A Tactical Retreat?

Every morning, the Demon Queen follows some form of ritual.

First, of course, she gets up from her bed. Generally, she’s already awake by the fourth hour after the sun rises. But, unless there’s some emergency, she wouldn’t be up for another half hour at least, depending if she doesn’t fall back into deep sleep.

Next, she would enjoy a cup of coffee. While she doesn’t like the bitterness, she has it black to give her that bit of kick to wake her up. Then, after a few sips, she adds sugar and milk to make it suit her palate.

Coffee would be all that she would have for her morning meal. She wouldn’t be breaking her fast when lunch is just a few hours away because it would make her gain weight.

Once she finishes her cup, she washes her face and brushes her teeth. Then, she goes out for a walk with her dog Angelica in the inner courtyard. It was large enough to fit three tennis courts so she would let her pet run around it, but, as the sun is already high and hot, she tends to stay in the shade.

Afterwards, she would dress herself up and stab at a little bit of work before lunch is served.

When the siege of the Human Army began, she had to make adjustments, though.

While she hasn’t fixed her habit of waking up late, she has stopped sleeping in to maximize her time of being awake.

The coffee and the hygiene, of course, were non-negotiable.

She wanted to do away with her walks, too, but her advisers told her, “We should at least keep some level of normalcy to keep our spirits up.”

So, she kept her morning walks. That is also why the city continued to be bustling despite some supplies being cut off. They didn’t want to make their citizens feel ill at ease and cause a disturbance as it would compound on their troubles of defending the city.

However, she and her advisers knew they couldn't keep it up for long. While the city has a stockpile of supplies in case of sieges, they were burning through it quickly with their strategy. They gambled that the Human Army would be foolhardy enough to exhaust themselves trying to breach the titanic walls of Qoshiegh, and that they could at least rout the besiegers within a month.

But, a month has already passed since the siege began. The attacks ceased and the Human Army dug in when they realized scaling the walls was impossible.

As she takes her morning walk on this new day, she ponders whether to keep the current policy or begin rationing.

At the rate the city was consuming food, the stockpiled supplies wouldn’t last another two months. There were farms within the city walls which could help with the food supply, but it was estimated that it can’t keep the population fed until the next harvest. A crop failure is also a possibility. Fish and other seafood could still be caught along the harbors, but, without being able to set out to open sea, the supplies are limited.

Rationing was a logical step to prolong their supplies and their capability of defending the city. But, it comes at the cost of the citizens’ morale, which could extend to the soldiers as they would see their loved ones suffering the effects of the war.

Her thoughts ran through other options such as launching an attack and using smugglers, but it was derailed when she heard a door wildly swing open.

She drew her sword, which she normally doesn’t carry on her walks. The Hero’s appearance from yesterday made her cautious so she brought it along while wearing her normal clothes.

Angelica wasn’t growling, which made her think it wasn’t him, but she pointed her flamberge at the direction of the noise just in case and shouted, “Who goes there?!”

“It is I, my Queen”, said the visitor, who approached the Demon Queen.

The person that appeared in front of her was a beast standing on two legs with the head of a leopard. A humanoid leopardess, to be specific. A beastman.

This person was one of her trusted advisers.

“If you’re here, that means the Hero is back”, the Demon Queen said as she sheathed her sword. “Where is he this time?”

“No, your majesty. The Hero has yet to appear”, the Leopardess replied.

“Huh? Then why are you here?” the Demon Queen asked scoldingly. “Did I not explicitly tell you not to disturb me unless he attempts to sneak into here?”

“F-forgive me, but I bring urgent news regarding the humans.”

The Demon Queen didn’t feel like hearing it as she was sure the news was not going to be good. She pondered whether sending the Hero flying last night after his second visit to bring cookies finally killed him, but she knew it was wishful thinking. Regardless, any news about the humans she needed to hear.

“What is it?”

“The humans… they have left!”

The Demon Queen froze upon hearing it.

Seeing this, the Leopardess asked, “My Queen, are you alright?’

The Demon Queen regained her senses and said, “I’m sorry, can you repeat what you just said?”

“I said, the humans have left.”

“Are you sure? How do we know they’re not laying a trap for us?”

“We thought of that as well. However, the scouts we sent observed the humans have been marching towards the border since they vacated their camp at dawn.”

“I can’t believe it”, the Demon Queen said looking shocked. “They had the advantage, why would they retreat now?”

She then recalled the Hero’s visit from last night.

“I ordered the army to retreat. Tomorrow, the siege will end and I will ask you out on a date”, he said to her as he presented the aforementioned cookies.

“What of the Hero? Has he turned tail along with his army?” she asked the Leopardess.

“We think it would be best if you see for yourself”, was the answer given.

On horseback, she was then brought out of the city gates for the first time in a month. She didn’t have time to form any feelings of liberation as she was led towards the now empty camp of the Human Army.

There, she met a small unit of centaur cavalry from her own army standing in a line facing against her direction.

She wouldn’t notice until it was pointed out to her, but the centaurs were observing two people, a blonde woman in a yellow gown and a man in plain clothes, from two hundred yards away. The two seemed to be locked in some struggle and were screaming at each other.

“What does that look like to you?” the Demon Queen, bewildered, asked the Leopardess, who had come with her.

“A lovers’ spat, perhaps?” she replied, sounding as confused as her liege.

The Demon Queen wasn’t sure if her adviser made a joke or simply didn’t recognize faces from a distance since she was present whenever there was an incident in the throne room. But, the man who is currently quarreling with a woman is the Hero.

Regardless, she ordered her subordinates, “Stay here.”

Despite protests from the Leopardess, the Demon Queen approached the quarreling pair alone.

“What is this, a lovers’ argument so early in the day?” she said, using what the Leopardess told her earlier as a joke, as she came within earshot of the arguing couple.

The Hero and his companion finally noticed her drawing close to them, but neither reacted to her quip. Instead, they stood still, keeping their pose where the woman was poised for a kiss as they stared at the Demon Queen wide-eyed and spooked.

“Dear Hero, I wish you had informed me you had a lover before asking me to marry you”, she continued, putting as much venom in her speech as she could.

While she did not have romantic feelings for the Hero, it still made her angry seeing him getting intimate with another woman after he kept asking her out for a date so she sought to fuel more fire into the argument he was having.

The Hero reacted by looking at the blonde woman, her lips still puckered, and throwing her towards a trench about forty or fifty yards behind them. He then said to the Demon Queen, “It’s not what it looks like!”

It was the first time she saw a distressed look on his face. Out of tangent, she said, “How I wish I could see that expression more, especially in combat!”

“No, really, she’s not my lover or anything!”

The Demon Queen wasn’t able to reply immediately as her horse didn’t like the Hero’s shouting and faced away.

Reacting to this, the Hero pleaded, “No, wait! Don’t go! I-I can explain!”

The Demon Queen then led her horse to face the Hero again, but she was met with silence.

After a minute, she impatiently says, “Go ahead. What is there to explain?”

“...”

“Well? If you’re not going to say anything…”

“No, please wait. The cliche goes that you run away without hearing me out so I’m not sure where to start because I wasn’t expecting you to actually wait.”

“Then I suggest you don’t keep me waiting any longer.”

“Ah, but unfortunately, we all have to wait until the next chapter”, the hero said, embarrassed.

His response annoyed the Demon Queen so she cast attack spells towards him, but he kept evading them all.