Chereads / The Devil's Civilisation / Chapter 7 - Village

Chapter 7 - Village

Every demon and devil only knew one thing about the First Devil, that he was known as the Primordial of Evil. Geared with his new knowledge regarding the hierarchy of existence, the devil deduced that this was the true identity of the Lord of the Crimson Sky.

But the devil put this matter out of his mind for now, as a screen appeared before him, at the same time he felt information regarding special techniques being engraved into his mind. The devil turned his attention to the scene being shown to him by the Observation Screen. A bird's eye's view of a lush, verdant forest was presented to the devil, various winged creatures could be seen flying above the canopy of leaves. He could see all this in vivid detail, from small, cute birds to large, green serpents with feathery wings. 

'It would be quite convenient if I could zoom in'

As if it was reading his mind, the Observation Screen started zooming in on the scene, and the screen showed the environment hidden beneath the canopy. But the screen showed no signs of stopping, hitting the devil with the realisation that he would need to command it to stop.

'Stop'

Almost instantaneously, the Observation Screen stopped, allowing the devil to see a group of green, hunchback creatures with small daggers noisily moving through the forest. From the excited chatter and the animated facial expressions of these creatures, you could work out that they were coming back from a successful hunt. Of course, you didn't need this information to know that they had a successful hunt for they were parading the corpse of their prey around, letting all the denizens of the forest know about their fortune. Various cuts of different sizes covered the torso of the prey, but it was not these wounds that killed it. It was the deep gash in the throat of the prey, that continued to spray blood, that was responsible for its death. 

The goblins couldn't wait until they reached their camp, it had been a while since they had consumed the flesh of humans. They had found the human by the riverbank, unconscious and drenched, he had mostly fallen into the river but goblins were opportunistic creatures; they didn't care how the human ended up in such a situation, they only saw food. What followed was a chaotic scramble to land a blow on the unlucky fellow, in which only one goblin was smart enough to go for the human's throat.

'No matter where you go, they're always so idiotic'

The devil shook his head, as he watched the carefree goblins walk straight towards a bear-like creature which had been awoken by their ceaseless jabber. As stupid and useless goblins were, they had provided the devil with important information, the human corpse suggested that there may be a human settlement near the forest. He could only hope that the deceased human was a villager and not a traveller, otherwise, he would be forced to search for a village.

Noting that the goblins came from the west, the devil commanded the Observation Screen to move towards the west, the scenery remained constant, the aged tree trunks, the flora and the fauna. That was until the devil came across a river, and the Observation Screen stopped moving with a single thought. Looking at both sides of the river, the devil pondered which direction would lead to the settlement. If there was a settlement nearby, it would need a water source, which is why the devil did not doubt in his mind that one of the two directions would take him closer to what he was searching for.

'Wait, why am I thinking about this so much'

'Although thinking about a problem can provide solutions, sometimes you have to make a blind choice and rely on your luck'

After clearing his head, he directed the screen upstream; the devil was about to find out how good his luck was. Noticing that the number of trees was starting to thin, the devil couldn't help but smile, it appeared his luck was good. Soon, a clearing came into the devil's view, the smile on his face widening. 

Why?

Well, along the riverbank there were groups of human women soaking clothes in the river before slamming the wet clothes against the various rocks in the clearing, there were also small children either frolicking in the water or helping the women by beating the wet clothes with paddles.

The devil didn't even need to search for the settlement now, all he had to do was wait for these women to finish their current tasks and then follow them back to their home. 

After an hour, the women packed away the washed clothes and rounded up the children before heading towards their home. Their village wasn't too far from the river, which was quite convenient as it meant that they didn't have to travel long distances to collect water, bathe themselves or wash clothes. Soon, rows of houses came into view, small structures made of wood and stone with thatched straw rooves. The group of women and children slowly decreased in size as each person went to their respective homes, unaware that they had led a great evil into their peaceful village.

Ordering the screen to zoom out, the devil surveyed the village, seemingly searching for something. As he searched, he also inspected the size and location of the village.

'It's a decent starting point, just over 200 humans live here, and the nearest civilisation is quite far from here, though there is that'

Thinking back to when he was moving along the river, the devil recalled the sight he saw before he found the group of villagers.

'But...everything has its uses, they would be the perfect catalyst, for now, I'll finish looking for any interesting individuals in this village'

This is what he was searching for in the village.

Individuals of interest.

How would he do this?

One of the special techniques granted by the Primordial Seed was something called Examine, as its name suggests, it allowed the devil to examine the details of an individual. However, the number of uses of this technique was limited to once per day for someone like him who lacked any influence in Genesis. The number of daily uses increased with influence but one good point of the technique was that if it was used on followers it didn't use up the daily uses.

To find an individual with special talents, the devil would need to observe the actions of every villager and then use Examine on the ones that showed any peculiarities. As the devil searched, his eyes fell upon a young girl lifting barrels from a cart.

'How interesting, to think I would find one in a lowly village'