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Chapter 75: A Banquet for the Spirits of the Departed — Part 3

“Huh!? Where the hec—” She was startled by my sudden appearance, but I cut her off with a loud battlecry before she could finish questioning my entrance. I swung my blade right before I hit the ground. The resulting shockwave was so powerful that it blasted all nearby zombies to bits. Huh. Almost looks like confetti.

“Y-Yuki!?” she stuttered.

“Hey. Looks like you’re still alive and kicking,” I said with a grin.

“G-Geez!” The hero angrily puffed up her cheeks. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“My bad, my bad.”

I casually swung my greatsword and batted away the few battle-capable zombies in my immediate vicinity as they approached. Nice! That one was definitely a home run.

While my onslaught had been effective, it wasn’t nearly enough to wipe out the whole horde. There were still lots of zombies outside the shockwave’s area of effect. That said, it served its purpose. It was able to buy us enough time to talk.

“Here, drink this.” I lobbed Nell a mana potion; analyze had told me that her pool was about to run dry. She must’ve been using holy magic to purify the zombies or something. That kinda stuff sure does hit zombies hard. Or at least it should if convention is anything to go by.

“Huh? Uhm… thanks.” She freaked out a bit, but was able to catch the object I threw at her without any issue. “Wait a second! Isn’t this a high grade potion!? Aren’t these really expensive!?”

“How about you stop freaking out and start drinking? You do realize that this is an emergency, right?”

“R-Right. Good point,” she said, calming down. “Thank you.”

“Ugh.. it’s really bitter…” The hero grimaced as she downed the bottle’s contents. But despite her complaints, the potion proved effective. Her MP gradually began to recover.

“Alright, that should just about cover everything you need, so I think you’ll be fine from here on out,” I said. “Oh, by the way, I found a few guys who look like the assholes that put this whole situation together, so I’mma go smash their faces. Good luck. See ya.”

“Wait, wait! Did you just try to brush something really important off like it was no big deal!?” The hero started to make a big fuss of the situation. “If you’re going to go take care of the culprits, then I’ll have to come too!”

“What about the church? Aren’t you supposed to be protecting it?”

I pointed towards the building that the hero had been risking her life to defend only moments prior. Analyze had informed me that it was mostly filled with children and the injured, innocent lives unable to outrun the undead. If not for her valiant efforts, they would’ve long been swallowed by and integrated into the mindless horde.

“…Yeah. You’re right,” said the hero. “I can’t leave. I have to protect them. So please, Demon Lord, take care of the perps. I’ll do anything you as—”

“Oh?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Anything, you say?”

“…Huh?”

“Hold onto those words of yours because I’m going to come right back and have you pay up.”

“Uh, erm, uhh… uhhhhhh…” Completely dumbfounded, the hero could do naught but stutter in hesitation.

“What? You couldn’t already be thinking about going back on your word, could you? Of course not, right? There’s no way an honourable hero would make false promises, is there?”

“Ughhhhh… fine…” said Nell, reluctantly. “B-But you’re not allowed to ask for anything l-lewd, okay?”

The young warrior was on the verge of tears. Her expression caused my own to warp into a huge, sh*teating grin.

“Lewd? What are you talking about?”

“…Huh?”

“All I wanted was for you to show us around again once we get everything resolved. The heck were you thinking?”

Only after I spoke did she finally realize that she was being trolled. Big time.

“Wow! I can’t believe you! You’re such an idiot!” With her face flushed a deep shade of red, the hero swung her holy blade at me in an attempt to rid herself of her embarrassment.

I casually dodged it, then leapt into the air, all while laughing hysterically. “Oh, and before I forget. I’m going to get Lefi to head over, so feel free to ask her to lend you a hand if you feel like you’re in any sort of trouble. Just sayin’, she’s a lot stronger than you think.”

“I don’t care! Just go away already!”

***

The first thing I did after saying goodbye to the hero was fly over to the dungeon’s resident Supreme Dragon. “Hey Lefi! If you head west, you’ll find Nell in enough trouble to make her start tearing up. I gotta go grab the idiots responsible for all this, so do me a favour and go lend her a hand!”

I began to move the moment the dragon girl responded with a thumbs up. I flapped both my wings and boosted myself forward with an explosive burst of speed. The wind fought against me and put its pressure on my entire body as my surroundings flew by. I was so fast that the city and its walls almost seemed to blend into the background as I moved.

Only then did I finally have them in my sights. Let’s see… three… four… and… six. Alright, six people I gotta take care of.

I took a deep breath as I brought myself closer to the surface; I flew so close to the ground that I was practically touching it. Activating stealth, I began my assault. I readied my greatsword and swung it the moment I passed the group by, retaining the same speed all the way through. I felt my blade react with the slightest bit of resistance. And then, a moment later, five of the six men erupted into a rain of blood. A copious amount of the crimson fluid spilled all over as their torsos were torn in two.

The sixth and final man had noticed the attack in time and engaged in a quick, tactical retreat. He’d leapt backwards with all the force his legs could muster and safely avoided the blow.

“What the hell’s a demonic bastard like you doing in a place like this!?” The man shouted as the magic concealing him became undone. He oozed out of the shadows, which then revealed that he was wearing all black. Man, if outfits could speak, his would totally be screaming ‘I’m really, really suspicious!”

“Nice dodge,” I said. “But too bad, it ain’t gonna do much to help. Die!”

I rushed the man down a second time, to which he reacted with a click of the tongue. He immediately realized that he would be unable to defeat me in a contest of power, so he focused all his effort to mitigating the amount of damage he would take from the attack. He drew the dagger he had mounted on his waist and intercepted my blade to alter its path.

His efforts proved successful. My attack still connected, but I was only able to get his shoulder. It wasn’t fatal.

The suspicious looking man once again retreated to open up a good bit of distance between us before facing off against me.

“Why are you here!? Why’s a demon like you getting in our way!?”

“How about using that brain of yours, and, y’know, thinking?”

I brandished Hasai and got ready to charge, but the overly suspicious wire puller had taken the initiative and acted before me.

“I summon the damned! Rise from the netherworld and do my bidding!”

A bluish white magic circle appeared underneath the man. It flashed momentarily, only to rapidly fade away and disappear soon after. In its place was a group of monsters. The group was made up of all sorts of different species. There were bears, wolves, and there was even something that seemed to resemble a dinosaur chucked into the mix. Monster heritage aside, the sole similarity they shared was that they lacked the brilliance they would have had in life. Their eyes were dead. They were dead. Their bodies were rotting in some places, and flat out falling apart in others. To put it simply, they were zombies, zombies that moved much more smoothly than the pitiful undead assaulting the town. It was obvious that they were at least fairly powerful.

“Now that you’ve seen me, you have no choice but to die!” claimed the overly suspicious necromancer. “These undead are several times stronger than the ones you’ll find in the city! They will be the end of you, demon!”

“…Now I see why Lefi said that necromancers don’t understand what it means to have basic decency.”

The man was desecrating the monsters’ corpses. It was clear that they were being ordered around like puppets and forced to act on his whims. I could only see his magic as a cruel method of torturing the departed and forcing them to suffer, even in death. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure I send you guys off and allow you to pass on. I won’t miss a single one of you. I promise.

“Now go, zombies of mine! Unleash all of your power and defeat my foe!”

I dove straight into the zombie horde as the man issued an order for them to attack.

The first to lash out at me was a wolf. It attempted to bite me, but I repelled it with a kick and struck it with my greatsword. A bear zombie tried attacking my opposite flank at the exact same time, but I dodged its razor-sharp claws and lopped its head off in retaliation. I was then immediately attacked by a zombie that was so messed up I was unable to discern its original form or even its species. It tried to get my feet, so I stomped it into the ground and used the force to take to the air, thereby dodging the charge of a zombie that seemed to resemble a triceratops. The moment it passed under me, I jammed my sword into the back of its neck and ended it.

And so, the cycle repeated. I used all sorts of different attacks to shred and destroy every zombie within range. While they were indeed significantly stronger than the zombies wandering around within the city’s walls, it didn’t change the fact that, in the end, they were just, well, zombies. And as members of the deceased, they were unable to move as well as the living.

I had a demon lord’s stats. There was no way I would be so weak that I would struggle to take down such easy prey. Though, that might not have been true if you’d all still been alive.

“You’re a goddamned monster.” Shady clicked his tongue as he began getting ready to summon another wave of zombies.

“You think I’d let you get away with that?” I dashed up to him yet again. But this time, he didn’t panic.

“You imbecile! Is blindly rushing at your enemies all you know?” He mocked me, but his expression soon transformed from a look of confidence to one of confusion. “What!?”

“I see right through you, small fry!”

The man had set up a trap while I was preoccupied with the zombie horde. He’d woven a spell into the ground, but I’d destroyed it with my own, Dispel Magic, on my way over.

It did exactly what its name suggested. Spells required specific magical constructions, constructions which could simply be disrupted with more magic. The interference that resulted from smashing a dense lump of mana into a spell prevented the intended phenomenon from actualizing.

The way Dispel Magic worked rendered it relatively expensive. But that was fine. A single cast had been all I needed given that I had quite literally seen right through my opponent. Magic Eye allowed me to get a read on the sort of attack he was launching. I’d known his plan the moment he attempted to set up for it. Bitch please. I’m the last person that kinda sh*t would work on.

“You bast—”

“Too slow!”

The suspicious looking man tried to dodge my attack the moment he realized his spell had failed. But it was too late. The momentary pause resulting from the shock of seeing his spell fail was all I needed to run Hasai’s blade through his body.

***