"What is this doing here?" Shirou said, genuinely surprised as he opened a large ornate chest in a hidden room in the back of his treasury to find a… legendary Demon Lord Killing Sword. "I thought that Astarte said she wasn't going to be able to do me any favors."
Considering the rather pitiful stock he had, finding the sword was more than a little surprising.
"I'm amazed that milord was able to find this room so easily! It is only ever mentioned in one of the secret texts in our library!" Eve stated with wide eyed astonishment. "That is one of the Legendary Weapons of the 72 Heroes which oppose the Demon Lords."
"Yes, I know, but why is it here?" Shirou knew everything about Ragnell from the moment he laid eyes on the golden bronze blade of the claymore. It was a blade to dispel winds, shield from scrying and cut through magical protections, and had been wielded by many heroes in the past in the battles again… previous iterations of Ashtaroth?
It was an Anti-Demon Lord Sword, specially made for killing the Demon Lord Ashtaroth... And it was in HIS castle's storage.
WHAT THE FUCK!?
"As per tradition, every Demon Lord has one of the Legendary Weapons hidden away in their castle. They act as symbols of power and prized treasures." Eve explained.
"...They just keep them as trophies? They don't, you know, use them?"
"Of course they don't. They are hero weapons."
"..." Shirou didn't know how to respond to that. It was as if he was back in the Holy Grail war and being told that the Servants wouldn't use any weapons for sportsmanship reasons. Why did they even have them? Where they just holding onto them for when the Hero showed up to kill them? The weapon's history even shared how the Hero didn't usually have the sword until after they found it in the Demon Lord's castle, on their way to fighting the Demon Lord.
Shirou wasn't exactly worried about a Hero coming after him, as he wasn't planning on making an enemy of any human territories, but the fact that the sword was there was just so strange.
"Yeah, I'll be taking this."
"What!? But Milord, that is the sword that only the Hero is supposed to use." Eve said, surprised by Shirou's actions as the newly revived Demon Lord took the sword from the chest and drew the blade, testing its weight. It was a good sword.
"It is an Anti-Demon Lord weapon. I am hunting Demon Lords. I think it will be useful."
In reality, he didn't even need to take it with him, since he could just trace it if he needed it, but he would like to keep it on hand, at least until he found a subordinate that was worth giving it to.
He would have to make sure to find others like it, since his stock of powerful weapons had taken a… small hit. With this not being Earth and the legends that supported his Noble Phantasms not existing, his powerful legendary items were now only well made swords with average magical properties.
This was going to make things much, much harder for him, as his skills with the inherent abilities as the Demon Lord Ashtaroth were limited.
"Amazing, no Demon Lord has ever made use of the Legendary Heroes' Weapons before." Eve said, surprised by the novelty of Shirou's idea.
Shirou didn't want to acknowledge that. "So, what are our supplies looking like?"
"Not good I'm afraid. We only have low grade materials, and only enough to summon a dozen or so soldiers."
"A dozen huh." Shirou said, closing his eyes. According to lore, each of the Demon Lords of Hell should have dozens of Legions of monsters under their command. This was going to be a very uphill struggle. "So, how do we go about getting materials?"
"Well, you can either build a new farm in the castle, expand the castle town to increase the population and then raise taxes, or summon an army and have them gather or plunder. Those would be the conventional methods." Eve stated.
"...Right now, no one knows that I even exist. So long as they don't, I don't need to worry about large raiding parties. For now, we keep our population at zero, using the minimal number of soldiers to guard the tunnels and force everything else on foraging and gathering information on our targets." Shirou said with a nod of his head. "Let's summon everything we can and get to work."
"Yes, Milord." Eve said, bowing before turning away to make the preparations.
With the few materials they had, Shirou managed to summon ten skeleton warriors and three wood golems.
The skeletons weren't that strong, but they seemed to be rather hard to kill, as they lacked vitals and their bones would be capable of mending themselves within a level of reasoning. While not incredibly intelligent, they could follow simple orders about hunting and gathering and could use bows and arrows.
The wood golems were stronger, massive creatures, but were actually useless for Shirou's purposes, as they lacked the ability to operate without drawing attention and weren't intelligent enough to hunt. While they seemed to be rated higher, Shirou would have gladly traded them for ten more skeletons. As such, they were left to guard the rather miserable ruins that was Ashtaroth castle.
It had come as a surprise to Shirou that right outside of his little ruins there was already a struggling city that had appeared, full of people who made the ruins their home. Eve had suggested taxing the people there, as they were making use of Shirou's land, but the new Demon Lord didn't want to tip his hand and reveal to the world that he was revived.
He also lacked a real reason for why they should bother to pay taxes to him, as he had never done anything for them. Perhaps later, after he had established himself and proved himself to be helpful, he could negotiate with them, but he wouldn't force them to obey him. Not when they already seemed to be having problems.
Instand, he stuck to his original plan of gathering as much resources as he could from the surrounding lands.
Eve had been shocked when Shirou had insisted on joining the skeleton's in this venture, as while his job was supposed to be governing, he didn't as of yet have anything to govern. Apparently, Demon Lords never did their own dirty work outside of open war, and even then, only if the enemy was appropriately strong and after being fashionably late.
Shirou didn't have time for that, so he would gather materials himself. Once she realized he was serious, Eve joined them, in order to help instruct them as to what materials were needed.
They worked hard, and after a single day, gathered quite a bit of materials. Enough to summon eleven more monsters to join the cause. Shirou's tracking skills and Eve's knowledge of what to look for made them work extremely quickly and thoroughly.
"It would seem the plan is working well, Master." Eve said cheerfully as she poured him tea. He wasn't entirely sure where she had gotten the tea from, but wasn't about to complain. It was a surprisingly good blend and he made a mental note to ask her more about it later.
"For now. Sooner or later, we are going to end up completely exhausting the local supply. I doubt we will have as much luck any time in the near future." Shirou said as he looked over the stock. "If we want to catch up to the other Demon Lords, we will need more. So before my presence is revealed to the world, I plan on assassinating one of the other weaker Demon Lords and taking everything that is theirs. For that, I'll need an appropriate target, and information about their castle layout. I want to bring them down before they have the chance to even fight back."
"I don't know if we will be able summon a Demon capable of doing such a thing." Eve said.
"I know. That is why I will do it myself."
"WHAT!?" Eve shouted in shock. "Master, you can't! That is far too risky! If something happens to you, it will all be over!"
"At the moment, I am the greatest military asset we have. If we are going to succeed, I will need to be ready to take matters into my own hands." Shirou explained, flashing the girl a smile. "Don't worry. I'm used to this line of work. Now come on, we have some spies to summon."
"...Yes, Master."
Shirou ended up spending the best materials he had found into trying to create useful spies, while using the lesser materials to create more scavengers to search the nearby areas.
Just as Astarte said, what type of unit Shirou desired seemed to have an effect on the outcome, as when he wished to summon spies, he got them.
The pair of slimes he summoned were extremely weak creatures, with almost no combat potential, but what they did have more than made up for it. The ability to transform, controlling one's shape, size and color in order to be able to hide and slip in anywhere. They could even take on the forms of people and communicate easily, and were intelligent enough to give detailed reports.
They had been exactly what Shirou had been looking for.
He also got three bakeneko and a fourth, stronger nekomata, which appeared to be created by sheer luck. The cat demons possessed the same abilities as from lore and could shapeshift to look like normal cats, human girls, or half girl half cats. They were stronger than normal humans and fast as well. Sadly, they were a little lazy and untrained, acting much like the preteens that they looked like, and unlike the skeletons, they required food to survive.
Luckily, the cats were still going to be useful for infiltration and stealth missions, when a little more muscle was required and the day's hunting had provided both materials, and normal food, so feeding them wasn't going to be a problem.
"Master, you can't!" Eve said forcefully. "A Demon Lord shouldn't be the one cooking for his servants!"
"Eve, it really isn't a problem." Shirou said as he worked to grind what grains they had into flour. He didn't have many ingredients at his disposal, and all of it was in its most raw form and would require processing, but there was still enough variety to make a good meal. "Cooking is something of a hobby of mine, so I don't mind making something."
"But what will people say if they find out that the Demon Lord is cooking not only for himself but others as well?" Eve said, biting her lip.
"People don't even know I exist yet, and it isn't bad to be viewed as kind to one's subordinates, so long as one is also ferrous to one's enemies." Shirou said with a smile.
"...But I wanted to be the one to make Master's dinner." The girl mumbled weakly, with a bit of a pout.
Shirou blinked at the girl's confession before giving a sigh. Reaching up, he pat Eve's head, causing her to look up at him. "An extra pair of hands would make this all go faster. If you'd like, we can make something together."
"Ah, yes!" Eve said, cheering up.
"Good, do you know how to boil the raw rocksalt to get the dirt out of it?"
"Yes!"
"Oh, this is really good, nya!" The nekomata said cheerfully as she bit into a large piece of meat, her two tails twisting around each other in pleasure. The other cat monsters and slimes echoing her statement around the table.
Shirou had decided to name the newest additions to his group, with the four cat demons being named after the four seasons. The sandy-colored bakeneko was Spring, the brown-haired bakeneko he called Summer, the red-headed bakeneko was Autumn, and the white nekomata was Winter. The three bakeneko seemed to have just accepted that Winter was the boss of them. As for the two slimes, he called them Yin and Yang, though he honestly couldn't tell the two apart.
Forks and knives had been provided, but the demon cats seemed to prefer just lifting things up with their hands and tearing it with their sharp teeth, while the slimes just plopped themselves down on top of the food and slowly dissolved it.
Only Shirou and Eve were eating with any kind of dignity, but Shirou didn't mind. It wouldn't be long that he would be able to do this for them, as his army would continue to grow, and it was nice to have people enjoying his cooking.
He was also soon going to have to ask them to do the jobs they were summoned to perform, so a little bought loyalty wasn't a bad thing. Unlike the skeletons, wood golems, and the living armor that Shirou had summoned, these monsters possessed enough free will to simply leave if they so choose. While the summoning made them more inclined to stay than to leave, loyalty was going to be a concern moving forward. So while he could get them to do basic work and fight in some battles with the odds in their favor, if he asked them to die for him, they might just bolt.
Military discipline would soon become a requirement, if he didn't want to stick to using less willful beings as his main fighting force, but Shirou had no experience running a military unit. He had been more of a solo freelancer in his previous life.
How exactly does one go about building a structured military unit from the ground up?
While Shirou was pondering these things, the door to the dining hall opened and the last of the skeleton's returned from its scavenging. "Huh, Master!" Eve gasped, drawing Shirou's attention to the skeleton.
The new Demon Lord was shocked at the sight of what was in the skeleton's arms.
He was carrying a child, so dangerously thin as to almost be a skeleton himself, and with a metal collar around his neck. The boy's eyes were open, but he wasn't moving, even though he must have realized he was in the arms of a skeleton, he didn't have the strength to move.
Shirou was shocked, but immediately understood what he had in front of him.
A runaway slave.
"Thank you." The boy said, his voice weak.
"Save your strength, you still haven't recovered yet." Shirou said calmly. He and Eve had been taking turns feeding the boy by soaking a cloth in soup and letting him suck out the juice. They unfortunately did not have much in the 'castle' in terms of accommodations. If the moth eaten bed still had four stable legs, it was in relatively good condition, and they had hides for blankets. "Sleep for tonight, and you can tell us what happened in the morning."
"Sabnac." The boy mumbled, getting Shirou's attention. "He… he attacked our village. He dragged us to his castle and forced us to work. They didn't give us any food. My… my sister. I escaped but she…"
Shirou put a hand on the boy's head, silencing him. "You need to rest. We can talk more in the morning." Shirou said. "Don't worry. We will help you."
The child had been extremely lucky. The chain that they had placed on him had been defective, as the iron used was of too poor of a quality and had become brittle, causing it to break when a rock fell on it. Then he had managed to sneak out of enemy territory while still having part of a dangling chain around his neck causing noise. And then he stumbled upon the castle of a newly revived Demon Lord, willing and capable of helping him. The boy won the lottery three times that day.
Blowing out the candle, Shirou left the boy to sleep, returning to the hallway outside.
The demon cats had been spying from the doorway, curious about the boy and what happened. "Is he going to be alright, nya?" Winter asked. It seemed that even if they were of a different race, there was still a sense of compassion towards injured children.
"He's weak, but his strength will return with time and food." Shirou told them.
"That Sabnac! I'm going to beat him up so bad, nya!" The two-tailed cat demon hissed.
"That's right, nya!" "Screw that guy, nya!" "I'll claw his eyes out, nya!" The other three agreed as their tails stood on end.
"Sabnac is one of the other Demon Lords." Eve interjected, surprising the cats. "According to my database, if his army was to be ranked among the Demon Lords on a scale from A to F, his army would be an F. Though that is because he is unskilled in magic and can't summon anything stronger than kobolds. His personal strength in battle is a bit greater than that."
"So then, he's Master's enemy, right, nya?" Summer asked, tilting her head.
"Even more of a reason for us to beat him up, nya." Autumn said, fist pumping.
"F-rank huh." Shirou mumbled, his eyes closed. "From what I know from lore, Sabnac was supposed to be obsessed with building large towers and displaying weapons as decoration. Would that be an accurate judge of his personality?"
"Um… perhaps?" Eve mumbled, embarrassed that her knowledge couldn't confirm such information.
"...We will have to have Yin and Yang scout his castle and see how it is laid out in order to come up with a plan of attack." Shirou said. Depending on the fortifications, assassination might be impossible, but if that was the case, he would simply have to come up with another plan. "I will not sit back and watch people suffer."