Chapter 95: Side Story  Bats of the dark night

There were countless bats above Dakyat in the sky.

The black bats blended into the night, making it invisible from the ground. And even if a person saw them, he would probably just think that they are bats and not pay attention to them. Bats that originally fly at an altitude of a couple of thousand meters up were flying at that location. That kind of illogical scene was occurring on the ground and furthermore, that illogical scene was hidden in the shrouds and dispersed.

However, those bats were the reason for the disturbance on the surface.

Vampire Valf.

As the 3rd general of the Demon Lord’s army, he who possesses the power of eternal life was gazing at the situation on the ground with his bat form.

Incidentally, that bat was not Valf’s true body but one part of his split body.

When he transforms into a bat, he splits into 100 bats.

In addition, that was also one of his weakness.

He loses his power of eternal life when he is a bat. Nevertheless, he transforms when he intends to gather information.

When he’s in his bat form, he would no longer burn when bathed by sunlight.

“The day before yesterday was terrible … damn humans …”

Afternoon, the day before yesterday. He transformed and sent 90 of his bat split bodies to fly into the country while the 10 remaining including his true body hid in a cave.

It was then. Somebody released magic into the cave. That magic burnt and destroyed 9 of the split body and his true body also suffered serious injuries.

Due to that incident, he was forced to once again gather the 90 bats throughout the country and gather his strength in addition to requiring an additional day’s rest.

By the way, the identity of that attack was the magic released by Ichinojo towards what he misunderstood as a monster’s cave before he arrived at Ferruit. Naturally, Valf was unaware of that and Ichinojo also did not attack knowing that Valf was there.

Due to that, Valf thought that he would miss the monster invasion and their clash with the soldiers but the monster invasion was late for some reason so he made it just in time.

“Here they come ― ”

With the eyes of the vampire called the King of the Red Night, he would not lose visibility even if he is in his bat form.

His ― their countless eyes gazed upon the battlefield.

The monster herd collided with the human soldiers.

However, the human soldiers moved.

They released fire arrows.

The grassland transformed into a sea of fire in the blink of an eye.

(Foolish. Did they think that would stop the monsters? Those are monsters I bestowed to Korat’s King born from magic. They are not beings that will be stopped by something of that level.)

As Valf had expected, the monster herd was unafraid of the flames and they merely continued to advance forward without fearing the loss of their own life or the reduction of their numbers.

The monsters born from labyrinths are accumulations of miasma after all. Those behaviors are merely the vestiges of the monsters and adventurers when they were still alive and it has been greatly limited by the Goddess’ power. Just by slightly intervening in that process, he’s able to obtain pawns.

Those monsters were not thinking of anything at all. They were nothing more than puppets with the sole aim of reaching the capital of Dakyat, Ferruit.

Due to the unexpected aggression from the monsters, the flames had spread until the human soldier’s encampment.

There was a human saying that there are no monsters that don’t fear fire.

However, that’s not true. Humans are still afraid of fire too.

The flames that they thought they manipulated had run amok and turned to burn the hands of the humans.

The human soldiers had begun to retreat.

The monsters would soon reach Ferruit.

Then, they will rampage across Ferruit and disappear 3 days later.

Korat’s soldiers would visit after that.

The humans will war amongst themselves. The country would fall into ruin.

However, when Korat’s soldiers attack Dakyat, Valf will also use the same gimmick on the labyrinth in Korat.

With the soldiers mobilized to invade Dakyat, Korat would likely not be able to prevent the invasion of the advancing monsters and fall into ruin too.

Why does Valf intend to crush Korat and Dakyat?

There was no reason behind it.

He is of the demon race who utilizes humans as pawns and thinks that it is fine if humans are destroyed.

He laughed inside his heart.

He laughed imagining the slaughter that was about to happen.

Overrun by monsters, warring amongst humans and to further be trampled by monsters.

He laughed at the foolishness of humans.

However, his laughter was interrupted.

( ―! What happened? Did something happen!?)

The monster herd abruptly changed direction.

The monsters changed course towards the south.

What!?

What’s happening!?

(Is this the workings of something that transcends my magic!?)

Having absolute faith in his own strength, Valf was astonished and tried to determine the situation.

(― Tsu!!)

At that moment, Valf felt a gaze.

Somebody was looking at him.

Furthermore, it’s not just looking but somebody was staring at him with obvious hostility.

When Valf searched for the owner of that gaze, he saw them at the land to the south, ahead of where the monsters had changed course towards.

He saw 4 humans.

(Why is she … why is that Devil Kanon’s slave here?)

The first person he noticed was the girl with a pointed hat and mask on ― Malina.

(Malina if I remember correctly. She’s just a girl who possesses the odd job called Street Performer. Did she do something?)

However, Valf reconsidered. She was not the owner of the gaze.

Then, he saw the white haired White Wolf race next to Malina.

The White Wolf race is a tribe with sharp night vision.

It won’t be strange for her to notice him.

However, why was she looking so intently at Valf while he was in his bat form?

Valf pondered and then came to a realization.

(―! Haurvatat! Demon Lord Raritei’s pet!)

There was no doubt in Valf’s mind.

If it’s really her, she would know about his ability to transform into bat form.

(Then, was it her action that caused the monsters to change course? But  how?)

Maybe because Haurvatat told them, Malina next to her as well as the weak-looking man and the small girl looked at his direction.

However, judging that it would be an obstacle to his plan if this continued, he decided to kill those 4 people.

Then, Valf’s split body disappeared into the dark night.

In order to return to his true body.