บท 36: Ruins
'Who was that peculiar fellow? A friend of yours?' asked the Faceless Lord, not appearing worn out despite the intense focus he had just been in for a while.
"Hell if I know, anyways, are we done here or not?" asked Axio as he checked through the eyes of the needled monsters that hadn't been crushed flat by a knight due to not being in the vicinity.
'Just a few people attempting to leave, they could have when the royal knight had damaged my domain but they lacked the strength to effectively go away, so they just got stuck in a loop, appearing on the other side of the domain instead of passing through-' the wretch felt that even though the other minister was speaking in his mind, a small moment of realisation.
'Four adventurers did manage to escape during that time' he stated calmly before warping away for a few minutes, coming back with bad news.
'They are quick on their legs, I saw no traces of them' he said, not showing much emotions but knowing the sort of guy he was, he was probably contemplating jumping off a cliff.
"Who cares if four peasants managed to book it? She won't crucify you for it, what did they look like anyway?" asked the wretch dismissively as he was looking through the eyes of a brute ripping an old lady apart.
'There was a man that had what looked almost like the same energy sort as your friend from earlier, a lizard beastwoman, a komodo beastwoman if my knowledge is on point...' he said in the smaller minister's mind, causing the Wretched Lord to stop viewing a massacre and turn to him.
'There was also a woman with light magic or something of the sort... Didn't get to see her cast any spell to confirm it'
'Also, there was a young girl, she looked a bit stretched, you know, elongated like me, not enough to be monstruous, far from it but just enough for me to notice...' he went on to describe each of them in more details as Axiolypito stayed silent.
"I'll keep that in mind, Faceless" he only responded.
'By the way, before we started, I asked our Queen...'
"Your"
'...And she said you could have the city for whatever you wanted as long as it could still be used as a fortification' ignoring the remarks, he moved his arm in an attempt to convey something like a thumb up, which was futile when one didn't have any fingers.
'Troops will be moved here soon, so now we just have to wait' he added.
"Let me guess, you need to maintain the domain in case something happens so you can't just go fetch those troops?" Axio gave orders to his soldiers as they had finished the mass murder, some survivor might still be hiding but it wasn't like they could leave and Faceless could get them at anytime.
The Fifth Minister was quite surprised by how the monsters under his colleagues supervision's behaved, without saying a word, they had stopped their frenzy and instead began doing the complete opposite of what they had done before.
They worked together to carefully place the spawners of the Wretched Lord around, hiding them in various areas, making sure they functioned properly and even doing some repairs when necessary.
The strangest thing was a particular group of monsters that was doing something completely different, it was the largest by far and they had started demolishing buildings in the middle of the city and digging a huge hole into the ground.
Seeing the wretch sit down on a piece of rubble, instead of asking him about that, he asked another.
'Are you alright? You seem to have lost a fair bit of blood, it didn't seem to impair your mobility but still' indeed, Axio's face was still covered in his own blood after bleeding from pretty much everywhere.
"I am perfectly well, I have more blood than I know what to do with anyways..." the wretch seemed uncharacteristically pensive.
He got up and began walking away without a word.
"Say, Faceless, why are you so enthusiastic about serving your Obsidian Queen? Don't you think you would be better off using your abilities to your own end?" he asked whilst barely turning his head.
'It is simply natural, I wouldn't be without the Queen, she is my ruler but also the closest thing I have got to a mother, a parent' replied Faceless, the wretch simply continued to walk, not bothering to say anything else.
'A mother you say, and yet, your name is 'Faceless Lord', nothing else' thought the Fourth Minister.
He moved at a slow pace with many things on his mind, arriving upon the place where his servants were digging an enormous hole in the ground.
He didn't care much about the adventurers he had met somehow being around and escaping, it was of no importance and it wasn't like they had crossed him like that guard had back then.
Rubbing the scars on his face as he remembered that time, his mind went to the more important matters, the accomodation of the city into something more to his tastes and the crystal.
Taking it into his hand, he saw none of the orange flames inside of it anymore, only the deep purple was present.
The feeling of kinship was still present but certainly not as strong, not nearly so.
'How did this even happen?' he had no clue what had caused this Vlasfimia guy to suddenly appear.
The heretic had spoken of the silver knights as imitation and given clear details, clearly, they were linked even if loosely.
Perhaps this was simply it, he appeared because there was sense to him being there and killing this knight, that or he had willingly appeared because he wanted to kill them rather than simply manifesting naturally.
Putting the crystal back in his coat, he looked at his underlings hard at work as something else went through his mind.
'Wait, I got a ton of XP, I must have gotten something along the way...' he focused a bit on the system, he probably would have missed something like this during his fights, his body had been aching for the most part after all, any tingle and such could have gone unnoticed.
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