Chapter 271: The Turtledove Takes Over the Magpie’s Nest
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
In the large room illuminated by sunshine, an abundant breakfast was set out on a long table. Besides a “couple” eating breakfast, however, this room was empty. They had met each other via “speed dating.”
In order to suck up to the major noble Carolyn, Earl Samuel had let her stay by herself in his very own magnificent residence, while he and his family all temporarily moved out for the time being. This was quite convenient for what we wanted to do.
“Black tea.”
“Yep, yep, here you go.”
“That milk cream bread from over there, thanks.”
“No need to thank me, Sister, come, open your mouth, say ahhh… Let Carolyn feed you.”
When I finished my “interrogation” of Rex, it was already breakfast time. Just as I walked downstairs to the dining hall, I saw two green-haired ladies feeding each other.
I sat down in a random chair and rang a bell to call one of Earl Samuel’s servants over. I even ordered some food and poured some wine for myself, wanting to enjoy myself after being busy with work all night, but the moment I took a sip, I discovered that the wine leaked out from the skeletal bones of my chin that was my current appearance… Alright then, the way that servant looked as if he wanted to laugh but didn’t dare to laugh made me quite displeased.
“Come, Sister, have some red wine.”
They started feeding each other in an even more intimate fashion. When one girl’s mouth contained some wine, she approached the other girl’s red lips. Their tongues tenderly met each other and silvery-clear droplets dripped down, transforming into long silvery-clear strands of saliva. A certain girl’s hand was already reaching beneath the table, and the situation seemed to turn into one which was rated 18+.
“Ah…”
Even though Carolyn was the aggressive one today, she was kissed so much that she was out of breath. Lilith’s hand kept doing various things to her as well, and thirty seconds later, Carolyn collapsed on the table with an incredibly red face, and her white skin which was like a swan’s was filled with strawberry kiss marks. There were also numerous strands of saliva dripping out of her mouth, landing on the table.
Meanwhile, as the victor, Lilith proudly glanced over at me then stabbed her fork into a tiny tomato, ate half of it, and stuffed the other half into our “captive’s” mouth, ending this round of feeding each other.
“…Although the FFF group’s motto is that the same gender is true love, while love between opposite sexes is only for reproduction purposes, why does seeing this sight cause the anger in my chest to transform into flames dancing upon my hand? In my dark shadow, countless black-robed individuals are roaring into my ears, ‘Burn, burn, burn!'”
“OUCH!”
Just as I was impulsively about to take action, a painful bite on my finger snapped me back to my senses. The silly cat was there as expected, as she retracted her magically enchanted cat teeth and enjoyed the breakfast that I had just ordered!
“Silly cat! What are you doing?”
“…Stop acting like a little virgin boy that’s never tasted meat before. Don’t you know how unsightly you were just now? Fine then, let me fix my words. Even if you are a three-hundred-plus-year-old virgin, don’t make it so obvious. It’s shameful.”
How could the silly cat possibly understand the rage of our FFF group? Just as I was glaring at her with my flames of anger, that silly cat actually transformed herself into a blonde mature woman as she stretched lazily like she was a real cat and even dared to glance seductively in my direction.
“Do you want Big Sister to teach you? Usually, I enjoy pure young women, but I think that Princess Peach will be even more delicious.”
Her blonde hair cascaded like a waterfall, reaching the ground. Her delicate eyes were filled with an alluring splendor, and as she stretched she displayed her excellent curvaceous figure. Even though she was obviously trying to act seductively, she was still elegant enough to resemble a scholar who read through ancient tomes. It was as expected of a gold elf, the species known as the most beautiful species of all.
At this instant, she was both incredibly alluring and elegant. That seductive expression of hers even moved both women on the other side of the table. Fine then, it would seem that Lilith had changed Carolyn into preferring women now as well.
As for me? Moved? Heh heh, silly cat! I already said before that anyone who dared bring up Princess Peach in front of me would meet misfortune! I said before that you were forbidden from transforming into a form taller than me! I held on to “Daniel Wu’s head” as I angrily roared, “You’re seeking death!” [1]
“…Wait, don’t do that to me! Even if you didn’t like my sexy joke, it’s not to the degree of…”
Harloys already knew what I was going to do to her thanks to our soul connection, but she was unable to finish her sentence. After some spatial distortions, what remained was only a pink-colored club.
“Yep, from today onwards, you shall become the Legend-ranked weapon Pink Bunny. My enemies shall henceforth suffer the humiliation of defeat by a pink and furry bunny rabbit.”
“You perverted, gay…”
In a way, the lich Rex was a classic example of an idiot who didn’t know anything about the world because he spent too much time holed up only doing research. Although he wasn’t as much as a ditz compared to Carlohin, who crafted her own soul container into a soul bottle and placed it right in her room, Rex, who carried his own phylactery with him, was quite something as well.
“…My body and phylactery have to be in the same dimension. I just arrived in this plane less than two weeks ago and didn’t manage to find a safe place to store my phylactery yet. I was intending on finding a place during this tour of inspection…”
“Oh, that’s why you made yourself into Daniel Wu’s face.”
“It’s Gul’dan’s… I meant Rex’s head! No wait, what head are we talking about? This is my head! I think that I was rather creative, and my phylactery was quite well hidden. Nobody would imagine that someone would make a phylactery into the shape of a skeleton head. I can just find any random grave and bury my phylactery, and then put on the skull of the person in the grave. All I have to do is switch heads, which will take ten minutes, tops.” [2]
“You definitely haven’t come to the mortal plane in a long time, right? Or, maybe you didn’t even become a lich while you were in the mortal plane.”
I looked at him with pity in my eyes. If he really did what he intended with his phylactery, there was a ninety percent chance that he would end up with a tragic outcome and a joyous outcome for someone else.
“Hmm? My lord, why do you say that? You’re right, I became a lich in the Ice Plane. Is something wrong with my idea?”
“If it was still one hundred and sixty years ago and if you’re able to tolerate the stink of a corpse, it would indeed be a good idea. But ever since the legendary story ‘Graverobbing Handbook’ became a bestseller, where the main character of that story became a Legend after graverobbing and gained incredible riches, the act of graverobbing attracted countless individuals. There’s now even internal graverobbing rules and factions. And, after some people really did manage to dig up some ancient God Equipment, many strong individuals also stopped caring about their reputations and joined in to start graverobbing as well. There was even a not-so-nice Legend-ranked mage who was addicted to graverobbing that invented a detection spell to find underground magical artifacts. Many mages that got desperate due to being really poor even joined in this profession part-time…”
The soulfire in Rex’s head attached to my waist started flickering. He apparently understood what would happen if he really did what he intended with his phylactery.
“…A lich’s phylactery is something incredibly rare and valuable. Amongst magical materials, it’s considered Legend-rank and above. In that case, your head would have been dug up by someone in at most two weeks. Either it would be sold off at an auction as an unknown mystical artifact or it would be sent to the Holy Church as a cursed item needing to be cleansed. Either way, congratulations, because you’ll be the most foolish lich to have ever been born for dying in such a laughable manner.
Rex’s head fell silent, but his flickering soulfire was the best evidence of his fear. Meanwhile, my mood greatly improved as any displeasure at Harloys teasing me evaporated. That saying was true after all; misery loves company. Making someone else miserable was always a great way to make myself feel better.
Although I was having great fun, there was no longer anyone around me.
Should I say that it was a happy coincidence? Although it was sudden, my plan went off quite smoothly. I now had full control over the Bardi Emperor’s imperial envoy group. And, due to the fact that no humans wanted to stay overnight in the same residence as an undead, our night ambush that only a few of us participated in was highly successful as well as a well-kept secret. Nobody found out about it.
The lich Rex only took one death knight and one high-level Abomination as his guards. All his other guards were merely low-level undead that had temporarily been summoned. The death knight was the first to meet a painful demise on the night of our attack, as he clashed against a certain “black-haired female ranger” when responding to our ambush.
And the result? Cohen and Yawen spent half an hour putting him back together again, but he still changed job classes to “headless knight…” Well, the shards of one, that is.
Little Red even let out a dragon’s roar as she partially transformed into a dragon and threw a punch at him. It was quite obvious that she wasn’t intending to go easy at all, and so, her opponent the death knight was easily smashed to little pieces to the extent where it was difficult to put him back together again.
And, in my eyes, this meant that after being chased around by weaklings all night Little Red needed to vent her accumulated stress [System: Are you sure that it’s not because of you revealing her dark history?], but that unlucky death knight could at least be proud for being able to die to a huge ancient dragon’s power.
As for that Abomination… since the duke’s daughter Carolyn apparently despised its disgusting spell, it was merely given the task of guarding the outside of Earl Samuel’s residence that Carolyn was staying at. By the time it received its master’s command and finally managed to arrive, it just happened to meet with Little Red who hadn’t vented enough yet and met an instant end. Little Red even breathed out a little bit of dragon breath and demolished an entire stable.
As for Carolyn’s human guards, they were even easier to deal with. Her strongest guard was a middle-aged knight captain who barely managed to reach Gold rank, which was basically nothing to us with our standards for power levels. This knight captain and his novice knight subordinates didn’t even notice our presence or what we did last night. By the time they arrived next morning for morning drills, everything was already over.
This wasn’t the Underground World where Legend ranks were everywhere. In normal human countries like this one, it was already quite something for the eldest daughter of a noble to be able to have a Gold-ranked “master” as a guard. Not to mention that her guards were also temporarily arranged on short notice.
As for the problem of safety? Even the top-level mercenary groups in the Lagraz Kingdom had only Gold ranks as their leaders, not to mention the fact that a Gold-ranked knight captain with some silver subordinates would easily be able to go just about anywhere in the relatively safe Bardi Empire. When I learned from Carolyn that her temporary guards were only under a simple contract, I immediately had Lilith acting as Carolyn end the contract right then and there and dismiss the guards and pay them right away.
It was quite convenient that this Gold-ranked knight captain had drank a bit too much alcohol last night due to the local nobles’ flattery towards him. When he saw that the duke’s daughter Carolyn appeared to grow several centimeters taller in a single night, he attributed it to his hangover.
Perhaps the alcohol was quite strong last night, because this middle-aged knight kept thanking “Carolyn” in delight for receiving three months’ worth of salary all at once, as if he had won the lottery.
And, things after that would be even simpler, even if they were slightly different from what I expected. (Such as a certain duke’s daughter surrendering to us much faster and much sincerer than anticipated). Fine then, I had to admit that our plan was even more successful than expected due to a certain female vampire’s “high ability to convince others” and our kidnapped victim Carolyn’s energetic assistance .
Yet no matter how obedient or strangely Carolyn behaved, I still couldn’t trust her. How could the eldest daughter of a duke give in so easily? If she reported us to the Bardi government or some noble, then that would give us a huge amount of trouble.
So, we still continued as planned, and Lilith disguised herself as Carolyn. It was just that “Carolyn” now had a female servant that greatly resembled her in appearance. Meanwhile, I disguised myself as the lich Rex, and with his head that was attached to my waist helping me out, we could probably pull off this disguise. To make things even more realistic, I summoned my own personal death knight and Abomination.
“Daddy, Ah Dang wants to eat meat!”
“Bear with it for me! Oh, right, you can fill yourself up first with the remains of that Abomination at the door. Just make absolutely sure nobody sees you eating.”
In a certain way, the Saint-ranked beast tamer with me gave me an inspiration due to his ability to “emit a True Love domain.” If his Soul World was capable of helping other species to survive in it, perhaps my Frigidwinter Earth would be capable of doing the same. However, after some experimenting, I discovered that it was easy for most items to become damaged after being stored in my world because of the extreme chill present in it. I doubted that any life forms with life in them would be able to survive in my world of snow and ice.
Even if it was no good for the living, there wouldn’t be any problem for the undead.
And so, after I proved my theory about the undead being able to survive in Frigidwinter Earth, I stuffed it with quite a large amount of low-level undead cannon fodder. But, it seemed like a waste of such a strong ability to only take cannon fodder with me. When considering that it was highly likely that we would meet trouble on this expedition, I figured that I should also put some high-level combat strength inside my world.
And so, I asked Xiluo to loan Ah Dang to me, but I even received additional help that I didn’t ask for.
“Your Highness, there are so many cracks in this armor, and it’s even glued together. How am I supposed to wear this?”
Like other top-level undead, the Ghoul King Dicas spent his time in humanoid form. He also had enough death magic power, so putting on a death knight’s armor and pretending to be an ordinary death knight would be quite easy for him.
But the problem was that Little Red had attacked the death knight a little too viciously. We spent a long time trying to piece the armor back together, and it was still evidently in no working condition.
“How about you go find a blacksmith to help you fix it up? Or, you might as well sew it together with a needle and make do. Do you know how long little Cohen spent on gathering all the little pieces? Complain a little less. Besides, you were the one complaining about being bored inside and wanted to come out. If you complain any more, I’m going to toss you back inside and have someone else do it.”
Hearing this, Dicas, who was renowned as a mad dog on the battlefield, actually shivered in fear. He wasn’t actually worried about the low temperature in my world of snow and ice, nor was it actually that he was bored as he said. That was just an excuse.
“Actually, I wasn’t bored at all. Understanding the natural laws of that world helped me greatly. It’s Gria who was too bored waiting there, and she began to sing…”
Alright then, I almost cried tears of sympathy right then and there. If I really did switch Dicas out for Gria, perhaps she would be so happy that she would start singing. That would be our turn for great misfortune.
I was quite speechless as well. At the time, I clearly only asked for Ah Dang, but another two of the Four Heavenly Kings came along with me of their own volition. They must have been quite bored and free. (Lionheart: Can you stop being annoyed when I’m the one doing all the work?)
Of course, it would obviously be no good if there were only undead with us. Soon, we were scheduled to “coincidentally meet” a group of merchants from the Lagraz Kingdom, and then “coincidentally” obtain some new guards and servants. Then, this Lagraz merchant group would receive the appreciation of Carolyn, the noble from the capital, and then obtain a pass to help the merchant group return to the Lagraz Kingdom from some domain lord that Carolyn would convince.
The rest would be even simpler. We would just have to continue the tour of inspection as planned, and when reaching a close by location, “Carolyn” would suddenly feel adventurous and head to Port Victoria, wanting to take a look at the sea together with the lich “Rex”.
Of course, this plan of mine wasn’t infallible, but it was fine as long as it would take care of the current situation. By the time we were exposed, we should have long since escaped. Or, if we couldn’t make this disguise work until the end, we’d just have to take each step at a time.
As we left Earl Samuel’s residence, which had just been robbed by us without him realizing it, and headed for the next noble’s domain, I watched Earl Samuel and couldn’t help but laugh. He had been so angry yesterday, but he was now saying goodbye to Lilith in such a sycophantic manner, not to mention that his neck still had a mark left from the chicken bone I threatened and held him hostage with.
“Gul’dan—er—Rex, perhaps there really is a funnier way to die in this world.”
Note:
[1] ED/N: For those of you who don’t know, quoting from Wikipedia, “Daniel Wu Yin-cho is an American actor, director and producer, and as of 2015, starring as Sunny in the AMC martial arts drama series Into the Badlands.” He’s also considered super handsome. Meanwhile, Rex was mentioned to be a “handsome” and “popular” lich.
[2] ED/N: Gul’dan is from WOW. From the WOWWiki, “Gul’dan of the Stormreaver Clan was a former orcish shaman of the Shadowmoon Clan from Draenor, who became the first orcish warlock as well as the founder of the Orcish Horde.”