The job was not easy: destroying cities is not like counting crows.
However, the torments of conscience passed me by, as if all the bad had long since passed. Perhaps the new race calms me down, or perhaps it is because the situation is hopeless. I do not have the ability to magically erase the memory of every living being, while acting quickly and safely. But even if you erase the memories of what happened from witnesses, you cannot hide a pile of corpses. Someone will be interested in the mass disappearance of citizens in the kingdom, then adventurers will go to explore the territory, and this is undesirable.
- Amazing, - shaking the dust off my palms, I remembered a funny expression - what will be, will be. And after it: "no body, no business."
The main thing is to learn from your mistakes, and not to take Shaltear, as well as those like her, into peaceful cities, at least without prior instruction on manners and rules of behavior in society. However, it is not for me to teach her, there are better candidates. The same Aureol Omega is a person with the gift of immortality. In theory, she is qualified enough to enlighten the creations of my friends in the nuances of human nature.
It was quite unfortunate that a bunch of biological material burned in the hellish inferno, but the situation was still able to be profited from as much as possible. As they say, even ashes can be put to good use. I hope that the fact that the victims were not in vain will calm the souls of the dead. All that remains is to sort out the created chimera in a couple of days, if no one decides to do it for me. Any chimerologist is the father of a perverted life, but not a supporter of unjustified death.
"Simply amazing. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Murphy's Law at its finest," he finally got rid of the dirt on his leather gloves when my portal trap worked, helping the guardian of Nazarick find me in this ruined city.
Funny, not even a few days had passed since Demiurge responded to my call. The city was already burning down, and the life search was almost not working, there was barely a minute left until the complete cleanup. I think it took an hour and a half in total, quite a long time by Yggdrasil standards.
"Mister Bondrewd, on behalf of myself and all the guardians of Nazarick, I humbly ask for forgiveness for Shalltear Bloodfallen's misdeed. You can rest assured that I have personally ensured that your order is carried out. For at least a week, not a single living being in Nazarick will have contact with her," they decided to kneel next to me again.
An annoying fact, but it is still pleasant to deal with the Demiurge. The demon is extremely smart, dexterous and loyal, which contributes to my peace of mind. I had no desire to create a second similar chimera. Twice in one day for sure. In theory, the archdevil is an extremely evil creature, but not a supporter of genocide for the sake of satisfying vanity.
Evil without justification or motive is empty.
"Wonderful, but she is just a foolish child. Making a mistake is the first step to gaining experience. Shalltear has a chance to stand on the first step of the ladder leading to adulthood. Blame those who do not learn from their mistakes, stopping their development. Those who overcome weakness gain what people call intelligence." Turning to the arriving companion, my hands spread out to the sides in a welcoming gesture. "Welcome!" Rather, welcome to Hell.
- Sir, what do you order? - Raising his head, he saw my gesture. Waving the palm from bottom to top - any reasonable person would perceive it as a silent request to stand up.
"Demiurge, of all the higher beings, I have the best relationship with your creator. Ulbert and I were on the same wavelength, our common interests brought us together like good comrades. You don't need to kneel every time we meet if there are no other inhabitants of Nazarick around," addressing the demon kindly, I wanted to see more individuality from him, more similarity to his creator, who went against all the foundations of society.
My friend's parents died early in a dangerous job, for which he was paid a ridiculous compensation. In fact, it is a strong factor in the development of misanthropy; such a society, nothing can be done. Ulbert also understood this, but he never gave up, and always went ahead.
"Your words mean a lot to me, and I will take them into consideration with charm," he nodded low at my words, stretching his back and spreading his legs in a more relaxed style. The hallmark of any arrogant guy is a smug smile, but it's a pity that the demon hides a slight regret under it.
I don't have complete information about him, and I don't need it.
As far as I know, Demiurge must love his creator more than anyone else. After all, narcissistic individuals partly enjoy it if someone truly and selflessly, let's say, respects them. But only a being worthy of recognition from Demiurge did not remain next to him in this wonderful world. It's a shame, but you can't just explain to the archdevil that workers in heavy industries often have no time for dying online games with full immersion. He and I lived in different city domes, so it was not in my power to help Ulbert, like Momonga.
"Your spy network, have you managed to figure out the problem with the massacre near the borders of this country?" At this moment, one of the buildings collapsed with a roar, raising dust that quickly merged with the ashes surrounding us.
By this time, the life search had stopped catching living creatures. The death search was more difficult, but it seemed I hadn't managed to find anyone above level twenty, except for the chimera. Consequently, the city was completely cleared of witnesses.
The area of darkness protects us from outside surveillance and cordons off the territory from escape, but just in case, several simple spells to block intelligence were activated. After all, the area of darkness will dissipate, and Demiurge and I still have to leave this territory until better times.
"As expected of our lord," the demon returned to his good mood with a satisfied smile, since the topic concerned his interests. "You have already found out everything about the destruction of several villages near Nazarick. I myself only found out about it a few hours ago. Your creations discovered a group of weak mages, as well as knights with identifying symbols. Their actions seemed strange to me, so I decided that they belonged to a different country than the one they are trying to present themselves as," Demiurge quickly reported, then continued to tell various details.
I had to suppress a hint of suspicion from the new information. Everything was very strange, was the defensive capacity of the kingdom's villages really that weak? Comparing all the information, it turned out that we had inherited an extremely weak region. It would not be possible to make super-dangerous chimeras out of the enemies, the Anthill compensates for this weakness, but still, much depends on the scale of the threat from outside.
Or else…
It was as if two blacksmiths were striking an anvil with a hammer in my head. Was this some evil gods' joke: to send me to a seedy little world with magic all alone? Probably for the first time since I realized that I was in this body, I wanted to laugh for real. My lips didn't allow me to do so, but inside me there was a clap of thunder. Wonderful, it turns out that the probability that I am the awakened Demon King is over eighty percent. Well, now I just have to wait for a group of Japanese high school students to make it completely happy.
— … Lord, I apologize for my arbitrariness, but I have decided to expand the search area using creatures under my personal control. At the moment, the radius of the safe zone covers the Kingdom of Re-Estize and the border zone of the Baharuth Empire, — it is difficult to read what he is thinking from his emerald eyes, but the emotions on his face showed a couple of curious desires.
"Your zeal to ensure my safety exceeds all my wildest expectations," turning towards the threat, I used my class ability "Shadow Slash" to cut off the attacking tentacles of the Ainnash tree.
The fight with the monster not only brightened up my wait for an ally, but also helped me realize the increased level of combat instincts. Sometimes it felt like I had a couple of cheats sewn into my head. It was easy to predict an attack before it started, even too easy.
"No-really," the demon remarked in surprise, his speech slightly slurred, looking in the direction of the attack. Most likely, he assumes that the chimera is a traitor. He even released an aura of intimidation, wanting to transform into the strongest form to help me in battle.
— There is no need to worry. The monster is not under my control, so that it would be impossible for the dark druids to track the arborist through it. Judging by the observations, in four days the chimera will be able to move independently, and before that it is advisable to spread rumors about its existence. If the world is so weak that it is unable to resist, then I will personally destroy my creation in order to spread a false legend. Let's say that an experienced researcher arrived from another continent in search of exotic animals, and having found one, helped the kingdom eliminate the disaster, becoming a hero. It would not be superfluous to temporarily establish a boundary between the local insects. After all, even a colony of ants can be useful — sometimes I myself get tense with long speeches that are similar in tone to conversations about the weather. On the one hand, we are talking about enslaving a large area of land to strengthen your own base, but on the other hand, this fact does not bother me at all from the point of view of human morality.
It's very strange, but oh well.
"Does this mean that you want to capture…" the ally wanted to ask with a squint, but I interrupted him.
"We need to strengthen the security of Nazarick by taking control of the surrounding areas. The world protects those who are careful, and if you want to stop a monster, become a monster yourself," I shrugged my shoulders indifferently, wanting to leave the place that reeked of burning. "Now, to business, open the gates to our lovely lovers of carnage. The strongest warrior of the kingdom should come to them, and then we will have two good informants about the new world.
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