Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-125

[Day 115]

Well, what we found today in the morning was rather surprising. My Flesh and Slime Minions brought me the corpses of more than twenty humans who had their entire bodies covered on black robes, which were enhanced with several bonuses on stealth and concealment.

After seeing their uniforms, I immediately knew that they were spies of some sort, they were all dead so I couldn't inspect their minds. But for some reason, someone somewhere sent more than twenty humans to spy me or possibly kill me overnight.

The further inspection of their bodies gave me some insights. The taste of their flesh and their scent, these humans were from the Athetosea Kingdom.

If my assumption is true, then these are bad news.

How could the Athetosea Kingdom know about my true identity? Even more, how could they know that I was here, to begin with?

Perhaps, from the guild?

No… I've been inspecting the guild staff members this whole time and no one has ever revealed my information or sent documents about me to the Athetosea Kingdom. And also, this place is not legitimately part of Athetosea, it only has some trading contracts and are very close.

Did they find out the Dhampir spies?

I quickly tried to communicate with every Dhampir spy to know their current state, I've been too concentrated on my family that I have completely forgotten to talk with them.

It seems that it was exactly as I feared, ten out of the sixteen Dhampirs have not responded, and when I browse through the minion window, their status appears as "Deceased". I'm pretty sure that they were alive yesterday, they might have died overnight, possibly killed by whoever found their true identities as my servants.

It seems that leaving this to only those Fake Illusion Rings and my Flesh and Slime Minions wasn't near as enough, I have been underestimating the power and intelligence of the Athetosea Kingdom.

After some hours of gathering information from the surviving Dhampirs and Alice, who has luckily not been found out yet due to her high status, I came to a complete understanding of what happened last night.

It seems that several nobles working together with the Champion of Psychic Eyes and her secret organization of information gathering found out about the true identity of these "adventurers", that were actually Dhampirs that I converted previously for them to spy the Kingdom for me.

This woman is actually rather sharp, and due to her noble family, she holds a high position in the Kingdom, alongside this, she has amazing influence over other nobles because she has gained their trust through all these years, stopping infiltrating spies, hired assassins, etc.

Because she is half Dodomeki, her vision powers are superb, and she can even see through the most elaborate of illusions and concealments. That time when one of the Dhampirs reported me making friends with an Elemental Knight, it was probably a trap, and I failed to see this woman scheme.

Now that I think about it, it was too good and too easy that one of my Dhampirs all out of a sudden became a friend with a soldier with such a high status like an Elemental Knight, who are closely related to the Five Champions.

After finding out that some weird adventurers were truly Dhampirs in disguise, and that their auras released an eerie feeling, she immediately set them on a trap, luring them with Elemental Knights.

When more than ten were gathered in one place, they were quickly captured by the woman organization members, who seems to be stronger than my Dhampirs, which I personally trained and leveled…

Thankfully, I prepared for such an occasion if it were to ever occur, I commanded the Flesh and Slime Minions that accompanied each Dhampir that if they were captured, that they completely destroyed their brains before the enemy could analyze them through any type of method. This gave me some time; however, The Champion of Psychic Eyes is a very resourceful woman.

Her organization is wide and full of talented mages, diviners, illusionist, etc. It took her only four hours to find who I was only by using the corpses of the Dhampirs as an item to track my essence. Although she didn't know my true appearance, she tracked my essence and aura to this very place and immediately sent twenty assassins to test the waters.

Now that the assassins never came back, she is already assuming that I am stronger than her expectations and must be planning a new course of action. With those essence and aura tracking abilities, she won't take much longer until she finds out that I come from the Grand Forest.

Due to this, I better hurry up. Today we will go look for Lilith's family and then immediately rush back to my Kingdom.

Today's breakfast was twenty Athetosea Kingdom Spies!

I'm too worried to describe the taste in detail, but I've tasted better humans. Even the nomads were tastier than these.

I think some poisoned themselves and committed suicide before being captured, maybe this explains why every each of them is dead. My Flesh and Slime Minions would have left one alive at the very least.

Most of us are immune to poison already, so this wasn't an issue.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Poisonous Heart Bomb]

[Shadow Coat of Recognition Obstruction]

[Shadow Assassin Arts: Disarm Trap]

[Shadow Assassin Arts: Enemy Presence Discerning]

[Shadow Assassin Arts: Assassination]

Its rather humorous that even with those skills, they weren't able to stop my Flesh and Slime Minions.

After eating these humans, we had a more conventional breakfast with some of the dungeon monster meat, I also cleaned any evidence and blood left in the Inn, when we left the place, I also made sure to clean my fragrance and aura left using [Phantasmal Manipulation].

Before leaving the village, I gathered more information with my Flesh and Slime minions, it seems that there aren't any more spies or assassins around, so I relaxed a little and went to exchange some materials on the guild for some cash.

The receptionist almost fell out of her seat after seeing the hundreds of rare drops at my disposal. After some time, the guild manager of this town came to apologize as there wasn't enough money to pay for everything I was selling to them in the entire town. Well, that's quite a boomer.

However, he offered me a VIP card, that I can use to easily access any guild treasury and sell my products at increased prices. Due to his generosity, I left some materials for free before leaving the place.

The man also offered me several contracts which I declined. These would probably be used to track me down if the Champion of Psychic Eyes finds out that I registered myself as an Adventurer.

I only exchanged the lowest grade of items, which were over a hundred, and kept the rest for my Kingdom.

When we were back on our floating carriage, I was greeted by Altani and Yisu, who were playing around with our mounts, that we also left here.

It seems that they handled things just fine, both of them knew how to cook and the mounts accompanied with my Flesh and Slime Minions brought them plenty of food. Altani has been "meditating" for the last three days, so she told me that it didn't felt as long, however, I still could feel that she missed me to some extent, but she was just masking it behind her serious demeanor.

Yisu was more expressive as she jumped over me while yelling on how much she missed my "divine presence". And even began licking my feet, I was in front of my wives so I stopped her with my threads and moved her aside. However, my threads only made her more aroused as she began to orgasm yelling me to tie her tighter…

Anyways, we set our course towards Lilith's Village, which is only called Farming Village, or if there is even a name, I already forgot…

Her Village is on the outskirts of the Vast Plains, to the south of Orange Town, so it will take some hours until we get there, even at our flying carriage maximum speed, it will take roughly two hours.

I passed the two hours interacting with my wives, including Altani. I also asked her to do some divination for me once again, but the results were blank once again.

Not wanting her to overwork, we spent the next two hours talking and eating snacks while admiring the beautiful sight of the Vast Plains.

I also contacted my Kingdom and the Rin Sisters have told me that the humans have adapted incredibly fast. Most women were already pregnant with Goblins and Trolls, while the warriors were rigorously training with the Guidance of the Amazon Woman, the Black Haired Swordsman, Truhan, Celica, Kizuato, Palami, and the others.

The sisters have told me that their strength has increased quite a lot, and because of being nomads, their bodies are naturally stronger and more adaptable to harsh trainings than common humans.

Also, fifty women, ranging from Hobgoblin, Trolls, and Humans have given birth already, this also includes the Demon Concubine and the Half Poison Lord Lady. The later one has gained her "freedom" after giving birth, and now can join the rest of my soldiers or do another activity on the Kingdom if she pleases. However, I was told that she wanted to take care of her child first.

The original idea is that every woman must give birth from two to three children, and then, they are set "free" to work in other fields if they desire so. The children will be taken care of by the Kingdom itself, so they don't have to worry that much.

Of course, the only ones who are forced to do this are the enslaved humans, as the Hobgoblin and Troll women are paid, and do this on their own will. The Demon Concubine was the most enthusiastic about giving children and wanted to be impregnated the most, so she is working for "free" although she is still giving a house and plenty of food alongside a weekly payment anyways.

The town expansion has been doing great since I left, the town has expanded almost twice as much, now reaching the Great Lake, which the undead are currently building a park around it.

Also, now that we have exhausted our original mountain of resources, most of the miner team, which is now composed of over one hundred people have begun to move towards the other mountains surrounding us, and have recently found plenty of resources like mineral and gemstones, there is also a decent amount of Spirit Stones scattered around.

Something quite interesting to note is that in one of the mountains, the mining team found a strange dungeon that held multiple treasures, alongside this, the dungeon keeps going through the underground, the exploration team had already reported more than thirty floors inside, and it keeps going down.

The Rin Sisters named this dungeon the Forsaken Labyrinth, due to the power of the monsters inhabiting this place. One single monster almost wiped an entire team of more than fifty miners, if it wasn't for Truhan and Celica that accompanied them they would be all dead.

Due to this, safety measures have been set, so the monsters inside don't escape from the underground and begin attacking our people. But according to the sisters, the monsters limit themselves to stay inside and seem to be affected by the sunlight.

A lot of the strongest fighters have started making teams and exploring this "high leveled" dungeon, in which I don't see any problem. The stronger they get, the better.

Another thing to note is that in a different mountain, they found a small family of dwarves, which the Rin sisters welcomed to our Kingdom. They have quickly adapted to our place and had already taken several jobs. Plenty of them are talented in forging so they were put on Kajiya's care.

As the hours passed, we finally crossed the Vast Plains and reached an area called Grassy Road, where most of the Athetosea's related villages and towns live in. As we proceeded through the skies, we quickly saw Lilith's village, which we found just laying over a yellow-colored grassy plain.

The village is quite small, only being composed of twenty houses, plenty of the area was being used to raise farm animals, vegetables and such.

When Lilith saw her village, her face showed nostalgia with a hint of happiness and melancholy.

The moment we settled foot near the village, something odd instantly caught my attention. Using my increased senses, I suddenly heard a dispute near the left side of the village.

I saw a group of villagers being abused by another group of humans, unlike the villagers, these humans were big and muscular, resembling nomads, however, their attitudes were far too different, they were nasty and talked on a rude way, even insulting the people.

An old man was protecting his family from a big group of what seem to be bandits.

"P-Please, I have already paid you what you asked me for! I don't have anymore! L-Leave my family alone!"

"Hmm? Who are you trying to trick, old man? I know you're saving much more money on your house! Bring all of it! Or do you want us to take your daughter?"

"N-No! Not my daughter! P-Please… I… I don't have anymore, you have taken everything from us, please… Don't take my family from me…"

The bandit "boss" kicked the old man on the guts while throwing his little daughter and wife aside.

"Agh! If you ain't giving us the money, we are just going to storm your fucking place till we find it! Everyone! You already know what to do!"

"Yes, boss!!!"

Suddenly, more than twenty people began to storm the entire house, robbing the family of what barely remained inside. Nothing was spared, even their bedsheets were stolen.

When Lilith noticed what was going on, she asked for my help.

"Ah! T-That's my uncle! M-Master, please help them out!"

"Help them? And what has all that power you have been accumulating for? Do you think you become this strong to always ask for my help?"

Lilith was taken aback by my cold and harsh words but quickly understood its real meaning.

"I-Its true… I haven't become this strong for nothing!"

Flash!

Suddenly, Lilith activated several body-boosting skills, and with immense speed, she flashed through the grassy plains towards her village.

Wielding her axe and mace, she jumped over the group of bandits surrounding the struggling and bleeding old man, who was protecting his little daughter from the bandits.

BOOOM!

"W-What was that?!"

"EH?! H-He's dead!!"

"Who the fuck are you, bitch?! How dar- GYAAAAAH!!!"

"She's strong! Retreat!!!"

"Call big brother!"

In less than a minute, Lilith had already massacred the entire group of bandits into sliced pieces of meat, without any of the mercy that common humans usually show to any other human, be it bandit or not. She has grown merciless due to my influence, most probably.

The old man saw Lilith's figure, who was bathed on blood and couldn't even believe that she was the Lilith he knew.

"C-Could it be… L-Lilith…?"

"Uncle! I'm back! Now, where are the rest of these bandits, I'm going to wipe them out entirely! No mercy this time!"

"Lilith, you have grown so much since I last saw you… T-The bandits are currently raiding the other houses, the bandit leader already left my house… Most probably, after seeing your threat, they will gather in the middle of the village and hold hostages! P-Please, save the rest, Lilith!"

"Alright then! I will be right back"

Flash!

"Lilith… You are no longer that little and afraid girl from before, aren't you?"

As I saw Lilith rushing through the village, I approached the old man and his family and healed them.

"Demi-Humans… You have my thanks… A-Are you… Lilith's friends?"

"Yes… Well, I am her wife"

"H-HER WIFE?!"

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