The small town of Paknir was situated in the south of the Gabriel Empire(swordsmen), it was a sparsely populated place close to the larger military-based town of Sakerid. When light broke over Paknir today, the town’s residents discovered that there were quite a number of visitors and guests to their small town, all either mercenaries and adventurers.
The residents didn’t find this too strange as a detachment from the Gabriel Empire’s royal guards as well as quite a few of the Church of Light’s templar knights had passed hurriedly through their town just last night. The residents of Paknir guessed that the beastmen were making mustering their forces once again on the border, it wasn’t that rare of an occurrence lately.
The Gabriel Empire had sealed off any news of the terrifying outbreak of undead in Sakerid, as such a large-scale and seemingly unstoppable outbreak would surely strike unrest into the general populace. Just like when the Laerte line had been captured by some unknown forces of evil, there were some news that just couldn’t be shared publicly.
“Hey, did you hear? They’ve discovered some treasure from the previous dynasty in Sakerid, the royal family and the Church are working together to hide this valuable information from the public.”
“Where’d you get this fake news, you dimwit, I heard from my cousin who is one of Sakerid’s town guards, that the Empire and Church discovered traces of when the god of light had descended down to our world in Sakerid, and that any light mages that go there to train for one day will beat training normally for a year! Not some dumb past dynasty’s treasure.”
“Shut up, you liar, your cousin was transferred to the Laerte line last year, how the hell did he tell you about what’s going on in Sakerid?”
“Stop arguing, I’m one of our mayor, Baron Jeffrey’s personal guards. The mayor had received notice that some very dangerous monsters had appeared in Sakerid and the Empire needed to hire all these mercenaries to help in the subjugation of those monsters.”
Within the Azure Wind, the most luxurious dining place in the entire town of Paknir, a fat man in extravagant clothing was discussing with a well dressed gentleman. They had ordered an entire table covered with plates of the most expensive dishes that the Azure Wind had to offer for just the two of them, it was quite evident that there was no way that they would be able to finish all of it.
The fatty with the greedy look on his face, golden rings on all ten of his fingers, and a thick necklace set with sparkling gems around his thick neck, was the mayor of this small town, Baron Jeffrey. He was a greedy person who only sought to enrich himself, willing to do anything for money, there was even an unconfirmed rumour that he had previously sold information about the military town of Sakerid to the enemy beastmen forces.
“Sir Clement, I’ve already ordered my men to spread the rumours, now there should be at least a few dozen different sayings about what’s happening in Sakerid right now. Except, will the Empire investigate me after this?”
“What are you scared of, Jeffrey-dono? I’m sure that the empire’s upper echelons would rather you spread even more confusion among the peasantry, so that they can keep secret whatever is truly happening in Sakerid. Anyways, I’ve also bribed your boss Count Spyke as well, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Here, this is a little bit of my appreciation for you.”
If an outsider were to see this scene they would definitely be shocked, as a baron of the Gabriel Empire was paying such respect to a mere Knight, who was below him in terms of nobility. This was something that was against the strict hierarchy of power in the empire.
This Knight, Clement, was someone who had only came to the limelight in the underground of the Empire over the past month. As Knight was only an honorary title, with no fief, anyone with enough money could purchase the title of Knight from any noble with a fief. However, Clement’s political relations were quite complicated, knowing much of the higher class nobility within the empire.
Apart from his connections, Clement was unnaturally wealthy, being very generous indeed. His ‘little bit of appreciation’ for Baron Jeffrey was a small box filled with gold bars. In all of the human empires, gold bars were used as currency for beneath-the-radar transactions, it could be said that behind each gold bar hid a dirty transaction.
“Knight-sama is quite generous, here, I still have two important pieces of information to sell you. Except, this might be betraying the agreement I had with the previous buyers, you see…”
“Speak, we’re good friends, are we not!”
“This is… Clement-sama, it’s like this…:”
Seeing the beautiful pure-white gemstone on the table between them, Jeffrey immediate threw all sense of virtue behind him and quickly spilled the beans, betraying all those who had purchased these two pieces of information before Clement.
After quite a while, Baron Jeffrey left the Azure Wind with a look fulfillment on his face, holding on tightly to the diamond as if it would disappear if he loosened his grip. It seems that the deal had been completed.
This little fatty is quite useful, just a bit greedy. Demon King-sama should be arriving soon, I should hurry and go welcome her and tell her what the human just told me.
Clement left through the door soon after Baron Jeffrey, no one would suspect that this well dressed gentleman wasn’t a human at all. Clement was one of the most welcomed subordinate dark suzerains of the Dark Sanctuary’s demon kings, 【Master of Faces] Clement. Clement was currently carrying out demon king Bella’s orders and had infiltrated the Gabriel Empire several months ago and had gathered large amounts of valuable information as well as using large amounts of wealth to buy countless ‘connections’ within the various tiers of the Gabriel Empire’s nobility.
___
At the entrance to the town of Paknir, a party of adventurers were walking in, the reason why people knew they were adventurers and not mercenaries were because of the fact that they weren’t wearing any armbands that signified what mercenary company they belonged to. Normally, mercenary companies would be given special armbands by the mercenaries’ guild with their company’s emblem as well as their company’s level, from F to SSS there were a total of 9 levels, with SSS being the highest level.
What drew all the attention towards this party of ‘adventurers’ was that the party was composed entirely of girls. The party had six knights, one archer, one assassin, and four lolis that seemed to be their servants. It was a shame that their faces were masked by ugly looking clown masks and their figures were hidden by a large black cloak. If it wasn’t for the weapons in their hands, it would have been hard to determine what profession these girls were in.
Bella looked a little depressed as she rode upon one of the warhorses that they had just purchased, this time, apart from the two ‘princesses’ of the Dark Sanctuary, the two lolis Lilith and Lilian; all the other girls of the Dark Sanctuary were now accompanying her. The party was comprised of six knights: Bella, Dolores, Eleanor, Irene, Lisha, and Roland, the archer Annie, the assassin Lola, as well as the three goddess level lolis and the princess of the demon world. Hadias.
After receiving Kriss’ call for help, Bella had quickly assembled the Dark Sanctuary’s beauties to create this ‘rescue party’. Bella was rather mad that she had been interrupted at such an important moment, but because the one who had interrupted her was Kriss, Bella couldn’t exactly take out her anger on Kriss.
It was fortunate that Bella was already around 70% done the ‘conquest’ of Lola and Irene, on their chests was a mark that only demon kings could see, that mark was something demon kings gave their subordinates when they were given the title of general within the ranks of the demon king’s army. Bella had learned the steps for doing so during her time in Lisha’s memory world, based on when Lisha had bestowed the title upon the demon marshal, Rebecca.
Irene joining the Dark Sanctuary was something that Bella had planned for a while, Lola was more of something that came as part of a ‘package deal’ with Lisha as her follower, as Bella and Lisha had made peace with each other already Bella couldn’t deny the addition of Lola to the Dark Sanctuary. Anyways, Lola was one of Lisha’s best friends as well as something akin to a personal servant for her, if Bella conquered Lisha, Lola would naturally be unable to escape the her fate anyways.
Right now, both Irene and Lola averted their eyes from Bella, as they had been just narrowly avoided being completely eaten up by Bella. Even thinking back on it now, they could feel their face heating up.
“Nee-sama, were you doing something fun just before? Why didn’t you call take me with you! Just call me and I’ll be there in seconds.”
“Nee-san, weren’t Lisha and Lola our enemies, why are they with us now?.”
“Nee-san, there’s something strange, before I didn’t notice because of the distance but I can feel something familiar from Lisha-nee, the last time that I felt something like this was from Kriss-nee.”
As for the questions that the three lolis: Mia, Angel, and Noesha were throwing at her, Bella could only answer them one by one. Because they had asked their questions quietly while beside Bella, the other girls in the party who were following behind them weren’t able to hear the questions that the lolis were asking Bella.
“You adventurers over there, our mercenary company has already booked this entire inn, if you want to… woah…”
A burly man who had blocked Bella’s path wanted to say something, but Bella grabbed his hand before he could finish and threw him across the room, cutting the burly man off before he could finish his words.
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