Chapter 91: 052. Imperial Prince is Hunting Santa -4 (Part One)
**
Alongside the laughter, screams resounded out.
A Blue Devil leaped up while swinging around a machete.
The Necromancers screamed tragically as they were hacked to bits by the sharp blades.
The Blue Devils continued cackling away while raising their bloodied blades. Some Necromancers tried to escape, only to be caught and get dragged away by their heads somewhere.
“Find the abducted kids. And also, whatever items and information you find – take them all away!”
I loudly issued my command and the Blue Devils busily dashed around here and there. They practically swept every item and piece of paper they could see inside their pouches.
“S-stop them, now!”
Of course, the Necromancers didn’t take the beating lying down.
They pointed their staves at the Blue Devils and started chanting their spells.
However, even before they began thinking about making their countermoves, I already scanned all the corpses and skeletons strewn about in this underground hallway.
Without hesitation, I injected divinity into all of them. Soon, zombies and skeletons writhed and came to life one by one. With the eerie, thick blue light glowing from their eyes, they pounced on their prey even before the Necromancers could do anything.
“Uwaaaaahk!”
As they were bitten or got ripped apart by the holy undead, more desperate screams resounded out.
One of the Blue Devils waddled towards me in a playful gait. While grinning mischievously, it pointed in a direction with its hand covered in a mitten.
I yanked open the steel door pointed out by the Blue Devil. It led to a sealed-off space where I found a Necromancer brandishing a knife made out of a bone at the cowering children.
“D-do not come closer! If you do, I will…!”
These Blue Devils really came in handy at times like these.
It hid its presence and melted right into the darkness. It then reappeared behind the Necromancer and proceeded to break the black magician’s knife-wielding hand.
“Uwaaahk!”
I ignored him for now and looked around the room. There were only thirteen kids here. Two more should’ve been here according to the report.
Those two must’ve been…
“…Hi, kids.”
I tried my best in calming the kids down with a bright grin. But they began screaming instead.
Eh? Did I do something wrong?
Hmm, it seems that I was maintaining the same expression with the one I showed to the Necromancers outside.
“H-hmm.” I faked a cough to clear my throat, and then addressed the Blue Devil next to me, “This should be Santa Claus’ role. Do something to calm these kids down, will ya?”
The Blue Devil approached the children while giggling away. It patted them on their heads and tilted its head this way and that.
“Hiieeek…”
Unfortunately, the kids got a good look at the Blue Devil and became even more terrified instead.
Man, I guess this wasn’t the best idea either.
“T-there’s no need to get scared, kids. These guys, mm, right, they’re angels that fell down from the sky, you see!”
Sure, my words lacked the sufficient persuasive powers to convince these kids that the Blue Devils were in fact, angels, when the undead themselves were carrying around machetes dripping with blood. Even then, I continued racking my brain and tried to find the right words to put their minds at ease.
“These blue angel-nims will take full responsibility and take you back to your parents, so you can all relax now.”
The eyes of the children widened when they heard me. It seemed that me bringing up their parents did the trick and finally made them somewhat relax.
It was then, a figure of a Blue Devil dragging a Necromancer away by the sucker’s head could be spied through the open doorway. That… surely was a bit too stimulating to see for these still-developing young minds.
I quickly continued speaking to the kids. “O-of course, those bad uncles will be met with dea… or not, with heaven’s punishment! Y-yes, that’s right, heaven’s punishment!”
“Oh…”
“Alright, now. Like the good children that you all are, close both of your eyes and firmly cover your ears, okay? By the time you open them again, your parents will be waiting for you.”
The children did as they were told and closed their eyes, and covered up their ears with their hands.
How nice. What good children they were.
I stepped outside the prison and had the door closed behind me.
“Stop them! Do something and stop them right now! This place must not be overrun! Our time is about to come, so we can’t let this happen!”
I turned my head in the direction of the voice. A dude was busy commanding the rest of the Necromancers. Several undead covered in robes were raising their staves while standing in a cordon around this man. They looked to be skeletons.
My eyes gleamed brightly at the sight.
Were they skeleton mages capable of using demonic energy? In that case, weren’t they easily one of the best ‘products’ I could procure today?
“Capture that man alive.”
The Blue Devil nodded at my command and quickly made its move.
I leisurely strode towards the wide hallway and took my spot there. After settling down comfortably on a chair, I began perusing through the documents the Blue Devils brought before me.
“Now, let’s see…”
As expected of Necromancers, most of the ‘confiscated’ items were tomes and documents related to various summons as well as tools to help facilitate the summoning process.
I took a cursory look-see through them.
Screams continued ringing out all around me, but that wasn’t something I cared about. The prison with the abducted kids had been secured by now and the Blue Devils were protecting it, and I even had the sound blocked off so they should be fine.
“…What the hell is this?”
While digging through the pouches, I discovered a certain document. My brows furrowed all on their own while I took a look at its contents.
[The Chaos Plan. The Black Order members in different districts will conquer the cities they are in charge of. The plan will be considered a success as long as you can sow confusion, chaos, and terror among the populace. Drag it out as long as you can and inflict as much damage as possible.]
…Did these punks collectively lose their minds?
If the contents of this document was all true, then the Black Order was planning to initiate acts of terror throughout every major city found inside the Theocratic Empire. A bunch of punks no better than some neighbourhood thugs wants to declare war on a country?
I couldn’t believe what my eyes were reading.
“On top of that, it wasn’t just here, either?”
This hideout of the Necromancers under the streets of Humite was fairly large in scale. But such hideouts could be found in other locations, too? Not only that, they were planning to do something pretty big at the same time?
“This isn’t something that can be solved with only me knowing the truth. Hey, go and bring Harman here.”
A Blue Devil heard my order and nodded before vanishing from the spot.
I then turned my head in another direction to look at the apprehended Necromancers being dragged out to the hallway.
They were screaming, howling, or sniffling away pathetically like some scared kids.
All of them pretty much looked like geezers, but I was fairly certain that none of them were over fifty years in their actual age.
This was the state these people had ended up in after sacrificing their youth and lifespan to acquire a great power.
“It’s too early for you to die, don’t you all agree?”
I stared at them and formed a cruel, twisted grin.
The knowledge and powers these folks possessed would soon be mine.
**
(TL: In 3rd person POV.)
The Blue Devils suddenly appeared at a plaza located in Humite’s city centre. There were ten of them in total.
The soldiers on patrol all flinched nastily from shock and quickly stood at guard against the undead. However, none of them dared to make any rash moves because the creatures were accompanied by more than a dozen children.
The kids looked up at the Blue Devils while the latter tilted their heads this way and that and formed rather creepy grins.
They crouched and patted the children on the heads. Even though their expressions were on the scary side, their hands were undeniably gentle.
A short while later, the Blue Devils scattered away in brilliant light particles and disappeared from the spot.
“Now! Protect those kids!”
The soldiers hurriedly approached the children.
“The blue angel-nims saved us.”
“I think they were called grandpa Santas! That’s what he said.”
“Yeah, they rescued us!”
With the kids piping up one at a time like this, the soldiers could only tilt their heads in confusion.
Harman watched the scene unfold from a distance before entering a deserted alleyway. There was another Blue Devil standing right there, waiting for him. The creature formed a playful smile and beckoned at him with its hand covered in a mitten.
Harman didn’t say anything and silently followed the creature.
But when he entered the Necromancer’s hideout, his brows furrowed automatically at the sight greeting him.
A gruesome massacre had taken place here.
There were so many traces of blood splatter visible everywhere. The holy zombies were dragging away the corpses of the clearly-dead Necromancers. And as if there was an incineration furnace or some such nearby, even the distinctive odour of burning corpses stung his nose.
In the centre of the hallway, people who looked to be living Necromancers were trembling away while blindfolded and bound.
The Imperial Prince could be found nearby them, sitting on a chair. He was currently interrogating them.
“Two kids are missing. What happened to them?”
“T-that is…”
The heads of the Necromancers visibly trembled even more while they failed to answer the prince.
He asked another question. “Did you devour them?”
In order to use magic and recharge their demonic energy, they had to put up an offering of life. The young children they captured were an ideal ‘food source’ to these bastards.
One of the captured Necromancers cried out in a pale complexion, “P-please don’t kill me! I beg of you!”
The Seventh Imperial Prince’s head cocked to the side. “And what did you say to those kids when they were crying and begging you?”
“P-please, don’t…”
“Don’t you worry. Although the dead ones can’t be helped, I ain’t planning to let you die so soon. You see, I want you lot to keep performing Necromancy right till your expiration date. Well, until I can master your magic, that is. I’m gonna make you summon and control undead 24 hours a day until that happens, though.”
