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The dawn's early light shone upon the outskirts of the Unnamed Forest and illuminated the path of a group of what seemed to be adventurers who cautiously advancing into the forest. Their clothing and armour were dyed and crusted with blood, it was very evident that they had just been a very b.l.o.o.d.y fight.

"I'm sorry Bella, it was all because I wanted to hire some mercenaries…"

"No problem, boss Ivy, you can make it up by paying us an extra 10% after we finish this mission."

"You don't need to call me boss, we're friends, aren't we? Call me Ivy."

Last night in the duchy's capital, Bella and the others had to endure until nightfall before they were able to make their escape. Fortunately, her subordinates who had been previously messing around somewhere finally arrived around the same time and launched a surprise attack on the beastmen advance guard, inadvertently helping the escape of Bella and the others.

Due to the low visibility, Ivy and Susan weren't able to see what had befallen on the beastmen forces, they were only able to hear the terrified screams and death throes coming from the opposing camp. After an entire night of travelling, the party finally managed to make it into the outskirts of the Unnamed Forest.

"Can we rest for a bit Bella? I'm getting tired."

Bella didn't have any objections to Susan's suggestion. After all, they had travelled non-stop the entire night and were fatigued, thirsty, and hungry because they had no time to bring their rations with them during their escape. They currently only had two choices, return to Bella's church for a day to rest and make preparations again, or they could rest on the spot and find a way to solve their hunger.

Considering that Susan, Ivy, as well as Roland and Annie were still human and not the demon kings or G.o.ds that Bella and the others were, they were probably too tired and it wouldn't be suitable to return to the church currently. It was best if they could find a place nearby to rest.

"Angel, is this place safe?"

"About this, Bella-nee, there aren't any… so I'm not sure either, sorry."

Angel was confused as she was unable to sense any spirits in their nearby vicinity. If there weren't any spirits wandering the area, Angel's scouting ability was heavily limited. In order to not incur the suspicion of the holy maiden, Susan, Angel decided that it wasn't the best idea to evoke spirits from further away to help.

"No problems, it should be fine as long as we're careful."

Bella lightly patted Angel's head to comfort her, as this wasn't her fault. It was just that the uncertainties involved in this expedition would heavily increase without Angel's scouting.

The forest was very quiet so early in the morning and they had not run into any monsters yet. Previously, Bella had led a bunch of her subordinates on extermination runs throughout the forest's outskirts and it would probably be quite a while before the monster population here recovered.

Bella followed the tracks of wild animals in hope of finding water and her hard work paid off, after around an hour they heard the sound of a moving body of water.

As they got closer, they found a large stream with crystal clear water and a gentle current. Mia approached the stream and studied it for for a while before giving a confirmation to Bella with her eyes. Bella now knew that this water didn't have any problems, at least there wasn't any curses or poison in it, she trusted Mia's expertise in this field.

Seeing a clean source of water, all the other girls immediately wanted to go and clean themselves of the blood that had covered every exposed inch of their person. Now that they finally had time, there was nothing to stop them from cleaning themselves, even Dolores seemed to be really eager. Even though she was really into it while killing, but it was as if she returned to being a normal girl right after and just wanted to be clean.

"Why aren't you stripping Bella, your clothes are just as dirty as ours?" While she was stripping, Susan turned back to see Bella just standing there, and asked curiously.

"You all can wash first, I'll go patrol the surroundings for now. I'll wash later."

"Alright, stay safe!"

Bella actually really wanted to stay behind and wash with these beauties, only a dumba.s.s would refuse such a boon.

Bella instinctively realized that girls were the most vulnerable while they were bathing and were less able to deal with emergency situations if any were to occur. This was a place notorious for the number of monsters, after all, Bella had to take necessary preparations in order to prevent any monsters or perverts from getting close.

Bella came to a large patch of unnaturally long gra.s.s not too far from the stream and drew a large and peculiar magic formation on the ground. As soon as she finished the last stroke on the formation, there was some stirring from the ground below her, as if something was breaking out of it.

Seeing that the ritual had been completed, Bella swiftly left the area. Not long after she left several zombies in a high state of decay broke through the ground with many more still on their way out as the formation was still pulsating; these zombies were all adventurers in this area who had been slaughtered by monsters and had been in the ground for G.o.d knows how long, they probably contributed to why the gra.s.s in this area was so unnaturally long.

This 《Summon Undead》 was a dark magic formation that Mia had taught Bella, who then modified it so that the summoned undead would only attack male beings. Now Bella could finally return and bathe with the girls without worry of being interrupted. If any pervert was fortunate enough to wander into the area, he would be in for a lifetime of enjoyment.

Bella had a sinister smirk on her face as she left, she left not because she was afraid that they would attack her but more that she was scared of having nightmares after seeing such decomposed zombies. As for the possibility of a stray monster, most monsters would avoid being anywhere near such a large number of zombies.

Only Bella who set the formation would be able to remove it from a distance, if anybody else wanted to do it, they would have to find the heart of the ritual where the actual formation was located and then destroy it to stop the ritual. Bella believed that it wouldn't take long for all the dead near the stream to be awoken.

As Bella was about to return, she saw an article of clothing drifting downstream. As she spent all her time around a large number of girls, she was easily able to recognize that it belonged to a female.

"Eh, which one of them was so careless to let their clothes fall into the water while bathing?" Bella picked up a branch from near the stream and used it to pick the piece of clothing out of the stream. Right after, she remembered that Ivy and the others were bathing downstream, it was impossible for their clothes to have ended up upstream, this article most likely didn't belong to any of the girls in Bella's party.

Bella felt the material, then studied the design of the piece of clothing and was able to confirm that this did not belong to anyone in her party; as they had already changed into outfits designed by Bella herself, from their outer garments to their underwear, Bella only needed to feel the material to know if it was one of her designs.

Bella brought the piece of clothing towards her nose and sniffed it, a faint but elegant and pleasant scent travelled into her nostrils. Bella had smelled this kind of scent on the other beauties in her company, it should be the natural body scent of beautiful girls so the owner of this garment should be fairly good looking. The scent, however, was slightly different and Bella couldn't connect it with any girl she knew as she had remembered the scent of all the girls in her company.

What to do? The owner of this garment was probably bathing somewhere upstream, it would be very awkward for her to discover that she had lost her clothes, it would be rather bad for the owner if she only brought one set of clothes in such a dangerous place and lost it.

Right as Bella was hesitating, the gentle current brought another piece of clothing with it, seeing as it was the same type of thermal underwear that Roland and Annie wore previously, Bella stopped hesitating. She decided to follow the stream and look for the owner of these lost articles of clothing, to see if she needed any help.

___

Right as Bella was travelling upstream, in the forest near the stream; a well-equipped party of adventurers were engaged in combat with the zombies that Bella had summoned. This party had at least a hundred adventurers and were all fairly skilled, not panicked under the a.s.sault of such a large amount of zombies and being able to maintain their formation's integrity.

If these were normal zombies, the adventurers would have beaten them off long ago, but these were those that Bella had summoned, she had placed several drops of juice from the 【Devil's Wisdom】 on the summoning formation, causing the summoned undead to have retained some intelligence and combat ability from when they were still adventurers.

Seeing that they were unable to break through the adventuring party's defences, the zombies chose to back off and encircle the adventurers. During this stalemate, there was a constant stream of new zombies joining the already large group. This party of adventurers didn't have any mages of clerics with them and only had archers as their ranged units, they were forced to fight reactively.

"s.h.i.+t, where did all these zombies come from? I thought that there were only monsters in the Unnamed Forest!" A handsome swordsman with golden hair was complaining, he hadn't expected to run into any evil beings during this expedition into the Unnamed forest, which was why he had not brought any mages of clerics with him. Now he was shocked when he had run into zombies who seemed to have some semblance of intelligence and didn't just rush them like normal.

"Don't be so impatient Leonard, Kriss shouldn't have run too far. We just found some of her clothes near the stream did we not? She is probably bathing somewhere upstream, hehe."

"I'm warning you, Edwin, Kriss is my fiancée. Don't even try to make a move on her!"

"Che, if it wasn't your dad having good relations with the Gabriel Empire's emperor, you would still be able to get engaged with Kriss? I am the Kristoff Empire's(a.s.sa.s.sins/Archers) 3rd prince, after all, my standing isn't any lower than you, the young master of the Gabriel Empire's Brittany family, I still want to compete for Kriss."

The golden-haired youth was busy arguing with a male archer with short-cut brown hair, they didn't discover that at the back of their party, a sombre look came onto a swordsman with his head lowered, his facial features were heavily distorted and definitely wasn't an expression that a human was able to make.

"I didn't expect that these two to have such close relations.h.i.+ps to the Gabriel Empire's number one hero, Mathilde Kriss, that girl put me through h.e.l.l last time. I'll regain my dignity from her friends this time..hehe." Clement looked at the two males of n.o.ble birth who were still arguing on who Kriss belonged to, and a sinister smile crept onto his face.

Leonard and Edwin did not know that currently, some distance away, after receiving news from 【Master of Faces】 Clement,【Bone-corroding Duke】 Adrian and【h.e.l.l's Warden】 Maltz were on the way with their personal armies of bone-breakers and ghouls.

___

Bella followed the water upstream for a while and came to the river head, a small lake. Even from a distance, Bella was able to see a girl swimming around agitatedly as if she was looking for something. Bella then looked around the lake but wasn't able to find any clothes that might belong to the girl, this girl seemed to be the one that had lost her clothes to the current.

This girl had beautiful silver-white hair, to Bella who had loved silver hair even from her time on Earth, this was quite a sight. Currently, the only silver-haired girls in Bella's company were the two lolis, Angel and Mia, evidently not enough to satisfy Bella's obsession with silver hair.

Due to the angle, Bella could only see the silver-haired girl's porcelain-like back and not her face. Right as Bella was hesitating over whether to go and greet the girl or not, she saw a large black snake about 6 meters in length swimming up the stream against the current and heading towards the girl.

"Isn't that a deep-sea serpent? Why is it in a stream? s.h.i.+t, that girl is in danger!" Bella's subordinates had previously given one of these serpents to her as tribute; although these deep-sea serpents weren't very strong fighters, it was able to unleash a strong paralyzing poison into the water whilst hunting prey. When caught unaware, these deep-sea serpents were equally dangerous as other monsters of its size.

This serpent was evidently much more dangerous than the 3-meter one that Bella's subordinates had offered as tribute. The serpent last time was killed so easily by an evil suzerain was because its toxins had no effect on any sort of dark existence, but this silver-haired girl didn't seem like a demon at all to Bella.

After she realized this, Bella looked for a place to dive into the water in order to go and save the girl. Seeing as the serpent had not immediately attacked, Bella quickly undressed and got into the water. She had to strip because this serpent's toxins were able to corrode normal clothes, it would be rather awkward for Bella to have saved someone but be left without clothes.

The deep-sea serpent hesitated for a while before finally deciding to attack, it swam quickly towards the girl and jumped out of the water near the girl and flew towards her. The girl turned around to see the source of commotion and came face to face with the flying serpent and froze in shock. In the nick of time, however, Bella finally managed to swim close enough and sent a right hook that sent the serpent flying and leaving it seeing stars.

The power behind this punch was nothing to laugh at, it was just that she wasn't wearing her metal gauntlets, if she was, that punch would have been able to punch straight through the skull of the deep-sea serpent. Luckily she didn't, because snake type monsters usually had their magic cores inside of their skulls, it would be troublesome if she had accidentally shattered it, as it was the only cure to the serpent's poison.

Bella also didn't want to scare this silver-haired beauty with the b.l.o.o.d.y scene of her beating the brains out of this snake. Because of this, the serpent quickly recovered from its dizziness and turned its giant mouth towards the new coming attacker.

The silver-haired beauty behind Bella seemed to have been scared witless or had been paralyzed by the deep-sea serpent's poison. After seeing the golden haired beauty that was Bella, the serpent immediately froze, it had some semblance of intellect and was able to sense that even though Bella had the appearance of a human girl but her distinct scent of high-tiered evil being drove fear into its small brain.

This deep-sea serpent had just escaped that place and had only wanted to hunt some prey for sustenance but had run into some girls who also had the dangerous scent of top-tier evil beings downstream, it was spooked into furiously swimming upstream. Here it finally found a prey which it felt that it could handle, even though this silver haired beauty also… but it decided to give it a try in order to not starve to death.

(H: no reference to where that place is)

Unfortunately, Bella had stepped in and quashed its hopes. It originally had wanted to try fighting but after seeing Bella's ravenous eyes, felt that it would definitely be killed if it stayed. Bella wasn't going to let prey get away after it entered her sight, Noesha and the others downstream were still hungry after all!

Bella straight up leaped towards the monster and delivered another thundering punch, much heavier than the last, sending the serpent flying out of the water and partly onto the sh.o.r.e. As it was about to struggle to make its escape, several terrifying and shadowy hands reached out of the bushes and forcefully dragged the 6 meter long monster into the shrubbery.

"That Tanpur is finally here, I'll leave that deep-sea serpent to him." Only now did Bella remember the silver-haired beauty on the side, she turned around and made eye contact with the girl's beautiful violet irises. Why did this girl seem so familiar?

Bella thought for a while and froze, wasn't this the girl that Clement had drawn for her previously? The 1st princess of the Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen), Mathilde Kriss, but according to Clement's drawing Kriss was supposed to have black hair, it didn't match up at all; was Clement messing with her?

Only later would Bella find out that the evil being Clement was completely colourblind, and couldn't differentiate between any colour. The only colour he remembered was the black locks of Bella's true body when she created him, which was why he drew Kriss' hair as black as well.

<>

Right now Bella only wanted to run, she hadn't brought a weapon with her and Kriss' blades reportedly appear from thin air; Bella didn't think that she would be able to win against Kriss in this state.

After recovering from the shock of the deep-sea serpent's attack, Kriss didn't take any hostile actions towards Bella but instead grabbed Bella from behind before she could make her escape.

"Please don't leave, can you help me? I'm scared by myself!" After hearing Kriss' feeble plea for help, Bella stopped in her tracks, as she couldn't hear any hostility in Kriss' voice. Even though Kriss was very likely a transmigrated hero just like Lisha, but she didn't seem like the type start a fight at first sight like Lisha had.