Two days. That was the exact time we waited. Surprisingly, the twins didn’t complain about the unfairness of everything anymore, but were happy with their bottles of blood. For two days.
But I could see the eagerness in their eyes as we crossed the river yet again as a group of five. I knew I had to give them something to play around with eventually, but I also wanted them to restrain themselves as much as they could. I wouldn’t be able to take them into the capital city otherwise.
Surveying the landscape, I couldn’t find a single human in sight, much to my surprise. I had hoped the four heroes would meet us here, but that was apparently not the case at all.
“What are they planning …” I did assume they would chose to fight us at the earliest moment, but apparently Ellie managed to sway them away from that. Shrugging my shoulders, we waited for thousands and thousands of undead to swarm through the breach in the kingdoms defensive line easily. Their task was to guide us towards the capital city and besiege it if they weren’t willing to give up which I was kind of expecting.
“I would defend the heartlands with a scorched earth strategy. Demons are great hunters, but even we have our limitations when everything had been burnt down.” The demon king admitted quietly, probably wondering why they didn’t do anything like that. And if he did, it meant that Aska hadn’t told him much about our strategy.
“It’s hard to apply that when your family rises from the grave to cage you into your city.” I told him, nodded towards Hannah and continued walking for around half the night until I noticed a lot of death nearby.
A bit bewildered, I approached that place with the twins in tow – after I had asked Hannah and the demon king to stay behind - and saw the first of many places who wouldn’t let that undead inside.
The villages burning palisades were an obvious sign that some battle took place which the humans obviously lost horrendously. Sighing quietly, I walked through the crumbling gateway into the equally burning village. The houses were mostly vacant with a few undead strolling around here and there with most of them gathered around a group of people in the centre of the village.
But before I went there, I looked at the twins sternly and then followed my ears into a burning house. It was already half collapsed at one side and a single child knelt next to his stabbed mother, weeping while attempting to shake her awake.
The eight year old surely didn’t fit into there at all, especially because the smoke was rather thick already. He was coughing violently as I knelt down behind him and hugged him tightly.
“I’m sorry.” Aska and I had agreed that we wouldn’t hurt children if we could avoid it, but we both knew that murdering those who were resisting was a necessity, at least until we had secured the royal capital. “It’s going to be fine.”
I picked him up from underneath his armpit and carried the weeping boy out of the place he called home which which was only burning because of my failure to stop Aska from getting onto Solaris.
Heavy hearted, I brought him over to a few villagers all frozen in terror.
“Does he have any family left?” I asked and looked around the group of forty-ish people.
“I … am his aunt.” A rather small woman stood up while I let the boy onto the ground and patted his back. He didn’t understand what was going on yet, in fact most of the twenty kids didn’t, which was why he ran over to his aunt for comfort right away. And in the meantime, the twins approached me from both sides and showed the terrified group their fangs proudly.
“Can we eat them?” Clara begged quietly and clung onto my arm, Clarice doing the same to my other.
“They have suffered enough already.” I shook them off me right away and went on my knees to get on one level with the villagers. “I am deeply sorry about your loss. My words will sound hollow, but I still want to say that I wish things would be different … you are free to do whatever you want. You can stay here and rebuild everything with the help of the undead, or you can move to the nearest city. The choice is yours.”
“My … saint. We wouldn’t be able to reach another city and staying here is …” One woman must have recognised my voice and reached out to me, even though my red eyes usually meant something very bad.
“I will ask the undead to protect your group.” I told her and let her grab my attire. The fourth year old woman was shaking and scared but also believing in my nonexistent kindness.
“May I ask a question?” She asked quietly and took me in her arms slowly.
“Whatever it is.” I considered pushing her away from me, especially because the twins were less than happy with that development, but didn’t do so in the end. I didn’t want to ruin the image I fostered as the saint completely.
“Why?”
“… because a single god decided to make this world his. And because I failed to protect you all.” I turned around, grabbed the confused twins by their hands and pulled them back to Hannah and the demon king waiting in the distance for us.
“Why did you do that? They are going to be your enemies in the future.” What Clarice claimed was indeed a possibility. The kids would grow up and remember this incident in association with my face and voice.
“I’ll deal with them when the times comes.” But I wasn’t willing to murder kids just because of a possibility. I could, but I wouldn’t. “And we need someone to tell everyone where we are.”
As soon as we reached the others, I felt something coming. A wave from the inside of my soul was splashing against me, chiselling away what I consisted of. Sharp pain shot through my heart towards my right feet, nearly tripping me over as I lost all senses in my leg.
But as fast as it came, it went away again. Luna’s soul calmed down while my soul healed up again, but slower than ever before. A little bit terrified, I placed my hand above my heart and watched downwards to my leg.
I usually laughed loudly whenever I was hurt, but not this time. It scared me. I didn’t have Luna with me for too long and her soul shouldn’t be able to hurt me at all at this point, no matter where she was and yet she did. Way quicker than anticipated.
“Everything alright?” Hannah asked concerned, having watched me as I struggled.
“Nothing to worry about.” I told her wary about the demon king listening in. And besides, nothing would stop me from giving Luna the life she deserved and if I had to endure soul-crushing pain for that, I would do so … after I had solved the issues at hand.
I really wished I could bash Aska’s head at that time because he didn’t tell me it was bound to get bad this fast. Once again, it felt like I was racing against time as I could be carrying an explosive bomb within me. I hoped it wouldn’t get this far … but I had to expect the worst in which I would need to direct my full attention to Luna.
Well, until then I would need to solve everything. Luckily I wouldn’t need to rely on my own strength more than once until I could ask Aska to leave … and if he didn’t do that … we’ll, then I would really chose my own destruction over the alternatives.
Showing north – wherever that was – my middle finger, I squeezed myself through Hannah and the demon king just for the sake of it and waited for them to take the lead once more.
Thankfully, these scenes we witnessed of destroyed villages and dead civilians didn’t repeat endlessly. Around half didn’t resist and let a single undead inside their fortifications, if they even had any. On the second night or so already, we already had seen one village who incorporated that undead and let it plow the fields endlessly. These villages were mostly the one who had a strong faith in the gods and in extension me. They thus didn’t halt our progress at all.
In fact, we arrived at the first major settlement relatively peaceful. Except a few bandits I gave to the twins, there wasn’t any army at all opposing us. I understood the reasoning behind that though.
Necromancy required mana to work. A single creature kept alive with it uses a tiny bit of mana but millions of creatures are impossible to keep afloat with necromancy. Therefore everyone would assume that it was only a matter of time until our mana reserves in the form of mana stones or bottles would run out eventually.
But we weren’t just reanimating the flesh. We were putting its original soul back into it and used its tiny mana supply to keep the body afloat.
As such, it was indeed a rather bewildering experience for me to see humans being besieged by all kinds of undead forming a cauldron around the city without the other side taking any actions whatsoever. We didn’t even need to attack them. We just needed to wait. And with our far superior numbers, we had the luxury of doing so.
As such, I didn’t give in to the twins at all and rather dragged them past the besieged city without any remorse whatsoever.
Two days. That was the exact time we waited. Surprisingly, the twins didn’t complain about the unfairness of everything anymore, but were happy with their bottles of blood. For two days.
But I could see the eagerness in their eyes as we crossed the river yet again as a group of five. I knew I had to give them something to play around with eventually, but I also wanted them to restrain themselves as much as they could. I wouldn’t be able to take them into the capital city otherwise.
Surveying the landscape, I couldn’t find a single human in sight, much to my surprise. I had hoped the four heroes would meet us here, but that was apparently not the case at all.
“What are they planning …” I did assume they would chose to fight us at the earliest moment, but apparently Ellie managed to sway them away from that. Shrugging my shoulders, we waited for thousands and thousands of undead to swarm through the breach in the kingdoms defensive line easily. Their task was to guide us towards the capital city and besiege it if they weren’t willing to give up which I was kind of expecting.
“I would defend the heartlands with a scorched earth strategy. Demons are great hunters, but even we have our limitations when everything had been burnt down.” The demon king admitted quietly, probably wondering why they didn’t do anything like that. And if he did, it meant that Aska hadn’t told him much about our strategy.
“It’s hard to apply that when your family rises from the grave to cage you into your city.” I told him, nodded towards Hannah and continued walking for around half the night until I noticed a lot of death nearby.
A bit bewildered, I approached that place with the twins in tow – after I had asked Hannah and the demon king to stay behind - and saw the first of many places who wouldn’t let that undead inside.
The villages burning palisades were an obvious sign that some battle took place which the humans obviously lost horrendously. Sighing quietly, I walked through the crumbling gateway into the equally burning village. The houses were mostly vacant with a few undead strolling around here and there with most of them gathered around a group of people in the centre of the village.
But before I went there, I looked at the twins sternly and then followed my ears into a burning house. It was already half collapsed at one side and a single child knelt next to his stabbed mother, weeping while attempting to shake her awake.
The eight year old surely didn’t fit into there at all, especially because the smoke was rather thick already. He was coughing violently as I knelt down behind him and hugged him tightly.
“I’m sorry.” Aska and I had agreed that we wouldn’t hurt children if we could avoid it, but we both knew that murdering those who were resisting was a necessity, at least until we had secured the royal capital. “It’s going to be fine.”
I picked him up from underneath his armpit and carried the weeping boy out of the place he called home which which was only burning because of my failure to stop Aska from getting onto Solaris.
Heavy hearted, I brought him over to a few villagers all frozen in terror.
“Does he have any family left?” I asked and looked around the group of forty-ish people.
“I … am his aunt.” A rather small woman stood up while I let the boy onto the ground and patted his back. He didn’t understand what was going on yet, in fact most of the twenty kids didn’t, which was why he ran over to his aunt for comfort right away. And in the meantime, the twins approached me from both sides and showed the terrified group their fangs proudly.
“Can we eat them?” Clara begged quietly and clung onto my arm, Clarice doing the same to my other.
“They have suffered enough already.” I shook them off me right away and went on my knees to get on one level with the villagers. “I am deeply sorry about your loss. My words will sound hollow, but I still want to say that I wish things would be different … you are free to do whatever you want. You can stay here and rebuild everything with the help of the undead, or you can move to the nearest city. The choice is yours.”
“My … saint. We wouldn’t be able to reach another city and staying here is …” One woman must have recognised my voice and reached out to me, even though my red eyes usually meant something very bad.
“I will ask the undead to protect your group.” I told her and let her grab my attire. The fourth year old woman was shaking and scared but also believing in my nonexistent kindness.
“May I ask a question?” She asked quietly and took me in her arms slowly.
“Whatever it is.” I considered pushing her away from me, especially because the twins were less than happy with that development, but didn’t do so in the end. I didn’t want to ruin the image I fostered as the saint completely.
“Why?”
“… because a single god decided to make this world his. And because I failed to protect you all.” I turned around, grabbed the confused twins by their hands and pulled them back to Hannah and the demon king waiting in the distance for us.
“Why did you do that? They are going to be your enemies in the future.” What Clarice claimed was indeed a possibility. The kids would grow up and remember this incident in association with my face and voice.
“I’ll deal with them when the times comes.” But I wasn’t willing to murder kids just because of a possibility. I could, but I wouldn’t. “And we need someone to tell everyone where we are.”
As soon as we reached the others, I felt something coming. A wave from the inside of my soul was splashing against me, chiselling away what I consisted of. Sharp pain shot through my heart towards my right feet, nearly tripping me over as I lost all senses in my leg.
But as fast as it came, it went away again. Luna’s soul calmed down while my soul healed up again, but slower than ever before. A little bit terrified, I placed my hand above my heart and watched downwards to my leg.
I usually laughed loudly whenever I was hurt, but not this time. It scared me. I didn’t have Luna with me for too long and her soul shouldn’t be able to hurt me at all at this point, no matter where she was and yet she did. Way quicker than anticipated.
“Everything alright?” Hannah asked concerned, having watched me as I struggled.
“Nothing to worry about.” I told her wary about the demon king listening in. And besides, nothing would stop me from giving Luna the life she deserved and if I had to endure soul-crushing pain for that, I would do so … after I had solved the issues at hand.
I really wished I could bash Aska’s head at that time because he didn’t tell me it was bound to get bad this fast. Once again, it felt like I was racing against time as I could be carrying an explosive bomb within me. I hoped it wouldn’t get this far … but I had to expect the worst in which I would need to direct my full attention to Luna.
Well, until then I would need to solve everything. Luckily I wouldn’t need to rely on my own strength more than once until I could ask Aska to leave … and if he didn’t do that … we’ll, then I would really chose my own destruction over the alternatives.
Showing north – wherever that was – my middle finger, I squeezed myself through Hannah and the demon king just for the sake of it and waited for them to take the lead once more.
Thankfully, these scenes we witnessed of destroyed villages and dead civilians didn’t repeat endlessly. Around half didn’t resist and let a single undead inside their fortifications, if they even had any. On the second night or so already, we already had seen one village who incorporated that undead and let it plow the fields endlessly. These villages were mostly the one who had a strong faith in the gods and in extension me. They thus didn’t halt our progress at all.
In fact, we arrived at the first major settlement relatively peaceful. Except a few bandits I gave to the twins, there wasn’t any army at all opposing us. I understood the reasoning behind that though.
Necromancy required mana to work. A single creature kept alive with it uses a tiny bit of mana but millions of creatures are impossible to keep afloat with necromancy. Therefore everyone would assume that it was only a matter of time until our mana reserves in the form of mana stones or bottles would run out eventually.
But we weren’t just reanimating the flesh. We were putting its original soul back into it and used its tiny mana supply to keep the body afloat.
As such, it was indeed a rather bewildering experience for me to see humans being besieged by all kinds of undead forming a cauldron around the city without the other side taking any actions whatsoever. We didn’t even need to attack them. We just needed to wait. And with our far superior numbers, we had the luxury of doing so.
As such, I didn’t give in to the twins at all and rather dragged them past the besieged city without any remorse whatsoever.
