Chapter 177: Malevolent Flower (3)

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The rest of the surgery proceeded without a hitch. Daisy no longer passed out or let out pained cries. She would sometimes let out a beast-like groan, though.

“Kuh, uh.”

She was biting her lips. They were torn and blood was flowing out, but Daisy didn’t seem to notice this. It was because of the acute pain piercing through her body. The pain she felt from the surgery was probably overwhelmingly stronger than the pain from her lips.

The room became quiet.

Jeremi was completely silent as if all the talking she was doing earlier never happened. The procedure was carried out calmly and quietly. During this time, Daisy and I were glaring at each other.

Her eyes were as deep as wells.

Her resentment was surging up from her deepest depths like sewage. I gladly received Daisy’s gaze. I have already witnessed several scenes of pandemonium. A few droplets of resentment wasn’t enough to make it overflow. The two of us stared at each other until the surgery came to an end.

“……It is finished, Your Highness.”

Jeremi let out a sigh. She had sewn Daisy’s chest back together and was sterilizing it with a towel soaked in vinegar.

“This child is now Your Highness’ slave. You may order her however you please.”

“Do not harm me. Do not harm the people close to me. If I or the people I care for are ever in danger, do not ignore me or them.”

I didn’t break eye contact as I continued.

“You will obey my orders and prioritize my life over your own. These are the first orders that I am giving to you. From this point forth, you must obey these orders thoroughly.

“……Yes.”

Daisy’s head dropped before she could even finish saying that single word. She had passed out with her eyes open.

「You have subordinated Daisy as your slave!」

「Your slave’s status window will be completely revealed to you regardless of their affection rate. A ‘subservience level’ will be added to the slave’s status window.」

「Atrocious subservience!」

「A vassal relationship has been established through a powerful magical seal. However, the other party has not acknowledged you as their owner even slightly. Due to the atrociously low subservience, a new title will be given to the other party.」

A bunch of holographic notifications appeared along with a sound effect.

“Hm.”

It was amusing. When I recruited Laura as a subordinate, her loyalty immediately reached the highest it could possibly be, while for Daisy, something called atrocious subservience appeared. It seems that only the extremes of things happen to me all the time.

It didn’t matter. It was fine as long as she couldn’t fight back against me. I can slowly handle the other problems gradually over time. My journey to start a civil war in Frankia has only just begun. I’m overflowing with time.

The notification windows didn’t end there.

「Congratulations! You have obtained your first slave. An ‘education’ window will now be activated in regard to the slave.」

「Daisy’s Resistance Seal (Lv. 3) has increased!」

「Daisy’s Pain Seal (Lv. 3) has increased!」

「Daisy’s Humiliation Seal (Lv. 1) has increased!」

……This was also an unfamiliar window.

There was no slave function in Dungeon Attack where you turned NPCs into slaves. An education window? This was my first time seeing it.

This was now the second time I was witnessing a function that didn’t exist in the game. The first one was the quest breaker. This was probably the difference between being the hero and a Demon Lord. I should take my time looking over this later.

I have to praise the person who contributed the most to the surgery right now.

“You did well, Jeremi.”

I patted Jeremi on the shoulder.

“I made you do extra work.”

“It was a pleasure. We were hired to carry out Your Highness’ orders.”

“No. I still wish to reward you.”

Surgeons also get severely exhausted while performing surgeries.

Furthermore, engraving a seal on a heart was a procedure that required immense skill. It wasn’t something that could be carried out halfheartedly. It was only possible for Jeremi who had received the surgery once and also carried it out several times.

“You are the one who prepared the potions, the mandrake, and the incense. It would only harm my image if I were to take advantage of such a capable individual for free. I will grant you a reward that is within my capabilities.”

Jeremi brought her hand to her chin and thought.

“If Your Highness insists……would it be all right for this humble one to make a selfish request?”

“Go ahead. I vow on Goddess Artemis’ name.”

I grabbed her hands with my own like a priest and bowed my head.

“Pfft. Y-Your Highness, being a priest really suits you.”

“If I were not a Demon Lord, then I would have probably become a high priest.”

Jeremi gave a refreshing laugh.

A man and a woman laughed in a room that was soaked in a 10-year-old girl’s blood. There was nothing about this that looked sane. Even more so if you consider the fact that both of their emotions had not budged despite laughing on the outside.

Jeremi spoke.

“Your Highness, could you tell me who this girl is?”

“Mm. I was hoping that you would ask for money, but I guess this was to be expected…….”

I brought the bottle of wine that was on a table in a corner of the room. The taste of the wine felt rather sour due to the smell of the fragrance that was still pungent in the room.

“This one has watched over Your Highness as you planned out the Crescent Alliance and carried out your plan. As I told you before, that period of time was one of the rare moments that this humble one ever felt satisfaction. What Your Highness is thinking and what you are aiming for, these are the things that this humble one is the most curious about.”

Despite her curiosity, Jeremi had remained quiet until now.

Even while we were assaulting the slash-and-burn village, threatening the villagers, and luring Luke away, Jeremi never questioned me. She did as I ordered. She had suppressed her curiosity since she believed that she would be going out of line if she were to ask any questions.

Jeremi only chose to ask me this after I gave her the right to do so. She clearly understood when to approach a matter and when to back down.

She truly was a professional. Her being a part of the best assassin group in the demon world wasn’t an exaggeration.

“Very well, then. Jeremi, what I am going to tell you is a top secret among top secrets.”

“I vow to never leak this information to anyone.”

“Do you know what a hero is?”

Jeremi nodded. She took out her pipe and put the powder she had used during the surgery into the pipe before lighting it.

“Yes. I apologize, but I am aware that that is a title given to the person who slaughters Demon Lords.”

“This girl here and her brother will become heroes.”

“I see.”

Jeremi blew a puff of smoke into the air above. The woman with a burn mark across half her face was smiling modestly.

“Where you had obtained this information……would it be possible for this humble one to know this as well?”

“Would you believe me if I told you it was a prophecy?”

“Of course, O Great Being.”

I had said that as a joke, but contrary to my expectation, Jeremi took it seriously.

I gulped down a mouthful of wine.

“It will not end with the life of only one or two Demon Lords. Numerous Demon Lords will lose their lives……. I came here to the Frankia Empire in order to stop this.

“She definitely does have a monstrous amount of magic inside of her.”

Jeremi seemed to understand something on her own as she nodded her head twice. Her curiosity was apparently solved with that. No, it felt like her interest had gone elsewhere. I had resolved myself since I thought she would keep questioning me…….

Well, if she comprehended something, then there was no need for me to get more involved.

I turned away. 

The girl’s flushed, naked body was powerlessly bound to the wooden table that was now a mess. She had twisted and turned so much during the surgery that the areas of her skin that were covered by the shackles had become torn.

‘Status.’

A disgustingly refreshing bell sound rang out.

A status window far more detailed than anything I had seen before was displayed before me―and I was shocked.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Name: DaisyRace: Human　　 Master: DantalianAttribute: Neutral(0)

Level: 1　　　　Fame: 1Job: Adventurer( – ), Swordsman( – )

Leadership: 9/100　　Might: 13/140 　　Intelligence: 13/125Politics: 9/95　　Charm: 10/100　　Technique: 8/81

Affection: 0Subservience: 0

*Titles: 1. Legendary Adventurer ( – ) 2. Legendary Mercenary ( – ) 3. Dungeon Breaker ( – )*Abilities: Tactics( – ), Swordsmanship( – ), Operation Arts( – ), Persuasion( – ), Horsemanship( – ), Elemental Magic ( – )*Skills: Volunteer Soldier ( – ), Clarity( – ), Lethal Move Nullify ( – )

Current thought: This cannot be displayed due to the influence of the affection and subservience stats.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“…….”

Was this what it means to become speechless?

I felt the blood draining away from my head. My entire body felt like it was becoming stone.

I’ve seen these stats before.

No. It wasn’t just that I had seen them, they were incredibly familiar to me. These stats, titles, abilities, and skills……all of them, all of these things were familiar to me……. My limbs became paralyzed due to the shock.

‘This.’

It was obvious.

I was the first one to conquer all 72 dungeons on the fansite and even found the Great Demon Lord’s hidden dungeon to defeat Baal. I overcame numerous failures and repeated dozens of playthroughs and received a castle called Mundus from the rulers of the human world.

‘These are my character’s stats.’

This was the one and only thing I held in pride.

The stat limits, skills, abilities, and titles that I had shed tears, blood, and sweat to obtain were here.

I felt like I was possessed by something as I pried deeper into the status window.

***

[Titles]

***

“…….”

After those.

***

[Skills]

***

“……Ha.”

I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

Everything I saw before me were the things I achieved after going through the hardest possible difficulty.

For example, the title <Dungeon Breaker> and the skill <Clarity> meshed together. Let’s say that your might was at 100. If this character were to fight inside a dungeon, the title <Dungeon Breaker> would increase their strength to 140 and then the skill <Clarity> would increase that further to 196. Your might would basically be getting doubled.

This was the result that I had barely managed to obtain after thinking for many hours about which titles and skills I had to obtain to get the best possible result.

It was already a close call knowing that there could’ve been two heroes and not only one…….

‘Now they’re copying my player data?’

I could only mock myself.

“Ha, haha.”

It seems that this world was a lot more messed up than I thought it was.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. Welp, I guess we get to see just how overpowered the heroes are. Well, if they were allowed to develop normally, that is. Who knows how Dantalian intends to raise them. 

I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.