The Devil"s Evolution Catalog Chapter 41: Returning to the Village
Ever since I"ve reincarnated into a different world, I"ve encountered a lot of strange things. Resurrection, corpses turning into zombies, etc. all these were just side dishes to me. However, after meeting this low key expert...I feel so cheated...I don"t think I"ll be able to love anymore...Oh wait, I mean I won"t be conceited anymore.
Big 1 got the devils to form a line and performed a sweep of the battlefield. As for me, I pulled aside No.5. This potato was usually a lazy b.u.m known for his cowardice...who would"ve thought that he actually dared to attract the attention of an undead army. Furthermore, his dodging prowess surprised me as well. I was sure that hail of arrows would"ve at least severely injured him.
"Master let"s leave quickly, there"s...there"s still that zombie horde behind us…"
This little jinx...alright...you win.
I hastily distributed the souls; the large ones were mine while the others were distributed to the named imps. As I led the army away, I turned towards No.5 with a slight look of displeasure on my face and questioned him.
Isn"t he supposed to be out scouting...why did he suddenly come back with an undead army in tow…
As he walked beside me, he shrunk back pitifully and stammered, his eyes darting back and forth as he did so: "I don"t know what happened either, I just took a nap and suddenly woke up to see a bunch of undead surrounding me…"
My face fell and my brows furrowed as I continued: "What about the large imps that went with you?"
"Dead...I think…" No.5 mumbled, but upon receiving my angry glare he immediately added: "They could"ve escaped as well…"
"So you"re saying that they might be alive?"
"Mhm. Mhm."
"Moron, there"s no difference if they don"t come back!"
Besides, given the amount of undead about, being able to make It back alive is stranger. Not everyone has your strange dodging ability.
No.5 lowered his head as I scolded him, not daring to make a sound.
Truth be told, I had no intention of scolding No.5. After all, every one of my devils had some sort of shortcoming of their own. No.3 was impulsive, Big 4 barely talked, Nine-finger was slightly handicapped in the brain and One-eye loved s...o...b..ating. Big 1 was probably the most normal one of the lot, except for his habit of referring to himself as lordship.
As for No.5...he loved to sleep. The moment I asked him to monitor the undead, I knew that there would be a possibility of him slacking off.
Having ran out of things to say, we quietly continued on our way. As we travelled, we continued with the previous plan of hunting the weaker undead and avoiding the larger hordes. And so half a month pa.s.ses by without much incident, until one day, I stumbled upon a stone tablet carved with words.
It stood there, alone in the middle of a wasteland that was conspicuously devoid of any undead. Perhaps it had some unknown power that kept the surrounding radius of 10km clear of undead.
According to the stone tablet, this land of the undead was once a human kingdom in the western human realms. Because of a huge battle, it ended up being teleported here. What this stone tablet didn"t say was exactly who had the power to actually teleport a whole kingdom to this world. But anyone who could do so was probably a G.o.d.
Of course, it could also be the work of a large organization.
Upon being teleported here, the kingdom came under the influence of Gehenna"s strange powers. The dead began to rise up naturally. Any whole corpse would turn into an undead over time. Even if that corpse had no resident soul, the land of the undead would naturally bestow one upon it.
So this is the lands of a human kingdom...at least it was. Now it was the land of the undead.
If so, that robed skeleton was probably a human in life. He might even possess the memories of his past life even after turning into an undead.
The purpose of the blood sea was to birth new devils. So logically, the connecting level should lead up to a different level of Purgatory. At least, this was what I had thought, but what greeted us instead was the land of the undead.
At the end of the stone tablet was a strange note: Prison of the Dead...different world...guardian...sacrifice…
After that line of words was a picture engraved onto the tablet. Within it was a strange semi-circular object. By my guess, it was a half buried skull with the portion below its nose buried beneath the ground.
The skull had only one eye, but it wasn"t like the eye you saw on the deity Er Lang. Instead, it was a horizontal eye with a line right across the center. It wasn"t an unusually large eye, but given the fact that there was only one eye, it was unusual enough.
Does this mean that in order to leave this place, we need to first find that strange skull and then defeat that guardian before finding a sacrifice?
Seems like a quest from a RPG…
Forget it, I"ve already run out of tsukkomis for this world, best take each step one at a time.
Within these past 15 days, I was able to craft a large number of equipment. The Mo Saber team had increased to 20 devils, the guardsmen to 40 and the shieldbearers to 20. Another piece of good news was that One-eye, Big 1 and Nine-finger had all evolved into two-star head imps.
...As for No.5, he"s still napping in that corner. That potato"s truly frustrating; up to now, he still hasn"t shown any signs of evolving into two-star.
As for me...my maximum mana had risen to 40 units. On top of that, each time I consumed a large amount of souls, my body would begin to emit that strange fragrance again. This meant that I was going to evolve soon.
Other than that, there was a more annoying problem. It was the Grimoire of the Dead. It could now fly...or perhaps floating would be more appropriate. It would slowly float about from time to time and would even shake occasionally similar to when a boat rocks when it encounters a wave.
Even though its speed was slow, it still managed to give me a headache from time to time. It would occasionally fly far away from me and wander about like a curious child, causing me to have to hunt for it. And so, I came up with a solution. I used my dark alchemy to create a bone chain which connected my left wrist to the grimoire.
After that, things worked out beautifully...the grimoire would float around as always, but when it tried to go on its little adventures, the 3m chain would stop it from wandering too far no matter how much it struggled. After a period of acclimatization, the grimoire finally behaved itself.
It would mostly float around me or lie quietly in my embrace. From time to time, it would float in circles around me...what the heck, I"m not into turtle binding!
Due to a lack of clues on the Prison of the Dead, I decided to let the grimoire lead us around. Like a rider with absolute faith in his horse, I followed the grimoire around for a few days and…
Isn"t this that d.a.m.ned village we set off from! The place where that brave female devil sacrificed herself to save me…
Unlike the time we left it, the village was now full of undead wandering around. I wonder what they"re doing here?
However, before I had the time to ponder this question, the pair of undead meandering at the village entrance turned towards us. Judging from the way their soul flames danced, they must have picked up the scent of the living from us.
*raaarrhhh!!!*
The zombies let out their signature hoa.r.s.e cry that sounded worse than a knife scratching gla.s.s.
As their cries echoed throughout the village, more undead started crawling out of the ground. The majority of them were zombies but there were also some skeletons clad in rusty armor and weapons.
But there were no archers! This was the conclusion I came to after sweeping my gaze over the horde.
"Shieldbearers form the wall, Mo sabers get to your positions, the guardsmen will take the flanks, as for the rest, you guys are on reserve duty. Hold position and await further instruction." I gave a set of simple instructions and began waiting for the undead to throw themselves onto us.
By now, our army"s formation was roughly set in stone. Big 1 would take command. The shieldbearers would form a defensive wall on the spot, while the mo saber wielders would await the attackers from behind the safety of the wall. The guardsmen were led by One-eye and Nine-finger respectively on each side. No.3 and Big 4 were in charge of my personal guards...although they don"t have any subordinates right now.
To any undead horde without ranged support, this formation was a death machine. All we needed to do was wait for them to throw themselves into the meat grinder.
"Master, for you to think of such an impressive formation, you must be a genius!" said the irresponsible No.5 standing behind me with his bone shield and broadsword, his flattery annoying me once more.
"Why are you standing behind me?"
No.5 flashed me his usual goofy smile and said: "To protect Master of course!"
"The undead are all in front of Master, if you really wanted to protect Master, you would charge ahead instead of standing behind your master." No.3 said as he glared at him. Regarding this good-for-nothing imp, his impression of him was at rock bottom.
"Because...because I was afraid that the Master would get ambushed from the back." He gave No.3 an ingratiating smile and continued: " Brother Three, do you still remember that slippery fellow from before? That fellow was simply too strange, aren"t you afraid he might attack us from the back?"
"...hmph, I guess you have a point."
In terms of eloquence, even with three No.3s combined, they still wouldn"t stand a chance against No.5. Furthermore, the fact that he let the a.s.sa.s.sin escape weighed heavily on him as well. As such, he naturally didn"t dispute this point.
Big 4 on the other hand was much more reserved, he merely glared at No.5 with a gaze that could kill. The gaze had its desired effect as No.5 began to tremble slightly. As they say, the dogs who bite aren"t the ones who bark…
While they were busy arguing, the zombie and skeletons had already begun their charge. However, despite their spirited attempts at clawing and slashing, the shield wall refused to budge, making them safe targets for the saber wielders to slaughter. By now, the saber wielders had gone through enough training to strike at their heads with pinpoint accuracy. They were even able to throw in some sweeping attacks from time to time without clashing with each other.
The guardsmen also received a boost in their equipment, which made their style of counter attacking after a successful shield block much more effective. This coupled with their innate strength as large imps, allowed them to easily suppress the undead.
As for One-eye and Nine-finger, they were armed with the new round shields and spiked maces just like No.3 and Big 4. As they commanded the guardsmen, they swept through the battlefield with their overwhelming strength. Each wave of their spiked maces took the lives of multiple undead as its spikes smashed through their heads like watermelons.
Victory was ours!
As I stood in middle of the reserves, I carefully surveyed the entire battlefield. By now, the undead horde had already lost a third of its original 1,000, and this was only after a short span of 10 minutes. As for us, the morale among the large imps rose with every second that pa.s.sed. As of now, we had 0 deaths.
However, things always had a way of going wrong just when you thought that everything was set in stone.
Just as the thought of 0 deaths flashed through my mind, one long bone spear descended from the heavens and pierced the head of a saber wielder, killing it on the spot!
Footnotes:
j.a.panese Bondage NSFW!!
Credits:
Special thanks to Steve Granger, Ichitsuzen, and LaRue Martin!!