James L. ($100), Schuyler C. ($10), Jeffery M. ($10), Alexander T. ($10), Charles S. ($10), Henry F. ($5), Pawel B. ($5) are the wonderful sponsors for today, thank you all for your support.
“It has taken some time, but we have accomplished the task, Bocchan!” said Sam.
Knochen let out a happy roar.
“Vandalieu-sama, you have become even more wonderful than before!” said Tarea.
“The skewer business and the conversion of more people into believers of Vida are going well too, everything is going smoothly!” said Kanako.
Nuaza let out a happy shout. “I am honored to have taken part in this great task!”
“Congratulations, Vandalieu. Show everyone your new form,” said Darcia.
Amidst everyone’s cheers, Vandalieu stood up.
His soul’s appearance was far cleaner than its previous form… the humanoid form with human body parts and fragments of the Demon King scattered all over its surface.
From afar, he would appear to be a warrior or mage wearing armor and fur. But if one looked carefully, they would realize that he was far too thin to wear armor.
And from up close, there was no way to conceal his grotesqueness. What appeared to be armor was actually a hard exoskeleton and carapace, and what appeared to be decorations were actually horns and compound eyes. What appeared to be a cape was actually wings and membranes, and what appeared to be his two legs were actually jointed legs that were organized into two bundles.
The shield that his left arm appeared to be carrying was made from his bone that protruded through his exoskeleton and entwined with his carapace. And his clawed right hand was holding a staff that looked like a brain… If one looked closely, it was a sphere composed of countless brains that had their nerves wrapped around each other, and the shaft of the staff was a tongue that extended from that sphere.
His head had a mouth with fangs protruding from it, enormous ordinary eyes, Demon Eyes, hair and horns.
The inside of his body was visible through gaps in his joints; the blood vessels visibly pulsated, and his internal organs squirmed. From time to time, a strange-colored liquid would drip from Vandalieu’s eyeballs.
And there was death-attribute Mana… constantly emanating from him like pulsating brain waves from deep within him, and circulating around him like blood.
“It’s easier to move than before, so that’s very helpful. You did a great job, everyone,” said Vandalieu.
“Words of praise. It seems that we have done well,” said Myuze.
“Alright, three cheers to celebrate a job well done!” someone said from among the crowd.
Everyone who had participated in the soul reconstruction task, the enormous Vandalieu and the countless small Vandalieus that had joined partway through all gave three cheers in celebration.
Waking up suddenly, Vandalieu looked at his Status and saw that his Mana had completely recovered.
But he was suspicious and confused.
“What’s wrong, Vandalieu? If you’re not feeling well again, you can have some of my blood,” said Darcia, who had been sleeping in the bed next to his.
“No, that’s not it… My soul’s construction was finished in my dream, so I was wondering what all of the countless mes joining in the cheering were,” said Vandalieu.
He pondered this question, unable to understand the current state of his soul, but after a minute, he decided that it wasn’t harmful so it wasn’t really important.
At that exact moment, Heinz, who was receiving treatment in the Divine Realm of Mill, the goddess of slumber, heard a strange, distant, echoing roar.
“What is this terrifying noise?!” he exclaimed.
“A roar that echoes in my Divine Realm… Perhaps one of the remnants of the Demon King’s army who is related to slumber and dreams? No, it is likely to be… the roar of the Demon King who had joined forces with Vida, the one who defeated you and devoured Curatos-dono,” said Mill.
“No, it’s too early! He really does exist in a realm beyond humans…!” Heinz murmured.
The roar faded away, but Heinz’s trembling did not subside for some time.
《The Levels of the ‘Mana Enlargement,’ ‘Increased Mana Recovery Rate,’ ‘Enhanced Vitality,’ ‘Bloodwork,’ ‘Cooking,’ ‘Embodiment,’ ‘Super High-speed Thought Processing,’ ‘Demon King,’ ‘Group Thought Processing,’ ‘Group Control’ and ‘Soul Form’ Skills have increased!》
《You have acquired the ‘Enhanced Attribute Values: Reigning’ Skill!》
《‘Multi-cast’ has awakened into ‘Greater Multi-cast,’ and ‘Mana Control’ has awakened into ‘Precise Mana Control!’》
Seeing Fang place one paw in Vandalieu’s hand, then place the other paw in Vandalieu’s hand, lie down, stay, and stand up on his hind legs just as Vandalieu commanded, the Tamers’ Guild’s employee let out an admiring gasp.
“Wonderful. To think that a boy who has not received instruction under another Tamer, and is keeping a pet for the first time, could train a slum dog, which is essentially a stray dog, in just one week!” he said.
“… It’s because he’s very smart,” said Vandalieu, not very happy despite the Guild employee’s praise, though Fang barked happily.
This was probably because he had experienced no troubles whatsoever teaching Fang tricks and training him.
This was because Fang could immediately understand all of Vandalieu’s orders except for one. To Vandalieu, Fang was simply an intelligent dog.
But in truth, Fang was not a particularly special dog. In fact, he could have been considered to be inferior to the average stray dog. That was why he had wandered behind the house that Vandalieu had bought, unable to feed himself.
But after becoming Vandalieu’s pet, he received the effects of Vandalieu’s Guidance, and his Attribute Values were increased beyond those of any other dog. This was why he had become very intelligent.
“It does indeed seem that the dog is clever, but… I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that you are a Dhampir?” said the Guild employee. “I have heard that Vampires possess not only the ability to transform into wolves and bats, but also the ability to use such animals as their familiars and control them freely.”
“It’s true that Vampires can transform into wolves and bats, but the latter is superstition,” said Vandalieu. “Or maybe it’s simply the case that there are Vampires who were Tamers while they were still human.”
“I see… Very well. You pass. I hereby acknowledge you as an associate member,” the Guild employee said, handing Vandalieu a registration card and a collar.
A common misconception was that the Tamers’ Guild was a Guild only for those who tamed and used monsters, but this was not the case. Anyone who used any means to tame any non-human creatures was qualified to register.
The term ‘Tamer’ was a broad one that included showmen who used monkeys in their shows, snake charmers who controlled snakes with flutes, and shepherds who skillfully managed their herding dogs and sheep.
Of course, few such performers and shepherds did actually register at the Tamers’ Guild.
Even though it was possible for them to register, they only tamed animals that couldn’t exactly be called familiars, so they could only become associate members at most. No matter how much experience someone had, no matter how skilled they were in taming wild animals, they would need to teach tricks to a Rank 1 monster to progress, and even then, they would still be below the newcomers.
This system had been in place since a very long time ago, so those who tamed monsters were the ones with influence, and there were almost no benefits for those who could only tame animals, even if they did register.
The only such people benefiting from registering at the guild were skilled coachmen or hunting dog trainers registering at the Guild and applying to be introduced to potential employment by nobles or rich merchants.
“You are now an associate member. Are you planning to handle monsters? If you are merely using that dog as a guard dog for your food cart, then registration at the Tamers’ Guild is not necessary, and there is almost no work to introduce to someone who is merely good at handling dogs, so I think your registration would be quite meaningless,” said the Guild employee.
“You’re aware that we are running a food cart. I thought that it was in a place that doesn’t draw much attention,” Vandalieu remarked.
“Well, yes. It is a food cart run by a Dhampir and a beautiful Dark Elf in this country. It would be strange for it to not become a topic of conversation. If I wasn’t worried about upsetting my wife, I would visit the entertainment district to have a look myself.”
A week had passed since Vandalieu opened his food cart, but it seemed that he and Darcia had already become famous in the city… Darcia would soon conduct a sermon at the Communal Church, so in another week’s time, perhaps news of them would have spread to the nearby villages as well.
“If you can’t think of any monsters that you can tame, isn’t registering actually disadvantageous?” the Guild employee asked, still looking confused. “The only difference is that you have to follow a lot of rules.”
Guild members needed to follow a number of rules regarding the monsters and animals they tamed. But they were common-sense rules, such as having to pay a large fine when one’s tamed monsters or animals caused damage to others for no proper reason, so Vandalieu didn’t think that this was inconvenient at all.
“Even if I’m just an associate member, registering gives me another form of identification,” Vandalieu said.
“You don’t need identification since you’ve already made a temporary registration at the Commerce Guild… Ah, well, you might. That man has his eyes set on you. I see. No wonder a child with a temporary registration was allocated a spot in a back alley in the entertainment district,” the employee murmured to himself, realizing that Deputy Guild Master Joseph of the Commerce Guild was harassing Vandalieu. “So that is why you have registered at our Guild as well, just in case. It is convenient for us, but unfortunate for you. But rest assured; even though he is a Deputy Guild Master, he would be unable to force you out of the Guild without a good excuse. And if things get too hard, you can always leave the Commerce Guild and rely on the Tamers’ Guild. As a Tamer myself, I’ll teach you the basics!” the employee said proudly.
But having already become an associate member, if he were to show the Guild employee Pete and Kühl who were equipped inside him… or if he used less exciting examples, like the Demon Ducks and Capricorns in Talosheim’s farms, or the experimental animals that had recently mutated into monsters, he would become accepted as a Tamer without being taught the basics.
But he was sincerely happy at the man’s kind words, so he just nodded.
“Thank you. I’ll count on you if the time comes,” he said.
“Ah, if there’s anything you want to talk to me about, tell one of the employees to pass on a message to Guild Master Bachem!” the man added.
… It seemed that the man Vandalieu thought was a mere employee was actually the Guild Master of the Tamers’ Guild.
He had likely taken over the desk after hearing that the rumored Dhampir had appeared at the Guild.
Fang gave a suspicious sniff.
“… Alright,” said Vandalieu, deciding not to focus on becoming a Tamer.
In reality, he tamed far more powerful monsters than this good-natured Guild Master.
After attaching a collar to Fang, Vandalieu headed to the butcher to stock up on meat to use for his grilled skewers.
“Your Majesty, is Isla-san going to be okay with this?” asked Princess Levia, glancing at the collar of the proud-looking Fang with a worried expression.
“Isn’t this dangerous around Eleanora? Bellmond too,” said Orbia.
Isla, who was currently infiltrating the city’s criminal organization, was a Vampire Zombie who had remained low-key for three years after she became an Undead in order to acquire the ‘Eclipse Emperor’s Hound’ Title and receive a collar. Eleanora and Bellmond were Vampires who had showed great effort and dedication in order to receive collars from Vandalieu.
But surely even they would not be jealous of Fang, who was actually a dog… though nobody could be certain of this.
But Chipuras was glaring at Fang, his jealousy practically glowing.
“This dog wears a collar that I, Chipuras, the former ‘Fine Dog’ of the Five Hounds, am no longer able to wear…!” he groaned.
He had also been a Vampire when he was alive, one of Isla and Bellmond’s colleagues.
“Chipuras, your tone has not quite become unpleasant, but control yourself. I’ll tell Isla and the others when they come to the house, so it’s essentially fine,” said Vandalieu.
“Boss, are you trying to say that things are not actually fine?” said Kimberley.
“I think I’ll look for a good opportunity to invite them here, and thank them for their hard work,” Vandalieu whispered.
If I make collars out of Spirit Silver, would Ghosts be able to wear them? he wondered as he entered the butcher’s store.
Though it was called a butcher’s store, the store that Vandalieu was using was actually a meat wholesale store that was used by business owners as well as ordinary customers. The scene inside was rather graphic, with uncut meat hung from hooks descending from the ceiling and employees using knives to carve chunks of meat as their customers had ordered.
“Excuse me, could I please have some meat to be used for skewers? I’d like Horn Rabbit and Giant Rat, as well as Giga bird meat if you have it,” Vandalieu said to one of the store’s workers.
He was making the same order as last time, and the workers knew his face, so this wouldn’t cause any problems. The store’s manager would tell him, “Here you are,” and hand him meat wrapped in dried leaves or skins, and Vandalieu would pay him in exchange.
That’s what should have happened.
But today, the store manager had a sour look on his face, and he made no effort to wrap any meat.
“… Sorry, we’re sold out,” he said.
“Sold out?” Vandalieu repeated. “Then what is that Giant Rat meat that’s hanging over there?”
“Th-that’s… reserved for another customer. Can’t sell it to you!”
“Then what about that Horn Rabbit thigh there?”
“Th-this was butchered by a rookie and it’s damaged! I can’t sell it to customers!”
“Then could I please have that wild boar meat over there?”
“Th-that’s left over from yesterday! It’s gone bad! I can’t hand it to you!”
“Then I’ll take that bear meat over there, even though bear meat has a distinct, unusual flavor that makes some people dislike it.”
“That’s… Wait, why can a kid like you tell different cuts of meat apart?!” the store manager demanded.
“Even if you ask me that, I can only answer that I can because I can,” Vandalieu replied calmly.
Perhaps attempting to make the best use of limited ingredients and funds in a new environment had been a good experience for Vandalieu; his ‘Cooking’ Skill had recently risen to Level 8. He was skilled enough to be able to work at a first-rate restaurant.
He might not have been able to recognize ingredients that he had never seen before in his life, but it wasn’t hard for him to tell apart meats that he had experience in preparing before from their external appearance and the blood vessels that were left.
Perhaps realizing this, the store manager’s face was twisted in a complicated expression.
“… The cuts we have in stock now aren’t really rare, but you can tell them apart, huh, kid,” he sighed.
But it seemed that he had no intent of fulfilling Vandalieu’s order.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t sell you our meat. If this was the only butcher’s store in the city, I’d tough it out, but there are other butchers around. I can’t go against him,” he said, hanging his head. “That’s how it is. This isn’t something that an adult should be doing to a kid like you, but…”
Vandalieu stared at the top of the man’s lowered head for a few seconds, and then lowered his own head in return. “I understand. I’m sorry for being so demanding.”
And with no further complaints, he quietly turned to leave the store.
The store manager hastily called out to him. “The other butchers will be no good, too! The same might apply for the fish markets, too. But maybe things might work out if you talk directly to the Adventurers’ Guild. We stock our meat from the Adventurers’ Guild as well as hunters!”
“I see. Thank you,” said Vandalieu.
He stepped out of the store, patted Fang who was waiting for him outside, and headed for the Adventurers’ Guild.
“Your Majesty, what is going on?” asked Princess Levia.
“I think Joseph’s harassment has gone a step up,” said Vandalieu. “He’s put pressure on every wholesale store so that they won’t sell any ingredients to me.”
“Huh?! Isn’t that really bad?!” Princess Levia exclaimed in shock.
“Van-kun, the guards! Let’s report him to the guards! If you can’t be bothered with that, I’ll just drown him!” said Orbia, enraged.
“No, I think reporting him would be pretty pointless,” Kimberley said, trying to calm Orbia down. “This Commerce Guild Deputy Guild Master is definitely used to doing things like this. I have no doubt that he’s made sure not to leave any paper trails that could be used as evidence. Even for the old man running the butcher’s store, he probably just sent a messenger to verbally threaten him not to sell Boss any meat.”
“If he has done that, then he can simply pretend that he knows nothing in the event that an investigation actually happens. I used such methods often myself,” Chipuras added.
“Chipuras-san…” Princess Levia said quietly, sounding disappointed.
“That is how it is, so, Vandalieu-sama! Let us make the decision to dispose of Joseph! He is harassing us without hesitation; it is clear that he intends to force us into a situation where the food cart cannot operate, and make us fail the review!” Chipuras insisted.
“Well, I will add ‘probably’ just in case, but I do think it’s almost certainly the work of Joseph and his underlings, but…” said Vandalieu, nodding.
There was only circumstantial proof, but Joseph was probably the only one who could pressure stores that sold food ingredients but not the Adventurers’ Guild.
“But it’s not like we will be able to buy ingredients again right away after we bury Joseph… Even if we killed him and had Isla take his place with ‘Shapeshift,’ it would be troublesome having her constantly keep up a convincing act,” said Vandalieu. “And if something were to happen to Joseph, the first person the investigators would suspect is me, the suspicious Dhampir,” he added.
He was fully aware of how suspicious he was, which was why he advocated for continuing to leave Joseph be.
“In terms of appearances, it would be best for something to happen to Joseph after we’ve put this city behind us,” he said.
“… Very well. After all, there are no problems if we procure ingredients from the Adventurers’ Guild,” said Chipuras. “It may become somewhat more expensive, but we simply need to provide Miles with plenty of money in advance for purchasing skewers.”
“You’re right,” said Orbia. “If we just bear with it for now…”
“He’s the one who is in a pitiful situation,” Kimberley said with an evil cackle.
“Everyone, please suppress your bloodthirst. It’s making Fang nervous,” said Vandalieu. “And it would be troublesome if some adventurers were to take notice.”
Vandalieu reached the Adventurers’ Guild, and he had Fang wait outside once more. There was a general rule that tamed creatures could not be taken into Guilds.
Fang, who still hadn’t lost his hatred of humans, let out a dissatisfied whimper. But this was something that couldn’t be helped.
“Orbia, please stay with Fang,” said Vandalieu.
“Okay!” said Orbia, turning to Fang. “Look, I’m with you, so don’t worry about anything,” she whispered in his ear while still keeping herself invisible.
Leaving Fang to her, Vandalieu entered the Guild.
It was near noon, so there weren’t many people in the Adventurers’ Guild. Even so, perhaps because there were many who had heard the rumors of Vandalieu, the adventurers looking at the commission board and employees behind the counter turned and looked at him curiously.
But thanks to this fame, there were no adventurers who came to pick a fight with Vandalieu, which was fortunate because he was currently accompanied by a group of Ghosts in bad moods.
Vandalieu picked one of the receptionists at random and approached.
“Welcome to the Adventurers’ Guild. Please state your business,” the receptionist said.
“Hello, I want to buy some meat for consumption. Do you have any leftover meat?” Vandalieu asked, showing her his temporary registration card from the Commerce Guild.
“I’m sorry, at this time of day, meat is a little…”
The receptionist’s response was unfavorable. Vandalieu and his companions thought for a moment that Joseph had somehow put pressure on the Adventurers’ Guild as well, but… it seemed that it was just a matter of it being the wrong time of day.
Naturally, the meat sold by the Adventurers’ Guild was meat that was hunted and brought in by adventurers. Many of these adventurers accepted requests in the morning and returned to the city before the sun set. Thus, the Adventurers’ Guild’s wholesale store would only become stocked with meat in the afternoon. It wasn’t even noon yet, so it was too early.
There were some adventurers who would return in the early hours of the morning, but it was too late to buy the meat that was brought in by those adventurers.
Meat was a raw product, so the Adventurers’ Guild made an effort to trade it to other wholesale stores and restaurants before it spoiled. As a result, there was no substantial inventory of meat left.
“Then is it possible to purchase the parts that are brought in as proof of monster extermination?” Vandalieu asked the receptionist.
He had given up on acquiring ordinary meat, and was wondering if he could get his hands on the monster parts that adventurers handed in at the Adventurers’ Guild as proof of having exterminated the monsters.
Most monster parts used for this purpose were ears, tails, pointed tips among other things that were not suited for consumption, but were rather used for alchemy. But considering that the food carts of the slums served Goblin and Kobold ears, as well as meatballs containing things such as minced Giant Rat tails, it was possible to purchase them.
This would save the Adventurers’ Guild having to purchase the fuel necessary to dispose of them by incineration, so it apparently sold these parts almost for free as a charitable gesture.
Vandalieu had once wondered how the Adventurers’ Guild told apart the races of the monsters that such ears had belonged to, and what the Guild did with the ears once it purchased them. This was the answer to one of those questions.
“I’m sorry. The buyers for those are already decided,” the receptionist said.
It seemed that there was already an existing arrangement for the sale of these parts. Even though they were parts intended only as proof of extermination, and sold almost for free, there wasn’t an unlimited supply of them. Thus, a list of buyers was decided in advance, and the parts that were brought in were divided evenly among them.
“Umm… Would you like to make a commission?” the receptionist suggested. “If you’re lucky, I think you might be able to acquire some ingredients within a few hours.”
“I’m grateful for your suggestion, but that would be difficult,” said Vandalieu.
There were almost no adventurers currently inside the Guild. Even if Vandalieu were to make a commission, there wouldn’t be any adventurers willing to rush out to acquire Giant Rat and Horn Rabbit meat within such a short timeframe, especially since they wouldn’t even be paid much for it.
It would probably be possible if Vandalieu were to offer an abnormally high reward for it, but… that expense would have to be written in his ledger, which would be bad for when the ledger was inspected in spring.
“Thank you. I’ll come back if I need anything else,” said Vandalieu, giving a bow and turning to leave.
“We will be eagerly awaiting your next visit,” the receptionist said.
Vandalieu stepped outside.
“What shall you do? Will you keep the food cart closed for today and come back to buy ingredients in the afternoon?” asked Princess Levia.
“Or will you change plans entirely and go with the Tamers’ Guild? Unlike the Commerce Guild’s employees, the Guild Master seems friendly,” said Chipuras.
“No… That would kind of make it seem like I’ve lost to Joseph, which feels bad. This food cart business that we’ve all started together can’t stumble over a small bit of harassment like this,” said Vandalieu. “Let’s get some ingredients, even if we have to do it by force.”
That day, Kest was watching the city’s gate, unable to shake off a bad feeling that he had right now.
When he had taken over for the senior guard Aggar, who had been on morning duty, Aggar had been in a strangely good mood. Kest had even heard him disturbingly mutter, “With this, that woman will be mine soon.”
By ‘that woman,’ surely he doesn’t mean Darcia-san, the woman who was Vandalieu’s mother? I think that even Senpai wouldn’t dare to try and lay his hands on a woman that someone as big as the ‘Starving Wolf’ has got his eyes on… No, wait, are Darcia-san and Vandalieu really alright when the ‘Starving Wolf’ has his eyes on them?! Kest wondered to himself. But as long as they’ve got their food cart open in that spot, they can’t help but get involved with the ‘Starving Wolf’… Ah, I’m so powerless.
Though Kest was focused on his duties, his thoughts were in turmoil.
“… Kest, do something about your ears and your tail,” one of the other guards warned him.
“Huh?! Ah, I’m sorry!” Kest said, hastily straightening out his ears and tail.
It seemed that they had given away the anxiousness in his mind.
“Well, there’s nobody passing through at the moment, so it’s fine… Wait, there are some people passing through,” said the other guard, who was a serious superior unlike Aggar.
Kest turned around and saw a boy pulling a cart… Vandalieu, the source of his troubles, and a dog that he had seen before.
“Hello,” said Vandalieu.
“V-Vandalieu-kun?! W-what’s the matter? Has something happened?!” Kest asked, flustered and worried that Vandalieu had finally broken under the harassment he was receiving and was now leaving the city.
“Calm down, you’re still on duty!” the senior guard warned him, then turned to Vandalieu. “… Are you leaving the city?” he asked.
“Yes, to fill up my stocks a little,” said Vandalieu.
Kest looked down at Vandalieu’s cart and saw that it contained no belongings of any sort; it was completely empty.
“Ah, stocking up for your food cart. I see, I thought… No, never mind. Make sure not to stray too far from the highway. And sometimes Goblins and other weak monsters come out even in ordinary grasslands and woods, so be careful. No matter how trustworthy your guard dog is, don’t let your guard down,” said Kest.
Fang looked at Kest and gave a few barks.
Kest interpreted these as “Leave it to me!” and patted Fang’s head.
“Take good care of your master,” he said.
“Kest, I know he’s an acquaintance, but check his identification before you let him out,” the senior guard sighed.
Vandalieu showed the senior guard his two pieces of identification.
The guard raised his brows in surprise. “You have not only a temporary registration card at the Commerce Guild, but also an associate membership at the Tamers’ Guild? I’m surprised you managed to tame something in such a short time,” he said. “If you belong to the Tamers’ Guild, the toll fee is reduced by five Baums, whether you’re a full member or an associate member. Since you’re underage, you can pass for free. Make sure you’re back before the sun sets.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Vandalieu, giving a small nod as he took his identification cards back.
With that, he left the city, dragging his empty cart behind him.
“By the way, he said he’s filling his stocks… What does he need to stock up on?” the senior guard asked Kest as he watched Vandalieu leave.
“Herbs for his sauce, I think,” Kest assumed. “It has quite an unusual flavor… He’s probably going to harvest the herbs for it somewhere.”
“I see. The Dark Elf’s rumored secret sauce, huh. Maybe I should go and buy one of those skewers sometime,” the senior guard said with a nod, satisfied by this explanation.
But meanwhile, Vandalieu was headed not for the grasslands, but the Devil’s Nest closest to the city.
Morksi was a commerce city; it didn’t have wide open farmlands. Thus, its food was supplied through purchasing large quantities of it, as well as hunting and gathering.
A part of that was hunting in the Devil’s Nests. In fact, the city of Morksi had been originally built in this location that was close to multiple Devil’s Nests for the purposes of harvesting their resources.
“Now then… we can’t be too far away from the city, so I suppose I’ll make this lake and forest into a Devil’s Nest. I’ll have to re-examine the surveillance around the city later,” said Vandalieu as he loosened Fang’s collar and held his hand out towards him.
Fang gave Vandalieu a confused look, panting with his tongue hanging out.
“Well, Fang, the experiment is coming to an end. Thanks to you, I’ve learned that animals will not transform into monsters by spending a week living with me in a human society. So… we’re moving onto the next experiment,” said Vandalieu.
He extended his claws and made a cut on his own arm.
Blood welled up and began dripping onto the ground.
“This is an experiment to see if ordinary animals that were not born through Undead reproduction experiments will be transformed by a part of me.”
Fang sniffed Vandalieu’s blood-covered arm a few times, then began licking the blood up.
Once he was finished, creaking noises began coming from his body.
Becoming much more physically huge than he was before, Fang let out a powerful roar. The loosened collar fit his neck perfectly now.
Giving a satisfied nod, Vandalieu patted Fang in thanks, and then directed him deeper into the Devil’s Nest.
“It seems that your mutation has gone well, so shall we do some Leveling while we hunt?” said Vandalieu.
Fang, now the size of a large-breed dog, gave a proud bark then ran off in excitement.
“Ah, wait for me,” said Vandalieu, calling after him.
With a bark and a growl, Fang leapt out of the brush to attack the monster that was his target… A Giant Horn Rabbit.
The monster raised its horns and charged at Fang in return.
Giant Horn Rabbits were monsters that had progressed from Rank 1 Horn Rabbits, and they had the exact same appearance except that they were as big as large dogs.
They also changed from an herbivorous diet into an omnivorous one upon their Rank increase, but they were cowardly monsters that ate mainly insects and small animals as well as plants like ordinary Horn Rabbits.
But the horns on their heads were sharp and solid. Being stabbed by them could be fatal.
In self-defense, the Giant Horn Rabbit swung its horns at Fang, who was about the same size as it.
Fang barked and flinched as the horns struck the side of his face. The Horn Rabbit was surprised that its desperate attack had landed, but it decided to use this opportunity to neutralize its attacker. Lowering its horns, it began to charge.
Its powerful hind legs tensed with strength.
But Vandalieu ran onto the scene.
“‘Sharp Tongue.’”
His ‘Unarmed Fighting Technique’ martial skill… his extended, sharpened tongue, pierced the Giant Horn Rabbit’s head and ended its life.
Fang whimpered.
“Bad boy, Fang. We came here to hunt everyone’s dinner and ingredients to use for the skewers. What are we going to do if you eat the monster?” said Vandalieu, scolding Fang.
Fang’s seniors came out from inside Vandalieu to tell him off as well.
“Don’t go leaping out when you’ve never fought a monster before,” said Quinn.
“Don’t get… carried away,” said Eisen.
Pete made some disappointing clicking noises.
Fang whimpered, and his ears drooped.
“I know that you can feel the power filling you up. But no matter how powerful you are, you can’t win if you have no experience. Watch everyone else except me to learn and gain some combat experience,” Quinn continued.
“Quinn doesn’t fight herself… Do your best,” said Eisen.
Kühl made some encouraging wobbling noises.
“Quinn, Eisen. Kühl has finished draining the blood, so I’ll start disassembling the corpse,” said Vandalieu, seeing that Fang seemed to have learned his lesson. “Ah, Fang, please go and fetch the cart. I left it behind.”
Fang gave a bark.
And so, Vandalieu and the others began their tasks.
Though Fang had mutated into a Rank 2 Demon Dog, life had only just begun for him.
- Name: Fang
- Rank: 2
- Race: Demon Dog
- Level: 0
- Passive skills:
- Night Vision
- Superhuman Strength: Level 1
- Detect Presence: Level 1
- Intuition: Level 1
- Self-enhancement: Guidance: Level 1
- Active skills:
- Silent Steps: Level 1
- Unique skills:
- ヴァ■■■■’s Divine Protection [Va]
Want to support Yoshi's translations? Head over to the Donations Page
NOVEL DISCUSSION
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
neptunez777
Oh Fang also received van protection gift too
JKingSniper
The guard should die
damn annoying ant with no chance
Rasho
Wtf did Mill tell Heinz??? I know it’s lies but I wanna know how much worse she made it look
Chiu ChunLing
It doesn’t really matter, cause Mill doesn’t understand Heinz’s mentality.
Heinz doesn’t actually care about anything other than his public image. So none of the ‘only known to the gods’ stuff Mill might tell him is going to make any difference. What matters to Heinz is whether he can craft a narrative that looks good to humans.
Alda’s faction as a whole doesn’t really get this, because they’re all fanatics who would cheerfully sacrifice nearly the entire human population to ‘win’. The only reason they wouldn’t cheerfully sacrifice ALL humans is because then they’d have no worshippers cause Alda can’t actually create life like Vida can. They only ‘care’ about the opinions of absolute fanatics that uncritically accept Alda’s genocidal teachings. Or rather, they only care about those fanatics because their opinions match Alda’s teachings.
A lot of this is because of the influence of Bellwood, but there’s also the fact that there hasn’t been any serious religious benefit for humans to worship anyone other than Alda till very recently, since Alda was the only main god capable of giving divine protections. Despite this, worship of the other gods has persisted because Alda’s ideology is so utterly insane.
Zenden1st
Yup now that vidas is back I’m hoping she gives him some intense competition in terms of human followers since Vidas religion coincides more with humans base instinct
Naberisu
Now that’s a lie, Heinz is fighting for justice, even if it’s some misguided justice you can’t deny the fact that he cares about Vida’s races, he disagrees with Van because his actions will cause too many deaths, and yes, he do cares about his public image, however that applies to pretty much anyone, why do you think Van is trying to get a license from the adventurers guild? 🙃
Ronin
He like them but, he kills them and really does nothing for them himself. Even when Van told them Ghouls were Vida’s race he simply said “I thought so” Where as the two Mill worshipers were shocked by it Heinz simply brushed off their deaths as something that had to be done. He killed men, women and kids simply because people said they are bad. Yet, he used Selen as bait to draw out Alda extremist and captured them alive. As for Van the adventure’s guild is just merely the most widespread way for him to get identification and allows him to hunt and get paid for it.
Kuroky
Imagine being a dog who has divine protection lol
Hunt3rm4n
Anyone wanna bet? At what rank do you think Fang will become a Cerberus? I’m guessing at rank 8.
Kingjellybean
Kühl made some encouraging wobbling noises
That line made me laugh so hard for some reason tnx for the chapter
Igotdie24
“encouraging wobbling noises”
Lmao
mickeyduck
It is SO refreshing to human people who aren’t absolute trash 😌💖
Jason
I can already see a huge ass fenrir devour the sun for the glory of the demon king
lazygeko
Talos the sun giant is an ally, so that wouldn’t work out well… I guess he could spit it back out again…
ashcraig68
Well… Alda’s authority covers the sun as well, along with the fire god’s, so he could take a bite of A…lda
polynesianvibez
So his new soul form looks like the susano armor from naruto? I wouldn’t complain about that, looks dope!
thanks for the chapter
DieOfSanity
I kind of want the Tamer Guild Master to become his apprentice like Luciliano.
TruePath111
Sigh. I really hate how Undead ended up in this novel. I really didn’t want to see em reproduced. Looks like MC will have sex with them in the future
jacktronsit13
are you a believer of Alda?
Halfsweat
Jacktronsit13 you deserve more likes
LordKira
Why for Vidas sake would you think that in the DEATH MAGE novel wouldn’t be undead?
Blue Berry
The title of LN is “Death Mage”
TruePath: I really hate how Undead up in this novel. I really didn’t want to see em reproduced.
There is such a thing as character development. They aren’t exclusive to Van, Bravers, or Heinz and his group. The path of Undead of this story is not simply staying as “Undead” they want to live as normally as possible, proving the entire world that “Undead” can live normally too.
But that information is irrelevant, isn’t it? You are dickriding Heinz from the very start to the point that Van’s grudge against him was childish for you despite of him accepting the mission of handing the mother of a Dhampir when he knows what the Church of Alda do to them. Newsflash, Undead of this story is far better than the Gods and majority of humanity.
Vitor
I would attempt to be understanding… if it wasn’t because no matter what it is, you always find something to complain, I’m starting to believe that in your screen the “Post Comment” button has awakened into the “Post Complain” button
Hobbes
Lol Great retort @Vitor
Who Cares
to quote:
In reality, he tamed far more powerful monsters than this good-natured Guild Master.
So why didn’t Van tame the guild master? I mean he doesn’t have one yet in his menagerie of monsters.
LordKira
Because he doesn’t want to show his status
Supreme king
Hey guys how old is van currently?
Jonathan Hurd
I believe he is 10 years old currently.
Lightnovelfan
11 by chaper 202
Paps
Thanks for the chapter. Well I am glad Fang evolved well. That Tamer Guild MAster is a man that truly recognizes danger.
Kionzel
Not so much just danger, he likely felt it would be best for someone to handle the situation as tactfully as possible. He is likely aware of Joseph’s bad behavior and took steps to make sure Van knew that
1): not every person in power in the guilds were trying to take advantage of him
2): the tamer’s guild was open to him if the commerce guild failed him
This supplies the Tamer’s guild with the fame of having a Dhampir in their ranks, who at the least has a friendly relationship with the guild master. Thus any dhampir other than Vandalieu would be a good advertisement, especially if the tamer’s guild master wanted to form connections with the peaceful faction or Vida.
What makes me approved of the Tamer Guild master is his attempt to speak to Van as a kindly mentor and intellectual equal, he made no demands of Vandalieu and simply did what was required, while offering his service should Van ever need it. That’s how you negotiate with potential allies in that situation.
death9991
cant take these slow updates anymore, i need my Van-idium time to reread.
Jonathan Hurd
So a nice advantage to Vans newly formed soul I haven’t really seen mentioned, in the comments, is that Vans newly evolved hand to hand style revolves around him covering his body in his soul and using that to fight. The reason why he looked like such a mess when fighting Heinz and the rest was because that’s how his soul normally looks. Now that he has managed to optimize it though I think it will work much better to increase Vans magic and speed not just his strength.
I think Van also might be able to use Soul Form in a similar way to the Magic Transformation staves he makes. Basically the Soul Form can work as armor not only for his body but also protect and increase his Gyabarzo staves magic channeling effectiveness. I’d also add in that considering he’s already done the hard part of optimizing and rearranging everything in his Sou, he should be able to better incorporate any new parts of DK fragments he gets.
This is also just a guess on my part but I feel like the Mini Vans we saw surrounding him in the dream are basically Familiar Spirits of Van. They were probably formed by the excess parts of Soul that he has absorbed from eating others. So I think Van will be able to recycle anyone he eats into a new Familiar Spirit.
A little side note on Familiar Spirit Descent is I noticed Zadris actually has the skill. She does have three Divine Protections Vans, Garess, and Zozogante. Now I do understand there’s a chance the familiar spirit I Vida or another one of her groups, but I didn’t really notice anyone else of Vans group with the skill. So this is just a guess from me but I think Zadris might be able to summon Vans Familiar Spirit. No clue if that’s trye, but would be pretty cool if it is.
Tejing
I agree, his rebuilt soul will probably make his soul form and soul desctruction fighting technique more effective. Not sure I buy it about the staff thing, but it’s possible.
As for familiar spirits, I believe it was mentioned somewhere that Dalton is worried about what his familiar spirit descent skill will do now that he has Van’s divine protection.
Supreme king
If not for the fact that he has soul destruction fighting technique and that people can’t really harm souls him using his raw soul to fight seems dangerous if he’s fighting someone with a physical body
Jonathan Hurd
I feel like fighting with his Soul works to his advantage. I would guess that while the Ability is called Soul Form I don’t think it is exposing Vans actual Soul. That would be a bit to suicidal considering as we saw with Heinzs Soul a decent magic attack even on an exposed spirit can do vast damage.
I think what Soul Form does is it allows Van to basically bring out his true Spirits Form. Considering that Spirit is usually the protective coating around the Soul, Soul Form let’s Van make a protective coating around himself, but this time the core being protected is his physical body.
unwanted child
because of how van is describe i now see him as a dark souls boss
Valeth
So, I was thinking after a previous response in this chapter. The gods appear to have many different forms that they often shift between as these are their avatars, and how their followers see them. So how will Van be represented in the future.
I figure the Large Demon King form, or perhaps and even further upgrades version of the one from this chapter.
His Human form, as a Dhampir hopefully fully grown, although I could see him appearing as a child and man of varying age as some of the gods already do this.
I also was kind of thinking he would take on a form similar to the eastern gods where they have multiple arms, and heads. As there was some older art of him in a form similar to this some time ago. Where he has 4 heads facing the 4 directions with 6 arms, which I thought was pretty cool.
https://death-mage.fandom.com/wiki/Vandalieu_Zakkart?file=Vandalieu_Death_Unltimate.png
Jonathan Hurd
It is an interesting thing to think about. The only problem with guessing Vans final form right now is that Van is constantly improving and changing. So by the time he actually ascends he will most likely have even more DK fragments and might of reorganized again.
Another thing to think about is that it is true that for the God’s their image does affect their form, but how people perceive Van has always been a bit strange. Thanks to mental encroachment and Death Attribute Charm peoples perspective of Van can greatly change upon seeing him.
I think as the story continues and Van increases his abilities and becomes better at leading and drawing others in there is a chance anyone perceiving him might see a unique form constructed only for them. Similar to how everyone sees a different Van in their dreams.
If we’re talking about the statues people would make of him I think back to back Statues works. One would be Van as his normal Dhampir self and the other in his Soul Form. Kind of represents the side he shows to his friends versus his foes.
no1
It seem like his new soul form is comprised primarily of demon king fragments, but what about the soul fragments of the four creation-minded champion that originally made up Van’s soul. They were broken/devoured a second time when Van devoured his own soul. I wonder if the 4 champions soul fragments survived and are still a part of his reconstructed soul.
Mr.Darkness
They probably are the internal part of this soul.
Jonathan Hurd
They should be. I think they combined still constitute Vans main personality. The important thing about his restructuring is that his Soul is no longer haphazardly trying to look human. Remember Rodcorte originally put Vans soul together and we have all seen how seriously he takes his job(heavy sarcasm). He did it as an after thought to avoid more work, watched it for a bit then forgot about it.
From what that first Evil God Van ate said about Vans soul to start with it was always a badly put together mess. He said something along the lines of there was a heart shaped like a small intestine working as a stomach. Vans new body is at least using its pieces correctly.
Garotinho321
Será em português mesmo…. mas o Google tradutor deve resolver…
Primeiro… quem mexe com Darci não morre, é apagado da existência uma vez que Vandalieu tem o poder de quebrar almas. Então o destino de Agar deverá ser pior do que o de Joseph… o histórico mostra que todos que mexeram com Vandalieu e morreram acabaram se tornando subordinados por causa do atributo morte dele… inclusive o primeiro cara da cinco lâminas que ele matou e o bispo fanático, mas estes dois tiveram a alma quebrada por ele pelo fato de que tocaram no tabu de três vidas.
Segundo… o reino dos deuses aparentemente é interligado, os domínios de cada um com atributos iguais ou próximos se interferem no mesmo espaço, então como o ele é um guia dos sonhos está no mesmo espaço que Mill. Ela não deve ser influenciada por Van inicialmente, pois é uma deusa e portanto, embora não seja mais poderosa do que o Van ainda tem uma resistência mental maior do que pessoas normais.
Terceiro… Concordo com o cara que diz que ele agora existe em duas dimensões, ao mesmo tempo que esta parte da alma dele pode se tornar independente ela pode futuramente canalizar a crença das pessoas em Vandalieu que estão em origem uma vez ele deu parte de sua alma para um monte de pessoas que queriam se matar e foram atraídas a ele em forma astral quando ele estave por lá.
Quarto… Vandalieu ainda não é um Deus porquê o único que já crê nisso é Nuanza mas como Van não deixa ele produzir uma estátua do tipo para adoração, entao ele nao recebe poder dos seus seguidores desta maneira. Como vimos, os Deuses recebem força de seus fiéis atraves das estátuas, tanto que elas sofrem fenômenos fisicos quando algo acontece com suas almas divinas. Agora que as proteções divinas estão quase desbloqueados para todos está realidade não está longe de acontecer.
Tejing
MTL of the above post for everyone’s ease of reading:
It will be in Portuguese…. but the Google translator must resolve…
First … whoever touches Darci does not die, he is erased from existence since Vandalieu has the power to break souls. So Agar’s fate must be worse than Joseph’s… history shows that everyone who messed with Vandalieu and died ended up becoming subordinates because of his death attribute… including the first five-bladed guy he killed and the fanatic bishop , but these two had their soul broken by him because they touched the taboo of three lives.
Second … the kingdom of the gods is apparently interconnected, the domains of each with equal or close attributes interfere in the same space, so since he is a guide of dreams he is in the same space as Mill. She should not be influenced by Van initially, as she is a goddess and therefore, although she is no more powerful than Van, she still has greater mental stamina than normal people.
Third … I agree with the guy who says he now exists in two dimensions, while this part of his soul can become independent it can in the future channel the belief of the people in Vandalieu who are in the background once he gave part of his soul for a lot of people who wanted to kill themselves and were attracted to him in astral form when he was there.
Fourth … Vandalieu is not yet a God because the only one who already believes in this is Nuanza but as Van does not let him produce a statue of the type for worship, so he does not receive power from his followers in this way. As we have seen, the Gods receive strength from their believers through the statues, so much so that they suffer physical phenomena when something happens to their divine souls. Now that divine protections are almost unlocked for everyone this reality is not far from happening.
Jonathan Hurd
Thank you for the translation Teijing and thank you for the original post Garo.
I really like the second point. I think part of the reason Van leaks over to other people’s Divine Realms is probably to do with the Abyss skill as well. I think since Abyss is leveling up it is becoming easier for Van to affect those looking at or concentrating on him.
For the fourth I think there are a few more who believe him to be a God than just Nuaza. Legion is an obvious one, as well as Emma and the girls, but I feel like even some of the ordinary citizens in Taloshiem, the evil continent, and the new Empire do. Considering the things Van has pulled off I wouldn’t blame them for feeling that he’s effectively Vida Jesus. He is officially Vidas Holy Son, he created and helped give birth to Vidas incarnation, and he can separate his Soul fro m his body. He is effectively the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit all wrapped into one.
Nox
Thanks for the chapter.
Van is getting stronger while his companion are puzzling his soul together and Fang took his first step in order to become Cerberus. Joseph has willingly signed his death certificate by savotaging Van and his friends business. A true death seeker.
Lightnovelfan
Very funny. A boy taking his cute dog for a walk. Joseph is digging his grave deeper every day and Aggar just begs to join him. But what fascinated me the most was Vans cheer in his Dream. Van is now able to mess with divine realms. So far he has either been summoned there, or reflected abilities directed at him with the Abyss skill. Sure, he could only be heard, but think about it. The fact that Van could be heard in Mills realm without her being able to prevet it means that he is, at least partially, beyond her.
Hobbes
I think that it was actually a unique phenomena.
Mill’s comment just now made an allusion to the fact that gods who rule over similar phenomena or gods operate their powers in simlar ways can more easily interact/interfere with one another. This should be especially true for their Divine Realms which are essentially portable home-like extensions of their personality, divinity, minds, etc.
Plus we’ve seen multiple times now where Van’s guidance diverges and leads not only the concious mind, but also the subconcious and sleeping minds of his followers.
So with all that and the fact that Van is essentially a demi-god (or a mortal god or something similar) in mind, it stands to reason that Van’s guidance and a developing area of his power is the realm of sleep. Hence, the cheers of celebration being able to unintentionally travel to and reverberate inside of Mill’s Divine Realm.
Plus it makes some degree of linguistic/philosophical sense as well for our young Death God. After all, what is “Death” if not “Eternal Slumber?” 😉
Lord Rin
Yeah Van has quite a lot of overlap with Mill’s Authority. He primarily guides people in their dreams and I seem to recall that Van has recently gotten the Dream Guider job appear on his list of possible jobs he can pick from.
Vitor
Also, that roar “cheer” took place in Van’s dream, so it was even closer to Mill’s authority
VEreality
Why is this making me think of an possible interaction between Van and Mill that will lead toward a possible betrayal? There were numerous times when characters mentioned how many gods changed sides during the DK war. Why would now be different. Not to mention that Mill seems reasonable. I mean for a goddess of slumber every word she said reflected reality as it is. She didn’t beat around the bush when she told Heinz about Van’s past.
Mill might just get NTRed by Van’s power and it wouldn’t be unbelievable. Or corrupted by Van’s mind.
It will be interesting to see how her chatacter develops in the future.
Jonathan Hurd
I won’t say there is no chance Mill could defect, but she seems fairly pro Alda from some of the previous chapters. I will say seeing some of Aldas God’s defect would be amazing, but I’m not sure they understand Van well enough to consider it currently. Especially with how cultish Aldas group is.
Vitor
Reasonable? she was talking Heinz off considering Van a victim of circunstances, emphasising the fact that he “is” (read as “we say he is because we don’t like him”) the Demon King, also, she gave her protection to Diana, one of Heinz’s new party of ghoul and majin murderers, and never did she thought of saying to her “by the way, ghouls are one of Vida’s races”, because she shares Alda’s point of view, so it’s better for her if they just kill them thinking they’re monsters
Dr. Steel
“partially” beyond her? I’m sure Van could one-hit-kill her if she got too close. And even if he couldn’t, he would still have a guaranteed victory.
no1
There’s one thing that I find odd. With Van’s reconstructed soul he has a staff and the shaft of the staff is an extended tongue. I just think that is an odd body part to use for the shaft of a staff, wouldn’t it have made more sense to use his bones or something.
Tejing
Van’s powers have often defied common sense in a variety of ways. Manifesting his soul as armor is totally ass-backwards, for example… It’s like using your vital organs as armor to protect your skin. (Remember when Roddy described people in soul-only form as shellfish without shells?)
Even from a practical perspective though, this one isn’t that weird. A tongue is basically the same as a tentacle, and if its muscular strength is high, which it should be since it’s the demon king’s tongue, then it can stay stiff enough to be a staff when he wants, but can also reshape itself as he wishes. Particularly given that this is presumably a staff primarily for magic, not hitting things, it seems pretty practical actually.
That’s also not even taking into account the symbolic nature of the staff (which is honestly probably more important when we’re talking about the form of a soul)… the basic necessary components to magic seem to be complex thought, represented by the brains, and chanting, represented by the tongue, so this staff may be a representation of his capability in magic or something.
Jonathan Hurd
I was just thinking that it made sense to have the tongue be the stave because the top is brains. Basically you cover the brains with skull and stick out the tongue and you have a head on a stick, but I gotta say I like your idea about symbolism of spell casting way better trying, lol.
I would add in another component to spell casting would be mana. If there is a treasure orb in the middle of the brains I feel like the stave is perfect.
Tejing
Good point. A treasure orb would be quite fitting.
no1
good point, that some serious symbolic analysis there 🙂
Lord Rin
Well he could make the tongue all floppy so he can use the staff as a flail and brain people with his brains >.>
no1
Good to know I was right in my comment from the previous chapter. I thought his reconstructed soul form would be monstrous and regal. Since his soul form looks like it has armor and a cape, even though it is actually carapace, exoskeleton and wings/membrane with other monstrous appendages
Jonathan Hurd
It’s an appearance befitting an emperor and a demon king. All who look upon him and oppose him shall cower while those he protects shall be relieved.
no1
Yeah it took 7 chapters of the main story to fix, but it was worth the wait
Oshibo
It finally seems that Van is going to start taming beast type monsters. Insects and plants are cool, yet leaving out beasts is pretty bad, especially since it could lead to a new job. Who knows maybe a guidance related job to empower his tamed beings after he masters all the taming related jobs he can access, it could also possibly make all monsters more friendly to him.
Hasin
Thank you very much Translator-sama!
You know, i was thinking that maybe Aggar is working with Murakami. Kidnaping the person Van care the most to trap him feel like a plausible idea.
I think that Van forgot that he was followed by spy when he made Fang evolve no? i’m sure it will just be overlooked but… eh.
Aside from that….. I’ve been reading vol 4 again and something draw my attention immediatly. in chapter 7 (i think?) it’s Zuruwarm or Ricklent that say that the gods who responded to his message are “his recless older sister and his brave younger sister” something like that. I assume the first one is Vida, but is that the “proof” that maybe Peria is on Vida’s side and already out of her slumber?
Some would say that it could be one of the Gods with Zantark, but they did refer to her as a sister so, one of the original great gods and they did say that Zantark was too far away to be contacted (meaning that gods with him were probably too far too.)
So anyway, what are your though on that?
Hobbes
Well of the Great Gods that are left that are typically depicted as female there are: Vida, Botin, and Peria. Now the order of birth or who is considered older or younger among the great gods hasn’t really been fleshed out. But one has to refer to Vida obviously… and the other has to refer to either Botin or Peria. However, given that Botin has been said to be SEALED rather than wounded or asleep the other one referenced must be Peria. But as I said before, which one is older or younger is still not defined.
Given all that, it’s likely that Peria is in a situation similar to the one that Ricklent and Zuruwarn were in until recently – that is to say that she’s still wounded and groggy, but slowly waking up. However, unlike Zuruwarn or Ricklent she is being “protected” by Alda’s faction which makes things interesting…
The fact that she has pretended to still be asleep despite the Ricklent & Zuruwarn evidently being able to send her a message likely means that she either wholly or partially sides with Vida over Alda.
That means that she can’t make any conspicuous moves declaring her allegiance or intent until she either recovers her power… or until Van weakens Alda’s forces (either by direct battle or distraction). Because if Alda gets wind of her disagreeing with his goals or methods he’ll just see that as a potential enemy in his custody and he’ll just crucify his sister until she ‘regains her sanity’ like Vida; that’s his modus operandi after all.
Haraken
Another supporting fact to this is that Peria’s familiar spirit, Pargtarta act as a double agent toward Alda’s faction within her own inner monologue in an earlier chapter. Strongly suggesting that Peria isn’t unconscious, but still pretending to be, with Pargtarta acting as a mean to ascertain information from Alda’s faction and from the outside (Possibly having acted as a messenger between Peria and her brothers, Ricklent and Zuruwarn before Alda started watching out for them after they joined Vida).
Tejing
I actually think both “reckless older sister” and “brave younger sister” are talking about Vida. Look at the flow of the conversation:
Zuruwarn: Other than our reckless older sister and brave younger sister, have any others answered?
Ricklent: There are few other than Vida who have responded to my prophecy,
I think Ricklent is rephrasing the question in his response here, indicating that the original phrase wasn’t describing 2 people, but giving 2 descriptions of 1 person: Vida. Drawing attention to the paradox that’s part of who Vida is also fits Zuruwarn’s nature quite well.
Basically, I’m saying the “and” in Zuruwarn’s question should be thought of more like a “/”.
Also, the timing doesn’t work out for Aggar working with Murakami. Van’s only been in Morksi a week, so it’ll still be a while till Murakami even arrives.
Hasin
eh, I didn’t think about that concerning Murakami, you’re right. except if they found a way to get there quicker but I don’t think that’s the case.
For the first part, well, it’s true that these gods are difficult to decipher so i’m not sure about what i said and i’m not convinced either. guess time will tell us.
I’m still convinced that Peria is at worse/best neutral in theses event though.
Valeth
The gods at least the ones not created from or by humans, so far seam to often change.
Remember Vida, has 3 different forms. She appears as a 3 different woman of varying age, constantly shifting between them and being all of them at once.
Ricklent is gender-less being without form, that appears as a trio of beautiful woman, old men, young men, or boys as these are his avatars. This is how his worshipers see him.
Even Alda shifts forms in a few chapters as he takes on the shapes his worshipers see him as.
As for Peria’s place in things she is most likely leaning towards Vida and Van. If you think about it not only is Van the reincarnation of her friend and champion. Second, as I understand it Tristan was Peria’s right hand man and stood with Pargtarta at the top of her domain to run things while she slept. However, Alda stripped Tristan of his divine power same as he did with Vida and he lives in exile with his children the Merfolk. So that is probably not going to sit well with her.
Tejing
Yeah, I agree about Peria. She’ll probably join Vida and Van, possibly with a bit of convincing. At worst I think she’ll stay neutral. If she joined Alda I’d be very surprised.
Jonathan Hurd
It honestly feels like if she was going to join Alda she should’ve done it by now. She’s awake and there are loads of pro Alda God’s outside her bed chamber. All she has to do to join is poke her head out. The only reason I can think she’d hide is if she’s going for neutral or Vidas side.
no1
Yes, Van’s reconstructed soul finally has an identifiable appearance. And good to know that his newly constructed soul has caused him to gain a new skill and several of his skills to level up. Except there is no mention of a change in his curses effect. Also I don’t know what Mill’s was talking about when she said they heard a roar. Lastly, I think it is kinda funny how when his soul was finally reconstructed there was his giant soul surrounded by a lot of tiny Vandalieu’s. Thanks for the chapter Yoshi.
Jonathan Hurd
I think Mill heard Vans roar in her Divine Realm because Van fixes his soul in his Dreams. Mill is the goddess of Sleep so Van with his ability to become a Dream Guider is starting to encroach on her domain.
For the curses I think it could be argued that maybe Van gained some of his past experiences and that is why Mana Control evolved into Precise Mana Control at the end. This skill evolution could just be caused by Vans perfected soul and his new Brain/tounge stave though so not sure.
Guroga
How is Van going to explain that the dog evolved when he went to ”gather herbs”?
wai311040
The guards just assume that Van go gather herbs, he himself never said that.
Jonathan Hurd
Van still has to explain how Fang turned into a bigger dog by just fighting monsters. If all animals could do that people wouldn’t look down on dog trainers so much.
I think Van just goes with ‘he jumped out to protect me won the fight and evolved it’s a miracle story’. Though I betcha afterwards people start mass adopting dogs from the back alleys lol.
no1
True it would be hard for Vandalieu to the guards why his small pet dog is now a larger dog
InfernoHomura
Its either Fenrir, Cerberus or Ouroboros
WOLFking
i think cerberus for the demon king
Jeanean
Ouroboros is a snake biting its own tail though…
Jonathan Hurd
I think he meant to say Orthos.
Yeah my bet is Cerberus as well. I mean it’s the God of Death here. What animal could fit better?
Kuro-san
A dog with two heads.
Then he can evolve into Orthos first and then Cerberus.
Lord Rin
With how every one of us is expecting him to eventually turn into a Cerberus, I’m half expecting Fang to grow 4 heads just to mess with people.
VEreality
Nahhhhhhhh Zuruwarn already has four heads. Fang is not going to steal someone’s style…….he is going to have five 😀
Valeth
Truth be told Fenrir may be more fitting as he was Vanargand “The Monster of the River Van”, brother of Hela and Jormungandr.
I often think of Jormungandr when they talk about Pete, sure he isn’t a giant wurm, but I often think of this when they describe Pete and the way he eats Dragons. Dragon meat being his favorite food.
Haraken
Fenrir has been foretold to be the one to kill and devour Odin in the event of Ragnarok.
There is a character named Hazamada Akira with the codename Odin in Murakami group.
I’m am low-key hoping for it to be forshadowing and have Fang be intercepting them in an attempt to get closer to Van, just to have the rest run away while Fang use Odin as a chew toy.
Lord Rin
Fine then. Six heads then. Then he’d be twice as Cerberus-y as Cerberus.
STICHH
i think Fang journey to become fenrir isn’t too far in the future
Reiji
Hey guys,
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n1745ct/
This is the link to the Raws if anyone wants to see it although I don’t recommend to do so because MTL hurts.
Hobbes
It’s definitely hard to read, but you just have to learn to read for intent rather than the way you normally would. Stack the intents of the sentences to get the info and try to superimpose your memories of these professionally translated 209+ chapters onto the MTL’ed raw to get a gist of the writing style, names, abilities, etc. and ‘voila’ you can read the MTL raws. Or at least that’s what I do.
All that said, Yoshi’s translations are by far the best and well worth waiting for.
Reading the raw via MTL I would only recommend if you’re impatient like me, have a poor ability to recall story characters/plot, and/or want to know the general direction of the plot moving forward.
Zurric
pretty much this lol. I wound up doing this for solo leveling a while ago. Although, it’s less reading and more interpreting what is being said.
Lord Rin
Van’s new reconstructed soul actually sounds badass. Now it definitely seems more fitting as the Demon King. Anyways it’s kinda funny that a bunch of Vans randomly showed up to cheer with everyone else. Basically a bunch of clones were made so they can be designated as cheerers. It just reminds me of the time when Van made a clone of himself specifically so it can mope.
Joseph is really annoying. Even though his plans to harass Van aren’t working, he is still annoying. Can’t they just have Miles kill him? There wouldn’t be much of an investigation because everybody would assume he did it for his woman. And since Earl Morksi knows that the ‘Starving Wolf’ Michael is at least as strong as a B-class adventurer, he might just decide to either look the other way and pretend it’s an unsolved murder or just give his some light punishment like a fine. I mean nobody likes Joseph and he isn’t some essential person whose death would have a negative effect on the city. Nobody would raise a fuss over his death.
I will say though that it’s nice to know that apart from Joseph and Aggar, everybody is at least nice enough to Van even if they’re being forced to not sell him meat.
Aggar is just too dumb to live. He’s a guard, he should KNOW the stories about the ‘Starving Wolf’ Michael. Yet he’s still wanting to target that guy’s woman. Aggar even knows that Michael is aware of him since he’s driven him away multiple times with a glare when he tries to get close to Darcia so if something were to happen to her, Aggar would be the first person Michael would go after. Anyways I wonder what Aggar has that makes him think that Darcia will be his soon? Something he thinks he can threaten Van’s safety with to make her come with him? Some roofies or some other drug/item he forcibly took from someone by using the fact he’s a guard? Well whatever it is, Darcia can just kill him if he tries anything. Threatening Van would just piss off Mama Bear and make her take action even though she knows Van has nothing to worry about against Aggar. Meanwhile any sort of drug, poison, or mind control would be ineffective against Darcia because of her stats and resistances.
Aww that’s kinda cute how everybody are giving Fang advice and scolding him like responsible senpais. And now the puppers is finally on the road to become the best doggo of all time. He’s already a Rank 2 Demon Dog. Not entirely sure how Van is gonna explain to the guards how did Fang suddenly get much bigger and more muscular.
Entropy
I am betting Vand just wants to avoid any investigations being done by the earl, he already has the earl’s indirect attention. Joseph is currently safe because he would cause more trouble dead than alive in that Miles and Vand may come under the earl’s and by virtue other nobles direct attention. As for Aggar, I bet he will try to save Darcia and maybe Vand from Miles. The whole hero worship idea. He might even try to kill Vand off and claim Miles did it as punishment to Darcia. I am thinking he will try whatever near the Vida thing or perhaps after it. Maybe Vand will say his dog fought a monster and mutated after killing it and consuming some of it.
Kazza
See, that’s why I’m willing to bet Joseph and Aggar are in cahoots. If he manages to kidnap Darcia, he would be able to threaten her life for leverage against Van. He wouldn’t be able to go to ‘Michael,’ the guards, or even the Baron or she would be killed. And if he didn’t get the drug (which I think is boring, but still possible) from searches, he probably could have gotten it by selling a favor to Joseph. And since Joseph has the resources to find an expendable guard who would do an insanely stupid, illegal thing because he’s thinking with the wrong head, he may have sought him out.
Granted, that may not be what happens, but I think it makes enough sense as a plan.
Jonathan Hurd
Considering how corrupt and petty Agar and Joseph are they are definitely in cahoots. Agar’s goal is definitively to get into Darcias pants.
Josephs goal is a bit harder to pin down. It can’t be to earn favor with Aldas peaceful faction or Vidas cause harassing Van makes no sense in those cases. I think Joseph is just a frog in a well. He was insulted Van didn’t bow down to him so his goal is just harassing Van. Maybe get some money by forcing Darcia into prostitution or to enjoy her himself. That’s about as far as his thinking seems to go for me.
If you ask me I think they are more likely to target Van as a kidnap target than Darcia. Agar and Joseph are idiots but they seem to have enough sense of self preservation to not directly mess with Miles. If they hold Van they can force Darcia to break things off with Michael and do what they want while pretending it’s of her own will. If they drugged Darcia I can only see that going badly for both of them and that’s a bit too blatantly illegal for these idiots. Honestly even kidnapping seems a bit big for them. Most likely they want to try and starve Vans business till he is forced to come crawling to Joseph and then make demands.
Lord Rin
Joseph isn’t smart enough to think that he’s teaching Van a life lesson or even try to use that as an excuse. This is 100% just him being petty because Van refused his offer. I could see him using Aggar to try and make Van’s food cart fail but I don’t see him thinking far enough ahead to where he’d be planning to force Van to come back to him to accept his offer.
Valeth
You know there is also the possibility that Joseph is a subordinate of the vampires, and they told him to do this.
Just a thought, and not a very likely one honestly as I think any vampires in the are would of noticed Isla, Eleanora and Micheal
Tejing
That’s a good point, Valeth. I hadn’t thought of the idea that Van’s current troubles might actually be intended by a background schemer (probably Birkyne). Though how harassing his food cart business helps Birkyne doesn’t seem very clear, so I’d say it’s unlikely.
Who Cares
Joseph has gotten it into his skull that if he makes friends with (read: forces) Van that he gets on the insider track with an A rank and his party and can thus be a bigger parasite on society by using said A ranks reputation to improve his own station in life.
InfernoHomura
Lol maybe “Uhhhh it just evolved when it fought”
Jonathan Hurd
I’d force it through by just repeating its a miracle! Lol. I think Fang hasn’t changed too much he’s just bigger now. So Van might be able to pass it as Fangs growing now that he’s being properly fed and people are misremembering his size.
wai311040
Or maybe Fang will evolve so fast that he can shrink back to the original size.
no1
The scene with a bunch of tiny Vandalieus was definitely funny
Jonathan Hurd
The tiny Vans cheering is definitely adorable, but I think it’s a sign of something more significant. I think the Mini Vans are basically Familiar Spirits of Van. From what I remember Familiar Spirits often times are smaller off shoots of the original God’s power they send to followers.
Vans just finished unlocking his Divine Protection. So I think the next thing that is going to start appearing is Familiar Spirit Descent.
ExplodingPenguinDood
I like this idea. I think that tiny Vans are there because Van is so used to using shadow soul jutsu(forgot the combination of spells) that most people who knows him perceive him that way. Idk it may grant someone summoning the spirit descent more power
Dr. Steel
They would be familiar spirits, but they’re all Van, so maybe lesser spirit clones?
Jonathan Hurd
The biggest issue with putting Joseph out of everyone’s misery is the attention it would attract. Everyone is aware Joseph is messing with Van and Van already sticks out a lot too. If Van starts leaving a trail of bodies behind him things will become way more annoying.
Don’t forget Vans main objective. It’s not to become a commerce guild member that’s a side goal and way to burn time. The main goal is to lure out Murakami and Birknyes groups. He’s laying a trap. He needed attention to make sure they could pick up his trail, but too much noise and Van will be forced to leave. Joseph can be killed after Murakami and the rest are dealt with. By that point it won’t matter if Van disappears and those who harassed him mysteriously end up dead. Van never intended to live here anyways he’s just getting rid of some annoying obstacles.
no1
Definitely, can’t wait to see how much stronger his Soul Destruction Fighting Technique is now with his newly constructed soul
Valeth
You know I’m sure it is even stronger now. However, I still have a issue with that as his awakened fighting style. It will depend how they explain the style later on of course as some of my complaints about it are personal, and some are more based in assumption.
2 examples:
1. Can he use his Awakened Unarmed Techniques without destroying souls. If not that could be a serious draw back if fighting people who don’t deserve it. Up till now Van has been very careful with whose souls he destroyed.
2. The second being more of a personal issue with this and it may grow on me or even get better as the series goes on. So far I love pretty much everything about Death Mage so this is a minor complaint. I figured with the acquisition of the Demon King Skill, Van would learn how to better manipulate the fragments. Thus allowing him to better shape and use them, such as turning the horns and bones into actual weapons. Like turning the DK Horns into throwing knives, or even arrows if Darcia decided to teach him archery. Merging all this into a more advanced style like what Schneider does.
Could still happen, but its minor either way. The first problem is potentially more of a issue than the second by a large amount.
Can’t wait for the next few chapters.
Tejing
First, yes, he can use soul destruction fighting technique without destroying souls… he was doing it against Jennifer and Diana when he fought them.
Second, that kind of thing seems like it would fit better as an awakened form of the demon king skill (he might awaken it upon gaining the demon king job).
Dr. Steel
It’s just a name to sound cool. A fighting technique that materializes the soul and is designed for optimal destructive capabilities.
Dr. Steel
Actually, he had his main body sitting in the corner moping (man that sounds degenerate, even though it really isn’t).
Tau Dvore
Loving the more regular release dates.
reisben55
Being an ordinary dog in deathbed one time.
One week later you are Rank 2 Demon Dog with the divine protection of Vandeliu.
Now this is what I call “LUCK”.
InfernoHomura
What once a cruel fate turned out to be a blessing in disguise
Entropy
I wonder what that growl from the divine realm was, could it be Band, an evil god loyal to the original demon lord, or the original demon lord’s body. It might even be an enemy of Vand. I also wonder if that could have been Vand’s soul after it had been completed. Can’t wait to see how Fang evolves in future chapters. That guard is so going to bite off more than he can chew. I do wonder if the Tamer guild master is just a nice guy or if he is trying the same thing to use Vand to get good with some nobles.
Tejing
It’s pretty strongly implied it’s Van. It says the roar was at exactly the same time that Van’s soul reconstruction was finished.
reisben55
Wasnt that the united cheers of all of the Vandelius ?
I think he doesnt understand who said “Lets cheer !”
Thats what confusing him.
Entropy
Okay, guess I got confused by the shift of perspective. Thought that both Heinz and Vand heard a distant roar. Ha, funny now that I think that Heinz is freaking out by a “roar” of joy. I am curious if the alteration of the soul will have any impact on say the curses or Vand’s abilities.
Yup yup
I think the goddess mentioned something about the part of the demon king that controls slumber. Might have misread so don’t quote me
Jonathan Hurd
I think the reason Mill heard the roar in her realm is because Van was fixing his soul in his Dreams. He connected so many different dreams to his own its not really surprising that this lead to a sort of connection to Mill who rules over sleep.
I think if Van becomes a Dream Guider he might start messing with Mill and her Divine Realm just because they have similar authorities.
Superboy8338
LOVE IT.
VEreality
You know…….after so much fighting is actually kind of fun to watch Van work with his head. He didn’t learn only spells after all.
By the way, the more I think about the shape of his soul, the more it starts to look like a badass overlord. I like it :3!!!
Thank you Yoshi-sama!
Also: I don’t know about you guys, but the fact that Van’s roar was heard in divine realms and Heinz words made me think “What has Van become?”, aside from a demon king. Is there any way to describe what Van is right now? And no I don’t mean as a god, but as a living mortal creature. He made a trip to Earth and Origin from Lambda(with a little help), and thanks to Banda he kinda exists in two different dimensions at once. At this point he is an eight dimensional being(correct me if I’m wrong). All he needs is a powerful spirit with space attribute magic and he will most likely be able to travel between dimensions whenever he wants to. Let’s not even talk about having a time attribute spirit. THAT is a deep hole none of us should go down into for now.
Sooooo………..Any ideas?
Entropy
Doesn’t Vand already have a powerful spacial god as a loyal follower in the form of dungeon god? I don’t know if she can travel dimensions but she did come with the original dungeon lord so she can travel dimensions, she might not be able to now being in a possible weaken new form.
VEreality
True. But she doesn’t work the same way the spirit do. By using a spirit it would be as if Van casted the spell himself. And he has Banda in Origin who is a part of his soul. He wouldn’t open a portal from a world to another. He would open a portal from himself to one of his clones that is in another world. I think it would make it easier for him
Tejing
The word “dimension” as used in sci-fi to mean “world” or “universe” is only very distantly related to the word “dimension” as in “n-dimensional” as used in mathematics and physics. Don’t confuse them. I don’t know how you came up with the number 8 either, but regardless, it doesn’t look like you’re thinking about that correctly.
We don’t know whether gufadgarn is capable of crossing the boundaries between worlds, but my guess would be no. The reason zuruwarn can do it isn’t because he’s a space attribute god, but because he has authority as a god to transgress boundaries.
VEreality
I was half asleep when I wrote this comment and I based everything that I said on a video from youtube that I once saw . I was fully aware that someone was going to say that I messed up. However, my point still stands. Van exists in two different worlds. This makes him a higher being.
Dtar316
I am honestly surprised vida and the others doesn’t give him a title akin to demigod
Gawain
They gave him the title of ‘champion’, which identifies him as a powerful being that does not originate from Lambda in whom the gods place their trust for the future of Lambda. That’s the closest that they’ve gotten to giving him a ‘demigod’ title. Not sure if they also gave him the ‘transgressor’ title or if that part was incorporated into ‘champion’ since all champions must be transgressors.
Lord Rin
If I recall, it was Zuruwarn that gave him the Transgressor title.
Garotinho321
por enquanto as duas partes dele não consegue se comunicar. Mas ele está ficando mais poderoso a cada dia, se Banda converter os pais de Mei, ele irá salvalos, pois sairão do círculo de reencarnação de Rodecorte. Pois o plano dele de apagar a memória de qualquer um que não queira participar do plano de eliminar Van é sinistro.
YohaoShakur
So Van now has more than one soul ? I’m thinking that maybe the leftovers of his soul got together and formed more souls or maybe people with weak souls got parts of Van’s soul to stregthen their on souls. I’m really curious about that, what you guys think ?
PS: Thanks for the chapter !
Morgan
I just realised, Banda is a completely separate soul now that Van has undergone reconstruction. Banda still has the 3 curses perfectly intact and his soul has a completely different form. He and Van will likely never be able to merge back together. Does this mean Origin is gonna get a local death god too?
Lord Rin
I think we can consider Banda to be more or less like a subordinate god of Van. Anyways the curses don’t really have much of an effect on Banda. There’s no level system on Origin so there’s no XP to begin with so Banda doesn’t have to worry about the curse that prevents him from getting XP himself. There’s also no job system so he also doesn’t have to worry about the curse of him not being able to learn existing jobs. And the final curse is that experience from Origin doesn’t carry over which has absolutely no effect if he’s on Origin. Anyways Banda already spent a bunch of time figuring out how his spells work in Origin as opposed to how they work in Lambda.
Yup yup
But if the experience do not carry over from origin, then he won’t be able to merge with van Sama with those experiences
Dr. Steel
But it wasn’t that experiences don’t carry over from Origin, but that they didn’t carry over from his past life.
iamleejn
Like all gods of Lamba, Van should be able to offer his followers a “familiar spirit descent” skill. Little Vans are the independent spirit clones that will facilitate this skill for his followers.
Lord Rin
I can just imagine if Isla or Eleanora got that skill. They’d use it just to summon a Little Van that they can hug all day.
Seinvolf
Thank u always for ur great work…
^^…
Morgan
Fun Fact, Yoshi-san. You have translated 1.4 million words for Death Mage. Including TL notes, it’s roughly 1,412,533 words across the entire series. Thats 520KB of data in just text and 1/64th of a Microsoft Word document’s maximum capacity.
Thanks for the chapter and your hard work over the years.
Yoshi
Holy shit LOL
Thanks to all the readers who have read the 1.4 million words I have written
VEreality
You are the best! *raise my hand for a high five*
Superboy8338
All hail Yoshi!!!! XD
WBee
Probably closer to 2.8 million words, cause i doubt many of us lasted this long withought rereading at least once.
Morgan
WBee, I just started rereading. But I got worried because of how many chapters there were and if my net died I could keep reading so I copied every chapter into a word document then converted it to pdf to read is on my Kindle.
I must say though, 1.4 million words in only ~240 chapters is an impressive amount
Garwen Kasul
Mind sharing that pdf? I’d be quite interested in doing the same.
Morgan
Sure. Here’s a google drive link. It goes from the prologue to chapter 209 and includes the majority of TLNs, all side-chapters, all character summaries and the appendices
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QKqGfPV18LxrgogIJmt-H7lcROPCMeUY/view?usp=sharing
grim
2.8? yeah that number is lower than the actual number, i would guess 5.6 million is what i’ve read
lazygeko
This is by far my favorite translated novel I am reading.
Thanks for all the hard work thus far. I (we) shall be in your care from now on as well.
asdsdsffdhffggkl
half of that is just the same stats and characters profile repeated over and over…
Mr.Darkness
“The roar faded away, but Heinz’s trembling did not subside for some time.” You are so lucky that you don’t know Van’s real power… You would not just tremble!
YohaoShakur
Heinz got ptsd from fighting with Van lol
And that was not even an angry roar, just a happy one
Dr. Steel
To the enemies of Van, him being happy is probably as much of a nightmare as him being angry. Imagine something happened that made the demon lord laugh in joy. Bad news for his enemies.
Doom-sama
PRAISE VAN-SAMA, OUR LORD SAVIOR, OUR CHAMPION, OUR DEATH GOD, AS HE PROCEEDS TO GIVE HIS ENEMIES NIGHTMARES AND IGNORES THE SILLY AND PITIFUL ATTEMPTS MADE BY THE ARROGANT JOSEPH! WATCH AS HE EASILY STOCKS UP FOR HIS STORE! THE SACRED MESSAGE TODAY IS:
Yummy food wins over everyone.
Gawain
Thank you high priest Doom-sama for your continuous sharing of Van-sama’s glory!
Randomreader
PRAISE VAN
Fatalpulse
Looking at Fang Divine Protection made me miss Banda and Meh-kun
Kazza
Yes! Caught it early!
Ok, so Fang’s a Demon Dog, huh. Seems like that’s leading towards a hellhound-like route. Hell yeah. I may have had to give up on naming him Ghidorah, but I will never give up on Van petting all of a Cerberus’ heads at the same time. It’s just too cute and in character.
I find it interesting he’s bonding with the water/ice ghost Orbia, and not the fire ghost. Levia actually seems like the more empathetic one, too. But maybe I’m overthinking that.
As for Joseph, seems he’s trying really hard to make Van fail. I’m wondering how far he’s willing to go, though. Like, would he actually try kidnapping, if he felt he could somehow get away with it?
Which brings me to Aggar. I don’t know about you guys, but at this point I’m more invested in him dying a painful death than Asagi. I mean, Densuke doesn’t usually make us wait so long for the wholesome murders.
As for what he has, it seems like a physical object of sorts. My bet is that it’s either some kind of mind control device, or something fake that makes him seem like a really devout follower of Vida. Because he’s got to know he can’t get around Miles, so he needs her to agree to go with him in some way. I’m sure he believes he’s strong enough to subdue her when they’re alone, but he can’t think she’s gullible enough to follow him into a secluded area without a good reason.
And from there, I’m willing to bet Joseph supplied him with this whatever thing to kidnap Darcia, so he has leverage against Van. A win-win for both of them.
The thing is though, whatever it is, it’s not going to work. She’s probably way too strong for any mind control to work (and I think she’s got Mental Corruption anyways), and she basically is Vida, so any faux believer will receive a divine talking-to.
… I also just realized it could be some kind of Rufilin-like drug. That’s also not going work, but it’s also kind of boring.
Any other bets?
Kazza
I agree the mind control thing is a little far off, but I think he’s referring to some kind of object. He says “With this, that woman will become mine.”
Now, you could extrapolate he means the business failing, but that doesn’t make as much sense to me. How would a guard know that a deputy guild master has threatened several businesses to not sell to a Dhampir so that his business would fail? Or do you think he’s just assuming it’ll fail?
And consequently, what does he think he’ll be able to do to Darcia once the stall failed that he couldn’t do now. If his plan is just to rape her… that’s beyond stupid. Even if she was as weak as he thinks, she’s still the woman of a notorious gang leader. If he were to rape her, does he really think ‘Michael’ would just take that without offense and not try to murder him? Even if there isn’t any actual romance, such a blatant insult would not go well with a mob boss. Even if he killed her afterwards, would a mob boss not have the resources to investigate and trace it back to him?
This is why I think kidnapping is the better option. And consequently, I think Joseph (who has more reliable means of obtaining information) would be interested in getting some form of leverage on Van. Threatening his mother, to me, seems like the most reasonable option.
But, as you said, he wouldn’t dare get caught doing anything illegal, so he’ll have a proxy do the actual kidnapping. He doesn’t seem to care that everyone knows he’s harassing Van, or else he would’ve stopped. And once he has Darcia’s life in his hand, he can pressure Van into silence or her life is forfeit.
Granted, we know that even if Darcia and Van were what he thought they were this plan has plenty of holes. He doesn’t have to be a genius schemer, he just has to make sense. And given that Van can easily get another form of identification, and has alternatives to look to for help, I don’t think the plan you outlined is nearly as good.
Not to say you’re wrong, as I could be incorrect in my own reasoning, just that I think that this plan, while still full of holes, makes much more sense.
Dritch
Im picturing Rodocorte as the “experienced” guy that had no compettition, so all his experience is him doing sloppy work.
Whereas Vandalieu-sama and everyone here are the new competitors that did everything to add quality to their work.
akatsuki kuranashi
How great it is when u just chacking if an update came and u finding out that it came 20 min ago
iamleejn
REALLY looking forward to impending freak out when Isla and Bellmond first meets Fang.
My head canon is that for Fang becoming Cerberus is that he’ll gain/use skills like Vigaro; Spirit Form and Materialization will create extra heads when he needs them. That way he’ll still look like a normal dog, just a very large dog.
Yup yup
Abyss hell hound more like it
Reiji
Crap!! I’m late by 29 Minutes!! Anyways, Fourth!!
Rainbow Dash
hmmm yes very nice
Donny The truth speaker.
Second!
Sebas Tian
Hope everyone enjoys the chapter. We get to see Heinz freak out which is nice and we also get to see the beginning of Fang’s journey to be the goodest doge in Lambda. I’m looking forward to Fang’s growth from here and I hope his pet senpais aren’t too harsh on him.
Reiji
Thank You for the chapter today, my good sir. Please also give my regards to Yoshi. Thank you very much 🙏
Yup yup
Thank you very much for this wonderful chapter, my fine sir.