Chapter 4: Hidden Things
Chapter 4: Hidden Things
MONSTERS swarmed the forest on their way to destroy Mynoghra’s capital. Their advance was anything but fast. As an army composed of creatures that didn’t normally work together, their movements were incohesive, and the complicated, bumpy terrain further impeded their speed. They looked nothing like a marching army, to say the least. Only the demons serving Flamin correctly understood their task and, although they weren’t accustomed to it, they endeavored to take command of the monsters.
“The big boss sure gave us a tall order sayin’ we can’t burn down the forest…” grumbled a broad-sword-wielding demon called Flame Knight, his flaming red hair fluttering in the wind over his equally fiery red robe.
A man with the exact same appearance nodded along with his sighed complaints. This man wielded a staff inlaid with jewels and was a magic-type demon known as Flame Mage.
The two demons gave orders to the meandering monsters as they complained about the slow pace and grew frustrated with the densely overgrown forestland.
“It’d be a walk in the flaming park if we just burnt it down. That’s how we’ve always done it, so why’s he makin’ things more complicated than they need to be this time?”
Flamin had prepared about 1,000 troops to capture the city within these strange woods. One of the reasons he’d kept his invading army small was that the city they’d discovered inside wasn’t much bigger than a village, but the biggest reason was that he was afraid their forces would be exposed.
“He said he doesn’t want to get discovered. I mean, our boss has always had a thing for slinkin’ around in the dark. He’s probably goin’ with a sneaky plan this time too.”
“He’ll roast you up if you say that to his face, y’know?”
“That’s why I’m sayin’ it when he’s not around, smartass.”
After glancing over his shoulder at the unintelligent monsters—mostly Goblins, Orcs, and like—trudging behind them, Flame Knight turned to his companion.
Their boss—Blazing General Flamin of the Demon Lord’s Four Generals—was a cunning and ruthless man. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was a hard-to-please, hot-tempered boss.
While the demons were too talented to be easily offed, they still needed to tread carefully not to earn his wrath. They put up with a lot of stress treading on thin ice around him daily. Being able to toss their complaints back and forth without him breathing down their back like this was their way of relieving stress. Although their boss wasn’t the only reason for their stress this time…
“I know he told us not to torch it, but…it’s a hecka creepy forest. Couldn’t find a forest this poisonous back home even if you tried, and that’s sayin’ something.”
They didn’t know it, but their troops had already invaded territory under Mynoghra’s influence. In other words, the scenery around them had changed from the Accursed Lands into the more vicious Cursed Terrain created by Mynoghra’s mere presence. The earth reeked of rot and the trees were gnarled monstrosities. Flowers oozed liquids with a striking color and dense miasma hung thickly over the whole area.
Demons were unaffected by the miasma, but even with their mentality as demons, they still found their surroundings grotesque and strange.
“Yeah, it’s not somethin’ you see every day. Boss said there’s an enemy who could get in the Demon Lord’s way up ahead, but…what kinda beast are they?”
“Well, they ain’t no Hero, that’s for sure.”
“Haha! You can say that again!”
Dry laughter echoed through the Accursed Lands, earning curious looks from the low-level monsters keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings. Unsettling silence followed their laughter, and the two demons silently exchanged looks.
It was strictly forbidden to mention the Hero within the Demon Lord’s Army. Severe punishment was unavoidable even if he was mentioned with innocent intentions, so only an incredibly rash person or someone with an ulterior motive would ever utter that name jokingly.
Flame Knight brought up the Hero for the latter reason. With that joke, he’d determine whether his companion was worthy of hearing the treacherous tale he was about to tell. And it seemed Flame Mage had passed the test.
“Did ya know Boss is gonna betray the Demon Lord?”
“C’mon, buddy, what’s gotten into you? That’s too much, even for a joke. You really will get torched to death if the boss overhears that one.”
“There’s a high chance he didn’t get permission from the Demon Lord to start this little war.”
“Whoa, that’s bold…”
Flame Mage was more shocked by what Flame Knight said than he’d thought. He’d expected Flame Knight to reveal some big secret from the way he’d tested the waters first but talking about betraying the Demon Lord was on an entirely different level.
As far as he knew, the Demon Lord’s Army had rock-solid unity, and even the cunning and ruthless Flamin was loyal to their cause. Rather than thinking he’d heard something he shouldn’t have, he was more surprised about how that could even be possible.
“Never mind, let’s stop talkin’ about this,” Flame Knight said. “I might just suspect the big boss’s motives because he’s been acting funny.”
“Don’t wuss out on me now! We’re in the same boat now that we both know. We might even be able to pick up on somethin’ if we both keep an eye out. Isn’t it better to have somebody to talk to, especially with our lives on the line?”
Flame Mage was so passionate that he’d started speaking in a loud voice that he quickly tempered to continue persuading his companion. His words seemed to convince Flame Knight, because he nodded with a stern expression and began to talk about what led him to believe the treacherous secret he’d shared.
“Do you remember when we first came to this world? If you’re like me, you would’ve woken up in the same place as everybody else…”
“Yeah, that’s how it was for me too. Unlike the monsters we summoned later, us high-ranking demons remember being with each other from the start.”
“But the Demon Lord and Boss had a different experience. Seems like somethin’ went down before we ended up in this world.”
“Somethin’ only the Four Generals and the other top dogs know about?”
“It’s hard to say. Boss said he was ‘chosen’… At any rate, whatever happened was enough to push him to make up his mind big time.”
Flame Knight had only heard bits and pieces from Flamin, but connecting the pieces together made it clear that something had happened. Something so shocking that a cunning man who never revealed what he was thinking accidentally vented secrets to one of his subordinates. Flame Knight noticed the subtle change in him because he was always closely watching Flamin to make sure he didn’t upset him.
But it was all speculation on his part. He didn’t hear Flamin say a word about betraying the Demon Lord. More than anything else, the event Flamin and the Demon Lord went through was something so unrealistic that he didn’t want to accept it.
“C’mon, stop beating around the man-eating bush! Out with it already! It’s not smart to let ourselves get too distracted by chitchat while we’re leadin’ a literal army of monsters. So, what happened to ’em?” Flame Mage pressured him to go on, his voice raising a notch with his impatience.
His remark brought Flame Knight back to his senses and he nodded, his mind made up to go through with telling what he knew. He wasn’t getting any closer to the truth thinking about it on his own, after all. So, he decided to lay out everything he knew and see what his buddy thought.
“Yeah, you’ve got a point there. Truth is, Boss and the Demon Lord met some being before they came to this world… And that being told them that…”
Flame Mage swallowed the lump in his throat after he learned a piece of the truth. He had a fairly high rank within the Demon Lord’s Army, and not only did he not know anything about what had happened, but the Demon Lord and the others had kept it a secret from the rest. In other words, that was proof that what had happened to them before coming to this world had significant meaning.
Anxiety over what the future held for them and curiosity about what was happening to them raged within Flame Mage as he impatiently waited for Flame Knight’s next words. But their situation suddenly changed before the veil could be lifted from the truth.
“Hold on, the vanguard unit’s back,” Flame Knight said. “Looks like somethin’ happened.”
“Dammit, just as we were gettin’ to the good part… Oh well,” Flame Mage turned from his companion to direct his questions to the returning vanguard. “So, did you get any intel? What kinda enemy are we up against? We know they have a city, but were you able to locate it?”
The branches rustled as they parted, revealing the familiar build of one of the Orcs they had sent ahead to scout. No matter how confident the demons were in their strength, their opponent was still a mystery. It never hurt to be cautious. They had sent several monsters to investigate how strong their enemy was.
Flame Mage was about to sigh over how slow-witted the low-level monster was as it ambled closer without an ounce of wariness, but what he saw caused his eyes to widen with shock instead.
“Whoa, what the flaming pits of hell’s wrong with you?!” he shouted in surprise.
It was definitely an Orc that had stumbled out from between the trees. They weren’t the fastest or most agile of monsters by any means, but the demons had sent them out to scout because they could at least communicate on a basic level and did well enough in battle…
And yet, the Orc that had returned had such a grotesque appearance it was easy to tell something was SERIOUSLY wrong.
“AuGh? WhAt?”
It let out a strangled croak that erupted from its throat and sounded nothing like a noise an Orc would make. Orcs are demi-human monsters that look like someone placed a pig’s head on top of a large, adult human male’s body. But there was something on his face that shouldn’t be there… A large, fleshy growth was protruding from his eye sockets, and it almost looked like a hornworm or something was growing inside of it as disturbing, pulsating shades of red, green, and yellow writhed about.
It didn’t look like an injury caused by an attack. It also didn’t seem like he’d contracted a strange, new disease. No, something had clearly parasitized him.
As soon as they realized this, the two demons drew their weapons and put the monsters with them on high alert.
“WhErE? BuRReh-oH…eYeS…cAn’T…sEe…”
“Don’t come any closer!! Get ready to attack!!” Flame Knight shouted, and the monsters around him fell into a confused uproar.
Unintelligent monsters were impossible to get under control once they became confused. Flame Mage repeated the orders to help control the situation, but it only spurred the chaos. The two flame demons leading the monsters were better suited for taking orders than giving them. They didn’t have enough experience to think calmly and quell the panic mounting within their disorganized troops, which resulted in them taking their eyes off the obviously infected Orc, who staggered toward the closest monster.
“BuRRR, bu-RE-he-Hu-uhh! Blueeeerrrghhhhh!”
“GHH! GyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA!!”
“What the?!”
There was a loud kersploosh as flesh ruptured and an insect that looked like a giant, mutated ant burst out of the malignant growth. The bug lunged at the monster, who’d fallen backward out of terror, latched onto its neck with its distorted mandibles with horrifying accuracy, and bit its head right off. Gold coins spilled onto the forest floor with a metallic clang and the lingering echo of the monster’s death cry.
The two demons finally got their wits about them when they heard that all-too-familiar sound and saw the coins glittering under the shafts of sunlight filtering through the trees, and started shouting harried orders.
“It’s the enemy! The enemy’s attacking! Prepare to fight!”
More of the same deranged insects swooped in from the skies above. The rest of the vanguard unit lumbered out of the dark woody depths with slow, arduous steps. Flame Knight cut down the bugs lunging for his throat as he watched the low-level monsters under his command fall to the same attack out of the corner of his eye.
“Dammit all!” he shouted, enraged. “We’re in the worst location for this! We’re payin’ for not torching the place to hell!”
Screaming about it did nothing to help him make up for the difference in strength. They weren’t leading an army of puny monsters by any means. If you just looked at their strength as individuals, they were actually strong. But the place and time were not in their favor—no, they were strongly in their opponent’s favor.
They were on a battlefield with poor visibility, in a situation where their troops were in disarray. Then there was the additional inconvenience of the miasma weakening a good number of the monsters. If that wasn’t bad enough on its own, they were up against a small enemy that was difficult to attack. And then there was the fact their own boss had forbidden them from using fire—their Ultimate Attack. Everything about the situation worked against them.
The already difficult situation was just about to get a whole lot worse…
“OOOH! HOW DARE YOU BURN THE FOREST! HOW COULD YOU ATTEMPT THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ALL-LOVING ACCURSED LANDS?! AS HUEMANS, WE CAN’T ALLOW SUCH TREACHERY TO PASS!”
“…What the?! Who goes there?!”
Three shadowy figures caroused out of the forest depths at Flame Knight’s question. These monsters, with human skin tied to their gnarled bodies, began animatedly blathering incomprehensible nonsense as they brandished blades that had rusted and dulled from all the blood they’d soaked up.
“‘WHO GOES THERE?’ NOW THAT’S AN OLD-FASHIONED LINE! HOW HUEMAN OF YOU!”
“OH, IT IS QUITE HUEMAN, ISN’T IT?! AND LOOK AT THAT, ICHIRO! LOOK AT THE STATE OF THEIR SKIN! WHY, WON’T IT BRING US ONE STEP CLOSER TO BEING ALL THE MORE HUEMAN IF WE STUDY NEW SKIN TYPES?!”
“OOH! OOOOOOH! JIRO! WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA! WE MUST THANK HIS MAJESTY! FOR PREPARING SUCH! A MARVELOUS! STAGE FOR US TO OBTAIN NEW SKIN! ALL HAIL THE KING!”
Mynoghra’s ultimate Medic unit, the Brain Eaters, had joined the fray.
Did they intend to take this battle seriously from the start? Or did they simply deem it unnecessary to play around? After removing their trademark plague mask and robes, they tore the nearest monsters apart with their grotesque bodies on full display.
“Wh-What hell did these things crawl outta? They’re wearing human skin!”
“Are they insane? Even by our standards?! Watch your back, buddy!”
Were Flame Knight and Flame Mage so perturbed by their uncanny appearance and deranged behavior because they were from different games? Even though both sides should be cut from the same evil cloth?
“WHY, IT’S UTTERLY RIDICULOUS FOR DEMONS TO BE APPALLED AT A LIL’ SKINNING!”
“DENYING ANOTHER HUEMAN’S HOBBIES IS OUTRAGEOUS!”
“WE ARE BRAIN EATERS! WE SHALL LEAD YOU TO YOUR GRAVE PER HIS MAJESTY’S ORDERS!”
Both sides received the same buffs from the Cursed Terrain because they were evil-aligned. Flame Knight and Flame Mage were superior when it came to normal combat. However, the scales of battle remained balanced.
“GSHAAAA!!”
“MMPH!”
One of the Brain Eater’s arms was lopped off. He nimbly snatched it out of the air, purple blood spraying everywhere, and leaped back to put some distance between him and Flame Knight. Then he handed the severed arm to his companion.
“Oh dear, this looks bad. Can you handle it for me, Saburo?”
“Mm, now that’s an injury you can be proud of. Let’s show it to the little ladies later.”
“What a marvelous idea, Saburo!”
The next moment, another Brain Eater…took out a distorted instrument and something like thread, and in a blink of an eye, he sutured the amputated arm.
“Shit! Healing Magic! They have skills, too? What a pain!”
“They aren’t undefeatable, but…it’ll be a drain on our forces.”
Healing Magic was where the true value of the Brain Eaters came in. The ability was originally designed to heal troops on a military scale, so this level of treatment could be done in an instant. It wasn’t normal surgery. Sensing some skill had been used, Flame Knight and Flame Mage gritted their teeth, realizing the situation was even worse than they first thought.
“What do you want to do, buddy? Things are only gonna get worse at this rate.”
“Let’s retreat for now. It’s too much for us to handle. Let’s tell the boss.”
“Then we’ll slow them down with the monsters. There’s an endless supply of ’em. Dammit, we’re in for an earful from the big boss.”
“It’s better than getting our skin peeled off here.”
Did they take after their master? The two demons instantly agreed upon that cunning and ruthless plan and ordered the monsters to guard their backs as they retreated.
“WE HAVE BUT ONE THING TO SAY IN RESPONSE TO THAT: WE WON’T LET YOU GO!”
“HA!”
Flame Knight exchanged blows with the Brain Eater that had lunged at him and spun around to hotfoot it out of there as soon as he saw an opening. The demons serving Flamin were even better at fleeing than fighting.
As nothing more than Medics, the Brain Eaters couldn’t prevent them from fleeing. They had allowed the enemy to retreat.
◇◇◇
“…WHEW, we got away somehow. Those were some flamin’ creepy abominations.”
“You can say that again. The usual won’t work on ’em. It ain’t gonna be pretty, but we’d better advise the boss to rebuild his attack force.”
The two demons discussed their next plan of action as they raced through the distorted trees. Rugged terrain pervaded the Accursed Lands, but anyone skilled in the art of escaping could navigate through them at a decent speed. As long as the monsters continued to serve as bait, they should be able to run away without an issue, even with the unknown threat hot on their tail.
Most of all, Flame Knight and Flame Mage were considered elites within the Demon Lord’s Army. They stood a cut above the rest, and they even remembered crossing blades with the Hero’s party more than a few times. Whoever—whatever—their enemy may be, they weren’t likely to lose. Sure, they’d suffered a hard blow getting hit by a surprise attack in unfamiliar terrain, but they were ready for next time.
They were that confident in themselves. And it was because of their arrogance that they were blinded to the real threat.
“Oh dearie me, whatever do we have here?”
The voice of a pure and chaste, closeted maiden echoed through the Accursed Lands that embodied all that was preternatural.
“Who goes there?!”
Both demons readied their weapons. What appeared before the cocky elites without them even noticing was a threat that far surpassed the humanoid abominations they were on the run from. The eerie amount of pressure that was so great it could be seen pressing down on their surroundings set off more alarm bells within them than anything else.
“I presume you are esteemed members of the glorious Demon Lord’s Army, yes? So-called dark beings that stand against the light and threaten world peace?”
“Show yourself!!”
Flame Mage launched a fire spell without a lock on his target. That was completely against orders, but they were no longer in a position to leisurely follow orders. Luckily, the miasma and humidity permeating the Accursed Lands didn’t let the trees burst into flames, but the two demons didn’t even have the time to care.
“Tch, tch, tch. You naughty boys. That’s not how we should do this.”
The sound of something massive moving was growing louder. Something was approaching.
Their survival instincts were blaring at them to get out of there, but their demon pride made them reluctant to flee for the second time. Besides, they didn’t know what direction their enemy was coming from. The dense and overgrown cursed trees had distorted their sense of direction.
“You must carry yourselves with the absolute, terrifying brilliance befitting those born of the darkness…”
They ran out of time—it was there.
A giant insect had emerged from between the trees. It descended between the two demons with a thudding sound that made them feel its sheer mass. This bug, which was more dreadful-looking than any monster they’d ever seen, aroused a whole different dimension of horror in them.
Enormous breasts protruded from its huge insect torso. Its two sets of wings glistened with a rainbow of colors as they flapped in tandem, almost at odds with its razor-sharp, sickle-like forearms. Perhaps no more at odds than its disorienting gichigichi hissing was from its soothing voice that comforted the ears like a masterpiece sung by a songstress.
Everything about it equated to crushing pressure and overwhelming fear in their eyes.
Flamin’s two demons had stumbled deep into the Queen of Bugs’ dominion without realizing it.
