Chapter 352: The Lost World (7)

The gremlin fired questions at us in rapid succession. "Ku-kyaat! Who are you? Whom do you serve? Where did you come from?"

The other gremlins crowded in, their red eyes glowing as they leaned forward. Their picks, shovels, and daggers still hung at their waists. Their hands were empty.

They're not attacking?

For anyone living in a place like this, I had assumed that fighting them was inevitable. Yet, it was almost ridiculous that I didn't feel even a trace of hostility.

Well... maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

I remembered the imperial guards at the graveyard, and how I tried to speak with them repeatedly, only to be crushed and cut down without hesitation. Everything on the surface had been endlessly hostile toward me.

Perhaps things are different down here.

Gilaut lowered his sword and cheerfully said, "Hah! Diligent little fellows, aren't you? We're just passing through. That's alright, isn't it?"

Despite what I'd said about "finishing" them earlier, there was no benefit in provoking a fight we could avoid.

"What is this place?" I asked, cutting in.

If they weren't hostile, then maybe I could gather useful information. Even if I made it through this cave this time, I might die and come back later.

The gremlin who first met my eyes let out a screeching laugh. "Kekekeke! The Demon Realm appears here, little by little! It widens! Kyuuuu!"

"The Demon Realm... is expanding?"

"Kufufufu! Put in moss! Spread fog! Demon Realm grows!"

He must have meant the wriggling moss along the walls. It already looked unnatural, but spreading Demon Realm fog meant it was an incredible plant.

"How did you arrive here from the Demon Realm?" I asked.

"Keh-hehehe! Came through the bubbling pit! A pit near our home! Fuuuglefuuugle, it boils!"

The nearby gremlins waved their arms, trying to demonstrate the sound and shape. "Fugle-fugle! Fugle-fugle! Paaaah!"

They were surprisingly helpful creatures.

A boiling pit, huh...

I glanced at Gilaut.

"A fracture from the Demon Realm?"

"Seems like it," the Dullahan replied with a nod.

With a crack wide enough for gremlins to slip through, that was a sign that erosion had already begun.

How much had Gith-Za-Rai known about this place?

She carried a map, so there was no way she didn't know. She must have pushed me here on purpose to train me.

Still... I was lucky. The gremlin before us was friendly and talkative.

Who knows what the next creatures we meet would be like?

There was no guarantee they would be cooperative. They might not speak at all or attack without warning. Getting as much information as possible now was essential.

"What about those yellow stones?" I asked.

"Kikik! Demon stone. Makes the boiling pit boil more! Fugle-fugle!"

"Sounds like a sulfur spring."

"A Demon Realm hot spring, hmm? I wouldn't mind taking a dip," Gilaut joked dryly before continuing, "Alright, friends! Thanks for the details. Can you tell us exactly where that bubbling pit is?"

It was more than worth checking out. If the fog came from there, then that wasn't the only thing emerging. If gremlins had already crossed over, something else might be waiting.

"Keh-het! Kerrrrr!"

Our peaceful conversation continued. The gremlin flailed its arms and legs enthusiastically, explaining the hot spring's location.

They're surprisingly kind.

I even wondered if living here a while wouldn't be so bad. It would be a pocket of peace. Maybe when the war erupted in a year, those who hated violence could hide in places like this. Just as the thought grazed my mind, the conversation took a turn.

"But what do you gain from spreading the fog?" Gilaut asked.

"Kuhuhuhuhu... humans! Soft! Warm! Tender! Screams!"

"..."

"Make them round and round! Kukekekeke!"

I had no idea where they encountered humans, but if one stood before them right now, they would probably disassemble them on the spot. They looked like they might dismantle a human at any moment. Just talking about it seemed to excite them. They mimed rolling something in their hands, their red eyes darting around eagerly. Fortunately, they didn't seem interested in doing anything to the hard skeleton soldiers.

After going on at length about how they turned humans into "meat toys," one of them suddenly threw a question at us. "Kerrrk! Whose side are you on?"

"Side? There is no side."

"Keh-hehe. Must serve. Murmur! We serve Murmur! You serve too! Whom? Kukyaat!"

Murmur.

Murmur was one of the Sixteen Demon Lords. The Demon Lord of Possession and Minerals.

"Murmur... is your king?"

"Keh-het. Yes! Yes!"

"Are there other kings?"

"That..."

"I know! Kyakyakya! I know! I know!"

The gremlins hiding behind the front one started crowding closer, each trying to dump out all the information they had.

"No! That's wrong!"

Each one was desperate to prove it was the smartest of the bunch, chattering wildly.

"Kyarrk! Murmur! Vapula! Zagan! Furcas! Gaap! Six! Six!"

"Kuhuhu, what kind of Demon Lord is Kyarrk? You named five and said six, you idiot."

"You moron, you forgot the terrifying Demon Lord Bassago!"

"Kyarrk! Bassago is gone. Has no voice. Cannot hear!"

"Kukya! Bassago still kills everything! Brings everything back! Terrifying!"

"Kyarrk! you've never seen Bassago. Ignorant. Don't know anything."

"Kehehehet!"

Some even grabbed each other's ears, ready to fight over who was right. Still, we could gain plenty of information. The underground caves were a battleground for at least five Demon Lords.

Their true bodies could not enter this place, perhaps due to the dimensional barrier. Whatever the reason, only weak Demon Realm creatures like gremlins could cross over for now. However, the Demon Lords exerted their influence through voices that echoed in the mind. Each commanded a different task.

Murmur has them throwing demon stones and shadow moss into the hot spring. Furcas makes them dig. Vapula gives them seeds and has them plant grass. Gaap makes them carve winged symbols into the cave walls...

There were traces everywhere that showed this had once been territory under the Third Seat, Demon Lord Bassago. However, no group followed her now, and her voice no longer reached them.

That's more than enough to go on.

The best course of action now was to avoid getting entangled and get out of here quickly.

"So, decide," a gremlin said abruptly.

"Decide?" I asked.

A subtle sense of wrongness pricked at me.

"Yes. If you will not join us, then return... or die."

I recognized the source of the unease at once. I noticed the voice with none of that harsh, nasal gremlin rasp.

"What... are you talking about...?"

I looked ahead. There should have been nothing but red-eyed gremlins, but the one speaking now had eyes that were completely black, as dark as night. At some point, we had all been surrounded by gremlins with pitch-black eyes.

"Murmur..."

"Serve Lord Murmur."

"Serve."

"Serve."

It wasn't just the one in front.

Suuu...

The gremlins' red, gleaming eyes darkened like ink spreading in water. Their once-rough voices turned low and heavy.

"Carve the mark."

"It will be your glory."

Shhhhhhhh!

Five gremlins with black eyes stretched their arms toward me at the same time. They didn't swing their picks, nor did they try to crush my skull. They simply reached out with their hands. However, the instant I stared into those eyes, a heavy, chilling pressure pressed down on me.

"Damn it!" I cursed.

Shhhhhhh!

Dozens of knotted fingers wrapped in reddish-brown leather clawed at the air.

Sword raised, Gilaut yanked me back and shouted, "Circular ward!"

To almost get grabbed by mere gremlins...

Thud!Clack!

We landed safely in the center of a tightly formed circle of soldiers, and realization hit me.

Possession...

Demon Lord Murmur was not one who peeled away flesh, but one who swapped the core within. Murmur stole minds, collapsed the inside, and unleashed explosive power.

Smooth, fluent common tongue flowed from the gremlins' coarse throats. "If you will not cooperate... I will break you, then raise you again."

"Necromancy! Be careful!"

Eight gremlins slammed their picks down.

Kwaaang!

The blows shattered the cave floor, and the shockwaves exploded outward, stone dust blasting in every direction.

Can we win?

We might be wiped out in an instant. A hundred gremlins under a Demon King's possession outnumbered us more than five to one.

Gilaut's low voice mixed with the spray of debris. "Don't worry."

"I am worried!" I exclaimed.

Before the dust even settled, the gremlins hefted their picks and charged, swinging again. The wind pressure from a gremlin's swing made Gilaut's shadow tremble, but Gilaut's blade did not waver at all. With a light grip, his sword shattered two picks like brittle reeds and knocked their wielders away. The blade ripped more than halfway through a gremlin's waist, sending chunks of flesh flying.

Without a moment's hesitation, Gilaut thrust his sword again and again into the charging gremlins. He cut the necks of those he had just been chatting with. He pierced the chests of those who had laughed a moment ago.

To die like that...

The gremlins swung their weapons as if they had completely forgotten our earlier conversation. It left a bitter taste, even knowing there was no choice for either the possessed gremlins or for Gilaut.

Shrrrk!

However, when blood burst from a massive hole in one chest like a torn wineskin, a message appeared that wiped all my other thoughts away.

Ding!

[Experience increased by 31.]

What?

Fwoosh!

The fifth and sixth gremlins fell in rapid succession, their vital points skewered.

[Experience increased by ...]

[Experience...]

What is going on?

Even as their comrades died at their side, the gremlins did not flinch. They threw themselves at the barrier.

Boom!

An orc skeleton raised its shield, blocking two picks wreathed in black energy at once. Beside it, a troll skeleton thrust its twisted sword and skewered one of them from shoulder to hip. Bone scraped and rattled in a grotesque chain of sounds.

[Experience increased by 29.]

[Level Up!]

[First Command Kill!]

[5 bonus points awarded.]

Command... kill?

I was thrown off.

Is all the Experience they should have earned being funneled directly to me?

"Sorry! I don't have the luxury of just knocking them out and tossing them to you!"

Slash!

[Experience increased by 17.]

Almost at the same moment Gilaut shouted that, the experience from the gremlin he killed flowed into me.

"No, you really don't have to..."

"As long as you're fine with it, that makes things easier!"

[Dullahan Gilaut's Affection increased by 1.]

It seemed that canceling my earlier "finishing blow" request had raised his Affection slightly.

Let's just focus on blocking. Don't kill if I can help it.

I stepped into formation.

Claaang!

A pick wreathed in black energy crashed into my sword. The gremlin staggered back two steps, but I lost my balance and nearly fell. The possessed gremlins swung again and again, heedless of their bursting muscles.

Clang! Clang!

I thought restoring some of my stats would be enough, but I was wrong. A skeleton without combat skills was far weaker than I had expected.

Shrrrk!

[Skill: Bone Tendril Control Lv. 3 activated.]

[Insufficient space.]

[Activation restricted.]

A single tendril sprouted from the transplanted area Gith-Za-Rai had worked on, wrapping around the gremlin's hand.

Crunch!

In that instant, a troll skeleton beside me thrust its sword and killed the gremlin.

[Experience increased by 21.]

It's real.

The situation was clear now. I was either gaining all the experience, or at least a share of it.

My thoughts aligned. It wasn't a difficult deduction: the army moved without Gith-Za-Rai, and Gilaut and the other soldiers displayed status windows.

And I gained experience through them.

Everything linked together, forming a single line.

They're all moving with my mana.

There was no other explanation. Gith-Za-Rai had turned me into a mana host.

Had she really seen this far ahead? She doesn't even know about status windows. So how...

If it were a calculation, it was astounding. If it was intuition, it was even more frightening.

"..."

I looked around at the soldiers forming a solid circular ward around me.

Twenty for now. But what if the army I supplied mana to grew to two hundred, two thousand, or twenty thousand?

The moment that thought crossed my mind, the gremlins' eyes darkened even more.