3x Cloning System: The Fleshmancer's Undead Army is full of Heroes-Chapter 31: "Lend me your eight-legged attack puppy"

Clayton did not know much about mana. Well, he had read plenty of books about it, since he had tried to figure out how the general practice of mana quality improvement could be implemented into his own abilities, but as history cited, his studies were cut short four decades ago, so he was clueless about it.

He didn’t know if mana was mixed up with Fleshmancy at all, but then again, he didn’t use mana to raise the undead anyway. The system did it for him, and since he didn’t want to mention the system, he told a white lie, as to aid his conversation. He had a plan in mind, a plan that would significantly increase his arsenal if the conversation went the way he wanted it to.

To his dismay, Maria the Summoner answered, "My ’pet’ did what it was supposed to do. It killed those who wore the armor of the damned."

After that, she sighed, as she tried to get her temper under control, and added, "I suppose I’m willing to share part of the blame, a tiny amount. Let’s be realistic here, Clayton, I might be young, but I’m not stupid, and I know that you can’t blame me for this. It’s not like I could’ve approached your slaves, and asked them if they’re dead or alive? That would beat the purpose of a surprise attack, or any sensible attack, for that matter. We Dark Mages do not converse with the enemy, especially when we can help it. We wipe them out swiftly, and in one go."

"I can’t say that doesn’t make sense," He nodded, "I’d be lying."

"Yes," She said, "So on a serious note, I suggest that we simply part ways. We don’t need to get acquainted."

This was the last thing that Clayton wanted to hear. He was hoping to recruit her, but it went without saying that this short little brunette had the best cards on the table. He could not threaten her to go along with his plans, as that would be the dumbest thing he could ever do with the Basilisk hanging around close by.

He expressed it too, "Considering that you can sick that pet of yours on us if you wanted to, I’m inclined to listen to you, young lady."

Maria was a bit too sarcastic for Clayton to take her seriously. In any other circumstances he wouldn’t exchange two words with her, but then again, he wasn’t willing to give up on his plans just yet.

For that matter, he pitched, "How about an alternative deal? You were sent out here to kill a bunch of Heroes, and their subordinates, as you mentioned, right?"

"Yes," She nodded.

"Well, you’ll be happy to know that I killed all of them, Heroes, Mages, Princesses, the whole lot." He explained, and stretched out a smile, "You can tell your masters that you, and your pet, killed all of those people. Claim credit, I couldn’t care less, but if I’m being honest, I may need your help in the near future. Your pet can come in handy."

"So what, you want me to follow you around?" She was quick to ask, "That’s not happening, I have better things to do."

"I’m sure you do," He chuckled, "But I suffered great losses today because of your pet, Maria, and on top of that, I’m offering you credit for the army I wiped out, so how about you meet me halfway, and a month from now, meet me in the City of Fik? I could use your pet to help us slaughter a few Heroes, if you know what I mean?"

Maria did not answer right away for once. She was not snappy, and she was not snarky this time around.

As the yellow light of his hand-held torch shone a bit of light on her forehead, he could tell that she was thinking about the matter thoroughly. Her eyebrows were twitching, and a couple of her veins were visible on her head, subtle, but visible.

After half a minute, she asked, "So you’re planning to attack the King’s City directly, eh? I don’t know why you’re attacking what I assume to be innocent people as well, and I don’t care either if I’m being honest, but are you sure about this? My summoned beast doesn’t discriminate when he attacks, he will kill everything in his sight."

"Then let him kill whomever he pleases?" He expressed, "The King had it coming for decades, and I’ll just be finishing the war that he started. Random casualties are beyond me. No one cared to help me when my family was slaughtered."

"Alright," She nodded, "I suppose I owe you a favor, so I’ll see you in a month. You’re lucky that it’s very easy to travel when you have a Basher Basilisk. It won’t even take me a day to get there, but once I kill those you want me to kill, we’ll be even, and you better pray that I don’t see any of you again. We Dark Mages have to stick together, I agree, but I never heard of a Dark Mage who wants to attack the King’s City directly, and I can already tell that our Master, Asmodim, doesn’t want me to be associated with you at all."

Maria was far more chatty than he expected her to be, but after she agreed to help him, he listened to her every word quite willingly. His plan was a success, to some extent, and that was all he cared about, so anything else she wanted to yap about, he’d forget about it a day from now. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

He got a Basher Basilisk to do the killing for him, and he could not even start counting, or doing the math in regards to how many points this would save him. Basilisks didn’t care for titles amongst the human world, and were capable of tearing through them indefinitely!

Nevertheless, he wanted to sneak in one more favor, so he added, "Well thank you, Maria. I’m glad we could reach an agreement, but do you mind getting us close to the next village, at least? We don’t have horses, and it’s proving to be tiresome to take the road on foot."

"I can’t help you with that. Thomas doesn’t really like it if anyone else other than me rides him." She was quick to answer, "But I can make sure that my people don’t bother you. With that army wiped out, neither of us have a need to patrol the mountainside tonight."

Before Clayton could’ve given his answer, Maria said, "Goodbye."

Afterwards, she walked towards her pet, climbed on top of his back, and they disappeared within a single second!

"By the Gods..." Clayton held his head in, "Quite a beast she has."