"Oh, by the way, what happened to that child you were protecting? Is he OK?"
Vanessa looked at Ardentist and he responded to what Arthur asked. "Actually, we secured the child and planned to send him back to our sanctuary to train him."
"It's unfortunate. I had planned to train him under my care," Arthur showed a dissatisfied expression. However, the fact that the child must go to the sanctuary was clear in Ardentist's mind, and he showed no intention of giving the child to anyone else, even if that person happened to be the one who saved him.
After a moment of silence, realizing the two had reached an impasse, Arthur finally spoke.
"Very well then. I slay the dark, and my job is done here. Farewell, fellow candles in light. Oh! Almost forgot to get a reminder," he said before proceeding to grab the severed head of the monster. Then, he jumped up with Vanessa in his hand, disappearing through the clouds.
"He must be in Morphe stage to move like that," enviously watching Knight Arthur disappear through the clouds, Ardentist turned back to settle things on their side.
Some holy knights found a few horses that hadn't run far away, bound them to the carriage, and the first thing they did was escort the holy candidates back to the sanctuary.
Before moving away, Ardentist got closer to the corpse of the headless monster and sliced off one of its hands.
"Might be useful to the Saintess,"
. . . . . .
Looking at the holy knights and the carriage moving far into the distance, in the far corner of a slum, Knight Arthur stood motionlessly, his long cape slowly waving in the wind.
Right beside him, Vanessa knelt before Mordred, who stood hidden in the shadow of a nearby tree.
"Master, I failed. I don't deserve your kindness. I'm not worthy to serve you anymore," Vanessa draw out a tiny knife hidden under her dress in a swift motion.
"I saved you because I have use for you, and it's not yours to decide whether you're useful to me or not. Don't act stupid,"
Vanessa and Negun are siblings who have served Mordred since their childhood. They grew up with him and served him with true loyalty. Even when he turned to a dark path, they followed him without question. Though true loyalty is a subject I doubt from anyone, they are still valuable to me.
Upon hearing Mordred, Vanessa paused and calmly put the knife back before continuing to kneel before him.
"I apologize. The holy knights are more protective of their candidates, and I failed to retrieve the one you wanted."
The knight, Arthur—who is actually the Knight of Remiar—also knelt beside Vanessa before Mordred.
"Unfortunate, but it's fine. I don't want any attention from the holy sanctuary. If we ask for the candidates, they will try to keep an eye on us,"
Also, it's not like Desire would become a hero anytime soon. In the game, players start to play as Desire only after he awakens in the holy sanctuary as a holy knight. More than that, I have his sister with me. The unique trait Desire has is his pure heart, which gives him a tremendous boost when connected with holy energy.
The fact that he abandoned his sister and fled is a sin he cannot forgive himself for, especially with his pure heart. If I use his sister in the correct way, I would be able to take care of him.
But the problem is, how to make his sister obey my words...
After a moment of silence, Mordred looked at the head of the monster Remiar brought back.
On its forehead, there was the gaze of the Deep One.
The holy knights that face off against it seem to still be in the beginner stage of the Adept rank, only the one in charge of them seems to be at Adept peak rank but with no special named skills. And the monster created by the item is at beginner Morph rank. So, Knight Remiar, who is also in the Morph rank, didn't have any problems when he retrieved the monster's head.
Even if they're in the same rank, Remiar is still much more powerful than the monster.
"Be detached, be detached, be detached."
Grabbing the eye in its head, Mordred put some force to pull it back while praying. Normally, the item is supposed to be attached to the monster permanently, but now since the monster is dead, Mordred is unsure whether he could retrieve the item or not.
However, the closed pupils of the eye suddenly opened, looking directly at him.
Mordred quickly closed his eyes and took a step back. Remir, who's on guard, acted swiftly as he put himself in front of Mordred. He knew how ominous this item was.
But the eye did nothing bad to Mordred and simply fell from the monster's head to the ground.
"It got detached!."
Picking up the eye, Knight Remiar offered it to Mordred. Who then put it into his item catalog.
Almost scared me to death.
"Let's move, I have work to do."
The Knight Remiar got called back into the token, and Vennesa followed behind Mordred. The two got into the carriage and drove away from the slums.
. . . . . . .
Under the bright sun of the middle of the day, the crows of bad omen cried near a large and gloomy factory.
Parking near this building, Mordred stepped out from his carriage, wearing dark clothes with a hood covering his face.
From the factory, a few people and one wearing a white coat came out to greet him.
"Mister Mordred, I expected you to visit here."
The woman wearing the coat greeted Mordred with a slight smile.
"Unfortunately, some people don't know how to do their work, so I had to." With few words, Mordred walked past her. The woman became silent upon hearing him and followed behind.
Charlotte Pharoa, a skilled alchemist that got banned from the alchemy association for her taboo work. After becoming unemployed, she still continued to do her work, becoming a criminal wanted by the guardian Knights of the kingdom. After the transmigration, i managed to hunt her down with Mordred's connections to the underworld. Then, after explaining my purpose, she gladly started to work for me.
"Where are the casualty subjects?"
"In the basement, but I do not suggest you go there. Even after their death, the toxicity of their bodies still has not faded."
While talking, Mordred went into the factory. On the outside, it's just a factory that produces chemicals for alchemists to purchase, but underneath, it is the facility where Mordred conducts his experiments on humans and other living beings.
The factory workers bowed to Mordred as he passed through. Dressed as workers, they are all underworld thugs hired by the factory as guards. The funds are fully supplied by Mordred's personal allowance, which he receives from the Arclore family.
To support the entire factory and workers with only his allowance, one can imagine how giant and resourceful the Arclore family is. Even after all that, Mordred still has enough money to spend on anything he wants.
Mordred went directly to the main office in the factory, where a bald and sly-looking man lick his feet.
"Boss, this slave is glad to see your majestic figure."
The bald man is a guinea pig Mordred put in as the factory owner. Originally, he was a homeless man, and after getting this job, he became a dog under Mordred's foot.
"outside"
The bald man hurriedly left the room with Mordred's order. After he left, Charlotte pulled a book from a nearby bookshelf, revealing a secret passage leading to the underground.
When Mordred walked down through the passage, the sounds of some unknown creatures echoed from it, all coming from where he's heading.
The experiment lab is not something much larger and had fewer people, all of whom Mordred chose to his liking, and they are all either alchemists or spirit summoners, just like him.
Because of the fear that the other spirit would come out from the portal he opened, the spirit that snatched Mordred's body didn't dare to summon the new spirit beings. So, he had to resort to another method and hired people with that ability to do the task for him.
"This way, boss," walking past the working people, Charlotte guided Mordred into a corner of the underground place, where a pungent smell assaulted Mordred's nose.
Opening a cage, Charlotte lit a bright lamp, illuminating a gruesome scene inside. There were numerous deformed bodies of people, but their features were hardly recognizable as human.
"Did you manage to identify the two people I asked for?"
"I did," Charlotte then ordered a few slaves to move the two bodies from the mess and place them in front of Mordred.
"Hmm... can you heal them or at least make them more human-like?"
"uh... it would be hard. The blood we used this time is from a morph-rank spirit beast. It literally destroyed their bodies. Reversing or healing them is impossible with the current abilities we have."
The morph-rank human and spirit beast are not the same. While the morph is the third rank of the human power ranking, for spirit beasts, it's the second tier. If a human and spirit beast met, both at morph tier, the human would win without difficulty.
Mordred gazed at the two lifeless, deformed bodies. They gave off a very repulsive smell.
Truly dead. Shame. The plan to control Desire's sister with their parents is a failure before it even started.
"Get rid of them."
Weirdly, looking at the lifeless body, which is in some way my fault, I didn't feel an ounce of pity or sympathy.
I guess that's a benefit of being a villain.
"You have something to say, Charlotte?"
In the main office of the underground factory, Mordred sat in the comfortable seat, which is the place Charlotte usually sits, but now she sits where guests usually sit.
"I have a new suggestion, boss."
"What is it?"
Taking out a report from the pile of files on the table, Charlotte handed it to me, and I began reading it.
"A warlock?"
"We've only been doing experiments with spirit beings but haven't succeeded much in that subject. It's not that I'm suggesting we move on, I'm just saying, why don't we do both?"
Charlotte said hesitantly, choosing her words carefully.
In the same way as spirit summoners, warlocks also belong to the summoner class, but unlike spirit summoners where the creatures are summoned from the Spirit Realm, warlocks summon demons from Hell. So, one can guess how the Holy Church would go nuts over these guys.
It's pretty common for warlocks to be on the dark path.
"Charlotte, are you suggesting we do research on hellspawns?"
"But you do know that I only support spirit beings maintains right? ."
Hearing the very fact she afraid of, Charlotte felt like she got choked on her own saliva.
"Sir, the spirit creatures gave us a lot of knowledge, and I think we should broaden our horizons. Hellspawns are a totally new subject to us. And just like how we produce medicine that even the royal family didn't manage to achieve, I'm confident if we experiment on hell beings, we will be able to achieve something new—a new way of magic or a new path to power."
With her fancy words, Charlotte trying her hardest to make me agree to this thing. And I'm liking it. After all, in the end, what she's doing is beneficial for me. This is a new development destiny quest didn't had.
"Fine, proceed with caution then."
"Boss, are you really..."
Charlotte was truly surprised by Mordred agreeing so easily. She jumped in cheers and tried to even hug Mordred, which eventually ended up being a failure.
"Hold on, warlocks can summon hellspawns along with dead beings' souls, am I right... Charlotte, don't get rid of those bodies. And I just changed my thoughts—if your warlocks could do one thing I asked for, I would agree to the subject again."
The smile on Charlotte's face faded upon hearing that.
"Boss, are you really gonna do that to me?"
"I just did, Charlotte. Now move quickly before I add another condition."
Like an arrow released from a bow, Charlotte hurriedly left the office, first heading to the basement of the place to prevent the deformed bodies from being thrown away.