Chapter 41: The Surrounding Villages

As we proceeded toward Riaz Forest, we passed by plenty of villages. All of them were empty, their houses abandoned and their populations gone.

"The stench of death hangs over them," Lindley said. I cocked my head inquisitively. The disguised lich lord had constantly said that every time we went through a deserted village, bereft of residents.

"Where are the bodies?"

At my question, Stella stiffened. The atmosphere was creepy, the ghost towns being so devoid of life that not even poultry or cattle remained. There were no horses, nothing. The only living things were bugs, crawling swiftly over rotting walls and hiding within nests in the abandoned homes. Mold had grown over the rocky surfaces, and weeds rampantly grew from cracks in the ground.

There were echoes of the living here, lingering remnants that appeared to exist as disembodied voices. Or was that just the wind?

"Not here," Lindley replied. "But I can sense the violence…the fear, the despair and rage. Whatever happened, a lot of people died here, and their bodies were taken away. Harvested."

He closed his eyes, as if drinking in the foul air, and then suppressed a shudder.

"…they didn't just simply die, it seems. Their spirits are warped. I can sense their pain, the agony they suffered as something changed them. No doubt a result of the multi-mage's experiments."

"How…cruel," Stella whispered, clenching her fists. She looked around. "This is the sixth village we've passed by already. Just how many did Miranda Miller kill?"

"It's getting out of control, too. Remember Riaju City?" I recalled the comments from the innkeeper. "The depopulation of the western villages has gotten so bad that the royal family intends to dispatch a regiment to investigate the disappearances."

However, I wasn't going to wait for the military to take care of Miranda. I was going to take my revenge on her with my very own hands. This meant we were on a timer. I would rather avoid fighting the human armies if I could help it. They weren't the target of my vengeance, after all. In fact, I still recalled how well they treated me in comparison to my former party.

Maybe I should have joined the army instead…

Lindley was the same.

"As much as I would love to gather resources and bodies for my legion, doing that in the middle of the human kingdom, this far from the Empire, is…"

"Yeah. I want to defeat Miranda and take her away before the human army gets here. Otherwise it'll be very troublesome." I nodded in agreement. Stella sighed.

"Should we move on then? According to the map, we should reach the mage corps' laboratory before nightfall. We can then set up camp in the forest nearby and try infiltrating it tomorrow."

"Sounds like a plan." I nodded again.

Before we left the village, we searched for supplies. While the humans were gone, their stuff wasn't. The food wasn't of much use, having rotted because they were unattended to, but we could get other form of supplies, such as equipment and rope. Fortunately, because we were undead (vampires or lich), we didn't need food and water.

Then we departed the village.

Unfortunately, we didn't get very far before we heard a faint scream in the distance.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Stella and I exchanged a cautious glance, and the red-haired knight hardened her gaze.

"Klein, I will investigate it."

"I'll follow you." I turned to Lindley. Technically, I had hired him, but he wasn't under my command. At least not yet. "What do you plan to do, Lindley?"

"I'll be right behind you. The both of you are faster than me, so please go on ahead. If you do end up being drawn into battle, I will provide support the moment I arrive."

"That works. I'll be counting on you then." I turned to Stella. "Let's go, Stella."

The both of us took off. Unlike Lindley, who was practically a bag of bones and thus couldn't move as nimbly, Stella and I were vampires. That meant we had enhanced physiologies that were a lot stronger and faster than a normal human.

While we streaked across the clearing outside the village we had just visited, I noted that Stella was getting better at handling her new speed and strength. Not bad. Over the last month, she had practiced her sword skills and movements, and it was impressive how quickly she was able to grasp the limits of her new constitution.

The both of us skidded to a stop when we caught sight of the source of the screams. There were four distinctly human figures who were being pursued by a horde of monsters. Three guys and a girl, they were wearing the white robes of the mage corps, with the emblem of a grimoire plastered across their left breast pockets. The guys wore trousers beneath their stylish robes while the single girl had a skirt on, matching her blouse and robes.

Mages? They were from the mage corps, judging from their uniforms, but why…?

Then one of the guys spun around and unleashed a hail of fireballs. The horde scattered, but one of the monsters was too slow to dodge. Even so, it tanked the explosive projectiles with its armored carapace, snarling in agony as it staggered from the blows. Despite the mage's best efforts, he only scorched the surface of the creature.

A second mage then threw a few wind blades at a pack of harpies that dove at them, discouraging the winged monsters. The third guy then unleashed lightning, catching a few of them and sending their convulsing bodies to crash on the ground. The girl shrieked and jumped, but the wind mage grabbed her arm and yanked her along.

"Hurry!" he snapped. "Keep running!"

"There's too many of them!" the red-haired fire mage complained.

"Just what are these things?!" the green-haired girl wailed.

"I don't know! But that damned bitch Miranda really juiced them up! They are so much more powerful than normal monsters!" the blond lightning mage growled.

"Just keep moving!" the brown-haired wind mage urged them. "They are gaining on us."

"Let me delay them a bit!" the green-haired girl said desperately and slammed her hands together. Behind the four fleeing mages, vines burst out of the ground, rampantly growing plants that curled and ensnared the pursuing monsters.

It delayed them for just a bit, but the armored monster that withstood the fire spells sliced through the vines with a gigantic pincer and stomped after them.

"Fucker!" the redhead shouted and launched another fireball, which the mutant smacked away with its oversized pincer.

"Should we help them?" Stella asked, her hand already on her sword.

I nodded, already conjuring a spell. My enchanted glasses magnified the image of the armored monster and to my shock and disgust, I saw that it was vaguely humanoid. Its head was that of a man's, his features contorted in agony and despair. The pincer looked as if it had been crudely grafted onto his right arm, and was the armored carapace and scorpion-like legs.

I decided to end his agony by spearing his head with a massive icicle while it was still distracted by the four mages in front of it.

Then the other creatures burst free from the wood and overgrowth that the wood mage had conjured. Before they could get far, though, Stella was right on them, her sword flashing crimson as she hacked through the monsters. Thanks to my glasses, I could see that they were formerly humans, turned into chimeras with monstrous parts sewn onto them through foul magic. Even the harpies above were previously human, with wings grafted onto their backs and their arms and legs surgically transformed into claws and talons.

"You guys…!" the lightning mage exclaimed, not believing his eyes.

I paid him little attention as I conjured a hail of icicles to rain upon the harpies. Some distance away from me, Stella cut a bloody swathe through a spider-like chimera, her blade cleaving the unfortunate creature in half. She the bisected what looked like a Minotaur, its formerly human features warped in rage and agony.

Despite her sublime skills, she was slowly being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. I moved up to support her, drawing a jewel dagger to slice through a bug-like chimera. The poor guy went down, his throat slit open and ice rapidly expanding across his ruined body.

"You guys, take care of the aerial threat." I gestured toward the remaining harpies. The four mages nodded dumbly, too taken aback to argue. Then I raced forward to join Stella in battle. She had by now dispatched over a dozen monsters and was dueling with a chimera – a former human with mantis-like scythes surgically sewn onto his arms. I slashed a lycanthrope chimera lunged at her from behind and my companion nodded her thanks. Without turning to look at her, I issued a single instruction. "Stay close to me."

"Understood."

There was a roar, and a colossal golem burst out of the overgrowth. Over five meters tall, it stomped toward us, but I could see a girl melded into its rocky chest, writhing in perpetual agony. Her body had been fused with rock and her soul was being used to provide the golem energy. She was surrounded by a bunch of chimeras, all of whom were on fours, their limbs amputated and replaced by scaly claws. They even had scorpion-like tails sewn onto them. Acidic venom dripped out from the deadly tips.

This was going to be messy.

"Shouldn't you be using your Fixed Damage skill to instant-kill them?" Stella asked sarcastically. I glanced at her dryly.

"Are you mixing me up with someone else?"

"Sorry." Stella giggled as she cleaved apart another chimera, this time one that was a cross between an ape and a human. "But I think you're cooler this way, not having to rely on cheats and Deus ex Machina to grant you cheat powers and revive you from the dead."

"Thanks. Anyway, like I said, stay close to me."

She nodded and withdrew to my side. At that moment, I tossed my magic dagger to my left hand and then pressed my right palm against the ground.

"Absolute Zero."

The entire place was immediately frozen solid. The golem, the four-legged chimeras, the insect-type chimeras, they were all caught and entombed in ice. Rising to my feet, I snapped my fingers and the frozen monsters shattered into millions of fragments.

Just like that, the battle was over.

Well, almost. Turning to the four mages we came to rescue, I saw that the harpies were still harassing them. Stella cocked her head to the side, as if in scorn, then she streaked forward, vanishing into a crimson blur. In less than thirty seconds, she cleaved apart the remaining harpies – those that were taken down by the combined efforts of the four mages in any case. Much of the winged corpses were blackened, having been incinerated by fire or electrocuted by lightning. A few of them were in pieces, not as a result of Stella's sword, but because they were cut apart by precise wind blades.

And then there were remnants of burned or scorched plants and vines, which was evidence that the female wood mage hadn't been idle. If anything, she had contributed a lot by ensnaring the very agile harpies with her vines so that her comrades could hit them with unerring accuracy and kill them efficiently.

With her job, done, Stella dropped by my side. In the distance, I could see Lindley finally showing up and joining us, but there was no longer anything for him to do. Well, he would most probably want to examine the corpses of the chimeras. Yikes…I went and froze a whole bunch of them before shattering them. There wouldn't be much left for him to study.

Well, it was totally worth it.

"Thank you very much."

The red-haired fire mage broke the silence and stepped forward to bow deeply. He then looked up, unable to hide the suspicion in his eyes.

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful, though…but who are you?"