Volume 1 Chapter 25: The Secret at the Center of the Unnamed Forest
Translator: The Light
Deep within the Unnamed Forest, two girls were making their way through the thick foliage. Normally, the area in which they were travelling were filled with various high-level monsters but now, all of the monsters in the area had hid out of fright. Some time ago, a terrifying aura had been given off near the area; strong to the point that it had overwhelmed that of the forest and drove fear into these monsters who were strong enough to have their own territory in the central region of the Unnamed forest.
Bella’s ritual didn’t immediately turn Irene into a demon king, Irene’s body was still that of a human’s and was harder to turn into a demon king than a demon of the same cultivation, Eleanor’s process seemed so simple only because they had the help of the 【Dark Creator】 herself. The only thing that Bella could do right now was transport Irene back to the Unholy Spring back in the Dark Sanctuary.
The Unholy Spring was the ‘holy ground’ of the Dark Sanctuary, which was basically just a hot spring where the demon kings and gods frequented. The water there would be able to effectively modify Irene’s body to give her the opportunity to become something on the level of demon kings. The Devil’s Lines that Bella had drawn on Irene’s body earlier were to prevent Irene’s body from being destroyed in the process, as she was technically still a holy knight.
Irene had already been transported and now Kriss and Bella were continuing with the plan that they had decided on earlier. They too had felt the fearsome aura that had made itself known not too far behind them but chose to ignore it as the owner of the aura had not locked onto them. They didn’t know that it wouldn’t be long before more terrifying existences made their presence known and their auras would be much more terrifying than the one now.
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Deeper within the forest, there were no longer any traces of high-level monsters, only a strange cave. The area within a large radius around the entrance of the cave was littered with bleached bones, that of monsters, humans, and even demons.While the skeletons were relatively intact and clean, in fact, so clean that it was as if they were completely stripped bare by something.
Bella and Kriss were also shocked when they had first seen the scene, if the two of them were just normal girls, they would have passed out at the nightmarish sight. The cave itself seemed to go deeper than what the eye could see, when Bella approached the entrance she felt a strong force trying to pull her in as if the cave was a vacuum.
“Such a sinister aura, I think we shouldn’t enter so blindly.” Kriss drove ‘Darkness’ Torment’ into the ground and the force that was pulling on Bella immediately dissipated. However, ‘Darkness’ Torment’ was shaking wildly as if it was locked in a struggle against some unseen foe.
“If only Mia was here, she would be able to see what’s so special about this cave.” Bella was a little regretful, but she didn’t want to take the risk of entering the cave without knowing what might lay in wait inside. Bella had felt a strange gaze from within the cave focusing on her and Kriss, which only went away after Kriss unsheathed ‘Darkness’ Torment’.
Bella wasn’t an innocent girl, she was very clear where the gaze was focused on, as she had been on the other end of this gaze quite a few times. If it wasn’t for Kriss beside her, Bella would have straight up yelled curses at the pervert within the cave. She was sure that the owner of the gaze wasn’t female when Noesha had stalked Bella and the others previously, her gaze was different from that of the one from within the cave.
Bella found it rather annoying that she kept running into ‘gentlemen’. Wait, this guy likes looking at beauties right!? Why don’t I send some his way? After reaching this point in her thoughts, Bella pulled out a few shrivelled humanoid dolls. These blow-up dolls were the ‘dinosaur-level beauties’ that Noesha had brought back from Earth while she was bored. After filling the dolls up with air, Bella gently pushed them in front of the cave, where they were immediate sucked into the cave.
Seeing the deformed dolls being sucked into the cave, Bella left with a sly smile while pulling Kriss’ hand. Kriss didn’t know what Bella had done but could only follow her as Bella was pulling her along. Not long after the two girls left, a piercing screech was emitted from whatever was within the cave, evidently scared by the ‘beauties’ that Bella had sent its way.
Even Bella herself had jumped in fright when Noesha had shown the dolls to her the first time, if the thing inside the cave was able to accept them with a smile, Bella would have only been able to bow to the ‘superior’ pervert between them two. Fortunately for Bella and her ego, the creature inside the cave had a rather normal reaction.
“That cave gave me a very bad feeling, Bella, it’s not that the monster inside is too strong; but a feel that makes me instinctively shudder. You might not know this but, there have been multiple renowned adventuring parties that had entered this part of the Unnamed Forest. None of them, however, have ever returned. I suspect that this cave has something to do with it.”
Bella could feel Kriss’ hand shaking, Kriss was tense but couldn’t put a finger on what exactly was wrong with the cave. Bella was different from her in that she had been a male in her past life, as well as an educated ‘gentleman’, she was able to discern that there weren’t any females among the skeletons outside. Along with the perverted gaze of the monster inside, she had a vague idea of what happened to the adventurers who had gone missing.
Bella wasn’t dumb enough to think that Kriss and her were enough to find the truth within the cave, she suspected that if they did, whatever happened next would be a scene straight out of a doujin. Bella decided that she would come back after they finished the task of hunting [Ground Dragons] with her hundreds of dark suzerains and give the owner of the cave a ‘visit’. It might be fun putting Maltz and some of the other suzerains with peculiar interests on the vanguard, the monster inside might be very suitable for their ‘appetite’.
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Deep within the cave, a tall shadow could only helplessly look at the figures of Bella and Kriss walking away. On the ground in front of it were the scraps of the blow-up ‘beauties’ that Bella had sent in earlier, as well as a pool of congested black blood. Evidently, this old driver had just ‘crashed’ and had been scared to the point of puking blood.
“These two girls, damn it, they dare to make a fool of the king? Don’t ever let me catch you, or you’ll end up like them, heheh. Those two girls have quite the package!”
Around the shadow were many beauties frozen in ice with fear on their faces, their clothes shredded when they were sucked into the cave. This specific ice-sealing technique was one that was more perverse, able to freeze the victim in the moment they were captured, forcing them to become eternal sculptures.
“Just a few more and I can reach master’s expectations, it’s a shame. Maybe I can get those two another time” The shadow didn’t really mean it as it knew from the moment that Kriss had unsheathed ‘Darkness’ Torment’ that the two girls weren’t people that it could easily mess with, its owner had given it a special treasure equipment that was able to ignore all the equipment of this world.
The beauties that he had caught before were from various elite adventuring companies and each of them carried a sizeable amount of treasure equipment with many of them being low-tiered god equipment. That silver-haired girl’s sword, however, hadn’t been affected. Meaning that is was very likely treasure equipment from another world, it wouldn’t be in its best interests to hunt such thorny prey.
It did have a card up its sleeve, that would have at least been able to pull Bella in and then force Kriss to come in as well, before capturing both of them. It was also how it had captured the beauties of the low-tiered god equipment. This time, however, it decided against using it; it didn’t know that because of this decision, it would soon meet its end, as well as screwing over its owner.
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Outside the Unnamed Forest, a loli was wandering aimlessly, her hair was scarily red as if it were strands of blood itself. Although somewhat scary, it also gave off a unique type of beauty. The loli’s body could only be described as seriously violating the rule of flat chested lolis, her cup size was even larger than that of Mia, Angel, and Noesha, who were already quite sizably larger in the chest department than your typical loli.
Princess of the demon world, Naler Hadias, had a rather depressed face as she wandered aimlessly through the forest, she had gone through the trouble of sneaking her way out of the demon world onto the surface world, planning to go to the demon’s Summertide continent but due her lack of knowledge and direction, she transported to the wrong place; the human’s Coristel continent.
The demons of the Summertide continent were descendants of those from the demon world, the demons who were summoned with the 12 demon kings by the humans of the Alfred continent were technically unrelated to this dimension’s demon world. During the ensuing war, the demon world had united with the upper world to try and repel the invaders.
The upper world and the demon world had lost that fight, badly; the upper world’s 12 main gods and the demon world’s 10 strongest demon lords had all met defeat at the hands of the invading 12 demon kings. Right after the 12 demon kings bathed the upper world in blood, it was very likely that they were going to do the same to the demon world but nothing ever happened and the 12 demon kings, with all their evil beings, disappeared. Many guessed that the 12 of them had been stopped by someone or something from another dimension.
The heavily wounded demon world had taken the past ten thousand years to recover a smidgen of their power, they now only had one demon lord, Hadias’ father, who had managed to escape death as he wasn’t a demon lord yet during the war. Currently, many of the demons on the surface no longer worshipped the demon lords of the demon world, many of them now turning to worship and idolize the 12 demon kings that had almost destroyed their world.
The only route between the demon world and the surface world had been destroyed in the war ten thousand years ago and because of the betrayal from the demons on the surface world, they could no longer repair it. Hadias was only able to come to the surface world using one of her father’s treasures, it was rather unfortunate that it was a one-use kind of thing and had turned into dust after transporting Hadias. She would really be in for it if her dad ever caught up with her.
There was no fun in the demon world, where there was no sunlight, it was torture for the restless Hadias to have to spend the rest of her days there. So, while her father, the demon lord, wasn’t looking, Hadias snuck out. She had thought that she would be able to at least play for a while without running into any trouble.
The reality, however, was harsh. Not long after Hadias set foot on the surface world, several auras much stronger than her own had made their presences known. She was a princess of the demon world, and had the ability to live up to her title; an existence several times stronger than her could basically do whatever they wanted in the demon world without much resistance. Hadias hadn’t expected to receive a blow from reality so fast.
Right as Hadias was struggling with directions, two beauties appeared in front of her; one with golden-blonde hair and blue eyes, the other with silvery-white hair and purple eyes. The two beauties wore clothes so beautiful that Hadias had thought up mugging the two for them but didn’t dare to because as a princess of the demon world, she wasn’t able to see through the two beauties’ cultivation, it wouldn’t be in her best interest to start a conflict.
Bella had noticed the red-haired loli who was ogling their clothes for a while now, it was hard not to notice this loli as she was just so noticeable. Blood-red hair plus a pair of irises of the same colour, with lips so tantalizingly red. After getting closer to the loli, they were also able to smell a unique aroma that smelled distinctively of blood, but instead of smelling repulsive like it should be, it had a special fragrance that was quite attractive.
It wasn’t Bella’s first time seeing a red-haired beauty, but it was definitely her first time seeing one with hair so red that it was like blood, the only fault she could find with the loli was that she didn’t have twintails, leaving her hair down instead as well as the unadorned silvery-grey armour she wore that looked rather dull. As for her figure, Bella had nothing to criticize, in fact, she was even a bit envious of the loli’s figure, it seemed that this world’s flat-chested lolis had all gone extinct.
Bella didn’t try to start a conversation, passing in front of the loli with Kriss in tow. This loli was the owner of the dangerous aura that had appeared earlier, she probably wasn’t someone that Bella wanted to mess with, it was best to have as least interaction as possible!
“The two humans over there, don’t leave! Take me somewhere fun, I’m lost.”
Seeing that Bella was about to leave, Hadias hurriedly grabbed Bella’s free hand. She didn’t grab Kriss because of ‘Darkness’ Torment’ that was sheathed on Kriss’ back made her very comfortable.
“Little girl, nee-sans are really busy, we’re looking for some dangerous monsters. You should go back to where your family is.”
“Who are you calling little!? You’re talking to the princess of the demon world, Naler Hadias! I’ll reward you two well if you bring me somewhere fun.”
Bella didn’t know what to say as she looked at Hadias while Kriss turned her face to the side, seems to be hiding a laugh. Wasn’t this princess of the demon world was too naive? So easily exposing her identity in front of a hero like Kriss, was she not afraid of running into someone who was actually a ‘proper’ hero and getting her head turned in for a bounty?
As soon as Bella had first set her eyes on Hadias she knew that this loli wasn’t simple because she had an aura similar to that of Dolores, she was undoubtedly a demon. Bella knew that Hadias was stronger than Dolores the first time that Bella had met her, but she didn’t know that Hadias was a princess of the legendary demon world.
“I do know a fun place but it’s not really suited for girls. However, we’re in the human continent, not your demon world, do you even have human currency to pay us with?”
“This...I can steal...”
“I don’t accept stolen currency as payment, I have principles.”
“You...”
Seeing Hadias’ blushed face, Bella secretly enjoyed it. Being able to mess with a princess of the demon world was another thing that she would be able to boast about for quite a while. The thing about not accepting stolen currency was just something that Bella had made up, most of her current wealth was from Adrian and Clement, who had ‘liberated’ it from other sources.
Bella had wanted to trick Hadias into exploring the cave for her, but she was afraid of Hadias falling for the tricks and getting pulled into the cave too. That would be basically delivering Hadias to the ‘gentleman’ inside, Bella wasn’t about to give away such a tantalizing loli.
“Then what do you want me to do?!”
“You should have some manners when you’re asking a favour from someone, little sister. Come, call me nee-san first!”
“I’m a princess of the demon world and you, a lowly human, want me to call you nee-san? In your dreams...er, wait, don’t leave! We can still discuss the terms!”
Bella dragged Kriss’ hand and pretended to leave, throwing Hadias into a panic. She knew that there were several existences in the area that were stronger than her, it would be quite bad if she were to run into one of them. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to leave the fight unscathed, it was most likely safer for her to follow Bella and Kriss.
What happened after proved that Hadias’ decision was correct, the dangerous existences that she sensed turned out to all be Bella’s subordinate void monarchs, if Hadias hadn’t followed Bella, she very likely would have been beaten senseless and captured by them before being brought back to the Dark Sanctuary as an offering to the demon kings. Even though Hadias still ended up in the Dark Sanctuary, following Bella there was a big difference between being beaten senseless and dragged back.
“Nee-sans...I was wrong alright, don’t leave me!”
“That’s right, little Hadias, I can take you to many fun places! All you need to do is to beat people up for me sometimes.”
Bella thought that it would be a waste to not make such a powerful existence one of her subordinates. Kriss didn’t know what to say as she looked at Bella and Hadias, the party with the three of them was one of the most peculiar ones ever seen in this world. No one would believe that a demon king, a hero, and a princess of the demon world would be able to make an adventuring party, but anything seemed to be possible with Bella.
After ‘convincing’ Hadias to join the party, Bella set her sight on the river some distance away. This river was the only source of water in this area of the Unnamed Forest, there should be high-level monsters around it at this time. All they needed to do was to lure whatever monsters they find there back to the [Ground Dragon] herd and their mission would be complete. As for the strange cave, Bella and Kriss had already placed a bunch of misdirecting signs around it, that should probably throw off anyone unfortunate enough to wander into the vicinity from nearing the cave.