It will take several months for the number of goblins to increase enough to be called an army. Of course, the new batches of goblins already were born, one by one.

It is a clear benefit that goblins are born in a litter of at least eight. There were total of 35 newborns, in a week they will mature, and the goblin nest will need more females to breed.

Using their camouflage, the derived power from Camilla’s concealment, the goblins were spying on rookie adventurers. Watching them, and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

Within a day, a single team of adventurers was captured; there were five members, two males, and three females. Due to their camouflage, enhanced strength and speed, and usage of paralyzing poison, the goblins were able to take them down without any casualties.

Two male adventurers, fighter and a swordsman, were knocked out and then their throats were slit, goblins only needed them for their meat, so there was no need for them to be alive. Their carcasses were dragged back to the nest to be the nourishment for the newborns.

Three female adventurers, healer, priest, and the mage, were taken to the goblin nest. They were the first of the countless that will end up in the goblin nest for the sake of increasing goblins’ numbers. Of course, by Dark Lord’s orders, they were to attack one adventuring party at a time, when they have their guard down and are not in sight of other adventuring parties, this way, none would know about goblin abductions and would only think of them as disappearances.

Of course, it would generate concern and suspicion, yet by concealing the fact that goblins are the culprits, adventuring parties will not team to take them down together, and instead they will be taken down one by one. It was a good thing that most of the adventurers that were hired to exterminate monsters within Tracoa territory are rookies, looking to make easy money.

Hearing of goblins’ progress, Dark Lord personally visited the goblin nest. After all, this was the first adventuring party they have captured. In a way, Dark Lord felt proud of his pawns for their accomplishment.

Seeing the three new females being used for breeding, they were still screaming and crying, he smiled, everything was going exactly as planned.

Yet, there was another matter he had to address. In his mental message through the contract, Goblin Captain mentioned something interesting about the newborn goblin infants.

Dark Lord was there to see for himself what Goblin Captain found so unusual.

Apparently, the rumor of goblin offspring inheriting the abilities of their mothers is true. The batch of goblins born to the Holy Maiden of Fire displayed various fire mana based powers; apparently the affinity for fire mana is hereditary.

Same was true for the other former holy maidens; there were goblins with fire, earth, wind, and lightning affinities. Each type can be easily be told apart from their hair, which was different from regular goblins who seemed to lack hair or had few strands of black hair, for fire they inherited red hair, for wind green, for lightning yellow, and brown for earth.

Interesting, it seems like the more powerful the host, the better quality goblins can be produced. I must take that into an account. I suppose they can be classified as new types of goblins, Fire goblins, Wind goblins, Lightning Goblins, and Earth Goblins. While they are capable of using elements, it will not be until they are mature that they will be able to use the elemental magic to its fullest extent.

Yet, now there are more than forty goblins in total, far more ground can be covered than before. The more rookie adventurers are sent, the more will ‘disappear’. Eventually they will catch on that something is very suspicious and start sending in knights, but by then the goblins will evolve to be strong enough to take them on and I will have more than enough to use as I wish.

* * *

He wanted to kill, nothing else mattered. During day he could conceal his killing intent but at night… at night the urge to slaughter was at its strongest. He needed not hold back any longer.

Sneaking in to the house of a knight, clad by a fabric that rendered him invisible to all eyes, Camilla made it for him using his scales so that Dark Lord can use concealment at any time, Dark Lord proceeded to stab the sleeping knight in the chest with a dagger.

The knight woke up from the pain, but it was too late, his eyes fading, he could not fathom how his life just ended.

“Not yet.”

Dark Lord whispered. The stab to the chest meant to incapacitate the knight, keep him shocked for a moment, until Dark Lord’s actual plan went into action.

Knights are proficient users of magic and swordsmanship that means their mana is quite strong, their mana points are higher quality than normal. This is exactly why Dark Lord chose to target knights.

Knights have a lot of enemies; if one gets killed none would be surprised.

Dark Lord placed his skeletal right hand upon the head of the knight; his hand now was draining all the life force out of the knight’s body. It wouldn’t be long before all of knight’s mana points and excess mana would be stolen and absorbed into Dark Lord’s own body, leaving the knight a hollow husk, he would be dead by all definitions of the word.

Dark Lord thus chose raiding knights at night; entire territory of Tracoa was his hunting ground. Dark Lord had no usable mana points of his own, so he had to resort to stealing mana of those who were strong. Doing so allowed Dark Lord to gain portion of their abilities. Of course, the power stolen from the original user would not be as strong in Dark Lord’s hands, but they were still potent.

After obtaining mana points from a donor, the user can use those mana points for up to a few years before they get used up. Mana points recharge only when they are inside the original user’s body, so the more they are used the faster they are depleted. A reckless use of mana points or mana lines as they are better known can make them last only couple of month if they are stolen.

In original body, the mana points work almost indefinitely, recharging as soon as the body runs out of mana.

If the mana points are stolen from someone, they lose their capacity to recharge, thus any usage depletes them, without any way of recharging. They were one time use, in a way. If used wisely they could last a couple of years, if not, then only up to two months.

Also, it was lucky if one mana point survived the transfer per person, usually Dark Lord only managed to steal mana while all the mana points end up destroyed.

Dark Lord couldn’t afford to be conservative, there were a lot of tasks he had to take care of and not enough power in his body, that is why he started to abuse his undead ability to drain mana and mana points from his unfortunate victims.

After the process is done, the body of the victim, the former knight, looked more like a mummy, his muscles gone, his skin hanging tightly to his skeleton, his entire body was drained of vitality, he was a dead man.

But somehow, even in his last moments, he was alive, seeing what was happening to his body, but unable to move.

“Surprised? See for yourself.”

Dark Lord produced a mirror from his pocket, now showing the dying knight his hollow face. It looked more like a skin coating a skull, with horrified eyes bulging out of the sockets. The knight wanted to scream, but he could not. His body simply was too weak, now slowly fading away.

Dark Lord took off his mask, showing the knight the most horrifying sight, the last thing the knight would see before his soul passed away.

It was a face, one half was a normal face with a red eye, but the other half was a skeletal face with a glowing white eye.

The face of undead, the mere image of his half dead face was terrifying. To think at the moment of his demise he would see the face of death himself. Knight could only wonder what kind of unlucky star was he born under as he finally succumbed to death.

With his task done, Dark Lord proceeded to exit the house, silently.

As a half undead, his body weight was now only about half of what it used to be, his skeletal mass was rather light on the right side, making his footsteps barely audible. As half undead, he craved the energy of the living, his powers allowing him to drain mana and mana points of the living beings, but his mortal side still remained, and unlike a typical undead, he was still alive by the virtue of having his heart on his left side still beating.

He was a horrifying fusion of a demon with half of the body of an undead, he was the abomination, the embodiment of his tortured soul, he was the Dark Lord.

I am not a human, nor am I a demon, I am no hero, I am no savior…I am the Dark Lord. I am death…I am the end.

His hunger was satisfied, for the moment.

* * *

In the late evening, Runfar Sevilles asked Landon to call Mirabelle to his chambers.

Wearing a standard maid uniform stood a tall woman with blindfold over her eyes. Her long straight lavender hair was covered by a headband. Her skin color had more of a tanned complexion compared to the other servants.

This was Mirabelle Siros, the head cook of Sevilles mansion.

Despite being a little taller than Runfar, she still lowered her head in a courtly bow.

“Young master has summoned me, was there something wrong with the meal I prepared for the dinner? If there was, I can fix it. I will not make anything to your dissatisfaction….”

Oh boy…she thinks I am going to punish her.

“Do not worry about it. The matter has nothing to do with the meal.”

Runfar closed the door behind her.

Now both of them were alone in the room.

It was obvious that Mira was afraid of him; she kept at least three meters distance between herself and Runfar, even though he said it was ok to come close.

“If it is not too much of a hassle, could you please take it off?”

Runfar of course, was referring to the blindfold she was wearing around her eyes. But apparently she misunderstood.

“As you wish.” She started to take off her clothing. In a few seconds her entire maid uniform dropped to the ground, revealing her in her underwear.

What the hell is she doing? Should I tell her to stop…?

Runfar was about to say something when his eyes caught sight of Mira’s bare body. On her back, on her stomach, on every limb, those were marks made by a whip and there were many bruises on her body, cleverly concealed by her maid uniform. Even if her maid uniform concealed the bruises, it should still hurt a lot.

Runfar approached her and asked in a serious voice.

“Did my father do this to you?”

“Yes.”

That answer was enough.

Without any hesitation, Runfar proceeded to remove the blindfold off her eyes.

Her eye lids were healed but it was obvious they were once burnt. Carefully and gently he opened her eyelids, she shuddered a little but did nothing against it.

Her eyes were completely gone. Runfar thought that if it was superficial damage he could fix it with mana transfer, but it seems this is far beyond his capacity to fix.

“Master….” Runfar did not notice that she was on her knees, trembling and shivering. Apparently it took a lot of effort for her not to scram out of the room.

“Mirabelle, how old are you?”

“I will be twenty four in a few months.”

“Just how long ago did this happen?”

“Six years ago.”

“I see; then the only thing I can say is…”

He proceeded to hug Mira’s bare body, her curvaceous body touching him, but he paid it no heed. She yelped a little; apparently this was not what she expected. He could tell she was still afraid.

“…On behalf of my father, please accept my sincere apology.”

“Master Runfar…”

“I know you fear me because I am Augustus’s son, and I don’t blame you for it. But I wish you to know that I shall never harm you nor will I let anyone else harm you ever again.”

“A lie.”

“What?”

“Master is lying.” Her hands were trembling. Her sightless eyes were definitely scowling in anger and despair.

“Why would I do so?”

“Because you are your father’s son. Do you know just how many he tortured and killed in this mansion? I wouldn’t be surprised if there are ghosts of them in this mansion, unable to move on due to their desire to avenge themselves against Augustus!”

Wow, even though unlike me, she can’t sense ghosts, she is completely right about the ghosts. I managed to make over half of them move on, but there are so many still left.

“No doubt about that.”

“…And things he did to me every time I dissatisfied him…” she was clearly sobbing now. Apparently her cold demeanor around the staff was her way of hiding her broken self.

Now, all the bottled emotions burst out of her.

Putting his shoulder underneath her chin, Runfar proceeded to hold her in his embrace.

“Augustus Sevilles is gone. He will never hurt you again. None else will ever hurt you. I give you my word.”

Apparently that was enough to make her lose her composure.

She cried until she eventually fell asleep.

Runfar decided to let her sleep in his bed for tonight.

Well, now that the staff will see that Mira is unharmed they will come to a conclusion that I am a kinder lord than Augustus.

I suppose letting her sleep in my bed is all right…

After all, I still have an errand I need to run…and it is for the best to do it at night.

* * *

Seeing the master of the mansion exit the building, maid by the name of Song, proceeded to follow him.

The mansion was located not too far from the graveyard, the place where many on whom Augustus experimented on or tortured ended up.

What is young master doing? Is he visiting his father’s grave?

But much to her confusion, Runfar grabbed a shovel and started to dig one of the graves.

After he was done, he proceeded to unearth the body underneath. Only a skeleton of the body remained.

Now, Runfar took out a dress out of the folds of his clothing and proceeded to dress the corpse in it.

Then, much to Song’s horror, he started to dance with the skeleton in a slow waltz.

What the hell is he doing? I thought that young master might be weird, considering he is Augustus’s son….but this…

…This is just downright scary!

After a half an hour of dancing, Runfar returned to the mansion. He put the skeleton back in the grave, still wearing the dress. Then he reburied the corpse.

Making sure to move after Runfar left, in order to not be seen by him, Song proceeded to go back to the mansion.

Noticing that she was breathing heavily, one of the maids asked if Song was feeling ok.

“I just saw something very crazy…I am not sure, but young master might be just as bad as old master, just in a different way….”

Then, she told the other maids of what she has seen. Their expressions expressed pure disturbance.

Before, the maids were worried that Runfar would torture them just like Augustus did, but now they were worried about him for a different reason…

* * *

To think that poltergeist’s unfinished business was a dance.

She was making such a ruckus in the mansion, so I straight up asked her what I should do to make her lose her ties to this world. She asked me to dance with her, her body that is, so that she can have her last dance.

She also insisted to wear a dress.

I did exactly that.

The ghost moved on, and I reburied the body.

I am glad none saw that. If anyone saw me dancing with a corpse that would ruin the image I took such pains to cultivate.

I wonder why the maids are looking at me with such disturbed looks…