A few days later.
The Abyss – Layer 6,548,257: [Lava Wastelands]
Golarial raised her eyebrows in surprise as she looked at Orsaga's new appearance—it was refreshingly novel.
Right now, this wasn't Orsaga's true body, but a Clone.
A clone crafted using the bloodline of the Elves.
Although there were traces of his usual features, the overall appearance was drastically different, lacking any of the typical traits of a deep abyss demon.
After poking Orsaga's now smooth and fair cheek, she commented critically,
"This look is fine, I guess—but the strength's a bit lacking."
By her estimation, this clone's combat ability was at most at the Lesser-Rank Demon level—actually weaker than her own.
Orsaga, however, simply shrugged:
"Who cares? It's just a disposable vessel anyway."
Golarial blinked and asked curiously,
"You never bothered making a separate clone just to cross into another world before. Is this place somehow special? Don't tell me it only allows elves in?"
Orsaga sighed.
"Not quite. I may or may not have 'accidentally' destroyed some of their...decorative property. Long story short, I'm blacklisted by that world's will. To avoid being immediately struck by lightning or pelted by a meteor storm, I need a disguise to sneak back in."
Last time he left, he could distinctly feel that the world's will had developed a strong grudge against him.
Without a few hundred years of cooldown, his main body probably wouldn't be able to enter without divine retribution.
Though he felt his actions back then were blown out of proportion, he didn't take it personally.
After all, as such an outstanding demon, being targeted was inevitable.
"Heaven envies talent."
That's just the price of being excellent.
Thinking about it that way, every time he landed on a blacklist was practically an honor.
As he drifted deeper into that self-indulgent logic, he began to look pleased with himself.
Golarial, watching the smug look on his face, frowned slightly and asked,
"So… that place is basically crawling with your old enemies?"
She was worried that the moment they arrived, some long-standing grudge might come knocking at their door.
Orsaga waved off her concerns and puffed up a bit with pride:
"Hardly. You're thinking too much. The thing about my enemies is… they don't usually last long. If someone becomes my enemy, I make sure to kill them on the spot. No drawn-out grudges. No chance of survival. So no, I don't have some huge gallery of living arch-nemeses.They're all dead."
"…Ah. Right."
Even Alison, who was silently standing by, was caught off guard by that line of reasoning.
There was no logical hole to poke in it.
"As expected of you."
Orsaga gave a modest nod:
"It's really nothing. Come on, let's get going."
He gestured to the teleportation array nearby. Everything was ready.
"Alright then."
The teleportation array activated instantly—
---
Planet Fae.
Republic of Germania.
With a flash of red light, a semi-transparent crimson ring shimmered into existence midair.
Orsaga and the two women stepped out from within.
But before Alison or Golarial could even begin to assess their surroundings, they were hit by a wave of choking stench—the heavy scent of blood and the foul rot of decomposing corpses.
It was like fermenting a vat of blood and corpses for several months in a sealed cellar.
Both of them nearly gagged.
Even when they'd experienced mass slaughter on the Seven Seas realm, they hadn't encountered anything this nauseating.
They immediately used magic to block out the air.
Only then did they feel a bit better.
As their senses adjusted, what greeted their eyes were several corpse piles—each dozens of meters high.
Blood and pus oozed from the heaps, while clouds of bloodflies and other insects filled the air, swarming in such thick masses that they partially blocked out the sunlight.
Below them, maggots, rats, and other scavengers writhed in the gore, feasting on the remains.
The grotesque banquet seemed endless.
Golarial and Alison were visibly sickened.
But Orsaga? He looked almost… nostalgic.
To him, this was practically homey.
The stench, the rot, the blood, the poison, the eerie silence—
it reminded him fondly of demonbone Forest.
That place was filled with half-eaten corpses, cursed plants, and ambient toxic miasma. He remembered it as his "primary school," while River's shores were "preschool,"
and Lava Wastelands were more like self-study zones—at least the corpses there were better cleaned up.
Looking at the massive corpse heaps, Orsaga immediately recognized them as offerings in a blood ritual.
Such offerings helped the caster forcibly restore suppressed power.
He figured the city's entire population was probably stacked there.
He scratched his head and muttered:
"Ugh… viruses and bacteria everywhere.
I'll need to sanitize the place later."
After all, he had promised Alison a safe environment.
He didn't really care how many locals had died—
that was just background noise.
But for the planet to become the new homeworld of the Elven Nation of Elsella, it needed a clean bill of health.
The bacteria and disease floating around were a bit of a nuisance.
Still, nothing he couldn't handle.
As a plague and pestilence specialist with nearly two centuries of experience, sanitation was a breeze for him.
Once Golarial and Alison had managed to mentally adjust to their surroundings.
Orsaga raised his right hand, summoning a miniature projection of the planet Fae.
With a smile, he began his tour-guide pitch:
"This planet has a diameter of 15,946 kilometers. 60% of its surface is ocean, 10% is covered by ice, 4.5% is desert, and the rest is land. As for weather conditions—
While there's been some climate imbalance caused by industrial pollution and reckless development, it's still pretty stable overall."
"Just needs a bit of tweaking. The carrying capacity is enough to support tens of billions comfortably. For our current Elven Kingdom, it's more than enough. As for external threats. None to worry about. The planet is tucked away in a very obscure location. I only found it buried deep in the database of some mid-tier interstellar empire. The nearest power is over 270 light-years away. Once we put up a concealment barrier, it'll be practically invisible."
In other words—
This world would soon be theirs.
__
T/N:
Hello everyone! New fanfic