Volume 6: Chapter 22: New Plans (Part 1)

Even if the entire world becomes my enemy, I still want to follow that man.

Every time he promised something, he always delivered.

Never uttering a single lie, he boasted an impeccably sharp and calculating mind.

Mind probing magic could let her look into the inner world of the person, but it did not allow her to see everything about the person.

But she did end up seeing bits and pieces of his memories.

Even after peering into his mind countless times with her magic, she still could not tell what his end goal was, and she didn't need to.

Because no matter what path he takes from now on, she was his, until the very end.

And sometime along the way…she started to want him to be hers too…

It was not like she wanted to monopolize him, but after hearing that he once loved someone else and even had a child…she couldn't help but feel a little envious.

Her master was obviously capable of caring and even loving, but somehow, he seemed to never see her that way.

Maybe his taste in females was different from normal?

By human standards, elves were considered quite a sight to behold. More beautiful than any humans, the elves had them thoroughly beat in looks department.

Even by Elven standards, she was considered a beauty.

So why he never once looked her way?

When she looked into his eyes, it was always the same empty stare, the look of someone looking into the distance, trying to find something, all the while ignoring what is right before him.

Yet, he fell in love with a winged, skeletal abomination that literally embodies the concept of death.

Yep, she saw those memories.

To say that he had a bizarre taste in women would be an understatement of the century.

Though, to be fair, he is a human-demon-undead hybrid, what others may find horrifying, he may find beautiful.

Not willing to give up, Lukalis made it a priority to talk to Dark Lord one-on-one, as much as possible. And due to their contract, Dark Lord rarely refused.

As usual, they were sitting on the opposite sides of the table, drinking tea. The table and the seats were located within the inner garden area of Sevilles estate.

Due to the heat outside, Lukalis cast a few spells to regulate the temperature around them while also making sure that none could overhear their conversation.

There was not a single pest in sight. Apparently Sariu managed to gain enough of control over her curse so that it only killed parasites and annoying bugs, while leaving plants and people unharmed.

Even if she could not make the curse less deadly, it was still a massive improvement. Due to this, Lake would often use her as a pest control for the gardens.

In order to not attract attention, Lukalis was wearing a form-fitting black maid outfit.

For anyone else, this would look like just another date between Lord Sevilles and one of his maid servants.

Currently, it was a discussion about Dark Lord's future plans.

Apparently causing a war was not enough for him, he had even more things up his sleeve.

What was strange was how detailed his plans were. He knew key information that he should have no way of accessing.

While most people were conscripted into joining the human army, the servants of the Sevilles territory were given an exception as long as they worked in the fields in order to supply the troops with food. And since Lord Sevilles's taxes on his people were about one tenth of what other nobles demanded, the servants were quite relieved with their situation.

Lukalis: 'Still, how does he know everything about what is going on with the current war? It is not like we are watching the actions of every hero'

Dark Lord: "With the deaths of Knight of Justice and Knight of Land, the human side has only 17 heroes remaining. I am not certain what happened to their corpses, which apparently ended up disappearing before they could be given proper burial. Anyways, the ones that we have to watch out for are Knight of Light, Knight of Night, and Knight of Ice. But for some reason, Meros says that Knight of Fire must not be underestimated under any circumstances. He looked a little pale when mentioning her, how uncharacteristic of him"

Dark Lord: "Humans have suffered huge losses, with 100,000 men dead. But strangely enough, aside from the two heroes, the rest of heroes have managed to stand strong. I am hoping at least one more hero croaks before the war comes to a close, but that might be too much to ask for"

Dark Lord: "Elven side is putting up a rather valiant fight, but they are currently losing the war. They were outnumbered from the start, so it is not surprising, and without their king, they lack most of their offensive and moral strength. If everything goes at this rate, then the elves will lose in a month or two."

Lukalis: "Runfar?"

Dark Lord: "?"

Lukalis: "How do you know exactly what is going on during this war? Did you send someone to spy on the battlefield?"

Dark Lord: "That was not necessary. The letters were enough"

Lukalis: "The letters?"

Dark Lord: "Yep"

He proceeded to pull out countless folded up letters from his pocket before handing them to Luka.

Reading through them, Lukalis couldn't help but exclaim.

Lukalis: "So many battles are described in such great detail, almost like this person is fighting at that war….from your friend, Leon Revilles…The Knight of Light?!"

Luka looked at Dark Lord with expression of pure disbelief.

Dark Lord: "It is exactly what it looks like"

Lukalis: "The human hero is sending you regular updates about the state of the war? Is he an idiot?"

Dark Lord: "I have been wondering about that myself, but as long as his letters provide me with useful intel, we will always be one step ahead of them"

Lukalis: "What for? If your goal was to destroy the kingdom, then then isn't the war a perfect opportunity to do so? With their forces concentrated on the war, burning down the kingdom should be an easy task for you"

Dark Lord: "You seem to be missing the bigger picture, Luka. I couldn't care less about the human kingdom. It is the ones who are behind the kingdom that concern me"

Lukalis: "The human gods?"

Dark Lord: "Exactly"

Lukalis: "Have you not killed a god already? Is that not enough?"

Dark Lord: "It is nowhere near enough. Besides, the god I killed was a Secondary Deity, not one of the big shots. Practically a mook"

Lukalis: "Are not all human gods the same?"

Dark Lord: "Not even close. Follow me"

Leading the way, Dark Lord headed towards the secret underground dungeon inside the Sevilles mansion.

Before his untimely demise, the previous Lord, Augustus Sevilles used to utilize it to experiment and torture his victims.

What Dark Lord did there was not too far from that.

Dark Lord: "Due to the war, most of the human kingdom's forces were not occupying the cities, making it a perfect opportunity for me, Morphus, Meros, and Navek to go on a little hunt during the last few weeks. The results were most satisfying"

As he opened the doors of the dungeon, Lukalis's eyes opened wide as she saw four chained up humanoid figures inside.

Each one was wearing rags and some had twisted and broken limbs. Some of them were missing pieces of their bodies such as eyes and fingers.

Dark Lord: "They are drained of their divinity. I took my time to bleed them of all the information they possessed"

Dark Lord: "And believe me, they told me some secrets that are rather hard to believe"

Lukalis: '*Gulp*. I may have bitten off more than I could chew when I asked him to always tell me the truth'