Volume 1 Chapter 19 - The Unexpected Beauty (1/2)

The dawn’s early light shone upon the outskirts of the Unnamed Forest and illuminated the path of a group of what seemed to be adventurers who cautiously advancing into the forest. Their clothing and armour were dyed and crusted with blood, it was very evident that they had just been a very bloody fight.

“I’m sorry Bella, it was all because I wanted to hire some mercenaries…”

“No problem, boss Ivy, you can make it up by paying us an extra 10% after we finish this mission.”

“You don’t need to call me boss, we’re friends, aren’t we? Call me Ivy.”

Last night in the duchy’s capital, Bella and the others had to endure until nightfall before they were able to make their escape. Fortunately, her subordinates who had been previously messing around somewhere finally arrived around the same time and launched a surprise attack on the beastmen advance guard, inadvertently helping the escape of Bella and the others.

Due to the low visibility, Ivy and Susan weren’t able to see what had befallen on the beastmen forces, they were only able to hear the terrified screams and death throes coming from the opposing camp. After an entire night of travelling, the party finally managed to make it into the outskirts of the Unnamed Forest.

“Can we rest for a bit Bella? I’m getting tired.”

Bella didn’t have any objections to Susan’s suggestion. After all, they had travelled non-stop the entire night and were fatigued, thirsty, and hungry because they had no time to bring their rations with them during their escape. They currently only had two choices, return to Bella’s church for a day to rest and make preparations again, or they could rest on the spot and find a way to solve their hunger.

Considering that Susan, Ivy, as well as Roland and Annie were still human and not the demon kings or gods that Bella and the others were, they were probably too tired and it wouldn’t be suitable to return to the church currently. It was best if they could find a place nearby to rest.

“Angel, is this place safe?”

“About this, Bella-nee, there aren’t any… so I’m not sure either, sorry.”

Angel was confused as she was unable to sense any spirits in their nearby vicinity. If there weren’t any spirits wandering the area, Angel’s scouting ability was heavily limited. In order to not incur the suspicion of the holy maiden, Susan, Angel decided that it wasn’t the best idea to evoke spirits from further away to help.

“No problems, it should be fine as long as we’re careful.”

Bella lightly patted Angel’s head to comfort her, as this wasn’t her fault. It was just that the uncertainties involved in this expedition would heavily increase without Angel’s scouting.

The forest was very quiet so early in the morning and they had not run into any monsters yet. Previously, Bella had led a bunch of her subordinates on extermination runs throughout the forest’s outskirts and it would probably be quite a while before the monster population here recovered.

Bella followed the tracks of wild animals in hope of finding water and her hard work paid off, after around an hour they heard the sound of a moving body of water.

As they got closer, they found a large stream with crystal clear water and a gentle current. Mia approached the stream and studied it for for a while before giving a confirmation to Bella with her eyes. Bella now knew that this water didn’t have any problems, at least there wasn’t any curses or poison in it, she trusted Mia’s expertise in this field.

Seeing a clean source of water, all the other girls immediately wanted to go and clean themselves of the blood that had covered every exposed inch of their person. Now that they finally had time, there was nothing to stop them from cleaning themselves, even Dolores seemed to be really eager. Even though she was really into it while killing, but it was as if she returned to being a normal girl right after and just wanted to be clean.

“Why aren’t you stripping Bella, your clothes are just as dirty as ours?” While she was stripping, Susan turned back to see Bella just standing there, and asked curiously.

“You all can wash first, I’ll go patrol the surroundings for now. I’ll wash later.”

“Alright, stay safe!”

Bella actually really wanted to stay behind and wash with these beauties, only a d*****s would refuse such a boon.

Bella instinctively realized that girls were the most vulnerable while they were bathing and were less able to deal with emergency situations if any were to occur. This was a place notorious for the number of monsters, after all, Bella had to take necessary preparations in order to prevent any monsters or perverts from getting close.

Bella came to a large patch of unnaturally long grass not too far from the stream and drew a large and peculiar magic formation on the ground. As soon as she finished the last stroke on the formation, there was some stirring from the ground below her, as if something was breaking out of it.

Seeing that the ritual had been completed, Bella swiftly left the area. Not long after she left several zombies in a high state of decay broke through the ground with many more still on their way out as the formation was still pulsating; these zombies were all adventurers in this area who had been slaughtered by monsters and had been in the ground for god knows how long, they probably contributed to why the grass in this area was so unnaturally long.

This 《Summon Undead》 was a dark magic formation that Mia had taught Bella, who then modified it so that the summoned undead would only attack male beings. Now Bella could finally return and bathe with the girls without worry of being interrupted. If any pervert was fortunate enough to wander into the area, he would be in for a lifetime of enjoyment.

Bella had a sinister smirk on her face as she left, she left not because she was afraid that they would attack her but more that she was scared of having nightmares after seeing such decomposed zombies. As for the possibility of a stray monster, most monsters would avoid being anywhere near such a large number of zombies.

Only Bella who set the formation would be able to remove it from a distance, if anybody else wanted to do it, they would have to find the heart of the ritual where the actual formation was located and then destroy it to stop the ritual. Bella believed that it wouldn’t take long for all the dead near the stream to be awoken.

As Bella was about to return, she saw an article of clothing drifting downstream. As she spent all her time around a large number of girls, she was easily able to recognize that it belonged to a female.

“Eh, which one of them was so careless to let their clothes fall into the water while bathing?” Bella picked up a branch from near the stream and used it to pick the piece of clothing out of the stream. Right after, she remembered that Ivy and the others were bathing downstream, it was impossible for their clothes to have ended up upstream, this article most likely didn’t belong to any of the girls in Bella’s party.

Bella felt the material, then studied the design of the piece of clothing and was able to confirm that this did not belong to anyone in her party; as they had already changed into outfits designed by Bella herself, from their outer garments to their underwear, Bella only needed to feel the material to know if it was one of her designs.

Bella brought the piece of clothing towards her nose and sniffed it, a faint but elegant and pleasant scent travelled into her nostrils. Bella had smelled this kind of scent on the other beauties in her company, it should be the natural body scent of beautiful girls so the owner of this garment should be fairly good looking. The scent, however, was slightly different and Bella couldn’t connect it with any girl she knew as she had remembered the scent of all the girls in her company.

What to do? The owner of this garment was probably bathing somewhere upstream, it would be very awkward for her to discover that she had lost her clothes, it would be rather bad for the owner if she only brought one set of clothes in such a dangerous place and lost it.