I Became a Burden to the Conscienceless Party

Lilith, a member of the Demon King’s Army Strategic Planning Department and the Demon King’s aide, was enjoying a cup of coffee while working.
By now, the results of Jim’s escape plan should have arrived. Lilith answered the incoming communication with an elegant attitude, confident that this time would be different.
After a brief exchange of greetings.
When they got to the main point.

-It failed, you know?
“…Pardon?”

Did they really exchange greetings in such a calm tone?
Lilith was flustered by her subordinate’s attitude, which seemed not just insensitive but as if nerves didn’t exist at all.

“What on earth was the problem?”

Lilith had put considerable effort into this operation.
First, as soon as they decided to use the background Jim had created, she had already recruited an actor with excellent acting skills.
And not a demon, but a human.
So the probability of being discovered as a demon didn’t exist in the first place.
Even if they were caught due to lack of acting skills, as long as the person was human, even the hero wouldn’t have been able to suspect blindly.

-Well, you see.

A creepy middle-aged woman who suddenly started touching me, calling me her son.
What’s with this person?

“Um, who are you?”

Who’s she calling son? I’m an orphan. I came into the world without even knowing my parents’ faces.

“Ma’am, it seems you’ve lost your son, but you’ve got the wrong person.”

It’s pitiful, but here, cutting it off clearly is the right thing to do for the other person.
A parent who lost their child, wandered without identity to this deep mountain.
Escaping along with her pain? Doing so would make it easy to escape from the hero party, but it would leave an indelible wound in one person’s heart.
These things hurt more the later you find out. I don’t want to cause such pain to this poor human when I’m not even enemies with them.
Moreover, haven’t I already experienced this kind of thing once before?
How precarious it was when I followed those damn guys thinking they were the operation team.

“But, you are my son…”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re supposed to say you are… We clearly agreed on this…”
“Ma’am, it’s a sad situation, but please look properly. I’m not your son.”
“Ahaha, is that so? Ma’am, I think you’ve got the wrong person. And be careful. There’s a rumor that around here, there are many people who have been bribed by demons to conspire in ways that would shock heaven and earth.”
“…”
“For example, acting in exchange for a large sum of money.”
“I-I must have been mistaken. He looked just like my son… No, now that I look, this isn’t even our village? Oh my, I came to the wrong place.”

The unidentified middle-aged woman fled in a hurry. By the way, thinking about what the hero said, I wondered if that woman might have been someone deployed as part of the operation to help me escape. But it probably isn’t.
Nah, they wouldn’t suddenly bring someone and make them act without any prior agreement, right?
I don’t want to gamble on a possibility that’s not even confirmed, nor do I want to involve a pitiful human.

Only after hearing her subordinate’s report did Lilith realize.

“Damn, this was on purpose.”

However, she wasn’t the kind of person who could recall that there was no prior agreement. The biggest problem with her sloppiness was that she thought other people would think the same as her.
Unfortunately, Jim’s intelligence was much lower than Lilith thought.

‘I should have apologized for Major General Eleven’s incident first… He must have deliberately not escaped when the opportunity came to protest that.’

Lilith already thought that Jim was in a situation where he could escape on his own.
After all, wasn’t he a man evaluated as a potential future Demon King by Eleven, a corps commander?
Subconsciously, Lilith even thought that the need for an escape plan was all an act to test her.
In a situation where she couldn’t recall that there was not a single reason for him to test her, overshadowed by Jim’s prestige.
She was just feeling frustrated seeing only a slice of the situation.

“Hee-ing.”

Lilith’s reversed position, who had only been commanding people until now.
She lamented her situation, making a crying face alone in secret.
Of course, it was Jim who should have been lamenting the misaligned situation.

“Apologize, I need to apologize, I need to correct my mistake even now.”

Lilith, who had already suffered a great mental wound from repeated failures, knelt down and carefully made a call, even though no one was watching.

“This is Major General Lilith…”

Lilith continued the communication, bowing until the threads of her black stockings wore out on the cold stone floor.

It was a communication with an unusually depressed voice today.
I’m not sure what it’s about, but it seems she wants to apologize for last night.
Honestly, I don’t know exactly what happened then because I was unconscious, but it seems the culprit for my fainting was the operation team.
Major General Lilith was a superior who knew how to bow her head for her subordinates’ mistakes.
Anyway, it seems the operation failed.
Honestly, looking at the hero’s condition when I woke up in the morning, I could tell that even if it failed, it was by a paper-thin margin.
As expected, Major General Lilith is different.
Isn’t she on a completely different level from the operation teams that have been moving to help me escape so far?
Moreover, she even said they returned alive, so I’m looking forward to the future.
Just how far will Major General Lilith’s capabilities go? I’m so excited.
So I said I was looking forward to it.

“Since you say that much, I’ll look forward to next time. Haha.”
-…Yehe.

Something like a response with a twisted tongue from exhaustion from crying came back, but it should be fine.
It must be my ears that are wrong.

“Mr. Jim! Are you ready?”
“…Yes.”

It was me who insisted on wanting to return to the village. Clearly, it happened as part of the operation, but since the operation failed, I had no choice but to pay the price.

“Haha, we’re going to erect tombstones from now on, it’ll be rewarding, right?”
“…Of course.”

Because she said it was for visiting graves, for the graves of the dead villagers, I had to start by erecting non-existent tombstones.
I felt a chill down my spine when the hero brought a plausible large rock from nearby, but I never imagined she would give me a hammer and chisel and tell me to carve names.
Why didn’t we make them before?
It’s just lamentable.

“Ah, looking at the size of the village and the number of houses, at least 7 families must have lived here. About 14 people in total?”

Esmeralda asks with a bright smile.
She’s tormenting me as if to vent her dissatisfaction with this journey.
Of course, considering her personality, she probably said it without thinking.

“…There were 7 people.”
“Are you sure? Really? That’s all? It seems too suspicious, or is it just my feeling?”
“I said there were 7 houses.”
“Right? Then shall we carve the names of 17 villagers from now on?”
“Huh? It increased…”
“Shall we carve?”

Esmeralda hands me the chisel and hammer with a bright smile.
There was a strangely irresistible pressure, so I carved the names of non-existent villagers on the tombstone.
It’s a torment just thinking of names. Since it’s a situation perfect for arousing the hero’s suspicion if I just make up names in demon style, I had to forcibly think of plausible human names.
Damn, I’ve never even thought this hard about my own name.

“Hmm hmm.”

Esmeralda, the one who gave me the task, is sitting on a large rock, swinging her feet back and forth, watching.

I used to think she looked stupid, but after wrapping the bandages last time, I think even that kind of appearance is cute in its own way.
And with her short skirt, if I try a little, I might be able to see inside…

“…Mr. Jim, shall we focus?”
“Ah, yes.”

I got scolded. Did I stare too obviously?
But I did see. Black, huh? It’s sexier than I thought.

“Ungh…”
“Hm?”

Hearing a strange sound, I turned my head again and saw the hero tidying her skirt in a demure posture.
The eyes glaring at me are not normal. I must have been caught. I quietly turned my head back and continued carving the villagers’ names on the tombstone…
But I felt the gaze glaring at me continue until the work was finished.

Celestial Order.
The Saint, Irina Saintis, was receiving a report on the recent situation of Esmeralda, who had set out on a journey with Jim.

“Oh my, the hero?”

News of an encounter with a being presumed to be a corps commander.
Irina narrowed her brows and asked in a cold voice.

“What about the body? Did you retrieve it?”
“No, she’s still alive…”
“Oh my, that’s fortunate. Then, she must be injured, so is she coming to the Order now?”
“That’s right.”
“Yes, thank you for the report. You can go now. Your complexion doesn’t look good.”
“…Thank you.”

Irina showed a benevolent smile to the follower with a pale expression.
But when the follower saw that expression, they shuddered as if afraid and fled the room.

“Seeing that they can’t manage their expression, they’ll probably quit soon.”

Irina turned around.
In the direction she was looking, a reddish lump of meat could be seen.

“Making such a fuss over just disposing of insects.”

The place she was in was a torture chamber.
She had been repeatedly torturing demons.
How far they can withstand holy power. What they know.
She was inflicting pain to dig out each and every one of those things.
It’s something that must be done.
Now that the Order has lost its legitimacy, they must do anything to save it.
The Order lost its symbol, God, and cannot be free from that responsibility.
That’s why everyone left the Order. To escape responsibility, there’s no choice but to completely abandon God.
That’s why Irina chose to become cruel and thus took control of the Order.

“Haa…”

And now, when all of that is sickeningly tedious and painful.

“I miss Mr. Jim today. I wonder if he’ll come with the hero.”

She recalled Jim, the only half-demon she had ever met.
Yes, she needs him.
Because only his existence can give comfort to Irina.