The Death Mage that doesn't want a fourth time

12 Carnival in the Ghoul community

Warning from the author:


This chapter contains elements of cannibalism. Readers who are uncomfortable with this, please proceed with caution.

「A toast! A toast to the savior of our chief!」

「Delicious, the meat that the savior gave us is so good!」

Vandalieu had saved the chief Zadiris, and the Ghoul community in the Devil's Nest had welcomed Vandalieu on the authority of Vigaro, the leader of the warriors.

The Ghoul village was far larger and more civilized than Vandalieu had expected.

The trees of this forested Devil's Nest were densely packed, but they had been cleared away to create a plaza, and pit-houses with roofs made using the leaves of trees were lined up in rows.

Vandalieu wondered if the buildings didn't get too humid, but as this wasn't the Amazon rainforest or a subtropical region, it was probably not a problem.

A well dug in the ground served as their water source, and there were fields for growing food, though they were primitive and only large enough to be called household vegetable gardens. There was also alcohol made from fermenting plants harvested in the forest, and a warehouse where meat from the prey they hunted was preserved and stored.

The Ghouls' lifestyle was similar to the people of indigenous cultures that lived in forests that Vandalieu had seen in TV programs on Earth. At the very least, they were far more civilized than monsters such as Goblins and Kobolds that relied entirely on hunting and gathering to sustain themselves.

『And they're living far more human-like lives than I have.』

Vandalieu, who also relied entirely on hunting and gathering other than the spoils from the bandits, realized just how important it was to have a stable lifestyle after seeing how the Ghouls lived. A person only lived a normal life when the necessities of life like food and water were readily available.

And the Ghouls were using the meat as well as the bandits' wine that Vandalieu had offered to host a banquet.

There were about a hundred of them in total. There were around ten members absent on a several-day-long trip to hunt Goblins, so that number was going to increase even further. Vandalieu wasn't particularly well-informed on how monsters lived, but it wasn't difficult for him to imagine that this was the most civilized of the monster villages in the Devil's Nest.

Incidentally, the leader of the warriors hunting the Goblins was apparently Zadiris's youngest daughter. For some reason, though she was a woman, she was born with more talent as a warrior than as a mage.

And so the Ghoul men with lion-like heads and arms that were longer than their legs and the Ghoul women who were no different to humans other than their grey-brown skin praised Vandalieu, who had saved Zadiris and offered them food and drink, as they enjoyed the feast. This sight was enough to calm Vandalieu as he thought,「I did good.」

Even though he knew where the meat had come from, that feeling didn't change.

Eating together with everyone made the food taste better.

「Vandalieu, you should eat too.」

Vigaro offered him a skewer with some well-cooked meat on it, but Vandalieu shook his head.

「I'm a little hesitant about eating human meat.」

Indeed, the meat that Vigaro on the others were roasting on skewers and boiling with herbs was the flesh of the five adventurers that Vandalieu had killed when he saved Zadiris. In other words, it was human meat.