Putting on gloves on his hands, Runfar glanced at his reflection in the mirror. There he was, with nothing to hide, his right skeletal arm moving accordingly. His right hand was a sharp contrast to his normal, flesh and blood left hand. On the right rise, his ribs, shoulder blades, and hand bones were very clean, with not a speck of blood on them, almost like they never had flesh on them to begin with.

His right leg, with the exception of his bottom was entirely skeletal, the knee cap was rather weird to look at, and so were the toe bones, especially when they moved. Apparently his right side run purely on mana, so as long as he had even a little, his right side would move accordingly.

“I will never get used to this.”

Runfar muttered, before making sure to conceal his right side by putting on bandages all over his body.

It was in order to create an illusion of injuries over which he put on his clothing, long sleeve shirt to hide his arm, long pants, covered with a suit, and the final measure, thick gloves.

If his grip was bony, then a handshake would out him in an instant, which is why thick gloves were necessary to simulate a firm handshake. And unfortunately, people usually shook hands with their right hands.

Now, at first glance, none would be able to tell he is half a corpse. But his face would be the dead giveaway, which is why the custom half mask is necessary. Making sure to put on the fake skin Camilla made for him on the right side of his head to resemble scar tissue; he then proceeded to place the mask on his face.

Now, even if the mask gets knocked off, he can pass off his reason for wearing it as having a serious injury rather than cause alarm with his appearance. The fake skin attacked itself rather neatly and would be hard to peel off.

“Well, it’s time to once again do this masquerade.”

As he recalled, today, he and Landon had to visit the urban side of Tracoa territory. Landon had wanted to go alone, but Runfar insisted he wanted to take a look at the urban site himself; after all, he usually is cramped up inside the mansion.

It was for the purpose of collecting supplies. In the rural side, where the Sevilles estate resided along with the villagers, the type of supplies could be found were limited. In the urban side, more trades could be made and supplies from the furthest reaches of the kingdom would be available for trade.

Mira, the one in charge of the kitchen, gave him a rather large list of things to buy, making Landon gulp in disbelief; the list was practically like a small book. It would take him at least two days to collect everything, and then Master Runfar insisted to go with him.

Reluctantly forced to agree with his master’s decision, Runfar and Landon went to visit the urban region of Tracoa, just a butler and his master, neither was what each claimed to be.

* * *

Camilla was left in charge of safety of the mansion, although the staff should have been sufficient, none of them had the ability to detect threats or act accordingly, aside from the sulky elf, none of the staff had much of a fighting ability. To be fair, neither did Dark Lord, in fact, fighting ability-wise, he was weaker than all the members of Shadow Lords.

If any of the members of Shadow Lords were his enemies, each one could have easily killed him. Making a Master-Servant with each of them was necessary for this reason, to prevent potential treason or betrayal. He needed strong subordinates to compensate for his weaknesses, and he needed them to be completely loyal to him.

Even the weaker members, like Kyra Kara and Jun were far stronger than Dark Lord. Dark Lord was confident that if he didn’t make any prior preparations, then in one on one combat he would definitely lose to them.

Even with his undead right side, without feeding on enough mana, his physical strength was inferior to that of a beast person like Jun or a pure blooded demon, Kyra Kara.

Camilla specialized in concealment, espionage, and poisons, he was extremely deadly, Dark Lord was thankful that he was very loyal; otherwise things would have turned ugly very fast.

When it came to Meros, he was in a league of his own altogether. As a former captain of knights of Holy Order, he was a former Holy Knight, second only to heroes. Power and ability wise, he was the strongest member of Shadow Lords. His swordsmanship, even with one hand, is nothing to scoff at. Compared to him, Dark Lord was an amateur. Recruiting someone as skilled as him was indeed the right choice.

As for Lake, his extreme physical strength was self-evident. Dark Lord knew for a fact that he could tear a person in half just by pulling a person in opposite directions, he did that to him in the last loops when Dark Lord failed to recruit him.

Invisible goblins were spread out across the entire Tracoa territory, of course, they could not be in more populated areas in order to not attract attention, but if anything, they served as a spy network, responsible for reporting anything suspicious happening in Tracoa territory.

The number of goblins able to use concealment was around thirty, total number of goblins were around hundred by now, so the others were left at the nest to keep procreating.

Before he left, Dark Lord called Kyra Kara and Meros to his office. Both subordinates arrived at a moment’s notice as soon as he sent out a mental message through his contract to them.

Closing the doors so that none would hear their conversation, Dark Lord told them that he will be visiting the urban side of the Tracoa territory for the next three days; he wanted to have a look at the towns and cities, just to get a clear view what he was dealing with.

If possible, he also wanted to see for himself how many knights were stationed in Tracoa territory, all in order to have a better estimate for the future.

“That would mean, until I come back, you, along with the other Shadow Lords, will be in charge of defending the mansion from threats, while I am gone, you will be taking orders from Camilla, as he is the only one who can sense if intruders show up.”

“Understood”

Kyra Kara and Meros, nodded, both not very sure of what did it have to do with them, Dark Lord already had told all of the Shadow Lords he would be gone, so there had to be another reason he was singling them out.

“As such, it would be easier for you guys to complete your duties if you were whole and complete… Meros, please give me your left arm.”

Meros obediently extended his left forearm, a stump without a hand.

He had no idea why Dark Lord would want him to give his left forearm; after all, he had nothing left, not even a hand, frankly, he sometimes wondered, what was the purpose of an arm without a hand.

Taking hold of Meros’s left forearm with his left hand, Dark Lord concentrated his mana on his right hand, utilizing the earth type mana, particles of dust swirled around, gathering near Meros’s stump, amorphous mass now gaining a general shape.

After the shape had become more stable, Dark Lord applied fire type mana to solidify it, and then adding water type mana, he made the shape absorb the water into it, making the object appear more organic.

Applying lightning type mana, the motor functions were established and now they were forcibly connected to Meros’s nervous system, as the small electric sparks were applied, the fingers started to make small contracting movements.

It took only about five minutes to finish, but it was obvious that Dark Lord was intensely concentrating at every step.

At the last step, Dark Lord did something strange, it was as if he was using pure energy in order to heal Meros’s arm, which at the same time was now fusing with the object he created with mana. This was accomplished using Morphus’s healing power and control, with Dark Lord providing enough mana in order to complete the task.

Dark Lord was in a sense the power source, while Morphus was the one controlling how the mana would be used. It was a mutually beneficial partnership.

Then, it was done.

First task is complete.

Meros stared in disbelief at the appendage before his eyes.

His left hand, it has been restored. It was a metallic looking mirror reflection of his right hand.

Dark Lord panted heavily, even with Morphus’s help at using the mana sparingly, it still took a lot out of him, recreating something that was lost is no easy task. Even stealing mana of an entire platoon was seemingly barely enough, maybe if he had more practice in the future…

“Master, I don’t know what to say…Thank…”

“Kyra Kara, you’re next.”

Dark Lord muttered. He had to get this over with before he ended up passing out.

“Yes.”

Kyra Kara now approached Dark Lord and by his command she sat down on her knees.

Dark Lord put his right hand upon her face and repeated the same procedure on her, but now it was a matter of recreating her right eye.

It took another five minutes.

As Dark Lord removed his right hand off of Kyra Kara’s face, she opened her eyes, both of them.

Her right eye was back, she couldn’t believe it.

Breathing heavily, Dark Lord now ended up falling on his chair, he had exhausted nearly all the mana he managed to gather over the last two weeks. Skill of recreation, not only does it take a lot of preparation, experience, assistance of an angel, but it also takes an unimaginably high amount of mana.

Morphus said that there are some people who are capable of using only a single element to recreate limbs, but they usually have years of experience behind them, in their case, they had to experiment on their victims, making countless mistakes before they arrived at this method.

There might have been a less taxing and efficient way, but they had to work with what they had. Even with Dark Lord and Morphus working together, it was still not a simple endeavor.

Seeing that both Meros and Kyra were looking at Dark Lord, he spoke up.

“I hope these are to your liking. I am very sorry but that is the best I can do for now.”

“What are you saying, milord?! This is wonderful!” Meros was talking with a voice full of admiration, his new left hand was moving according to his will, although the hand looked rather metallic, it still was very functional.

“I have no way of expressing my thanks.” Kyra bowed her head.

“No need to be too humble. However, I warn you, while they are indeed replacements; they are still inferior to the originals. For example…Meros, grab your sword with your left hand.”

Meros did just that, and now his expression betrayed his surprise.

“What does this…I can’t feel it…”

“Exactly, the limb may function all right, but I don’t yet have a way of restoring sense of touch or sense of pain. As for Kyra, can you see the difference between the sight of your left and right eyes.”

“There is no problem with sight, however…”

“Yes?”

“My right eye does not seem to be able to access my demon eye and the colors are little paler.”

“I see, but otherwise, the eye is functional, correct?”

“Yes, milord”

“Good.”

Dark Lord would tell her later that her eye pupil is not round but more of a round triangle and the iris of orange color; this made her have mismatched black and orange eyes. Well, she will find out later when she looks in the mirror.

“As shabby work as this may be, I hope it is still within acceptable standards.”

“It is more than enough, milord, I may have said this once, but please let me once again pledge my loyalty to you.”

“Same goes for me.” Kyra Kara and Meros bowed their head to the miracle worker before them, their leader, the Dark Lord.

“Raise your heads.” After they did so, Dark Lord told them to keep what happened within this chamber a secret from others, for one, his skill at recreation was still not perfect, and two, he did not want anyone to find out about this ability of his, it would generate too much problems. It would be even more disastrous if someone outside of Shadow Lords found out about this.

“I am counting on you; make sure that mansion does not burn down in the three days that I am gone.”

“You can leave it to us, milord.” Both of them said so simultaneously, their loyalty to Dark Lord was now strengthened to an unimaginable degree.