"Be careful!" Oswald shouted. I barely paid his warning any attention, so focused was I on avoiding the acid spewed by the monster pitcher plant in front of me.
Known as the giant pitcher, the jar-shaped monster ensnared its prey with vines before dragging them into its mouth and swallowing them whole. Inside that bulbous body was concentrated hydrochloric acid that could melt flesh in seconds.
Occasionally, the giant pitcher was capable of spitting a stream of acid at its targets, destroying them with the highly corrosive fluids. Jumping away, I watched as a patch of grass dissolved away into nothing.
Snarling, the giant pitcher swung its vines toward me, but I drew the black sword that I had taken from the armory and sliced them apart. Avoiding another spittle of acid, which caused a tree behind me to disintegrate fully, I then cleaved the giant pitcher into two. The poor creature hit the ground, its gastric juices flowing out and dissolving the area around it.
"Whoa…you're strong!"
Oswald was staring at me in amazement. I shook my head and waved dismissively.
"Nah, I'm normal. Kelvin, how about you?"
"Done." The kobold reared from the monstrous boar that had charged at us from the opposite direction. His claws had gouged a huge chunk of flesh from the poor creature and reputed its throat, almost killing it instantly. "We can have meat tonight."
"Sounds good to me," I said. Then I bent down and captured a baby pitcher, which was the size of my hand.
"Eh? What are you doing?" Oswald asked when he spotted me dropping the struggling plant monster into a pouch. I smiled.
"I'm thinking that such a monster might prove useful to me in future."
"Heh…" the orc shrugged. Then he turned to Kelvin, who was busily dismantling the monstrous boar he had just killed. "Actually, you don't have to worry about meat. We're near my village. It's less than an hour away from here. I'll treat you guys to a feast when we reach there."
"Oh! Sounds good! But I'll bring this boar along as a gift for your village!" Kelvin barked out in laughter. "We can't take advantage of our hosts and receive a free meal!"
"Uh, right." Oswald didn't seem convinced, but he didn't dare to argue with the ferocious kobold. He continued to hack his way through the dense foliage with the jeweled mace that he had taken from the treasury.
"Careful," I told him. Oswald nodded and broke a branch, only for a venomous snake to slither along its length and strike. Before it could sink its fangs into the orc's arm, I hurled one of my daggers and stabbed its head. The serpent went limp and slid off the broken branch.
I recovered the dagger, feeling a twinge in my chest when I recalled the deaths of Arlen and Arnold. I didn't blame Garviel and his platoon for killing the brother dwarves – such was the consequence of war – but I mourned their deaths all the same.
"Thanks!" Oswald told me, looking a little apologetic. I waved casually.
"Lead the way."
True to his word, Oswald was able to lead us to his village in under an hour. It was a relatively tiny settlement by the forest, a small tribe of orcs that survived by hunting and mating.
"I'm back!" Oswald hollered as he strode in. I watched in surprise when a bunch of massive orcs lumbered forward to greet us.
Most of them were female. As Oswald said, the males were mostly killed during the war, never to return. A lot of the female orcs were widowed. They gazed at me hungrily, but Oswald quickly interposed himself.
"He's not for you. He's a friend." He then gestured at Kelvin. "They are both friends. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have survived to return here."
"At least you came back to me now," one of the female orcs said as she embraced him. She turned to Kelvin and me, bowing deeply. "I am Oliva, Oswald's wife. Thank you very much for rescuing my husband."
"What about my husband, Oswald?"
"And mine?"
"Have you seen my brother?"
The rest of the female orcs mobbed poor Oswald, demanding answers from him. He answered them as best as he could, and I could see the anguish and grief on their hideous features when he broke the bad news to them.
Despite their inhuman features, I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. Even though they were demons, they still experienced the same tragedy and emotions as us humans.
"Why is a human helping you?" one of the female orcs asked suspiciously. "Aren't they supposed to be our mortal enemies?"
"Yeah!" another orc snarled, grabbing a machete. "It was the humans who took our husbands from us! Their greed and ambition that led them to slaughtering our men!"
"We can't forgive them!"
"Calm down!" Oswald pleaded. "He's not a human! He's a demon like us!"
"Eh? He is?"
Not wanting to put Oswald on the spot and complicate matters, I went along with what he knew. Besides, Oswald was telling the truth. I was no longer human.
"He's a vampire," Oswald explained. I grinned and showed them my newly developed fangs. Well, by that point they weren't recent because I already had them for a few months.
"If you're not convinced, I wouldn't mind sparring with you." I held up a hand and conjured a hail of blood stakes. The female orcs' eyes widened and they backed away.
"No…no. we apologize for the disrespect, sir vampire!"
"We meant no offence!"
"I know, I know." I raised both hands to placate them. "You have lost so much to the war. I understand your feelings."
Inwardly, I couldn't help but be irritated. The demons weren't the only ones who suffered during the war. They had accused humans of ambition and greed, but weren't the demons the same? The Demonic Emperor was the one who invaded our lands, pillaged our villages and settlements, and raped our women. They had ruthlessly murdered courageous men who stood up to them. I had seen orcs on more than one occasion cruelly butcher an entire platoon of soldiers who were bravely protecting a village from their raids.
There was always two sides to a coin, though.
After Oswald dealt with the women of his tribe, he managed to get me and Kelvin a place to stay. A hut that belonged to one of his comrades…who had been killed during a war before Oswald deserted. Since the occupant was no longer here, the orcs were fine with allowing me and Kelvin to use it for our temporary stay.
Then we set about gathering information. Even though they were a small tribe, the female orcs kept in touch with news from the bigger towns and cities. They had been doing so in order to gather news regarding their husbands, brothers and sons. Needless to say, given the current level of technology, they weren't able to receive specific news on the people they were searching for.
However, the bigger news – which turned out to be important for the likes of me and Kelvin – were being spread all over the empire. Having trekked through Shadowmoor Forest for the last few days, and being isolated and imprisoned in the dungeon before that, my little group weren't able to get our hands on those important news.
"His majesty has fallen," Olivia explained to us when we could finally settle down and talk. Oswald had invited me and Kelvin to his home for the promised feast, and his elderly mother was chopping up the boar that the kobold had brought to the village as a gift. "The empire is in turmoil. Right now, the surviving divine generals have split up and dispersed to their respective strongholds, but the imperial army is no longer united. They have been split into…privatized legions."
"With the death of his majesty, there is no longer an overall leader to take command, and obviously the divine generals aren't going to subordinate themselves to anyone else." Kelvin sighed in frustration. "Did his majesty not appoint a successor?"
"No." Olivia shook her head. "You know how it works. The crest will appear only on the one deemed fit by the gods to succeed his majesty and become the new Demonic Emperor. No one else has the right to rule."
"So until a new emperor emerges, our imperial forces are essentially divided and broken." Oswald sagged. "We've lost the war."
"The good news, however, is that the humans have taken terrible casualties," Olivia explained. "They are forced to retreat back to their kingdom and rebuild their forces. They no longer have the strength to invade our empire and occupy our territories. Even though we are no longer a unified force, the individual legions belonging to the divine generals are successful in driving the human military out of their territories and inflicting unsustainable losses on the enemy."
No wonder there was only a single squad left to garrison the castle. I thought back to Garviel and his squad. Back then, I found it strange that there were so few human soldiers left in there, but come to think of it, it was an indication of how thinly stretched the human forces were.
Kelvin studied the map that Olivia had spread across the table in front of us. "The legion that needs most help is the Witch of Winter's. Currently her forces are hard-pressed across the border, especially since her lands are closest to the northern territory of Havan Kingdom."
"I guess so." Olivia shrugged. Unlike her husband, she was not military trained and thus did not understand the overall strategical picture or the movements of the armies. "But I heard the humans are planning to throw a celebration. They view this as a great triumph."
"They are probably satisfied with assassinating his majesty and dividing our forces," Oswald mused. "I don't think they are interested in conquering our lands."
"Yeah, it's not like there is anything of value to them here."
Having been a human, I understood. Although there was arable land in the demonic empire, the crops grown here were not suitable for human consumption. There were few ore, minerals or precious materials, and logging in the demonic forests was far too dangerous because of the demonic beasts and plant monsters living here. And demons obviously did not make for good slaves or laborers because of how untamable and dangerous they were.
"Who can say?" Olivia snorted, obviously not buying my reasoning. The bias against humans was strong among demons. Not that I was in any position to criticize them for it. The humans possessed similar prejudice against demons.
"I guess the best plan now is to head for the Witch of Winter's territory and join her legion," Kelvin muttered to himself. Oswald smiled wryly.
"Sorry, but I'll be staying to protect my village. I won't be coming with you."
"I never counted on it," Kelvin replied disdainfully. He still hadn't forgiven Oswald for deserting, but at least his attitude had softened somewhat toward the timid orc. I cleared my throat.
"Sorry, but you'll have to go on your own, Kelvin."
The kobold looked shocked. "You're staying here too?"
"No. I'm heading to Havan Kingdom."
"Huh?!" Not just Oswald and Kelvin, but even Olivia was staring at me in shock. I held up both hands and gestured to myself.
"Given my appearance, I can pass off as human. So I will be able to easily infiltrate the human kingdom and collect information. I will contribute more to the war effort by gathering vital intelligence."
"Ho…very true." Kelvin nodded. "That is indeed a very smart plan."
"Also…" I grinned and leaned over, sliding my finger across the map and poking at the region that represented Havan Kingdom. "When the opportunity arises, I will assassinate an entire Hero party. That will weaken their forces considerably and deal a big blow to their morale."
"Assassinate?" Oswald repeated incredulously.
"Yup," I affirmed, my grin growing wider. "And I already decided on the targets."
To be more precise, I had decided on the targets even before I had become a vampire. The entire reason why I was determined to survive against all odds…it was to enact my revenge on the fuckers who betrayed me.
Herman. Irene. Bradley. Miranda. Yvonne. Alan.
I was going to make sure each and every one of them pay in full, plus interest, for what they did to me.