Chapter 206 - First Stop - Gluttony (2) (1/2)
Beelzebub wasn't quite prepared to be tackled by Zero in the kitchen. He was trying to sneak another plate of fruits from the counter while the chef busied away and almost succeeded too!
”Beel!”
The Demon Lord froze when his chef turned around and growled at him, swatting his outreached hand with a spatula. Zero looked blankly at the angry chef until he was thrown out of the kitchen together with Beelzebub.
”Why did you have to do that?” The Lord of Gluttony hiss. Knowing the stingy chef, his portion of dinner was going to be reduced after that failed attempt.
Zero blinked. ”But I was hungry too? I thought we could get early dinner together.”
Beel gave Zero the deadest eyes. ”Does it look like we're going to get dinner now?”
The young doctor grinned and tugged on Beelzebub's arm. His wide smile only made Beelzebub grumpier. His stomach grumbled loudly and now there was a good hour left till dinner was officially served. The one thing Beelzebub hated as a Demon Lord was the thing called etiquette. He could deal with the other nonsense like walking, talking and the duties he had over his domain but Beelzebub hated having to wait for food. Didn't Lucifer promise him that he would never have a shortage of food after he becomes a Demon Lord?
”Come on!” Zero insisted and pulled Beelzebub along. ”Let's do something fun. I'm sure dinner can wait...”
Just as he said that Beelzebub heard a loud rumbling noise and Zero reddened in embarrassment. The Demon Lord smiled knowingly. ”If you insist,” he told the young doctor and didn't question further. Zero might have visited the kitchen with the intention to get something to eat too.
The Demon Lord certainly wasn't expecting Zero to bring him outside into the swamps. In fact, he wasn't expecting them to be walking out of his domain. The Demon Lord started to worry a little when Zero showed no signs of pausing while his stomach's rumbling became louder. Out of the protected zone, Beelzebub knew that predators lay waiting for an easy meal. Zero looked like an easy meal and he couldn't possibly let anything happen to the overpowered teenager no matter how capable Zero really was. Baal would kill him, revive him and do it all over again.
”Zero?” Beelzebub's voice was terse and tense. ”I think you're going a little too far for something fun...”
Zero ignored Beelzebub. He knew that there were many hostile creatures in the area closing in on them. The minimap was blinking with red dots after all. At this point, Mii has levelled up enough to help Zero identify their enemies in the vicinity easier with a colour code. Red were enemies, green were friendlies, white were unknowns and the different shades of colour indicated how threatening they were to Zero.
Given that Zero had no real means of combat except for his bag of tricks from the Blessings and his natural ability to warp through the void, the enemies surrounding them were a vibrant shade of crimson. Thankfully, his party member Beelzebub was a Demon Lord capable of blowing them away with a punch so the minimap overlaid the enemy markers with an orange filter. Zero wondered how the enemies would appear on his map if Baal was present. He knew that his best pal would have no issues wiping them from the existence of the plane with a well-timed sneeze and was curious as to how Beelzebub would react knowing that he was the weakest amongst the Demon Lords.
”Zero?” the Demon Lord spotted some lower levelled monsters approaching them and grabbed the young doctor's hand in panic. On their own, these monsters were no match against him. However, they were known to be very cunning species who tricked their prey into underestimating them. Given Lucifer's education in the Academy, Beelzebub was thankful that he had this knowledge crammed into him. Sadly, the same couldn't be said about Zero who smiled and reassured him that they would be fine. His reason?
”Oh, they look friendly. There's nothing to worry about!”
Friendly? Beelzebub wanted to shake Zero by his shoulders and scream at him. How do any of those foul-mouthed monsters dripping with saliva staring at them with hunger in their eyes and emitting killing intent friendly?! If these Ponygators were friendly then Kerberos was just downright cute.
The Demon Lord readied to fight back. They were now surrounded by no less than twenty Ponygators and more were on their way. Beelzebub didn't want to do this but to protect Zero, he would have to take them all out.
The leader of the Ponygators was a greyish-blue beast with a mane of black hair, yellow eyes and a long snout that snapped at the air, showing all of its yellow razor-sharp teeth. The Ponygator leader stomped on the ground with its hoof and neighed loudly, throwing its head into the air. Its spiny tail whipped around, destroying a dead tree nearby and Beelzebub swallowed the lump in his throat. Although these monsters looked ridiculous and had a cowardly nature, they were not to be taken lightly. Ponygators were masters in the swamp and once they set their eyes on a target, the chances of anyone surviving it were less than ten percent.
”Aw, he just wants to talk.”
Hearing Zero's comment made Beelzebub stunned. ”Zero, I hate to question your sanity but can you understand the situation we are in now? You may be able to reason with demons who have higher intellect but these are just monsters incapable of understanding anything else but their instincts. Right now, those instincts are telling them to hunt us down for food.”
Zero's smile never wavered. ”What a coincidence. I was thinking the same too!”
The Demon Lord had no chance to react to that bizarre statement as Zero launched into action. He took out a scalpel and dashed towards the nearest Ponygator. Unprepared by the sudden charge, that ponygator didn't make a single sound after Zero skilfully dismembered its head with a clean cut.
”Wha-? When did you learn to kill so efficiently?”
Zero didn't answer and hunted down the next monster who tried to snap its jaws at the teen. Zero leapt into the air and got onto its back before digging his heels into its side. The ponygator neighed in pain and tried to throw Zero off but failed. Knowing that it wasn't an option, the beast took off in a wild gallop. Zero had the time of his life practising some of the newer magic tricks he learnt from Olaf. He could only use the basic elemental magic for now but the Frost Dragon told him under a magician with skilful control, even basic magic could become something powerful.
”Air shot!”
Beelzebub watched the tiny pellet of compressed air zip through the air with astonishing speed after Zero cast it. The air pellet disappeared after it hit a ponygator's forehead and Beelzebub thought that it wasn't effective until brain matter splattered out of that tiny hole and the monster's head exploded. Zero's gleeful giggles didn't make the gory scene any easier to understand. For a doctor, this was a rather gruesome method of dealing with enemies.
”Rock Bullet!”
”Light Beam!”
”Shadow Rope!”
”Cherry Bomb!”
Beelzebub merely stood out of the bloody massacre. After witnessing the overpowering difference in strength, the leader of the ponygators called for a retreat. By then, Zero had already taken out more than ten monsters while the Demon Lord stood there with his jaw to the ground, unable to believe his eyes.
He wasn't able to gather his sanity when Zero sent the captive ponygator off with a slap to its butt. The teenager then proceeded to skin the monsters and cut out chunks of meat.
”Could you help get some wood? I want to have a snack before dinner, especially after this workout. Don't you want to join me? I have some of Cleo's special spice powder here. It's going to be delicious!”