Chapter 46  : Greed

Clint is the son of the city lord of Iron City. But, as Iron City is often in a state of war with 4 other underground cities in its vicinity, he spends more than half of his time on the battlefield. Rather than the Prince of the City, he is more like a soldier.

Despite being a normal human with average height, his 2-meter tall gray heavy armor covers everything. On the bizarre bird-head helmet, a pair of bright eyes could be vaguely seen.

Even when he is given the full authority by his father to go to the land without war, Vance, as a diplomat, he decisively brought along his full battle gear. The adamantine heavy armor that never leaves his body is just the configuration, there is still a 3-meter long gun behind his back, 2 swords and a Dwarf pistol by his waist where it is easy to reach out for.

The little prince who managed to escape with his life due to luck on the battlefield dozens of time is already used to being in a state ready for battle anytime.

“Actually, Prince Clint, you don’t have to be so wary. In fact, there’s no need to make your servant get into a battle formation. This is Vance, the City of Platinum where gold can be found all around. This isn’t an endless battlefield here, unlike your homeland.”

The goblin Merchant Seross, who is tagging along with him, feels frustrated. He is already regretting his actions of accepting the request to bring Prince Clint to Vance for the Alliance Conference, coveting the small request fee. On the way, he already had enough of that over-sensitive nerves of the Prince and his War Syndrome.

It is no wonder why Seross is so unhappy. It is enough that their camping ground is surrounded by goblin Mines. In the tent, he placed a few claymores within the tent. Fine, so he should already be safe like that. But, what is the point when you put a dummy on your own bed and sleep on the tree instead.

Every morning before the merchant team can set off, they have to spend up to half an hour to find him. Not only that, they also had to be careful of the traps laid around him so as to not get injured from it.

“While you were asleep, the sentry on night duty tried to cover you with a blanket out of goodwill but he almost got cut into half by you. Your nerves are really too sensitive! I know that your homeland may be unstable, but you can rest easy here! There is no war here!”

After a short moment, the metal can stretch out his forefinger, swirls it around the air before putting the finger into his mouth.

“…The taste of smoke, crawl down!!”

Afterwards, the iron giant really falls to the ground and his servant follow suit.

“YOU…YOU, IT IS SAFE HERE…” The goblin’s shriek is still sounding by his ear when two crimson red light whizzes past his body. The deadly heat wave that came along with it almost vaporized him. Afterwards, the light of fire starts to spread and the buildings not too far away plunges into a sea of flames.

“Dragon Breath!! It should be an Adult Dragon, get ready for battle!”

Clint immediately gets moving together with his servants. He starts to create a temporary base, using his luggage as a blockade and starts assembling his rifles… To enjoy such treatment right after entering Vance City, the goblin Seross is completely astounded.

But, this isn’t the moment to be in a daze. The next moment, 2 Red Dragons sweeps past the top of his head. This shows what kind of scary fight they were caught in.

The next moment, a deadly flash of darkness cuts across the skyline and the Red Dragon didn’t even have time to groan before it was sent spiraling down to the ground while spilling a rain of dragon blood.

“Splat!”

The smashed meat and dragon blood crashes onto the ground right in front of him. The goblin Merchant, who was hugging his head with both of his hands, can no longer find the courage to promise the others that this is a safe zone.

Following which, another Red Dragon seems to have seen some kind of nightmare and immediately tries to fly higher and escape. But, a red light similar to the flash of darkness before pierces through its head. Fresh blood splatters everywhere and the headless dragon corpse falls to the ground like a shooting star.

“AHHHHHHH!”

Before Seross’s piercing scream could escape fully from his mouth, a large metal hand stuffed it right back into him. Clint shivers as he stares at the sea of flames. It isn’t because he was worried but rather, it was the sharp instincts of a prey reacting in alarm to a naturally powerful predator above.

In the sea of flames caused by the Dragon Breath, a slow humongous figure advances gradually. The Beastman that were trying to stop his movements by his side seems just like small ants in comparison to it.

It is more than 30-meters tall and the 8 gigantic pillars of hoofs it is walking with seem to be as sturdy and heavy as metal towers. Every time it moves, the surrounding houses would tremor.

The Gigantic Skeleton Beast has 3 heads, all of them made solely of bones. One of them was the head of a Giant, one of them a Goat-headed Demon and the last, the head of a Bone Dragon. The goat-headed Demon’s brain still has black light encircling it while the mouth of the Bone Dragon had inferno still lingering in it. At this moment, the head of the Giant seems to have just finished its long incantation and it was time for its performance.

“Polar Storm, The Icy Plains of Giants.”

Under the curse of the Polar Giant, snowflakes began falling and the ground started to freeze. Vast ice plains became reality as the legendary homeland of the Polar Giants was summoned to this ground. In comparison to the Polar Giant, which had a physical body allowing it to ignore the extreme cold, the Beastmen were too weak; they had zero resistance towards the cold and they died frozen as a group.

“The Demonic Bone Beast Crimspur, the most dangerous mutated Bone Beast in the world, the 6th Senator of the Xiluo Empire!! Why is it here!!”

That diabolical battle form is the best name card for the Undead Lords.

It may seem to be moving very slowly but in reality, it was a false impression due to its gigantic stature. Within mere seconds, the three-headed Bone Demon is already right in front of their eyes. The head of the Giant even glances at them, but looking at the wary Clint and his guards, he only tilts his chin in scorn and continues moving on.

“Boom!” “Boom!” Accompanied with the sounds of explosion and earthquake, Crimspur advances towards his next target.

“… We were ignored.”

“We were spared!! Let’s leave quickly!!”

The sound of the catapults of the Beastmen could be heard from afar. The war between a single being and an army continues. No one wishes to become cannon fodder for no reason, so Seross pulled Prince Clint and escapes.

minutes passed. The group from Iron City, who had successfully escaped, pants heavily by the side of the road. At this moment, the old goblin has managed to make sense of the situation.

“Prince, it seems that there are still 3 weeks before the legendary Eternal Night Scepter would be auctioned, that’s why the Undead Lords from the surface are trying to steal it. Hehe, our luck is really bad. However, you can rest easy now. The gate that we passed by earlier on is the East Gate, the territory of the Beast Sovereign. The reason why we got entangled in that mess is because the Scepter is in his hands. Now that we are out of his territory, you can loosen up.”

Clint stares quietly at the goblin and points behind him. A bunch of wild beasts were rushing through, sending innumerable passersby flying and wrecking numerous vendors.

The one riding on the head of the bull and leading the way is the Dracon Hunter and chasing at his back are countless pursuers.

“Bastard, you actually opened all the fences in the zoo and the Druid’s territory, did you eat something wrong!”

“You even claimed that you were a vet, return our animals to us!! You scammer!!”

“Little Xue, don’t be sad. I know that you are disconsolate over your husband’s death, but look. Am I not strong? And don’t I resemble your husband? Accept me as your Alpha Wolf and I will treat you sisters well…” His expressions and movements in trying to poach them were sincere, making one feel quite moved. But the person he was talking to is a female wolf, he was intending to create a Wolf harem…—————

“Thanks to the effort of those trouble-makers, a large portion of the attention on us has been diverted away. Our secret interactions with the other underground city lords were quite successful. There are already more than 27 underground cities that are willing to support us in the Alliance Conference. This afternoon, we will be getting in touch with 3 more factions. One of them is the Underground Autarch Eduar, you must meet with him personally. Also, the prince named Clint seems to have be quite eminent. He has expressed goodwill towards us, so it would be best if you meet him personally as well.”

I nod my head, expressing my approval. It is about time for me to meet personally with Eduar. Also, the Iron City was said to be a city comprising many different races, I was interested in the city from the start, so there is no harm meeting him.

Within a week of entering the city, the Dark Elf Knight army’s demonstrations of the Power of Law in public made it into treasure coveted by many city lords. Using this as a bargaining chip, the meetings for alliances were quite successful.

Noting my agreement, Elisa continues her report.magic

Within a week, the Lion King Residence has been destroyed 12 times. There is not a building left there now, only a gigantic pit remains. The latest news, the 6th Senator Crimspur has appeared along with his old partner, ‘Ant King of Corrosion’ Lamost.

“Has the Undead Lord crossed swords with the Underground Autarch yet?”

“Not directly. It seems that both sides are still testing each other. Crimspur has destroyed 2 military barracks in the Beastman District and an entire street. But, only Molly’s Red Dragons counterattacked. Furthermore, there were only two young dragons that weren’t of age, so…”

“Destroyed in one blow huh, it’s normal. Crimspur is an Undead of the previous generation that survived the last Sacred War. He has been staring ambitiously on the seat of the Undead Emperor for a long time, so it won’t be easy to deal with him. However, he should have already received results from his probing. It seems like the Scepter should be in the hand of the Dragon Empress, otherwise Molly wouldn’t be willing to send young Dragons to serve as cannon fodder.”

TL: Destroyed in one blow -> Literal means getting killed in seconds.

“It looks like we must reassess the relationship between the Dragon Empress and the Lion King, to think that he would be willing to lend the Scepter to the other party to research…”

“Hehe, looks like their alliance is much stronger than we thought. Ah hahaha, rest easy, everything is within control!”

I laugh maniacally but Elisa seems to be a little restrained.

“Master… There are some things which I don’t know whether I should say.”

“Do I seem like a petty person? Go ahead!”

“We have no money. If you don’t start thinking of an idea, we might end up living on the streets.”

“What?!”

Hearing this, I exclaimed in shock. I remember that the funds I brought should be sufficient for us to live here for 3 years.

“You remember telling those fellows that they can call for backup anytime they want if they find themselves on the losing side? They really did it. They called for backup more than 60 times this week. The depletion of Magic Stones, the replacement of the machine’s parts and even the acquirement of new machines to replace the destroyed ones. This adds up to a massive sum and we didn’t take these into account when calculating our budget.”

I nod my head, expressing my acknowledgement towards Elisa’s report and the additional expenses. Previously, we didn’t expect that we would be able to prepare so many ‘Rolands’, so it is very normal for us to overspend. Engineering is a job that burns money, and those big robots are even better at burning money. To face monetary crisis in such a short period of time, I guess it made logical sense.

“Hehe, fortunately, I made additional preparations. Come over here, let me introduce you to my new treasure! It is called Greed, isn’t it cute!”

On the experiment desk, there is a transparent bottle. Within the bottle, a bizarre and slimy liquid is thrashing about. It seems to be trying to break through the seal of the bottle but it is sent flying back due to the lightning shock from the seal of the bottle.

“Really… Really gross!! White and sticky, it is indeed the same good that you use for thinking.” Elisa says with a look of despise.

She is just mocking me for using my lower body to think. I have already experienced this kind of level of venomous tongue many times when my collections were revealed such that I am already numb to it. Instead, I laugh gleefully.

“That is because you don’t know how useful it is. Don’t judge it by how small it is, I only have to assimilate it into the waterways of this city and it will start cloning itself rapidly, forming countless clones. Within a few hours, this milk-white Slime would fill up the pipes and drainage system of the city…”

“Extremely disgusting!!! I beg of you to stop talking! What exactly do you intend to do!”

“Hmph, you really aren’t good at appraising things. It is called Greed, it instinctively looks for gold coins, swallow them and bring them back to the main body. This way, we would be able to solve our financial problems.”

Usually, even if there’s an ultimate treasure that is to be auctioned, the Auction House would normally bring out a few items of equal level to hype up the crowd. I do not expect to meet another God Equipment, but as long as the Lion King hopes to retain his pride, he would definitely bring some good stuff to the auction.

Thinking about the auction that is about to be held, I intend to gather more money so as to buy some local specialty. Ever since I dreamed about my experience in creating Ah Dang the last time, I focused my attention on getting my hands on the ingredients required for my specialty, Undead Creation.

And Greed here is the result of my hard work for an entire week.

?Mutated Slime: Greed/ Tribe: Undead Slime/ 1 point in all stats/ Race Talent: Targeted Devour, Fiber-Decomposing Secretion, Rapid Cloning/ System Evaluation: Extremely dangerous. Please destroy its main body as soon as possible. If you were to lose control of this being, not mentioning this entire city, the entire underground world might disappear. As a side note, please stop creating beings. Your talent in this aspect is totally wrong. If you were to continue on this route, you might destroy the entire world even before the calamities strike.?

Seems contradictory? Its abilities are obviously trashy but it actually generates so much fear in the system.

It is an existence hovering between life and death. To all beings, the simpler their demand is, the stronger the desire for it. This Greed represents avarice. In my settings, gold coins, mithril and different kinds of precious metal is the reason for its existence.

The simpler the being is, the easier for it to reproduce. The expenditure in cloning a single-cell organism is very low. Following the settings of its creator, Greed will clone itself frantically to steal gold coins. It has no attacking ability whatsoever, the only thing it can do is to invade vaults with iron-tight defense, decompose the sacks that are full of treasure and steal the gold coins and expensive metals.

However, I can understand the system’s concern as well. If ‘Greed’ were to lose control, as long as it reproduces to a certain point, the countless Slimes could take over all the living space, leaving no space for other beings.

Of course, the precondition is that there is no limit to its cloning…

“Look, its main body is in this bottle. I will only release a tenth of it, so their reproduction ability and its size will be limited to a tenth of the original. Also, their lifespan will be limited, so they will all die within 2 days. At most, it will only be a gold coin thief.”

While explaining, I carefully release ‘Greed’ into the waterworks. Suddenly, a wind blows and somehow, my nose which should be devoid of any senses feels itchy.

“Ah…. CHOOOOO! Who is gossiping about me!?”

“MASTER!!!!!!”

Elisa’s shout made me regain my focus. But, half of the main body of ‘Greed’ had already been released into the drainage. Very soon, it will follow this thousand-mile-long ancient drainage system and clone itself in the waterways. Then, it will swiftly invade the entire city.

“…Calm down, there is still half left. ‘Greed’ will only be slightly stronger than expected.”

“How much stronger? Will it hurt anyone?”

“It will be slightly bigger by 5 times than expected, slightly bigger than the size of a human. Following their intelligence setting, it might change its attacking pattern to swallowing a person and disintegrate their clothing while taking all the metal away from them… Calm down, I have adjusted the settings properly, ‘Greed’ definitely will not harm any beings, it will leave after swallowing clothes.”

“Swallowing clothes? The entire city?” A terrifying image appears in Elisa’s mind. Countless Eaglestorms and Xuetis dancing around in a circle and more and more perverts started joining them…

“MASTER!! PLEASE RESEARCH A WAY TO DESTROY THIS DEMON FROM ITS ROOT QUICKLY!!”