Chapter 92: The Betrayal

Charlotte and the knights and aristocrats accompanying her have been separated from a company of knights led by Gray and are currently being ambushed by a company of undead on the way to the next MCA secret factory. She knows what that means.

So you've decided to show your face, Necromancer!

"Lady Charlotte! It's the undead!" Shouted one of the panicking knights.

"Hold steady, men! Cut off or stab their heads!" Charlotte shouted her orders and the knights braced themselves for battle.

The undead moved in and attacked relentlessly. The knights tried to decapitate them, only to find out that losing their heads no longer killed them.

"T-They're not dead! UWAAAH!" Shouted a knight as the zombie warrior he just decapitated stabbed him in the chest. The other knights suffered similar fates as their efforts to defeat their undying enemies proved futile. Morale quickly dropped amongst her men when faced with enemies who ignored all damages that they can deliver, enemies that they cannot kill, who would fearlessly and mercilessly attack and kill them all.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Charlotte barked orders. But… "There's nowhere to run, Lady Charlotte! We're completely surrounded!" True enough, Charlotte looked back and found the escape route she thought she could use has been blocked by another horde of undead warriors.

Charlotte looked around her, trying to find the Necromancer, or some prominent figure that could be controlling these undead warriors. And soon enough, she found a short robed and masked figure floating in the air above a horde of undead. The robed figure stared at Charlotte with an eerie mask. From the dossier she received from Shadow Garden, she came to recognize the figure as the Acolyte, who is said to be the Necromancer's apprentice, a mage who wielded magic the same way as the Necromancer.

"So you're the Acolyte." Charlotte remarked, addressing the Acolyte, who doesn't respond and merely continued to stare at her.

"If you've come to kill me, too bad! I won't go down without a fight!" Charlotte shouted as she unveiled the black slime she had hidden within her clothes, slime that received from Shadow Garden, allowing them to coat her body, creating a black bodysuit similar to the ones worn by Shadow Garden members. She also created a black blade made of hardened slime. The sight of her bodysuit finally made the Acolyte react in surprise.

"So that is your choice…" The Acolyte remarked whilst clenching their fist.

"Indeed. Your master left me with no other choice after all."

"Hmm... too bad. You've made the wrong choice." The Acolyte declared as they mentally ordered the undead to charge, killing the rest of Charlotte's men in seconds.

Despite the loss of her men, Charlotte kept fighting, slicing through the bodies of the undead warriors cleanly with a swordsmanship style that her brother taught her, ignoring whether they died or not as her target is the Acolyte. She thought that if she kills the Acolyte, the undead warriors would die too… hopefully.

"HAAAAA!" Shouted Charlotte as she jumped to reach the Acolyte, intending to slice her enemy in half with her sword. The Acolyte responded by erecting a barrier that clashed against her blade.

"Tch! Dammit!" Charlotte jumped back after her failure. When she landed, she is once again surrounded by the undead horde. She is all alone now but she showed no fear and focused her eyes on the Acolyte.

The Acolyte silently admired her resolve and ordered the undead troops to retreat.

Seeing her enemies retreat surprised Charlotte greatly.

"Wait a minute!? You're running away!? Why!? Are you mocking me!?" Shouted Charlotte angrily.

"My master does not want you dead for now." Is all that the Acolyte said before they left with the undead horde and taking with them the corpses of Charlotte's men, leaving her alone.

So you've caught interest in my Demonic Possession then, Necromancer? That's why you spared me back in the attack on our school too. Too bad, I've been cured! You shall regret sparing me today! Declared Charlotte in her mind.


Gamma is busier than usual. She's currently doing paperwork in her desk, calculating the losses from Mitsugoshi bank robberies. Yes, robberies, as in plural. John Smith has robbed more Mitsugoshi banks in rapid successions these past few days and even Shadow Garden personnel guarding the banks are unable to stop him. Curiously though he hasn't slain any Shadow Garden member and merely trapped them with his wires. He still stole their money though!

"Haaah… Who the fuck is this John Smith!?" A curse uncharacteristically came out of Gamma's mouth as she sighed in frustration.

Besides the John Smith problem, she also heard of Don Jon's Ponzer Plan being expanded, offering greater bonuses to investors who brought new investors, making it entirely reliant on getting new investors to bring more profit and turning it into a program that resembles the Pyramid Scheme that Lord Shadow once mentioned to her in passing years ago.

Said expansion have attracted even merchants outside MCA's sphere of influence, especially small merchants whose business has been greatly affected by Mitsugoshi's rapid rise to power and are close to bankruptcy if not bankrupt already. Even aspiring merchants and people who wanted easy money (some including lower ranked nobles) have joined. Gamma felt a little guilty and regretful over the fact that every business rivals she defeated has joined her greatest enemies now.

If Don Jon didn't exist, she could probably safely ignore all her business rivals and achieve global economic dominance for her master without resistance, even if she has to ruin the lives of many people for it. Most of them worked for the Cult anyways, she reasoned.

Besides the Ponzer Plan is the MCA's counterfeit bills factories. Efforts to shut them down has been slowed down by the Necromancer's forces led by his infamous apprentice, the Acolyte. Charlotte has been hard at work to thwart the MCA's schemes but her efforts have been stopped by the Acolyte ambushing her group with undead minions who no longer dies when decapitated. After losing her men, her brother called her back to the capital in order to protect her from further danger.

The Shadow Garden members they sent to burn the factories have also been attacked by the undead, suffering some casualties and even losing some of their companion's corpses to the undead, forcing Gamma to order most groups to retreat in order to prevent more casualties among them. At this rate, the MCA's plan to flood the market with counterfeit bills may succeed and it would cause a collapse of trust in the paper money system that Mitsugoshi introduced to this world.

The Mitsugoshi Membership system she developed could probably allow Mitsugoshi to survive the credit collapse but with how many banks John Smith had robbed, she feared that they would lack the funds to survive the inevitable credit collapse.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Seven Shades, Alpha, is merely sitting on a sofa whilst blushing and daydreaming like a lovestruck schoolgirl. She's even wearing a school uniform instead of the dress she usually wore when working in Mitsugoshi. She has been like that ever since her meeting with Shadow few days ago. Gamma has no idea what happened between them but the thought makes her quite jealous! But she doesn't want to interrupt Alpha whilst she is daydreaming.

THUD

Gamma's head dropped to her own desk face down, not from her slipping like usual but from how mentally tired she is. She still got her usual nosebleed from the impact though.

"Hm? What's wrong, Gamma?" Alpha asked, the sound of Gamma's face hitting the desk seemed to snap her out of her thoughts.

"I'm fine… It's just that… John Smith!" Gamma complained with a single name and Alpha immediately understood.

"John Smith, huh. Forgive me for getting distracted, Gamma. But I received a message from Zeta who encountered John Smith in Everick few days ago."

"What did she say?"

"She simply said "Soon you'll understand." A rather cryptic message, don't you think?" Alpha said. Gamma, who didn't have the context, couldn't understand the meaning of those words.

"What does that mean?"

"Hmm…. Few days ago… when I met with Shadow…" The mention of her meeting with Shadow in his dorm room made Alpha smile and almost got lost in her thoughts once again, but she shook her head to dismiss those happy thoughts for now. "… he said the same words to me."

"Then… John Smith is…!" Gamma exclaimed.

Alpha only smiled in response. Her smile seemed to have infected Gamma as well, giving her relief from her stress.

"So… it's all part of his plan after all. And that's why there have been zero casualties to our members who faced John Smith. Haaah… What should we do from now on then, Lady Alpha?"

"For now we should keep this a secret from anyone outside the Seven Shades and the Named Numbers. Most of them probably wouldn't understand why Lord Shadow has moved against Mitsugoshi."

"Very well. But about the Ponzer Plan…"

"I'm sure he's handling that too. He has infiltrated their ranks deeply after all."

"As expected of Lord Shadow!"


Another day, another bank robbery. My suggestion of turning the Ponzi Scheme into a Pyramid Scheme has been a great success and brought plenty of money to the Snow Fox bank. The fox lady said that Don Jon didn't trust me yet despite that but I don't care as long as I got the fox lady's. I sensed that she have some ulterior motives though. Perhaps she's trying to scam me too? I should be wary when approaching her.

Anyway, back to the robbery part. Since I've proven my capabilities, Don Jon no longer assigned men to me and allowed me to do as I please when robbing the banks. He did instruct me to bring corpses of Shadow Garden members to him. Why? Did he have a necrophilia fetish? Ewww… There's no way I'd do that. Which is why from then on every time I rob a bank, I made sure none of his spies watched me fight and subdue Shadow Garden members so I can simply say I didn't encounter Shadow Garden anymore. They seemed to have believed my lies considering they still didn't know that Mitsugoshi belongs to Shadow Garden.

Tonight, I'm off to rob another bank. My constant bank robberies have harmed the bank's business so I felt somewhat at doing this but I need access to Don Jon's money so I can compensate them later!

Hm? I sense members of Shadow Garden approaching. Three of them. How bold of them to approach me with such small numbers. Let's play some game shall we?

The three of them arrived. And lo and behold, it's the gray haired wolf beastkin who constantly panics, the one who assaulted the Crimson Tower with me and others. Her two elven teammates are here too.

"So you've come again. No matter how many of you come, it's futile. You cannot defeat me." I taunted them.

"Wh-What!?" She looked like she's VERY surprised to see me for some reason. I thought you came here because you knew.

"Hey, 612. You said he's here. But I don't see him. I only see this… John Smith fellow." One of her teammate, an elf with short red hair, spoke to her. She didn't respond and merely trembled. She's always been a panicky fellow but this time more than usual for some reason.

I wanted to tell her to relax and take a deep breath to calm herself down but unfortunately I'm currently in the role of an enemy so I can't.

"Heard he's pretty dangerous. But if you said that he's nearby, we should be fine, right?" Her other teammate, the elf with long turquoise hair, spoke to her. Again, she didn't respond.

"Retreat…." She finally said something!

"612?"

"What did you say?"

"I said retreat!" She shouted as she began running away whilst crying. Her companions followed suit in utter confusion. Well… I'm confused too. She has always been a strange fellow. But this made robbing the bank easier so I won't complain.


I ran as fast as possible as if I was chased by a wrathful god. Well… considering who is behind me, it might as well be true!

After we got out of the town entirely, my companions looked at me with concern when they saw how much I'm trembling.

"612. What's going on?" 610, my companion with turquoise long hair, asked me, sensing my behaviour is more bizarre than usual.

"L-L-Lor… Sh… Sh… Sha…." I muttered incoherently, unable to form proper words from how panicked I am.

"612! Calm down! Take a deep breath!" 611, my red haired companion, said while grabbing my head to make me face her.

"Lo… Lor…" In my panicked state, I still couldn't properly communicate. But I kept trying. I must tell them what's going on! I took several deep breaths and did my best to calm down as much as possible.

"You good? Now, can you tell us what's going on?" Said 610, who trusted a traitorous scum like me completely and never questioned my behaviour since we met that man.

"Haahh… Haahh… Hahh…. 610… 611… Lord Shadow…"

"Yes. You said you smelled Lord Shadow's scent. That's why we followed you so we could greet him and report to him. But we encountered John Smith instead. What's going on?" 611 asked me.

"Lord Shadow… has turned against us…!"


Author's Note:

The Seven Shades knows of Shadow's John Smith persona but the lower ranked members don't. And now that one of them has discovered the secret, there will be chaos in Shadow Garden. Who better to rat Shadow out than 612, the former wolf in sheep's clothing herself?

Zero: Wondering how zeta react finding John smith identity it probably be soul crushing for her since she trying to make shadow a god.

Answer: Well, she is a Shadow fanatic, perhaps more than Alpha herself, so she would just think this is all part of his grand plans and probably would still follow him even if he turned against Shadow Garden.

Bolvar57: Shadow apoya el plan ponzer para que gane plata y después le robe xd. Pero Nagash no confía en el, aun menos ya que Yukime esta influenciada por el, que decepción que la zorra cayera asi de fácil. Nagash triunfará. Por cierto por que no creas un grupo diferente de guerreros super hábiles llamados 'Mortarcas', solo formados por no-muertos, seria apropiado para Nagash ya que es nigromante pero casi no se ve que utilize su especialidad, solo el ocasiones zombie o esqueleto.

Answer: Cid is a scammer too after all. Yukime actually has a reason on why she's using John Smith, although would it do her any good? We shall see.

As I said before, the undead will shine during the war arc, which is not now.

HundredMasks: so shadow garden now has vampiric powers, I dig it, and the dynamic between don Jon and John Smith is highly interesting not much to say except good chapter, keep cooking author

Answer: They got the vampiric powers in canon too. Glad you liked the dynamic between Don Jon and John Smith. Soon they'll meet.