Chapter 34: The Most Unholy Scene In The Palace

"Well, as expected of the military."

Reiji slowly stood up. His muscles were aching, and the wounds on his body throbbed with every movement.

He gritted his teeth through the pain and thought of how to escape.

He couldn’t take on ten C-Rank awakeners in this state.

Reiji suddenly thought of something.

"System, can you open the gate to the Undead King’s Palace? But it should not stay permanently. I want it to disappear. Like, I don’t want it to permanently stay in this location, but connect to the previous location, which is my home."

The system didn’t respond immediately. After a few seconds, it finally replied.

Ding!

[Yes. Since the location of your home has been saved, it is possible, Host.]

"Okay. Open the gate to the Undead King’s Palace."

Ding!

[Please stand back, Host!]

RUMBLE!!!

The whole dungeon trembled violently as a massive black door suddenly materialized right in front of him.

Reiji calmly walked through the gate.

A few moments later, the ten awakeners from before stepped inside the boss room.

"What the hell happened in here?" The leader in front stepped forward as she looked at the state of the room. It was clear that a violent battle had just taken place.

"Leader, isn’t that a monster corpse...?" A young lady with long green hair pointed at the corpse of the Tribe Leader Ogre, which was slowly vanishing.

"Yes, it is," the leader replied.

"Somebody beat us to the Boss Monster? I don’t even sense their presence."

The leader frowned.

This was definitely not normal.

This was clearly the work of somebody powerful.

"Check if the Monster Core or Dungeon Core are still inside the corpse before it disappears," the team leader ordered.

"On it."

One of the girls stepped forward, but when she noticed the hole in the ogre’s skull, a chill crawled up her spine. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Seeing her freeze, the others quickly came over.

"What the hell is this..."

"This person definitely isn’t D-Rank."

The team leader said nothing. She stepped closer and checked the corpse herself, but there was nothing.

No cores at all.

"Who the hell could do this? And how did they leave without us noticing? Teleportation? Or invisibility?"

***

Meanwhile, Reiji, who was completely oblivious to all of this, stepped out of the gate and appeared back inside the hall.

He stared at the strange yet familiar pillars for a moment before walking forward.

After walking for a while, Reiji reached a place where the path separated into two and, without thinking much, went left first.

Soon, he arrived in front of a massive iron door.

He stepped forward with a grin and pushed the door open.

"Hello, my EXPs! Did you miss me?" Reiji said while staring at them with a wide grin.

He looked like a thief who had just found a massive sack of cash.

The miner skeletons stared at him in confusion before immediately taking him as a trespasser, their hollow eye sockets burning with hostility.

KRRRKKK!

The skeletons suddenly screeched and charged toward him while dragging their rusted pickaxes across the ground.

Reiji stayed calm without even the slightest hint of fear. Instead, he smiled.

The ground beneath his feet cracked as he vanished from the spot he stood.

Before any of the skeletons could react...

*SLASH!*

The heads of the skeletons flew up one after another before they could even react.

This time, Reiji wasn’t using his dagger, but his hands.

Ding!

[Host has killed an E-Rank Miner Undead Skeleton!]

[+2 EXP]

Ding!

[Host has killed an E-Rank Miner Undead Skeleton!]

[+2 EXP]

Ding!

[Host has killed an E-Rank Miner Undead Skeleton!]

[+2 EXP]

...

The system notifications rang endlessly inside his ears.

Bones shattered apart throughout the cave while Reiji moved like a blur between the skeletons.

None of them could even touch him.

A few moments later, Reiji casually appeared near the entrance of the deeper cave while dozens of shattered skeletons littered the ground behind him.

Not a single one remained standing.

Reiji cracked his neck slightly.

"Shadow Step is pretty useful."

Then his eyes slowly shifted toward the deeper parts of the mine.

A grin slowly spread across his face.

"Before that, System, send all these harvested Anderite stones to my inventory."

A blinding white light flashed across the room for half a second, and all the glowing stones inside the crates disappeared.

A satisfied smile crossed Reiji’s face he bought a healing potion from the system market drank and drank it. The wounds on his body were healing at visible speed then he decided to go deeper into the cave.

***

Reiji walked for a while and the deeper he went, the stranger the cave became.

The darkness slowly faded, replaced by a pale blue glow coming from countless glowing veins spreading across the walls.

Soon, he arrived at a massive cave, ten times bigger than the mining cave.

At the center of it was a huge pile of Anderite stones stacked together like a small mountain.

And beyond it was a gigantic waterfall that cascaded down from above.

Unlike the crimson-red sea outside the palace, the water here was completely clear and beautiful.

The sound of flowing water echoed softly throughout the cave.

Sitting near the waterfall was a huge rock, and on that rock sat a strange creature with its back facing Reiji.

It wasn’t an undead.

From behind, it didn’t look threatening at all.

Its messy brown hair reached its shoulders, while its thick furry body looked oddly soft.

Its back strangely resembled the bark of an old tree, yet the yellow fur covering parts of its body, like its shoulder blades and arms, made it resemble some kind of oversized house pet instead of a terrifying undead creature.

The closer Reiji got, the more unreal it felt.

’Even if it looks harmless... I still need to be careful,’ Reiji thought silently.

"Hngh..."

A strange sound suddenly reached his ears.

Reiji frowned. "What was that?"

The closer he got, the clearer the sounds became.

His expression immediately froze.

It shifted between confusion, disbelief, disgust, shock, and most of all, disgust.

"...What the hell?"

The strange creature was doing something Reiji absolutely did not expect.

And from the blissful look on its face, it seemed completely immersed in it.

Worst of all, the creature still hadn’t noticed Reiji standing there right in front of it.

The creature continued, and its moaning got louder. It seemed to be reaching its climax.

It pulled out what looked like a bottle, and Reiji didn’t even want to know where it pulled it out from, before placing it on its tip.

"Hngh...!"

Its hands moved faster, and then thick brownish fluid that was supposed to be semen shot out and entered the bottle, filling it halfway.

Reiji didn’t know why the hell he continued watching to this point.

Now he felt that whatever little sanity he had left was leaving his body.

The scene made him want to gag.

The creature breathed out in sweet relief. Its face was flushed, but then it suddenly felt a strong menacing aura in front of it and, without even properly looking, it immediately kowtowed before Reiji, startling him.

"M-M-M-Master, I’m sorry! It’s not what it looks like, I swear! I’m sorry, please don’t kill me. I promise I wasn’t going to create my own undead legion and betray your noble lordship. I swear, this humble servant has truly done something stupid and wrong. Please forgive me, Master!"

"Y-Your Grace, I did it because it was the heat period of us Velsra. I’m sorry, Your Highness. Please forgive me."

The creature paused for a moment, then its face grew even darker.

"Fuck! I forgot he doesn’t understand me. I’m so cooked."

The Velsra wanted to cry, but Reiji stared at it in shock.

He could understand every word this furry little vermin was saying.

’It might be the system.’

The creature, seeing that His Highness was moving, felt slightly relieved and didn’t dare raise its head.

"Tell me, what the fuck are you?" Reiji couldn’t help asking.

’Wait a minute... That definitely doesn’t sound like the voice of His Grace...’ The Velsra’s eyes widened in disbelief as it slowly raised its head.