Chapter 34

Once they’d gotten the matter of payment fully settled and some of the other logistical details figured out, Erza asked a question Zeth realized he wasn’t quite ready to answer.

“So, what day will you be ready to work with us?”

“Hm?” he asked.

“I mean, for the first few days, I’m just gonna be getting you used to the equipment and having you help me move some stuff around. So, ultimately, what day you start working is up to you.”

“Uh…” Really, Zeth didn’t have a day in mind at all. He hadn’t even thought he was gonna take this job to begin with until a couple minutes ago. “I’m not sure. I guess sometime in the next few days.”

“Hm.” Erza looked down and stroked his chin. “How about…”

“If I may,” Rosalie cut in, “it’d likely be best if you got him trained and ready sooner rather than later. We heard this place was going to be holding some sort of meeting in the town square for everyone to attend, remember? I think it was five days from now. If you’re going to be taking on help, we’d want him ready by then.”

“Wait, what?” Zeth asked. “What meeting? And why would you need me for it?”

“You haven’t heard?” she asked. “It must not have been announced to the public yet. We just heard from our employer—she was told she wouldn’t be able to set up shop that day because it would be taken up during the announcement. I’m not entirely sure what it’s going to be about, but apparently enough people are supposed to be there that they’ll have to shut down the entire area to fit everyone..”

“So you just want me to help put everything away, or something?”

“No, no, we’ll do that before the announcement starts. We need you for what’s going to happen during it.”

“Oh,” Erza groaned. “Rosalie, we’ve talked about this. It’s not like anything’s guaranteed to happen—you’ve always been paranoid about these things.”

“What are you two talking about?” Zeth asked.

“She’s worried the Blood Mage will attack during the announcement.”

“It’s the perfect time for him to strike,” she said. “Everyone will be grouped together in the same spot. If he brings in a demon and lets it loose in the middle of the crowd—”

“No one would be that bold. And what would the motivation behind such carnage even be?”

She scoffed. “Do you really have to ask such a thing? Scum like that would take any opportunity they could to create more corpses. Gain favor with the demons, empower their rituals…They have plenty of reasons to kill senselessly. They’re worthless people who deserve nothing else but death.”

Zeth found himself wondering, listening to her words. this

He chuckled nervously. “I’d hope we aren’t dealing with someone that evil. I mean, they had a demon in town during the jailbreak and didn’t kill anyone, so maybe they’re not so bad?”

Rosalie glared at him. “If you’re too afraid to help, then don’t get in our way.”

“I never said I was afraid to help,” he said. He certainly didn’t plan on doing any of the stuff she was talking about, so there wouldn’t be any issues being there to help keep everyone safe. And really, there was always the chance that she actually was right, just not about him. Maybe the other Blood Mage was planning on doing exactly what she said they were. It could be a good chance to corner them during a moment of exposure. “I’ll be there. If there’s something I can do to catch this person, then I want to help.”

“Okay,” Erza said. “Then let’s meet up a day beforehand so we can get you trained.”

They spent a bit more time getting the exact time and meeting place figured out before Zeth headed off. He’d meet with Erza one day before the town meeting and do whatever he’d meant by “training.”

Over the course of the next few days, Zeth continued patiently building his underground base. For the most part, he was mainly waiting for his Skills to Rank up so he could get enough Skill Points to purchase Otherworldly Excellence, slowly practicing what he could, setting up defenses, and getting settled in his new routine.

Now that he had an arrangement set up with Erza, Rosalia, and Alfon, he had a real excuse for why he was disappearing for long stretches of time—even if he hadn’t actually started working with them, his mom and sister never spoke with them, so he could lie to his heart’s content about going to help out with their duties.

Which, he’d also stretched the truth a bit regarding what he was actually doing for work. He didn’t want anyone worrying about him, so as far as his family was concerned, he was simply a manual laborer, lugging around boxes. Not that Zeth knew exactly what Erza planned for him to be doing, anyway. Still—his mom had no idea these people had anything to do with the Blood Mage, and he wanted to keep it that way.

In the time before the meeting, he managed to get the underground complex into a state he considered to be just about ‘finished’—at least for now. The entrance was just about the same as how it’d started—a concealed trap door hiding a circular staircase that led a few dozen feet down into the earth, where a person would be forced to navigate some dark, thin tunnels where Zeth had hid a good number of Hellfire Circles all along the floor. From there, the complex opened up into a series of rooms and hallways, where he had several wide places he could work on rituals without being bothered, a jailhouse where he kept his prisoners, stores for food, water, and other materials, and even some bedding made of straw he could sleep on.

The food and water was mainly there to keep the Wicked thralls alive with—he couldn’t offer their lives to demons if they starved to death first—but he also kept extra materials stored in case he got stuck, too. In a situation where his identity got found out, this would be the safest place to retreat to, and he’d want to be able to hide out underground for as long as possible before poking his head out for resources.

In total, he estimated he could maybe hole up for a week or so with what he currently had down here; he’d had his demons gather water from the nearby stream and boil it before storing it in some containers he brought to them, so that wouldn’t be a problem. For now, his constraint would be acquiring a high volume of food that wouldn’t spoil. Though, all of this was just a contingency—hopefully it would never come to that.

All-in-all, standing in the middle of the well-hidden, well-defended, multi-room, multi- living and working quarters that’d been made in just a few days, he felt pretty fucking satisfied with himself. But that wasn’t all he’d accomplished in his days of downtime. With all the practice he’d been getting in his Skills, this was what his Status looked like at this point:

[CLASS

Class Slot 1: Blood Magus - Level 6

Class Slot 2: (Locked)

Skill Points: 11

STATS

Strength: 3

Endurance: 24

Dexterity: 0

Awareness: 6

Poise: 12

Influence: 0

Shaping: 42

PURCHASED CLASS-EXCLUSIVE SKILLS

Demonic Covenant - Rank 4

Vile Focus - Rank 8

Hellfire Ritual - Rank 8

Empowerment Ritual - Rank 4

Ritual Circle Mastery - Rank 8

UNLOCKED CLASS-EXCLUSIVE SKILLS

Incendiary Intensification - Cost: 13 Searᴄh the NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Otherworldly Excellence - Cost: 17

Resonant Whispers - Cost: 9

Secure Rites - Cost: 12

Speedy Rites - Cost: 12

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Compact Rites - Cost: 12

Forbidden Knowledge - Cost: 25

Unholy Strength - Cost: 18

PURCHASED UNIVERSAL SKILLS

Self-Destruction - Rank 0

Exercise - Rank 10

Steady Hands - Rank 10

Butchering - Rank 10

Meditation - Rank 10

Prayer - Rank 10

Human - Rank 10

UNLOCKED UNIVERSAL SKILLS

Sleep Deprivation - Cost: 10

Heat Resistance - Cost: 14

Binge Eating - Cost: 16

(30 more)]

That new Exclusive Skill in his Status—Incendiary Intensification—he’d unlocked once he brought Hellfire Ritual up to Rank five. The requirement had apparently been Hellfire Ritual Rank five and Blood Magus Level five, and after looking over its effects, he definitely liked what he’d seen.

[Incendiary Intensification - Cost: 13 Skill Points

If rituals are conducted near a large amount of fire, blood sacrifices provided to ritual circles are treated as though they were 50% stronger, plus an additional 5% for each Rank in this Skill.]

At max Rank, it would effectively double the strength of all his blood sacrifices—that meant double the rituals. An absolutely massive upside, considering its relatively low cost. It did technically come with the requirement of needing Zeth to conduct his rituals near a “large amount of fire,” but he assumed he’d be able to get something like that set up just fine.

For now, of course, he was focused on saving up for Otherworldly Excellence, but he imagined he’d be getting this new one soon enough.

On top of that, there were the Rank-ups. Most of his Skills had gone up in Rank at least once, and Hellfire Ritual had increased by a significant margin from all the drawing he did lining his base with traps. By his estimation, Demonic Covenant would be the next one due for a Rank-Up, likely the next time he performed the ritual. After that, he’d have twelve Skill Points to his name—just five away from being able to afford Otherworldly Excellence. He’d be glad to get that purchased and start raising his Stats again, even faster than he had been before. And with his new base of operations, it’d be safer and more convenient than ever to do so.

Currently, Zeth was sitting in said base, watching a summoned demon finish up the last of the rooms—this one was a storage room specifically dedicated toward keeping blood. The corpses of the prisoners killed by his previous summons had started to go bad pretty quickly, their rotting smell filling the entire complex, so he hurried to empty the bodies of their precious blood, putting it all in some airtight barrels the demons made.

Though, he still did have some living prisoners with perfectly usable blood coursing through their veins. Plenty of them, in fact. Over the last few days, he’d summoned an additional five demons to finish the base, counting the one in front of him. That brought his prisoner total from eight down to four, with the one for this demon having been set aside from the other three to be killed when this one left.

There was a part of Zeth’s brain, way in the back of his mind, that worried about how much he’d gotten used to thinking of these people as mere resources to be expended in pursuit of more demons and better rituals, but he pushed those thoughts away. The people back in town, those were real human beings, with valuable lives that deserved protection. people were bandits, murderers, and probably even worse. And most importantly, they’d killed his dad.

He still hadn’t found the one that’d committed the real killing blow, but he’d gotten admissions out of several that they remembered being there on that day. Apparently the memory of a far-gone Wicked thrall was borderline nonfunctional, so he’d only really gotten anything of use from the ones with a lower Rank. Perhaps the one who’d killed his father was already dead, their blood already filling one of those barrels. Perhaps they were one of the four still living, and would be killed soon. Either way, he was going to be sure to slaughter every last one of them, just to be certain he’d gotten them.

“So,” Zeth called to the demon in front of him as he dug large swaths of earth from the wall of the room to be hauled out of the base later, “do you mind describing the area around where you live?”

The demon grunted. “Why do you want to know, slug?”

He’d had this conversation plenty of times at this point, so he knew what to expect from the ones who needed further explanation. Apparently, most Blood Mages didn’t ever bother to ask what the Thirteenth Realm was like. Zeth assumed it was because their version of the Demonic Covenant Skill didn’t allow them to choose a location, like Zeth’s did, so they didn’t see any reason to do so.

Perhaps at the beginning of his time summoning demons, Zeth would have agreed with that assessment; the demons were rude, obnoxious, and generally unpleasant to share any number of words with, so he certainly wouldn’t have voluntarily entered into a conversation with one when he wouldn’t gain anything from it. But after spending so long talking with them, he found that it was actually fairly interesting to learn more about their world and culture.

“I’m trying to create a map of the Thirteenth Realm,” Zeth responded to the demon’s question, “and don’t have many details around the area you’re from.”

The demon chuckled and shook his head. “A map of a place you would die if you ever entered? Typical human nonsense. Okay, slug, what do you already know?”

Zeth thought back to the information he’d gathered from the previous demons. “The place you’re from should be contained within an empire called the River Powers. I think you’d be in a small village called Onthirfi Fise, which would have some big valley to the East, and a forest of something called ‘void trees’ to the North. Down to the South would be the ‘River of Fire,’ which, if I understand correctly, is some big river that has the only water in the entirety of Hell, so every demon settlement needs access to it or else it can’t survive. I know more about some other settlements to the West, but not much about anything further East, so…”

Zeth trailed off as the demon burst out laughing at his words.

“...What is it?” he asked.

The demon groaned, his laughs dying down into a low chuckle. “Oh, I’m simply amused by your stupid, meager, oh-so-very understanding of how our realm works. Go on, go on.”

Zeth frowned. “Was one of the place names wrong? I’m working off of geography knowledge provided to me by other random summons, so some may not be very accurate.”

“No, none of the information you received from my demon brethren was wrong. It is simply clear that you have been making assumptions about our world based on what you know of your own. It would almost be cute, if it wasn’t so pathetic.”

“Just tell me what I got wrong,” Zeth said, rolling his eyes.

“It seems that you heard the name ‘void tree’ and assumed that the specimen you heard about was similar to the trees found in this realm. They are not. Void trees are not plants, they are animals. Therefore, it is not a ‘forest’ of void trees, it’s a . However stationary they may be, they certainly do not feed off the energy from our sun. And, more egregiously, the River of Fire does not contain you moronic little thing. Use your mind and look at the name.”

“I…” Zeth frowned. “It’s called a river, though. You’re saying it’s just some big long valley that’s on fire, or something?”

He gave Zeth an exasperated look. “No, it is not ‘on fire.’ As you said, it is a river. Therefore, fire flows through it.”

“So…Lava?”

“No. Fire.”

“But fire isn’t a liquid.”

“Then what is it? Solid?”

“I don’t know. But it certainly doesn’t behave like water does.”

“Most fire doesn’t. Some fire does. Like the fire in the River of Fire.” He shook his head. “The ignorance of you slugs truly knows no bounds, does it?”

“Wait, hold on. So you’re telling me that when the other demons I was talking to were speaking about from the River of Fire, they were…?”

“We drink fire, yes.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Certainly. Most infants resist at first, their parents forced to shove a bowl of fire into their mouths during their first few drinks. But, as our species is not exclusively made up of pathetic, worthless cowards who know no hardship, we simply get used to it. Unlike your pampered people.”

“...Huh. Well, uh, anyway, I didn’t get anything else wrong, did I?”

Something Zeth had noticed in his hours of speaking to demons was how it seemed to get a little under their skin whenever he just ignored their insults and moved on in conversation. And judging by the microscopic little twitch in this one’s eye, he felt it was working on him, too. “No. Nothing else that would be considered basic fact, at least. You wrong about where I come from, however. I’m not from that settlement you mentioned—Onthirfi Fise. I was located a couple miles further East when I was notified of your summon request.”

“Oh? The summon location must’ve been off by a little bit.” That happened occasionally, normally when he had one or two details wrong about his target and so he couldn’t imagine it correctly. “What settlement were you in, then?”

“I was in no settlement when you called me,” the demon said. “I was on a battlefield. I am a soldier.”

Zeth’s eyes widened. “A soldier? Really? Wait, were you in the middle of a battle?”

His face crumpled with disgust. “Absolutely not. I would never abandon my post. Such a crime is punishable by death. We are currently in a standoff, and when I was notified of your summon, I received permission from a superior before answering.”

“But what if the enemy attacks while you’re here?”

“It seems they felt the risk of one soldier being away during a battle was worth the potential of me coming back stronger than before. And more informed; I don’t believe our strategists knew of the void trees to the North—that’s valuable information.”

“So who are you fighting, then?”

“Some insignificant little kingdom that’s decided to rebel against us. The River Powers have a right to the land they claim to own.”

“Oh. When’s the battle going to be?”

It scoffed. “Only a slug as stupid as you would ask me to predict the future to tell when a battle will occur.”

“You don’t know anything? You said it was possible the enemy could attack, so apparently you think it could happen in the next few hours, right?”

His nose twitched. “I suppose I could give a rough estimate. Our forces will likely be finished crushing them within the next day or so, most likely. Perhaps slightly longer. Why are you even asking such a question?”

“I’m thinking about whether I want to summon another demon in the same place after your battle’s over so I can hear about the result,” Zeth said.

He gave Zeth a strange look. “Your obsession with our realm is one I have not seen before.”

“Well, maybe I’m just better than your previous summoners,” Zeth said, standing up. “At least, hopefully I am. Anyway, I’ll be going soon. I have an errand to run.”

“You will be leaving me here alone?”

“For a few hours.”

“Give me more freedom of movement, then. In case something happens that needs my attention.”

Zeth frowned. Generally speaking, it was best to keep demons restricted to a small set of actions. They were always plotting to claim an extra kill. “No thanks.”

“Then, do you wish for my assistance during your errand?”

“Again, no—” He stopped himself. Today was supposed to be his meeting with Erza—a meeting which put his heart on-edge. He still wasn’t totally sure what that man knew about and what he may have suspected about Zeth. He certainly didn’t know why the man had been willing to pay so much in order to hire him in particular.

So, perhaps it may be a good idea to bring along some protection.

“Actually, I may just take you up on that offer,” he said.