Chapter 27 Pests
-Sebastian-
They burned.
They burned all.
Their shrieks were a pleasure to his ears. Their burned skin a delight for his nose. And watching as his flames melted the flesh from their bones was a sight from his most enjoyable dreams.
Burning these pests was something he could do all day.
Sebastian walked straight into the cave in front of him.
Black smoke oozed out of it, with goblins fleeing through the smoke wall into his hands and a fireball to the face.
Once inside, he wished for the smoke to disappear.
It was gone instantly. It was part of his spell, after all.
His Mana. He could control his Mana at will.
The spell followed his command, not the other way around.
With the now gone smoke, the cave was revealed before him. It was dark and deep. He summoned a small ball of fire to light up the area. Sebastian's eyes widened as he stared at the cave system.
"What the hell? How deep does this shit go?" He mumbled to himself, cursing himself for cursing.
The cave that was revealed was big. It had multiple tunnels that went in multiple directions. Some went straight down. Others angled slightly upward with another group having sharp turns or even junctures that split into more tunnels.
It would take years to explore this cave system on his own.
No. Even the whole town would take years.
Sebastian grimaced.
He had followed a group of greens back to their nest. He wanted to not only see how close they were to the town but also how much they had spread already. This spelled bad news.
"I guess, the Titan Spine Mountainside is truly as endless as the Verdant Expanse," Sebastian said and followed one tunnel at random.
Here and there he would find a lone goblin or two, running through the cave. Some went to investigate what had caused the shrieking and others were just there. They all died the same.
Their flesh melted. Their bones turned to ashes.
Sebastian entered one of the tunnels and poked his head around a corner. It went deeper. He followed the path along. The silence was deafening. But when he wasn't listening to the screams of the Goblins he preferred to be with his own thoughts.
It was a dead end.
Over the next couple of hours, Sebastian explored the tunnels. At first he wanted to leave after not finding anything. Then a frown appeared on his face and a theory inside his mind. That frown only deepened as he spent more time investigating.
"They are building...a home," Sebastian mumbled as he arrived at another dead end. But this dead end was not truly a dead end. At least you wouldn't call a bedroom at the end of a long hallway a dead end, would you?
Inside the tunnel, there were things carved into the walls.
In this case, the walls had small, coffin-sized rectangles in them.
They looked a little like shelves. However, they would perfectly fit a small goblin there.
And there were tens, if not hundreds, of these shelves along the walls up to the ceiling, all across the 'dead end' Sebastian was at.
There was even a ladder carved into the stone, allowing these small creatures to reach the top.
These were bunk beds.
These little fuckers were building an apartment complex inside the cave.
Sebastian grimaced even more at the thought.
He had heard of greens building homes. He heard of them creating villages or building houses.
However, most of the time, they lived extremely primitive lives, not even having campfires.
Their 'camps,' if one may refer to them as such, usually just consisted of them throwing their loot and weapons in a couple of piles and sleeping there.
Their homes only got more sophisticated with a leader.
An intelligent leader.
This wasn't uncommon per se. Shamans were even able to speak human language. However, to be able to control or command these little fuckers to build such a sophisticated home base and prepare for such a large number of greens meant two things.
One, the leader was far smarter than the average one.
Second, the leader felt comfortable enough to have a large number of greens under their command—meaning: he or she was strong.
This spelled bad news. It also practically guaranteed an attack on the Town.
Sebastian sighed and continued to walk through the tunnels. Here and there, he found a group of goblins, sometimes even orcs in the bigger tunnels. Luckily, it seemed the cavern system was barely populated.
This meant the greens weren't very far along.
Despite the certain doom this already spelled, it was good news. News that Sebastian had to bring back immediately. He hurried back through the tunnels, ignoring every other path he hadn't explored yet.
He didn't have the time.
It was then that he froze. Sebastian had just turned a corner before he felt something ominous ooze from the darkness of one of the tunnels. It was a downward slope that went up again.
Sebastian lifted his eyebrows. When was the last time he had felt something ominous?
He followed the path along, careful with his steps.
He didn't know who or what to expect. The closer he got to the upward slope, the stronger the feeling got.
He followed it carefully, still not able to see anything.
It was only when he reached the top and edge of the slope that he was finally able to see.
He squinted his eyes.
The tunnel fanned out into a big circular room, with high ceilings and smooth walls. Definitely a lot of work had been put here. Sebastian continued to observe the room, confused why it gave off such a wrong feeling when the ground lit up in a crimson light.
An intricate pattern glowed in a red light, and a buzzing sound filled the room. With each passing second, the light grew brighter and stronger, causing the butler to take a few steps back. Then, all of it stopped. The buzzing. The light. All of it was gone.
Sebastian's vision was part blurry, part white dots wherever he looked. It was only a second later that he noticed them.
Five Goblins.
Five fucking goblins were standing in front of Sebastian.
Now he recognized the symbol on the ground.
"Demonic Cultists," Sebastian gritted his teeth. "So, they were responsible for this mess."
The Goblins burned like no other. Hatred and vengeance fueled his flames of destruction. Not even ashes remained. What remained was cold-blooded rage running through his veins.
One that he could barely contain.
Sebastian looked around the cave but spotted nobody. He turned his attention back to the symbol on the ground and watched closely. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like there wasn't a summoner present. Rather, it was a portal that spewed out greens at a certain interval.
"Usually those are powered by mana crystals or built inside very mana-dense regions..." Sebastian mumbled, and automatically his hand traveled towards a secret pocket inside his suit he hadn't thought about in years.
He hesitated.
Then he looked back at the symbol.
"They are here too," he said and pulled out a small piece of paper that seemed to be nothing special. Then he began chanting. For a long time. Minutes later, the paper lit up in a golden flame and burned slowly. No smoke came from the paper. No ashes remained. The paper just disappeared.
Then it was gone.
"I hope they can get here soon enough."
***
Jason had been with the Temple of the Sun God for nearly a century now. He started as a foot soldier in a backwater kingdom. Then became a squire and worked his way up to knight, then inquisitor, and finally he became one of the Commanders, coordinating teams of Inquisitors and platoons of knights.
The man was sitting inside his study, rummaging through a few documents when one of his men burst through the door. Jason glared at the man, but knew he wouldn't dare to do so without a good reason.
"Sir! A distress signal has been sent out," the man began.
Jason lifted his eyebrows. This was nothing special. There were protocols in place, and he didn't have to be informed.
"It's from one of the few you have put under special attention."
This got Jason's attention. He motioned for the man to come closer and give him the distress signal. It was a white piece of paper. Jason fed it mana, and his eyes widened slightly. A large reaction for a war veteran such as himself.
"Where did the distress signal come from?" Jason asked.
"Blackfire Kingdom, near what they call the Barren Lands."
The Kingdom's name made him freeze. He recovered hastily.
"Do we have a branch over there?"
"We do, one of the saintess/saint candidates just went there as a delegate and opened it up. From what I know, she is still there," his man answered.
"Send them."
The man hurried off.
Jason looked at the sender of the distress signal. Usually, they were anonymous. But there were a few that had names attached to them. This one was such a particular one.
"Sebastian," Jason sighed. "What the fuck are you doing?"
***
-Ivor-
I woke up hungover. One would think that an alcoholic like this previous Ivor Harvings would have some kind of resistance to alcohol, but nope. I was a fucking lightweight. Gerald had to bring me back into my bed because I passed out.
Well, at least now it made sense why I also didn't feel any alcohol withdrawal after coming to this world. It was like I was reset. I guess it wouldn't have been very fun to deal with shaking and cold sweat from the withdrawal the first couple of weeks.
"Well, maybe, if it meant this fucking headache would go away," I groaned, and tried to sit up. My head pounded from the movement and I gave up. "Later. I will sit up later."
As I questioned my life choices inside my bed, I saw a small little cat jump to my window from the outside. With my blurry vision, it took me a second to realize that the cat had something in her mouth.
A dead rat.
Inky crouched, waited for my eyes to widen in horror, and jumped from the window into my bed, the limp rat dangling inside her mouth. She hopped across my bed sheets before arriving next to my head and laying down the dead rat next to my face.
"INKY!" I screamed, and threw the rat off my bed.
A mistake.
I clutched my head.
"What the hell are you doing!" I whispered angrily.
The cat tilted her head in confusion.
I knew she understood me.
"Why the FUCK would you bring a dead rat into my bed?"
She purred and nudged me with her head.
Oh, I remembered. She was taking care of me. At least that's what cats did on Earth. Some of them brought their owners dead animals as a way to show affection.
Now, Inky here...was not such an idiot.
I knew that she knew exactly what she was doing.
"Inky..." I collapsed into my bed.
A few minutes later, the dead rat was picked from the ground. The cat jumped back to the window, dropped the corpse down, and jumped back to me before nestling inside my arms.
I hated this fucking cat.
After a few minutes of tussling against the beast and losing horribly, I decided to look at my gains. I had specifically waited and delayed my notifications so they wouldn't interfere while I was fighting.
It was Gerald who actually taught me that.
You could adjust your System a tiny bit.
Not by much. But with experience and time, there were a few things the man had discovered.
Another thing you could do was change the blue tone of your system.
You could make it more hollow, or a deeper shade of blue, etc.
Anyway, I pushed these thoughts away as a wave of notifications overran me.
Unarmed Combat [Uncommon] has reached level 2.
Unarmed Combat [Uncommon] has reached level 3.
Mana Manipulation [Uncommon] has reached level 11.
Commanding Presence [Common] has reached level 5.
Commanding Presence [Common] has reached level 6.
Commanding Presence [Common] has reached level 7.
Martial Forms [Uncommon] has reached level 2.
The progress was good, if not as good as what I gained from my Simulations.
I grew a little bitter thinking about Tom, but ignored those feelings. It was my first time executing somebody. I pushed myself off my bed, placed Inky on my shoulder where she purred in delight, and went towards the shower. Sensing something wrong, the cat tried to run away. I held her tight.
I took the coldest shower of my life that day.
Once I was done with my revenge, I put on my clothes and went out of my room.
Now it was time to fully prepare my Town for the incoming Beast Wave.