If there was one thing the young demon prince and recently crowned Overlord of the Netherworld absolutely hated about his own Netherworld, it was the pesky fact that some wisecrack of a predecessor apparently thought that it was an ingenious idea to merge human ideals with demon ones. The unholy alliance of merger of ideals had led to what was known to all as the Dark Assembly, and Laharl had nothing but the deepest contempt for it. And it did not require a genius to see why the young Overlord was so pissed with the hopelessly flawed excuse of a democracy: every single last member of the Dark Senate, be it a pesky little imp who would have been squashed if not for the fact that it was always the first to fly out of danger, or the huge hulking golem that was seemingly content to doze off during all of Laharl's proposals, had one thing in common: all were disgustingly corrupt. Even the young overlord could find no words in his vocabulary to describe the extent of corruption that had seized the Dark Senate.
And he had every reason to be mad: just about every bill and request that the young overlord had proposed to the Dark Senate had been turned down, stalled or rejected on the spot, some for the most ridiculous reasons that that even an idiot with half a brain cell would snort at the pathetic excuse of an explanation. Proposal to use the castle Treasury to purchase better equipment and weapons from Rozen Queen for his combat vassals and frontline infantry, who would probably be doing even greater damage with toy weapons made out of plastic? Nay, because the senators feared 'insufficient transparency of how the funds would be managed appropriately and the costs of upgrading the vassals combat equipment outweigh the benefits'. Request for a cable TV system for all the servants and vassals in the castle? Nay, because of unfounded worries that 'vassals may use the services to access information that may be classified to the Netherworld's security systems'. That was, if Laharl's Netherworld even had the funds to implement any security systems to begin with. Bill for the acquirement of a massive fleet of soldiers and combat aircraft to deter any possible invasion of the Netherworld? Nay again, because the Senate were confident that no one would be dumb enough to invade the Overlord's Netherworld, conveniently forgetting what happened just a few hundred years back with the EDF and the in Overlord of an alternate Netherworld., and he, the PRINCE, got his own royal butt kicked so hard that even his scheming vassals had to abandon their plans for a coup d-etat just to drive that 'Overlord' out of their Netherworld before the possibility of the young prince getting killed in action became too real to brush off. And lastly, his proposal to invade Baal's hideout and put an end to the undisputed Lord of Terror once and for all? Complete and unanimous NAY from the Dark Senate, claiming that the young Overlord should stop wasting time on his campaigns and focus on handling the internal affairs of the Netherworld., as he was no match for the Lord of Terror. This was the biggest joke of all, because the Dark senate were already blocking all his bids and proposals for the administration of the Netherworld's day-to-day happenings. In addition to that cruel irony, the young prince had grown in strength and power, up to the point that he had already given Baal a royal trashing not just once, but a total of THREE times, once in the Cave of ordeals, and yet again with some help of the self-proclaimed 'most Baddass freakin Overlord in the Cosmos' who essentially did nothing except to open his pages and bark orders like a pathetic loser, and more recently, yet another time where he actually had the almighty Lord of Terror reduced to running away for his life like a wounded puppy that had been bullied by some young demons, until that run-in with the punk Mao distracted him long enough for the Lord of Terror to make his escape. And here they were, telling HIM that he was no match for that excuse of a Lord of Terror?
What a bunch of idiots.
Of course, young as he may be, the young Overlord was not ignorant to the methods of gaining support from the Dark Senate. In the past, prior to every session called, the young price could easily be seen heaving a huge sack of spare items that his vassals could spare, which would later be used as 'gifts', or more appropriately, bribes, to certain influential senators in a bid to get them to vote for a Yay instead of a Nay. It worked for awhile, but then, being the greedy, fat and corrupted demons that they were, the demands for favours and gifts swiftly escalated up to a point where the young Overlord decided that enough was enough, and ceased the practise of 'gift-distributing' completely. Naturally, this did not go well with the decadent senators, who, aggravated at losing a potential secondary source of income, swore right there and then to block every last one of Laharl's proposals, regardless of whether the proposals had any merit to them or not. And many a times, he young Overlord was tempted to just shove the notion of democracy right into one of those vulgar openings of those senators in the Assembly and pass his proposals in the good old fashioned way: with a bigass fireball, a large sword and LOTS of blood, limbs and heads flying around the Assembly grounds. And it was entirely possible: even if those old foggies of a Senator were several thousand years older than him, he was the freaking Overlord with the fighting power and strength to back his title. If those senators thought that they had the advantage of numbers against him, they would be sorely mistaken, and by the time that happened, the Assembly would probably be in dire need of a new paintjob and furniture. Then again, blood made excellent paint substitutes, don't they? Pure red in color and thick enough to withstand even the toughest stains. Gotta love those spilled blood.
He should have learnt his lessons by now, but the young Overlord was not one to just give up when the odds were stacked against him. Like it or not, he would go before the Dark Assembly to propose for the same bills that had been on his list of 'must-do' for the past century or longer. Not because he wanted to, but because he HAD to. Even though most would describe him as an arrogant, self-centered, egotistical and bratty Overlord at his best, the young demon did not relish the fact that his vassals were potentially sitting ducks in combat with their hopelessly old and outclassed equipment that had seen better days centuries ago, nor the prospect for having his Netherworld crumble before another invasion because there were no defence forces to engage the invaders. And he was still going to push for the cable TV proposal: it didn't take him too long to learn that 20-hour workdays with 0 leave or off-days allowed was driving more than a third of his vassals insane: the least he could do was to provide them with a proper form of entertainment, if only to keep them from thinking of pulling off a coup against him or organizing a protest for better working conditions. Of course, he had quietly increased their take-home pay gradually as well: welfare may not be enough to quell discontentment within the vassals, but money almost always does the trick, and what better way than to buy their loyalty with a fatter paycheck? The young overlord smirked to himself as he recalled how wide his flame-haired vassal's eyes opened when he handed out her salary for the month: he swore that they were practically as wide as dinner plates. And just a couple of hours before that, she was complaining to the others that he would just cut their paychecks on a whim just to buy the latest video game or movie that he fancied.
In your face, Etna, he thought as he picked up his enchanted scarf and tied it around his slender frame before leaving the comfortable confines of his bedroom. Today was the day the young Overlord would go before the Dark Assembly yet again to plead his case for his proposals to be passed, and the title of Overlord did not grant one immunity from turning up late for the Assembly, since he had to pull some strings (and a few threats) to force the Assembly to call this session on a weekend. It sounded like an extremely bad move to make considering how most of the Senators have aligned themselves against him, but the young Overlord clung on to the tiny bit of hope that with enough 'persuasion', the Senators may just get so tired of being summoned every so often and pass his proposals, if only just to stop him from bothering them. He was just about to give Pleinair her orders when that all-too-familiar voice rang throughout the old castle.
"Denka……"
Laharl just cursed inwardly and turned around to face his less-than-modestly dressed vassal. "Etna, I'm busy. So find something to entertain yourself, ok? And if it's about the Prinnies' salary, just pay them out of YOUR pocket first and claim it back from me later.."
She cut him off before he could continue with his ranting. "That's not what I came here for. And the Prinnies' payday is 2 weeks from now, so that's not the issue either."
"So what the hell do you want? If you have nothing to do, then go and train that whole lot of vassals that are content with rotting around the castle doing nothing except playing their own dumb little card game. Their weapons are already hopelessly outdated and useless, and yet not a single one is willing to implement a training regiment for those good-for-nothing slackers. You just wait: I bet even a single HUMAN soldier can take down at least 3 of my vassals without the slightest effort, all because they are too lazy to bother about their survival!" Laharl spat, his disgust and irritation finally starting to surface after suffering in silence for far too long. "And that goddamned ASS-sembly just plain refuses to see THAT!"
Etna just gave him a slight smile. "Your highness, you don't have to worry about that: I have sent my best student to start training those bunch of slackers, and if all goes well, those useless bums will be back to their fighting form within a couple of months or so, give or take. Of course, I'll see to it personally that they improve their combat levels and proficiency as well, and not just remaining stagnant at their current form. With any luck, they should be at the same levels as my student after that intensive training phase I have all planned out for them. But that will only work if YOU stop running yourself into the ground trying to convince the Senate to see your way. It'll never happen."
Laharl growled. "I have a job to do as Overlord and if I cannot even convince the Assembly to grant the funding required to upgrade my vassals' weapons, or to provide some 'welfare' for them, then I will say that I don't deserve to be the freaking OVERLORD!" he almost shouted. With that he turned away from her and shifted his attention to Pleinair. "The Dark Assembly…."
"Wait!"
"What now, Etna?!"
She turned away for a moment, seemingly embarrassed, before suddenly stalking right up to the young Overlord, pushing him into the cage and joining him in it. "Etna?! What the hell are you doing?"
She stared at him, her red eyes burning with determination, signifying that he had no say in the matter. "I'll come with you to the Assembly. And this time, you just sit down and rest. I'll be the one who will address the Senators this time."