Chapter 505: Everyone’s Schemes

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Kurisu

“To be honest, I keep feeling like the style is wrong…”

“Hm? Why do you say that?”

“See, all the other main characters get to act so cool and do face-slapping. The basic style is so different, and I’m not the type who can do such a thing, nor do I envy them. Still, the developments are similar. At least, the main character will constantly power up, and receive ever greater status, more and more subordinates, a constant increase in beautiful women around him, growing ever taller and stronger, and always improving in reputation. But look at me…”

“…Your power level keeps weakening, you basically have zero status, you’re all by yourself, all your subordinates are gone, and as for beauties… Cough, cough, at least you’re becoming more and more like the evil villain! Yep, you only lack a hero’s sudden arrival to send you back to the River Styx again.”

The silly cat sounded like she was consoling me, but her words were actually filled with evil intentions. However, her words indeed described my current situation accurately.

I kept pretending like I was grabbing at something in the air. My pitch-black cape covered my body and face. The only visible part of me was the soulfire I slightly ignited in my eyes. As an experienced undead mage, I was quite skilled at making myself impossible for others to read.

I was currently in a room on the second floor of a normal villager’s house. An old oil lamp’s pale yellow glow was the only source of light in this entire room, and the doors were all shut tightly. The air was stale, and the stench of sweat was rather uncomfortable to experience. That was because more than twenty people were crammed into this room that was receiving no fresh air.

However, maybe due to the overwhelming amount of negative energy I was giving off, there was still quite an amount of open space around me. Timlad, who barely managed to put on some leather armor, was the only one who stood behind me. He looked more like a barbarian than the greatest engineer of all time.

On the other side of the room, Diyana wore a veil while being dressed like a dark elf assassin. She only showed off her chin and an icy expression as if nobody present was even worth her attention. She sat on the wooden windowsill and looked outside while silently playing with the dagger in her hand.

“I think that there’s no need to waste time with introductions. Everyone knows what we’re all here for today. I’ve had a grandmaster appraise this map. This treasure map is absolutely real. But, those government bastards are blocking our path to treasure. I say that we just kill those f*ckers!”

A rather tall and burly man was currently speaking. His face was covered in a gray beard. He appeared to be at least sixty or seventy years old, and there were only three fingers remaining on his right hand. If I recalled my information correctly, he was the leader of the local mercenaries, and the vice-captain of the mercenary guild here, “Earth Dog” Tom Shor.

Tom probably represented the opinion of all the unassociated mercenaries. Standing right next to Tom was Old Barton, who was just kept silent with his head down. Since Old Barton was obviously brought here by Tom, it would seem that Old Barton had already made a name for himself.

Mercenaries were constantly risking their lives. Of course, this was mostly for the sake of money. It would be strange if a normal mercenary wasn’t tempted when they found out that such a large treasure was so close by to their home town. And once all the local mercenaries banded together, of course only a veteran mercenary well reputed in town could be voted to represent them all. Previously, Old Barton had sufficient reputation but not enough power. But, since Old Barton had been able to come here with Tom, he must have been able to display sufficient power after my training.

“…But, the one who came here is that Prince Link. His Highness even brought the royal guards with him. It’s not that good to get into a conflict with the royalty, don’t you think? We should all peacefully make money, peacefully make money…”

This person who spoke was rather pudgy, and had a friendly expression. His mustache appeared rather comical, and judging from his stomach, personal appearance, and words, he seemed just like a merchant.

Indeed, he was a merchant. He was Blaiman, the most famous black market merchant in the area. He even had several mercenary groups under his command. The amount of power he wielded would equal any knight domain lord’s in Sala Dukedom.

Merchants were always the cautious type. Obviously, the people in this meeting were all the type that cared more about money than other people’s lives. There would be an endless amount of trouble from antagonizing the royalty. The adventurers and mercenaries could simply run off to another country after antagonizing the royalty, but all of Blaiman’s business dealings were in the Sala Dukedom. It was rather surprising that Blaiman would even come to this meeting, but it was understandable if you saw who was right next to him.

A woman with battle scars all over her body was right next to Blaiman. Half of her face had been disfigured by a vicious sword wound. She intentionally let down her bangs and covered half her face, but she only covered the uninjured half of her face. It was as if she wanted to intentionally make others uncomfortable.

She was wearing female armor that looked more decorative rather than practical. However, under the oil lamp’s illumination, I could tell that her armor was glowing with a special orange-red that only adamantine would have. No matter what her power level was, the very fact that she could wear this armor meant that her physical strength was more than sufficient to empty-handedly tear through a wall. After all, her “light-appearing female armor” would actually be more than three times the weight of any heavy suit of armor.

She was “Blood Spear” Salima, an amazoness warrior who was known to be Legend rank or above. She was a countess, and one of the female domain lords that Marquis Stanley Taric trusted the most. She was also the highest-ranked female general in the Sala Dukedom.

It might have also been because of her ugly appearance, but the one eye she showed which wasn’t covered always looked at others with a sharp and icy stare that caused others to become unable to look her in the eye. She didn’t even try to hide her feelings of enmity and vigilance toward everyone here. And, her most famous achievement was her infamous slaughter of all enemy survivors every time she won a battle. Those who loathed her would directly call her the “Blood Witch” instead of “Blood Spear”.

Since her appearance was so noticeable and she was so well-known in Sala Dukedom, no introductions were necessary for anyone. She was another person that everyone else kept their distance from.

“They’ve allied together? Is Blaiman now supporting Marquis Stanley’s rebellion? Blaiman controls all the food and weapon merchants in several domains. It would seem that the Sala royalty are going to have an even harder time now.”

Of course, such an analysis would be quite normal when seeing two such major personages together. And, the very fact that a major personage in the Dukedom like Countess Salima had come to this meeting also proved the veracity of the treasure.

Of course, there were also other important figures present in this room, such as the leader of a well-experienced adventuring team, the leader of the thieves’ guild who also sold information, and so on. But, none of the others in the room were as important as Tom, Blaiman, or Salima.

Originally, I shouldn’t have been able to even be invited here, since “nobody knew who I was” beforehand. But, in this world, power level would forever be the best name card of all.

I simply put some slowly burning Hell flames upon myself. These flames appeared quite dangerous, and were actually even more dangerous than they looked. Everyone naturally stayed as far away from me as possible. Even Salima’s lone revealed eye was looking at me with some fear. Thus, I received the right to speak here.

So many people gathering at such a late hour like midnight in a normal villager’s house wouldn’t possibly be for some friendly party. We were only here to discuss how to break through the royalty’s blockade. And from a certain standpoint, this would be no different from outright rebellion.

But, I was slightly surprised to see that there were no Death Council representatives in the room at all. Not a single person present apart from me possessed the power of death.

I didn’t think that the Death Council would miss such a great opportunity. Even if the Death Council was unable to come to an accord with the adventurers and mercenaries, there would at least be some worthwhile information to be gathered. But, suddenly, Diyana furtively slipped me a note with some black markings that appeared to be almost random.

“This is the word for ‘Ally’ in the ancient language of Laiton? Who would use such an ancient language? Oh…”

I paused in surprise for a moment, but then instantly realized what was going on. The ancient language of Laiton was a demons’ language from the lower planes. The language itself contained the very Concepts of corruption and decay. Many high-level undead magic spells and runes would use the Laiton language. Only those who learned undead magic, and to a sufficiently high level, would possibly understand this language.

Before I could ask Diyana who gave this note to her, I saw that pudgy merchant Blaiman intentionally touching the silver ring on his hand.

He was wearing an expensive dragonbone ring with black runes upon it. The skull emblem on the ring proved his identity, in addition to the fact that he was mouthing the word “Ally” to me in the Laiton language.

It would seem that I hadn’t wasted my efforts in having Shink contact the Death Council. They had indeed received my message. However, the Death Council was even more well hidden than I expected, they were also incredibly cautious. This was our first meeting, and a small test for me to see if I was truly a high-level undead mage. After all, I arrived at such a coincidental and important time, so it was only natural they’d be suspicious of me.

I looked questioningly over at Diyana, and she nodded slightly. She confirmed that it was indeed the “friendly merchant of death”, the black market merchant Blaiman who gave her this note.

It was said that more than seventy percent of the Death Council worshippers who joined this evil cult didn’t join for the sake of something as abstract as power. The most basic reason was because people feared death and wished to become an undying undead. The Death Council thus counted many rich merchants and nobles among its followers. It was indeed true that the richer one was, the more one would be afraid of death.

And so, I wrote down a message on the note in the Laiton language as well—”Death is fair to all, but sometimes, a sufficient amount of wealth can purchase special permission to be exempt from death.”

I gave the note back to Diyana, and some time later, a servant whispered something in Blaiman’s ears. As a result, Blaiman suddenly smiled as if he had struck the jackpot.

I also almost broke out into laughter. It would seem that Blaiman hadn’t understood my little joke.

“…No matter what amount of money you spend, you’ll probably still end up in a certain layer of my Hell’s Seven Circles.”

Our tiny little note-passing actions didn’t attract much attention. That was because most people at this meeting were doing something similar. Someone would have to take up the job of being the first brave heroes to break through the royal soldiers’ blockade (the job of cannon fodder), so if you didn’t want to become the “nice and helpful” brave warrior who went first, you would need more allies and a better status.

Of course, notes were being passed around everywhere. Questions like “do you want to meet up later?” would always get affirmative responses like “yes!”… and don’t misunderstand, they were only arranging normal meet ups, although it was quite scary to behold burly men exchanging such notes 1 …

And even if everyone broke through the Sala Dukedom’s blockade and managed to enter the ruins, it was even more likely that who held more power would determine who received the treasure. So, of course, everyone here wanted to make more friends and allies.

However, the biggest issue out in the open made zero progress at all.

“We need a temporary leader… or at least a contact point!”

“Excellent idea, so why don’t you be the leader?”

“Me? I think you’d be a much better choice.”

Everyone here knew that it was necessary to break through the royal blockade in order to reach the ruins.

However, everyone also knew that directly going against the Sala royalty in Sala Dukedom was a foolish idea. That would be the equivalent of becoming a wanted criminal and forever being unable to go around openly in the Dukedom. Perhaps it was impossible for the Dukedom to put wanted posters for everyone involved, but the person who was the leader would be the most noticeable and in the greatest amount of trouble.

Just about everyone was looking directly at Blood Spear Countess Salima. After all, if she was already joining the rebellion against the royalty, it seemed only natural for her to act as the leader as she would be in the most trouble with the royalty regardless.

However, she simply sat there quietly, completely unlike her fierce and fiery temper according to rumors of her on the battlefield. Since she kept up this attitude, she was making it obvious that she didn’t intend to take the lead.

I yawned, and even put out the Hell flames on my robes. Such a boring meeting seemed like a waste of my time to continue.

After all, for a first-time meeting between so many factions to establish alliances, that would be impossible unless there was some urgent need for all the different factions to unite. The first meeting would only ever be used to establish relationships, and have further negotiations later. I was thinking about finding some excuse to leave when the door suddenly opened, and a young man walked in together with his servant.

“Heh heh, so everyone’s here. Hello everyone, my name is Link, the person that you’re all discussing how to deal with!”

Prince Link walked into the room with a delighted smile on his face. He glanced back with great satisfaction at his new retainer, Kaen Stark. This retainer whom he thought of as having originated as a commoner seemed quite useful to him. Kaen had so easily discovered the meeting location of all the people planning to rebel against the royalty.

Everyone present had astonished expressions on their faces. Plenty of hidden sentries had been arranged around this place, so how had Link entered?

“Ha, all of you should give up and surrender obediently. My army already has this entire place surrounded—”

However, Prince Link was suddenly interrupted, as he stared in disbelief at the sword that was now protruding out of his chest. He turned his head around to see that his obedient new retainer actually had a vicious smile on his face.

“Actually, our target has always been you. Your army? They’re not coming, because they received orders to patrol outside the city.”

After all this time, Blood Spear Countess Salima finally spoke her first sentence. Unlike her physical appearance, she had a mature sexy woman’s voice that stirred men’s hearts.

But now, the cowardly ones in the room had almost fainted. Breaking through a blockade and murdering a member of the royalty were on two completely different levels. Everyone present knew that they had just gotten involved with an astonishing scheme.

Kaen kicked away his “ruler’s” corpse and sheathed his still bloody sword as he now looked at everyone else with that vicious smile of his.

*Boom!*

A sudden explosion shook the entire city, and then I heard the dragon lich Winlair’s soul voice in my mind.

“I have some good news, and some bad news for you…”

“I want the good news first.”

“The good news is that the blockade is meaningless now. We no longer need to worry about how to get to the ruins.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“We don’t even need to go to the ruins anymore, because they’re here. The Undead Calamity has arrived.”

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