บท 1442: Chapter 974: Battle for the High Tower (Part 8)_1
An incredulous voice of Hexagon rang out, then he said: "Aren't you humans afraid of demons? Why are you so weird?"
"In the past, when I extended my tentacles into my neighbors' rooms, they screamed in fright. Merely uttering things like 'I'm going to swallow you' or 'I'm going to bite you' would scare them into begging for mercy, pleading for the demon lord to spare them..."
"Not only are you not afraid of me, you even hurt my foot, and now you're insisting on treating my injury. Are you insane?!"
"I'm not insane." Batman said calmly. "Humans have a rule: repay kindness with kindness, repay grievances with grievances. You've shared a lot of information with me, even showing me an escape route, so I want to repay you by tending to your injury..."
"No, you must be trying to trick me." Hexagon refused adamantly. "You're trying to trick me, planning to burn my foot when I stretch it out..."
Batman heard some movement on the other side, as if the demon was curling up in the corner of his room.
But he remained unmoved; picking up his straw mat, he then said: "If you don't stretch out your foot, I'll light this mat and throw it in front of your cell door, the fire will burn into the room. Trust me, that will hurt a lot more than when the Magma demons injured your foot..."
"You! You..." Hexagon seemed to be unable to find the right words to describe Batman and after some struggling, eventually spat out: "You evil human..."
After a while, a trembling black tentacle reached into Batman's cell. Batman grabbed it for a closer look. He noticed a shadowy mist covering the surface of the black tentacle, which he had never seen or handled before. However, under the mist was a tangible limb with what looked like a burn mark.
The burn looked similar to those he'd seen before, and even the singed tissue beneath the black exterior was visible. He touched the edge of the burn, causing Hexagon to scream violently.
Batman pondered for a moment and then said, "The burn on the wound is not a big issue, but the object that hit you has damaged your soft tissue and scratched your muscles. I need to clean your wounds first, then potentially do some stitching..."
As soon as he finished speaking, he began treating the wound without any hesitation. Of course, under these conditions, anesthesia was out of the question. Hexagon went from screaming from the start to not even having the strength to scream. After Batman had bandaged the tentacle and Hexagon had withdrawn it, Hexagon uttered in a trembling voice:
"Humans are truly terrifying..."
After finishing up his bandaging, Batman also felt quite exhausted. It was already late into the night. Thus, he hung his torch back onto the wall, laid down his straw mat, leaned against the wall, and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Early the following morning, he was awoken by Hexagon shouting from the next cell.
"My god! It really doesn't hurt anymore! Why is that? Is this some kind of healing magic? Are you a magician among humans?"
A sleepy Batman rubbed his eyes to get his bearings, then asked, "Do you know any magicians among humans?"
"I might have seen one before." Hexagon hesitated a bit before saying: "Last time, someone visited the mine for an inspection, and I saw a guy who was said to be a human magician, but I have never seen him cast magic..."
"The supervisor said that human magicians are very powerful. They can move between Hell and the human world, and even do business with powerful demon lords. They know many spells, some for battle, some for healing..."
Hexagon kept murmuring softly. Batman got up from the floor, washed his face in a basin beside him, and as soon as he finished cleaning himself up, the supervisor opened their cell doors and started waving his hand to order them to work. "Get up and work! Stop dilly-dallying! Yes, I'm talking to you! Hexagon, hurry up and come out!"
As Batman walked out of his cell, he finally got a good look at his neighbor. Those black tentacles weren't actually his legs but his main body. Hexagon was just a bunch of black tentacles. He did not have six legs; it appeared he had over sixty.
The tentacles rotated to support his movement, which looked somewhat comical. In the center of the tentacles was a puff of black mist and within it was a single crimson eye. It blinked at Batman, seemingly in gratitude, and then followed the supervisor out.
Standing there, Batman shook his head at the sight. He never dreamed that one day, he would stand in Hell, lamenting the fact that its demons were just too naive.
However, this wasn't without reason. According to the sociological knowledge Batman had learned, most lower-class creatures living in a closed-off environment, lacking systematic education and the leisure for rational contemplation, tended to be naive. This naivety didn't mean they were kind, they were simply ignorant. Because they were ignorant, they were naive.
Another supervisor led Batman upstairs where Shiller was also waiting. Together, they followed the supervisor to the mine.
During yesterday's tour, they had only seen a small part of the mine. The actual work area was deeper inside the mountain.
Riding a mine cart to the mining site, layers upon layers of wooden support structures appeared before Batman's eyes. The supervisor swung his whip in the air a couple of times and said: "Go that way! Grab your tools and start digging! Don't let me catch you slacking off!"
Following the supervisor's instructions, Batman picked up a strangely-shaped pickaxe, found a spot where mineral ore was exposed, and began to mine.
Shiller stood diagonally in front of him, also chipping away at the ore. Batman had never seen his professor do any physical labor, and it was apparent from the way Shiller exerted his force, he had indeed never done any physical work before.
When Batman swung the pickaxe, he would lower his center of gravity, using his entire upper body strength to strike the ore fragments, not merely swinging his arm. This was because he knew that if he only used his arm, he would quickly get tired. But Shiller did the exact opposite.
At first, Batman was worried that Shiller's incorrect way of exerting force would quickly exhaust him, but soon he realized that he had overthought it.
Although Shiller never did any physical work, he was top-notch at slacking off. Every time the supervisor cast a glance over, he would raise his arms high, and when the supervisor turned around, he would gently put them down. He was able to spot every blind spot of the supervisors and take advantage of it to laze around. After one hour, the rocky layer had only received minor scratches.
It wasn't enough that Shiller did no work - in order to prevent the supervisors from discovering his deficient ore output, he would dump the basket of ore mined by the demon next to him into his own basket, disguising it as his own work whenever they buried their heads in their tasks.
More than this, he even began to build relationships with the adjacent demons. Without knowing what kind of sweet talk he used, in no time, he started chatting with the older miners.
By the time Batman mined a basket of ore, Shiller had already started to distribute cigarettes among the miners.
Although Hell didn't have tobacco from the Human World, it did have something similar that was kept in small bottles and looked like sulfur powder.
Demons would feel relaxed after gently blowing air into the bottle to kick up the powder and then inhaling it. Shiller somehow got hold of a bottle of this stuff and was now passing it around.
When Batman put his mined ore on the mining cart, he noticed Shiller was already chatting with a nearby supervisor, with each of them holding a snuff bottle, inhaling and chatting.
Batman felt curious about their conversation and moved closer under the pretext of transporting ore. He then overheard Shiller say:
"In my opinion, the situation on the border is nothing to stress about. Duke Astro may be powerful, but is Beelzebub weak? Not to mention, Beelzebub is also one of the Satans. Even if he's constantly considered as the weakest Satan, he's still much stronger than Astro, who only came to power in recent years…"
"I feel the same way," said the red-skinned supervisor after taking a snort of snuff. "Hmm," he coughed, "the situation at the southern border is bad. How dare he take action at the eastern border? If he really dares to attack, he will face the pincer attack of Beelzebub and His Majesty Beel…"
"Those people are merely overthinking. Astro always boasts about the strength of his Flying Spike Army, but strength isn't based on bragging. Would he dare to compare it with His Majesty Beel's Troll Assault Army? I'm afraid they'd be sent running…"
The supervisor laughed out loud: "Flying Spike Army? We call that the Flying Fish Army! That fool Astro, he got hold of a couple of fish from somewhere, treasured it like a gem, and even claimed that Emperor Belial's ground troops were two centuries behind him. I almost died laughing when I heard this news!"
Shiller pulled out a handful of powder from his suit pocket and handed it to the supervisor, saying, "Have another one, then I'll get back to work."
The supervisor vigorously coughed a few times, sneezed, and then said, "You truly are from the Staff. You're knowledgeable. How about this, you go and keep an eye on the cart over there, let us handle the work…"
Shiller waved at him, then made his way towards the cart and sat on a rock next to it. He continued chatting with the miners nearby whilst enjoying his smoke.
"Bang," a piece of ore was dropped. Without lifting his head, Shiller said, "This cart is full, bring the next one."
Shiller looked up and saw it was Batman. He took out a packet of powder and offered it to Batman, saying, "You can try this, a special product of Hell, it's quite strong."
Batman stared at Shiller without a word. Shiller clapped his hands, stood up and said, "Seems like you still plan to leave here as soon as possible, right? Fine, I won't object, you can go ahead, but I'm staying…"
"I will take you, Alfred, and Merkel with me. Hell is very dangerous. Alfred is getting old and if something were to happen, his soul might be severely damaged…"
Shiller shook his head with a smile, "It seems you don't fully understand your butler…oh, it's time to eat, let's go."
Batman put down the ore and joined the large group of miners headed outside. The supervisors behind them were shouting and hollering, whipping those miners who were too weak to move, forcing them to leave the mining tunnel.
Once they stepped out from the mine, the light became a bit brighter. Yet there were no sunny days in Hell - the light came from a river of magma hanging above them and a nearby erupting volcano.
Batman began to look around right after stepping out of the mine, trying to find his butler in the crowd. However, he didn't spot Alfred until arriving at the dining area.
Alfred was squatting on a rock beside the rice barrel, inhaling a snuff bottle held under his nose. He told the supervisor dishing the food,
"With Duke Astro's so-called skill daring to challenge His Majesty Bel? The Troll Assault Army has already been sent to the eastern front for exercises. Once the battle lines are drawn, he'll be forced to retreat home crying..."
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