"Well?! Are you deaf as well as slow, maggot?"

That idiot really doesn't recognize me. I decide to test him and have some fun while I'm at it. I snap back, "Yes and looking at your ugly mug, I wish I was blind too".

The general is taken aback, probably surprised to see a supposedly trained soldier show such a lack of respect to his superior. The man grows somber. "Be very careful soldier. You're looking at some time in a hole but one more word out of your mouth and you might be losing more than just your freedom."

Well that was a better reaction than what I expected. He didn't lose his composure, shows authority, threatens with a strict sentence but also gives a way out if I was to stop now. He is more merciful than many of my officers.

Enough fun for today. I straighten up and regain my regal composure. "An apt reply, general. I only expect as much from the men leading my troops."

The general looks at me, confused, but his dark look doesn't mellow. Weird. Who's being slow now? "A piece of advice: always know who you're talking to and above all, learn to recognize a face, especially that of your leader" I offer with a slightly annoyed smile.

To add to my point I decide to summon my infamous armor and weapon, at the snap of my fingers.

snap

...Nothing.

snap snap snap

"What the hell?! Why doesn't it work??"

The general keeps looking at me with a now sad look on his face. He calmly calls to two guards in the next room, who had been anxiously watching the exchange from afar. "You two. Bring this one to the dungeons. Tell the torturer to leave him be for now, I'll check with him later"

"UNHAND ME THIS VERY INSTANT, I AM YØRG-HUL, THE DEMON-KING HIMSELF AND I WILL STRIKE YOU WHERE YOU STAND IF YOU DO NOT LET ME GO!"

The general watches as the two guards drag the fresh recruit away. He sighs. It never gets easier. When he argued against letting the demon king kill the many enemy soldiers driven mad by his magic, he knew he would regret it. And that he did. He ended leading a battallion made up of the poor wretches. The depressive, the shellsocked, the psychotic. And now the schizophrenic, apparently. Some pasty-faced, frail kid, naming himself demon king? That was worthy of rumor and would certainly make its way right to Yørg-hul's ears himself. The kid was as good as dead, he knew that. He needed to focus on the ones he could save. But it didn't make it easier. It never did.