Chapter 422: Dual-Track Approach
The corpse explosions the Ghoul Mages triggered were closer to physical attacks than magical ones.
The Ghoul Mages’ mana detonated corpses from the inside out, and the resulting chunks of flesh burst in every direction, dealing damage. Corpse bombs, essentially.
Against heavy infantry in full plate, it was a largely meaningless attack; but I had planted ★ and ★★ ghouls along the floor of the entrance they were marching through.
"Ah yes, this is what you call a booby trap."
They had already walked into the trap the moment they entered the dungeon. The ghoul bombs detonating beneath their feet kicked up a massive cloud of dust that engulfed the subjugation force’s vanguard.
"Cough, cough!!"
Dry coughing echoed from the subjugation force. Before the dust could settle, I gripped the seax and lunged forward with all my strength.
There was only one opponent I needed to pin down.
The dust obscuring my vision didn’t matter. Even if my eyes couldn’t see, the system overlaid on my vision pinpointed her exact position.
[Rhodopelli Philia: ★★★★☆, Lv. 81]
I had assumed she was around Gremory’s level, but it seemed she had leveled up again since last time. Still weaker than me, of course, so I swung the seax at Rhodopelli with everything I had.
CLANG!!
The ring of steel on steel reverberated through the air. Through the dust that momentarily parted sideways, Rhodopelli glared up at me with her sharp-edged axe braced against my blow, her face twisted in a scowl.
"Not bad!"
"Ngh...!"
The tension in Rhodopelli’s eyes was unmistakable.
She was strong enough to block my strike, earning her four-star status; and in that single clash, she had realized exactly how far my strength went.
"You’re weak, dwarf!"
"Since when are orcs this strong?!"
"I’m strong because I’m an orc!"
Clang, clang!
I swung the seax at Rhodopelli’s axe with reckless abandon. She was forced onto her back foot, barely managing to defend.
"Princess!!"
Gruff-voiced runts who looked like they could drink anyone under the table rushed in from the side, swinging axes to threaten me. One alone I would have ignored, but three or four coming at me simultaneously was a genuine threat.
"Hup!"
I swept the seax wide and pulled back to the side. The dwarves’ attacks cut nothing but air or grazed my robe before falling short.
"Avenger of Elizabeth! Die!!"
From below, one dwarf swung a hammer at my gut. He was so short that intercepting with the halberd was already too late.
Jiggle!!
"Of all places to aim, you go for the belly. Fool."
I shifted the seax to one hand and grabbed the dwarf by the scruff of his neck. Hoisted into the air in an instant, the dwarf flailed and struggled, but I tossed the seax behind me and tightened my grip around his neck.
Crack!
His neck snapped from grip strength alone. The sight of the dwarf going limp set Rhodopelli’s eyes ablaze.
"You son of a bitch!"
"Your field of view has narrowed. Why not take a look around?"
I held the dead dwarf and sprinted backward. The moment the distance opened, Rhodopelli tried to give chase, but as the dust gradually settled downward, her expression shifted to one of cold fury.
"You bastards!!"
"Hahaha, did you think I was the only one who moved?"
I wasn’t the dungeon’s only master. Just as I held a dwarf in my hand, in front of Halphas, Allocen, and Gremory, heavily armored knights hung limp like corpses.
"Heh heh, every one of them looks reasonably strong."
"Tight formation! The spots that already blew won’t blow again! Rally around those areas!"
A bespectacled young man screamed orders. Judging by his rather high-quality attire, he was without a doubt one of the Count’s house’s key figures.
"That’s Count Sagittarius."
"Is that so? Impressive. A count personally commanding from the front lines. Out of respect for that kind of spirit, I really ought to kill him right here."
Thump. I propped the dwarf’s corpse upright.
It was already dead, so it could only stand properly while I held it, but being a corpse meant it could be propped back up.
[In the name of the Legion, be reborn.]
Rastujad and the twelve disciples channeled mana into the bodies of the ones we had snatched. All of them had died from broken necks; their bones crackled as their eyes began to scatter a purple glow.
"Ta-da, instant troop procurement complete!"
Groooan.
The dwarves and knights we had kidnapped had all been three- and four-star elites.
"Some very serviceable ghouls we’ve got here."
They had been strong enough to handle attacks even through the dust, but unfortunately for them, we had also been deliberately snatching targets we knew we could grab in the chaos.
"But isn’t four or five out of a thousand a bit short?"
Of course, they weren’t the only ones we had taken.
"Ahahahahaha!!"
Thud, thud thud.
Heavy infantrymen began dropping from the ceiling like ragdolls. Slammed against the floor, each had at least one limb bent at an unnatural angle, but they all shared one thing in common: thick talon marks gouged into their necks.
"So we grabbed a few more."
The Harpy Aellos hidden along the ceiling had also ambushed the heavy infantry the instant the dust cloud erupted.
Snatching common soldiers by the neck with their massive talons as if catching prey, the thirty Harpy Aellos had each grabbed at least one soldier.
After blinding them with the initial corpse explosion, we had snatched roughly fifty troops in the blink of an eye.
"This is what a weight class difference looks like. A gap in physicality that no amount of equipment can cover. The fundamental difference between humans and demons, Rhodopelli."
"You rotten bastards!!"
Rhodopelli screamed with rage. The axe she leveled at me trembled violently, and her eyes were so red she looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.
I’d made her cry.
"Heh heh heh. I’m a rotten bastard, so I use rotten tactics. Did you forget? We’re demons. We’re fighting like demons. What’s the problem?"
[The master of the Legion wills it. All ghouls, rise.]
Rastujad raised his skull-topped staff and scattered mana in every direction. He had handled slimes as ghouls before, but Rastujad truly performed at his peak when working with human ghouls.
Graaagh.
The soldiers with punctured necks all lurched to their feet, bodies swaying. At my gesture, they took their places at the very front of our forces.
"If you’re short on troops, you simply procure more."
"All units, fire!!"
A massive magic circle materialized behind the Count. Unlike the hot-tempered Rhodopelli, the Count had been quietly preparing his attack without a single tell; he was calm and methodical.
"Lances of light? Protect the dark mages!"
Razor-sharp lances of light rained down on us like ballista bolts. Arcing over the ghouls blocking the front line, the lances were aimed precisely at the Ghoul Mages.
"Defend!"
""Raaas!!"
But we hadn’t left ourselves unprotected either. The orcs standing by beside the dark mages raised enormous wooden shields.
Thwak thwak thwak!
The lances of light embedded in the shields like thorns. But they failed to pierce through.
"Obviously, I figured you’d use magical attacks to snipe undead dark mages. Did you really think we hadn’t prepared for that?"
The orcs lowered their shields. The wooden facing splintered apart under the lances of light, revealing what lay beneath.
"Ah yes, this is what you call a friendly shield."
"AAAAAGH!!!"
The subjugation force’s soldiers screamed. Behind the shattered wooden shields, stripped-naked humans were impaled on the golden lances, their bodies serving as padding.
"Heh heh, you didn’t think we snapped their necks the moment we grabbed them, did you?"
The corpses the orcs had used as human shields were all prisoners captured by Gremory’s division on the Sagittarius front.
Some had defected to our Legion, but these were all individuals who had refused to join, and whose lives had ended through sexual exhaustion.
"Don’t worry. At least when they died, we gave them a pleasant send-off."
They had all died of sexual exhaustion, so technically they had indeed been sent off pleasantly. At the very least, they got to choose their final partner and died in ecstasy.
Of course, even if we had been kind enough to give them a comfortable exit, the corpses they left behind were ours now. We could do whatever we pleased with them.
"They’re single-use, but that’s fine. Ghouls can always be restocked."
"You monsters deserve divine punishment! You’re garbage!"
"Garbage? How rude. And here I was trying to dispose of them neatly. Since you want garbage, I’ll act like garbage. Rastujad!"
[As my master wills it.]
Thud. The orcs hurled the lance-impaled ghouls forward. The Ghoul Mages leveled their staves at the ghouls that had fallen from the shields.
[Turn Undead. Become sustenance for us.]
SHRIEEK.
The ghouls’ bodies crumbled to ash and scattered. At the same time, the remnants of mana lingering in their bodies drifted out like mist and were absorbed into the Ghoul Mages.
Clap, clap, clap.
"Perfect recycling. You’re truly more demon than anyone."
Gremory applauded, showering me with praise. I gave Gremory’s chest a squeeze in playful teasing, then shouted at the subjugation force drowning in despair, terror, and rage.
"If you had challenged us to a fair fight first, we would have fought you fairly!"
"Cut the bullshit!"
"Bullshit? That’s rich! When we were fighting trolls on the plains, what did you people do? You sat back and watched, then ambushed us only after the fight was over! Like cowards!!"
The Count’s and Rhodopelli’s faces contorted.
"You saw an opening and jumped on it! And because of that, we lost mighty warriors! You severed the trolls’ limbs, crushed them, and drained their blood to brew potions!"
The humans said nothing. Their fundamental reason for raiding dungeons was to kill demons and harvest magic stones and byproducts, after all.
"It’s the same for us! We’ll kill you and use everything from head to toe, no, down to the marrow! Behold, this is the art of war perfected by Satan, the pinnacle of efficiency!"
[In the name of the Legion, I command. All ghouls...]
Clang!
Rastujad raised his staff high and bellowed.
[Strip!]
Graaagh.
The freshly turned ghouls we had kidnapped began removing their helmets one by one. The Ghoul Mages directly puppeteered the ghouls, stripping off not just helmets but full suits of armor, neatly folding and stacking them behind the line.
"We’ll be putting your gear to good use from now on. Heh heh heh."
The ghouls stood completely defenseless, stripped of every piece of armor and weaponry. The orcs waiting in the rear collected the discarded equipment and pressed crude wooden clubs into the ghouls’ hands.
[All forces, advance.]
Rastujad leveled his staff forward. At that signal, the "ghoul squad" alone lurched forward, swinging their wooden clubs in both hands with mindless abandon.
"Be careful, humans! We need to use the armor and weapons you’re wearing, so try not to dent them or nick the blades! Hahaha!"
SHRIIIEK!!
The ghouls broke into a full charge. At the same instant, a crimson flash blazed from the enemy’s side.
WHACK!!
A single swing of the axe bisected six ghouls at the waist. Among them was one of the dwarves turned ghoul.
"Whew. Now that’s fierce."
"...Someday, I will kill you."
Rhodopelli leveled her axe at me and backed away. The human soldiers cleaved the ghouls crawling toward them in half with single strikes.
"What’s your name?"
"What good would knowing my name do? After all."
Grrr.
I climbed onto a Worwolf far larger than any of the others. The orcs all mounted their Worwolves. Each of them held a lasso in hand, the same kind the dullahans had once used to snatch human soldiers.
"You will be caught by my hand, and your subjugation force will be caught by ours. Let’s go, Robo Unit 2!! All forces, charge!"
AWOOOO!!
The Worwolves broke into a sprint. The Harpy Aellos took to the ceiling in flight. The Andras troops followed behind at a run, wooden clubs gripped in both hands.
"Witness the power of our Legion of Pride!!"
***
"Lucifer, the transplant is done. You can get up now."
"Haa, haa. Shaitan... you’re too good at this."
"I’m a succubus, after all."
Lucifer pulled Shaitan’s tail out of herself. Beneath the bed, the flood Lucifer had released had left everything soaking wet.
"Haa. So where do I go now?"
"Just keep doing what you’ve been doing here. Until the next master of the conditioning room arrives, keep training the subjects."
"Mm, I see. I hope Master brings something new soon."
Lucifer traced the seal that had returned to her lower abdomen with her fingers, smiling seductively.
"This half-dragon has stopped reacting, and I’m starting to get bored."
"...What exactly are you two scheming?"
Levis Ann, wrapped in tentacles with only her mouth exposed, barely managed to speak.
"Splitting the Legion in two... what does that even..."
"It’s nothing special."
"We’re conning the whole world. Heh heh."
Shaitan and Lucifer idly fondled each other’s seals while whispering into Levis Ann’s ears from either side.
"The Legion of Wrath, which pursues coexistence with humans, just as our Master would."
"The Legion of Pride, which exterminates humans, as demons should."
The two half-sisters locked eyes, then licked Levis Ann’s ears in unison as they whispered together.
""Ah yes, this is what you call a dual-track approach.""
Shudder.
The chill that ran through Levis Ann was so intense she accidentally laid an egg.