Chapter 90: 051. Imperial Prince is Hunting Santa -3 (Part Two)
The Red Devil walked past the Necromancer. After continuing down the narrow tunnel for a little bit, the undead entered an underground area that was as large as a spacious hall.
This was the rather sizeable hideout of the Black Order.
There were networks of tunnels resembling an ant hill underground, and numerous Necromancers could be found walking around inside. They were either busy carrying around various grimoires or scanning through important-looking documents. Some were even dragging away crying and resisting children.
In addition, there were summoned zombies standing in rows like some kind of statues. The Necromancers were studiously examining them one at a time.
The location the Red Devil headed to was the depository where the other Red Devils were being kept. It pushed open the steel door and entered the room.
Corpses with portly proportions were either laying on the ground or dangling from the ceiling. Two Necromancers were busy working inside. These men were tasked with assembling the corpses and turning them into the so-called Red Devils.
“Oh, oh! Looks like a new sacrificial offering has arrived.”
“We were in need of more demonic energy, so this is good timing.”
The expressions on the faces of these Necromancers looked rather happy.
Even though they were both old men with plenty of wrinkles lining up their faces, the truth of the matter was, their real age should only be somewhere around early to mid forties, instead.
Such an appearance was quite common among those who used their lifespan and youth as fuel for demonic energy.
They served ‘someone else’ up as a sacrificial offering to maintain their demonic energy reserve, as well as their youth. Amongst all the potential offerings, the most effective ones were young children.
Once the Necromancers pulled the pouch open, a boy emerged from within.
However, he wasn’t crying nor did he even seem scared at all. For some reason, he was surveying his new surroundings as if everything came across as new and mystifying instead.
Was that all?
He proceeded to meet the gazes of the Necromancers and then grin brightly as well. “Hello there!”
“…Huh?”
The Necromancers were left dumbfounded.
Meanwhile, the boy began grandly stretching his limbs as if to enjoy his freedom from the confined space of the pouch. He waved his hand at the Necromancers next. “Eeiya~, that was tough, let me tell ya. I’ve been wandering around late at night all alone for the past week or so, but to think that you’d only take the bait today. Do you have any idea how nervous I was? I couldn’t help but be worried that you lot might have already fled from the city!”
“…”
After hearing the boy talk, the Necromancers shifted their glares of dissatisfaction in the Red Devil’s direction instead. The undead was supposed to abduct healthy and normal children, yet it somehow brought along a nutcase…
Sure, a child like this wouldn’t end up harming them, but still, they felt a bit hesitant about the prospect of using such a child as an offering. However, it didn’t mean they could afford to dispose of the child as useless trash.
“First of all, stop him from talking.”
After the Necromancer ordered, the Red Devil began moving. It pulled out a machete and approached the boy.
“Eh-hem. I’ve come to deliver a wonderful gift to you all. It’s a present from Santa, so I hope you enjoy it.”
Suddenly, the boy’s manner of speech changed. He gestured in a theatrical manner, and then pretended to pull something out from the pouch itself.
But then, from the empty pouch, a corpse covered in blue clothing came out. It was a corpse with a blue hat and a matching robe. It also had a rotund physique and beard, too.
“What…?!”
The expressions on the faces of the Necromancers froze up instantly.
How could something that big come out from such a small pouch? Besides all that, to their eyes, this corpse looked like… a ‘Blue’ Devil.
Their gazes shifted back to the boy. He was holding the hand of this ‘Blue Devil’ and waving it at them.
He broke into an ominous cackle as if he was performing ventriloquy.
“Hello everyone! I’m Santa Claus!” The boy then injected divinity into the corpse. And as a thick, evil grin spread to the rest of his expression, he continued on. “I thought you guys loved death, so I came to gift you all with it!”
The eyes of the Blue Devil shot open after divinity flooded inside its body.
The Red Devil that was walking up to the boy suddenly lost its head, cleaved cleanly off by another machete. The undead fell to the ground and stopped moving, and its place, the Blue Devil brandishing a machete stood up.
“And so, I hope you won’t reject this wonderful gift.” The boy commanded the Blue Devil in a nonchalant manner. “Kill them.”
“W-wait..!”
The Blue Devil leapt up and hacked away with its machete.
Blood danced and scattered everywhere.
Necromancers couldn’t even use any magic before they were killed off, the blade mercilessly hacking them apart at their shoulders and heads.
After slaughtering them both, the Blue Devil grunted as it struggled to yank out the machete that got stuck in the skull of one of the Necromancers.
The boy, the Seventh Imperial Prince Allen Olfolse, began taking a better look at his surroundings.
The closed-off room he was in was practically filled with Red Devils, almost as if it was a doll factory. It seemed that he managed to reach the destination he was searching for without any problems.
He checked the status of the Red Devils first.
These things were just about perfect.
He had already received enough supply of blue robes from Harman, so all he had to do now was dress these things up with the right attire. These were the perfect attires that would serve as a symbol of fear, and also to dress up the corpses as a bunch of Santas that would deliver the gift of death to the bad guys outside.
Although the date had come and gone a while ago, the boy prince figured that it wasn’t such a bad idea to spend Christmas in this place today.
**
The Necromancers were working tirelessly.
Some lugged the corpses around while others assembled the different bones of the skeletons. But they were panting laboriously while walking along with their canes. To these people who were far from the ideal examples of a healthy physique, the narrow underground hallways always came across as rather vast and wide.
“Just what is going to happen that we’re preparing so much like this?”
“Who knows? From what I heard, others are also preparing to make a move in different locations as well. I’m guessing that more of us are hidden somewhere else within this very city too. The higher-ups are probably planning to do something really big very soon.”
“Do they want to devastate the whole of Humite itself? And finally start a war with the Theocratic Empire?”
The conversing Necromancers stared at the zombies and skeletons lining up the passageway before briefly shutting their mouths up.
“…But how? The Order of the Golden Cross is stationed nearby. I don’t know about the other locations, but it will be tough to pull their plan off in this city, at the very least. Will they really do something akin to abandoning our forces we worked so hard to raise at this point?”
“Fella, nothing will be different no matter how much we rack our brains. All we have to do is just obey what they tell us, and…”
Bang!
The Necromancers stopped talking and turned their heads.
Bang!
Strange noises were coming from the door made out of steel.
Bang!
The tightly-secured door bent visibly before breaking off at the hinges.
And then…
BANG!
The steel door bounced powerfully away. Countless blue glares shone eerily from beyond the narrow doorway. Then, the tottering corpses kitted out in blue ‘uniforms’ began walking out one by one.
The surrounding Necromancers stared at the corpses and began tilting their heads.
“What are those…?”
“Aren’t those the Red Devils…?”
Perhaps unsurprising for a group of people who were magicians at heart, they stared at these strange corpses with a great deal of curiosity. And without feeling any rejection, several Necromancers walked up to these corpses decked in blue-coloured clothing.
“Hmm, their internal structure is similar, but at the same time… it’s different?”
“By the way, what is this bizarre aura coming from them? It’s different from demonic energy…”
Gradually, though, their curiosity-filled expressions noticeably hardened.
“Isn’t this… divinity?! What the hell?! How could this be…?!”
The Blue Devils, all at once, suddenly began grinning. The one at the front raised up a machete before hacking down.
A Necromancer’s head split open as blood splattered everywhere.
The other Necromancers paled from the shock and fright as they bore witness to the demise of their colleague.
The bearded and portly Blue Devils glared at them and continued grinning wickedly.
“Merry Christmas! Oh, dear Necromancers who mess around with death!”
It was then, a boy suddenly walked out from amidst the Blue Devils.
“This kind Santa Claus has come to deliver a wonderful gift to you all!”
The clearly-excited voice of the boy reverberated throughout the underground hideout.
The Necromancers were even more frightened by his appearance, and they couldn’t help but stumble backwards. Their terrified eyes were firmly locked on the strange boy standing in the middle of all these Blue Devils.
“And my gift to you all is death. A gift that perfectly suits the likes of you.”
The moment those words left his lips, the Blue Devils began pouncing forward.
< 051. Imperial Prince is Hunting Santa -3 (Part One and Two) > Fin.
