Once the matter of territory was done and over with, the meeting shifted into a different gear.
Right back to Clayman, unfortunately.
While he didn't particularly care about the former Demon Lord Seed, Leon wanted to know why he was targeted. Carillon and Frey also wanted a bit more information on the matter, so I was forced to oblige by explaining everything I'd gathered about the events that led up to this whole disaster, from Clayman's perspective.
Though, honestly, we'd have been there all day, if I hadn't skipped into the highlight reel.
Basically, it all started with the Demon Lord Kazalim, the original owner of Clayman's land of Dhistav.
Actually, technically, Kazalim was Dhistav's second owner, but that didn't particularly matter right now.
Anyways, Kazalim was a True Demon Lord with some Unique Skill centered around mental manipulation. (S)He had a specialty for engineering large scale disasters, then using necromancy to cram all of those newly-dead souls into Deathman bodies.
Those Deathmen were the Moderate Harlequin Alliance now.
They had also all been killed in this war. Soei had gotten Footman and Tear, Althea had killed the eldest one, Laplace, and I'd just eaten Clayman.
But it'd all started when Leon had decided to become a Demon Lord.
To prove himself, just like I'd needed to, Leon had needed to quell his dissenter. Kazalim. So, he'd wandered over to Dhistav and lazily killed the Demon Lord in question.
As a Deathman, though, Kazalim had survived. Desperate, Kazalim had summoned an otherworlder to possess.
It'd failed, but I skirted around Yuuki's identity. As the leader of the Free Guild, if Leon ended up killing the dude for trying to manipulate him, it'd naturally lead to massive problems in the Western Nations.
Anyways, now, Kazalim was working with the Eastern Empire to expand hi(r)s influence in the West. First by setting hi(r)s subordinate up as a Demon Lord. Then, trying to set the Orc Lord up as a Demon Lord indebted to Clayman.
Then, trying to have me killed. Multiple times, apparently. There was a whole section of memories apparently geared around Yuuki telling Clayman to be careful because he couldn't kill Risa.
Then, they learned about Shizue Izawa's death happening in Tempest, which was good enough to convince Hinata, and through her, the entire Western Holy Church, to try to kill me.
In the event that it failed, at least I'd have killed Hinata, and the church would be a bit easier to deal with.
Meanwhile they'd make Tempest the enemy of the entire planet through rumor spreading. Knowing about Leon's… operations… in the Western Nations, he became a part of this plan, just because him and I fighting would be perfect from their point of view. Luckily, he wasn't petty enough to fall for that.
Beyond that, their plans included:
Using one of Kazalim's old artifacts to try and mind control Milim.
Using Milim to get rid of the overly-stubborn Carillon and blackmail Frey into submission.
And calling this Walpurgis to get Roy Valentine out of 'his sanctuary' so that the (now dead) Laplace could infiltrate it to look for blackmail material. And hopefully also bring the rest of the Demon Lords together against me. I didn't elaborate on where Roy Valentine's sanctuary was, but I did make sure to emphasize the fact that Laplace was dead, and thus couldn't infiltrate anything.
And with that, I'd pretty much explained everything that I possibly could without writing Yuuki an 'instant death' ticket.
As far as reactions, the only one with a visible reaction to anything I'd said was Roy Valentine, who looked a bit perturbed. Carillon and Frey looked like they'd figured most of that out by now, and were glad that it wasn't their problem anymore, and Milim was still sulking, holding Risa's slime form close to her chest as she listened in with an annoyed expression.
As for Leon? Not a single change in his expression. Clearly, he didn't really care, since, while he was clearly going to be one of Kazalim's targets, I was the one who'd been targeted so far, and Kazalim probably hated me even more than (s)he did Leon, since I'd just slaughtered all of hi(r)s precious subordinates one by one.
Not that I had any regrets about that. Between Izzy, Charybdis, and the Orc Lord, they definitely deserved what they got.
Kazalim and Yuuki could come at me with whatever they wanted. My friends and I were ready for it all.
"..." Somewhere in the back of my mind, Isis started to say something, but stopped itself.