ItsDirector
patreon
The Human From a Dungeon 113
🕑 Added 2025-07-21 11:08:31 +0000 UTCChapter 113
Thalomus the Immolator
Adventurer Level: N/A
Daemon - Unknowable
"Does this even count as razing a village?" Kirain Yith asked with amusement in his voice.
I silently agreed with the master vampire's assessment. One expects a certain level of structural devastation to be involved in destroying a village. However, with the exception of its populace, this village was completely intact. From a distance it even looked as if it was undergoing a normal, lively day. It wasn't until one got closer that one would realize that the villagers were being dragged around by daemons.
Notably, it was only daemons doing the dragging. The vampires were not participating, and they had made it clear that they would not participate until it was time to assault the Night Kingdom. Lazy bastards.
"The attack was a success. I must report to Lord Hirgarus," I said, nodding to the vampire.
He nodded back, and I turned to leave. Attacking a village and leaving it standing didn't sit right with me. No fires, no battle cries, none of the wailing of the wounded and dying. What was even the point?
Hirgarus had ordered me to find a way to take the village without any fuss. Poisoning the water supply had been a simple task. From there, we simply had to wait a day until everyone in the village was weakened enough for us to simply stroll in and capture them all. It felt cheap.
The Decimator's command tent was also cheap. It was made of simple cloth and only about three times the size of a standard tent. Were I not in the know, I would think that it belonged to a moderately successful merchant who travelled with their family. Never would I have been able to guess that it actually belonged to the leader of a daemon legion.
I announced my presence and entered the tent to find Hirgarus the Decimator sitting at what might possibly be the smallest war table that had ever existed. The tent, his seat, the table, and even our 'attack' on the village reeked of humility. Disgusting.
"What is it?" Hirgarus asked.
"The village has fallen, Lord Decimator," I said with a sarcastically deep bow. "A grand victory indeed."
It did not sit well with me that Hirgarus had been allowed to keep his rank. His strength and regenerative abilities were a boon to battle, certainly, but the gaps in his memory were quite concerning. Especially for someone in a leadership position.
Marquess Naberius had laughed when he made the decision, and laughed harder when he assigned me to be Hirgarus' second in command. It was a promotion in both name and privilege, but I knew where the blame would lay if we failed our mission. Unfortunately, I had been very clear about my desire to be promoted so I had no way to decline the 'honor' without clarifying my reasons, and the memory of having to regrow my leg had still been quite fresh in my mind.
"Casualties?" Hirgarus asked.
"None, sir," I replied, straightening my posture. "There were no villagers in fighting shape thanks to the poison that I slipped into their water, at your order. Our forces were able to walk into each hut and chain their occupants with nary a fuss. Incidentally, the vampires didn't do anything."
"Excellent work," he returned his attention to the table. "I agree that capturing a foothold with no casualties deserves to be called a grand victory."
"And what of the vampires?" I asked, annoyed.
"Fighting the dwarves is not their task. They may choose to help us, if they wish, but their fight is in the Night Kingdom."
"Did the Marquess really order us to clear a path to the Night Kingdom for them?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't we skip this village and simply capture the town? It would have been much more fun."
"We do not need to capture the town to allow the vampires access to the Night Kingdom. We can either capture the town, or two more small villages. The villages offer a means of ingress into the Night Kingdom with minimal casualties."
"But we will have to capture the town eventually," I pointed out. "Would it not be better to do so while it is still relatively undefended?"
"Not if it hinders our objective. Losing soldiers to an unnecessary battle runs the risk of doing exactly that. In addition, once we obtain our point of ingress we must wait for the orcs to move their armies. If they become aware of our position, we will likely be their first target. That will hinder our ability to aid the vampires. Have you initiated a count of the prisoners?"
My jaw clenched to suppress an angry growl. Our goal was to conquer all of these lands, not just to help the fucking vampires. Hirgarus didn't seem to care about the overall vision, only specifically what the Marquess had told him to do. In addition, it was uniquely infuriating to be treated like a newly risen by being asked if I had accomplished such a simple and mundane task. It was even more frustrating that it had, in fact, slipped my mind.
"N-not yet," I stammered. "We're still pulling them from their cellars."
That was a lie, and I knew that I had made a grave mistake the moment it left my lips. Hirgarus stood and approached me until his face was an inch away from my own. I kept my composure, silently cursing my stupidity. My power was not unremarkable, but it was nothing compared to the daemon who was now staring me down.
"You led me to believe that the villagers had already been captured, and that their submission came from deception," he said in a deceptively calm tone. "Yet now you claim there are villagers hiding in their cellars, as if they were aware of our attack and able to flee. Which is the lie?"
Words escaped me for a moment. For the first time since I had discovered him, I saw actual anger upon his visage. It quickly banished the thought that he wouldn't destroy me because of my value. No, Hirgarus the Decimator is the type of daemon that would eliminate any obstacle to his goals, regardless of the origin of that obstacle. I would have to choose my words carefully.
"I apologize, sir," I said, cautiously. "I was merely creating an excuse for a momentary lapse in competence. All of the villagers have been captured, and I will initiate a count immediately."
"Correction. You will initiate a count the moment we are finished here, and you will call for a count every time we come to a halt. In addition, if even a single villager goes missing, you will personally lead the hunting party to bring them back," he replied.
I watched in terror as his hand methodically made its way towards my face. Only daemons who have never taken corporeal form don't include pain receptors in their bodies. Namely because they don't realize how useful pain can be for keeping one's form intact. There's no better way to be informed of an injury than to have that injury hurt.
I managed not to squeal in terror as my eye lost focus whilst tracking Hirgarus' thumb. It involuntarily closed as the thumb made contact, his fingers gripping the back of my skull. Then I felt several sensations that would have been rather interesting were it not for the searing pain that accompanied them.
Hirgarus used his fingers to press his thumb into my eye, smashing it against the sphenoid bone. This applied an intense and extremely painful pressure to the surrounding nerves. A moment later I felt the eye rupture and white-hot fluids gush into my nasal cavity. My neurons screamed at me as they attempted to process what was happening, but I continued to maintain my composure.
The pain was definitely one of the worst that I had experienced. But the destruction of my eye was only a temporary hindrance, for it would heal fairly quickly. I would have considered it a kindness unbefitting of a daemon had that been the only part of my punishment.
Whilst attempting to answer one of the vampire's many questions about our kind, I found that it is difficult to adequately describe the actual process in which a daemon consumes another's essence. I attempted to explain that our true forms are in multiple places at once, but our consciousness is tied to our physical forms. Yet, paradoxically, we can operate the base functions of our true form with no alteration to our consciousness. I also attempted to explain that time and space ultimately mean nothing to our true form, and as such there's no such thing as a 'location' to it. Obviously, the vampire didn't understand.
I was able to articulate how vicious it normally is, though. The closer two daemons are in power, the harder it is for them to feed off of one another. I likened it to two predators trying to consume each other whilst also fighting for territory. But when one daemon is much stronger than the other, there is no fighting involved. The weaker daemon simply stands no chance of putting up any sort of resistance to the consumption.
As such, I barely noticed Hirgarus take a piece of my true form. It wasn't much, perhaps the physical equivalent of the excess toenail of one's pinky toe, but it had a profound impact as a statement. He had destroyed my eye to remind me that he was my commander, but he ate part of me to remind me that he was much, much more powerful than me. So much more powerful, in fact, that I wasn't even a snack to him.
"You will not lie to me again," Hirgarus said, hammering home the threat.
"Yes, sir," I bowed, fluids spilling from my face onto the floor.
"Have someone clean that up. Dismissed."
I left the command tent with a speed that I didn't even know my physical form possessed. When I was a reasonable distance away from any witnesses, I collapsed to my knees. Pain and terror sent tremors through my body, and there was little I could do to stop them.
"Stupid," I chided myself. "Stupid, dumb, foolish, idiotic, imbecilic, fucking moron!"
I had spent far too much time amongst mortals and weaker daemons. It had been all too easy to forget how powerful daemons operate, and this forgetfulness had nearly cost me my progress. For a brief moment I envied the weaker daemons. They had only spent decades, perhaps centuries building themselves up. I had been at it for several millennia. The amount of effort it would take to reform myself as I am now was...
"No point in thinking about that," I muttered, speaking to myself in an attempt to try to catch my breath. "So long as I don't fuck up again, that won't happen."
Once the trembling stopped, I rose to my feet and found a lesser daemon. It eyed my injury warily, but listened to my orders and ran to accomplish them. I watched with my one good eye as the daemon found other daemons to assist him with the tasks I had given. With a sigh, I put a finger into my eye-socket and tore the destroyed organ from my head.
Intense pain shot through my skull, but it quickly died down to a dull ache as a new eye began to form. I examined the ruptured eye with a sense of anxiety. A couple of thoughts above my station and a slip of the tongue had nearly cost me everything. Underestimating Hirgarus had been an amateur mistake.
Yes, I found him as an empty husk who didn't even know what he was. I had also brought him back into the fold. But I was a fool to expect that I was owed anything for that. One could argue that the fact that he didn't immediately decimate me for my disrespect was more than repayment enough.
With a sigh to settle myself, I tossed my former eye aside and decided to supervise the daemons to ensure that they properly counted the villagers. Thus far it had only been my leg, my eye, and a small portion of my essence that had been destroyed. I didn't dare speculate what might be next.
"Forty-nine, sir," a daemon said, running up to me. "We have forty-nine villagers. All dwarves. Eight men, ten women, seven boys, ten girls, six old men, and eight old women."
"Any injuries?" I asked, clearing my sinus onto the ground.
The daemon and I stared at the half-congealed mass of goop for a moment.
"N-no sir. No injuries or illnesses that we can determine at this time."
"Chain them together and prepare to march. We have more villages to capture."
"Yes, sir."
The daemon ran off and I kicked some dirt over the disgusting mass that had exited my face. Then I quietly confirmed the count as the daemons positioned the villagers into a line and adjusted their restraints. The chains clinked softly as the daemons poked at the villagers mockingly. With a deep breath, I returned to the command tent.
"I return," I said to the tent-flap.
"Enter," came the reply.
Gathering my nerve, I lifted the flap and entered the tent. The bloody mess my face had left had been cleaned. Hirgarus had returned to his seat at the war table, and was absentmindedly fidgeting with a mark-stone. His gaze shifted from the map and he regarded me with a cold disinterest.
"The count has been completed," I said, bowing. "All of the villagers are dwarves. Eight adult males, ten adult females, seven male children, ten female children, six elderly males, and eight elderly females. Forty-nine in total."
"A small village, indeed," Hirgarus mused. "It would have been shameful to have received any casualties. Issue four guards and prepare the villagers for the march."
"Yes, sir. I've already had them chained together and we're ready to march once the guards have been assigned."
"I commend your initiative. A competent aid is an extremely valuable asset, but only if they know their place. Do you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where is it?"
Daemons don't have many traditions. Most attempts to establish them see their followers consumed by those with less dogmatic views. There is one daemonic tradition that goes farther back than even the mortal plane's existence, though.
Submission to power.
"Either leaping to fulfill your orders, or beneath your heel, sir," I said with a deep bow.
"Good," he nodded. "Keep that in mind, Thalomus, until the day you're powerful enough to actually challenge me. If you make the mistake of issuing a passive challenge again, I will consume you without a second thought."
"Understood, sir."
"The next village is four days away at a steady march. With the captives, though, it should take roughly six days. Once you have finished assigning guards, have food and water gathered for the captives. Ensure there is no unnecessary destruction. Any future visitors to this village should be left wondering what happened to the villagers, with nary a clue to go on."
"Yes, sir."
"Dismissed."
I turned and left the tent with a new determination. I was able to recognize the carrot and stick method of leadership, of course, but avoiding the stick and gaining the carrot still felt good. Especially since the stick was the threat of losing eons of progress.
I chose four daemons who seemed to have their wits about them and assigned them to guard the villagers. Then I ordered the other daemons to carefully gather food and water. I made it absolutely clear that any destruction would result in consumption. The daemons quickly set about their tasks, and before long everything was ready.
It was time to move on to the next village.
Comments
Ben Bass
TYFTC! Very interesting to see this from the demon's perspective. As well as seeing how powerful Hirgarus is. Now what will the dwarfs make of the disappearing towns folk?
