The Strongest Wizard Becomes a Countryside Guardsman After Taking an Arrow to the Knee

Chapter 110 – Searching the Ruined Castle

The still split body of the demon twitched.

However…it seemed impossible for it to speak or summon any kind of magic.

We’d have to let the ministry of justice question him later.

「He has way too much vitality.」

「Yeah, this guy’s harder to kill then the Demon Lord was.」

Yureena and Cruz said with a tinge of respect.

Shiggy popped its head from my pocket again.

「Shiggy, you’ve been avenged.」

「ryaaa」

Shiggy said, satisfied.

Shiggy’s parent had died because of this demon.

I rubbed the ring that Shiggy’s parent had given me.

As I thought back to that time, I felt Vi-Vi pull on my sleeve.

「Al, we need to dig through his castle. There might still be enemies.」

「Yeah, let’s do that, Vi-Vi.」

I left Cruz and Yureena to watch over the demon, and I checked the castle.

It was a mountain of rubble, but there was several things I could do.

「Vi-Vi, Vallimie, look for any remains of anything magical in here, okay?」

「Sure!」「Leave it to us.」

「Femm, Moofy…oh, and Rai, be careful to sniff out anything strange.」

「Ruff」「Moo」「Gaww」「ryaaa」

And for some reason, Shiggy responded loudest. I patted its head.

Then I too searched for anything magical.

Vi-Vi then said, with a serious look,

「This defensive magic circle that he drew is amazing…」

「You can read it, even though it’s broken?」

「Of course…I’m good at magic circles.」

Then she said, regretfully,

「This is far better than the ring I put around your house.」

「Really? Well, it is by a demon. Of course it’s going to be advanced.」

Vallimie rubbed Vi-Vi’s head and then said in a sad voice,

「I attacked him with Rai, but we couldn’t get anywhere…」

「Even you couldn’t break this circle?」

「Yeah, his castle was made for defense and not for liveability or convenience. It’s weird that Alfred was able to knock this place down in one shot.」

「Yeah.」

「You’ve got a lot of stuff going on at that house of Alfred’s right? Of course this guy’s defense is going to be better.」

「You’re right!」

Vi-Vi smiled again.

While the two were talking, I was placing magic items and materials I found in my magic bag.

It was getting late. I left the analysis for later as the materials just needed to taken somewhere safe.

I was going to give all of this stuff to Luka later.

「I guess I should have brought Luka too.」

「Yeah, Al…」

Even without a warrior like Luka, we were okay. But when it came to cleaning up the left-behind goods, she was a big help.

I was worried about Mulg, though. It was a hard choice.

Anyway, I’d bring her tomorrow and we’d have one more look around.

Just then, Vallimie, who was still looking around, said,

「Ah!」

「What is it?」

「Here’s the ring I gave my great dragon friend!」

The ring slightly resembled the one that Vi-Vi gave me for the town’s defenses.

Vallimie squeezed the ring in her hand…it must be quite precious.

It probably was because that great dragon was killed…well, better dead than a zombie.

Vallimie looked sad. Just then Vi-Vi shouted from a pace away,

「HEY! I found the opening to the underground!」

「We should check it out too.」

「Let’s do it!」

With the overground search pretty much finished, we moved to the underground.

Cruz and Yureena were bored, but there was nothing I could do. They also wanted to collect spoils but watching a demon was more important.

I’d just have to make Cruz and Yureena do just that.

There was no damage to the underground. It was actually quite clean.

Vallimie said as she was checking the walls,

「This is…there’s a magical circle here…I need to write this down.」

「Does a magician like the forest hermit still need to research things?」

「Yes. This demon is one hell of a magician.」

He was wicked and detestable demon, but he was strong. You had to acknowledge that.

The underground corridor was vast and had a high ceiling.

Vi-Vi looked at it and asked,

「Is this made with the same principle as the magic bag too? The same space-time magic that you used?」

「Sure is.」

「What do you think about this underground? Does it look poorly done?」

「No. This guy’s quite the magician. But it’s not perfect.」

「Well, if you say that, then it still means that this demon was quite strong.」

Vi-Vi nodded with a look of respectfulness.

There was still some things he could have done better. I would have created this area more efficiently.

However, sometimes I’d find myself saying,「huh, he did this pretty well.」

「Hmm, I guess I should write this down too.」

「Heh heh heh, saying the same thing as my sister did…」「Moo moo」

Vi-Vi laughed happily. Moofy laughed…if you could call it that.

We progressed deeper into the underground.

There were many magical weapons and zombification tools stored there.

「With all this stuff stored here, there’s no way he’d need to go out to buy more.」

「Yeah, when did you think he gathered all this stuff, Al?」

「It would stand out too much if he did it after the demon lord was defeated, so probably before that.」

「Hm.」

「We need to have the guild check it out.」

The adventurer’s guild couldn’t find the demon’s castle. However, that didn’t mean they were poor at doing so.

They would just have to do better.

Femm was sniffing around like crazy. Then it said in a loud spirit voice,

『I can smell something living!』

「A zombie?」

『No. A magical beast.』

I tried my best to run after Femm, but Femm slowed when it saw my knee was painful.

After walking a bit we came to a big door. I looked the door over carefully.

「What the hell is this?」

「A corral of some kind?」

Inside the room there were around 100 strong magical beasts. They hadn’t been changed to zombies yet.

The demon was very careful to keep them from fighting him or running away. They were all bound very strongly.

「This guy was planning to destroy this kingdom.」

「…yeah.」

Vi-Vi said with a tone of awe. There was a tinge of fear as she imagined it.

Including the beasts we defeated, this made about 200. And in addition to the magical weapons stored away…what a fearsome show of military might.

Shiggy’s parent, or Shiggy himself when it was grown…would lead to this demon ruling the kingdom or the world.

「What do you plan to do, Al?」

「What do I plan to do…well…」

These beasts would be destroyed if they ever strayed near human eyes. Any adventurer would come after them to destroy them if they could.

However, they were also victims of this demon. It was hard to just kill them off.

「If they were zombified I would kill them off instantly…but…」

「Hmm…」

「I guess I’ll leave them and let the guild handle this.」

「Leave this to Luka? Leave it all to her?」

「Not to Luka…to the guild.」

「It’s the same thing, right, Al?」

I guess it was as Vi-Vi said, and it would mean more work for Luka.

However, the study of these beasts was necessary. We also needed to research these beast to see where this demon had been.

The guild would do this the quickest.

Just then, I heard Vallimie and Rai, who had come into the room just now, shout,

「Doby!!」「Gaw!」

「gyaa gyaaa」

They both ran up to a bound great dragon in the room.

The great dragon seemed to happily respond to them.

「Wait, is this your friend?」

「Yeah! This dragon was taken from my forest!」

Vallimie, Rai, and Doby all seemed ecstatic.

I thought it was dead or at least turned into a zombie. They seemed very happy to meet again.

So I released Doby from it’s bonds.

「gyaa gyaaa!」

「We’re so happy to see you again!」

Once the dragon was released, it ran up and pressed up against Vallimie.

It made you laugh to see a dragon be so cordial.

「It’s not an enemy?」

Yureena was still cautious, but it was okay.

Cruz even ran up and petted Doby.

「Nice to meet you…」

Doby just calmly enjoyed the attention.

I looked around me again. There were a lot of dead zombies on the floor as well.

「We need to take spoils from these as well.」

「Just as a rule?」

「Yeah…」

It seems that Vallimie also understood the importance of both battle spoils and corpse disposal.

We went back to the demon and watched over him while Cruz and Yureena did the rest of the clean up.

「Roger that!」

「Leave the clean up to us!」

The other two went to clean up everything happily. Cruz and Yureena always loved picking apart battle spoils.

They took various materials and samples and stuck them in their bags.

As I watched over the demon, I petted Femm.

「This battle went pretty easily because of that howl of yours.」

『I didn’t think it would be so effective.』

That heavenly roar of Femm had some effect on those zombies.

Well, it probably was the holy nature of it, now that Femm was somewhat sacred.

After we finished gathering the spoils, we all returned to the capital.