"Why am I doing this?" It wasn't the first time Velvet asked herself that question and she knew it would hardly be the last one either. Once again the Lord of Calamity found herself tempted to just throw away everything she worked on and just tackle her problems in a more direct approach. If things would have gone after her, she would be busy working on the fields or milking cows or go hunting, anything would have been fine as long as it would not include endless amounts of paperwork.

Velvet had always been a woman of action, not one of sitting around and reading papers all day long. Granted the only one responsible for her situation was herself and she was sure she was doing a fairly good job without resulting to intimidating her nay-sayers too much.

Still there was only so much she could endure being cooped up inside the castle. She needed to get out or else she knew she was going to lose her mind. Luckily for her she would get the perfect opportunity to get some much needed exercise. And that opportunity presented itself in the form of Bienfu.

By pure coincidence Velvet had left the door to her room slightly ajar, allowing the little normin to enter her chambers. The daemon could hear the door slightly creaking, as Bienfu pushed it open in order to enter the room. Velvet noted that the small Seraphim appeared to be very pleased with himself if his smug grin was anything to go by.

"Somebody is in a good mood," the Lord of Calamity noted, putting a feather away she had been holding in her hand. Bienfu easily jumped up the table and landed with a soft "plop" sound.

"Did you find anything?"

"Hehe, you bet I found something," the normin grinned toothily. "I've found out plenty of people who are involved in the elixir smuggling. Most of them are noble people who just don't know any better. But!" the normin emphasized the word, pointing a finger at Velvet. He then surprised the female demon, by putting his hand under his hand and pulling out a tiny scroll from within. "I have here a list of people who definitely know that they are doing something illegal."

The normin unfolded the list before moving on. "Here, I wrote them down in alphabetical order. Do you want me to read them to you?"

The daemon smiled in amusement, when she heard that her little spy went through all of the effort as to write the list of suspects in alphabetical order. No doubt this was some leftover indoctrination from her late friend Magilou.

"Wait a moment," Velvet quickly grabbed an empty parchment as well as her quill. "Okay."

For the next couple of minutes Velvet diligently wrote down every name that Bienfu read out loud from his own list. Sadly for her, she didn't recognize any of the names on the list and the reason for that became apparent when Bienfu explained himself.

"Those are the people that bring the fake elixir directly to the people who buy them. They get a decent amount of money to keep silent about what is going on. Originally the list was a little longer, but it turns out that the rest of them don't even know what they're carrying around."

"And who exactly are "them"?" Velvet asked, as she went over the list.

"Oh, you know. Guards, servants, maids, the usual people who can go around carrying boxes big and small without attracting any attention."

The Lord of Calamity grimaced. "Great. The chances of one of them having any useful information are pretty slim."

"Hehehe."

"Huh?" Velvet looked away from the list with a raised eyebrow, wondering why Bienfu was cackling like he did.

"Well luckily for you, we won't need to interrogate any of them. For you see, I found out that this evening there's supposed to be another shipment of elixir to arrive from outside the city."

The woman's eyes widened ever so slightly.

"I managed to overhear two men talking about it. Sadly I didn't get their names or found out where they lived. But I think I can find them again easily."

"How so?"

"Oh, they were invited to dinner to one of the noble houses, Hendricks, I think," the dark normin explained himself. "I bet this wasn't the only time they were invited to a noble house. From what I picked out of their conversation, it sounded like they had pretty good connections to at least some noble houses. Longtime trade relations or something like that."

The daemon put a hand under her chin, thinking. "Well, that at least somewhat narrows down the suspect list. Still I am not too familiar with the noble houses or the important merchants going around."

"You don't?" Bienfu asked. "But... isn't this kind of your job now?" he asked, tilting his head.

"I killed about half the nobles, when I decided to go through with this plan. Needless to say the rest of them weren't too eager to become my acquaintances."

Bienfu felt a beat of sweat rolling down the back of his head, as he remembered Velvet telling the story of just how she became an empress of all things. That's not to mention how she managed to "tame" Laphicet for the lack of a better term.

"Anyways, we can worry about those two later. You said there's going to be a shipment arriving today?"

The normin nodded. "There will be a cart that will be arriving fairly late in town. The guards have been bribed to let it into the city, despite the late hours."

"Tch, figures," the daemon woman scoffed and looked out of her window. Specifically, she was looking at the outer walls of her city in roughly the direction of where the gates were positioned. "Not that I can really expect any loyalty out of any of them, I guess. If I send any of the guards out, there's a good chance they'll simply ask for a few coins and leave the smugglers alone."

A small smile crept up on the daemon's face. "Well, I have been looking for an excuse to get out of this castle for a while now."

XXX

Velvet checked herself out in the mirror. She could feel the nostalgia swelling in her chest from seeing herself wearing those kind of clothes. Velvet had taken off her dress and high heels and replaced them respectively with a light red vest, black trousers and brown boots. Instead of the black glove made out of soft cloth, she had bandages wrapped around her arm. Her hair had been redone into a single, long ponytail. Velvet had briefly considered braiding it like she used to back in her teens, but in the end decided against it.

Tapping her foot onto the ground the daemon heard the satisfying sound of a tiny blade coming out of her boot. After putting it back in, Velvet walked over to her bed where a very familiar gauntlet was waiting for her. After attaching it to her arm, Velvet triggered the hidden mechanism, causing a blade to snap out of the hole. Giving it a quick inspection, the daemon retracted her blade and turned around.

"So, how do I look?" the daemon woman asked Bienfu, who was sitting on Velvet's bed. Said normin was looking at the woman in front of him with wide eyes.

"Wow! It's like you're a completely different person. And you look so young! Like a teenager if I'm honest."

Velvet smiled lightly. "That's the whole point. The way I am dressed now, everybody will think I am some farmer's daughter and not spare me a second glance. That in return means I can make my way through the city without attracting any unwanted attention."

"That's genius! But how do you plan to get out of the castle without anybody noticing?"

XXX

As it turned out, quite easily. Like any well build castle nowadays, Velvet's newly acquired one had at least three hidden passageways that led outside the city. Originally designed as a matter of escape for the ruling class, Velvet could use this passage to freely enter and exit the castle without anyone noticing. Sadly for her most of the tunnels were collapsed, probably due to low maintenance, as such all she could do was follow a very specific way, which she had memorized ever since she took over the castle in order to reappear in an unsuspecting alleyway.

Both daemon and normin could already hear the general commotion of the city going on outside, before exiting the tunnels. After Velvet made sure the wall door was locked securely, she made her way onto the street as if she was just another citizen. Bienfu for his part was sitting on Velvet's shoulder, taking a free ride.

Despite it being the evening with the sun already setting, there were still a lot of people on the streets and going after their daily routines. People selling their wares, guards on patrol and even some children playing on the side of the street. Since she still had some time to spare, Velvet decided to go into the next best inn she could find.

"What are we doing here?" Bienfu asked.

"Gathering information," Velvet whispered back. Knowing that none of the other people could see Bienfu, she kept her voice down in order as to not as appear as a crazy person.

"I have a general idea as to what the people think of me, but it would be good to know what exactly they think of me. Additionally, I might hear some things that usually don't reach my ears in the throne room."

The normin accepted the explanation and kept silent as Velvet made her way over to an empty table in the corner of the room. It didn't take long for a waitress to arrive at Velvet's table, which was slightly surprising, considering how much was going on. Still, it wasn't unwelcome.

"Good evening. You're new here aren't you?" the waitress asked.

"Yup," Velvet replied with a smile, trying to make her voice sound more akin to the personality she had before turning into a daemon. "My father sent me to the city to run a few errands. We're just humble farmers."

"I see," the waitress nodded. "Well whether you're a farmer or a merchant, you're equally welcome. So, what can I bring you?"

"Just a soup will be fine for me."

"Coming right up!" With those words the waitress left Velvet and Bienfu alone. The latter had taken a seat on the other end of the table. The daemon looked around for a little bit and was slightly surprised at what she saw.

"Everyone looks so happy," she said just loud enough for Bienfu to hear. "They're laughing, playing cards... huh. I honestly wasn't expecting this."

"Well, this is a bar," Bienfu pointed out. "People come here to forget about their troubles and just have some good old fashioned fun. They act differently outside."

Velvet looked at Bienfu. "And how do they act outside?"

"Well, that depends on where you ask." Bienfu looked around the room for a little, before speaking up again. "Everyday people like the ones here, they're confused. On the one hand they're terrified that a Hellion is now the ruler of their country. On the other hand, not much really changed for them. They still have to pay taxes, they still can do their daily chores and so on. Though, they do pray more often. At least that's the vibe I am getting."

"Well, at least there's something positive coming out of all of this," Velvet muttered. "The people are praying to the Empyreans once again. Even if it is in fear of me, it's at least something."

"Er, right." Bienfu shook his head. "It's very different for people of the noble class, however. They are very afraid. Especially since you took over the country singlehandedly and killed half of the ruling class and fear they might be next."

"I won't do anything to them. At least as long as they behave," the woman informed the normin.

"And... by behave you mean don't get in your way or they're gonna get eaten?"

"You know me so well."

"Too well, I think," Bienfu sweatdropped. He let out a small sigh before continuing. "And then there are the knights. They really hate you, but I guess you already knew that."

The normin interrupted himself, when the waitress brought Velvet her order. "Enjoy your meal," she told the daemon, before heading off to the next table, taking orders from other patrons.

"Anyways, I heard some of the knights talking very openly talking about overthrowing you. Normally I would tell you to be careful, but..." Bienfu sighed and shook his head. "It's not like the old days, where the common soldiers could get weapons enhanced by Seraphim. They can't really hurt you. Plus their captain is keeping them in check, for the time being anyway."

"Sergei is smart. He won't try anything without thinking it through properly. With that being said, he did underestimate me at first. He thought he could kill me by sending some assassins after me."

Bienfu didn't comment any further on the matter. Over the years he had forgotten how casual Velvet was when it came to killing other people. As he saw Velvet eat, he wondered if he should have asked the daemon if she could buy something to eat for him too. He was certainly growing an appetite, seeing all of those people enjoying their meals. He was about to ask Velvet to maybe get him something light, when he saw two particular people sitting on the other end of the room. The normin looked a bit harder, just to make sure, but there was no doubt about it. Those two men were guards, but not any guards. Those two were on the list he wrote down for Velvet. He particularly remembered this pair of men, because one of them had a big nose, while the other had a scar running through his face.

"I'll be right back," Bienfu said, before jumping off the table and running across the room. The disguised Lord of Calamity looked after her old friend curiously, until he reached the table of the two guards.

"And then she grabbed his neck with her arm, held him up and squeezed him with her fingers until his head popped off the rest of his body." The man telling the story shuddered. "His head rolled on the ground and you could still see the fear in his eyes."

"By the gods..." the other man shook his head and took a deep swing from his mug. "That idiot. He should have known better than to attack her. I don't know what kind of monster she is, but I have seen swords just breaking when they got swung against her very body."

The other man nodded. "I lost every single one of my comrades when she took over. Damn monster. And now we have to guard her? If there is a god out there, then he has a twisted sense of humor."

"Indeed," the man with the scar leaned back in his chair. "A demon ruling over a kingdom of humans. Sounds like a bad joke, if you ask me." He looked down inside his mug. "Unfortunately for us, it has become reality."

"Well, not for much longer," the man with the big nose argued. "With how we're getting paid on our... side-job... it's only a matter of time until we have gathered enough money to make a living outside of this thrice damned kingdom."

"You're right. Let's just hope our heads stay attached to our bodies until that time comes."