Book 1: Chapter 16: Secrets Below the Great Church
Book 1: Chapter 16: Secrets Below the Great Church
The central parts of Nelson had already been refurbished to look like a newly built city by the zombies. However, what made this city strange was the fact that it was not inhabited by humans, but rather the zombies who made no sound. To some, the city could be considered as a perfect location to make a horror movie.
In the city stood a luxurious villa whose beauty was second to only the Grand Church that was built out of pure-white stone. This villa was very extravagant, not to mention its large size, there was also installments such as a pool and hot-tubs.
Currently, Bella and the others were relaxing in the open-air pool which was located on the second floor. Aside from Eleanor, Dolores, Dolores, Roland, Annie, and the three lolis, Bella had also invited Ivy and Susan as guests to the pool party. Bella had based this pool on a certain country from Earth’s Marina Sands, its level of luxurious wasn’t any lower than any other recreation facility in this world.
“Bella, these clothes… aren’t they a little too revealing?”
Ivy looked at the black three-point bikini that Bella made her wear. Susan, on the other hand, looked completely nonchalant and was leaning on the side of the pool in a golden bikini. It seemed that this holy maiden was pretty open, at least more open than Ivy.
“You have a nice body Ivy, what’s there to be shy about? We are all girls here, and there aren’t any outsiders either. Anyway, isn’t this more comfortable than what you were wearing before!?”
Ivy looked around and saw that all the other girls in the pool were wearing similarly styled bikinis, and thought that it might be wrong for her to be so sensitive. After thinking for a while, she decided that she would relax with the only familiar person here, Susan.
Bella was casually sitting on a floating pool chair and was calmly enjoying the view, this was a treatment that only 2-D protagonists from Earth were able to enjoy. She hadn’t expected to get this treatment in another world, it was even more satisfying to Bella because all the swimsuits that the girls were wearing were designed by her.
A crooked smile stealthily crept onto Bella’s face as she observed the curious Susan and the shy Ivy, these two girls had nice bodies. Ivy was on the thin side while Susan was rather more curvaceous, her chest was already on the same scale as of Dolores’ chest. As they’ve already put on the clothes that she designed, Bella didn’t plan to let these two escape her clutches.
“Elder Sister, your evil thoughts are leaking from your eyes, are you plotting to obtain the two new sisters?”
Noesha, who was wearing a pink swimsuit, sat beside Bella on the floating chair. This chair had a rather large surface area and it could hold the two girls without any trouble. Noesha wasn’t wearing a three-point bikini, but rather a normal design that exposed less.
Despite the fact Noesha’s chest size wasn’t small at all, Bella wanted to keep true to her loli attributes so she made Noesha a cute loli bikini that was similar in style with Mia and Angel’s bikini. Bella also made another three of the same design for the three loli creator gods. After everything settled down, Bella had planned to invite those three creators to come and play, as thanks for their help.
“Little Noesha, I’m a kind and innocent person, don’t go around spouting random rumors about me. A good girl must be elegant, not naughty.”
“Elder Sis, you really are… I’m going back to reading.”
Noesha then returned her focus to the 18x doujin in her hands. Bella didn’t know what to say about this little sister of hers who never forgot to bring her ero-books wherever she went. Apart from just reading them all by herself, she also acted as a missionary to convince others to read the doujins as well. The first ones to receive her ‘preachings’ were Mia and Angel. As the doujins that Noesha promoted were all yuri-oriented, along with her agenda, Bella didn’t stop Noesha from doing so.
It didn’t take long for the sun to set below the horizon, and darkness to creep over the region again. The town was well lit, most likely because of the zombies who lit their lights like humans. Even if they didn’t have any light, zombies would still be able to work normally. After all, they were as good as blind. They were probably just following their instinctive memory from when they were still humans.
“Can you take us for a tour of your convent later, Bella?”
“Holy Maidens, our convent isn’t open to the outsid… clergy not from the Salo faction.”
“Just call me Susan. You don’t have to be so formal with me. Are you really from the Salo faction, Bella? You don’t seem like one of those shady heretics who only know how to summon evil stuff!”
“Don’t joke with me like that, Susan. I was sent by Cardinal Salo here himself, how can I not be a part of the Salo faction. Are you questioning my loyalty to Lord Salo?”
Bella gave a plausible excuse, she didn’t have to take responsibility for her words, however, she did receive a certificate from the cardinal himself.
“Bella, I heard from Mia that you were the one that designed all these clothes.”
“They are my designs, do you like them Ivy? I designed these swimwears and underwears from the sizes of the other girls present here, there are a lot more clothing for the girls on the hangers over there.”
Bella proudly pointed at the rows of clothes not too far away from the pool. Several transparent-looking ghost-maids had already brought the clothes for the girls to change into. The styles varied and all were designed by Bella and sewn by the ghost-maids who Bella had personally trained. Apart from helping Bella make these clothes, the ghost-maids also carry out their daily duties of the villa, while also providing the service for the upper echelons of Nelson town.
These ghost-maids weren’t just for decoration either, they were very high-powered undead type magic beings. The probability of becoming a ghost-maid from a ghost was 1 in 10,000. Currently, however, there were no conflicts or intruders so these ghost maids acted like regular ghosts, for now.
“Why don’t you join the Alan faction, Bella? One of the three cardinals, Anthony Alan, is my mentor, I can introduce you to him, he is a very nice person!”
“This is a matter of principle Susan, I must deny. Cardinal Andrew Salo is my… sponsor.”
The reason behind Susan persuading Bella to shift allegiances to the Alan faction was because of the large amounts of grains in her hands, and food supplies were an important political peace in regions affected by war. If they used the Alan factions name to give out food to refugees, they would unquestionably be able to get large amounts of support from the lower classes.
“It’s getting late and we still have to go monster-hunting tomorrow. Oh, you can pick any of these clothes, they’re free to use!”
Susan had wanted to try convincing Bella some more, but Ivy had already been dragged away by Noesha and the other lolis to pick out clothes. She didn’t have any choice but to follow them.
Bella, Dolores, and Eleanor left the villa with Roland and Annie and were headed towards the Grand Church. Various fearsome-looking evil beings had begun to wander the streets with the zombies, these evil beings would normally only come out at night as these evil beings were different from the zombies in the regard that they would attack humans regardless of their gender.
Looking at all the evil beings that made a way for them, Bella was glad that she didn’t allow Susan and Ivy to follow them out. These evil beings were very sensitive to demon kings and had sensed the presence of Bella as soon as they had left the Villa. Roland and Annie were also spared as they had the imprint that identified them as a demon king’s exclusive subordinates.
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There weren’t any icons of the God of Light or anything else related to God in the Grand Church. The statue at the center of the church was that of a loli with a veiled face, it was a statue of【Dark Creator】Mystica, Bella had this statue erected here with the permission from the Creator herself. This church was just a font, the real core of the town was the dark sanctuary deep below the church.
The dark sanctuary was Bella’s base for monsters that she had built, emulating Mystica’s Dark Dimension. Although she based it off of Mystica’s Dimension, there were several differences: Mystica’s Demon King Hall had twelve high demon king thrones, and only high demon kings had the right to enter while normal demon kings could only wait outside. Bella’s dark sanctuary did not have any high demon kings, so it had only twelve normal demon king thrones.
Mystica had promised Bella four high demon king thrones, but they were currently under construction and it would take a while before they were delivered. One thing though, Bella had tried out the high demon king throne but felt as if Felia’s demon king body was completely unable to control it, she didn’t know how strong a demon king had to be in order to qualify for a high demon king if even Felia, who had received blood from 3 demon and evil gods, couldn’t.
At the center of the dark sanctuary was the holy land of the evil beings, the Demon Kings’ Hall. The hall was designed like an emperor’s palace, but instead of the emperor’s throne, there were twelve demon king thrones where the emperor’s throne was supposed to be. Each of these demon king thrones was in a different style, but all adhered to the theme of darkness.
The twelve thrones were arranged in a semicircle, facing in, and each had a slot for a sword on the back of the throne. Currently, all twelve swords were present, these swords were exclusive to the demon king that used the throne affiliated with the sword. These thrones were not fixed to the ground, but floating slightly above the floor. The floating thrones increased the demon kings’ style points immensely.
At the center of the semicircle was a giant crimson heart, the【Demon’s Heart】, it had many tubes sprouting out of it that entered the ground, and the floor of the hall was crisscrossed with what seemed to be barely visible veins and arteries, still with blood inside that moved with the beat of the massive heart.
Behind the twelve thrones, a giant brain floated, and it had almost completely transparent arteries that were only visible around the brain itself, Bella did not know the extent of these arteries as they were not visible. There were already an enormous amount of evil beings gathered around the hall, Bella estimated at least 10,000 from what she could see. Each one of the evil beings kneeled on the ground, looking up at the demon kings below the【Demon’s Wisdom】.
At the very front of those evil beings were several hundred human-shaped evil beings, they only kneeled with one knee, their position was higher than those behind them. These were all personally created by Bella with material from the【Demon’s Wisdom】and【Demon’s Heart】, it would be catastrophic if any of these evil beings were to be unleashed on the society.
“Hail【Prime King】, Hail【Heavenly King】, Hail【Blood King】”
“All of you may rise, is there anything to report?”
Dolores acted with familiarity, she was originally a demon princess after all and had seen her father receiving the empire’s nobles, she was only imitating her father right now. Bella sat the throne in the center with Dolores to her left and Eleanor to her right. Roland and Annie wore Bella’s specially designed demon king maid attire and stood to the side of the thrones, Roland beside Eleanor and Annie beside Bella.
Bella, Dolores, and Eleanor had switched into demon kings’ garb. As they were wearing the female style and they were all good-looking girls, the three of them looked more like demon princesses than as demon kings. Each one of them wore a differently styled crown that gave off a monarch’s vibe, Bella’s was dark gold while Eleanor and Dolores’ were blood red and platinum respectively.
Eleanor’s tensely held a bone cup, the endless ripples made in the dark red tea showed the unrest of its holder. Although Eleanor was born into one of the Octavian Empire’s (Knights) four great families, she had never seen such a scene before. Bella sniggered as she looked at the tense Eleanor, this girl needed some more practice; they would most likely have to see this kind of scene many more times in the future.
“【Heavenly King】, I and my subordinates obtained a large number of precious minerals from the mine and wish to erect statues in honor of the demon kings who created us and this dark sanctuary, and are here to seek permission from demon kings.
Bella had modified these evil beings’ memories so that they would remember that their creator was Bella’s true form, and Felia was just one of her subordinate demon kings. This would eliminate many unnecessary problems and a double identity would also be more flexible. As for the identities of Angel, Mia, and Noesha, Bella didn’t hide anything from the monsters and they treated the three lolis as demon gods.
“I represent all the demon kings present and give you my permission, thank you for your hard work, Maltz.”
After receiving a nod from Bella, Dolores gave【Hell’s Warden】Maltz the permission to carry out the crafting and erecting of the statues.
【Hell’s Warden】Maltz was the ‘new’【Warden】Maltz after the original had been destroyed by【Berserker】Barthes at the decisive battle several months ago using the【Pillar of the War God】, the current Maltz was much stronger than he was during that battle.
“Demon kings, your subordinate has cleared out several more bandit groups during the period since we were last gathered here. I have brought all the loots that have been liberated from their camps, and brought them here to offer as the tribute.”
“Nicely done, Clement! You’re living up to your name as【Master of Faces】.”
“I thank the appreciation of the demon kings, this is what we, as your subordinates, are supposed to do.【Bone-Corroding Duke】Adrian helped me with the extermination of these bandits, he also deserves some credit.”
The other humanoid monsters looked jealousy at Clement, even though he wasn’t very powerful, but his disguising ability was way too broken and would often disguise as a human to gather intel in the human towns; and this time he had brought back several dozen boxes full of loot as the tribute to the demon kings.
Even【Prime King】, who has never spoken before, had praised him, along with【Blood King】who had been out of it until now. It infuriated them to look at Clement’s mocking smile, if he didn’t have【Bone-Corroding Duke】Adrian backing him up, he would have been beaten to death after everyone was dismissed.
Clement didn’t give any response to the countless killing gazes behind him. Anyway, the monsters Bella personally created wouldn’t completely die unless both the【Demon’s Wisdom】and【Demon’s Heart】were destroyed simultaneously. Clement’s creed was that if he can’t die, he didn’t have to care for the opinions of the others, apart from a certain few, of course.
“Demon kings, this is the intel I have gathered from the Gabriel Empire (Swordsmen) at【Prime King】’s request. Gabriel Empire (Swordsmen) also has several people that could potentially be troublesome, could I implore demon kings on what our next course of action would be?”
After receiving the thick stack of papers that Annie delivered to her, Bella froze after looking at the first page. Why was this person’s backstory so similar to that of Lisha’s, also another case of someone rapidly gaining power after an event. There was the possibility that she was another transmigrator and that there were more than two transmigrators in this world.