The Villains Need to Save the World? Volume 1 Chapter 14

At the southernmost part of the Coristel continent, there was a strip of land that acted as a land bridge between the Coristel continent and the Priestley continent. Priestley continent was where the beastmen had settled; as the two continents were connected, the casualties caused by conflicts between beastmen and humans were equal in scale with those in the wars fought between humans and demons.

While humans and demons would only fight large scale battles every few decades, skirmishes between human and beastmen forces would happen constantly. The fires of war led to the large emigration out of the surrounding regions into one of the five great human empires, the Gabriel Empire. The empire of swordsmen, however, denied asylum to the fleeing refugees and this led to large amounts of jobless and desperate people turning to a life of banditry.

There was an abandoned town situated not far north of the land bridge, the town of Nelson had once been a bustling place but all the residents had abandoned the town after constant raids from the beastmen. The town was now effectively a ghost town.

Currently, on the mud trails outside of the town, a party of knights was traveling, there was only a few dozen of them and every single one of them was female. All of their armor and shields were crafted out of a dark-hued metal, none of them carried a lance typical of a knight. They were currently escorting several dozen large horse-drawn carriages filled with resources, the carriage at the front of the convoy flew the flag of the Church of Light, the flag looked out of place in the convoy and it was placed very casually; as if it was done just for the sake of it.

During their travels, there had been many suspicious figures that had followed these knights, it was rather hard not to attract attention with such a large convoy of resources in a region torn by war, especially a convoy that was guarded by female knights. Many bandit groups had set their eyes on this lucrative target, wanting to take both fortune and women. None of them realized that they had made a fatal mistake until it was too late.

Bella sat in the carriage at the front of the convoy with the lolis Angel, Mia, and Noesha. Eleanor rode with the knights at the front of the convoy, while Dolores rode with the rearguard. Roland acted as the coachwoman while Annie was standing by at Roland's side.

"I didn't expect this town to be completely free." Bella studied the map on the continent in her hands, feeling rather happy. A bar of gold was equal to 100 gold coins, and was worth more in border towns such as this one as a bar was much easier to carry than 100 coins, its price was raised by gold dealers to 120 gold coins per bar. That cardinal had given her 20 gold bars, this was enough money for her to buy a decent sized house in the capitals of any of the 5 great empires, and still have enough for a year of standard living expenses.

The Church sure has money, while that cardinal didn't seem like a very good person, but he sure was open-handed, it would be nice if I could encounter him again. Bella was reminiscing when the carriage suddenly came to a stop, there seemed to be some commotion from outside.

"What happened? Who are those people!" Bella opened the curtains and stuck her head through the carriage's window, she saw that a large group of armed men had blocked the path ahead of the convoy.

"This is a robbery, leave the carriages behind and you can leave." The head of these bandits, Joseph, had hesitated for a while as he looked at the Church's flag on the carriage before finally deciding to go through with the robbery. They were attempting to rob a convoy that flew the flag of the Church, they would try and avoid killing anyone as much as possible, or the Church might set its hounds on them.

"Do you know that we are the Church's knights? You dare to try and rob the Church! Get out the way." Roland's intentions were to save the lives of these bandits, but it was useless, none of the other bandits had listened to her, and what happened to those bandits was as expected, death. These bandits also paid her no heed and came charging towards the convoy, only two of Bella's knights went to meet the enemy.

"Lady Bella…can we…"

"Being merciful to one's enemy is to be cruel to oneself." After watching the two knights massacre the bandits, Bella returned to the carriage. The quality of these bandits didn't even require Eleanor to deal with them, much less have the capability to become some of Bella's 'materials'.

Joseph's bandits didn't hold out for very long before they were completely eradicated and the convoy continued on. Through the carriage's windows, Bella would often see beggars on the sides of the road. Bella did not pay any attention to them, as even though the convoy had large amounts of food and water, they did not have enough for every single one of the many beggars here; it would be too easy to lose control of the situation.

There were also some bandits who would ambush caravans by pretending to be beggars, Bella did not want to take this risk unnecessarily, they were not the peacekeepers with blue helmets from Earth. Bella's eyes returned to the map on the table, she had bought the town of Nelson from Duke Viktor who owned the land prior, though Bella didn't pay a single penny for it.

The duke's wrinkled face immediately lit up after he heard that Bella wanted to purchase the abandoned town as if he had gotten rid of the hot potato in his hands. He also gave large swathes of the desolate lands around the town itself, Bella had wanted to give him several gold bars in payment, but he had turned down the payment after seeing her missionary certificate, saying that the town was a gift to the church and he wouldn't accept payment even if Bella beat him to death.

Bella picked up the certificate that had been beside the map and studied it, the words on it were the same as the one that Stanley had given her, the only difference was a tiny red mark at the bottom left corner that looked like the thumbnail of a magic array.

"Sister, this is a ritual array for summoning demons from other worlds. It's just a beginner level array however, there are much more complex ones out there."

After learning the meaning behind the symbol, Bella was more puzzled, why would a certificate from the Church of Light have something like this on it? Bella decided that she would think more about this later, the current priority was to get to the town and set up.

Bella didn't think about looking for revenge against Lisha, she had not wanted to get involved with any more transmigrators after she had faked her death at the Anola Clark strip. Because of this, she chose a place far away from the Octavian Empire (Knights Empire) to expand and develop.

Count Harold was not implicated in the disappearance of Eleanor and Sidney, most likely because he had made some sort of 'deal' with the Church so that they would shelter him. It seemed that the Church's authority was greater than Bella had previously thought.

___

After slaughtering over a dozen bandit groups, there weren't any more bandits that dared to look for trouble, the news of what happened to those who had messed with this convoy had most likely spread through the region and deterred any other bandit group from setting their eyes on it.

"Hmph, these bandits won't be around for very much longer." Bella's convoy entered the deserted town of Nelson and headed straight for the church at the center of the town. Bella planned to continue flying the flag of the Church and set up her new base here.

"You girls can put that box over there, alright, you're all dismissed for now." Bella directed her knights to carry a large box into the center of the church, then she followed the instructions that Mystica had given her to undo the box's magical seal.

The box turned into dust after the seal was broken, a large and dark thing that looked a massively enlarged human's brain was left behind. The brain looked as if it was alive, the flow of blood visible on the giant organ.

This was something called 【Devil's Wisdom】 also known to some as 'Demon Brain'. It was one of the more important things that Mystica had given Bella, the 【Devil's Wisdom】 was a living thing and had its own intellect. Its main purpose was to grant greater wisdom to higher tier monsters, it could also command all the monsters within a very large radius, it was one of the must-haves for running a dark realm.

After the 【Demon's Wisdom】 appeared, it immediately gave off a weird aura that encased the church in the blink of an eye. Bella and the others weren't affected it by all, this aura did not cause any harm to females, most like because its previous owner Mystica was also a female.

"Eleanor, bring in the box that holds 【Demon's Heart】 as well, I want to rebuild my dark kingdom here!"

"Understood, Lady Bella."

<

Bella planned to rebuild her dark kingdom in this region, she would first revive all the cadre level monsters who had sacrificed their lives for her in the Anola Clark strip. This time she had learned the true way to create monsters from Mystica, it was time to put it into practice.

Outside of the church, Roland and Annie had mixed feelings as they looked at what was going on inside the church, they were currently the only humans left in Bella's party as Eleanor and her knight corp had already accepted a demon god's power, and could no longer be considered human. They currently witnessed the rise of a new dark kingdom, they had some very complicated feelings about this as they were still human.

___

A month after Bella arrived, an army of over a thousand mounted soldiers approached the outskirts of Nelson town. Although they rode warhorses, their armor was lighter than the heavy plate of knights. This wasn't just a mercenary guild, they flew the flag of the Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen Empire).

"Ivy, something feels off about this town, I can't place my finger on it but I think we should be cautious."

"Susan, didn't Duke Viktor say that someone from your Church built a church here, why are you so nervous?"

"Those who built the church here are from the Salo faction, they don't get along with the Alan faction that I am part of."

"I don't get what's with the Church, you guys represent one faith, but split into 3 factions. Oh well, let's continue."

Elena Ivy, one of the daughters of the head of the Ignaz Family, one of the Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen)'s three great families. Ivy had come to this dangerous region in order to hunt monsters, she had come with her good friend, the Church of Light's 3rd holy maiden, Antonia Susan.

In Coristel continent, the magic cores found in monsters had always been highly demanded goods, and its supply couldn't keep up with its demand. The magic cores of lower tiered monsters were already selling like hot cakes, not to mention higher level monsters, whose cores sold for an astronomical price and one might not even be able to buy it with gold.

<

In this region that connected two continents, there was a giant monster forest, as it was unnamed, people called it the 'Unnamed Forest'. There were tales of terrifyingly powerful monsters that were hidden in this forest, although no one was able to confirm whether these terrifying beasts actually existed, the surviving mercenaries who had been fortunate enough to return from this forest alive brought news that there were high tiered monsters merely on the outskirts. It was hard to tell what existences might be deeper within, as either no one who had dared venture far in returned alive or they didn't wish to talk about their experiences.

"Susan, are you really not going to visit your colleague? You are part of the same Church, after all, it might be rude if you don't greet them."

"It's fine Ivy, the Salo faction always liked performing all sorts of mysterious rituals, if we run into them in the middle of some weird ritual then…"

Ivy and Susan took a bypass around Nelson town, heading towards the Unnamed Forest. They found it strange that they had not run into a single bandit, not even a scout. This region had been notorious for banditry, but now they were nowhere to be seen. Had they all gotten better jobs?

Due to this regions dangerousness, normal mercenary groups wouldn't take commissions for this region. This place was directly connected to the land of the beastmen, and wars between them and humans were common, there was a possibility that they could be ambushed by beastmen armies at any time, making commissions in this region that much higher. As for higher ranking mercenary groups, their commission price was too high and Ivy didn't want to spend the unnecessary money and instead used her family's power to obtain a regiment of guards to assist them.

On the forest path, Ivy and Susan finally saw living people. There was a small wooden shack on the side of the road, and outside the shack were three little girls huddled around a table playing a card game that Ivy and Susan didn't recognize. The three little girls all wore gothic lolita dresses that were beautifully designed, it was Ivy and Susan's first time seeing clothes of this style.

"The Church's cross? The three of them are members of the Church!" Even from a distance, Susan could see the dark silver crosses that hung around the necks of the three lolis, although the color of the crosses was off, they were definitely the crosses that the Church's sisters had to wear. One thing that threw Susan off somewhat was the fact that the girls did not wear the garb of a sister. (H: like a sister of the Catholic church, a nun)

<

Near the three little girls were ten mountless female knights in black armor at attention. On each of their arms was a strip of cloth with an insignia to represent their identities.

"The insignia of the Salo faction? These are the Salo faction's people!" Susan saw the insignia on the arms of the black knights and hesitated, her faction had never seen eye to eye with the Salo faction. While they might be able to control their tempers in large cities due to the large amounts of onlookers, but in a place like this with no outsiders, there was no telling what might happen.

"Susan, look at the pile on their table…am I dreaming!?"

Tracing Ivy's shocked gaze, Susan looked at the table and froze. The tabletop was filled with magic cores of multiple colors, evidently belonging to monsters of all elements, many of them also had the gleam that only those from high tiered monsters had. Each of the lolis had a pile of magic cores in front of them, what shocked Ivy and Susan, even more, were the numerous large burlap bags at the feet of the lolis that had been casually placed, as their openings were not bound, they could see that the bags all contained magic cores.

The army that Ivy had brought all froze in shock as well, even the stupidest of them knew that value of all these magic cores, if it wasn't for the fact that Ivy and Susan were here, many of them would straight up run up and snatch as many as they could before running off. There were only three sisters and ten female knights guarding them, they didn't care if they were robbing the Church, if they could escape the Church's hunting, they would be able to live the rest of their lives without worrying about running out of money to spend.

Ivy and Susan exchanged looks, the two of them gestured for the guards to stay where they were, then walked towards the wooden shack.

"Halt, Hu…outsider, this is not somewhere you should be."

A female knight in black armor intercepted them, barely managing to swallow the words 'human'.

"I am the Church's 3rd holy maiden, Antonia Susan. Could you let me see those sisters over there?"

While speaking, Susan took out the cross that was proof of her identity as one of the Church of Light's holy maidens to show the female knight that blocked their way. Even though the Salo faction didn't get along with her Alan faction, she still had a thousand cavalry behind her.

Susan couldn't determine the cultivation of the ten female knights, but as they guarded such a fortune in a place notorious for bandits, even without their mounts, they were probably at least at the level of holy knight.

"You two can. As for the others, especially the males, they're not allowed. Or…"

Susan and Ivy didn't understand the knight's strange logic on why males couldn't go while females could. The cavalry that acted as bodyguards for the two were fuming, they felt as if their dignity was tread upon when a single female knight threatened a thousand men of the cavalry regiment, they would have definitely let the knight have a piece of their minds if they had received the order to do so from Susan or Ivy.

"Airplane! This round is my definitely my win." (H:2 or more three-of-a-kinds in a row, 444555 etc)

"You're too naive Angel, bomb!" (H:4 of a kind)

"I'm sorry Mia, but I win this round, rocket!" (H: big and small jokers, the highest hand in Landlord)

"….."

<

"I'll get you next round! I want to raise the stakes by threefold!"

As Mia was talking, Noesha took the small pile of magic cores at the center of the table and placed them on the pile beside her. After this, she placed another small pile at the center. When Noesha turned around, she saw the petrified Ivy and Susan.

"Do you two sisters want to play Landlord as well? You two don't seem to have brought any chips with you, I can lend you some if you want?"

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Chapter end