Tales of the Old World Demon Lord

Chapter 20 – Land of the Dead

[Eternum Calendar 1971]

"[We do not desecrate the land of the dead unless that is what they will.]"

A voice rang through Morgant's head as the pain only served to accentuate that message over and over. With the constant white noise in the background disrupting every other thought all he could do was absorb those words like a sponge. Only when he had accepted those terms did the feeling of pain start to slowly subside. Hunched over with haggard breaths, an awful and tired look upon his face he silently cursed Sovereign for that unnecessarily painful flashback.

"[Tsk, Dammit. Is this your way of telling me that you weren't involved?]"

Morgant asked in the old world tongue, of course no reply would come for him but he felt as though the silence was a tacit confirmation of that to be. A few seconds had gone by and slowly Morgant was able to regain his former composure as the headache and insufferable white noise dissipated. With a sigh of relief he stood up and faced the two confused faces studying him carefully but maintaining their distance.

"Forgive me for that unsightly display."

Morgant apologized, no longer possessing the same air of arrogant or overwhelming maliciousness. After his initial first impression there was no way they could ever see him as an ordinary child ever again, but right now without his overbearing aura he was at least much closer to one. With that in mind they approached him with a little less caution to help him up but they were refused. Putting his right hand up to halt them, what Morgant wanted most now was a little room to himself to catch his breath.

"I'm fine; you don't need to come any closer. In any case I don't know anything about these monsters, sorry."

"Wait, boy!"

Sipher tried to stop him but before he had even had time to register Morgant's movements he was already gone. Though in truth all that had happened was that Morgant simply moved away from Sipher's field of vision and with his stealth field was easily able to disappear.

Managing to escape and avoiding the responsibility of explaining everything Morgant found himself up high on a random tree. It was like this every time with Sovereign's flashback or if memory integration was too sped up. He needed time for himself to think about it and adjust accordingly but right now, with these new monsters showing up, such opportunities were sparse.

Away from the sight of any monsters or wild animals, Morgant leaned his head softly against the sides of a tree. A pleasant scent entered his nose, accentuated by the tranquil echoes of the forests and rustling of leaves. A cool breeze brushed passed his face as the warm embrace of darkness overcame him.

...

While Morgant was out trying to excavate more information about the incident from the front lines, Yvonne and Francisco were still cooped up at the Longmoore Trading Post. Feeling a little constrained from the lack of action they were taking Yvonne paced about the room in a very noticeable manner.

"Settle down Yvonne, wasting energy like that won't solve anything."

Unable to concentrate on his merchantry work due to Yvonne's restlessness Francisco slammed his pen down to scold her from behind his desk. Although the initial loud noise from the pen did catch her attention all he got back from her was an annoyed rebuke.

"I don't get how you can sit there so calmly and continue to do work while people are still disappearing from this town."

"I prefer not to waste time driving myself insane about something so clearly out of my control."

"Out of your control? Weren't you the one who said that the true culprit behind the disappearances and attacks was someone in town? If you really believe in that shouldn't you be investigating or something?"

"And why, pry tell, must I do something like that? No one is paying me after all, certainly not you. Besides it'd be very hard to conduct an 'investigation' when we don't even know the nature of these attacks and disappearances. All we can do is speculate the most likely suspects from possible motivations and wait for the boy to bring more information."

As Francisco spoke he could feel the harmful glare that Yvonne was giving off due to his poor choice of words. Seeing her angered expression he was quick to surrender; he wasn't Morgant who hid absurdly monstrous strength behind the façade of a fragile human boy. He knew that he would lose straight out in a fist fight with the town guard's captain.

With a defeat sigh Francisco threw up his hands to appease her anger.

"Alright, I got it so please stop making that face. It's exceedingly more terrifying if you do it with those vampiric eyes."

The corners of her mouth turned ever so slightly upwards to form a subtle but satisfied smile, Yvonne gave an approving nod as she answered his plea by deactivating her 'vampiric' gaze.

"Great now let's go."

"Go where?"

"Huh? You just said you'd take this a little more seriously so let's go investigate."

Another sigh, Francisco shook his head as nothing he told her was absorbed through her thick skull.

"Now see here Yvonne, like I said, doing an investigation now would yield no results if we don't have any of the initial parameters. Things like 'how they're kidnapping people' and 'what exactly is assaulting people' are still in the unknown to us."

Yvonne paused to think for a moment before responding.

"So... what? Are you saying that all we can do is sit around and wait for Morgant to return with information?"

Francisco nodded.

"That's what I've been telling you from the beginning. Though to be fair we don't even have to look that far; I have a fairly good idea on who the potential suspect candidates might be anyway. That being said, I am a little curious as to whether the boy would come to the same conclusions as me.

"What?!"

Yvonne shouted, her loud voice echoing through the door and onto the lower floors of trading post for everyone to hear.

"Argh, what is it? Shouting at me so suddenly..."

"You just said you know who the culprits are."

"No, I said that I had a good idea on who they might be; listen."

"Whatever, just spill it out; who is it?"

Ignoring Francisco's refute Yvonne reach over the table and pulled his collar closer to her. Now face to face her question could now no longer be ignored. Reactivating her vampiric red eyes she gazed into his eyes deeply as though trying to hypnotize him into a confession. :

"T-there are three."

"Three?"

"Yes, now would you mind getting your hands off my shirt? You're a lot stronger than you look… and I'm starting to suffocate."

Realizing his face turning red from the lack of oxygen, Yvonne immediately let go and Francisco fell down violently onto his chair. Believing that she over did it she took a few steeps back in shame as the sounds of intense coughing came from beyond the table.

"... Well, in any case there are three prime suspects. The first is the special guest that the mayor had invited without prior warning. I believe his name was 'Enrich' or something to that effect. Though to be fair he's only there because I don't know much about him and thus is reason enough to be cautious of."

"Just because you don't know him he's a suspect? Isn't that a little unfair? Then what about that knight, Sipher and that robed girl he was with, shouldn’t they technically be suspects too?"

Yvonne interjected in the mysterious Enrich's defense but all she got in return was a pitiful glare from Francisco.

"Haven't you learnt anything through your little fight with Morgant? It's precisely because we don't know him we should be cautious. As for Sipher and the girl, they are suspects but the boy has that side covered for now."

"I... I see. Yes , you're right; I'll keep that in mind. So who's the second?"

"Gerald."

"Eh?"

"You know the Adventurer Association's branch leader here at Vertloch."

"I know who he is, but why him? With his timid personality he's the complete opposite of suspicious if you ask me. I can't follow your logic."

"Well I didn't expect you to with your... 'unfortunate' brain."

"Are you trying to start a fight? Okay... let's step outside for a bit why don't we?"

Yvonne started to crack her knuckles as she menacingly approached Francisco.

"C-calm down it was a joke. Ah, your eyes activated again, I'm sorry Ms Yvonne. Ahem… where was I? Oh yes, as I said the second most likely culprit is Gerald. From my perspective that man has always been thirsting for something that he could never find in this small town."

Yvonne stared blankly back at him, unsure of what he was trying to say. As the Townguard captain she and Gerald had worked together on various different expeditions mostly security projects and monster subjugations. Yet during that time she had never felt as though he had been particularly out of place or did anything suspicious, at the very least he appear to be the kind of person who would pull these kinds of wretched stunts.

“What do you mean? He may be a little timid at times, sure, but other than that he’s a respected member of Vertloch Snowdown. I’ve never seen him as power hungry or shown any sort of inclination to do anything like this.”

Francisco nodded his head in agreement to what she was saying; those were all true, however that’s not the only truth.

“Trust me. That man may look timid but he’s a lot more capable than he lets on. Just how do you think he became the administrative leader of the Adventurer’s Association at the mere age of 27? I’ll tell you now but you need to be a little bit more than just ‘capable’ to be granted such a title, even if it was just a beginner’s branch. Besides, he’s not a native to Vertloch either, so his background is a total unknown and therefore subject to suspicion.”

While she understood what Francisco was trying to say, Yvonne was still unconvinced about putting Gerald as a possible suspect. Francisco did not know him as she did; he had never worked with him directly unless it was about budge concerns or any other type of investments.

“I don’t know… you’ve never seen him on the battlefield. I’m sure your mind would change if you do, because he’s the kind of person that really knows how to take care of his own.”

“Are we though…? Are we one of his own, or are we just some no-name yokels from a no-name town in the middle of the demon continent? You’re so caught up in appearances that you fail to see what lies behind those masks, think about it. You and I, we’ve grown up here so we have some sort of attachment to this place and can call it home, but he’s an outsider.”

“So you’re saying outsiders aren’t welcome?”

“I never said that, what I’m trying to correlate for you is the obvious connections. He’s young and he’s and adventurer, yet he’s stuck in his office all day handling administrative work in a small, irrelevant backwater town. You think that’s what he wanted to accomplish by the age of 27?”

“I… I just don’t know, let’s just drop this for now. Who’s the last suspect you had in mind?”

“Mayor Dalton. Also you can cross Enrich off that list, he’s an emissary from the Demon Lord herself; at the very least it’s unlikely he’s involved in any of this directly.”

It wasn’t Francisco who had answered Yvonne’s question but a familiar voice that came out of nowhere. They both stood up in surprise and turned to see who was behind them. The figure of a small child, though unlike last time where he had an arrogant posture and an almost infuriatingly condescending smile right now he had bags under his eyes and a realistic frown.

“What happened to you? You look…”

Yvonne took out a piece of tissue from her pocket and mixed it with some of the water from Francisco’s mug. She crouched down and wiped some of the fatigue off of Morgant’s face but it was only barely better than before.

“Tired? Yes, I realize and I apologize for my appearance. Something… came up.”

“We can do this later if you’re so tired.”

Francisco asked ushering him to the sofa. Morgant collapsed as all of his muscles started to untangle itself and a wave of relaxation overcame him. However he couldn’t rest yet as there was still work to be done.

“Thanks… I’m fine for now. Anyway you were talking about the final suspect, am I correct in assuming you also had Mayor Dalton in mind?”

Asked Morgant, his eyes closed and lying on the sofa, it was almost as if he was talking from his sleep.

“Well yes, that’s exactly who I had in mind.”

Francisco replied as he returned to his chair and swirled it around to gaze out the window of his office. The sun dyed the small snow covered town a vibrant orange and as the light mingled in the snow below it created an ironic scene of warmth. As though drops of orange happiness were falling from the sky it was a scene that could only exist in the world of fantasy.

“Wait a minute you two, that doesn’t make any sense; why would the mayor of all people be a suspect in of this? I mean he’s the mayor, the one person that cares about the town more than anyone else.”

“You’re right… which is exactly why he’s a suspect.”

Francisco replied in yet another vague manner that was a little too hard for Yvonne to fully comprehend the first time.

“What?”

“What he means is… when you have something you desperately care about, more than anything in the world, wouldn’t you go to extremes just to keep it safe?”

Morgant chipped and answered for Francisco.

“Perhaps… but I don’t see what this has to do with the current incident. Are you saying that the mayor is keeping the town safe by having monsters abduct and assault the townspeople?”

“About the abduction thing… it could be some sort of trade.”

Morgant changed the topics as he got up from the sofa to sit upright.

“A trade?”

Asked Francisco. His brows twitched up, his interests piqued; the notion that a person could be ‘traded’ wasn’t entirely a foreign concept to him however he had a feeling that Morgant wasn’t talking exactly about ‘slavery’.

“Yeah… I’ll explain now what I learnt from today’s expedition.”

Morgant spent the next hour or so explaining to Francisco and Yvonne about what had happened in the forest. About the goblins, about the ‘crystalline curse’, about Sipher and Este as well, none of it was omitted except for one part. His memories and the flashback he had been shown by Sovereign, there was no need for either of them to know that and Morgant had prepared to take the secret to his grave if necessary.

“A nigh immortal, powerful goblin shrouded by a golden aura with crystals and gems encrusted on its body. Well… even I might be inclined to call such a thing god if I happened to stumble upon it."

Francisco commented as he took a step back with his chair.

“That’s… horrible yes, but I still don’t see how the mayor could possibly be involved in all of this. From what you’ve just described to me it only sounds like some new and powerful variant of goblins popped up. Though it is a rare event, new variants do form all the time.”

Yvonne added in the mayor’s defense.

“The first stage is just goblins; those crystals make the subject turn nigh immortal and raise their strengths a thousand fold… or at least enough to make goblins a serious threat. What do you think would happen if an already demon were to be subjected to that ‘crystalline curse’? Say… a vampire like yourself.”

Morgant replied.

“So you’re saying the mayor’s trying to make some sort of crystal zombie army? In the first place how can you tell if this is not just a natural phenomenon?”

“No, not the mayor, someone else is likely using him to achieve just that. That’s why I said it’s a trade. As for whether it’s a natural phenomenon, those goblins had no sense of self preservation but they did have a purpose. They came at us with every intention to die for whatever ‘cause’ they believed in, that’s not something you can make feral goblins do with a natural phenomenon. I believe someone was using those goblins from afar.”

Morgant corrected Yvonne.

“So someone powerful enough is forcing the mayor to secretly trade villagers for ‘safety’… is what you’re saying, right boy?”

Francisco theorized.

“Something like that, yet of course we can’t just rule out the possibility that this is all mere speculation. It could still be the Adventurer’s Association leader or anyone else so keep an open mind when you investigate. In the mean time I think I’ll go back to the forest and search for more clues on how this ‘crystalline curse’ works and what exactly its functions are.”

“What, now? It’s almost dark; you should go back before Diana starts worrying about you again. Why are you so adamant to do this all of a sudden?”

Francisco tried to advise against it but Morgant’s mind was already made up.

“Because they’ve desecrated the land of the dead and I don’t like it. It’s obvious that they’re not going to be stopping at goblins after all, at the very least I want to crash the party if I’m not invited to it.”

“Wait, I’m coming with you.”

Yvonne stopped him and declared with a confidant smile.