There were several men on a mountain in the region that was formerly the Sauron Duchy, now occupied by the Amid Empire.

Tentacles were twisting and crawling around in front of them, hitting the water surface and sending muddy water into the air.

"This thing, it's still alive?!"

"F-fire, fire!"

The panicked archers hastily nocked arrows with their tips covered in a green fluid in their short bows and pulled back their bowstrings.

"Don't panic, it's already dead!" shouted a young man with characteristic bangs and a well-featured face, but several arrows fired by the archers buried themselves in the ominously-quivering creature with thudding noises.

But the tentacles wouldn't stop writhing. The young man clicked his tongue and reprimanded the archers.

"I explained this beforehand; the lower bodies of these things don't stop moving for a while even after they've died. Even if you cut their heads off or split their upper bodies in half, they keep squirming around for a bit. Octopuses..."

The young man was about to explain that octopuses were the same, but stopped himself. He had grown up in a coastal town, but he had just remembered that many of the archers were from inland regions, so even if they knew that creatures called octopuses existed, they would have only seen them as dried food products or pickled in vinegar.

"They're like lizard's tails," the young man said. "They flail around for a while, don't they?"

This was actually for a completely different reason, but what the young man needed to give the archers right now was not proper education, but composure.

"I-I see."

"Indeed... As expected of Vice-captain Rick, you're so knowledgeable."

This goal was accomplished; the archers regained their composure and lowered their bows. The arrows that they used and the poison coating the arrowheads were special, so they couldn't be fired wastefully.

"Don't relax too much; we'll have to put it on display once it stops moving," said Rick.

"What will we do about the Magic Stone and materials?" asked one of his subordinates.

"Don't touch them, of course," said Rick. "We're short on money, but it would be bad if by some small chance someone found out that we were the ones who have been killing these things."

"That's true, too."

Seeing his subordinate return his disassembling knife to its sheath, Rick waded into the marsh towards the creature that had lost its balance and toppled over... the Scylla woman.

Her eyes were still wide open in disbelief as Rick grabbed her loosely-hanging, mud-covered hand.

"Sorry, but I'll take this back," Rick murmured. "I'll be using it for the next one as well, you see."

And then he took the ring, which he had given to her just moments before, from her thin finger.

"Dispose of her."

The archers obeyed Rick's order and switched from their short bows to hand axes, and set about turning the Scylla into a repulsive mess.

They severed all of her tentacles and hacked into the upper body below her neck, with their blows particularly focused around her breasts.

"Vice-captain Rick, this occurs to me every time, but why do we cut their chests up so much? And wouldn't it be faster to use Axe Technique to cut them from the waist below in one go rather than cutting their tentacles off one by one?" another subordinate asked.

"This is more humiliating for them," Rick replied. "I don't understand it, but the tentacles on the lower bodies of Scylla are apparently equivalent to a woman's hair, a part of their bodies that they are supposed to be proud of. And the chest symbolizes maternity for women who worship Vida-sama; it's the place that contains the heart, which is Vida's holy symbol. The same applies for these things. If we want to desecrate these bodies, this is the best way, even if it is troublesome."

And the reason that the men didn't damage the faces was to ensure that the other Scylla who discovered the corpses would be able to identify them easily.

"I see..." the subordinate murmured.

In other words, it wasn't wasted effort. They were aiming for the body parts of cultural and symbolic importance.

Even if they aren't people, how can he destroy bodies in such a rational way? the man wondered, his face turning pale.

"Don't make that face," said Rick, giving the subordinate a small, bitter smile. "Do I look like I'm doing this because I enjoy it?"

"Eh? But don't you hate Scylla, Vice-captain?"

"It's true that I hold Scylla in contempt. But even so, I respect myself. I don't have any bizarre interests like poisoning women and toying with their corpses." Rick's bitter smile grew wider, and then his face straightened into a serious expression as he continued. "This plan is indeed something that we can never tell others about in pride, something disgraceful. It can't be called justice; it's something that only scum would carry out. But I want you to remember. We are in a vastly weaker position. We can't achieve victory by being picky with our methods, and if we can't achieve victory, we can't save this nation. Our companions, and even the Scylla that we've killed, will have died for nothing. We mustn't disappoint them. I want you to believe in me and my older brother, and follow my lead."

"Yes, Vice-captain Rick Paris! We will follow you wherever you may go!" the men declared in unison, overcome with emotion from Rick's speech.

Perhaps they saw their commander who showed no hesitation to dirty his own hands, as well as themselves, as solitary heroes. Perhaps they were intoxicated on the feeling of superiority from the knowledge that they were fighting for a noble cause.

And then Rick and his men tied the Scylla's corpse to the trunk of a tree growing on the marsh's edge and left after applying the finishing touches.

A gruesome corpse covered in blood and mud was abandoned there, along with the tentacles and pieces of flesh floating in the mud of the marsh.

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A beautiful, red-haired woman was tied to the operating table by sturdy chains that had been wrapped around her limbs over and over again.

"..."

She was wearing only a single strange, thin cloth, leaving the pure-white skin of the area where her thighs joined into her back exposed. There were curved, stiff scars visible there.

As a beautiful, yet mysterious song echoed out, hands so white that they looked as if they had been covered in candle wax closed in on her silently.

"Scalpel... or rather, claws."

"Incision."

"Administer Potion."

"Part number three."

The hands were skillfully carrying something out.

They showed no hesitation as they used claws instead of scalpels to make incisions on the woman's skin. Their movements were accurate and there was a surprisingly small amount of bleeding.

However, the surgery was being conducted without any anesthetics, so each time an incision was made, the woman's spine and shoulders trembled, and heavy breathing that sounded like small moans escaped her lips.

"Last of all, apply the Potion and the surgery is complete. Thank you for your hard work."

"Mmm, this was excellent work, Master."

"~♪"

"Eh?! It's already over?!" Eleanora, who had been lying on her stomach, raised her head.

"It's finished," Vandalieu replied. He sheathed his claws and removed the chains that were binding Eleanora before starting the post-cosmetic-surgery tidy-up with his surgery assistant, Yamata. "I explained beforehand that your surgery wouldn't take very long, didn't I, Eleanora?"

The cosmetic surgery carried out by transplanting the body parts of the Live-Dead Ternecia would have been considered a large-scale surgery on Earth, despite Eleanora having scars in only a few places.

It involved not only transplanting the skin, but the flesh and blood vessels beneath it.

However, with Vandalieu as the surgeon and Eleanora as the patient, it was a simple procedure.

Vandalieu used Spirit Form Transformation on a part of his body, fused them with Eleanora's body, suppressed her blood vessels and used the skillful judgment of his claws and the drugs secreted from them to stimulate their regrowth.

Eleanora was also a Noble-born Vampire who could grow back any body parts that she was missing. Due to her Status Effect Resistance skill, anesthesia was almost completely ineffective on her, but she was resistant to pain to begin with, so she could endure this much without any problems.

... Despite that, Eleanora herself had wanted her limbs to be bound, saying that it would be a big problem if by some small chance her body started to move.

"But... a little longer..." Eleanora mumbled.

"With medical science in its current state, it can't be helped," said Vandalieu.

Medical science was powerless when faced with a healthy body.

Seeking an ally, Eleanora glanced toward Yamata, but three of its heads were busy singing while the other six looked back at her with dull, lifeless eyes.

Yamata was one of Ternecia's finest works; it was a Zombie with the body of a high-rank Dragon-race Hydra specimen as the base and the upper bodies of beautiful women of nine different races attached to the Hydra's necks. Vandalieu had taken a liking to it as well, saying that it was incredibly convenient, so it had performed all kinds of work with the Surgery skill, but its intelligence was still on the level of an ordinary Zombie.

It did little other than obey orders, and its thinking capabilities were about the same as a small child's.

But the one who became Eleanora's ally instead was Luciliano.

"I do not mind being shown more," he said.

He was standing in this place with a cool expression, but Eleanora hadn't acknowledged him as a member of the opposite sex. His words of, "Ah, I have no interest in anything but Undead," that he had spoken before the surgery had been too convincing.

"The process of the combination of Ternecia's parts with your body is extremely fascinating," Luciliano continued. "At first, they rejected each other, but the moment that the Blood Potion that Master created with his own blood was applied, they combined before my very eyes and there was not even any need to perform stitching. This is a true transformation."

As Luciliano said, Eleanora's body had no visible scars or stitches from the surgery. As body parts had indeed been transplanted, there was nothing to be done about the skin being of a slightly different color in places, but even these looked like they were going to assimilate properly soon.

"So that is how it is, Master. Will you not perform a little more transplanting surgery?" Luciliano requested.

"Like I said, she's already healthy," said Vandalieu. "Eleanora, please drink another bottle of Blood Potion afterwards, and then go and rest."

"It cannot be helped... ah...!" As Eleanora gave up and drank the Blood Potion with small noises coming from her white throat, her eyes began to sparkle in a bewitching way.

Perhaps because blood was included in its ingredient list, Blood Potions appeared to have different effects on Vampires.

"Is this alright, Master?" asked Luciliano.

"Hmm, it doesn't seem to be harmful, so it's probably fine," said Vandalieu.

"Danna-sama, I am a little anxious." Bellmond, who had been observing the surgery from the edge of the room, had broken out in a cold sweat at the sight of the mysterious-looking Eleanora.

I will make such a face? How unthinkable. Being as unsightly as I am, if I were to make such an expression, Danna-sama will shun me and... I do not have the confidence that I will be able to suppress my desire to end my own life in self-hatred before that happens.

Bellmond was frightened, but preparations for the surgery were already complete, and the mood didn't really allow for her to say that she wanted to back out now.

"C-can you not at least make me completely unconscious before performing the surgery...?" she asked.

"If you're unconscious, the function of your Rapid Regeneration skill decreases, and it will be problematic to have you drink the Potion afterwards, so it would be very helpful if you could stay awake," said Vandalieu. "It will be fine. Yamata will be singing, and although the pain will continue throughout the whole thing rather than just at the beginning, we will hold you down."

But it wouldn't be over so quickly that it would be finished before Bellmond could count the stains on the ceiling. Unlike Eleanora, Bellmond required many different parts to be transplanted.

"Then how about forcing me into an Out-of-body Experience with your magic, Danna-sama?" Bellmond suggested.

"It's not like I can't do it, but that would use up an extra process for my Parallel Thought Processing," said Vandalieu. "In the unlikely event that something happens, I want to have room to work with."

Since his patient was Bellmond, a Noble-born Vampire with strong Vitality, it was unlikely that a serious medical error would occur, but even so, it was probably best to prepare for the worst.

"Kuh, as to be expected of you, Danna-sama. You have no weaknesses," Bellmond said, praising Vandalieu with a groan.

"That's not true," said Luciliano, slurping his fern tea that he had made himself. "His own personal feelings and interests are not involved."

"Fufufu, rest assured. Everything will turn into pleasure soon," said Eleanora.

"Eleanora, please hurry and leave the room, put on your clothes and rest," said Vandalieu. "You're making Bellmond feel anxious," said Vandalieu.

Vandalieu's spirit form clones carried Eleanora out along with her whole operating table, as if they were going on a little trip.

"This way~."

"Let's go and rest, shall we~?"

"Ah, there are so many Vandalieu-samas~ ♪"

Vandalieu had known things would come to this and readied an extra operating table, so everything was still fully prepared.

"Still, this Blood Potion, does it really have those kinds of effects?" Vandalieu wondered.

When he drank it himself, other than its healing effects as a Potion, it just seemed sweet and easy to drink.

"Well, that is how it is," said Luciliano. "It is made of your own blood, after all."

It seemed that even Vampires didn't have an appetite for their own blood.

Suddenly, they heard the slurping sound of saliva.

Yamata, who always wore an empty expression, showed the light of a primitive hunger in its eyes when it looked at Blood Potion. It seemed that Blood Potions were extremely delicious to Vampires and Zombies, just not for Vandalieu.

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Even with Vandalieu's skill, Bellmond's surgery took over ten hours.

Eleanora had only needed her skin and the underlying flesh to be replaced, but Bellmond needed bones in certain parts and several organs transplanted as well, so perhaps Vandalieu should have been proud for having completed it in only ten hours.

"When I examined you with Spirit Form Transformation, several of your organs were damaged, so let's take this opportunity to renew them as well," Vandalieu had said.

Bellmond had become a Vampire, so this didn't even affect her ability in battle, let alone her everyday life. However, Vandalieu had taken this opportunity to go as far as to perform organ transplantation.

If Vandalieu wanted to repair these in the future but the Live-Dead Ternecia somehow became unusable, it would be a pain, after all.

It is difficult to tell whether Danna-sama is an optimistic person or a pessimistic one, Bellmond thought as she sighed.

She got up from the bed she was lying on and headed towards the full-length mirror that had been prepared under the assumption that the patients would want to see the results of the surgery.

This was a mirror that had been created by Princess Levia heating up some sand and Vandalieu using Golem Transmutation to remove impurities and turn it into a glass with the appropriate shape.

"He truly is incredible," Bellmond murmured to herself. "Even royals and nobles would be astonished by this mirror."

Does Danna-sama not know how much a smooth mirror made of glass would be worth? She wondered as she looked at the reflection of herself in the crystal-clear mirror.

And then she hardened her resolve and dropped the robe that she was wearing.

"...!"

The mirror reflected an image of someone that was Bellmond, but at the same time, wasn't her. She was so different that she gasped and almost activated her Demon Eye on herself in surprise.

Her previously scar-covered skin had changed color where new skin had been transplanted, looking as if it was covered in strangely-shaped bruises, but it was very smooth.

Her chest that was almost non-existent, where her skin had been clinging to her ribs in places, was now large and soft. She had been surprised by its weight right after the surgery, but seeing it like this was even more astonishing. It quivered a little every time she moved, and it was heavy.

As for her abdomen, it had become a little thicker, as not only the skin, but flesh and organs had been transplanted as well.

But this didn't make her appear fat. Bellmond had been too thin to begin with. Now she had more feminine curves, and it was likely that many would be attracted to them.

But these weren't the parts of Bellmond's surgery that Vandalieu had spent the longest on. The part that had taken the longest was the bewitching curve of her bottom – or rather, the long tail that had been transplanted just above it.

This was the tail of a monkey...-like monster that had been defeated in the Scaled King's Nest, a tail around the length of Bellmond's entire body, covered in glossy fur.

It was apparently a mutated variant of a Chimera, but nobody had known what it was called. Vandalieu had thought that it resembled a Japanese chimera, but Luvesfol, the Raging Evil Dragon God, had fled, so nobody knew its exact name.

But this long tail with its shiny, silver-colored fur was beautiful, so Bellmond had no complaints.

Simply attaching the tail would have been simple, but Vandalieu had even gone as far as to tamper with the inside of Bellmond's brain in order to connect the muscles and nerves so that she would be able to move the tail as she wanted.

As Bellmond had once been a forest-monkey-type Beast-person, there had been a dedicated part of her brain for controlling the movement of her tail, but it had apparently disappeared because so much time had passed after she lost her tail.

Vandalieu had used death-attribute magic to regenerate that part of her brain.

"... It is fortunate that I asked Luciliano-shi to vacate the room," she said.

Bellmond couldn't keep up with discussions of medical knowledge that didn't exist in this world. The only thing that she understood was how unsightly a condition she had been in during the surgery... particularly when the changes had been made to her brain.

But enduring it had paid off; Bellmond was able to move her tail exactly as she wanted to. Her memory of the past wasn't very clear, but she even got the feeling that it moved more dexterously than the tail that she had been born with.

The same applied for the rest of her body as well. Less than a day had passed since transplantation, and yet there was no numbness. When she