand all these things about her being this incredible person they say.

To me, she seemed more terrifying and frightening than someone really incredible.