Strawberry's Descent

The summons arrived two days after the plaque went up, and Arista made her way to the throne room with the specific, cautious dread of someone who had recently done something extremely large and violent and hadn't yet been asked to account for it.

She found Beelzebub already seated, smaller form again, the same one from the metro's opening day, perched with a delicate cup of tea held in one hand, pinky finger extended with an almost aggressive degree of formality that looked deeply, comically wrong on a being who ruled seven hells.

"...Beelz."

"Strawberry." He took a slow, measured sip before continuing, entirely unhurried. "I heard you created a crater."

"...Yes?" she said carefully, already sensing the shape of where this was going.

"Right above the location where Tabula Rosa sits."

Arista's stomach dropped through the floor.

"...Oh." A pause. "Oh, no."

"We had an earthquake, down there," Beelzebub continued, tone perfectly level, entirely unbothered, as though reporting the weather. "Thirty-one windows collapsed. Four chimneys came down. A goat went missing."

She stared at him, horror and disbelief warring for control of her expression. "...A goat."

"A goat," he confirmed, taking another slow sip of tea. "Belonging, as I understand it, to a merchant near the western district. Quite beloved, from what my sources tell me."

"I am so sorry, I genuinely had no idea the crater would reach that far, I calculated blast radius based on open terrain, not, not an actual population center sitting on top of the impact zone, I should have accounted for—"

"Did you get him?"

Arista blinked, thrown by the sudden pivot. "...What?"

"The hydra," Beelzebub clarified, setting his teacup down with precise, unhurried care. "Did you kill it?"

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"...Yes. Permanently. Named monster, no respawn, it's genuinely gone."

He considered that for a moment, nodded once, entirely satisfied, and picked his teacup back up.

"Good."

Silence stretched between them. Arista waited for the follow-up, the actual consequence, the political fallout, something proportionate to thirty-one broken windows and a missing goat.

It did not come.

"...That's it?" she said finally, genuinely baffled. "Windows. Chimneys. A goat. And your entire response is 'good, you got him'?"

"You survived a mandatory quest with a permadeath clause, using a weapon you engineered, tested, and then dismantled entirely as promised, precisely as you told Gorthruk you would." He took another sip, unbothered. "The windows will be repaired. The chimneys will be rebuilt. Compensation has already been arranged for the affected residents: I saw to it myself, this morning, before summoning you."

"...And the goat?"

"The goat," Beelzebub said, with the faintest, most dignified trace of amusement now creeping into his voice, "was found three streets over, entirely unharmed, eating someone's prize-winning cabbages. I am told the cabbage owner is considerably more upset than the goat's owner."

Arista pressed both hands over her face, half laughing, half still recovering from the sheer, specific horror of earthquake damage to a city she'd built. "...I nearly gave myself a heart attack over a goat that was fine the entire time."

"Compensation has been arranged for the cabbages as well," Beelzebub added, entirely deadpan. "I did not wish to leave any aggrieved party unaddressed."

"...You really thought of everything."

"I generally do." He set the teacup down fully this time, folding his hands, something warmer settling into his tone. "You built a weapon capable of reshaping this world's balance of power, Strawberry, and dismantled it the moment its purpose was served, exactly as you promised the dwarves you would. A little structural damage to a city built partly on faith in your judgment seems, to me, an entirely acceptable price for proving that judgment sound."

Arista sat with that, the tension finally, genuinely easing out of her shoulders.

"...Thank you," she said quietly. "For handling the actual damage. I hadn't even thought that far, I was so focused on the fight itself, I completely forgot to consider what happens to everything underneath where I'm aiming a fifty-meter cannon."

"That is, in fairness, rather what I am here for," Beelzebub said, picking his tea back up, pinky finger once again extended with the same absurd, unwavering formality. "You handle the impossible engineering. I handle the aftermath. It is, I find, a reasonably efficient division of labor."

"...You're never going to stop drinking tea like that in front of me, are you."

"Never," he confirmed, entirely serious. "I find it deeply upsetting to you, and that alone justifies the effort."

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