Volume 1 Chapter 16 - Secrets Below the Great Church

The central parts of Nelson had already been refurbished to look like a newly built city by the zombies. The only thing that was off was the fact that there was not a single living human in the area, only zombies that made not a single sound. To some, the town would be a soundless horror movie.

The most noticeable building here, apart from the grand church built out of pure-white stone, was the luxurious villa right beside the church, this villa was very extravagant; not to mention its large size, there was also installments such as a pool and hot-tubs.

Currently, Bella and the others were relaxing in the open air pool on the second floor. Apart from Bella, Eleanor, Dolores, Dolores, Roland, Annie and the three lolis, Bella had also invited Ivy and Susan as guests to the pool party. Bella had based this pool on a certain country from Earth’s Marina Sands, its level of luxurious wasn’t lower than any other recreation facilities in this world.

“Bella, these clothes…aren’t they a little too exposing?”

Ivy looked at the black three-point bikini that Bella had made her wear. Susan, on the other hand, looked completely natural and was leaning on the side of the pool in a golden bikini. It seemed that this holy maiden was pretty open, at least more than Ivy was.

“You have a nice body Ivy, what’s there to be shy about? Everyone here is a girl and there aren’t any outsiders. Anyways, isn’t this more comfortable than those you were wearing before!”

Ivy looked around and saw that all the other girls in the pool were wearing similarly styled bikinis, and thought that it might have been wrong for her to be so sensitive. After thinking for a while, she decided that she would relax with the only familiar person here, Susan.

Bella was casually sitting upon a floating pool chair and was satisfyingly enjoying the view, this was a treatment that only 2d protagonists from Earth were able to enjoy. She hadn’t expected to get this treatment in another world, it was even more satisfying to Bella that all the swimsuits that the girls wore were designed by herself.

A crooked smile stealthily crept onto Bella’s face as she observed the curious Susan and the shy Ivy, these two girls sure had nice bodies. Ivy was on the thin side while Susan was more curvaceous, her chest was already on the same scale as Dolores’. As they’ve already put on the clothes that she designed, Bella didn’t plan to let these two escape her clutches.

“Nee-sama, your eyes are showing your evil thoughts, are you plotting to obtain the two new sisters?”

Noesha in a pink swimsuit sat beside Bella on the floating chair. This chair had a rather large surface area and it held the two girls without trouble. Noesha wasn’t wearing a three-point bikini, but a more normal design that exposed less.

Even though Noesha’s chest size wasn’t small at all, but Bella wanted to keep true to her loli attributes so she made Noesha a cute loli bikini that was in the same style as Mia and Angel’s. Bella also made another three of the same design for the three loli creator gods. After everything settled down, Bella had planned to invite those three Creators to come and play, as thanks for their help.

“Little Noesha, I’m a kind and innocent person, don’t go around sprouting random rumours about me~ a good girl must be elegant, not naughty.”

“Nee-sama you really are…I’m going back to reading.”

Noesha then returned her focus to the 18x doujin in her hands. Bella didn’t know what to say about this little sister of her’s, not forgetting to bring ero-books wherever she went. Apart from just reading them herself, she also acted like a missionary to convince others to read the doujins as well, the first ones to receive her ‘preachings’ were Mia and Angel. As the doujins that Noesha promoted were all yuri-oriented, along with her own personal agenda, Bella didn’t stop Noesha from doing so.

It didn’t take long for the sun to fall below the horizon and darkness to creep over the region. The town was well lit, most likely because of the zombies who lit their lights like humans. Even if they didn’t have any light, zombies would still be able to work normally. After all, they were as good as blind. They were probably just following their instinctive memory from when they were still human.

“Can you take us for a tour of your covent later, Bella?”

“Holy maiden-dono, our covent isn’t open to outsid…clergy not from the Salo faction.”

“Just call me Susan, you don’t have to be so formal with me. Are you really from the Salo faction Bella? You don’t seem like one of those shady heretics who only know how to summon evil stuff!”

“Don’t joke with me like that Susan, I was sent by Cardinal Salo here himself, how can I not be part of the Salo faction. Are you questioning my loyalty to Salo-sama?” Bella gave a plausible excuse, she didn’t have to take responsibility for her words and she did in fact, receive a certificate from the cardinal himself.

“Bella, I heard from Mia that you were the one that designed all these clothes?”

“They are my design, do you like them Ivy? I designed these pieces of swimwear and underwear with sizings from the other girls here, there are a lot more clothes for girls on the hangers over there.

Bella pointed proudly at the rows of clothes not too far from the pool, several largely transparent ghost maids had already brought the clothes that the girls would change into. The styles were varied and all designed by Bella and sewn by the ghost maids that Bella had specially trained. Apart from helping Bella make clothes, these ghost maids also carry out the daily duties of the villa, and also providing service for the upper echelons of Nelson town.

These ghost maids weren’t just for decoration either, they were very high powered undead type magic beings. Only 1/10,000 ghosts have the potential to become a ghost maid. Currently, however, there were no conflicts or intruders so these ghost maids acted like normal ghosts, for now.

“Why don’t you join the Alan faction, Bella? One of the three cardinals, Anthony Alan, is my mentor; I can introduce you to him, he’s a very nice person!”

“This is a matter of principle Susan, I must deny. Cardinal Andrew Salo is my…sponsor.”

The reason behind Susan wanting to persuade Bella to shift allegiances to the Alan faction was because of the large amounts of grains in her hands, food supplies were an important political peace in regions affected by war. If they used the Alan factions name to give out food to refugees, they would definitely be able to get large amounts of support from the lower class.

“It’s getting late and we still have to go monster hunting tomorrow. Oh, you can pick any of these clothes, they’re free!”

Susan had wanted to try convincing Bella some more, but Ivy had already been dragged away by Noesha and the other lolis to pick out clothes. She had no choice but to follow them.

Bella, Dolores, and Eleanor left the villa with Roland and Annie in tow and headed towards the grand church. Various fearsome looking evil beings had begun to wander the street with the zombies, these evil beings would normally only come out at night as these evil beings were different from the zombies in that they would attack humans regardless of gender.{1}

Looking at all the evil beings that made way for them, Bella was glad that she didn’t allow Susan and Ivy to follow them out. These evil beings were very sensitive to demon kings and had sensed Bella and them as soon as they had left the Villa. Roland and Annie were also spared as they had the imprint that identified them as a demon king’s exclusive subordinates.

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There were no icons of the God of Light or anything else related to the god in the grand church. The statue at the centre of the church was that of a loli with a veiled face, it was a statue of 【Dark Creator] Mystica, Bella had erected this statue here with permission from the Creator herself. This church was just a font, the real core of the town was the dark sanctuary deep below the church.

The dark sanctuary was Bella’s base for monsters that she built, emulating Mystica’s Dark Dimension. Although she based it off of Mystica’s dimension, there were several differences: Mystica’s Demon King Hall had twelve high demon king thrones, and only high demon kings had the right to enter while normal demon kings could only wait outside. Bella’s dark sanctuary did not have any high demon kings, so it had only twelve normal demon king thrones.

Mystica had actually promised Bella four high demon king thrones, but they were currently under construction and it should be a while before they were delivered. One thing though, Bella had tried out the high demon king throne but felt as if Felia’s demon king body was completely unable to control it, she didn’t know how strong a demon king had to be in order to qualify for a high demon king if even Felia, who had received blood from 3 demon and evil gods couldn’t.

At the centre of the dark sanctuary was the holy land of evil beings, the Demon Kings’ Hall. The hall was designed like an emperor’s palace, but instead of the emperor’s throne, there were twelve demon king thrones where the emperor’s throne was supposed to be. Each of these demon king thrones was in a different style, but all still adhered to the theme of darkness.

The twelve thrones were arranged in a semicircle facing in and each had a slot for a sword on the back of the throne. Currently, all twelve swords were present, these swords were exclusive to the demon king that used the throne affiliated with the sword. These thrones were not fixed to the ground, but floating slightly off the floor. The floating thrones increased the demon kings’ style points immensely.

At the center of the semicircle was a giant crimson heart, the 【Demon’s Heart], it had many tubes sprouting from it that entered the ground and the floor of the hall was crisscrossed with what seemed to be barely visible veins and arteries, still with blood inside that moved with the beat of the massive heart.

Behind the twelve thrones, a giant brain floated, and it had almost completely transparent arteries that were only visible around the brain itself, Bella did not know the extent of these arteries as they were not visible. There were already large amounts of evil beings gathered around the hall, Bella estimated at least 10,000 from what she could see. Each and every one of the evil beings kneeled on the ground, looking up at the demon kings below the 【Demon’s Wisdom].

At the very front of those evil beings were several hundred human shaped evil beings, they only kneeled with one knee, their position was evidently higher than those behind them. These were all personally created by Bella with material from the 【Demon’s Wisdom] and 【Demon’s Heart], it would be catastrophic if any of these evil beings were unleashed on society.

“Hail 【Prime King]-sama, 【Heavenly King]-sama, 【Blood King]-sama!”{2}

“All of you may rise, is there anything to report?”

Dolores acted with familiarity, she was originally a demon princess after all and had seen her father receiving the empire’s nobles, she was only imitating her father right now. Bella sat the throne in the centre with Dolores to her left and Eleanor to her left. Roland and Annie wore Bella’s specially designed demon king maid attire and stood to the side of the thrones, Roland beside Eleanor’s and Annie beside Bella’s.

Bella, Dolores, and Eleanor had switched into demon kings’ garb. As they were wearing the female style and they were all good looking girls, the three of them looked more like a demon princess than a demon king. Each one of them wore a differently styled crown that gave off a monarch’s airs, Bella’s was dark gold while Eleanor and Dolores’ were blood red and platinum respectively.

Eleanor’s tensely held a bone cup, the endless ripples made in the dark red tea showed the unrest of its holder. Although Eleanor was born into one of the Octavian Empire’s(Knights) four great families, she had never seen such a scene before. Bella quietly laughed as she looked at the tense Eleanor, this girl needs some more practice; they would most likely have to see this kind of scene many more times in the future.

“【Heavenly King]-sama, me and my subordinates obtained a large number of precious minerals from the mine and wish to erect statues in honour of the demon kings who created us and this dark sanctuary, and are here to seek permission from demon king-samas.

Bella had modified these evil beings’ memories so that they would remember that their creator was Bella’s true form, and Felia was just one of her subordinate demon kings. This would eliminate many unnecessary problems and a double identity would also be more flexible. As for the identities of Angel, Mia, and Noesha, Bella didn’t hide anything from the monsters and they treated the three lolis as demon gods.

“I represent all the demon kings present and give you permission, thank you for your hard work Maltz.” After receiving a nod from Bella, Dolores gave 【Hell’s Warden] Maltz permission to carry out the crafting and erecting of the statues.

【Hell’s Warden] Maltz was the ‘new’ 【Warden] Maltz after the original had been destroyed by 【Berserker] Barthes at the decisive battle several months ago using the 【Pillar of the War God], the current Maltz was much, much stronger than he was during that battle.

“Demon king-samas, your subordinate has cleared out several more bandit groups during the period since we were last gathered here. I have brought all the loot that has been liberated from their camps, and bring it here to offer as a tribute.”

“Nicely done Clement! You’re living up to your name as 【Master of Faces].”

“I thank the appreciation of the demon king-samas, this what we as your subordinates, are supposed to do. 【Bone-corroding Duke] Adrian helped me with the extermination of these bandits, he also deserves some credit.”

The other humanoid monsters looked jealousy at Clement, even though he wasn’t very powerful, but his disguising ability was way too broken and would often disguise as a human to gather intel in human towns; and this time he had brought back several dozen boxes full of loot as a tribute to the demon kings.

Even 【Prime King]-sama, who has never spoken before, had praised him, along with 【Blood King]-sama who had been out of it until now. It infuriated them to look at Clement’s mocking smile, if he didn’t have【Bone-corroding Duke]Adrian backing him up, he would have been beaten to death after everyone was dismissed.

Clement didn’t give any response to the countless killing gazes behind him, anyway, the monsters Bella personally created wouldn’t completely die unless both the 【Demon’s Wisdom] and 【Demon’s Heart]were destroyed simultaneously. Clement’s creed was that if he can’t die, he didn’t have to care for the opinion of others, apart from a certain few of course.

“Demon king-samas, this is the intel I have gathered from the Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen) at【Prime King]-sama’s request. Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen) also have several people that could be potentially troublesome, could I implore demon king-samas on what our next course of action is?”

After receiving the thick stack of papers that Annie delivered to her, Bella froze after looking at the first page. Why was this person’s backstory so similar to that of Lisha’s, also another case of someone rapidly gaining power after an event. There was the possibility that she was another transmigrator and that there were more than two transmigrators in this world…

—TL Notes—

{1}So some clarity here ‘魔物’= evil being/magic being, and ‘魔兽’ = monster/magic beast, iirc the difference between these two in the novel is that evil beings like zombies/skeletons do not have magic cores.

{2} 始魔王、天魔王，and 血魔王 which are Bella, Dolores, and Eleanor respectively