So far the battle preparations were proceeding smoothly; in other words, I was working my a.s.s off right now.It felt like every single task required my personal attention. Not to brag, but without me, these potatoes probably wouldn"t even know their heads from their tails. As for how I knew this, that"s simple. Because they were potatoes.
Naturally, not all of them were that stupid, and simply lacked the required experience to complete the task; thus, their progress was painfully slow. Given time, I"m sure their speed would slowly improve. The main problem was that there was some devils who were simply potatoing around.
For example, remember those bone javelins I earmarked for my harpy air force? The materials required to craft them were bones and even more bones. However, bones from the undead skeletons weren"t usable as they became brittle once they lost their soul flames. In that case, we had to use the bones from the other life forms in the prison.
We would hunt the Abaddon Rodents, the dogmen and whatever other weak races we encountered. The benefits to this was that we not only gathered souls and gained meat to feast on, some of their longer bones could be turned into spears…somehow, it felt like I was turning more and more evil by the day. I"m basically picking apart all my enemies at this point.
The task of grinding the bones was actually really simple; it was basically mindless labor. However, here"s where the problem came in. Who was the one in charge of this task? No.5, that"s who. This little potato…back when I asked if he could do it, he said yes without any hesitation; yet, just a few days later, he was basically back to his lazy self. The entire task was thrown to his adjutant seeing as I basically had no time to monitor him, at least that"s what he thought.
After finally climbing out of that mountain of work I had to settle, I found that a certain portion of my devils were loafing around. The leader of these lazy b.u.ms was none other than No.5. Naturally, he received his usual serving of tender loving care from No.3 as his reward. However, that beating would knock some sense into him. If he didn"t learn his lesson, I"ll just have to get some of my more unique devils to clean out his chrysanthemum. Trust me, I"d do it if he forces me.
(TL: For those of you who don"t know, the chrysanthemum is a flower that is used as a euphemism for the a.n.u.s, and “clean out his chrysanthemum” *cough* you know where I"m going with this)
As for training the harpies to throw the javelins, I didn"t have to worry as much about that seeing as it was supervised by my three lovely monster girls, Numila, Eugenia and Elena. They promised to do their best, and that they did. They worked so hard that they even started to argue…
“Dearest, this one"s subordinates have already mastered throwing the javelins and their accuracy isn"t too bad either.”
“This one"s clan is better than yours!”
“Elena will work hard too.”
Numila"s peeved mode: “This harpy"s clan is the greatest!”
Eugenia"s whatever mode: “This one"s clan is even greater!”
Elena"s calm mode: “Elena trained them well, mhm.”
Then, as the first two harpies were busy arguing with each other, Elena took the opportunity to pounce on me, hugging me tightly.
“Hugs…”
“Ah! You actually dare to hug this harpy"s fiance without this harpy"s approval, this harpy will kill you!”
“Elena, you pulled a fast one on us again! d.a.m.n it, this one wants a hug too!” Having said that, Eugenia leaped over as well and hugged me from behind…
“You two…how dare you two! This harpy will teach you two a lesson…”
This time, Numila was truly miffed. The perpetually revolving Flametail started to radiate a frightening amount of heat, then a chaotic battle started…again.
Such occurrences took place once or twice a day and I was basically used to it by now.
Speaking of which, Mimiya and her birdbrain brother Mo Xixidi were relatively well-behaved in comparison. Mimiya was satisfied as long as she had a show to watch. Getting this troublemaker to help out wasn"t really a realistic plan; however, as long as she stayed out of trouble I was alright with it. Right now, she was probably busy with Vick. Regarding these two little scamps, the combination of their playfulness could only be described as torturous, I just hoped they didn"t set their eyes on any innocent devils.
Xixidi on the other hand was more obedient than his sister. As long as he was fed, he didn"t mind being a pig. Mhm, a demonic pig.
As for Mo En…he was basically the same as his son. Whenever I asked him to help, he would crawl pitifully while lying on the ground, all the while displaying a “I"m dying” look on his face. “Ah, once a devil gets old, there"s no helping it…”
In the end, the only helpful one of this bunch was Mo En"s wife, the l.u.s.t demon Julia. Julia was an extremely intelligent girl. After a round of testing, I found out that her management skills weren"t too bad, and best of all, she had the talents for Dark Alchemy.
While I still didn"t understand why the grimoire was being such a pain about letting her touch it, it"s not like I needed the grimoire to teach Julia Dark Alchemy; I could teach her myself.
Dark Alchemy wasn"t really a complicated field; rather, I should say that the Dark Alchemy spells I knew weren"t complicated. All you had to do was create a mana whirlpool, toss the ingredients inside, set the designs, input the mana and that"s it, all done.
Basically, if you took away the chants and the magical array, that was all it took to craft an item.
Julia didn"t disappoint in this aspect. In just two days, she picked up the skill and was able to craft her very first alchemical weapon. Given her larger pool of mana, I"m sure that her crafting efficiency would be a lot higher than mine. At least that was what I thought…
“My liege, this subordinate is worthless. Despite being a four-star primal l.u.s.t demon, this servant"s crafting speed isn"t even half of my liege"s speed. Not only that, the strength of the weapons are…if only this subordinate wasn"t so useless, your lordship wouldn"t have to work so hard. It"s all this servant"s fault, this servant is worthless, please punish this servant.”
Within this cave filled with bones, Julia was currently prostrating herself before me with her forehead lowered to the point that it touched the ground. Despite her hidden face, I could clearly hear the despair and sadness in her voice.
“Don"t be like that, it"s not your fault. You"ve done well already. You"re the only one who can help me in this field so don"t be so hard on yourself. Besides…the reason I"m able to craft so well is because of the Grimoire of the Dead.”
I got her to stand up first before I began recounting how I obtained this miraculous book, while at the same time, telling her of its powers.
“Wow, so this grimoire is actually so formidable, the first time I saw it, I already knew that it wasn"t some ordinary object…” As she said that, she threw me a fervent look of worship that was a little too impa.s.sioned for me. I bet if I got her to lay on the ground and let me have my way with her, she would probably do so…however, wouldn"t that make Mo En a cuckold. Plus, my pee pee was still on a holiday. MORE IMPORTANTLY, I"m not kind of person. Back on Earth, this brother was known as the Prince of Morals!
The grimoire was able to reduce the mana consumption of my Dark Alchemy while simultaneously boosting its effectiveness. That was why my crafting efficiency was so much better than Julia"s despite my lower mana pool.
“I bet you"re tired by now, how about we take a rest for now. I"ll take a walk outside and see how the others are doing.” Having crafted nearly a hundred weapons of various types, both Julia and I were tuckered out from all the casting. While we both had an endless supply of souls to feed us mana, we were after all, living creatures, and living creatures would get tired after working for so long.
On this point, both devils and humans were the same.
As she wiped the sweat from her forehead, Julia"s body radiated the seductive charms of a young married woman. This was especially so for those dangerous weapons of hers that were wrapped in fur…
Each time she breathed, they would jiggle a little. Truly a terrifying sight…sometimes I worry that they might just burst out of their flimsy bindings.
Err, I"m not l.u.s.ting after another person"s wife, I just felt that she wasn"t wearing enough clothes. Hopefully, she realizes this and corrects this problem. It"s not like I could tell her this straight to her face. No, that"s simply too embarra.s.sing. That"s why I have no choice but to communicate with my eyes; mhm, hopefully she will learn this art of eye communication one day.
Having left her side temporarily, I walked out of the cave. Hmmm, sure was lively outside, I bet it"s Habona and her hunting party.
“It went pretty smoothly.” That was the answer I got after greeting the werewolf.
Her task right now was to take charge of the hunting party, not only that, this hunting expedition wasn"t any old hunting trip. It required that she hunted further away from the nest than usual seeing as she not only had to bring back food, but intelligence as well; intelligence about the surrounding races.
Our current alliance was basically set in stone already. It was mainly comprised of the devils, the harpies, the demonic werewolves and the medusas. As for the h.e.l.lhounds and half-orcs whose numbers were simply too little, they counted as part of the devils" faction seeing as they were my subordinates anyway.
Habona"s task was to find any other clans from these four races and recruit them into our alliance. If they weren"t willing to join us, that wasn"t a problem either. After killing their leader and enslaving them, I"m sure they would be a lot more receptive to our alliance.
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The demonic werewolves and the medusas were simply too rare; other than Habona"s and Manasha"s clans, we didn"t find any other clans of their kind in the prison.
During this trip, Habona stumbled upon a pack of lizardmen who she brought back with her…hmm, about a hundred of them. Putting aside the brief glance I got of them when we tried to rescue Harlow from the harpies, this was the first time I"ve gotten a good look at these lizards.
Lizardmen were basically bipedal lizards…sounds strange.
In truth, these strange lizards had another name, drakeman; in other words, pseudo-dragonman. Because the western dragons were basically giant lizards with wings, it wasn"t really a stretch to imagine that these lizards had some connection to the fearsome dragons. Of course, it could just be them trying to cook up some sort of fake connection. In light of that, I couldn"t really say for sure if that name was an insult or an honorable one.
The lizardmen were all over two meters tall. While they were still shorter than the demonic werewolves, it wasn"t by much. Their scales weren"t particularly st.u.r.dy looking, while their appearances were…well, they"re lizards, what do you expect them to look like?
“They are the lizardmen from Abaddon, basically they aren"t any different from any other lizardmen. For the sake of differentiating them, you may call them Abaddon Lizardmen if you want.” Habona pointed at one of the despondent lizardmen and said: “Originally, I wanted to recruit them, but their leader wasn"t willing, so I got rid of him and brought back these 108 slaves. Their combat strength isn"t too bad, all they need is some training and weapons and they should be rather outstanding warriors.”
Speaking of which, were the Abaddon Rodents in the same boat as well? The Abaddon tag was simply to differentiate their origins in the same way that there were Chinese, Americans and j.a.panese.
Before I could continue talking to Habona, I heard some stirring a distance away. From the sound of it, it was probably another hunting party.
Looking around, I came upon the sight of the hunting party led by Manasha. On top of bringing back some loot, she brought back a giant pack of slightly deformed looking Abaddon Rodents.
Seeing me next to Habona, Manasha, Majosha and Harlow came over to greet us.
“Our hunting trip was a rather fruitful one. Not only did we procure a bunch of materials, we even managed to capture over two hundred Abaddon Rodents.” Having said that, she pointed at the imps who were busy carting off the bones: “Your henchmen aren"t too bad either. Their combat strength is kind of bad but they are pretty good laborers.”
What do you mean pretty good laborers…were they only worth that much in your eyes?