—–
Within the depths of a dark cave, a black-robed man, the culprit behind the Netherworld Beasts attack, gritted his teeth as his face was filled with disbelief.
“T-They killed C-Rank monsters? T-Those three… What are they?!”
The foolish Necromancer had believed that his excellent plan of sending three C-Rank monsters, each one capable of demolishing a whole city and singlehandedly slaughtering a whole adventurer guild if a C-Rank Adventurer wasn’t present at that moment, would be enough to defeat our wonderful team of Undead.
BAM!
The frustrated Necromancer couldn’t help but slam his table in frustration.
He had wasted tons of precious materials he had gotten from the black market… and they were worth millions of gold coins!
“Damn it! Tch… And they seem to be able to fight insanely well… especially that woman! How can she conjure dark magic so easily and proficiently?! Does she have infinite mana or something?!” The man shouted, his crimson-red eyes drowning in even more disbelief.
“If this continues, these monsters will catch onto me sooner or later… I have to do something against that! I… Oh, right. There is that other bandit group… I should just give them a few Undead allies to rely on, tell them to drink the miasma potions and do their best while I escape triumphantly!” Laughed the black-robbed man as he began to quickly save things inside an inventory.
He was a big coward, to the point of quickly running away whenever he realized something wrong was going on.
‘As long as I bring results to my lords about the experiments here, things should be fine… It should be doable… I will show them the footage of those damned monsters, so they hopefully spare my life,’ He thought while quickly packing his things.
A laughing skeleton knight had come with an order to the bandit camp, wielding black armor and a demonic blade. His cracking skull laughed maliciously, as his empty eyes flashed with fiery blue phantom flames…
The bandit camp accepted the order because they were enslaved to the black-robed man…
And upon reading the order, they all drank the deadly black potions before preparing to attack the goblin village.
Meanwhile, Maria had begun a meeting with the Goblins and the former slaves…
—–
Strategy meeting!
After enjoying an excellent breakfast and bonding some more with Gofumin and Emeraldine, we began our strategy meeting for the upcoming events.
First of all, we were going to storm the bandits that were left!
And to that, we asked the former slaves where the remaining bandits could be, but they seemed to be moving around throughout the week.
Also, most of the slaves didn’t pay enough attention to the smaller details, and many didn’t know of the last time they heard about the second group of bandits.
However, Emeraldine seemed to know.
As a half-elf, she had a better memory than the average person, so she recalled a certain occasion.
“I remember one time when a drunk bandit spoke about them… it was just four days ago. He said they lived near an abandoned temple and that it was a cursed place where they often heard the whispers of ghosts… he laughed at them for being unfortunate to have to live there,” She said.
“An abandoned temple…? Do you guys know about any?” I asked.
Most of the goblins had no idea what she was talking about, even the chief.
However, a timid young Goblin girl with black hair covering her eyes stepped in.
“I-I know…” She stuttered.
“Eh?”
Everyone looked at the tiny girl causing her to blush in embarrassment.
“Tina? You know?” Asked a female goblin who seemed to be her mother.
“Y-Yeah… When I went hunting rabbits yesterday, I ended up getting lost for a few hours… And I ended up stepping into a strange place… It was filled with ruins. It resembled an ancient temple… I saw some things recently used by people, so maybe they were hidden… And I ran away after that and somehow managed to find my way back….” She explained timidly.
“EEEH?! Why would you do such a thing! You’re too young to go hunting!”
“Indeed, young lady, you’re way too young! I do the hunting,”
Her mother and father reprimanded her upon hearing the little goblins’ story.
“Stop, she might have been reckless, but she gave us the answers we need. If it wasn’t because of her adventurous nature, we wouldn’t have been able to figure it out. Dear, where did you find that place?” I asked.
“I-It’s to the southeast, passing through three rivers that merge together… and an old tree with a big hole where howls live,” She said.
“I see! You have saved us big this time! But make sure to not wander around by yourself, alright, sweetheart?”
I patted Tina’s silky and soft hair before I kissed her cheek.
She was such an adorable little honey bun~!
“Here,”
I gave her a thing I had saved; they were candies I had taken from the pig aristocrats. Even though I kept them for myself, I gave her a few.
“W-What is this?” She asked timidly.
“Candies, they’re very sweet! Save them for yourself and eat them slowly,” I said with a warm smile.
“Oooohh…”
The girl saved her prize quickly like any cunning goblin would before the other goblins noticed that she had something pretty yummy.
After discovering the right directions, I marked up a map that already had this area of the forest mapped.
It was an expensive map I got from the library that I stole and emptied back in the previous duchy.
I quickly got ready for my journey and prepared to raid those bastards out of anything they had while making sure to kill them in the process.
I also decided to bring Lucifer and Partner with me, but I left Kuro leading the Undead here.
I made sure to check the surroundings beforehand by expanding my shadows all around and sharing my senses with them through my unique capabilities as a ghost, but thankfully, there wasn’t anything else approaching… eh?
I heard a lot of noise from far away.
Are they planning to come here by themselves? Ohh…
How about we surprise them with a nice ambush then?
—–