Two days after the demon lord Arana left for DSQ I summoned a small army (of nearly two thousand) Bugbears. Warriors simmilar to goblins, but strong enough to stand toe to toe with same number of ogres. I named their chief Vaizan and he evolved into Bugbear lord.
"I made a floor just for them so I hope they will prove themselves."
"I'm sure they will, darling," Lizzie helped me tighten my new light armor that was made from mithril and Fire and Ice pearls we got from our mine, "by the way, what will we use for transportation? My warp spell can't take entire army. Ten people at most."
"Those guys can just run. And as for us, I will summon Prixens."
"You mean those fire breathing unicorns?"
"Yep, those are the guys I'm gonna summon. Yuki, if everything goes as planned, then we will be back in three days."
"Understood master, I will hold the fort with miss Renzir and sir Traich," Yuki bowed and left the room.
"Let's head out too, then."
"Yes."
We walked through the throne room and exited the dungeon by connecting it with the entery. On the freezing plains, our army of Bugbears was preparing to head out. Little to the side I noticed Skaly training with Vaizan, the bugbear lord.
"For someone who uses morningstar in each hand, you aren't really good," Skaly sneered.
"Says someone who hides behind a shield! Fight me properly woman!" Vaizan tried taunting her, but was met with cold laugh.
"So the mightiest of all Bugbears can't even surpass one measly shield made from ice? I guess you are more of a bug then a bear."
"I would kill you for those words usually but boss would let my head fly if I did that. So I'll just beat you here!!!"
"What are you doing?" I said in cold, tired voice.
Bugbears are not the most reliable when in smaller numbers as they value their lives more then loyalty to their masters. Henceforth I summoned a lot of them to give them a feeling of safety, but even if all of them decided to run away, I could kill them all before making three steps. That being said even if they tried to ambush me, it would result in their deaths.
"Boss! We were just training!" Vaizan instantly went to a knee, while Skaly smiled broadly and jumped to my side.
"Vaizan just wanted to know which one of us is stronger, so I humored him a little!" Skaly smiled at me as she held my hand. She was now better at controling her Knight of Niflheim skill which allowed her to create ice armor on her clothes and she could also spread freezing aura around her body. I'm not really sure when, but she evolved from Frost to Dark frost, which is stronger variation of same type of monster.
"Well, this is not important now. We will start the march! All hands on your weapons and start moving! (Summon: Prixen 3x)"
"Yes sir!" the bugbears answeared as one. The prixens that appeared behind me let out three pillars of flames from their mouths, which may inspired the bugbears to start moving swiftly.
When it came to their weaponry, all of them were divided to three groups by the kind of weapon they favorited. One group, which Vaizan was apart of, favorited morningstars with Vaizan being the most proficient with said weapon and using one in each hand. Second group specialized in weapon called Dolabra, which was one handed axe with wavy dagger-like blade on the other side. And finaly last group favorited spears, this group was the most numerous of them all.
Not even a single one of them could use magic. Well, Vaizan can highten morale of his followers with a howl, but he learned that after becoming 'Lord'.
"It will take us a day to arrive at spring of Yallo river. After that is done we will continue to Hill giant village I found previously."
Interesting thing I found about creating dungeon area is that I can encircle piece of land and turn it into my dungeon area as a whole without flying through the entire piece of land by spending 10% more DP. That is also the reason for my Dungeon area's borders being stright lines.
"So, how many settlements did you find?" Lizzie asked.
"I found three goblin villages, one Hill giant village and one kobold settlement."
"Kobolds? Those half dogs half idiots?" Lizzie couldn't belive her ears.
"Yeah, I also thought that they were eradicated on this side of the Snowy mountains. Well, if they don't listen to my words, we will plunder them."
"Well, they are on your land after all. And it's not like we would make them foot soldiers all of a sudden," Lizzie smiled broadly.
"Master, you didn't happen to find any Frost giants, right?" Skaly asked holding rains of her horse carefully.
"No I didn't. In the entire place I searched through, not a single one. Would you like me to search for them?"
"No, that's okay. I was just curious becouse of the kids," Skaly answeared.
"I see. Okay, I will inform you if someone pops up."
"Thank you," Skaly bowed on her prixen and we continued our journey.
We arrived at the spring of Yallo river late that evening and created a camp.
The next day we decided that I would lead advance of two hundread bugbears towards the Hill giant village while Lizzie would lead her own group to the goblins and Skaly would go to the Kobolds who's movements started to look little weird.
The remaining bugbears were ordered to hunt down monsters that came their way and increase the food variety in the dungeon. 'Luckily all of them are good hunters so they shouldn't have problem with monsters as weak as these are.'
"So, milord, what are you planning to say to those Hill giants?" one of the bugbears asked me.
"I will give them one chance to join us. If they refuse, we will crush them. There's only fifty of them so you shouldn't have any problems, right?" I released my demonic aura as I said so.
"Y-you're correct sir," the bugbear backed away.
'Bugbears are only loyal to treasure so as long as I keep them content they will do as I say. They are not reliable at all, but they are strong and cheep to summon. I'm not prejusted against any race that's smart enough to comunicate but I must say that I don't really like dealing with the entire Giant race. While Frost giants, like Skaly, can have magic users among them, there is no chance to find some like that among Hill giants. And they don't even taste good, but when you have to eat you have to eat.'
While the eastern side of mountains is usually always covered in snow, the western side is warmer so snow here is only on the highest tips of hills.
'It's interesting that this place looks more like one solid rock lifted up with the actual mountains on top. There are no deep crevices and the deepest ones here are barely leading to one third of the entire mountain range.'
We made our way around one slightly higher hill and found ourselves in a valley where the Hill giants lived.
"What are they doing?" the leading bugbear asked while trying to look into distance.
"They... are making kids it seems. In broad daylight to boot."
"Disgusting," the bugbears were visibly disgusted by seeing them.
'Well I didn't summon any woman so they are probably just jealous. I gonna summon some when we return back... only a handful though. Bugbear females are harder to please then the males after all.'
I covered myself in [Dark cloak] and headed down to the village.
The giants, while being dumb as rocks, knew instantly that I'm not someone they can stand against. From the look of things, there was chief somewhere here, who was more knowledgeble then the remaining giants. I thought about this when seeing their houses. Most of them were just piles of rocks reinforced with wooden poles but some even had doors.
"Who's the boss here?" I called out from my prixen at the covering giants.
"I. Boss. Here," one of the taller giants said and stood up.
"You're Cloud giant, right?"
"Yes. I. Leader. Here," he said while looking down on me is milky eyes were not letting me go.
"I'm a demon lord who's dungeon is nearby. I am making this place my dungeon area. I came PERSONALLY, to offer you to join me. If you refuse, well you know how it goes."
"I. Do. But. I. Can't. Accept. Just. Like. That. I. Am. A. Leader. Here."
"I understand your sentiment, henceforth, I will give my order to attack. Please do your best to survive. Do you want time to prepare? I'm willing to give you one hour."
"My. Thanks," the cloud giant bowed lightly and started talking to his comarades in Giant language.
'I would like it if you didn't speak so openly about your strategy though...'
I returned to the bugbears and informed them about our attack.
"...That said, their levels are between 15 and 30 the weakest of you are level 32. You can beat them without killing them right?"
"Of course my lord!" the bugbears started to be lively again.
'Seems like it's easy to make them belive they can expect easy win.'
The Hill giants prepared their clubs, some were collecting rocks, all in all a meaningless efforts against my bugbears who were much stronger then them and had also advantige in numbers.
"Summon: Tempest"
A sparkling light appeared on my palm and I placed the palm sized girl on my shoulder.
"Tempest could you please oversee the battle and take down any deserters?"
"Sure can!" she smiled happily and pumped up her fists.
"Alright guys, show me your worth."
"Yes milord!" the bugbears rised their weapons to the air and divided themselves into three groups by aproximately 66 bugbears in each.
Their plan was to make the giants belive only a small force is comming at them from the front and then surprise them by striking from three sides at the same time.
The attack started.
"(Gaseous form!)" the cloud giant casted a spell and turned all of his hill giants into misty clouds.
"Tempest."
"Okey-dokey! (Sparkling flash!)" Tempest used lighting spell that made such a great damage to their cloud form that they were forced to return to their original state, making them easy targets for the little confused bugbears who started stabbing at them and hitting them with the morningstars.
"Great work everyone. The spell was little surprising, but nothing we could't handle."
"You. Saw. Through. Me?" the cloud giant tied with his buch by mithril rope looked at me with fear.
"This isn't my first time dealing with your kind. So will you work for me now?"
"You. Didn't. Kill. Any. Of. Us. So. Please. Let. Us. Serve. You," he bowed his head as much as his restraints allowed him to.
"Good choice. As a reward for showing me something interesting, I will give you a name later. Now, I will have you guys move to my place. It's little colder, but you can use (Weather control) too, right?"
"Yes. I. Can," the cloud giant nodded his head.
"Good, let's get moving then," I released the restraints and had the giants follow us back to the camp. As we found out, the only thing the entire village possesed was a bag that was left behind by their previous chief. As for was inside, there were only few rocks, but I found a crystal there that was used for golem cores. But when I asked about it, I found out that the previous chief stole it from some elves that were passing through here.
"In the end nothing unexpected happened, right?"
"Yes," Lizzie smiled and hugged my hand in the camp.
The goblin villages she was in charge off attacked, so she retaliated by culling their numbers in half. Suprisingly, they rather decided to die then to be subservient so we got no new goblins under us.
"And you Skaly?" I looked at Skaly who just arrived and noticed that she had a group of wolves all around her. To say wolves is too weak, they are mutated species of wolf monsters called [Blizzard wolves], an evolved version of Winter wolves that can use up to intermediate ice magic spells.
Skaly standing before us, was holding a black cub in her arms. That cub was actually a Kobold, who's group she was supposed to take under us.
"Lord Zaru, this guy was the only one left so I took the nearby wolves instead."
"There were no other Kobolds?"
"Not a single one. There were some bones, but no living Kobolds, only this little guy."
Kobolds under the age of four looks like any other pup, but as they grew, they develop ability to walk on two legs and speak.
"That's weird... I didn't feel any great moves from them... though, they lived close to Ork kingdom's borders so maybe they were done in by them trying to expand to north..."
"Trying to take our lord's pray is sin above all else! One word and we will go to crush them!" Vaizan tried to sound strong, but I knew good well that he would retreat the moment they got overwhelmed by numbers.
"There's no need for that now. They may got away today, but if they enter my domain again, I will show no mercy," I made a cold glare and prepared for going to sleep.
The next day we returned to the dungeon and I had Traich and Gobura send materials to build houses to the Giants and Blizzard wolves outside.
"Hmm..."
"You don't look nice, grumpy like that, you know?"
"Ah, sorry. It's just letter from Hestia. She returned to her home, the Blood sucker's town in south of Balgom merchant union."
"Balgom? That money gathering lot that almost cut off Holy Empire from trading with dwarves and the eastern half of the continent?"
"Yep. Apparently there is a town in the south where Vampires and their followers live."
"Followers? Not Blood sacks?"
"Hestia have a policy that only small percent of blood can be drained from one follower. But they will suck any criminal dry in a heartbeat, though."
"When do you think she will return?" Lizzie rested her head on my shoulder.
"In a month or two I quess. You plan something?"
"Nothing much," Lizzie smiled and her soft warm fingers lightly touched my lower lip.
'This should be the other way around, but I'll allow it.'
As we kissed, I remembered the day we met for the first time. I came to the guild with guildmaster Tongu, completly drenched in blood and registered with Lizzie in charge. No need to say that Lizzie was frighten at first.
"We really do have a lot of time, don't we?" I picked her up and went stright to the bedroom.
I'll keep it short, but I rammed her so hard she couldn't move and cursed herself for not learning healing spells.