Pain and the Demon Lord Calculate Spending

Pain stood in front of a closed-door, staring at a sign. There was something written on it, and he squinted as he looked at the letters.

"Nope, still can't read them," he said aloud as he opened the door and walked in.

He entered the castle's extensive library and began to walk through the room. The shelves of books seemed to tower to the tall ceiling like they were skyscrapers. Pain felt that he would get lost if he tried to go deeper into the room. It looked as if the shelves went off into the distance where only shadows could be seen.

The center of the library was opened up, and several tables were scattered in the spot. At one of the tables sat the Demon Lord, who was only visible from behind a large stack of books and papers due to her horns sticking out above them.

"Oh, hey Charlotte."

The Demon Lord stopped what she was writing and peered out from behind the books. She had a pair of glasses on, and her hair was pulled back. Upon seeing Pain in the room, her face turned red, and she slid back behind the stack of books. She shuffled around for a moment before she stood up and walked over to where Pain was; her glasses and tied back hair had disappeared.

"What are you doing here? The sign said, 'Do Not Enter,'" she demanded.

"So, you wear glasses huh, I would have never guessed."

"Don't bring that up!" Her face was red for a minute. She had made sure for many years not to let her subordinates see her wear her glasses.

"Anyway, you guys never taught me to read your language,"

"Darn, I forgot that the summoning magic only lets you speak it."

"Yeah, magic seems to be only semi-convenient for things like that."

"You will start getting lessons immediately!" The Demon Lord declared. She did not want a repeat of this moment in the future.

"So, do you just like to work here in private?" said Pain, who was more interested in what she was up to that required her to keep others out.

"I have important Demon Lord matters that need to be completed by the end of every month, so I take up a day each month to work on them."

"So, paperwork? That seems like a lot to do in one day, though?" Pain said while looking at the giant stack of papers. The Demon Lord tapped her index fingers together.

"Well, it builds up over the month, but it has to be done by the end..." she said softly while looking away. Pain began to laugh. "Hey, don't laugh at me!" the Demon Lord snapped at him.

"Sorry, Sorry," Pain said as his laughter finally began to die down, "I just never expected that you would be one to procrastinate like this," he said, finally calming down.

"It's not funny... the work is just tedious... I have other important matters to take care of..."

"Hey, I was always like that back home. No worries," Pain said with a smile, "So, is there anything I can help with?" he offered.

"Help with?" She was surprised. The Demon Lord would not have expected him to offer to help.

"Yeah, I'm sure there is something I could do,"

"I don't need any help from my subordinates."

"Well, I'm supposed to be the Dark Commander; helping out like this seems like something a second in command would do."

"You only seem to remember you're the Dark Commander when you want to do something... Why do you even want to help?"

"I dunno, you let me run around this castle doing whatever I want most of the time; I might as well do something to help, right?" Pain said as he rubbed his head's back and avoided looking at the Demon Lord's face. He had been in this world as her subordinate for several months at this point and thought he should help her out a little. He figured he could at least manage something with paperwork, even if it were just sorting it into stacks or carrying it.

"I don't want to let you just run free... I doubt you could help; I have lots of different kinds of forms to fill out. You can't read any of the symbols, so I don't know how you think you could help."

"Hmm," Pain thought to himself for a moment, then a thought struck him. "Well, I think I could handle any math if you teach me the numbers and symbols for doing it," he said.

"Really! That's the most boring part!" The Demon Lord said with an excited sparkle in her eyes. Then she realized what she was doing and changed her attitude with a quick, fake cough. "Anyway, I guess it wouldn't hurt to teach you the symbols, but do you think you can handle it? What makes you think you will be able to do the math?"

"Math is math; no matter what world you're in, I'm sure it won't be too hard."

The Demon Lord gave in to Pain's confidence and her desire not to do such a tedious task and sat down to teach him the symbols they used for the numbers and operators. As she ran through the lesson, he made a cheat sheet on the side with the numbers and symbols he was used to using. Then she turned him loose on the castle's finances.

"Um, Charlotte?" Pain said after a while.

"Yes, Pain."

"Is it just me, or our finances in a lot of trouble? We are severely in the red."

"Oh, that means you calculated them correctly, don't worry. We always have a little debt."

"I'm not sure how much this currency is compared to my own... but I don't think we should have this many digits in the negative. Shouldn't we budget better, isn't there a war going on right now?"

The Demon Lord walked over and looked at the papers Pain was working on.

"This looks like what I expected it to be," she said after looking over his shoulder.

"But, we are 10657 Jewels in the red. Surely we have some wasteful spending somewhere!"

"Oh, don't worry about it; it's pretty low compared to normal," the Demon Lord said nonchalantly.

Unbeknownst to Pain and the Demon Lord, they were sitting at about $124,017.15, €102733.37 and ¥13028994 in negative from the single months spending.

"Charlotte, surely this can't be right. I mean, what was this here? It was a lot of money," Pain said while pointing to one of the costs on his paperwork, he was unable to read what it was spent on, but he could see the amount was high.

"Oh, that was the villainous laughing training," she said.

"Villainous laughing? You paid someone to teach you?"

"No, it was for the whole army; we can't have any of our soldiers strike down a Kingdom of Bright soldier while making a lame laugh."

"Shouldn't we worry about training them to strike down the enemy soldier first? We are losing this war, you know..."

"It was a purchase that was well worth it."

"Okay then, what about this one?" Pain asked while pointing to another high spending point.

"That went to making matching helmets and armor for all the low-ranking soldiers!"

"What?"

"What self-respecting dark army doesn't have a legion of matching faceless troops for the heroes to fight?"

"I see... Tell me, who is in charge of spending in your army?"

"That would be Lord Drake! He's an old and wise vampire friend of my Great Grandpa William. When Great Grandpa became the Demon Lord, he hired Drake on the spot, and he has been in charge of spending ever since!" The Demon Lord said with a proud smile.

"So, it is true that it's not what you know, but who you know...."

"Sorry, I didn't catch that."

"Please tell Drake from this day forward he is fired."

"Fi-Fired! But do you know how long he has worked for the Demon Lords? He was Demon Lord William's best friend!"

"We are getting someone better with finances to be in charge of this stuff."

"Do you think there is anyone better suited for this job?"

"After looking at these numbers, yes, I do. I think I can grab any random zombie in the hall to do a better job."

"Then who would you recommend?" The Demon Lord said with a scoff as she crossed her arms.

"Hmm, how about that goblin, Euler. He seems good with numbers," Pain said after a moment of thought.

"How about this? We will let Euler manage finances for a month and see where we stand after that!" The Demon Lord said with a nod.

"That sounds fair; let's do that."

The two shook hands to mark their agreement and went back to work. The next month, when the finances were calculated, the castle was in the green for the first time in over 100 years. Lord Drake was given a new job as the announcer for the castles burgeoning sports leagues. Pain also became the official helper for the Demon Lord in filling out the paperwork and making sure that she didn't wait until the last minute to do it.