Desolate World

"This sucks!" Hugo complained after he flew out from a village ruin. It was the third village he had checked. The result was the same. He didn't find anything.

He was really annoyed as he had to do it. Because the reward of the mission was so attractive, he decided to join as an escort mission.

It started when he and Freya were almost out of supplies. So he left her and his new vampire servants that were keeping the transformed beastmen that they had just kidnapped, to go buying blood supplies from a settlement of ghouls.

Then he saw the quest to escort a ghoul lord to the front line. It would reward anyone based on their levels. As he was a level 33 vampire, he would get 33,000 dirac, once they arrived. As he thought that there were still some supplies in his nest for his subordinates, he decided to accept the mission. After all, an escort mission was quite safe and didn't need a long time to complete.

When he arrived at the area of Iron Gate Fortress, awful memories emerged. He had lost all of his subordinates except Freya in the hands of some humans in the forest near the fortress. Then as his higher-up was killed by a crazy monster because of his information, he was kicked out from the guild. 

Well, the problem actually was not that his information about the existence of a parasite was inaccurate. But because he received a million dirac for his information, and his higher-ups failed at his mission. So the shameless higher-up wanted to get some portion of the reward that he had gotten.

Of course, he refused. As a result, he was kicked out directly from the guild. He felt it was unjustifiable. However, he couldn't do anything except gritting his teeth. He promised to come back to make them pay someday. 

After taking a rest for almost a day, the zombie army continued their journey. However, Hugo found that they had additional troops. There were around 10,000 ordinary skeletons that followed along.

Entering deeper into the prairie, Vesper ordered him to scout the way. As he was the only vampire in the army, he had to do it alone.

There were many ruins in the prairie. There were former villages or towns of the humans. After the undead conquered the human kingdoms, no living people were left in the prairie. Most of them were 'turned' into skeletons and other undead, while the rest could escape to the South or North.

After their inhabitants had left, the villages and towns became ruins. As the undead weren't merciful enough to leave them undamaged in each attack and as they didn't really need houses. 

Moreover, by leaving them, the higher-up of the undead worried that they would be used by orcs, ogres, or beastmen as dens. They didn't want to let the livings have footholds in the prairie.

So, it became Hugo's duty to make sure that there was no ambush in the villages. So, Hugo must check the villages by himself.

At the first village, he checked it seriously. But as he had expected, he didn't find any danger. However, the process he had to spend to check it was more than 40 minutes. 

After he reported it, he was scolded severely, because he took too much time to check. It made him pretty helpless, as he was just by himself. However, he could only grit his teeth, as who scolded him was Vesper the ghoul lord.

What made him angry was, the other guardians —that all of them were ghouls— also complained to him for making them wait for too long. As a solo vampire guardian at the mission, he could only endure such treatment.

So, in the second village, he only looked at a glance at each house, and he still needed 20 minutes to do it. When he came back to the army, he was scolded again by Vesper. The ghoul lord still thought it was still too long. It made Hugo feel frustrated.

So, at the next ruins of the village or farm, he didn't check them seriously anymore. Even if he had done his best, he would still be scolded after all.

Unbeknownst to him, the reason for Vesper's anger was not only because he thought that Hugo was at fault. But more to vent his irritation. As he had to bring the low-level skeletons with his army. He still didn't feel well after he had lost the debate with Goro.

Without realizing it, the army had been marching for two days and had reached almost 200 kilometers of distance. It was only possible because they were undead, as they didn't have a concept of tiredness. They could even walk for a month nonstop if their higher-ups ordered them. 

In fact, they could reach there faster. However, because of Vesper's order to always be careful, they always stopped outside of a village before passing it, to avoid surprise attacks. 

After being scolded, Hugo didn't take his job too seriously anymore, so the army only needed 5 to 15 minutes of stops each passing the ruins of villages or farmhouses. And until the lastest village, they didn't meet any problems.

As for meeting some patrolling skeleton riders or skeleton soldiers that for some reason didn't bury themselves underground, it was something that they didn't need to think about. As there were always some monsters from the Misty Forest that entered the prairie from time to time or a group of orcs, beastmen, or ogres that wanted to make trouble.

So after defeating the livings, they didn't immediately come back and bury themselves as they were basically idiots. They often forgot about the order of the elite skeletons to them. 

Hugo saw the town in front of him with a sigh. He had been scouting 8 villages and dozens of farmhouses since they started their journey. He was tired of the routine. And looking at the big city in front of him, he knew it would take a while for him to check around it. 

He then looked at a plank on the town wall that could still be read. The name of the town was Lightholm. From its town wall that was made from stone, he concluded that it was a prosperous town in the past. 

He didn't participate in the undead invasion deep into the human kingdoms, as he was busy capturing the human deserters who ran into Misty Forest. But from his former guildmate, he knew that it was a bountiful harvest.

Imagining millions of humans either men, women, kids, and old men were slain to be materials for increasing the undead army, he felt it was too wasteful. It would be best if they could be 'nurtured' for a few months to be vampires. 

However, he knew it was impossible. As they said, keeping too many vampires was an unacceptable thing. Because vampires still needed the blood of the livings, other undead were still wary of them. Fortunately, they didn't have a conflict of interest with other undead races like shadows with ghosts. If not, they would be persecuted like shadows.

He didn't know why the other undead hated shadows, but even he felt uncomfortable when seeing them. How should he say it? It was like his feelings towards living beings. He knew that it was ridiculous, as everyone knew that shadows were undead. But, he knew that not only he that felt the same. Even other undead guardians said that.

Because of that, they said that the shadows were cursed. The undead tended to hate shadows, especially ghosts. They would attack the shadows whenever and wherever meeting them. Although they knew that that behavior was unreasonable.

Well, some of the undead also said that the vampires were also cursed. But, somehow, everyone could still bear their feelings. So, it was okay as long as their numbers were not too many.

Stopping to think about the useless things, he entered the town through the big gate. 

He then saw the destroyed town. He found that some buildings had burn marks. However, many buildings had still stood up, although he could see some damages on them.

He then started to check the town by flying along the town road. After passing some streets, he concluded that this town had been badly designed. There were numerous alleys in the town, so it was impossible for him to check every place.

So he just checked every large street in the town. He even didn't check some intact buildings beside the street. As he wanted to finish his task immediately and then came back to the army. 

As he thought the army wouldn't enter the town, it was no different whether he checked it carefully or not. So, even if some beastmen hid in the town. As long as they knew that there was a huge army just outside of the town, it was impossible for them to come out. As it was just the same as giving up their life.

As he thought it had been enough, he flew outside to report that there was no threat in the town.

***

After the vampire was gone, Ace went out of the buildings. 

He said, "I never thought that I would meet him here. And his carelessness destroyed our plan. How could he miss our poor hiding?"

"Hahaha, yeah. I have seen many geniuses save an army from traps. But, just this time, I met an idiot that perfectly missed the hints that we had prepared.

By the way, are you sure he is the same vampire that escaped from you in the past?" Sampson said as he went out of the building.

"Ugh, I'm ashamed about it. Okay, as the vampire had luckily didn't see our obvious hints. Prepare plan B! Jordan! It all depends on you!"

"Consider it done, Director," A voice then was heard from underneath Ace. Then a black spot left his shadow toward a direction.

***