Reborn as a Bully

THE ALTAR UNDER THE BASEMENT

"Take that. I want that orb", Ratatouille suddenly appeared to point at a magic orb.

"What is it? Since when did you follow me?" I asked the rat.

"You don't come to steal from a vault without me", he replied to me.

"What is of value here?" I asked him.

"Orb of Alteration. I use this to transform", he replied to me as he grabbed an orb.

"What else is valuable here?" I asked him.

"Just take everything. You're not coming back anyway", the greedy rat told me, so we raided the entire treasure room.

"Let's check the other rooms", I told Ratatouille.

"What for? All the treasures are here", he told me.

"There's something familiarly fishy here", I said to him as we went to check another room.

"Holy Shyte what in hell is this place", Ratatouille told me as we walked into a hot fiery room that was filled with molted magma rocks that probably came from the hells.

"There's an altar here. Do you recognize this?" I asked him.

"Rumble..rumble..rumble"

"Damnit someone's here. Let's go", I told Ratatouille as he returned to my soul realm whilst I turned invisible.

A man who was probably Yasidee's father walked into the fiery magma altar with a prisoner.

"Spare me Lord Yenen, don't kill me", the prisoner pleaded with Yasidee's father.

"Your sacrifice to the Master would be appreciated", Lord Yenen told the prisoner as his jaws enlarged to several times its original size before he bit his shoulder.

Then Lord Yenen chewed on the prisoner's body, feeding on his flesh as he screamed in agony and pain. The prisoner suffered immensely as his body was slowly being ripped to pieces and his body parts were grotesquely eaten by Lord Yenen.

"He could have killed him first before eating him", Cassandra told me in my mind.

"He wanted his agony, not his flesh", Meera replied to us in our minds.

Both Cassandra and Meera followed me into my soul realm when they knew I was coming here to the demon's den.

As the prisoner screamed in pain suddenly the large magma stone on the altar glowed brightly. Lord Yenen quickly knelt before the magma stone and prayed to the stone as the prisoner screamed in agony.

"Lord Zesgumath, what should we do now? When is our army attacking Staari city?", Yasidee's father asked the stone.

"That is not for you to know. You must proceed with the Queen's plan", the magma stone spoke to him before the glow on the stone faded.

"Yes, my Lord", Lord Yenen replied to his master.

After the stone glow faded Lord Yenen killed the suffering prisoner and left, leaving his body to be melted and consumed in the magma.

"What was that all about?" Cassandra asked us when she came out.

"Lord Yenen tortured the prisoner to extract his agony to power that stone. It is a communication stone of some kind", Meera explained to us.

"Damnit, they could have used a radio", I said to them.

"Who is Lord Zesgumath?" I asked Meera.

"He must be one of the Demonlords, perhaps their general or king", she told us.

"Is he stronger than Charkra?" I asked her, referring to the Demonlord general that we killed in Merern.

"I don't really know. The Demon King should be the strongest in his region. He will be stronger than Charkra if he is their king", Meera told me.

"It doesn't matter to us if we are staying away from this Zesgumath", I told them.

"Something bad is happening to Drachia kingdom. But it doesn't concern us", Ratatouille said to us.

"If it has anything to do with that Queen of Demons, it will have something to do with us eventually", Meera replied to him.

----

"Have you heard what's been gossiping around town?" someone at the table next to us asked his friend as we were having lunch in the city.

"What's so interesting?" the guy's friend asked.

"They say Lord Yenen of the Ermanes killed his son Yasidee and many of his servants. Something about Dark magic sacrifices. Even Yasidee's mother ran away from home with all the Lord's treasures", the man talked about the gossip.

"Good job Saye, you Solomon people are fast to spread the good news", I complimented Saye, my handler.

"You are really amazing. You stole the guy's money and blamed it on his wife", Saye told me softly as she leaned close to me with some appreciation for my wickedness in her eyes.

I pushed her away with my fingers and told her, "Don't give me those eyes I won't like you. I have enough in my harem", as Cassandra and Meera stared at the girl amusingly.

Saye immediately pretended to puke and stared at me angrily.

"Make sure you continue to spread the rumor in Staari city and ask Mother Asereth to keep a watch over the Ermanes. And prepare our people, something big is coming and it might be time to rescue our people", I told her.

"I don't know how you plan to rescue our people. There are a few thousand of us. Even if they came out from the mines there is no place in Staari city that could take so many without alerting the Apostles", she commented to me.

Rescuing so many people from the Apostles wasn't an easy task, so the situation does require some thought. It was even more difficult to evacuate and hide the prisoners after they were rescued.

"Well, you are quite perceptive of the situation, but I have it all planned", I told the girl who just shook her head in disbelief.

Saye never believed that I could save her people from the prison in the mines because it was just quite impossible. Impossible to save them and more impossible to get them to safety. 

It was for this reason the Apostles sent the prisoners here in the first place. This whole area around the prisoner's mine is under the nose of the Apostles. Escaping the Apostles was just out of the question.

"I'll marry you if you save all our people", Saye said to me suddenly.

"Damnit not again?" I told the girl.

"No, no, and no. Never say the marriage curse to me again", I told her immediately while she laughed and walked away.

"She likes you", Cassandra said to me about Saye.

"It's my charm or maybe it's this boy, Oriese's face", I replied to her.

"We have much planning to do", Meera told me, changing the topic and ignoring my handler.

----

Among the loot that I took from Lord Yenen was a particularly interesting templar skill manual. 

"The Piercing Ray"

The Piercing Ray skill was quite similar to my Flaming Starfire Flash and Flaming Arrow of Nyx but there were a bunch of constellations that were different. 

So, I linked those constellations into my combined Flaming and Starfire constellations to see what it does. Suddenly a constant beam was projected from my hands at a short-range like a saber.

"Wow, you projected your projectile weapon into a conjured melee weapon", Cassandra commented on my new skill.

"Yes, it seems to be its function", I told her as I sparred with her a little with my conjured saber.

"It's not fair your flame saber melted my dagger", Cassandra told me.

"It's really powerful but it could be improved if I had the magic ingredient", I told her.

"What are the ingredients required for this skill?" Ratatouille asked me.

"The Piercing Ray of the Ermane requires two ingredients, the Rock of Agony, and the Lamp of Blaze", I told him.

"How did you know about the ingredients? You just got the skill", Cassandra asked me.

"It's written on the Piercing Ray scroll", I told her.

"Why do you need an ingredient for your templar skill?" Cassandra asked me.

"I learned a special skill from the monkey god, Hanuman, that would augment the essences from magical artifacts and pair it with my templar skills. If they match, my bone magic will augment the templar skill", I explained to her.

"Are you using a flaming sword now instead of your projected beam?" Chash asked me.

"Projected magic is a better suit for me. I'll tweak the constellations until I find a conjuration that works for me", I replied to him.

"But your skill is now a combination of three different skills, would the ingredients still be the same?" Meera asked me.

"That I don't know because I'm just figuring this out. But I guess if I had all the ingredients for all the three skills infused into my constellation then it should work. My bone augmentation wouldn't be activated if the magic is not compatible", I said to her.

"Well, you already have one of the ingredients here, the Rocks of Agony", Ratatouille told me as he handed me a rock that was stained with blood.

"What? Is it the Demon Rock from Yenen's altar?" I asked him.

"Yes, it is. You are lucky I brought it back with me", the rat told me.

"Then I am only short of the Lamp of Blaze", I told him.

"Why don't we try our luck at the Auction Hall in Staari City for the lamp?" Ratatouille suggested it to me.

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