Bab 80: 80. The Sabnock Territory.
Kouske's POV
Currently, I am in the Underworld, surveying my territories. There are cities in my territory, but they are slowly being vacated because of the rising monsters from the pits.
Some have even completely fallen and become dens of monsters. Now, what exactly is the pit? It's the birthplace of monsters in the Underworld, filled with demonic power that gives birth to demonic creatures.
The entire Underworld serves as breeding grounds for these pits. The monsters from the pits can be powerful enough to trouble even the Satans and their peerages.
This is why only 40% of the Underworld is currently being used by all the factions combined, while the remaining 60% is full of monsters and remains unknown.
One of the jobs of the lords of the lands is to safeguard their territories from the increasing number of monsters.
My territory has a total of six different pits surrounding its perimeter. In the past, the Sabnocks would make strong weapons, attracting warriors to our cities for trade and other reasons.
They would then form hunting parties to hunt down the monsters and earn more money. Stationed knights would also periodically cull the number of strong monsters to protect the general populace.
The monster corpses would then be used to make various weapons and produce chemicals or other items. These products would be sold to attract more people, and the cycle would continue.
Typically, the safer a territory is from these monsters, the higher the taxes are for commoner devils.
These lords mostly charge exorbitant taxes, which affects the livelihood and happiness of the entire territory. Unfortunately, most clans extort their citizens this way.
Only a few, like the Phenex Clan and Agares Clan, alongside the New Satan families, charge comparatively lesser taxes.
The Phenex Clan is already rich, so they do not charge much, keeping their citizens quite happy.
The lowest tax collectors are the Gremory Clan, while the highest tax collector is the Bael Clan.
The Original Satan families also charge huge taxes. These taxes are one of the fundamental ways for a clan to earn money.
Looking at the barely functioning cities in my territory, I am afraid I cannot charge them much.
I first have to solve the problem of the pits to safeguard the people and reclaim some of the cities from the monsters.
There are also those annoying reporters. I was bugged to give them an interview after the announcement of my clan's reenlistment among the Pillar Devils.
But these bastards are still causing me trouble even after giving them a brief interview.
They have been releasing news about my age, the situation in my territories, etc., for the last few days, making me look bad without explicitly saying anything negative. I will remember the faces of these reporter bastards.
At least the people welcomed me warmly. Well, mostly. There are still those who think their situation will worsen because of me, but who cares?
They can never oppose nobles, not that I would punish them for now. One thing that's bothering me, though, is the person following me around my territory. I went to a desolate place and quickly cornered them.
"So, who are you?" I asked the hooded figure from behind, my sword—crafted from my bloodline ability—aimed at their neck.
The hooded figure slowly turned around and removed their... her hood, revealing a tanned, gray-haired, big-boobed girl with auburn colored eyes, in her early 20s with a long ponytail.
She had a sword on her waist and wore easy-to-move-in clothes with spats, long black stockings, and white hand gloves.
"I... I am Bertrand Beleth, my lord," said the girl a bit nervously. [A/N: Bertrand from KamiKatsu, born female but raised like a male.]
The name Beleth caught my attention. They are a clan of Extra Demons. What are Extra Demons? The Extra Demons are houses of top-class devils who are not part of the 72 Pillars.
Currently, most of the Extra Demons have secluded themselves from devil society, not wanting to involve themselves with the government.
It is stated that if a member of an Extra Demon household wants to participate in the Rating Games, they have to cut ties with their household due to their isolationist tendencies.
Despite this, Roygun Belphegor was somehow able to become the head of the Belphegor clan, likely due to the wealth and power her success in the Rating Games afforded her clan despite their preferences.
Mephisto Pheles is the only member of the Extra Demons who doesn't have a clan and has been active since the time of the original Four Great Satans.
The Extra Demon Clans of Lucifuge, Satanchia, Agaliarept, Fleurety, Sargatanas, and Nebiros are known as the Six Houses of Lucifer as they served the Lucifer Clan.
A total of four Extra Devil clans used to serve the Sabnocks, but now only two remain, while the other two were exterminated during the Great War.
The two remaining clans are the Beleth and the Botis clans. They have been going out of their way to protect the remaining territories of the Sabnocks for the last few centuries.
Without them, I think the devil council would have sabotaged all my lands. So, it did surprise me a bit after hearing her name, but I didn't let my guard down nor change my expression.
"You are a Beleth, huh? But why are you tailing me?" I asked, still pointing my sword at her.
"I am sorry, my lord. Please punish me if you must!" replied the girl, bending her body at a ninety-degree angle so fast that my sword grazed her cheek.
Blood trickled from the wound, but she looked unfazed, with a crazed look in her eyes, creeping me out a bit.
"Just answer the simple question," I replied, annoyed.
"I think I understand what's happening. Devils are creatures of sin. To make other devils, especially some prestigious ones like the Extra Demon Clans, follow them blindly, they would do thorough brainwashing since ancient times. The Sabnocks were no different. This practice must have been passed down through generations in her family, which could explain why she has that crazy look in her eyes," said Vritra in my mind.
"Sorry! I was only trying to find the right moment to talk to you, my lord. But you found me before I could approach you," replied Bertrand.
"And what did you want?" I asked.
"My family asked me to stay at your side, my lord, and to tell you that my ancestor would like to meet you. I am sorry, but he has been hiding from the devil council for centuries in our territory. They do not even know he is alive. He is the current best blacksmith in the Devil faction. So I think it will be of great help for you to meet him. And there's also the Botis clan who would like to meet you," replied the girl in one breath.
I already used Truthful Trace to know if she was lying, and Vritra also agreed that learning from an expert would help me the most, especially if it is the ancestor who worked for the first Sabnock. I retracted my sword and dematerialized it. The girl kept looking at the place with wide eyes as if she had witnessed something divine. I really am not ready for this shit.
"I can meet him. But tell me one thing," I said.
"What is it, my lord?" Bertrand asked, tilting her head cutely.
"Why did you guys not help Misteeta? Did you abandon him because he didn't have his bloodline power?" I asked, just to be sure, as I already knew just how crazy these devils can be about bloodline powers.
Hearing my question, she shrank a bit and looked hesitant.
"My lord, I-I cannot fully deny your claim. But I think some of the elders in the clan also tried to help Lord Misteeta and tried to bring him to our or the Botis's territory, but back then he refused any help," she replied.
I didn't find anything false in her statement. Did the young Misteeta choose his devil pride above everything else? There's also the fact that he was from the branch family, not the main one.
Well, he should have matured under Sairaorg; that guy has impressive persuasive skills. He recruited four devils from extinct clans, after all.
I only asked for the sake of it. It doesn't really matter, as Misteeta is living his life happily, and I do not have any obligation to help him further. The Beleth and Botis clans' responses are what devils are normally like.
After that, I scheduled a date to meet this ancestor of the Beleth on a later date. Bertrand wanted to follow me, but I told her to go back to her clan for now.
I will do things on my own for a while and warned her not to tail me again and to also convey this to the Beleth and the Botis clan. She looked dejected as her shoulders slumped but accepted my order.
"Oh, Bertrand..." I called her again, and she looked excited as her eyes gleamed.
"Yes, my lord?!"
"Why are you named Bertrand? Isn't that a guy's name?" I asked, as this had been on my mind since the beginning.
"..." There was an awkward silence for a moment, but then she replied sadly that she was the first child of the present clan head who actually wanted a boy instead of a girl.
After many years of trying due to the low birthrate of devils, when his wife finally gave birth, it turned out to be a girl.
But he had already thought of a boy's name for his child, which he didn't want to change. So he named her Bertrand and even raised her much like a son. I didn't know what to say. After that, we parted ways.
I found the old mansion of the Sabnocks. It was locked and protected by magic, so it still looked fine. I already had the password in the clan head's circle.
The mansion was very big and lavish; back then, the Sabnocks were one of the richest in the Underworld because of their weapons business.
I brought the girls to have them sightsee the place. Sakuya promptly got started on decorating the mansion.
I informed the locals about the girls' identities as esteemed magicians contracted with the Sabnock clan, and that they were free to roam my territories as they wished. There will be severe punishments for those who try to harm them.
After that, I had many problems to look into and work on, like the pits and the redevelopment of the territories.
But first, I needed to recruit more servants for the mansion. Otherwise, others would make fun of me and think less of me. They even know I do not have much monetary trouble with my father's company.
So even if it's just to show others, I have to recruit now. I posted for recruitment in a month. I know many spies might come, even if I do not have much power and influence for now.
But all of them will only be recruited after going through an interview with my skill Truthful Trace active, and everyone would have to accept the taming contract from me. So no spies can do much. I even have that spy in the Bael estate.
I have to recruit soldiers too. The thing in the Underworld is that the commoners are oppressed way too much.
People say that power makes might, and this is very true in this faction. The nobles always try to make sure that the commoners can never reach their power.The commoners are prohibited from going to Earth, which is the only place they can take contracts to slowly rise in rank.
The official statement is that low-class devils might die unnecessarily in various conflicts, given the already dwindling population, and that leaving them unsupervised might also cause friction between different factions.
To tell the truth, they don't really care what happens to the commoners. Their only concern is for the remaining 72 devil clans and extra demon clans.
Even then, for a low-rank devil to reach a middle-class rank in society takes about roughly a thousand years, even if the devil works every day to fulfill contracts.
To reach the high class from the middle class is almost impossible for them. There are so many exams and rules for all this. They even have to beg a high-class devil for a recommendation to participate in the exam.
But still, they hardly ever pass. They are deprived of education about the basic things that come up in exam questions in those rank-up exams, whereas noble children have been learning these same things since childhood.
Again, the exams for noble children and their peerages are easier than the general exams for commoners that occur every five years.
Only thirty people every five years rank up from low to middle class among millions of commoners.
That too are only people with recommendations, like the servants working in a noble's house.
In the last hundred years, only ten devils without any support have risen to the middle class. It is extremely unfair.
Only after becoming a middle-class devil can they go to the human world to get easier access to contracts.
Before that, they have to do menial labor or work in forced government services to make some contributions, which almost amount to nothing, to get achievements.
There are even cases where commoners get scammed, unintentionally or forcefully signing contracts to work for a place with low wages for thousands of years.
Fortunately, the present government has changed some of the rules and ensured that a contract cannot hold someone for more than a hundred years. But a hundred years of life is also not a trivial amount.
The other ways to rise in rank are either contributing during wartime, which is quite difficult with the absence of wars for the last five or six centuries or getting into a noble's peerage, which gives them the ability to follow their master to the human realm to get easier access to contracts and rise through rating games.
In one sense, this is a shitty system. And this is only for the low to middle-class exams. I haven't even talked about the middle-to-high or high-to-ultimate class rank-up examinations.
I have seen some devils with ultimate-class physical prowess working as day laborers in my own territory for a meager wage.
And the devils say they are short of people. This is baffling. I am going to recruit these devils with high to ultimate class prowess.
They are looked down on because of their meager magical energies, but if one looks closer, they are physically extremely powerful. If they are taught proper martial arts, they will be a force to reckon with.
I can easily earn their loyalty if I help them. The devils as a whole prioritize magic above everything. They still haven't witnessed Sairaorg's physical prowess.
The clan magic circles play a vital role in this too. They can make weak devils powerful depending on the efficiency of the magic circle they are using.
The magic circles sold on the market are not very effective but highly expensive. Maybe I should sell some one-time-use magic circles at fair prices.
No one has ever done that. It might make me look bad among the noble devils, but I don't care as it's a good source of income.
After making plans to meet every devil with high to ultimate-class physical prowess in the devil faction, I went to the nearby pit.
I had already asked my tamed familiars to clean up the area. They have been fighting nonstop, rotating among themselves. The monster bodies are also being stored in my storage rings.
Nobody could possibly think that I would be able to solve this problem so quickly. In a few days, the perimeter around this city will at least be completely safe from the monsters from the pits.
I will slowly keep doing this with my familiars, the girls, or even some of my subordinates in Akatsuki, then recover all of my territories and even expand.
There's a devil rule that says a lord can expand his territory and claim the land if he cleans the area of monsters from the pits, as this land doesn't belong to anyone.
I might even consider slowly cleaning the central area of the Underworld, which has the strongest and biggest number of pits and monsters, and make a city or country in it.
I mean, it's free to take, and I can sell the monster parts at exorbitant prices to keep making more money.
From next week, I will be selling monster parts on the website. But I will sell them as a Sabnock in the Underworld too, to maintain the image that I am slowly clearing the monsters from the pits around my territory.
I mean, no one can use such a huge force to do similar things like me. I can have my thousands of tamed familiars and members of Akatsuki to do this. This will be a good training for all.
The Satans and their peerages or Hades and his grim reapers might be able to do the same. But they cannot afford to invest so much time, resources, and manpower into this all the time.
There might also be huge losses if things go wrong. But I have almost an infinite number of high-end potions to cure wounds, refill mana, and remove exhaustion. So things are going to be interesting in the coming years.
However, I do think I would like to do things discreetly for now, especially about clearing the center of the Underworld. The unclaimed lands with pits and monsters make up about 60% of the whole Underworld.
There are also my holy weapons that are selling at exorbitant prices. At first, the angels were the only ones buying them.
But after a month, other mythologies, especially even the devils, are buying them to ensure they do not fall into the hands of the angels anymore.
So after seeing this, I stopped selling them at fixed prices and put them up for auction.
Now, every day, a set amount of low-class holy weapons are being sold through auctions where angels and even devils are bidding for them, one trying to empower themselves while the other tries to stop the other.
It's quite hilarious. I have already sold about 300 of them. I will sell another 100 and then stop.
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