For this day, I headed to the underground bread factory to meet with Wight and determine how we were going to respond to the next day"s investigation by the humans.
I had already figured most of the plan out but I still wanted to hear Wight"s opinion.
I had only indirectly heard it through a Dwarf Smith but it seemed like Wight had already recovered from his heartbreak.
According to Rorono, that Dwarf Smith was in a strangely good mood lately. When I asked Rorono for a possible reason why, she grew embarra.s.sed and dodged the question.
"Can it be that Wight has fallen for her?"
I uttered to myself, thinking it was probable.
After all, that Dwarf Smith was not only a capable and devoted subordinate but a brown-skinned, white-haired beautiful girl as well. She had grown up more than Kuina and the others and appeared to be a woman in her late teens too. She was a great candidate for a love interest.
A broken-hearted man consoled by such a girl would easily fall in love with her, I thought.
Appointing her to be Wight"s aide was partly an experiment but it might not be so bad to officially make her so.
As I thought of such things, I soon arrived at my destination.
In the bread factory, the Skeletons were busily moving about. However, mixed among the Skeletons were humans, perfectly ordinary humans…… or so I first thought but they were most likely the killed adventurers-turned-apple-thieves brought back via Enhanced Resurrection.
All the tasks—be it kneading the dough, molding it, or baking it—were perfectly divided among the workers in the a.s.sembly line. Under Wight"s command, productivity was at its highest.
Every single day, hundreds of people visit Avalon and buy bread. Half of all the bread they bought were from us so to meet such a demand, large amounts of bread needed to be baked in this factory.
By the way, the bread baked here was just simple, hard bread. We could make more kinds but I decided to leave that to the humans. For the moment, we and the human-controlled bakeries were able to exist separately since the ones that wanted to eat just to fill their stomachs bought from us while the ones that wanted to eat delicious food bought from them.
"Oh, it"s you, my lord. Thank you for gracing us with your presence."
Wight headed toward me in a quick pace.
He was middle-aged butler with grizzled hair, hard horns, bat-like dragon wings, and a burly tail.
"Wight, you seem in an oddly good mood today."
"You"re just imagining it, my lord."
So he said but it was obvious that he was indeed in a good mood. It was as though his p.i.s.s-drunk, brokenhearted self from before was a lie.
"……My lord, there is something I must apologize for."
"It"s unusual of you to make a mistake."
"It"s not a mistake per se. It"s about the request I asked of you before, about being the one to officiate in my wedding; there"s no more need for you to grant that."
Wight"s face distorted and became apologetic.
He was all bones up until recently so I was unable to read his facial expressions, unlike now that he became a dragonewt.
"And why is that?"
I asked him so. Since he wasn"t aware that I overheard them that night, it was then logical for me to have no knowledge of Ske-san"s "Reptilians are physiologically to much" event.
"Sadly, Ske-san broke it off."
He didn"t utter a single word of complaint against me even though I was the one at fault for turning him into a dragonewt via [Rebirth].
"Is that so? That"s too bad. Shall I a.s.sign Ske-san elsewhere? I imagine working together to be awkward."
"There"s no need for that. Even though we cancelled our engagement, we still get along as friends. There"s no particular ill will between us."
"Okay, if you say so."
Wight and I both smiled.
Afterwards, I looked at him again. It wasn"t because I doubted what he said, it was to confirm once more his abilities.
To look at a high ranking monster"s status, one would need to have the appropriate level but if the said monster was their own, it was a different story; one should be able to check that monsters" abilities down to the smallest detail regardless of level.
First, I recalled Wight"s original stats.
Race: Wight
B Rank
Name: Unnamed
Level: 56
Physical Strength: D
Endurance: D
Agility: C
Magic: B
Luck: E
Special: B+
Skills:
Commander of Wraiths
Average Undead Creation
Wraith Invigoration
Undead
His stats before he was reborn were not very high. In fact, they were even below average for his race rank. However, that was compensated by his excellent special abilities.
Race: Black Dragon of Death Siegwurm
S rank
Name: Unnamed
Level: 56
Physical Strength: S
Endurance: S
Agility: A
Magic: S
Luck: D
Special: A++
Skills:
Ruler of Death
Enhanced Resurrection
Netherworld"s Miasma
Valor
Berserk
Supreme Dragon Emperor
???
His current stats were overwhelmingly high and were complemented by stronger special abilities.
Ruler of Death: Grants tactical and strategic insight. Improves intelligence. Dominance (Maximum) over Undead type monsters. Strengthening bonus (Large) to one"s own Undead units, effective range is over the same dungeon room.
Enhanced Resurrection: Resurrects the dead and turns it into an undead. Upon resurrection, the unit receives improvements (Large) to his capabilities. The resurrected unit is forced to obey the skill user. This skill can never be used on the same unit twice.
Netherworld"s Miasma: Clads the user in the miasma of the Netherworld. Physical Strength, Endurance, and Magic Resistance all gain bonuses (Large). The miasma does additional damage to others. It deals instant death to B rank and lower monsters. For A rank and higher, curse, poison, and debilitation are dealt. Can only be used in dragon form.
Berserk: When restraining Berserk, the user"s overall performance and abilities are lowered by a rank. Some special abilities can only be used in conjunction with Berserk. Upon full release, overall capabilities are increased by a rank.
Valor: Grants Mind Resistance (Maximum). All attacks are improved (Medium). Has morale increasing effect (Small).
Supreme Dragon Emperor: Unlocked under certain conditions.
???: ???
"Wight, you really have become strong."
In terms of raw numbers, his was higher than even Kuina"s stats.
"This strength is all from you, my lord, the one worthy of being called the strongest Demon Lord."
Wight lightly bowed.
In response, I smiled.
I was glad Wight had obtained immense power. Even so, there were things that worried me.
On top of the ticking time bomb that was Berserk, the ??? got me worried. It was my first time see such.
Is it an effect of using [Rebirth], I wondered.
As there was no real way to confirm, I had no choice but watch over Wight very carefully. Just what kind of trap that Creator had set-up, I had no idea.
"I"m relieved your personality didn"t change when you became a Siegwurm. I"ll keep on relying on you as my staff officer. As a start, I have something to consult with you."
I opened with that and then relayed to him about the soldiers from the neighboring city that were going to be dispatched to Avalon as well as the countermeasures I had thought up.
"Yes, for the most part, I also think this plan is the way forward but first, we should buy some time. We should entertain their envoys to the best of our abilities, make it look like we are going to swear allegiance, and make them return while looking down at us. We will then tell them we wish for more time to consider the allegiance, and that we could not, at the moment, decide. They will hopefully be arrogant enough to think that the next time they come, we will simply say yes. And like that, we have gained time until the next negotiations. Time shall be our ally."
I saw the merits of his proposal.
Since our fighting force have been increasing by the day, should this whole affair in the end come to armed conflict, even a day"s time of delay was monumental.
"Okay, let"s go with that."
"Yes. If the envoys sent to us won"t yield and we therefore weren"t able to earn time, would it perhaps be better to simply kill them, turn them into undead puppets, and make them send fake reports?"
He then gave me a villainous smile.
With his Enhanced Resurrection, the undead he made looked almost unchanged from when they were alive. In addition, they didn"t rot.
"No, let"s not do that. It isn"t so strange for them to have someone that is able to tell those envoys are actually undead. After they find out, they will then speculate that all the humans in our city are all undead and being controlled. If that false information spreads to the other human cities, it"ll be troubling, to say the least."
If that happened, it wouldn"t be so surprising for us to go from fighting one city to fighting the entire humankind.
As far as warfare was concerned, dissemination of gossip was fair game. If a city was known to be ruled by the undead, they would be able justify their war.
"Truly, my lord thinks so deeply. Forgive my rashness. Could I ask for the privilege of also taking part tomorrow?"
"Yes, no problem. Rather, I think I should be the one to ask you to partic.i.p.ate."
At that, I laughed with Wight.
With that, our plans for tomorrow have been decided. There"s no telling what will happen though; I can"t see what"s on the other side unless I cross the bridge. But first, to the preparation of the welcome. I hope I can make them enjoy our city to the utmost and return feeling good.
Note: I’ve changed the name of a few of Wight’s skills. Like Commander of the dead to commander of wraiths. Not that it really matters now.