Chapter 52

  [You have hired the ice-demon known as Lanet-Sadak as your attendant. You have agreed to pay her 180 EXP per year. The full amount will be payable at the end of each one-year period of employment. If you decide to terminate her employment before the end of a full one-year period, her payment will be calculated pro rata based on the number of days spent in your employment.]

  Button summarised the terms of employment for me, and I accepted the terms of employment, My new attendant, or personal chef, was over Hell’s non-existent moon for being hired, grinning triumphantly at me and at Grashon as if she had won a victory much greater than a measly battle for some small town named Garoshek, all the while cleaning the grill and putting her things back into her bag.

  ‘Hey, Lanny, show me that!’ I stopped her as she reached for her jar of highly flammable liquid.

  ‘Lanny?’ She squinted at me. ‘What’s a Lanny?’

  ‘You. From this day forth I shall call you Lanny. Lanet-Sadak is … nice, but too long for my taste,’ I said to her. ‘Anyway, give me that jar, will you?’

  ‘This?’ she asked, holding it up. ‘It’s flameslime.’

  I took the jar from her and held it to my nose. The viscous black liquid had a faint smell of blood, animal fat, and something else I couldn’t place. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but I wouldn’t want to spend more than a few seconds in the company of whatever this was.

  ‘Okay, what is it made of?’ I asked. ‘Also, I’d like to keep some of it.’

  She nodded, and I brought out a plastic water bottle from my storage and poured some of the black propellant into it, then I gave the jar back to her.

  ‘It’s made of the fat and blood of Prowling Devourers and Staring Hunters, mixed with bone powder from Flamscythes and some bug poison.’ She explained.

  ‘Bug poison?’

  ‘Yeah, from those swarming, flying bugs in the Wilds.’

  ‘Ah, the Swarm of Scorching Blood.’ I recognised the description.

  ‘Yeah, those buggers,’ she confirmed.

  This was an interesting discovery.

  Fire-demons — the majority population of the Fourth Ring — were very enthusiastic about their fire related skills and spells and were generous in their deployment. However, as someone who had been using similar skills, I had realised some time ago that it wasn’t real fire. It was Hell Mana copying or imitating the natural phenomenon known as fire, mana itself serving as all components: fuel, heat and oxygen — because even Hell’s atmosphere had some oxygen. While spellspawned hellfire was nice, hot and it did some of the things real fire could, its efficiency was dependent on the mana pool of the caster and the skill’s level. And once the spell ran its course or mana was depleted, the magical fire would disappear. Natural fire on the other hand lasted as long as its fuel did, it could spread faster onto new sources of fuel and eat away at them, and even after going out glowing embers could remain with the promise of a new fire. Real fire was better in terms of quality even though not always practical or feasible. Hm. Images were forming in my mind, an idea, one that could possibly work; I couldn’t help but smile as I stared at the black liquid in the bottle, picturing enemy camps burning to the ground and minotaurs shrieking as the flames consumed them. Minotaurs were quite flammable after all, weren’t they? And even if they weren’t, a few hundred liters of this burning black goo would solve the problem, wouldn’t it?

  ‘How much of this stuff do you have? And how long does it take to make it?’ I asked my new attendant.

  Lanny the ice-demon thought about it for a moment while she finished packing her things away.

  ‘It’s not that difficult to make. I can make a few jars in a day if I have the carcasses of the animals,’ she said.

  Hm. A few jars a day. If she had the ingredients. A few jars …

  ‘Alright, if you had all the carcasses and any number of demons to help, could you make enough of this … flameslime to burn Garoshek to the ground?’ I asked. Her eyes widened hearing my question; not in terror, or at least I didn’t think it was that, but with incredulous surprise, as if trying to figure out if I was actually planning to burn the city down. So, I preemptively answered the unuttered question. ‘No, I’m just using the city as a reference. If you can make enough for Garoshek, you can make enough for a hundred minotaur camps.’

  ‘Oh. I see,’ she said, but she didn’t look entirely convinced. She looked around as if appraising the city itself for a firebombing. ‘Well, I could make enough … in about four or five days. If I had a hundred demons hunting, another hundred butchering and getting the fat and the bones, and another hundred mixing.’

  Hm. Well, I did have an army, the RE to spend as well as thousands of civilians to work on this kind of research and development project. It seemed I had a decision to make, and for the decision to be made, I thought it was time to meet some of the crafters this town had to offer.

  ***

  Reinos’ soldiers worked fast rounding up the demons I needed; fifteen minutes after asking my general to gather as many crafters as he could, almost two hundred pairs of yellow eyes were staring at me as I stood on a large stone some distance away from our makeshift field hospital near the gate. The crowd in front of me had a larger proportion of ice-demons than I had expected, more than half of them in fact. Whether it was by choice or circumstance, it seemed fire-demons were more predisposed to fighting roles than their blue-skinned counterparts. That was all well and good; red or blue, I’d put them to good use in order to make my plan a reality. Ah, the idea of searing hot fires consuming my enemies in their thousands, burning them to ashes and leaving nothing behind … well, it was either my partly demonic nature talking, or I was developing a fire fetish. Good stuff.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Lanny stood next to the stone that served as my pulpit, looking rather pleased with herself, holding her jug of flameslime and smiling like her life depended on how much of her teeth she could show. For some reason, Reinos was here, too, standing on the other side of my stone plinth instead of personally supervising his captains, seemingly interested in what I had to say to the civilians. Well, I knew what to say to them, I just wasn’t sure how to speak to them. As a career soldier, knowing how to talk to officers and other military personnel of all branches was second nature to me, whether I outranked someone or not. Addressing a crowd of civilians, even if they were huge, horned demons, was a bit of an uncharted territory for me. So, I decided to consider them conscripts in a time of war, and as such I could just be the strict and snappy officer and demon lord I was meant to be.

  ‘Listen up!’ I bellowed at the crowd, turning the PA system of my helmet up a bit so those in the back could hear me too. ‘As you all know by now, I am Hellfire Lord Hyde. We’ve won this battle, but the war is far from over, I don’t need to explain that, do I?’ The crowd murmured their agreement. ‘Now, those of you who know how to make flameslime, raise your hands!’

  Demons looked at each other, confused and not understanding why I was asking that question, but twenty of them raised their hands, all ice-demons, unsurprisingly.

  ‘Alright, go to that side and stand there,’ I instructed them.

  ‘Flameslime?’ Reinos asked.

  For a change I was the one who looked down at him.

  ‘Yeah. Flameslime.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘To burn our enemies. Why else?’ I explained. ‘Skills and spells are good, but when Hell Mana runs out the fight will devolve into a brawl. Casualties will be higher. We need flameslime and a lot of it.’

  ‘My lord.’ He began with a sigh. ‘If you want the soldiers to lob jars of flameslime at the enemy, they might as well just march into their blades and earth spells. Fire spells go much further than most demons can throw a heavy jar.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I grinned at him behind the visor of my helmet, then turned back to the gathered crafters as the twenty flameslime experts found their places at the side. ‘Alright, now those who can work with wood, metal or both, and can build equipment, stand to the other side. Those who can make ropes, cords or sinews, step forward.’

  ‘What are you planning, my Lord?’ Reinos inquired as he watched the crafters moving about and organising themselves into groups.

  ‘I have a few books and educational videos about ancient warfare in my entertainment library.’ I said to him.

  ‘I understood “warfare” from all that, my Lord,’ the general commented, and I promptly ignored it.

  ‘They’re not exactly the material to learn strategy or tactics from, that’s for sure, but there are some detailed descriptions and schematics from different eras.’

  ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about, my Lord,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘I’m talking about the Romans.

  ‘Who’re the Romans?’

  ‘Who they were doesn’t matter. What they had does,’ I said. The crowd finally settled, and I had the groups I wanted to see in front of me. ‘Alright, now that we have our groups of crafters, I want each group to send a representative forward, and I’ll explain to them what you will be building.’

  The crowd began to murmur once again as their selection process began without any objections.

  ‘What are they going to build?’ Reinos asked.

  ‘Torsion catapults.’

  ‘Catapults?’ Reinos stared at me with uncomprehending eyes. ‘I’ve heard about catapults. Cumbersome things, almost useless.’

  He had a point; in a place where demons could conjure and shoot fire, ice, stone spikes and other magical things with a wave of their hands, it wasn’t surprising that a catapult wasn’t the weapon of choice, especially for demonic armies which were mobile as well as versatile. But for our situation I thought they’d come in very handy, and I was going to give it a go.

  ‘Well, they’re siege weapons,’ I said.

  ‘Are we going to take a city under siege, my Lord?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ I shook my head. ‘But I can tell you this: a catapult will throw the largest pots of flameslime farther than any fire spell’s range I’ve seen, and I doubt minotaur camps can jump out of the way.’

  ***

  While waiting for the crafter groups to select their representatives — which I didn’t think would take long with demonic hierarchy working the way it did — I sent Lanny to fetch something to draw and write with. She rushed away with great enthusiasm to fetch the items I’d requested, and I turned to Reinos.

  ‘We may have to extend our stay here. Maybe five days altogether,’ I said to him.

  ‘That’s all well and good, but I am not convinced about this idea of using catapults,’ he argued. ‘Even if they can build them, transporting them will slow us down even more. Adding that to our extended stay here, we’ll be losing a lot of time. The minotaur army may even catch up with us before we reach Orroth. I’m not sure it’s worth it.’

  ‘Valid point, but it won’t happen,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Because you have a plan?’

  ‘Because I have a plan.’

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, the suspense is killing you, isn’t it?’ I laughed. ‘Well, let’s see first if the crafters can build them or not. If they can, I’ll tell you.’

  Reinos groaned, shaking his head; he was definitely getting used to my way of doing things.

  A few minutes later Lanny arrived with a bucket of white paint and a brush, just as the newly elected representatives of each crafter group trudged forward to present themselves before me — two ice-demons and two fire-demons. I could tell they were the highest-level members of their respective groups — which was likely the reason they had been “selected” to come forward — and Reinos confirmed they had already been conscripted into his army. It made things simpler for me in terms of finding the right tone to address them.

  ‘Names!’ I said curtly, glaring at the four, nervous looking demons, just as any good officer or demon lord would.

  ‘I’m Tarak-Denat, my Lord,’ the first of them, an ice-demon, introduced himself while bowing his head. ‘I make flameslime, my Lord.’

  ‘I’m Lagharok, my Lord. I am a smith and metalworker. I make weapons, simple or bonded.’ The second one presented himself.

  ‘I am Dhrogor-Gazak, my Lord. I build using wood.’ The second ice-demon said.

  ‘I’m Arghadon, my Lord. I make ropes and strings, both from animals and tree vines,’ the last of them brought the round of introductions to completion, and Team Catapult was ready for a briefing.

  I took the bucket of paint and the brush from Lanny, and I looked around for a suitable, flat surface to paint on, while also selecting a number of pictures and design schematics from my entertainment library, organising them on my NeuroHUD display. Team Catapult waited patiently, their eyes fixed on me as I walked to the only thing that could serve as a viable drawing board: the dark stone wall of the city.

  ‘Alright people, I’m going to explain and draw what I want you to make, and you tell me if it can be done.’ I announced as I reached the wall, followed by the team as well as Reinos and Lanny.

  And without further ado I dipped the oversized brush into the white paint, put it against the wall, and I became possibly the first human to ever deface a city wall in Hell with graffiti.