Chapter 403

The farmers gather what they can back into their magically repaired wagons, using a water spell to wash everything, including themselves clean again. Cain smiles at Nemu, who is fretting about the mess that the splattered blood has made of her fur and the guards shudder in momentary fear. He might be on their side, but the blood-covered wrath demon is still a bit horrific to look at, especially when he smiles like that.

“Adventurers are really an entirely different breed aren’t they?” One of the young farmers, an Incubus, asks in awe, watching Cain and Vala return and methodically finish off the survivors of the crazed.

“You’ve got that right son. Even if you’ve got a good class for it, you need a special sort of guts to go out and do things like that for a living.” The other Obsession Demon accompanying him agrees.

“Is it true that you kill the crazed for a living?” A guard cadet who came out with the reinforcements asks Vala, his arms full of spare arrows for the archers.

“We actually just got here into the awakened areas. We came from the Central Continent to explore. The crazed attack was just an added benefit.” Vala informs him, and the young demon looks at her like she is extra crazy.

“She’s a Wrath Demon, they get like that, son. Now don’t dawdle and get those arrows handed out.” His supervisor, a short and portly plague demon with a large horn where his nose should be, shouts across the gathering of troops, easily able to hear every conversation in the crowded field.

“You’re popular.” Cain laughs, tilting his chin to indicate all the young guardsmen that were checking out Vala as she washed the blood off after the battle.

“Obsession and Wrath demons are always attracted to things that might hurt them.” A plague demon jokes, turning an emaciated face their way in a toothy grin.

“Nice Pestilence though. Very equal opportunity, I like your style.” He continues, making all his companions laugh.

A wrath demon that can use [Pestilence] is a rare thing, just another oddity of the Companion advancements, but one that has made Vala deadly in battle. The doubled [Life Leech] aura with her and Cain fighting side by side was no slouch either, not as fast to drain enemies as [Pestilence], but healing both of the demons at a rapid pace during the early portions of the fight while they were outnumbered. Because of that, neither was in any real danger of death today, unlike the rest of their group.

The healers are working overtime to get the dead back on their feet and functional before time runs out and the spell won’t work anymore. A few have been gathered into a row and covered in white sheets though, torn apart and unable to be resurrected. That is a problem that Cain can fix though, using [Modify] to reassemble and regrow missing body parts.

Cain walks along the row, fixing the bodies while Evangeline travels behind him resurrecting them. The Demons are flabbergasted, watching all the formerly mangled bodies of their companions stand up as full and intact demons once again, their recovery having been shielded from sight by the sheets placed over them. Cain nods in satisfaction as the last of them is resurrected and double-checks the battlefield for any more bodies in Guard uniforms, not finding any that the thorough sweep by the guard missed.

“What exactly did I just watch? Did you make them Zombies?” One of the plague demons asks, looking over the confused guards who are still recovering their wits after being resurrected.

“No need for anything so extreme, I just patched their bodies back together so that they could be resurrected. I am a Flesh Crafter after all.” Cain explains.

“And you can heal the dead?” The demon clearly doesn’t believe him.

“No, it’s not healing, I just reshape the corpses into an undamaged condition. After that, the real healers can fix them right up, as if they had just dropped dead without a mark on them. If I wanted I could have made them all Loli Succubus and left them even more confused as to what had happened to them.” Cain jokes.

“Hmm, as fun as that might be, I’ve found a Succubus has too many other career options to end up in the Guard. Every retail outlet wants them on staff to seduce customers into buying more products.” The demon finally agrees, generally understanding the nature of Cain’s [Modify] ability.

“Your modifications made me weak and nerdy, I don’t suppose you could fix that could you?” One of the resurrected demons jokes, before a nearby squad mate thumps him on the head.

“You were like that before. You should be thanking him for putting all your limbs back on in the right order. Last I saw you before you went under that sheet, none of them were attached.” The guardsman informs him and the smaller man pales even more than the natural light blue of his skin.

“Sorry, I really do appreciate it. That wasn’t a fun way to die, and I’m glad they don’t have to tell my wife.” He says, bowing to Cain.

The merchant convoy begins making their way into the city as quickly as they can, with wagons hastily patched from the damage they sustained. The entire cleared field around this side of the city is littered with bodies of the crazed and Cain makes a quick estimate of a few hundred dead today alone.

“Just how many did they exile from the cities?” Cain asks the Tea merchant quietly and the man shrugs.

“Not enough to account for the numbers we have seen since. Nobody knows if they are breeding and growing quickly, or if more have come from somewhere else.” He says it quietly enough that others won’t overhear, making it obvious that the topic is a taboo one among the guards, or perhaps among the city residents in general.

Cain also considers that a single release of convicts might not have been the end of it though. If all the cities are cleaning their prisons and streets by sending the poor and criminals into the wilderness it would explain the rapid expansion of the crazed much better than an unexplained growth spurt among their children, which Cain isn’t even sure they are having.

The walk back into town is a solemn one, with all the guards stressed out about what the unusually large number of crazed they met today might mean going forward. If it is a step up in their attacks on the city, changes might need to be made in a hurry to prevent being overrun. The madness makes the crazed much stronger than they should have been, and at even numbers, the guardsmen are no match for them.

The city wall is made of the same shiny black igneous stone that the Demon Capital on the Central Continent is. Cain knows that one is made with magic, so this one most likely was too. The Bunnies said that the Demon King commissioned a lot of these cities during his search as safe rest spots for the search force.

Inside, the city is just the same as the wall, with shiny black spires everywhere, looking like a volcanic wasteland in the middle of a bamboo forest. At least it doesn’t smell like brimstone though. Instead, the city smells mostly of some sort of incense. Cain doesn’t recognize it, but they sell it right by the gates once he enters with the others. Labeled as ceremonial protective incense, it catches his attention, and Cain joins the others in buying a bag of the little cones.

“Those are what keeps the crazed away from the city. The combination of magical herbs that are ground and pressed into the incense counters the madness effect and makes it safe to live in the cities.” The vendor explains as she hands Cain’s purchase over.

Cain didn’t smell anything like that on the farms, but they certainly weren’t driven insane by the effects of the madness. If they have an easier and just as effective method, Cain will have to ask about it the next time he stops in a village.

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to cleanse the room with incense once we find somewhere to stay, since we got covered in the blood of the crazed during the last battle,” Cain informs the merchant, waving goodbye.

The tea merchants know a good Inn that should hopefully have spare rooms for everyone since it’s not usually busy. It’s right near the commoners’ markets too, so it is cheap if you can tolerate the noise of an all-night market square.

“I think that should be tolerable. We might need to visit the night market as well. Since it’s our first time in the city, everything here is new to us. Who knows what sort of fun and interesting things we might find?” Cain laughs, and Laura points to a spot where a succubus is doing nude fortune-telling. That’s a new one to them, but it looks like her shop is pretty popular, even if all her customers make a point of making sure nobody they know is watching as they enter.