She knelt, her head bowed. "I will not fail you, my Lord."
I hoped, for her sake, that she was telling the truth.
We prepared to depart, a wave of dark, hungry ambition washing over me.
It was time to go see a man about a shadow Ogre.
"Chloe," I said, my voice low and cold, a final, undeniable command. "Remember the objective.
I want them alive. That is my will. Do not disappoint me."
-------------------------------
The domain of Old Man Yori was a masterpiece of infuriating tranquility.
We materialized not in a grim, stone dungeon, but in a serene bamboo garden.
The air was clean, smelling of damp earth and green leaves. A gentle breeze rustled the bamboo stalks, creating a soft, whispering sound. It was disgustingly peaceful.
"I hate it already," I announced. "It’s too quiet. It feels like a place where people come to find themselves. I prefer places where people come to lose their limbs."
Isabelle, ever the professional, scanned our surroundings. "The ground is soft, my Lord. Too soft. It’s a trap."
She was right. The moment our forward scouts, a pair of hulking Orcs, took a third step into the garden, the ground beneath them gave way.
It wasn’t a pitfall. It was a mud pit. A deep, sucking quagmire of thick, sticky mud that immediately swallowed them up to their waists.
As they roared in surprise and frustration, a new sound filled the air. A low, rumbling groan.
"INCOMING!" Reina yelled.
From the top of a small, manicured hill at the far end of the garden, a massive, perfectly spherical boulder detached itself and began to roll towards us with terrifying speed.
The ground trembled with each rotation of the colossal stone. The wind shrieked as it picked up speed, a juggernaut of granite and gravity.
"Fenris! Reina! Intercept!" Isabelle commanded, her voice cutting through the sudden chaos.
Fenris became a blur of black fur and fury, the ground cracking under his powerful legs as he charged to meet the boulder head-on.
At the same time, Reina exploded forward.
Her fist, glowing with a destructive crimson energy, met the rolling stone.
The impact was an absolute detonation.
A massive shockwave of force erupted from her knuckles, and the solid granite boulder, a weapon that could have crushed our entire party, shattered into a thousand smaller, harmless pieces.
The shrapnel rained down around us, and Fenris skidded to a halt, shaking pebbles from his fur with an annoyed growl.
"Well, that was a classic," I said, brushing a bit of dust from my coat. "Points for nostalgia, I suppose. But a very unoriginal opening gambit."
My words were immediately proven wrong.
As the dust settled, a new threat revealed itself. From within the dense bamboo stalks, dozens of figures emerged.
But these weren’t the usual, rock-throwing rabble. The goblins were armed with proper shortbows, their arrows tipped with a gleaming, silvery metal. The Imps, small, leathery-winged demons, held their hands forward, tiny balls of flickering fire already forming in their palms.
"Silver arrows and fire magic," Isabelle said, her voice tight. "He knows you’re a vampire, my Lord. He’s prepared specific countermeasures."
"So, the old man did his homework," I growled, a surge of irritated respect running through me. "Clever."
The enemy loosed their first volley.
A wave of silver-tipped arrows and sputtering fireballs shot towards us.
The wind howled, a chorus of piercing shrieks from the arrows and a low, hungry whoosh from the flames.
I stayed back, my new A-Rank body screaming at me to charge in and punch something into a fine red mist. But my brain, the cold, calculating strategist, held me in check. A volley of silver arrows would be... unpleasant.
"Wrecking Crew, engage!" Isabelle roared.
The battle was a beautiful, brutal storm of violence.
My elite Bloodkin were a different class of predator.
A constant, percussive symphony of sonic booms and shockwaves filled the bamboo garden.
Fenris was a force of nature, his claws tearing through the surprisingly tough hides of the Imps.
Reina was a controlled demolition, her explosive punches shattering goblin formations.
Isabelle was a dance of silent death, her dark blade, Dáinsleif, a whisper of steel that found every opening, every weakness.
We overwhelmed them in minutes. The bamboo grove fell silent once more, the ground now littered with the bodies of Yori’s low-cost but surprisingly efficient defenders.
I walked through the aftermath, my mind racing, analyzing what I had seen.
"He’s good," I said to Isabelle, nudging a dead goblin with the toe of my boot. "He’s very good.
He’s using low-CP minions, but he’s equipped them perfectly.
He’s squeezing every drop of value out of them.
And he’s using a variety of races - goblins, imps, a few kobolds over there. He must have conquered other, smaller domains and absorbed their forces."
"His strategy is sound," Isabelle agreed. "But he can’t win a war of attrition against us. Our units are simply too powerful."
"That’s what worries me," I said, a new, unsettling thought dawning on me. "According to Pixia’s data, this Yori only controls seven sectors. Seven. How does a Demon King with such a small territory get to Level 9?"
My eyes widened as the answer hit me with the force of one of Reina’s punches.
There was only one way.
"He’s been fighting them himself," I whispered, the realization sending a shiver of genuine excitement down my spine.
"Every time a hero party has invaded, he hasn’t just sent his minions. He’s been on the front lines, personally killing them, personally racking up the EXP."
The image I had of a quiet, harmless old man in a teahouse shattered.
This wasn’t some lucky gambler.
This was a veteran. A powerful, experienced frontline fighter who was hiding behind a mask of tranquility and weak-looking minions.
Our opponent was far more dangerous than we could have ever imagined.
This invasion just got a whole lot more interesting.