Lord of Estaria

by K R Zax

  “We… We were just...”

  “Please, don’t mind me.” I told the girls while scanning their bodies. They were Evrlir Mivvova, a half-elf spear wielder, and Amara Lirrna, a human swordswoman. She was the one that was injured in the battle with the Lich. The wound on her shoulder was completely healed, but she had a pale scar. “I am your lord and future husband, there’s no need to be embarrassed.”

  “Um, what are you doing, my lord?” Evrlir asked when she saw me casting a spell.

  “Oh, I am just putting a sound barrier around your tent. We don’t want to upset the neighbors, right?”

  “Are you… Going to take us.” Amara sounded nervous. Her nicely shaped chest rose and fall as her breathing become harder.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t be taking your virginity tonight.” I said as a bizarre mass of Darkness formed in my hands, and dozens of rope-like ends extended towards the two girls. “I’ll just show you a sample of what to expect once you become officially mine.”

  Hehehe…

  ***

  Phew! I pulled a flask of water from the Storage and took a sip. It was a backbreaking work to take care of all these bodies.

  “Would you like to rest, or are we going to catch up with the others?” Lina asked me when I finished making my Darkness Zombies.

  When I woke up this morning, there was a big pile of monster corpses on the edge of the camp, so I immediately went to work. The soldiers and adventurers finished their preparations when I was half-way through, so I told them to hit the road since they couldn’t go too far with all the carriages and wagons tagging behind them.

  I could have put all of that inside my Storage, that would make traveling faster. But why should I? Excuse me, do I look like some kind of charity, or something of that sort? Jesus reborn?

  Fucking no!

  I may do it if that could benefit me, but right now, going slower is favorable for me. This way I can make more Darkness Zombies and gather monster corpses to sell.

  It was a shame that there were so many goblins here. They are around 10 copper coins each; I needed 500 of them for a gold coin. Of course, if there were quests to kill them, I could get some additional silver.

  “We’ll go,” I told Lina and looked at the chest with crystals, there weren’t too much left. I will need to prioritize the stronger-looking corpses for now.

  “Your horse is ready, my lord.” Orst said and handed me the reins.

  “Thanks, and how’s your father today?”

  “Better, my lord. The healers said that he should be fine in a few days.”

  Orst’s father was injured by one of the Lich’s zombies during the battle. A spear in the leg, not something that the healers would have trouble dealing with. But since there were a lot of injured people, the few Light Mages had their hands full for a couple of days.

  “Alright, lets go.” I said, and we mounted our horses. The three of us were the only ones left behind, the rest already made a considerable distance.

  Orst was really happy this morning when I gave him one of the horses we took from the bandits yesterday. Our loot was only the animals and what the bandits had on themselves, since the rest of the things had to be given back to Lorna, the merchant’s wife.

  Lina, Lillian and the few girls that participated didn’t want anything, so I just took a horse. I thought it’d save me some money if I give it to the boy as compensation for taking care of my and Lina’s horses.

  I closed my eyes and looked at what my minions were doing. The zombies advanced through the forest nicely. Whenever they killed a sufficient amount of monsters, I would order one of them to stay close to the big pile of corpses, while the others moved to another location.

  By the time we reached the others, there were four small mountains of dead monsters in the forest.

  “What’s up with them?” Lina asked when she saw two girls lying in a wagon with the camping gear. “Didn’t have enough sleep?”

  “We don’t really know.” Milia said while she looked at Evrlir and Amara whose legs were sticking out of the wagon. “They said that they would rather die than ride a horse today.”

  “It is strange,” Lillian joined the conversation. “They even refused a healer but their faces were so red, that I thought they might have a fever.”

  “I first thought it may be that time of the month,” the fox girl, Nistry said while staring in the girls’ direction suspiciously. “But I doubt that’s the case, because for some reason, they can’t stop smiling. I’ve never seen something alike.”

  “What’s wrong, Darling?” Lina asked when I dismounted my horse.

  Crap, I think I overdid it last night. Anyway, I know that they enjoyed it. Their blankets were soaking wet last night, so I had to dry them with magic. And while I did that, I also had to fend off the girls, who were whispering obscene things to me as they tried to take my clothes off.

  “I’ll leave this one behind,” I said as a Virsk bird emerged from my shadow and nested itself on my horse. The animal panicked in the undead's presence, but calmed down when I patted its neck. In the beginning, we had to leave our horses some distance away when I summoned the zombies, but after the battle with Uhra, they slowly grew accustomed to them.

  I could have done the same this morning and we wouldn’t need to spend all this time catching up with the group. But then I wouldn’t have enough mana to travel around and collect the ‘loot’.

  If only mana recovery potions were cheaper. As great as this spell might seem to be, it also consumed a lot of my power.

  I gave the reins of my horse to Orst and open a portal to one of the Darkness Zombies in the forest. My precious undead were hard workers. The big pile of corpses I saw almost brought a tear to my eye.

  I started putting every dead monster inside my Storage, and tried to estimate the amount of money I should get for them. I can’t make a lot of special zombies since

  I was low on both crystals, and time, to do it all right now. After finishing with them, I moved to the next location. Man, they surely worked hard and fast, not like the low level zombies. By the time I finished with the fourth pile, the zombies already made a fifth.

  I spent about two hours putting all the corpses away before going back to the girls.

  “Did you have a successful hunt?” Lillian asked me when I returned to my horse.

  “Yup,” I smiled, this world was looking more and more like a game. I could use the Darkness Zombies like mobile teleportation points. They were also similar to NPCs that have a task to complete, and once it is done, you can reap the rewards. There are also quests, battles, ladies in distress (though, in gory situations), magic, monsters, castles…

  “A complete success.”

  Chapter 5.

  The smell of roasted meat drifted in the wind as we walked through the streets of Zupol city. It took us almost five days to reach here after we left Tolia. At our current speed, we should arrive at Tsarigrad in six days.

  “Give me all you have.”

  “M-my lord?” The man behind one of the stalls looked confused for a second, and then he noticed the crowd of women knights behind me. “Please, I don’t have that much money m’lord. I have a wife and kids! Spear me!”

  Ah, again.

  “No, good sir. I just wanted to buy all the roasted meat.” I asserted with a forced smile, and the man yelped in fear.

  “Y-yes! Yes, m’lord! Right away!”

  This occurred more often, and I can’t understand why. My face didn’t change at all. I know that; I have a mirror.

  “Do I look different?”

  I turned around and asked the girls. They were still the same, I can’t remember seeing any of them shaking in fear when they looked at me.

  “You look handsome. But perhaps you should cut your hair, it’s almost reaching your waist.” Lina had a point, so I’ll consider that. But I like how it looked. It made me think of myself as a Viking.

  “You seem to be the same.” Milia wasn’t scared of m
y looks, she only had an annoyed expression when I stared at her womanly curves.

  “I love you.” Evrlir said while blushing, and Amara was almost salivating. This two were lost, I can’t trust in their judgment.

  “It’s your aura, my lord.” Lillian said as she sniffed the surrounding air. “The Darkness is stronger than it used to be. Still, at this rate it is only affecting weak people.”

  The Dark Element again? Doesn’t it have a better job to do? Like staying quiet until I need to use it? Should I expect people to run away from me the moment I show up?

  Dr. Sam could control his Darkness, I still get goosebumps when I remember how he released his immense power, just before kicking me out. Guess I’ll have to practice suppressing my aura tonight.

  I payed the guy, and we proceed to the Guild since I had a lot of monsters to sell. Shit, there were only a few quests on the board. Anyway, I took a couple of them and went to the counter. There were several adventurers here, so we didn’t have to wait in line for too long.

  “Only these?” The receptionist asked boringly when I handed her the pieces of paper I took from the board.

  “No, I have a lot more with me.”

  “Hmm, you were that Dark Mage, right?” The woman stared at me, trying to remember. She probably had a strong will, or she would be scared like the man I bought the meat from. “The one with a lot of corpses. Yeah. Fine, lets go. Vel! Sartl! C’mon, there’s corpses to count!”

  We made our way to the back of the building, and I began taking out the monsters. Kobolds, Orcs, Twin-Tail wolfs, Horned Wolfs, a few Vogors, Fur Spiders, Lizardman, Slime Frogs, some Nagas…

  “Wait!” The receptionist exclaimed when I had about three hundred creatures out. “How many do you have?”

  “Well, about nine thousand or so. But don’t worry, I wanted to sell only 500 of them here.” I explained to the exasperated receptionist.

  Their legs trembled, and they kept quiet, so I took that as a sign that it was fine. I felt bad, I should have said that I wanted to sell two thousand instead.

  It’s late now, they’ll come back to their senses in a couple of seconds. And yeah, the first thing the receptionist did was grumble about the lack of space they had, and how it would be a pain to store all the corpses in a warehouse on the other end of the city.

  It took them almost a whole hour to appraise my monsters. Well, they did seemed a bit scared after a massive Vogor corpse fell from a pile, almost burying one of the Guild workers.

  I walked out of the Adventurer's Guild with 43 gold and 38 silver coins. Not bad, but it is a shame that she refused some stronger monsters because they couldn’t process them. Apparently, not many cities had the adequate tools and personnel to take apart the strong monsters. And if they were to damage the goods, the workers could end as slaves if they could not compensate the Guild for the caused loss.

  43 gold did seemed like a lot of money, but that is only because I didn’t take out any goblins. Would they even buy that much trash? Tsarigrad may, but only because some people from the slums seemed to buy them.

  And I had more than a thousand of them. A thousand goblins! I could get 2 gold coins for that much, and I doubt anyone would actually buy all of them. A hundred, maybe, but what would they do with more than that? And if that wasn’t enough, I also had over 2000 other low rank trash.

  Should I simply discard them somewhere? Perhaps sell them as fertilizer? Was that even possible? Well, this happen to be a world with magic. There should be a lunatic somewhere who wanted to buy huge amounts of garbage for some mysterious reason, right?

  It’s fine, relax. First, I will buy all the crystals that I can, and then I’ll go back to work. This is just temporary, until I can buy a house, and then I can focus on other things.

  ***

  “At last,” I exulted on the eleventh day since we left Tolia. Far in the distance, the large, sturdy walls of Tsarigrad came into view.

  Should I go back to the Night Bird? Where a fluffy bed is waiting for me?

  Nope, not right away. As tempting as that sounds, I have to report to the Guild first, then sell the monsters, and buy some stuff.

  Sigh.

  As we went further down the road, there were more and more people going in and out of the city, mostly adventurers since this is the east side. There were carriages and wagons going north, presumably towards Jolek.

  “My lord, I’ve received a report saying that about thirty knights emerged from the city.” Lillian said, and the girls started checking out their weapons, making sure that they could use them at any moment. “It is probably just an honorary escort, but we shouldn’t let our guard down.”

  “Eh, are you fine with it?” I looked at her right hand as she clenches the hilt of her sword. She was one of ‘them’ until recently, I’d feel bad if she and the other girls come to regret it later.

  “I am your sword,” she looked me straight in the eye, and I could see her determination. “And I will cut down anyone that tries to harm you, my lord.”

  We moved to the front of the group to get this over with, if they wanted to have a fight – I’ll give them one.

  The Imperial Knights were riding in an orderly manner, and when they came to a distance of several yards away from us, they stopped. All of them had their shining armors, capes, and other decoration that made them look more like performers than real warriors. But I had no doubt that they would turn into formidable opponents if even the wrong word was uttered.

  “So, you’re finally back, sis.” The knight in the lead smiled as he looked at Lillian. He was a demon-kin, and just like her, he also had horns and purple hair.

  “Gel’Gazar,” Lillian nodded formally. “Did you came to make trouble, brother?”

  “Hahaha! No! Of course I didn’t.” He said merrily and then turned to me. “I presume you are Alex Miller, also known as the Demon Lord?”

  “That is correct.” I concurred. He doesn’t appear to be an awful person, so why Lillian didn’t seem to like him?

  “By the orders of the Warden Empress, Nalisia Voznesensky, I, the commander of the Purple Order have came here to invite you to the Imperial Palace.”

  Interesting, he didn’t give his full name, even if it is obvious that he was a prince. Could it be that he had the same sentiment as Lillian, and wanted to be known for his achievement, rater than the title he was born with?

  “What for?” I won’t go to jail willingly.

  “Don’t worry,” he said with a serious face. “We are not here to arrest you because you are a Necromancer. In fact, the Empress wants to reward you for your efforts in defeating the Elder Lich Uhra dim Zar. I swear with my honor.”

  Man, he looked like a proper knight, fresh out of a movie. It doesn’t look like he is acting, so everything should be fine, I guess.

  I glanced at Lillian and when she nodded, I responded: “It will be my pleasure.”

  When we entered the city, the number of people wearing colorful clothes and the festive atmosphere on the wide streets surprised me.

  I could hear music from almost every bar, inn and street corner. People walked around smiling, chatting with each other, children were playing tag or some game with marbles.

  “Oh, it's UsKriss!” Lina gasped excitedly, and I had to ask her about it.

  “See,” she pointed at some people that were holding colorful eggs. Ah, so it is Easter! Then she continued to explain.

  “It is believed that Kriss died in a battle with an Evil God. But soon after, he was reborn! Hatched from a Dragon’s egg! So, on this day, it is a tradition to paint cooked eggs in different colors, to show happiness for Kriss’ return. And there is also a competition! You take one egg and another person hits it with his egg, and the harder one wins. Then you keep competing until only one person remains, and the church of Kriss will award him, since they are the ones holding the tournament.”

  Yeah, she was excited like a little kid. Could that be the reason why suddenly, the idea of marrying her fe
lt like a crime somehow?

  The people shifted away as we advanced through the streets of Tsarigrad. We moved at a slow pace for almost an hour, it just shows how crowded the place was.

  At some point, the adventurers parted ways with us, along with the Three Wolf Fangs. They were going to give a report to the Guild, so they took some wagons and carriages with them.

  Soon, we came to a big space that was filled with people. From my horse, I could see a big red wall on the other side of the crowd. And on my left side, there was a big, colorful, gingerbread castle. Weird, it kind of looked familiar.