Chapter 502: Splitting Up

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Kurisu

The sky was completely bright now. Thor and his complaining mercenaries had already set out, escorting the villagers back home. The campground had mostly been completely cleaned up, and it was time for the rest of us to set out.

But, what happened differently from what was planned was that our remaining mercenaries set out first. Mary and Winston, who were both mercenaries as well, were leading them. This was the majority of our group.

Our new plan was that these mercenaries would openly walk into the new knight domain lord’s capital city, Starwood City. Obviously, a fully equipped mercenary group would attract a great deal of attention from the treasure-seeking adventurers already in town. Our mercenaries would serve as cover for the smaller group to secretly go around unnoticed.

Old Barton was also together with the mercenaries. The task I gave him was not to be afraid of anything and cause as much of a ruckus as possible… Yes, that’s right, I wanted him to cause a ruckus. This would be a trial for him to start making a name for himself, as well as intentionally muddying the waters.

“Even if I don’t personally go to Starwood City, I can pretty much guess what the situation there is like right now. Nobody likes competitors, especially for potential wealth and treasure. The Sala Dukedom royals and nobles are probably in a high-pressure situation where they’re trying to pit the adventurers against each other. You should use the identity of an adventurer and intentionally antagonize the Dukedom’s officials. Make as much trouble as you possibly can. There’s many factions in town waiting for a fuse to ignite everything.”

With a dragon lich supporting us, I truly wasn’t afraid of making trouble. I was only worried about not making enough trouble.

The mercenary group would be out in the open, while the smaller group would move in secret.

I was in the third, smallest group of all. There were three of us and a half-living. That would be me, the anti-holy knight Diyana, and Katerina. As for that half-living, of course that was my new undead servant, the dark ranger Shink. Oh, I suppose I forgot about the Death Council member I’d previously interrogated, who was going along with us. His name was Brad, by the way.

One ranger, one undead mage, and a melee knight. We had DPS, a tank, and a maid who took care of our daily necessities and cleaning. Although we didn’t have a priest for healing, although we didn’t have eight job classes, this game… I meant this team was still rather balanced.

“…Listen up. From now on, I am the Legend-ranked undead mage Karo, and the disciple of the great lich Slaine. Katerina, you are the maid Lina. And Diyana, you are my personal bodyguard, Diyana. Due to my personal ambitions and my teacher’s advice, I’m heading to join the Death Council.”

The great lich Slaine was indeed a real person. He was one of the Xiluo Empire Darkness Council members who had secretly tried to ally with the Undead Emperors from the Death Planes back in the day. However, very few knew about the news that Slaine had completely died during Xiluo’s internal war. It would be quite easy for me to use one of his personal items and pretend to be his disciple. Slaine also had contact with the Undead Emperors previously, so it would completely be logical for his disciple to be joining the Death Council.

Hardly any excuse was needed for an undead mage to join the Death Council. The dark ranger job class was an undead job class to begin with. As long as Diyana concealed her job class of anti-holy knight, she could pretend to be an ordinary dark elf warrior. This would make us seem a perfectly normal evil team. It would be quite easy for the Death Council to view us in a friendly light, with any normal governmental organization viewing us with enmity and being on guard.

As for our personal maid… Actually, there were many mages out there who had strange habits and were difficult to care of. Although we might attract some unnecessary extra attention by bringing Katerina along with me, I much preferred to take the hit to my reputation rather than having this critical “key” leaving my sight due to the trouble it might cause.

As for that tragedy when the “father and daughter” had to say goodbye, it was just like the old classical story of “the rich noble trying to forcibly take the farmer’s daughter”. Let us just forget about how Katerina was still pitifully curled up in a ball in the carriage’s corner and staring at me with fear in her eyes.

Once the mercenaries had all set off, I started getting busy as well.

“Let’s start painting this carriage black.”

Color usually didn’t represent anything, but if an undead mage really rode such a white carriage, together with those abnormally beautiful and naked elf gargoyles, I would likely instantly become famous in all of Starwood City. Gossip would spread at an astonishing rate, making all my disguising meaningless.

Of course, it would be too low-quality to paint the carriage black, which was why I performed a small ceremony.

I pretended to utter an incantation while successfully connecting a portion of the River Styx to this location. Some reddish-black liquid appeared in the small pit before me. Then, I brought out some white gems (jade) and tossed them into the blood pool.

“Demonize.”

I directly tossed the male elf gargoyle into the blood pool. The white jade sunk into the forehead, and the next instant, a large amount of blood was absorbed by the jade, and then the entire gargoyle began to distort.

Coarse black body hair began to grow on his facial features and limbs. His gem eyes began glowing with a pitch-black light. His pure white elven skin began to crack. His original magical runes and stone parts began combining with the dark blood in the blood pool, forming new muscle structures. Soon, the elf gargoyle was no longer even humanoid.

He was now two-thirds of a meter taller than before. His bulging muscles had mystical runes upon them. The single horn on his forehead and vicious-appearing gem eyes gave him a frightening appearance. His original feathered wings had been reconstructed into the black wings that demons would have. He had completely transformed to resemble a demon from the lower planes.

What the others saw was that I tossed a handsome elf gargoyle into the blood pool, and an ugly demon popped out afterwards. I was even capable of transforming undead creatures like this? This seemed like an incredibly terrifying and evil magic spell. Katerina was now completely hiding herself behind Diyana.

However, this wasn’t a highly difficult spell or ritual at all. Yet, it was likely that I was the only one in the world capable of pulling this off. After all, the materials and ceremony I used weren’t even from Eich.

After my experiment succeeded, I then commanded the remaining five female gargoyles to enter the blood pool. However, the female elf gargoyles didn’t become ugly demons. Although magical runes appeared on their faces and skin, and their skin also darkened somewhat, they still remained beautiful. In fact, the cute little curved horns on their foreheads and their even redder lips made them seem realer and more alluring.

This wasn’t intentional on my part at all. It was simply how demons were. The males were muscular and powerful, while the females were alluringly beautiful. But, with how the others in my party were looking at me right now, I figured that I would probably be unable to escape the title of “gentleman” anymore. After all, these naked gargoyles originally “belonged to me”, meaning that I had already set a precedent.

I could only shake my head helplessly. I also ignored the silly cat’s evil chuckling in our soul connection. It would seem that it would be quite difficult to get rid of my reputation. Still, it was now time for serious business.

After completely changing the appearances of my gargoyles, I then changed the appearance of my phantom horse carriage and unicorn. Now, my little group definitely appeared to be an evil group of villains. If our mercenaries returned right now, it was highly unlikely that they would recognize us.

“Let’s get going. If you have any more questions, ask while we’re on the way.”

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Starwood City. Actually, calling this place a city was a bit of an exaggeration. While Starwood City was indeed the capital city of this small domain, as well as the largest city in this domain, a knight domain lord was the lowest level of domain lord, so this “largest city” of the domain was still rather shabby.

Starwood City’s population was only 60,000. The city guard numbered only approximately one hundred, and the city walls were merely three meters tall. Even the domain lord’s mansion was just a run-down small fort without even a single large-scale defense mechanism. The only local specialties were the local crops and rye bread as hard as stone. Things couldn’t get any more pitiful.

Yet, after news about the treasure map started spreading, this small and remote city suddenly received countless visitors. Every single hotel in the city was completely filled, and even the residences were filled up with paying guests. In fact, there were even numerous tents and temporary camps set up outside of Starwood City.

Plus, the Sala Dukedom’s royal soldiers were also camping right outside the city. For the short time being, the population of Starwood City had almost doubled. The atmosphere within the city was rather tense, and people scurried everywhere at a fast pace. It could be said that a storm was brewing within the city.

Meanwhile, my little team was now resting and making preparations at our temporary camp outside the city. Shink took Brad into the city to leave a seal used for contacting the Death Council, so we could only wait for the Death Council to respond and contact us. After all, it wouldn’t be that easy to locate an evil cult skilled at hiding itself.

Old Barton and the mercenaries had already entered the city. For now, things still seemed calm inside the city. However, the camps outside the city seemed to be a little chaotic. After all, many treasure seekers were the type that wouldn’t hesitate to kill, and the fact that the only passage through the mountains was blockaded made everyone frustrated.

Murder, robbery, gambling, and other crimes were all methods for veteran criminals to vent their pent-up emotions. And since I had now arrived, evil started acting in the night. After staying outside Starwood City for two days and nights, I gained many extra undead materials in my backup storage.

Of course, I intentionally rode in my phantom horse carriage, and didn’t even try to hide myself. I made sure to keep myself and my undead high-profile as I killed various criminal adventurers around the camps outside. I even had Shink kill off any adventurers that dared to challenge us, gaining a vicious reputation around these parts. This was all to help the Death Council to “confirm” my identity as an evil undead mage.

After all, this was a critical time for the Death Council. Any suddenly arrived “helper” during an important mission would always be suspicious. So, if they voluntarily contacted me instead, that meant they would be much less suspicious.

While I was waiting for the Death Council to contact me, a familiar person contacted me before the Death Council did.

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