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At the same time that the Murloc Shaman was healing his brother, I turned around to look at Paliseth who seemed amused by that very act. “Your reinforcement came a lot faster than I had expected.”

“Well, that’s because there’s nothing more important than your holiness.” Paliseth withdrew her gaze at this point then smiled at me. “Seeing your holiness safe and sound fills me with a great sense of relief.”

“Like those fishes had any chance of ever hurting me.” With the Devil King Idol at my beck and call, their assault was never really going to be a real problem. Having said that, I smiled back at Paliseth. “So how should we deal with them?”

“Does your holiness despise them? We can just kill them all if your holiness desires it so.” She said with a smile on her face, though I couldn’t see a shred of levity in her eyes then. “If your holiness does not wish to dirty his hands, Paliseth is more than happy to do the deed.”

“No… no… don’t kill us…” The Murloc Shaman hastily chimed in, having overheard us talking while he was busy healing his brother. He waved his hands about in utter terror, any thoughts of healing completely forgotten at this point. “I beg of you, please do not kill us… we are very, very dirty… no matter who kills us, they will definitely dirty their hands…”

“But us Dark Elves don’t mind getting our hands dirty…” Paliseth tilted her head and said with a smile. “Other than dying, how else do you expect trash to show their worth?”

“…nooo… we are very useful, absolutely useful…” The Murloc Shaman was practically weeping at this point as he said that. He was clearly frightened out of his fishy scales, having gone so far as to kowtow and beg for his life. “I beg of you, spare us… we are really useful…”

Without even finishing his sentence, the Murloc Shaman started crawling over to hug my legs. Unfortunately, he was swiftly kicked away by a sharp-eyed Zurnalin.

“Disgusting fool, stay away from his holiness.” Zurnalin unsheathed her sword and waved it menacingly at the shaman. “The next time I see you approach his holiness without permission, that will be your last!”

“ cries… but I don’t want to die…” From his makeshift fishball shape, the Murloc Shaman finally came to a tumbling halt a few meters away. This time, he cried. He was really crying hard too. Droplet after large droplet started falling from his otherwise vicious looking large eyes. The sound he was producing right now could only be described as horrific. Whatever definition the word horrific held, it needed to at least be doubled in order to fully describe the grating noises he was producing right now.

Thankfully, this crying did not last very long, at least not to the point where we lost our patience. Perhaps the impending danger of his situation had finally awakened whatever dormant intelligence he had left in him, but the next time he spoke, he cut right straight to the heart of this problem. “As long as you do not kill us, we can provide a host of benefits…”

Seeing him try so hard to justify his own worth, I suddenly had this urge to laugh at him. I gently reached out to ruffle Jezsere’s silver hair and said, “Oh? Go on and tell us then.”

The Murloc Shaman paused in thought for a second then suddenly lifted his head up. “We can gather resources for you. There’s no one more familiar with swamps than us. As long as it’s something that can be found within the Fluorescent Marsh, we will get it.”

“We have the Duergars as slaves. They don’t fare much worse than your race in the swamps. And they are completely obedient to us as well.” Paliseth gave the shaman a bemused look as she eyed him up and down. “Compared to your race, I would much rather trust the Duergars.”

The Duergars as a race were weaker than the Murlocs, and much more obedient. After generations of slavery, they had already become accustomed to serving the Dark Elves. For low-skilled labor, the only thing better than a Duergar were the undead who didn’t require rest or food. After all, these Duergars were the kind of slaves that you only needed to feed once a day. Even if you starved them to death, they would never try to fight back. They were climate resistant, sickness resistant, and had a high efficiency to food ratio. More importantly, they would never protest their treatment. Was there anything more a slave owner could ask for?

Raising Duergar slaves could be said to be a zero risk, high profit venture. Once they’ve been trained, they could basically be left to their own devices and they will just keep on working. The Murlocs were different. Not only were they hard to train, they were warlike and not easy to manage. More importantly, they couldn’t leave the waters for long. A Murloc that did not receive any water replenishment for a long time would die of dehydration. They weren’t actually a terrestrial race after all. It was impossible to keep them on land for long without them falling sick as well. But if they were to be set free in the water… that was just returning a tiger to its den – a really bad idea.

“We can rear fish as well!” The Murloc Shaman raised his neck a little as he said that, as if he was really proud of that fact… He must have been really confident in his own race’s ability to rear fish. I bet he thinks he’s some bigshot now that he pulled out the fish rearing card.

Unfortunately for him, Paliseth was more than ready to burst his bubble with her needle of a rebuttal. “You mean your fish rearing technique that can’t even meet your own clan’s needs?”

“We… we can reproduce really fast! We can even give birth twice in a year!” The Murloc Shaman was clearly scraping the bottom of his fish barrel at this point, given that he even tried to turn reproducing fast into a benefit. Unfortunately for him, Paliseth would never accept this as a reason to keep them. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that this high reproductive rate was the main drawback of their race. The Murloc Shaman was still oblivious to this fact and continued bragging about this. “As long as you give us time, we can raise a thousand, no, ten thousand Murloc warriors!”

He’s basically on cloud nine right now, isn’t he? Why the heck would we want you to reproduce so fast for? Just to create another problem for ourselves?! Give it a few years and the streets of the city would be filled with your fishy smell, now that would be unpleasant…

Paliseth clearly knew of this problem as well, that was why she came to such a swift decision. “Why do we even need you to reproduce so much for? So you can start a rebellion within our own city? I think I’ll just kill you all now.”

“Noooo… don’t kill us… we’ll do whatever you say…”

Paliseth blinked her eyes. “Anything?”

“That’s right, anything. Even if you want me to… want me to…” The Murloc Shaman raised his head at that point and looked right at Paliseth, then recoiled in disgust. “Even if you want me to be your mate, I won’t resist…”

The moment I heard the word mate, my lips immediately curled to the side. Dang it, why are you even acting all reluctant for? We should be the ones who… wait, I guess it only makes sense that you would be reluctant… Hold on, so those Dark Elves are actually mad enough to do it with a fish? Actually, scrap that. They’ve already done it with a magical beast after all.

Paliseth wasn’t angered at all by his reluctance. Instead, she began contemplating the possibilities of his suggestion. “I wonder if a Murloc’s bloodline can produce an offspring who can breath underwater…

What the fish… so you’re really considering his offer then… I … I…

“Hmm… with regards to mating, there’s no need for you to worry about that front at all. We were planning to do so anyway.”

So you’re telling him to just lie down and enjoy the ride then… how is that any different from surprise procreation? You Dark Elves…

Even though Paliseth held the bearing of an upper-class lady, the reality was that she spoke like a typical underworld mob boss. The way she so nonchalantly talked about mating not only shocked me but also the Murloc Shaman as well.”

“You’re going to force yourselves on me?” The fishhead that he was immediately covered up his crotch as he said that. However, he was powerless to stop it and could only resort to a last futile attempt at resistance. “You may have my fish body, but you will never have my fish heart. I… I… will never surrender…”

Those Dark Elves are all top class beauties and you actually don’t want to… what the fish is going on here?! Just let me do it, I promise I’ll be more than happy to oblige.

Just like that, our little comedy skit continued for a good long while until the Murloc Clanleader was once again revived. By that time, the Undermarsh Murlocs were officially servants of the Shadowhunter Clan, my slaves in short. Naturally, that wasn’t to say that I was planning to stay here for long. In other words, Paliseth was the actual owner of these new slaves.

In actuality, there was a logic behind this fishy madness. The Shadowhunter Clan was now facing immense pressure because of war. The Minotaurs and the Harpies were running amok just 50 km south of their city. Even though the Shadowhunter Clan clearly didn’t fear the combined armies of those two races, the fact was that wars would result in casualties. Enemy casualties weren’t an issue at all, the problem was that they had to die as well.

More importantly, why were the Minotaurs suddenly acting up, even going so far as to ally with the Harpies? Lest one forgot, the Harpies had a horrible reputation even in the Underdepths.

The Harpies had no males so they had to rely on capturing males from other races in order to procreate. This manner of forced procreation wasn’t a short term matter either. While the victim still had some time to rest in between sessions, the fact was that the majority of their time would now be spent procreating… even a Dragon would collapse under that kind of pressure.

Naturally, this arrangement would continue till the victim finally died from exhaustion.

To be honest, I was really against this custom. I once talked to Ellena about this matter. It was my hope that they would come up with another alternative instead. And if that wasn’t possible, they could at least only target enemies, and not their allies.

Long story short, the thought of Minotaurs and Harpies coming together to form an alliance was just unthinkable. The Minotaurs were one of the victims of the Harpies as well. Logically speaking, there should be an unbridgeable gap between the two races. Yet the reality was that these two very races were now attacking the Shadowhunter Clan in concert… So the true question was this: exactly who had the power to force these two otherwise warring races into an alliance?

Shameless Self-promotion

Announcement: I’ve re-opened my Patreon in case anyone wants to sponsor more chapters. Every end of the month, those chapters in early access will be released for free for all to read. If you sponsored a chapter, you will gain permanent early access to these chapters. Essentially, everyone gets more chapters to read, but those who donated get to read earlier. More chapters will then be translated at the start of the month. Explanation on the Patreon itself.

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If you liked my work translating Devil’s Evolution Catalog, feel free to check out Song of Adolescence. Also, every comment is appreciated even though I might not reply. I do read them.