Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?

^A lovely vehicle, Slavina,' Dante merely smile and nodded at the sight of dozens of slaves being forced to carry an unnecessarily large platform for him to sit on.

The damn thing didn't even have ladder or stairs, just several people acting like them so that Dante could get aboard.

^Are you coming, Curator?^

'Why do I get the distinct feeling, that by the end of this hunting trip, I will want to personally strangle this man?'Zhen Liu thought to himself before using his abilities to float in the air and land on the palanquin. 'Well, more so than I already do that is.'

[You know that a beast of burden would be more efficient than this slave-driven vehicle, yes? Hell, one of the kajjin might be better too.]

^Pfft!^ Dante dismissed with a wave of his hand. ^The only bunch of these monsters that I trust are the Demon Knights themselves. Everyone else...not so much.^

[Hmmm.]

Zhen Liu wasn't entirely sure, but he had the feeling that Dante's inability to trust his own kaijin would be the key to bringing this fucker down.

'Then again, maybe a fast enough blow to the head might do the trick as well,' Zhen Liu mused as he rested a hand on his hammer. 'Wait...is that my actual feelings or this asshole's aura affecting me again?'

It took Dante and Zhen Liu a few minutes to settle themselves on the platform, the former having a lavish throne to sit on while the latter was given a cushioned stool. But once they had been fully settled, the rest of the kaijin got ready to move.

[Forward March!]

[Keep up, you lazy louts!]

[Move!]

The first to exit were the lesser kaijin, the ones that weren't members of the Demon Knights.

A majority of them simply marched in lockstep with the rest of their cohorts, but some of the ones capable of flight immediately took to the air and began to hover over the rest.

Next, were the Demon Knights themselves.

The group didn't move in a coordinate manner, rather, they all moved in ways that felt the most natural for them.

Obsidious transformed into a giant rat-like monster, Slavina and Gumba both began to move through the curse-infused dirt like it was water, while Delictum took to the air alongside the rest of his troop.

Finally, bringing up the rear, was the slave-driven palanquin that merely carried two passengers.

Ah, what a glorious day for a hunt.

[Indeed...]

This exit from the mines was, in Zhen Liu's opinion, unnecessarily dramatic.

He wasn't really one to judge, since he had a flair of using dramatic presentation to fuck with his opponents, but a key component of his dramatics was timing and placement.

When he showed up with a horde of monsters, it was because his opponents brought an army as well.

When he made a show of being "Kaijin Lord", he would make sure to do so in a manner that people would be forced to ask themselves if what they experienced was reality or fantasy.

But when Dante did all this...Zhen Liu didn't know what to make of it.

'Wait...that's untrue, the man does it for the sake of generating disgust...for a captive audience.'

The exit out of the mines had honestly been a slow affair.

Slow enough that Zhen Liu was able to see from the corner of his eyes how the slaves that had the opportunity to get some fresh air were directing heavy-handed looks in his direction.

Technically, they were staring at the palanquin and their masters, but he was in the line of sight.

As such, he could feel their absolute distaste and hatred being directed towards them, himself included.

In the eyes of these slaves, he was merely another profiteer of their suffering.

'I wish I could tell them that everything was going to be okay...but that's going to have wait for a bit,' Zhen Liu mentally griped. 'I need to get ready for the chase.'

As Zhen Liu continued to ride along this hunting expedition from hell, he made sure to occasionally toss a zako marble from his pockets and off to the side.

Such an action would be considered odd and highly noticeable, but there were two reasons as to why Zhen Liu managed to pull this off without getting detected.

First, he didn't make use of any [Chaos] or aether to enhance their travel distance, rather, he relied only on his brute strength.

Many aether warriors have the bad habit of only focusing on the fluctuations and circulation of aether when attempting to detect movement, but that was also just common sense.

Everything on Valresta used aether to do anything, so not immediately attempting to detect that was just...ludicrous.

Either way, due to Dante originally being a normal aether warrior prior to becoming a "Kaijin Lord", Zhen Liu was able to perform his little trick without any noticing or caring.

The second reason why nobody noticed was because Zhen Liu made sure to order the zakos to not activate until he, and Dante's horde, were far enough away from their initial drop point.

There was still a small amount of [Chaos] radiating from the zakos in their small, marble-like forms, but the amount was basically noticeable when compared to the literal horde of kaijin that was marching forward.

To be put into perspective, imagine a bucket of fresh water being dumped next to a river.

Which is more likely to be blamed for the moistness of the ground?

That stated, Zhen Liu still had to drop off the zakos in an individualized manner.

On top of these two reasons though, Zhen Liu noticed that Dante seemed to be the type to focus more on what was in front of him as opposed to what was happening around him.

Literally.

From his seat in the palanquin, Zhen Liu could see that the kaijin that were marching were already mildly fighting one another, while the slaves driving the whole vehicle were more or less bloodied from all of the walking.

Dante, however, didn't give a shit.

Instead, Zhen Liu could see that the false Kaijin Lord's gaze was directed to the horizon.

Some would call such behavior as being "goal-oriented", Zhen Liu considered this to just be a form of selfishness.

But that worked fine for Zhen Liu.

Such behaviors tended to be easy to manipulate, and be even easier to distract with the right tools.

Which in this case, meant a bunch of time delayed zakos.

^Curator,^ Dante called out in Zhen Liu's direction, over his shoulder.^Are you by any chance able to detect precisely where your current master is located?^

[To an extent,] Zhen Liu lied with the greatest of ease.[This lord, out of any other I have served, is rather paranoid.]

^Oh?^

[This current Lord of mine is...afraid of his abilities being discovered. The stories of the previous Kaijin Lord are known far and wide around the world,] Zhen Liu continued. [While many of these stories are that of great derring-do, they all had the nasty habit of ending in tragedy against a grand enemy or in betrayal. My current Lord is old, and has no desire in retreading across these bloody roads.]

^Ah,^ Dante nodded in understanding. ^Is he a pacifist, then? Hence the paranoia?^

[I wouldn't say that, it's more like...he doesn't want to get involved in unnecessary conflicts if he can help it.]

^Well...that's a sentiment I can understand,^ Dante admitted with the oddest hint of sadness in his voice...that soon transformed into malicious madness.

^But he won't have to worry about such things soon. I'm certain that he'll be much happier in a pine box...or as one of my Kaijin.^

[Certainly,] Zhen Liu nodded while gripping his war hammer in frustration.

'If I can move fast enough, I can just smash in his head and be done with this whole thing...but then I'd have to fight the horde of enemy kaijin by myself. Fuck.'

Eventually, Zhen Liu settled for the waiting game.

'Just gotta wait for the right time to activate the zakos, then the real fun can begin.'

...Meanwhile...

Nestled in the mountainous and rocky soil, the zakos sat and waited for the signal from their Lord to spring into action.

Zhen Liu's plan consisted of these zakos appearing at random times, but in increasing quantities, and having them attack Dante and his horde.

Their goal wasn't to weaken or destroy Dante, rather, their goal was to act as a carrot for this jackass to chase after.

The zakos would give Dante the impression that this "other Lord", was a mere stone's throw away, and all he had to do was lock him in place.

Due to Dante's inexperience in dealing with true [Chaos]-infused lifeforms, this plan was basically foolproof.

Unfortunately, there was a factor that Zhen Liu forgot to take into account when cooking up this plan: the environment.