Tales of Death´s Daughter

“Aww … how cute.” I had different words for that troll which had its whole right arm ripped to shreds, but I didn’t say anything regarding Clara’s remark.

If she – and in extension her sister - thought that undead where cute, I wouldn’t mind showing them the three dragons I had in my possession. Smiling a little, I shooed Aska’s minion away from us and looked across the river to the fortified side of the Worchester Kingdom.

“So how do we cross this river?” The demon king asked, knowing my weakness already.

“We don’t … at least not right now. Our top priority is to clear the forts.” And for that, we merely had to lean back and watch the mess unfold. As such, I climbed on top of the nearest normal tree and made myself comfortable on a thick branch. Listening to the clacking of bones behind us was quite satisfying already, but seeing thousands and thousands of undead pass by beneath me was even better in comparison.

Hearing the alarm bells drew an even wider smile onto my face as the human warriors scurried to man the walls of the fort on the other side of the river.

The undead on the other hand were completely unfazed and stepped into the river unbothered by the current and attempted to cross right away. Some were swept away, others were never seen again after they had dove down beneath the waterline, but if every demon in the northern part of the continent attempts to cross the river some were bound to succeed, especially because we didn’t do it without any plan whatsoever.

A rotten giant without any weapon soon tore through the forest, stomped onto smaller undead only to fall head first into the river, splashing water everywhere but coincidentally also creating a makeshift bridge with his rotten flesh.

The ‘smaller’ demons directly used that opportunity to rush across its back and swarm to the other side of the river, only to be blasted by spells coming from that fort.

“Shouldn’t we help a little?” Clarice asked on a lower branch indignantly. Our undead were slaughtered left and right with even the giant dying from magic rather quickly. But there were still a lot of undead we had. And by a lot, I meant every single demon that had existed.

Aska had single-handedly done what the coalition of humans and elves couldn’t. All demons except a few ones were dead. The demonic races would go extinct, with the vampiric one as the sole exception.

But instead, they now had a massive undead problem with most of them being under Aska’s control for the time being. The first and last line of defence of the coalition along the river was experiencing that first hand.

So far, they did their best to defend the fort, but only because they had magic on their side. Once their mana ran out, they would be fighting against what we didn’t perceive as cannon fodder. And that time came faster than expected.

As soon as the first demonic bulls rushed through the river towards the castle, it’s fate was sealed. Apparently, they had already used up most of their mana potions thanks to the constant harassment tactics the undead used of piling up on their walls and using that as a makeshift stair, so there wasn’t much they could do to stop these crazy bulls ramming into their gates.

“Well, now we can go.” I jumped down from the branch and noticed how Hannah jumped into the air right away, followed by the demon king shortly afterwards.

“When can we kill him?” Clara glared at the demon king angrily and tracked his every movement as he bombarded the castle with long range spells of all kinds.

“Be a little more patient.” I wanted to see him dead as well. Everyone in this group did. And yet he was Aska’s plaything, making it somewhat difficult for me to murder him openly. Giggling a little, I stepped onto that dead giant and balanced across him, all while a wall of blood protected us from all sides. Sure, the humans in the forts noticed our presence this way, but they already had their hands full with the bulls charging into their gates repeatedly. As soon as I hopped off the giant’s head onto the other side of the river, that barrier dissipated again, probably because there wasn’t anything coming our way anymore.

As such, we were able to watch the spectacle of the castle slowly succumbing to superior numbers. All kinds of undead streamed through the gates, clashing their weapons loudly with the soldiers inside while we strolled towards the gate as well, every single undead making way for us.

“All hail the queen!” Clara shouted out a little bit giggly already.

“How about I crown myself to be empress after that?” I asked, already imagining delegating all that nasty work to someone else entirely.

“Oh, oh! Can I put the crown on your head?” Clarice jumped around me happily while I just looked down on her.

“No … I want a peasant to do it.” I stunned both of them with my words, especially because it was so out of character. But somehow, I needed to convey everyone that I had no intention of ruling over a dystopia, mostly because I didn’t want Luna to grow up in such a place.

“Huh?” Clara asked right away.

“I don’t want to rely on petty nobles, nor the church in any way. Allowing them to crown me empress would defeat that purpose as I would need to get on my knees for that. I´m thinking of ending all their power struggles and consolidating absolute power into myself … which will be second to all the citizens I will reign over.” If all of them wanted to get rid of me, I could hardly do anything against it. Even I had my limits in that regard and as I didn’t want to rely on Aska, I would need to compromise.

“But a peasant? Isn´t that a bit … unhonourable? Just crown yourself.” Yeah … crown myself. Only tyrants would do that and that’s not how I wanted to be seen by Luna or Sofie.

“I´m not going to become a tyrant. Forget about that.” I told them determined to keep it that way. I wouldn’t be kind, not at all, but I also wouldn’t plan on making my subjects life horrible.

“But why? We could have so much fun!” Clarice asked a little frustrated as we finally reached the gateway into the castle.

“Because I don’t feel like it.” I clapped my hands loudly and made every undead stop fighting right away. The humans fought on for several seconds, striking a few skeletons down until they realised the rather odd situation. “I wish to speak with the commander of this fort.” I shouted loudly and was directly met with utterly confused gazes as a few of them recognized me as their saint.

“We are going to spare them?!” Clara asked in utter disbelief. None of them were expecting me to be kind at all, which was somewhat understandable.

“We are back in the human world, Clara. If we act too cruel, there will be much more resistance to what I have in mind.” I told them quietly and looked at the commander of the fort stepping out of the keep and walking towards me unsteadily.

“You are … the saint.” So did it seem. The system still latched onto me and this was the surefire way of identifying the saint.

“The one you wanted to be gone from your castle, yes. I am your saint.” I explained him in a calm voice.

“And yet you are here with undead, slaughtering my men left and right.” He looked around to his fallen comrades for a little and then back to me. He wasn’t exactly shocked by the sight, with certainly was a testimony of how long he had guarded that border already, but it still pained him to see it.

“I am deeply sorry about that, but you wouldn’t have let us through even if I talked to you, no? I am here to declare war, not on humankind, but rather on the corrupt nobles keeping peasants poor, stealing money from those that have it and live in luxury while others sleep on the ground.“ I was still continuing with my old self as the saint, as I was the one standing up for the oppressed. Always.

“… the saint I heard of wouldn’t do start a war like this.” No, I certainly wouldn’t if Aska wasn’t around and was dead set on slaughtering ever reincarnator there was. And for that, we didn’t choose assassination as the one month delay meant we didn’t know where everyone was, but rather a fast conquest to rat them all out.

“I wouldn’t do such a thing if there was any other way … I wish to end this bloodshed sooner rather than later. And I will need your help for that.” I explained and lowered my head a little. I could see his uneasy gaze shifting to the twins behind me for a little, but he also knew that fighting on wouldn’t be of any use.

“How can we help three bloodthirsty vampires?”

“All of us are abstaining from drinking the blood of humans acting morally, so be rest assured. First of all, we need you to lay down your weapons. And after that, you and your men have two days to deliver a simple message for me: ‘Let one undead enter your villages and fortifications and no other will come. Kill him and we will retaliate with force.’ That’s all.”

“Most won’t give up.”

“The villages and cities will when they see the size of the army at their doorstep.”

“But the army and adventurers will fight.”

“And they will loose.” With just my thoughts alone, the gate to purgatory opened below me. A single soul left it, scooted towards its old body right beside us and entered it. First of, there wasn’t any reaction, but soon the corpses fingers twitched a little and the zombie sat upright, looked at the commander before I promptly dragged its soul back into purgatory.

“… I will convey that message. Drop your weapons, we surrender!” One by one, the soldiers let go of their swords and bows while I curtsied in front of the commander.

“Thank you.” I told him and made every undead pick up the weapons. Even though most of the demons weren’t humanoid at all, and the others had never used a sword, we quickly collected them and piled them up somewhere in that field of corpses outside. “You can go now. Be rest assured that you won’t get attacked by any demons.”

“Even though they were acting really aggressive lately?” He asked highly worried about his and his men life. But then being torn apart by some random demon wasn’t benefiting me either, so I would have done something … if there were many demons left alive.

“That time is already over.” I told him curtsied once more and turned around to leave together with the twins. Only a few undead were guarding the weapons while others stood on the riverside, but the majority went back into demon territory. We came as conquerors, but we were kind ones, something the twins weren’t happy about at all.

“We aren’t doing anything to them?” They asked, refusing to go across that giants back.

“We can hunt for a few criminals later.” I proposed a bit annoyed they were questioning my decision this regularly lately.

“But we want to murder them.” Clara told me a bit angrily.

“And I said no.” I growled back.

“That’s not –“ Clarice tried, but I wasn’t willing to put up with their perceived unfairness at all.

“Behave.” I hissed at them, grabbed them by their attire and pulled them towards the giant.

“We are vampires, Lucinda. We prey on humans … we don’t let them go.” Clara tried to protest, at least until I flung both of them to the ground and stepped on her hand.

“We are not here to destroy everything, understood? There is a time where we can act like animals, but that isn’t now.” Angrily, I put a lot more pressure on my feet until Clara screamed a little. Clarice sat upright again, but didn’t dare to help her sister and rather stared at me with utter amazement. “We have an objective which makes our own needs a secondary issue. So either you’ll behave, or I will make you.” I glared at Clarice a little before I lifted my foot off Clara’s hand and stared down on them.

“I’m sorry. Please don’t throw us away.” Clara begged, her hand already healed completely.

“Get a grip on your urges.” I had the very weird hunch they were actually enjoying their admonition as I turned by back towards them, took Hannah’s hand and climbed back onto the giants head. The twins were following me shortly afterwards, quiet at first, but then discussing how they could do me a favour, probably to sway my opinion.

At least they weren’t discussing how they could murder behind my back, because that would lead to their own death. I couldn’t have more bad publicity at this point after all. Going around with an army of undead was already bad enough.