“Hi I’m Ziden, what’s your name?”

“My name is Helia. Nice to meet you.”

“I can’t believe you’ve gotten this big already.”

Turning towards me, he whispered, “Seriously, I can't believe what I'm seeing.”

“You and me both.”

Helia tilted her head and asked, “What can't you believe?”

“Oh, just how big you’ve gotten already. Listen Helia, Mama has to talk to Uncle Ziden. Would you please go play with Auntie Nina and Tania outside?”

“Okay,” smiling sweetly, she went outside, her wings fluttering up and down as she ran.

After Helia left, Lukas offered his hand to Ziden and said, “Welcome to this crazy family Uncle Ziden.”

Taking the proffered hand, he replied, “Well it’s good not to be the only one to be dealing with Queen’s antics.”

Normally, I would have been more irritated but I actually sympathized with them this time.

Five weeks had passed since Helia’s teeth and wings had started to come in. With each passing week, we had noticed that she was growing physically and mentally like a human would each year. So even though she was definitely less than a year old, she was now basically six years old from a human sense. Elves and devils aged much more slowly and were longer lived so it was hard to judge Helia by her true biological standards.

After getting over the initial shock of her wings and accelerated growth, Lukas, Nina, Tania, and I had done our best to cram in as much education, reading, dynamic play, and whatever else was good for a child her “age” we could think of. Fortunately, the retired adventurers and I had seen many weird things over our lives, so essentially, we took Helia’s unprecedented growth at face value and moved on. Starting soon we were going to start training Helia in swordsmanship, magic, and shooting skills. I couldn’t imagine the girl becoming a librarian or some healing saint. Or a healing villain for that matter.

Oddly enough, she was starting to sleep less and less and eat more and more with each passing week. This threw all of us off, as initially, we tried putting her back to sleep but obviously that doesn’t work if your body doesn’t need it. Ironically, my cooking skills and repertoire of recipes had improved simply to keep up with Helia’s increasing appetite. I think her favorite food at the moment involved chopped steak with mashed potatoes. But don’t quote me on that. It was always changing.

“So Mommy...what happened to that little baby we found over a month ago?”

“Get that grin off your face ya jerk...We’ve got a theory that it has to do with my ‘breastmilk’ but obviously we can’t prove that theory.”

“And why not?”

“Here I thought that I was actually starting to miss you.”

Ziden started to laugh. Wearing a three piece charcoal grey suit and tie, you wouldn’t know that he was in fact a dragon. In fact, there was no way that he had not interacted with humans before this.

“Ziden, before we move on...you knew how much trouble I was going to go through didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged,” he declared.

“Why didn’t you warn me or tell me?” I said as I punched him. Somewhat lightly.

“Ouch, that hurt. Queen, to be honest, you were kind of living in the past for a while there so I thought it was a good opportunity for you to see what the world has become. The hard way of course.”

I pouted. He had a point. My period of laziness had come to an official end.

“Well as long as things are going relatively well, I’ll take my leave. Having a human form makes life a little easier.”

“Before you go, can you do me a favor?”

“Wait, are you actually going to owe me one?”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Well...maybe I’ll owe you one. Technically it's not just for me though. Would you look around town for an enslaved Liger demihuman named Luiza?”

“I think I have the time. Is there any particular reason?”

“You met Tania right? They’re sisters.”

“Oh, I can surmise what happened. Then I’ll stay at a hotel in the middle tier and spend a few weeks searching. It’s a large city after all. I don’t really have any contacts here but I can always start off by asking around at the hotel. The local division of the Adventurer’s Guild may have a few leads as well.”

“Thanks, Ziden. With Helia, we haven’t really had the time to try to locate her.”

“No problem. Do you want me to do anything if I find her?”

“No. Just let us know where she’s at. I’ll take care of the rest.”

We had gotten into a rotating schedule of either reading or telling stories to Helia right before bedtime. Tonight it was my turn. Usually I would recount something that happened in my life though I would tone down the blood and gore as much as possible. My mother never told me stories. Helps to have one in the first place though.

I had learned that Lukas and Nina had wanted kids but never were able to. That’s partially why this situation worked out well for the couple; they were able to partake in the experience of raising Helia. Although with each passing week, it looked like that experience would be about 1/50th of the normal child rearing experience. I’m not great with fractions but you get the point.

Helia had her own room now. Some kids books were on a bookshelf that Lukas had taught me how to build. Yes you heard me, I built a bookshelf. And I enjoyed it too. Except for Lukas laughing at me for my screwups.

We bought other things as well for her but refrained from buying the standard dolls and other toys normal kids her age would enjoy; she would outgrow them too fast. Helia was effectively 8 now after all.

“What story will you tell me today Mama?”

“Well let’s see...a long time ago, there was a demon who was brought into this world...”

I started to tell her basically what I remembered from my “childhood”. How confused I was at what I was. The uncertainty of what would happen when I met others; the demons that couldn’t be reasoned with, the common races that see a demon and immediately attack, and meeting all sorts of rare types like arachne or elementals. I told Helia about learning to use my abilities and about becoming who I was today. A demon that had done many things but had no regrets and many things that she was proud of. Including her adopted daughter.

A shortened version of 1000 years but there it was.

She looked worried as she stroked her wings and asked, “Mama, am I a demon like you?”

There’s a good question. What made a demon a demon in the first place? Generally speaking they’re naturally very powerful and don’t really abide by a set of morals. Basically they do what they want without any feeling of guilt.

Some demons consumed the flesh of others for sustenance. Others spread plagues, set fires, raped men and women and tortured children. For demons, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.

No one really knows why demons were born into this world. I haven’t tried finding the answer to be honest. At any rate, they’re universally despised and hunted. Many died on both sides.

What made me special? I guess I had grown, learned, honed my abilities, and outlived many demons. In turn I suppose I had mellowed out a bit and started searching for more than what I was born for. I still had the desire to do what I had been but raising Helia had become enjoyable enough that I hadn't put much thought into it recently.

Oops, this got deep all of a sudden.

I smiled at Helia, giving her a hug.

“No, you’re not. You’re a one of a kind angel.”

Boom!

Crack!

The night sky lit up with the lights and sounds of repeating thunder and lightning.

Boom!

Helia rushed into my room, having been woken up by the abnormally severe storm that had come upon Chamont.

Crack!

She shrieked and dug her face into my lap.

The rush and roar of the rain and wind was a constant background to the frequent bursts of thunder that afflicted us this night.

“Mommy, I’m scared!”

It was the first time Helia had been through anything like this. I comforted her as she clung to me. Not very often a “10” year old child clings to a demon for comfort. Well, I claimed her as my own so it should be fine.

Though, this storm was probably one of the fiercest I’ve ever seen. Fortunately, Lukas and Nina had built their home with extra care and so it stood up rather well to the storm. The radio had reported that a severe storm would be occurring this evening so the ever cautious Lukas had prepared extra so that we shouldn’t have any issues tonight.

I mentally noted to thank him tomorrow for his actions unless he decided to irritate me before I told him. Which he had a bad habit of doing.

Boom!

Helia squealed again.

Crack!

I’m sorry Helia. Even I can't control the weather.

“Ziden hasn’t come back yet?” Nina asked.

“No, I haven’t seen him at all. I’m not worried but I wonder what’s taking him this long.”

We were outside watching Tania and Helia practice stealthily hunting each other and defending against surprise attacks. The rules for this were simple. One was the hunter. The other was the hunted. Whoever managed to land a single blow on the other was the winner. No magic or weapons allowed.

Tania and Helia had come up with this game when Helia was about “7”. Helia was basically now “12”. So a total of 12 weeks had passed since everything started. With how busy we were with the farm and Helia, we hadn’t managed to do much else in that time. Lukas was currently in town selling some beans that were recently harvested. The corn was tall enough now that we didn’t have to worry about anyone randomly coming and seeing Helia.

I could see Tania carefully approaching a mock objective while I sensed Helia waiting in the corn. Tania’s ears perked up but Helia was getting better at this. She carefully backed away and got behind Tania rather than getting closer to the objective. Using her wings to propel herself rather than her legs, Helia whooshed into Tania’s back, bowling her over. The pair fell into the grass laughing.

“Those two are like sisters now,” commented Nina.

Classical music played over the radio; the sounds of violins mixed in with the piano tended to be Helia’s favorite. She sat near to it while working on some practice problems that Nina had come up with for her to do. I had asked to take a look earlier but some of it was beyond me. Guess even I had my weak points.

“Mom, come here. Let’s do it together,”she beckoned to me.

I sighed internally but I also knew it was for the best. Helia had come to realize that even her adoptive mother lacked knowledge in a great deal of things. So she had decided herself that it was better to learn it together. While I hadn’t needed this type of knowledge before, I didn’t want to say no especially as she had our best interests at heart.

Helia had originally tried including Tania as well but that stealthy demi always found something else to do when this type of stuff came up.

And so with the problems we had trouble with, we reasoned through together.

She was incredibly intelligent and learned quickly but she had grown so fast that she was still missing a lot of the wisdom and life lessons that came with living a regular life. Oddly enough, Lukas had said that normal 15 year olds were also that way, it's just our "15" year old was missing a good bit more than them.

“How are those problems coming, Helia?” Nina called out as she cooked lunch.

“We’re getting through them, Aunt Nina. Mom’s helping me!”

More like she was helping me but I didn’t correct her.

The radio suddenly switched to the voice of a newscaster.

“We interrupt this programming to bring you breaking news. A Rank A demon has been spotted near the village of Plailon, roughly 10 kilometers south of Chamont. Travelers are advised to avoid Routes 11 and 12 and to take detours using Routes 10 or 13. The demon has been classified as such by the mayor of Plailon, who is well versed with the threat ranking system. No conflicts appear to have occurred quite yet; the demon was seen fighting a group of Rank B monsters. We will keep you updated as news comes in. This is Jaime Gallagher signing off with RBG, Chamont.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.”

Classical music began to play again but I had been lost in thought as soon as the reporter had said a demon was present relatively nearby. Lately the news had been reporting increasingly higher levels of monster activity along the various routes out of Chamont but luckily for them, there had been no activity concentrated against any of the population centers.

The presence of this demon on the other hand was new and troubling.

Demons had a penchant for ruining one's day. Or life. Or an entire ecosystem.

Of course there was already a demon in Chamont, but she was currently occupied doing something else. I was unfamiliar with the ranking system but I'm sure the humans would be able to handle it as usual.

Everyone has gotten closer as we learned and grew together. Each day we would rotate our time with Helia: Lukas would teach her the way of the sword, Nina taught her some homemaking skills, Tania worked on teaching her how to hunt and taught her about things outside of the human world, and I taught her about magic and using her unique talents. That’s where she had honed the ability to use her wings. And of course, we had all worked together to teach Helia in various other subjects like math, geography, and history. My memory wasn’t the best so I had to get some help with teaching her history. Plus I tended to remember certain events a little differently than what history had recorded. C'est la vie?

(Author's Note: Partial and incomplete world map. Will update with time; Veplar Kingdom is in upperwest corner of right continent)

At night, Helia no longer slept. When everyone else was asleep and darkness had fallen, Helia and I would fly away from Chamont. To the woods. To the mountains. Somewhere quiet where we could practice magic or fight monsters.

Just as an elf or devil would have, Helia had a rather large supply of mana and a great talent for magic. Unlike a common race magic user though, Helia could directly manipulate magic just like me. The common races normally had to use an item, such as a staff, to concentrate and consolidate their mana into the form that they wanted to. Whether it was fire, water, explosions, wind, whatever was in the realm of possibility, a normal magic user would have to formulate the magic using their mana and mind to then expel it.

This obviously took time and skill plus it wasn’t always practical to have a staff at all times. So this is what made demons like myself and unique people like Helia rather special.

After a couple of hours practicing lightning magic on some urtians, a monster that resembled a bear, Helia and I laid down on a relatively flat patch of a mountain looking at the night sky and the distant Chamont cityscape.

“Mom, when will we leave the outer tier?”

“You don’t like being confined I see?”

“Well, when Aunt Nina or Uncle Lukas talks about the middle or inner tiers, I’m always curious about it. Plus you talk all the time about the places you’ve been to. It’s not fair for me to be stuck like that, is it?”

“Hitting your rebellious teenage years now are we?” I laughed.

“Hey just cause I’m technically younger than a 1 year old, doesn’t mean you can baby me.”

Helia was essentially “18” now and her body had finally stopped growing. Her long black hair, which Nina had taught us how to style, was draped across the rough rock as her clear blue eyes stared off into the night sky. The wings she couldn’t really hide were folded underneath her back, providing a nice cushion against the rocky ground. Moonlight glinted off of her golden horns. Amazingly, we were the same height, with both of us being taller than Lukas or Nina. Ironically, except for her pointed ears, we could have been literally mother and daughter. Or sisters.

Except Helia had not seen me in my true form. I hadn’t needed to shift back all the way since first meeting the couple we were staying with. The topic hadn’t come up either. Maybe I should just show her?

She had already come to terms with so much already: her highly accelerated growth, her adopted mother’s background, how she couldn’t act like a normal being. We made sure to communicate with her about all of that ahead of time so that she had understood the consequences of not listening to us. We couldn't have her fly off and attract attention; we didn't want Lukas and Nina to suffer for this. Plus her rapid growth would have been very hard to explain. Helia had been uncharacteristically mature and obedient for one her age. Or relative age for that matter.

I sighed.

“Helia, I wish we could have enjoyed your younger ‘years’ more but you look like an adult now. Having grown so fast, you've missed out in alot, which I guess can’t be helped. Only time and experiences will help with that. Are you ready to step into all of that?”

“As long as I know that you’ll be there for me, I’m ready.”

“Ready for the pain and mistakes that are waiting for you?”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“Do you want me to scare you?” I started to snarl mid-sentence.

“Nevermind. But I’m ready for anything but you trying to scare me.”

“Well I have something to show you and I don’t think it should scare you. You don’t need to move.”

My wings were already out just like Helia’s but I unfurled them as I stood up. Helia sat up as I got in front of her and I started to shift back into my true self. Porcelain skin turned to amethyst and my hair turned from the blonde that Helia was used to, to a snow white. My fangs were visible now, which I hadn’t brought out for months.

“Wow...Mom, you look beautiful,” marveled Helia.

“Thank you,” I blushed a little. Helia was someone that I had come to cherish so her opinion started to mean a lot to me.

“I figured you had a demon form but I guess I thought it would be grosser or something. You look pretty much the same.”

“That hurts.”

“Thanks for showing me. The look fits you.”

I sat back down next to her.

“Helia, other than exploring the world a little, is there anything you want to do? If you wanted to, you could go by yourself and do it that way too. I wouldn’t stop you.”

She looked at me with a searching expression and said, “I wanna know who my biological parents were. I wanna know who I was supposed to be before we met, before I ended up on that ship.”

Looking down and bringing her long legs to her chest she continued, “I like who I am now. I love to fly, especially with you. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything even though there’s a lot of things that don’t make sense. But I just want to find out more about myself I guess.”

Placing my hand on her shoulder, I looked at her with a smile.

“You’ve got the time and power to do basically whatever you want. So be excited. There’s a lot to do out there.”

“Like destroying an entire country?”

“Hey, that’s what demons do. Of course if you want to do that I can-.”

“Mom! That’s not my idea of fun right now and what’s with that expression?”

“Oh I was just remembering something…”

Helia lightly punched me in the shoulder; guess I know how Ziden feels now.

A moment of silence passed.

With a slightly embarrassed but serious look on her face, she asked “Can I stay with you until I’ve grown up?”

“Isn’t that what children are supposed to do?”

The very next morning, a younger man dressed in a suit and tie was walking up to the house. Behind him, followed a sullen looking man and a woman dressed in adventurer’s gear. While not appearing to be hostile, the man carried the staff of a mage and a mana-pistol whereas the woman carried a sheathed broadsword that surprisingly befitted her. They were still a good distance away.

Lukas and Nina were still asleep so I asked Helia to go wake them.

“Aw crap, that's the current guild master,” Lukas huffed while looking out the window.

“And those two look like the leaders of Knightfall and the Osetia Rangers,” Nina added.

As Lukas and Nina went back into their own room to get dressed, I asked through the door, “Who are they exactly and why are they here?”

“I don’t know the current guild master very well. We had already retired from the game when he came in. I think his name was Vasiliy...no it was Velimir.”

“It’s Vedran, Lukas.”

“Oh yea, thanks. That’s why I married you. I don’t know the names of the other two, just that the two groups are S rank. Our outfit was an S rank team as well. I feel like they’re going to ask us something that we’re not going to like…”

“Uncle Lukas, what does S rank mean exactly?” Helia queried.

“Well you know the threat ranking system from E to A, right? Basically a rank E threat, anyone can take down without a problem whereas an A rank would require someone really powerful and experienced or a collective team powerful enough to take it down. When threats get into the S tiers...a lot of people tend to die if they’re not dealt with. We call them the calamity tiers. All S rank threats are technically equivalent to an A rank in power, it's just the S rank is able to cause more of a problem than an A rank.

Adventurer teams and individuals are also ranked according to their ability to take down an equivalent threat. The only difference with them is that we don’t have a ranking beyond S rank for adventurer’s. Technically some of them can be powerful enough to warrant more than just a regular S but the double and trip-S threats are designated as such to say that you need more than one S class team of adventurers to be able to handle it. The various militaries also use this system to determine what kind and how many troops to send.”

“Mom, what's your ranking?”

“I’m a little bashful now that I’ve had this explained but...triple S,” I said.

“Wow….”

“Anyhow, I got a bad feeling about what they are doing here. I don’t know if they found out we’re harboring wanted criminals or if it's something else. Alya, can I ask you to remain upstairs with Tania and Helia? If they found out you were here, we might be able to figure something out. If it's something else, then we won’t raise any unnecessary questions.”

“Fine.”

Makes logical sense. But I was still crossing my fingers for a fight.

“Wait, who’s the criminal?” fretted Helia.

“Technically you aren’t so don’t worry about it,” I said while grabbing her hand.

Tania was already up here as well so all we had to do was keep quiet when the three visitors entered. Time seemed to drag on but there was finally a knock on the door. With my hearing, I didn’t need to be nearby in order to listen in. I’m sure Tania and Helia were both able to as well.

“Good morning Guildmaster Vedran, what can we do for you?” Nina asked.

“Lukas, Nina. I’m gonna cut straight to the chase. A demon popped up in a nearby village but the A rank team we sent after it hasn’t reported back. In fact there’s no sign of them whatsoever. The mayor of the village said that they had arrived there two weeks ago but none of them came back from their sortie. Since we have little idea of what we’re up against, we’re sending S rank teams after it,” Vedran stated.

“We’re retired Guildmaster. We’ve done our part already,” Nina replied calmly. I guessed she had assumed where the conversation was going.

“Yes but we have fewer and fewer experienced adventurers who are able to take on a demon of this caliber, much less with this many unknowns. We’re sending the best we have at the moment and we need you to coordinate and lead the teams who haven’t worked together like this before.”

“Adventurer’s aren’t conscripts Vedran. We joined up cause we wanted to and we left cause we're getting old. We refuse,” Lukas snapped.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be Lukas. I was hoping you would come along willingly but this is a government backed operation now. We’ve been given the authority to get whatever resources we need; whether that be material or manpower. These are tough times but every citizen needs to do their part. I assume you know the consequences of refusing the kingdom in its time of need?”