Absolute Depravity: Reincarnated with a lustful System

307  Chapter 307 - Control Slips Through The Fingers

Woken up by a loud scream from Asuka, Haruki rushed out of bed and dashed in the direction of the sound. Coming out of the tent, he noticed Asuka as well as the demi-cats helping Riley get up on her feet. Seeming drained of all power, Riley could barely keep her eyes open. The night hadn't been nice to her, but the other guards who saw her in that state simply assumed she was too tired from being stationed guard outside the tent.

Haruki and his aides, however, didn't buy into that delusion at all. After all, not once had she abandoned her duty by falling asleep while on guard.

"Something definitely happened to her," creeping up behind Haruki's shoulder, Asmodia calmly whispered.

"The benevolent actor's blessings perhaps?" Haruki proposed the idea, but even he didn't believe that the blessing was the cause of this.

'She was fine when we went to hunt, so if anything her powers should've dimmed out when she was attacking those creatures and not while simply guarding the tent.' Despite the suspicion of foul play, figuring out what had happened without tapping into Riley's memories wasn't possible just yet.

"Leave that to me," knowing exactly what was going on in Haruki's mind, Asmodia took over that responsibility. "I'll figure out what happened once her mind is well-rested and not as likely to get damaged."

Moving to the side, Haruki and Asmodia let the demi-humans carry Riley inside the tent. For once in a long time the two were in agreement, which struck Haruki as somewhat odd given their fight just last night. Unbeknownst to him, however, Asmodia wasn't as neutral towards Riley as she was with Haruki's other servants.

'I guess it's time to be a little nice.' She thought, reminded of her encounter with Riley last night.

Turning his attention to the soldiers, Haruki contemplated continuing the journey or taking a rest for the rest of the day.

"Keep the carriages ready, we'll leave as soon as Riley gets better," giving them the orders, he turned to Asmodia to fill her in on something important. "Someone was spying on us last night, you'll know what I'm talking about when you see her memories. In the meantime, I'll go check the forest for more of those pesky spies, and you go ahead and figure out what happened to Riley."

For a moment, Asmodia wanted to take this opportunity to ask for a reward in exchange for her help, but then again reminded of her promise to be nicer, she bit her greedy tongue and nodded in agreement.

"Sure, I'll let you know what I find," with that said, Asmodia turned around and went inside the tent.

Left alone with only the soldiers wandering around the camping spot, tending to whatever they were assigned to by their superior, Haruki lined straight for the woods. On his way towards the trees, a sudden scream caught his attention. Surprisingly enough, it didn't come from the woods, but from one of the tents that had been set up last night.

"What's the hell?" Noticing a bloody arm trying to crawl out of the tent's entrance, Haruki's brows were raised on their own.

"H-Help me!" Screamed the woman, desperately clinging to the dirt with her nails.

As Haruki began moving closer, the woman's arms were dragged back inside, and soon enough the screams died off as well. Had it been one of those goblin girls they'd captured yesterday Haruki wouldn't have given much mind to the incident, but since the hands clearly belonged to a human, he had to find out what was happening.

"Who's tent is this?" He asked a female demon stationed outside the tent.

Her eyes dejected downward, the soldier couldn't look into Haruki's eyes with shame. With quaking lips, she finally spoke, although visibly reluctant to do so.

"I-It's Miss Greta, she's with Miss Maria inside…" Panting heavily, the female guard shut her eyes tight in fear of some sort of repercussion. "I already asked her to come out, but she's been especially moody since last night!"

"Because I yelled at her?" Haruki asked, showing no emotions at all.

"Y-yes!" The soldier squealed.

Trying to ease her soul, Haruki placed his hands on her shoulder and squeezed it gently.

"You can move aside now, catch your breath. I'm gonna deal with this myself," moving her to the side, Haruki flung the tent's curtain open.

Revealed behind it was the bloodied sight of guts lathered on the inner walls. It smelled so pungent that even the demons standing the furthest had to cover their mouth. As for Haruki, he simply created a mask of darkness to cover himself.

"Greta, what the hell is going on?" Looking right into the war general's eyes, Haruki was met with a grueling sight.

Down on her knees, Greta's face was covered in blood with Maria's body torn everywhere from down her stomach. And however, it may be, the poor woman was still alive, but the jittering in her eyes and the plucked teeth were definitely a sign that she wished she was dead instead. Not only had Greta tortured her, but it seemed she'd crossed the unholy line towards sadistic cannibalism. Now was it because of rejection from Haruki? Or has she always been such a blood-hungry fiend? There was truly no way to know.

"M-master! I-I!" Caught red-handed, she tried to wipe her face and mouth. But her attempt seemed to fail as a lot of the blood had dried up around her face. "I didn't! I-"

"I do not have time to deal with this…" Holding his hand extended towards Greta, Haruki shot a fusion of darkness mixed with his blood poison. Hitting Greta right in the head, she was instantly pushed into a shocked-induced coma. "Take her away I'll put her through rehabilitative torture later, and heal the strategist she can still be of use to us."

Fidgeting in her boots, the female guard excessively nodded to Haruki's orders.

"R-right away!" She spoke.

"Not you," Haruki replied.

Shocked by his words, she expected a similar fate as Greta despite not knowing what she'd done wrong.

"I'm sorry Master! I-I wanted to tell you, but-"

"You're taking Greta's place for now, tell your soldiers to do the work instead, get in the swing of things," Haruki's further reply confused her even more.

"M-me?! But I'm not-"

Once again cutting her off, Haruki pressed his finger on her lips.

"Nod if you're scared of me," he ordered, and the guard did exactly that. "That's enough reason for me to trust that you won't risk disappointing me in any shape or form."

Pulling his finger off of her, he patted her on the shoulders before making his way towards the forest once more. Although still shaking from anxiety, the female soldier whose name Haruki didn't even know was temporarily put in charge of managing the soldiers on this expedition.

'More and more servants are edging the line between loyalty and insane obsessions. I need to be careful or else I'd be leading an army of crazed cannibalistic maniacs.' Wandering through his thoughts as well as the forest, Haruki didn't find anything of value in either one of them.

The forest was just as empty as they'd left last night, and trying to control the minds of an increasingly diverse army wasn't a feasible task, at least not without turning them into mindless drones who couldn't think for themselves and only followed orders.

'Deus and the other demon lords had armies similar to that end, and it didn't end favorably when they were attacked in their master's absence. In contrast, Margarette and the others were able to persist and even take over more kingdoms that I'd left them with.' Deciding against going the mindless route, Haruki returned to his tent to check up on Riley.

Upon getting there, everyone seemed much calmer than before and Riley was also awake and well thanks to the healing from Asuka and the others. The only thing of concern left was what exactly happened to her last night, and to answer that riddle he turned to Asmodia who'd already looked through Riley's memories.

"All I saw were how you two hunted those creatures, apart from that, her memories are clouded," Asmodia revealed, leaving the part about seeing her encounter with Riley again while exploring the spy's memories.

"I…I might've fallen asleep in the cold, that's it!" Trying not to be barred from doing missions again, Riley threw the first excuse at the party that she could think of. "I really shouldn't have worn shorts in the chilly forest winds to be honest, ahaha!"

Her attempt to convince everyone wasn't as effective as she thought, but with nothing else to go on, Haruki decided to keep moving and see if something like this happens again while she was under everyone's watch.

"We're leaving in an hour, let's hope it was just a cold as you've said," Haruki said, not entirely convinced by the theory himself.