Lazy Salvation

Kokan stood suspended in the sky inside his dimension. This time, he was not alone, but had his fellow Sin Lord by his side.

Both of them looked down upon the masterpiece they had created.

Millions upon millions of Narkals were throwing themselves against the towering walls of the demi-human border.

Down below, deep trenches had once stretched across the battlefield, but they had long since been filled with corpses.

The walls themselves stood at least a hundred meters high, which was a full fifty meters taller than their own defensive great wall, the one they called the "Eternal Shield."

It was a testament to the superiority of the Dwarf race in matters of creation, but alas...

The Narkals simply stacked more corpses.

Beyond the trenches, beyond everything the defenders threw at them, beyond even the hundreds of meters standing in their way...

Their corpses rose so high that the ones coming from behind could use them as a staircase.

The Dwarfs' greatest creation was defeated not by a breach, but in the most brainless way imaginable.

Elves, beastmen, and dwarves defended the wall, but it was clear that it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.

"Serves them right! To dare stay on the fence while we bleed ourselves dry? Dream on!" Jhin crackled with laughter beside Kokan.

"Indeed. But we should leave soon as well. Their elites will be here any moment, and we don't want to have to explain this to them, right?"

"Oh right... Let's go. Nothing more to see here." Gluttony bobbed his head, the flaps of flesh on his body following the motion.

The two traveled back until they arrived at an empty stretch of land kilometers away from the demi-human territories.

This was where they had hidden their armies, and how more than eighty million humans had escaped the senses of those Narkals.

A magic circle unfurled over the entire area, visible only to the Sin Lord who had cast it. It created an additional layer of space superimposed over the region.

But that alone would not have saved them, since some special Narkals could sniff out their prey even across this folded space.

So it was up to Gluttony to make the army just as unappetizing as he had made it appetizing in the beginning.

And with a lure that made those fence-sitters seem like the finest delicacies to the monsters, the army slipped right past their noses.

“But I have to say… your attainments in space magic have truly become astonishing. Right now, you must be the best in this discipline alone.” Gluttony, who had been either cynical or fearful the whole time, couldn't help but praise him, which said a lot about how impressed he was with Kokan’s spell.

“Well. greed is not only defined by hoarding objects; you also have to think about how to hide and protect said objects.” Kokan smiled lightly. “As for being the best… I wouldn't be so sure.”

“Huh? There's someone better? Well, I wouldn't be surprised. You have that tower where ninety percent of the mages gather, after all. Is it someone from there?”

“Indeed.”

“Then you must introduce me sometime. I also require large spaces to keep my food. Hehe.”

“Maybe someday.” Kokan gave him a perfunctory answer, but in his mind, he thought the exact opposite.

'I will never show her to you, you gluttonous toad. She is mine.'

***

Traveling back to the human territory was mostly uneventful. Aside from some special breeds of Narkals that could bypass the two Sin Lords' concealment, though not their direct might, nothing of note happened.

...And finally, they had returned.

“Oh. It seems I have to apologize for calling you cowardly, Jhin. It appears someone deserves that title far more than you.”

Kokan let a smile play on his lips and didn't explain further, but he was certain Jhin knew exactly who he was referring to. After all... both of them could sense his radiating mana.

“Envy,” Jhin uttered disdainfully. “He thinks that if he arrives here first, he'll get more territory? How bold of him.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Let's go meet him. I reckon the Lord of Greed would like to discuss the division of the newly available territory sooner rather than later, hm?”

“I actually... I'm going to pass.” He shook his head and flashed him an innocent smile.

“Haah?” Jhin looked at him as though he had grown a second head. “W-Who are you?”

“Does it really warrant this reaction?” Kokan tilted his head. “I have something urgent to do in my domain. I shall meet you later.”

With that, he didn't wait for Jhin to answer and activated one of his Innate Skills.

Forgotten Existence.

After he vanished, he flew straight toward his Domain, and as he traveled, he couldn't help but sneer.

'Divide the territory? In your dreams.'

He had seen with his own eyes how Lola and Cornelia had survived, so their little schemes would amount to nothing when those two women made it back.

***

Seravelle Continent, Greed Domain, Tower of Knowledge, January 25, 2031

The Tower of Knowledge had started from its founder’s urge to hoard knowledge.

At first, he traveled all over the human territory, meeting innovators, conversing with geniuses, and debating sages. But soon, he realized that no matter how much he traveled, it would never be enough.

Even if he visited a place believing he had seen all there was to see and met everyone worth meeting, it would not necessarily remain the same as time passed.

New people would be born, and the scenery itself could change.

So he decided to do the opposite. Instead of searching for knowledge, he decided to have it all come to him.

He returned to his territory and built a towering spire. There, he recorded all the wisdom he gathered and locked it behind successive levels that could only be unlocked by offering new knowledge that had yet to be discovered.

This system attracted countless people eager to uncover the secrets of the Sin Lord, and before long, it had become a hub for scholars and learners alike.

Years passed, and the towering structure came to be known as the Tower of Knowledge, but it was also famous by another name.

The Mages' Tower.

Knowledge was one of the essential components of spellcasting, and what better place to master that component than a tower built solely for that purpose?

But despite every mage treating the tower as their holy site, that wasn't the true reason it earned such a title...

It was simply because of the existence of one woman: Astrid Ardor, the Archmage.

She had elevated the art of spellcasting despite appearing no more than a dozen times since the tower’s master first brought her there.

Some said that if she gave a lecture every day for the next year, magicians would enter their golden age.

But that was never going to happen... because Astrid belonged to the Sloth Pathway, and even among its practitioners, she was the laziest humanity had ever known.

And at the top floor of the tower, she was currently making this fact quite known to her maid.

“My lady, please go and write a proper report!”

‘Loud.’ That was the extent of her thoughts as her eyeballs moved to look at the disturbance. Even that felt like too much. Her eyeballs, she decided, had overexerted themselves for the day.

Unable to escape the annoying voice in her ears, she stuck her elbow into the bed and turned over; a maneuver that took the sum of her willpower for the next several minutes.

The one nagging at her ear was a woman whose clothing was black and white with frills all over it. It was a maid’s uniform.

Her disposition was as fiery as her voice. There’s no doubt that she was quite the beauty.

‘How useless.’

Propping herself up on one elbow, she managed to rise a full quarter-inch, her personal record for the week, and looked at the woman who was knitting her eyebrows at her.

‘...the personal maid of the great archmage, the Greed Lord’s something something mage brigade’s member, I think.’

“...what is it?”

“A report!” Miel looked at the expressionless face, but from how much she had to deal with this lazy woman, she knew that she was mad just from her microexpressions.

“I’m the one who should be angry here, right?! I’ve been trying to persuade you to write the report for six hours now!”

“Ah… you sure have it rough.”

“Please stop talking like it has nothing to do with you and just write the damn report!”

‘I don’t get what she’s trying to say.’ Astrid looked at her numbly. ‘Why do I have to do something like that? Reports require sitting up. Sitting up requires a spine. I don’t recall agreeing to own one today.’

‘Ah, my arm’s tired.’ Astrid once again fell into her pillow. ‘I’ve wasted some energy on a useless thing.’

Miel stepped forward, violently shaking her shoulders. ‘Her shrieking is too annoying. If I had a mana pool for every decibel, I could retire.’

Astrid raised her head… a second exertion, unprecedented; she would be feeling this tomorrow. ‘If you have the time to be doing this, go do your job. Your job.’

“You.”

“Yes…?” Miel answered hopefully, thinking that she had finally gotten through to her.

“Go write the report.”

“Wha… what?! W-why do I have… in the first place, what should I write…”

“I’ll leave it to you. I’m busy.” Being horizontal, after all, did not manage itself.

Astrid grabbed the cover, but Miel grabbed her arm as she wriggled into it.

‘Damnit, this is a pain. After I’ve said this much, still plans on annoying me?’

‘I’m tired. I’m sleepy. I really don’t care. I haven’t cared since approximately birth.’

‘And wait, what sort of report is she on about?’

“In the first place, weren’t you the one to say it, my lady?! That writing was a pain so you would talk and I would write it all?!”

“...talking has gotten tiring, so just write whatever you want.” At this rate even breathing was starting to feel like a chore best delegated.

Astrid tossed over the squire box that had fallen off the mattress; the throw itself executed lying down, arm barely leaving the blanket, a technique refined over years of dedicated non-effort.

It was her official seal. Apparently, she had to stamp it on reports, but it was a pain to get up to find it, so she always kept it under the covers, along with, if pressed, she couldn’t say what else, but the pile had grown suspiciously warm and lived-in over the months.

‘Regardless of whether she writes what I speak, or reports whatever she wants, I can see that the contents will be fiction, so there's no point.’

Miel frantically moved to catch the box before staring at her lady with a blank expression.

“Then… ‘night.”

“What?! Wait!! This is… get up—!”

This time, the maid was thoroughly ignored as the lazy archmage pulled the covers over her head and used her screaming voice as a lullaby, filing the whole ordeal under Things That Happened To Someone Else.

In a few seconds, her consciousness drifted away, and the annoying voice became a mere sound in the distance.

Her mind escaped her body, off to go be productive somewhere she wasn't.