BXBX NOVEL Chapter 586 - Hunter
Chapter 586: Hunter
The previous rulers of the Hass Oasis had all taxed any merchants who travelled through here. However, when the rich and powerful Roan Carolyn took over the Hass Oasis, he reduced all tariffs to zero. Although this obviously reduced tariff income to nothing, this brought more than ten times the number of merchant caravans to the Hass Oasis. Soon, this “foolish” policy became viewed as the number one reason for the Hass Oasis’s astounding flourishment.
Perhaps some people would say that this was only a simple strategy. However, good policies with good intentions would often bring about negative consequences—not because of the policy or intention, but because of lax enforcement.
In order to truly have the Hass Oasis benefit from this policy, many other factors would have to be taken into consideration. The Hass Oasis would need to eliminate other elements that might impede merchants from visiting here. They would need to eliminate bandits, deal with competitors, send out regular patrols to hunt down magical beasts, develop safe rest areas in the desert, and so on. None of this would be simple. On the way here to the Hass Oasis, I had already listened to Cassandra praise her father Roan endlessly.
But when we finally arrived, I felt like this city wasn’t nearly as friendly as she described it to be.
As I walked around the capital of the desert, I felt many hostile gazes directed at me. The guards, who were equipped with black batons, were all staring at me with unfriendly expressions.
“…I haven’t done anything, have I?”
When even all the local tieflings were looking at me with such vigilance, I finally realized what was going on.
“This place is too xenophobic.”
“That’s not it. It’s just that our Hass Oasis was almost conquered twice already due to information provided by spies from other species. You’re an unknown human who just arrived, and it’s obvious that you’re in a warrior job class.”
Even though Cassandra Carolyn had just returned to her own city, she still covered herself with a thick cape as if she was hiding from someone.
“…Then why did nobody even try to stop me or ask any questions when I entered the Hass Oasis?”
“That’s because every time that the Hass Oasis was attacked from both inside and out, the traitors on the inside were always local tieflings. Our enemies finally discovered that as long as they paid enough money, tieflings wouldn’t hold much loyalty to their own tribe. Local tieflings would also be much cheaper to hire than spies from other species.”
Alright then, I could now pretty much guess why Cassandra was still hiding her presence despite having returned to her own city.
She was worried that the ones trying to assassinate her still hadn’t given up? Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say that she had no confidence in the ordinary guards and their ability to protect her life.
Still, it was annoying being stared at with such hostility by all the tieflings. So, I sprouted two dragon horns on my head and added dragon wings to my back while beginning to emanate an aura of demonization. The tieflings here instantly stopped viewing me with such hostility.
However, with my current appearance, why did it remind me of a certain character… I really wanted to quote the line “You are not prepared” here, but felt like I was rather bored of quoting things from my original world that nobody would understand.
“Um, adventurer, could you take me home? My family is probably searching for me. There will be a great reward for you.”
Cassandra kept blinking as she recalled her etiquette teacher’s lessons in diplomacy. She used her most sincere words to invite the “human cannibal” adventurer to her home as a guest, but she was actually cursing at him in her heart.
‘You actually dared to scare me to the point where I peed my pants… You dare to scare a lady? Just watch what my father will do to you!’
Cassandra wasn’t angry to the point where she would repay the benefactor who’d saved her life with evil intentions. However, she still intended to take some minor revenge. Cassandra was a scion who had only experienced a wonderful life up until now; she would feel aggrieved unless she was able to minorly get back at him.
“No need, it’s too troublesome. Where are the most famous taverns, bars, and restaurants in this area?”
Even without seeing the flickering expression in the redhead’s eyes that gave her intentions away, I fully knew that she intended to do something to me. It might be something as harmless as a naughty child’s prank, all the way to an attempt to murder me. That would depend on how evil her personality was.
I refused not because I was afraid, but rather because I didn’t want any trouble. Yep, it definitely wasn’t because I was starving to the point of not wanting to move!
“How could any restaurants here possibly compare to my family? Our family’s chef is a super chef that we invited over from Shaloyu’s most famous tavern. All the food supplies in our family are purchased from thousands of kilometers away…”
“Okay, I’ll go visit your family.”
In front of my stomach, I would simply allow my face or whatever to be gone with the wind.
But, I suddenly felt an evil wind above me that caused a chill to run down my spine. It felt as if I had been targeted by a vicious beast.
I raised my head, and saw in the sky a figure that I had seen just several days ago.
“Lasnina!?”
She now appeared far more wretched compared to last week. The thick dark circles under her eyes indicated that she had slept quite poorly over this time. Her long hair hadn’t been combed and was a mess. Her originally beautiful appearance was diminished yet again.
The bandages and streaks of blood on her body indicated that she had been unable to escape from the aftereffects of my “Stare of the Hell God” ability. That was likely why she hadn’t slept well over the past week.
“Damn it, have I wasted too much time in the desert?”
I felt that it would be impossible to have tracked me down. Even the most wondrous prophecy magic in the world would be unable to find my existence in the river of Fate. It would also be nothing more than a joke to think of tracking someone through endless sand. In that case, I must have stayed here in the 102nd level for far too long. She probably followed me here after a tip from Voka, and used the process of elimination to search for me in each and every city here.
Since Lasnina was openly floating above the oasis, this naturally caught much attention from the residents of the Hass Oasis. Some aerial knights riding on gigantic bats and a mage had already flown up to approach Lasnina, who was below the clouds.
However, the Devil Lord casually waved her hand, and sent down some chain lightning that ignited all the aerial knights. Even the black-robed mage who had a spell shield around him was unable to resist this. All of them were instantly vaporized.
This evil invader made it perfectly clear that she had nothing but vicious intentions towards the Hass Oasis. The city’s alarm bells instantly started ringing as all the residents began preparing for war.
More powerful mages and guards walked out of their fortresses and mage towers. Numerous attack magic spells formed on top of their mage towers. As the Hass Oasis was the single most important merchant city in the entire area, it was naturally heavily defended.
However, Lasnina seemed to completely ignore the threats gathering to attack her as she silently recited a curse.
Black magic spread in the air, tainting the clouds in the sky black. Judging by how much magic power was gathered and how those clouds were now turning a dark green, Lasnina was about to give everyone a lesson about what a forbidden spell was truly like.
“Don’t let her finish casting that spell!”
Of course, there were some mages in the Hass Oasis that recognized how powerful her spell was. If this dark green curse magic forbidden spell was allowed to finish, it was likely that the entire Hass Oasis would become nothing more than another patch of sand in this endless desert of the 102nd level.
“She hunted me down all this way in such a method? Just how many cities has she destroyed along the way?”
I was confident that she actually had no clue that I was currently in the Hass Oasis. That was because it would be utmost foolishness to immediately start attacking with such a powerful forbidden spell. While her type of forbidden spell would have incredible attack power and a tremendous AOE, the very fact that it was an AOE would mean that it wouldn’t even be as effective as a single-target nine circle spell against powerful individuals like myself. In that case, this could only mean that she felt like destroying this entire city.
“…I don’t know where you are right now, but as long as I keep destroying all these cities, you’ll appear before me sooner or later.”
Perhaps it was in order to vent her anger. Perhaps it was in order to cut off her enemy’s supplies. Perhaps it was in consideration of how naïvely heroic most Holy Knights would be. In this past week, while Roland was busy messing around in the desert, the “insane Devil Lord” had caused a horrifying calamity upon the 102nd level of the Chaos Abyss!
Previously in the 75th level of the Chaos Abyss, that level still had some semblance of order to it due to having Snake God Voka being in charge. That type of situation had obscured the truth of what the Chaos Abyss was really like.
From a certain standpoint, everything that happened in the Chaos Abyss where no single existence ruled supreme anymore was the true face of the Chaos Abyss—a wild environment where only the law of the jungle reigned supreme.
In the countless levels of the Chaos Abyss, people and entire cities were being destroyed constantly at every second, and many times the deaths of the weak were nothing more than source of amusement for the strong.
“Curse her!”
“Milord, please have mercy and spare us!”
“Why? Why? Why is she attacking us?”
The angry roars and pleading of the ants underneath Lasnina reached her ears. She actually smiled gleefully upon hearing this. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that she was in a hurry to find Roland, she would have behaved like she usually would, and cursed the entire city of the Hass Oasis, making the ants beneath her die as slowly and painfully as possible.
She suddenly felt like perhaps she could have a fun vacation here by spending an entire year listening to their death screams and curses against her.
A reason for this? Would you need a reason for casually stepping on an ant? Do you still remember how many annoying mosquitos you’ve killed before?
Perhaps there were some people out there who spat upon Order. But, when even the most basic amount of Order was completely nonexistent, when those with power had zero restraints upon them, when the powerful viewed the weak as nothing more than ants below them, it was only natural that anything could happen.
A large-scale slaughter? Nope, never happened. Got any witnesses? Oh, everyone’s dead? Then there’s no evidence that I ever committed such a slaughter!
What, you’re saying that I bombed a neutral medical facility and diplomatic embassy? That was just an accident! I wasn’t careful, and used a map from ten years ago along with some wrong information. I suppose I could send you my condolences.
Oh, you’re saying that I’ve caused calamity, famine, and waves of refugees? That’s just an unfortunate accident. It’s their own fault for having an evil master!
You want an apology and compensation? No way, I’ve already told you that it was only an unfortunate accident! Since it was only an accident, don’t think too much into it! Yep, allow me to send you my condolences again.
War crimes? Haha, young one, no matter what world it is, war is forever occurring. It’s just that you might not know about it.
When there were zero restrictions on the powerful individuals, and when the simple act of using force would bring tremendous personal benefits, even the most horrifying of evil actions would become a daily occurrence.
And to take this a step further, once evil actions became habitual, a daily occurrence, personal benefits were no longer necessary when causing slaughter and bringing destruction to entire countries. If the person doing so thought it was fun, that was enough.
Such individuals were nothing more than combat machines that had become totally addicted to slaughter and destruction. In the end, they would destroy far more than just themselves.
Over the past five days, Lasnina had already destroyed a total of 36 cities. The Hass Oasis would be the 37th city that she was about to destroy. To be honest, she had already given up on using the process of elimination to find Roland in the 102nd level. She knew that it was highly likely that he had left this dimension already after a week.
However, the endless slaughter, destruction, and victims’ howls of pain gave her immense pleasure, just like a drug addiction. It made her feel wonderful all over to see the ants begging for mercy and dying in extreme pain while being stomped to death by her. It made her feel like the injuries on her body no longer hurt.
For someone like Lasnina, who had been committing evil deeds for countless millennia already, the attack that she’d received from her own soul’s conscience not only failed to help her reobtain the conscience she’d abandoned so long ago, but it even made her angry to the point where all she wanted to do was vent her own pain on every single weakling that she saw.
“Hahaha, cry, scream, and die for me!”
Her hysterical laughter echoed loudly above the Hass Oasis city. But, the next instant, a transparent sword of ice pierced right through her heart.
Lasnina looked around with an expression of disbelief. Meanwhile, the ice blade piercing through her heart was burning furiously.
The assassin that suddenly showed himself in the clouds had extravagantly beautiful wings. His War Angel form had fiery wings that were emanating an astonishing amount of heat and Holy Light.
This sword-wielding angel furiously roared, directly dispersing the cursed dark green clouds that Lasnina had been preparing. His killing intent was so overwhelming that it was obvious for all to see.
“Lasnina! It’s time for you to receive your judgement!”