Volume 1 Chapter 5: Chance Encounter with the Forces of Light
Translator: The Light
Edits by AstralTempest
“And that was the events that had happened, mesdames.”
“Alright Mercedes, you may leave. Oh and give my command; Adrian is to be the chief judge of the newly built Bierbam court; Clement will be appointed the peerage of Dark Baron and given the fief of Tanade. As for Maltz, he is to be promoted to the Warden general for his merits in interrogation.
“Thank you lady Bella, I thank the mesdames in place of those three; your servant shall leave now.” Mercedes exited the room with a bow.
Bella was currently enjoying breakfast with the girls, of course, Roland and Annie were also present; they were placed to either side of Bella, occasionally Bella would reach over and take advantage of them; they were still extremely shy, but they no longer struggled as they knew that to do so would just encourage Bella further.
“Roland, my little treasure, have some milk; it’s freshly squeezed from the farm! Drink more, it’s good for your body’s development.” As she looked at Roland’s frightened face, Bella snickered as she forced a cup of milk down Roland’s throat; Roland had wanted to turn her head to the side but Bella had held her head with one hand, rendering Roland unable to move her head.
“Are you still at odds with me? You should give in already.” Bella didn’t really care for the struggling girl in her hands, she just continued to force milk down her throat; by the fourth cup, Roland had stopped struggling. Annie was scared by the scene that was unfolding beside her and looked away; when it was her turn to be fed milk by Bella, she chose not to struggle unlike her childhood friend and quietly let Bella pour the milk down her throat.
“Sister, when can you let me feel it too? These two sisters seem to really enjoy it!”
“Sister, this ritual has to be repeated every day? What’s the theory behind it, can you let me try it too?”
“*cough* Angel and Mia, you two should hurry up and finish breakfast, it won’t taste good anymore when it’s cold. We’ll leave this topic for another time.”
Bella changed the topic as there was something more important to discuss. According to Maltz’s interrogation of Adris, there exists an ancient underground palace below the resting place; the palace was where he found the strange tools and the books from which he learned the rope techniques.
Last night her subordinate, Adrian had already led a bunch of fodder to scout ahead; the leader was Annie’s fiance, it was hitting two birds with one stone for Bella right now. It would make thing less annoying for Bella if he were to die there.
“But Bella, according to the report the path is heavily trapped and very dangerous; even that old zombie himself doesn’t know how many traps there are. We should also send some fodder to scout a path.”
“There’s no need Dolores, there is already ready-made fodder at the scene; you’ll know when we get there. Get Mercedes to arrange for all our troops on the western border to gather in front of the resting place; oh, and also call my three strongest subordinates as well.”
“ã??Skeleton Kingã?? Fred is in the area, but ã??Shadow Demonã?? Tanpur and ã??Skeletal Dragonã?? Brant is pretty far. Are you sure you want to call those two as well?”
“Yes, tell them to leave their maters to their own subordinates and hurry here; or else Fred will receive all merit and rewards after.”
“Ok, I’ll have monsters send messages to those two.”
After she finally finished all her arrangements, Bella let out a long breath. She looked to the fearful Annie and Roland, kissed each of them on the cheek, and took out the black blindfolds.
“You two wait for me here, don’t try to run~. Sleep for a while and I’ll be back to adore you girls when you wake up.”
After she blindfolded the two girls, Bella fed them a sedative fruit syrup and the two of them fell asleep no long after; Bella placed the two sleeping girls in her own room and tucked them in.
___
Adris resting place, Bella had led a raid on this location previously, there should have been no more zombies, but there was a large number of fresh zombies that seem to have only died recently. Currently, a party of several dozen people were having some difficulty exploring.
This party was mostly made up of golden armoured cavalry, with a few people dressed in priest garbs. They were currently engaged in heated combat with the zombies, because of the fact that they were mounted along with the priest’s blessings; the comparatively small party made their way through the sea of zombies rather easily, with none of them showing panic on their faces.
“Hayley sister, these zombies are the guard regiment that my brother Sidney took with him yesterday; did he turn into one too?”
“Elanor, when did you start caring so much about your useless big brother? I’ve never noticed that you two had such deep sibling connections?”
The Church of Light’s 2nd holy maiden, Alicia Hayley, poked fun at the female knight that was cutting down zombies in front of her.
“I don’t care about that dumb brother of mine, his life or death has nothing to do with me. If he didn’t take my personal knight squadron with him last night, I wouldn’t be here in this crappy place!” Stuart Eleanor swung the sword in her hand, several red flashes of ã??Jian Qiã?? flew out of its blade and immediately shredded the zombies ahead of her; the whole process was as flowing as water, with no opening at all to be found.
Eleanor was fuming, while she was sleeping at night; her brother Sidney took her personal female knight corp with him. Those knights were like sisters to her, chosen from the friends that she had played with since they were mere children; the relationship between them and Eleanor had exceeded mere subordinates and superior.
Eleanor didn’t care for Sidney whatsoever, the Stuart family didn’t have a lot of daughters, but they did have a lot of sons; even if Sidney was dead, their father would be able to pick a new successor from the pile of brothers that they had. But those knights of hers were irreplaceable, everyone lost would be one lost forever.
Eleanor left together with her brother Sidney; him to accompany his fiance, her to meet with her good friend Randall Roland, to discuss which knight school they would attend together; after they graduated from their current academies in three months. They had just met up for a while when she heard that another one of her good friends, Hayley, was also in the county patrolling with the church’s knights.
Sidney was unusually enthusiastic about getting Eleanor to visit Hayley, saying that the four great families should pay their respects to the Church; she couldn’t hold against her shameless brother’s endless persuasion and temporarily left Sidney’s group for a while. Then her brother got into some big trouble, getting his Fiance Annie, and her good friend Roland lost in this creepy place.
If she knew that this was going to happen, she would have followed Roland and them. Eleanor regretted listening to that stupid brother of hers, she held the title of ã??Rose Knightã?? not only because of her beauty but her cultivation was already on the level of a holy knight, she would get her official recognition as one after she went to the knight academy.
“Eleanor, you don’t have to blame yourself; the God of Light won’t abandon anyone that believes in her, I believe that Roland and Annie are safe and well.”
“Hayley, you don’t have to comfort me. If only I was there...I definitely would not have let them get taken by zombies.” Eleanor said confidently. She was one of the Octavian Empire’s(Knights) Four Beauty Knights, even Roland wasn’t strong enough to be one.
Hayley was inclined to agree with her friend, she didn’t believe that a holy knight would be stopped by this normal looking graveyard, but the sheer number of zombies there was definitely an annoyance. The two of them continued leading their party through the wave of zombies.
___
“The fodder haven’t been wiped out yet? This...the level of fodder is so high?”
Bella’s group of four saw the party of knights fighting with zombies within Adris resting place from quite a bit away; the fancy armour with its decorations and the familiar designs on their flag gave away their identity as knights of the church. Bella hadn’t expected that the forces of light would arrive so fast.ã??
“There are three holy knights there, one...pseudo dragon knight, and a high priest. Those other knights should all be on the level of elite knights.” Dolores, as a princess of the demon empires, had large amounts of experience with human armies, she could approximate the levels of this human party.
“More holy knights, are they not worth money anymore? We’ve already encountered so many.”
Dolores was unable to answer Bella’s questions; During her time back at the demon continent, there weren’t any records of this many knights, but it seemed like their intel was off.
Bella continued to observe, she saw a red-headed female knight who stood out even amongst the elite knights of the church. Bella scanned Felia’s memories, that red-head girl should be the 2nd lady of the Stuart house with the title of ã??Rose Knightã??, Stuart Eleanor.
Behind Eleanor stood a girl in white priest robes, she should be the Church of Light’s 2nd holy maiden; her signature snow-white hair was easily recognizable, at the ceremony where Felia had become a recognized holy knight, it was this holy maiden who had blessed her.
“Dolores, would you be able to win against this group?”
“Apart from the youth that seems to be a pseudo dragon knight who might be a bit of a problem, the rest could be easily dealt with. Do you need me to fight? None of those three holy knights can beat me one on one.”
As she looked at Dolores’ eager face, Bella remembered that the girl in front of her was a princess of the demon continent; Dolores hasn’t had the chance to show her skill in combat after becoming one of Bella’s followers. Her power should be equal to that of a low tier dragon knight, a newbie dragon knight without a mount would not be able to beat her.
“Don’t mind them, we’ll walk the other way.” Bella decided to give up the thought of having contact with the Church’s knights; if anyone in that party recognized her, it would be an annoyance as she would be forced silence them.
“Miss Hayley, there are other people approaching. They seem to be ordinary adventurers, there are only four of them.”
“A party of four? They entered this nightmarish place with on four people?” Hayley looked into the distance as she listened to her subordinate’s report; there were four figures pressing into the mass of zombies.
Both Bella and Dolores were clad in a knight’s attire. But none of them brought a mount. Bella’s armour was jet black while Dolores’ was a very dark purple; they seemed to be specially designed and crafted.
As for weapons, none of them brought a lance or shield; Bella had a jet black sword and the dark red gauntlets on her hands. Dolores’ weapons were evidently the half meter long steel claws affixed to her gauntlets.
“Dark Gold, isn’t this a material that is only produced by areas with lots of monsters? How do these two female warriors have a full suit of it? It’s not something that you can buy with money.” Eleanor’s shock showed on her face as she looked at the two knights in the distance, it was her first time seeing dark gold in person.
As for the two lolis that followed behind them, they each wore an eyepatch as well as gothic lolita attire; with Angel’s being dark blue and Mia’s being dark red. They didn’t carry any visible weapons, Angel clutched a bandaged teddy bear while Mia carried a black tome.
This combination seemed weird to the Church’s knights as the two lolis didn’t seem to have any combat abilities; they looked more like two noble ladies that came out to play, accompanied by their bodyguards, they did not resemble an adventurer party at all.
Eleanor was worried about them, as there were only four of them, with two being little girls; in her eyes, it would be only a matter of time before they would be enveloped and torn to shreds by the zombie horde.
“I don’t think you should go Eleanor, look; the zombies are scared to approach them” After Hayley called attention to it, Eleanor realised that the zombies in the vicinity of those four did not approach them, as if they were wary of something.
It seemed that these zombies still had some human instincts, including that of being scared of demons; not to mention the fearful demon aura that Dolores gave off as a demon princess. They weren’t willing to fight with Bella’s group because of this.
Eleanor decided not to listen to Hayley’s advice; out of curiosity she dashed to the side of Bella’s group with a Knight’s charge.
“What are you doing here? It’s dangerous here, you should leave!”
“Er, we’re here to raid the crypt for riches; are the Church’s knights going to interfere with this?”
Bella noticed the observant red pupils that had been studying her, and lied. But she couldn’t help but take a few more glances as Eleanor’s body was only a little bit less voluptuous than Dolores’; the title of ‘Rose Knight’ was definitely well deserved.
“This..I want to hire you girls, my elder brother accidentally entered this place and we’re trying to find him; we’re not very familiar with the layout of this place, so...”
“You could hire us, but it seems that your friend doesn’t really welcome us; we’ll take our leave here. Miss Eleanor, I advise you to not enter this area.”
‘No problem, as a holy knight there isn’t anything that I’m scared of. Wait... how do you know my name...”
Eleanor was about to continue asking, but she discovered that the four of them had already left her behind, she was about to catch up to them but was pushed back to the location of the Church’s knights by the zombies that had surged forth to fill the path that they had opened for Bella.
Bella’s group walked towards the entrance of the crypt, the zombies parted a path for her, as if they were her subordinates. Bella’s advice to Eleanor was from the kindness of her heart; as she had seen her eagerness to help others.
They learned from Duke Adris during his interrogation that his perverted smoke came from the depths of this crypt, there may be traps inside that use it. As for whether or not Eleanor listened to Bella’s advice, it was up to her.