As Camilla was killed by Duanmu Huai, the demon race's offensive plummeted sharply as a result.
Most of the demons that had originally been rampaging across Seth's territory withdrew back into the Demon Realm, while the small number that stubbornly resisted were completely annihilated by Seth's army.
Of course, the demon race did not intend to stop there. They retreated all the way to the Machino Defense Line and then stationed themselves there, refusing to move. Obviously, the demons were unwilling to accept defeat just like that, so they attempted to seize the initiative by occupying the Machino Defense Line. After all, without the natural protection of the Machino Defense Line, the Kingdom of Seth would effectively face demon attacks anytime and anywhere.
This gave King Gandhi a massive headache, but Duanmu Huai did not care at all. He directly dispatched several thousand dolls to the Machino Defense Line to die, then summoned [Divine Relic of Majesty], wiping out all the demons on the entire Machino Defense Line in one go.
It had to be said, this card was truly essential for home, travel, murder, and silencing witnesses. No matter how many enemies there were, as long as there were enough cards sent to the graveyard, everything could be wiped out in one sweep.
The only drawback was that its overall damage was not high and it could only deal with fodder soldiers...…but that was enough.
At the very least, when facing the Zerg, there was no need to worry about being unable to kill them.
Just like that, the Kingdom of Seth reclaimed the Machino Defense Line. King Gandhi then organized manpower to quickly repair one of the magic amplification devices that had not been too severely damaged, restoring the Machino Defense Line's energy supply. Only then did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
What came next was eliminating the remaining demons entrenched within Seth's territory...…which was no longer within Duanmu Huai's scope of concern.
Lia was clearly very unhappy about this. She would have preferred to see Duanmu Huai kill the demons, then have Seth fail to withstand the demon army and be completely wiped out, allowing her to lead Lisath's army to reap the benefits as a fisherman...…sigh, unfortunately, that was clearly impossible now.
As for Duanmu Huai...…while King Gandhi was rebuilding the nation, he also had his own matters to attend to.
"I really didn't expect to waste so much time."
Duanmu Huai glanced at the date on the system and sighed. He had originally only wanted to search for clues about the Creator God and the Demon King, but unexpectedly ran into a demon invasion instead, wasting quite a lot of time. Fortunately, he had obtained the Monster Tamer skill. Hmm...… Thinking of this, Duanmu Huai suddenly frowned, instinctively feeling that something was not quite right.
Back then, he had gone to take up the Monster Tamer position because of a task issued by the system. That alone was fine. But after the Saizer incident, Duanmu Huai suddenly realized that if he wanted those powerful demons to submit to him, it seemed he had to use the same method he used on Saizer. After all, considering his appearance, it was impossible for him to use a "handsome man seduction tactic," right?
In addition, his divine authority as the "God of Desire"...only increased some experience points during the times with Kanami and Saizer.
That meant...…could it be that all of this was planned by the system?
Duanmu Huai always felt that this system seemed to have dug a pit for him...…
"Knock knock knock."
At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Duanmu Huai pulled his thoughts back and looked toward the entrance.
"Come in."
What surprised Duanmu Huai was that the person who walked in was not Anne or Guleya, but Shizuka...…?
"You were looking for me?"
"Yes."
Hearing Duanmu Huai's question, Shizuka nodded, then walked up to him and extended her hand, handing him a passbook.
"What is this?"
Duanmu Huai took the passbook with some confusion.
"This is my savings book. It contains the money I've saved over the years."
Looking at Duanmu Huai, Shizuka spoke.
"You not only helped me kill my enemy, but also rescued me...…this is the only way I can repay you."
"Hmm...…"
At a time like this, wasn't it supposed to be "This little woman has nothing to repay you with, so I can only offer myself"?
Duanmu Huai touched his face.
Alright, it seemed that option didn't exist.
"Well, I want to say that I appreciate the thought, but to be honest, there isn't really anywhere I need money here."
As he spoke, Duanmu Huai returned the passbook to Shizuka, which made her look rather troubled.
"But...…"
"What do you plan to do next?"
"I...…"
Hearing Duanmu Huai's question, Shizuka fell silent for a moment.
"Now that my great revenge has been taken, I plan to travel around and see the world, experience some adventures, and also...…I want to find Nagi."
"Oh, your bargain-bin little sister."
After everything ended, Shizuka had specifically gone to the ruins of the Jump Tower, but did not find Nagi's corpse inside. It was certain that she had definitely escaped back then.
"Yes. Even though she might not like me, I still want to find her and talk things through properly with her. Also, I plan to continue leveling up. At least right now, I really can't beat Nagi."
"Mm."
Duanmu Huai was not surprised by what Shizuka said. After arriving in this world, he discovered an unexpected setting. That was regarding "levels." Basically, everyone could level up, everyone had a level cap, and everyone knew what their own level cap was.
Generally speaking, ordinary civilians had level caps between levels 5–10, while weak adventurers were roughly within level 20. Around level 30 counted as backbone adventurers, above that up to level 40 were considered high-level adventurers, and even stronger ones were around levels 50–60.
Shizuka's level was currently around level 30, placing her in the upper-middle tier.
Of course, if that were all, it would just be very game-like. But there was one thing that was very not game-like.
That was...…levels not only went up, they also went down!
That's right. People born in this world—if you went a long time without adventuring, without leveling, without gaining experience—your level would rapidly drop.
As the saying went, learning was like rowing upstream: if you didn't advance, you retreated.
Now it seemed that adventuring was the same.
If this were an online game, it would be equivalent to a player maxing out their character, then going AFK for a long time, logging back in only to find their character's level had dropped straight back to level 1...…
Maria didn't really care. As an engineer, she didn't go to the front lines to fight much anyway, so whether her level dropped or not didn't matter much.
But for Shizuka, the impact was huge...…
"Since that's the case, then it just so happens that I have something I want to ask you to do."
"Ask me? What is it?"
"I plan to establish an Inquisition branch here, mainly for intelligence investigation and collection. Since you're going to adventure in this world anyway, how about helping out by gathering some information along the way?"
Duanmu Huai had had this idea for more than just a day or two. After all, the situation in this world was rather complicated, especially after hearing Saizer's explanations.
"That's fine, but what kind of information do you want to collect?"
"First is information about the Demon King."
Duanmu Huai took out a document containing Saizer's report on the Demon King. According to Saizer, the former Demon King, Guy, had summoned a girl from another world to serve as his successor. However, the girl refused and ran away. Guy was heavily injured by the girl's companions and then died.
At present, this Little Demon King was traveling across the continent to evade the demon race's pursuit. One of the reasons Camilla launched the invasion of Seth this time was to find this Little Demon King.
Incidentally, this was also the origin of the current era name of this continent.
The current year was LP2, and LP was the Little Demon King's codename———LITTLE PRINCESS.
"According to Saizer, those who inherit the Demon King's blood will gradually become violent and insane. So even if she looks harmless, don't go offering yourself up to die. Just lock down her location and notify me."
"Alright."
Shizuka did not mind Duanmu Huai's request. She was going to travel around anyway while searching for her missing sister, so she didn't mind picking up an extra task.
"And also...…I want you to investigate matters related to the Creator God."
"The Creator God?"
Hearing this, Shizuka frowned slightly.
"You should be asking the people of the AL Church about that."
"I'm not very suited to dealing with the AL Church. Different doctrines make it easy to start fighting."
After all, from the Inquisition's perspective, the AL Church was also a heretical cult, the kind that should be directly wiped out.
In fact, Lia had previously told Duanmu Huai that if he needed it, Lisath could directly expel the entire AL Church and have the citizens convert to the Inquisition...…hmm, better to put that aside for now.
"If an adventurer like you goes, their guard will be lower. You don't need to ask too many questions, just probe into the intelligence of the AL Church's upper echelons. Kanami will act together with you, since...…you can't win on your own, right?"
"...…"
Hearing this, Shizuka could only look speechless, especially since Duanmu Huai wasn't wrong.
She really couldn't beat Nagi right now...…
Thus, after briefly resolving the matters here, Duanmu Huai took everyone else and returned to the mothership.
At present, the mothership's renovations had begun to take shape, but clearly, it would still take some time before everything was fully completed...…
However, what Duanmu Huai did not expect was that not long after returning to the mothership, he received some intelligence from Mia that left him speechless.
"Dardaniel again? How does he manage to run into trouble every single day?"
Looking at the intelligence in his hand, Duanmu Huai wore a helpless expression.
This was a request Dardaniel had sent some time ago. According to this Rogue Trader, after successfully mining Pandora's minerals, the home planet of that human civilization star system had gradually emerged from its predicament. Thus, Dardaniel initiated a second round of reform—opening up space colonies.
Originally, Dardaniel had wanted to use Pandora as a colony, but...…just as Duanmu Huai had previously thought, Pandora's biological environment did not match human requirements, making it extremely difficult to terraform. Fortunately, this Rogue Trader was no fake—he still managed to find several nearby planets suitable for human colonization.
These planets were not lush like Pandora, but Dardaniel did not mind. In fact, such planets were easier to handle. No life meant no ecosystem, which meant they could freely modify the planet's atmosphere to better suit human needs.
Thus, Dardaniel enthusiastically organized several colonial fleets and set out.
Everything went smoothly. They encountered no danger along the way, and the colonial forces successfully arrived at those planets. What remained was to build terraforming facilities, modify the planetary environment to resemble Earth's, and then plant vegetation and crops.
Everything was smooth up to this point, and Dardaniel was very happy.
However...…but...…hmm...…
One of the colonies lost contact.
At first, Dardaniel did not take it seriously and dispatched one of his armed units to deal with it.
Then they never came back.
Then, refusing to believe it, Dardaniel dispatched another force—large in scale, almost comparable to the army used to develop Pandora.
Then there was still no response.
Now Dardaniel could no longer sit still.
So...…Doraemon...…no, wait, Inquisitor-sama, save me!
"Heh heh, this guy really is something—limited ability, endless trouble."
After reading Dardaniel's request, Duanmu Huai chuckled. He actually didn't mind Dardaniel making use of him. Or rather, Duanmu Huai quite liked this kind of mutual exploitation. Because Rogue Traders like Dardaniel, who were just starting out, were more likely to run into all sorts of trouble. And merchants were never afraid of death—for one hundred percent profit, they dared to risk anything. As a result, many places the Inquisition couldn't yet reach might be stumbled upon by Dardaniel by sheer coincidence.
Since the Inquisition stood on humanity's side, as long as Dardaniel didn't commit any fundamental mistakes, Duanmu Huai would definitely help him.
Just like the Na'vi he encountered while developing Pandora—should the Inquisition help humans, or help aliens?
There was no question about it, right?
Having such a Rogue Trader actively triggering quests for him outside, Duanmu Huai couldn't be happier.
Back to the matter at hand.
Since Dardaniel said this was an uninhabited barren planet, it was unlikely to be local natives like Pandora. Based on Duanmu Huai's experience, when something like this happened, it was either because the planet had an underground civilization, or the colony had encountered some strange creatures, or an alien army.
Of course, it was also possible that the planet itself had a problem.
After all, similar situations had appeared in games before. Back then, players also accepted similar missions to investigate such a planet, only to discover that the planet itself was actually a gigantic living organism. It disguised itself as a planet, devoured passing starships, then broadcast their distress signals to lure others in, and then ate them as well.
But the exact situation would only be known after going there.
Duanmu Huai put down the intelligence in his hand.
In short, he would first contact Dardaniel, then decide based on the situation.
(End of chapter)