Chapter 23: Exploration (1/2)

Hmm? Why was I unconscious?

This place seems new…well…it’s not like this is the first time I’ve found myself in an unfamiliar world.

Ah, I remember now, I activated the nether flames and burned that head imp to death. After that, I fainted from mana exhaustion. That was the story up until now. As for the nether flames…well…I’m not entirely sure either. I only knew that I was really angry and my brain was suddenly flooded with knowledge that I didn’t understand; but seemed strangely correct. Using that knowledge, I conjured the nether flames.

Does this mean I have a hack ability at last? Hmm, well now’s not the time for this. I need to check out my surroundings first.

Judging by the surrounding darkness and the eerily cold air, this should be a cave. As I looked up, I saw a ceiling packed with black soil; yup, it should be a cave. What about my devil subordinates? When I fainted, I was still on the last step before the entrance. Since I’m not dead, I should be inside the tunnel.

Guided by the faint bit of illumination in the cave, I slowly made my way out. The light slowly grew as I continued until finally I exited and saw…woah…an unbelievable sight.

It was an underground world tinted in a mix of black, gray, green and white. Several steps in front of me was a precipice. Several hundred meters below, the terrain formed a giant natural basin. Inside it, were countless piles of devil corpses. The bulk of them were small imp corpses, but there were a lot of large imp corpses as well. They were unceremoniously piled together like a pile of garbage…

Next to the corpses was a large group of devils. Their numbers didn’t reach a thousand with half of them being large imps and the other half being small imps. They were currently feasting on the corpses in front of them without any signs of conflict. Whatever they wanted to eat, they were able to. It was truly a picture of peaceful and harmonious feasting…

…harmoniously feasting on their own kind…

Forget it, it’s not as if this was the first time I’ve seen them do this.

“Oh, Master, you’re awake!” A pleasantly surprised voice echoed from my left. I turned to the source and saw an elated but surprised No.5 leaning against the side of the cave entrance, staring at me, his drool still dangling at the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, isn’t that No.5, what are you doing here?”

“I was watching over Master!” No.5 maintained his comfy position as he said so with a serious expression on his face.

“Oh, thanks a lot…” …what am I going to do with you…

“Ah, Master is too kind.” The clueless No.5 earnestly accepted my “thanks”.

Just as I was starting to get fed up with his thick skin, No.3 walked out of a nearby cave and slapped his head: “Next time, wipe that drool off your mouth before you say that!”

Having beaten the potato, a satisfied looking No.3 turned to me and greeted me humbly in a half kneel position, his head lowered as he said: “Master.”

“Mhm, this is the next level?” No.3 was as reliable as always, unlike certain imps. *cough* No.5 and Nine-finger.

“Yes.”

“What’s going on over there?” As I said so, I pointed at the mountain of corpses. “What’s with all those corpse?”

“Master, it’s like this…”

No.3 recounted what happened after I fainted, minus the nonsense.

Recruiting the remaining devils, a geyser of corpses…seems like a lot happened while I was sleeping. And that corpse count…it must’ve at least been several tens of thousands of corpses.

So that’s why that head imp wanted to guard the entrance…I thought he was just the cliched end level boss you see in RPGs. I guess he wasn’t as stupid as I thought. I would’ve guarded the entrance as well if I had known about this.

“Wait…you said those corpse were spit out by the hole?”

“Yes, master.”

Must’ve been quite a unique sight…

In human time, I was out cold for a total of four days. In these four days, my little piggies had been living a carefree life of eating and sleeping and then more eating.

Thanks to this mountain of corpses, half of my small imps had evolved into large imps while my original large imps had received a boost to their strength. As for the souls…since there was no tool to store souls, it was hard to preserve them. It would’ve been alright if it was just two days…but I was out for four…

After that gruelling battle, everyone had received some benefits except for their master, me…

Well, there’s no point throwing a tantrum now.

“Master, you must be hungry right now. I’ll go hunt some souls for you.” The matter of me only consuming souls was known to all my subordinates. He probably thought my long sleep had made me hungry and so offered to hunt for me.

“Oh, what’s there to hunt around here?” Truth be told, I didn’t take too well to this new environment. After spending so much time near the blood sea and breathing in its sulfurous air, suddenly switching to such an eerily cold place made me slightly uncomfortable.

“This is place is full of walking skeletons and animated corpses. Their souls taste bad but are bountiful…”

In short, it’s like a buffet of undead souls. The taste isn’t too great but it’s all you can eat.

“In that case, let’s have a look together.”

I paid One-eye a visit and instructed him to look after the devils. In the meantime, No.3 instructed Big 1 to select 30 imps to accompany us on our hunting trip north. After heading down this direction for 30 minutes, we entered a desolate wasteland. The ground was pitch black and cracks weaved through the entire area due to the sheer dryness of the earth. Judging by this, there hadn’t been any rain here for a long time or perhaps rain didn’t even exist here.

As we continued, a pile of bones not too far into the distance piqued my interest. From the looks of it, it was a complete set of small imp bones. I decided to investigate, but as I got within 10 steps of it, the skeleton started shaking and an upright imp skeleton was soon standing right before me.