Chapter 14: The Sage Fires a Black Arrow

With Henry under my command, I moved on from the half-destroyed prison.

Our next destination was the royal castle in the capital.

This was Henry's wish, as it seemed he had something to collect from inside the castle.

Since there was no reason to dismiss his request, I ended up accompanying him to the castle.

On the way, I abandoned my current damaged body and switched to an intact undead body.

The damage I sustained in the fight with Henry was significant.

I completely lost both arms and my spine was broken in two.

If I stayed as I was, I would be forced to suffer many inconveniences.

Even when he saw me changing my body at will, Henry was unconcerned.

He said, "I'm not surprised by that now.” (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

He was more shocked that he had lost in a one-on-one battle with me.

It must have been a novel experience for him.

I took Henry with me and moved using transfer magic.

I knew that the castle was occupied by a horde of undead.

With the exception of Henry, there didn't seem to be anyone with much ability in the small country.

This was an expected result.

Henry was just too abnormal.

It was an inhuman feat to disrupt an army of undead so easily.

We flew to the castle's hall.

In the red-carpeted room, scarred ghouls roamed about.

There were soldiers clad in armor, nobles in luxurious clothing, and those who looked like servants.

Everyone had turned into an undead all the same.

“It's amazing! They really don’t attack you.”

Henry poked a nearby undead and peered into its face to admire it.

No matter how safe he'd heard it was, I had to give him credit for having the nerve to be so brazen about it.

His curiosity seemed to outweigh all other considerations.

“Where is this thing you want to get back, by the way?”

“Probably in the treasury, which is upstairs in the castle. It's my favorite weapon. It was confiscated when I was imprisoned, but I'm sure it's still here. It's not something that they’d part with easily.”

Henry said with a bit of pride.

Hearing that, I was reminded of something at the same time.

At the time when Henry was a Hero candidate, I had learned about his fighting style from certain sources.

Based on the information I got there, his weapon was indispensable to him.

The current Henry had not been able to fully demonstrate his fighting ability.

One couldn’t help but be astonished that our fight didn’t show his full potential.

As we climbed the stairs leading to the treasury, a familiar presence approached us.

The one whose face suddenly popped up was Luciana.

“Yahoo! Demon Lord. I knew you were safe.”

“Of course. There is no way I would lose here.”

There were several humans behind her.

They had not yet turned into undead.

They had peculiar, unfocused gazes.

Their expressions were also slack, and they were definitely in some kind of abnormal state.

Noticing my gaze, Luciana quickly interjected with an explanation.

"These kids are the leaders of the small country, you see. I've charmed them to their very marrow. Now you have puppets that will never disobey you.”

“Oho, not bad.”

“I know!”

Luciana eagerly asked for my approval.

It's nice to have more obedient humans as pawns.

They have many uses.

They were the fruits borne out of taking advantage of a succubi’s racial characteristics.

It was also great to be able to easily draw out the information they have.

It would help us to track down the third country that had instigated the small country.

At that moment, Luciana took a glance at Henry.

She placed a finger on her chin and observed.

“So, you've brought that human into your fold too? Yeah, I think it's a good decision.”

“Nice to meet you!”

“Ah, yeah.”

Luciana responded to Henry's cheerful greeting in a matter-of-fact way.

Maybe she was not very interested in him.

In her case, the only criterion for classifying the opposite sex was one word: strength.

Other than the pinnacle that was me, nothing else mattered.

In fact, she had a similar attitude towards Grom, whose strength rivaled the previous Demon Lord.

With regard to this, I'm hoping that they will gradually learn to get along with each other.

If allies are inharmonious with each other, it could hinder various strategies.

I pray that time will somehow resolve this issue.

Since we finally met up with her after all this while, we took Luciana with us to the treasury.

We destroyed the heavy-duty defense magic and opened the door to check inside.

The gold and silver treasures of a small country are stored here.

It was a nation's funds.

The total would amount to quite a bit of money.

However, I didn't find it very valuable right now.

I had become an existence that had no use for gold.

No, I guess I wasn't very attached to it even when I was alive.

Maybe me being undead didn't have much to do with it.

“Ah-hah! Isn’t that amazing! That’s quite a bit for a small country!”

Meanwhile, Luciana leaped at the treasure with a twinkle in her eye.

She gathered up the jewels with glee and ended up rubbing her cheek on a luxurious necklace.

It was obvious that she was in a good mood.

She seemed to have a surprisingly calculating character.

Passing by her, Henry strode through the treasure room.

He silently searched for the weapon he wanted.

Eventually, Henry's feet stopped at one spot.

“Oh, there it is, Boss!”

He held up a bow.

The surface of the bow was a dull brown color, but it was not made of wood.

However, it was not made of metal either.

It had a strange texture.

Yes, Henry was an archer.

Despite the fact that he participated in so many melee battles, his specialty was long-range attack.

It was hard to believe, but sniping from an imperceptible distance was his usual method of attack.

When I heard that, he sounded like an assassin.

“This is a bow made of dragon bone and beard. It is the only one of its kind in the world. I'm sure you can understand why I wanted to get it back.”

Henry explained as he fiddled with the bowstring.

Being a bow made from dragon parts, its quality would be of the highest grade.

It was a high-performance magic weapon even without any special tricks.

“Might as well try a shot with this. Wasting one or two arrows wouldn’t be a problem…”

Muttering, Henry rummaged through the treasure room at random and secured a few arrows.

He wasn’t very fastidious with his selection.

Any kind of arrows seemed to do.

We followed after Henry.

Apparently, he was going to move to a different location and show us a test firing of the bow.

We were led to a room with a wall of glass.

The structure was designed to provide a panoramic view of the castle town, and the view was indeed very good.

Right now, all I could see was the cityscape dominated by the undead, but it must have been an exceptional view normally.

“Alright.”

Henry kicked through the glass, then took aim with his arrow nocked.

It was a refined stance.

Just by looking at him, you could see his skill.

“……”

Henry, who had no expression on his face, fell silent.

The arrowhead fixed to the bowstring began to glow faintly.

I'm sure it's because of the effect of a bow made of dragon parts.

It was a function of a high-grade magic weapon.

This was what strengthened his arrows.

After the due amount of time, Henry released the arrow.

The arrow flew, leaving a trail of light.

Ahead of it was the barracks.

The arrow, which was becoming increasingly distant, reached the barracks in the blink of an eye.

It hit the stone tower section and pierced through it.

The tower, with a small hole through it, creaked and swayed.

The shaking grew larger and larger, and soon the tower collapsed.

The entire building crumbled into a rain of debris that crushed the rest of the barracks.

“Gee, that sucked. It's been a long time since I've last shot an arrow, and my arms are getting weak.”

Henry was somewhat frustrated as he released his stance.

Although he said that, he had great skill.

It was at the point where just the bow’s effects wouldn’t cause such destruction from such a small hole.

It was a result of Henry's own excellent skills.

But still, he was an incredible ally to have made.

I should be grateful for my good fortune in winning him over to the Demon Lord’s army.

This alone was worth invading the small country for.

Before I knew it, Henry had grabbed a bottle of wine.

He must have stolen it from somewhere in the castle.

He gulped it down, exhaled deeply, and savored it.

“…Hm.”

Beside him, I folded my arms, lost in thought.

A bit of interest and rivalry was developing.

I was curious to see how much power I had.

Now that my goal of destroying the small country was almost complete, a little playing around would be forgiven.

I hold out my hand to Henry.

“Give me an arrow.”

“Oh, Boss is going to show off your sniping skills, huh? I'm looking forward to it.”

Henry handed me the bow and arrows.

I grabbed only one arrow.

“This is all I need.”

“Well, I don't mind if Boss says so.”

Henry gave me a strange look.

He seemed to wonder how I would release an arrow without using a bow.

His doubts were not unfounded.

With one arrow in hand, I stood by the window.

It's just where Henry showed off his shooting.

I stared further beyond the collapsed tower and spread body-strengthening magic all over my body.

The arrow itself was also given magic.

If I made a mistake in the amount it was likely to break, so I had to be very careful.

When I was ready, I held the arrow that had turned black over my head.

Then, I threw the projectile as fast as I could towards the outside of the castle.

The arrow that exceeded the speed of sound quickly became small and invisible.

After a short while, it exploded in a mountain that towered outside the capital.

The area around the summit of the mountain was heavily caved in, exposing the stripped and gutted earth in the forest area.

Needless to say, extensive damage had been caused.

“Ah, ah…?”

Henry was stunned.

An amber liquor was dripping from the wine bottle, which was still tilted.

After a while, he came to himself and shrugged his shoulders.

“Haha, you’ve put me in an awkward position. What a bad Boss.”

“Ahh. The Demon Lord has that kind of side to him too…”

Luciana blurted out, glancing at me.

Her still gaze was filled with some censure and exasperation.

I felt somewhat uncomfortable and could do nothing but look away without saying anything.