Various soldiers clad in red and white armor stood awkwardly around Plailon’s village center, the ruins of the church providing an eerie backdrop as friends and family combed through the rows of dead bodies that lay on the ground. Some had arrived hoping that they would find their loved ones still alive somewhere in the mess, but it wasn’t my place to tell them otherwise. As they searched through the corpses, black and purple colored demtroopers continued to search through the rubble, bringing out fewer and fewer bodies as time went on.

Having learned that the color of the armor denoted a soldier’s function, I had decided to change the color of my undead to something that I knew to be intimidating and something that represented... alright, there's no real reason. I just felt like changing the color. Can’t say that they mix in with the actual soldiers but that was never really the point…

I swore someone out there was rolling their eyes at me. Or maybe it was just the look of disgust and hatred radiating from the person that stood next to me.

“You have something you want to say to me Princess?”

“...No, I don’t,” she muttered. Standing shorter than her father, Lily’s brownish-red hair gently swayed back and forth with the light breeze that seemed to be ever present. Looking up towards the cloudy sky, she inhaled quickly before looking back towards me.

“You know what, I ain’t scared of you. I’m just gonna say it: what the fuck are we doing here? Do you know how messed up all of this is,” she ranted, gesturing all around her.

Some of the people closest to us were able to hear her outburst and looked up with a mix of curiosity and surprise. Officially, the Princess was here to show the Royal Family’s support for the citizens that had lost people...so what was the Princess yelling about?

Before she could continue, I quickly placed myself in between her and everyone else, and gently pushed her away. Or at least as gently as I could since she ended up stumbling backwards anyway. Regardless, the only thing anyone behind us could see was, what they thought of as the Princess’s rare type slave manuevering herself to calm the girl down.

Nothing unusual about the situation.

As long as no one thought of it too deeply.

“Don’t touch me.”

Casually pointing to the silver collar around my neck, I quietly said, “Despite how things may look, remember this thing doesn’t work on me.”

“Then just kill me and get it over with already,” she whispered forcefully, arms folded. “We both know how you feel about me.”

“Well, the thing is, I’m hoping you can be of use to me. So no can do.” I looked at her lightly freckled face and asked, “Besides, don’t you have something to live for?”

Biting her lip, she fixed her eyes on a point somewhere in the distance. After waiting a moment with no reply, I got close to her face and said, “We’re here because this is a test to see if we can make this sort of arrangement work. And as silly as it may sound, your unique position will help me do some things that I want to do. So while I don’t care about you as I do Helia or Tania, you don’t need to worry about me making this a particularly painful chapter of your life; that was never my intent. Not yet anyway.”

“Then what is?” Lily breathed out.

“I’ve already said it: helping each other experience things that we wouldn’t be able to do on our own. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“Bullshit.”

I gave her a look and she immediately flinched. Taking a step back I said, “We’ve spent too long here. Get back out there and try to show the grieving your support.”

An older woman sobbed as she knelt in front of the body of a middle-aged man. Behind the woman in another row, a younger man in a black suit and tie crouched down to place a bouquet of white and blue flowers on a corpse that I couldn’t see. Further away, I could hear a male voice shouting at a corpse, yelling something about how stupid they had been for choosing to live here.

Beyond the greiving humans, a small number of slaves comprising mostly of demihumans had accompanied their owners. Very few of them offered any sort of comfort to their masters, with one of the few exceptions being a male dwarf that consoled what appeared to be a female armorer.

While many of them spent time in the village center, others meandered about the rest of the village, searching for tokens of remembrance for the people that had died. Even though they were warned beforehand of the dangers that surrounded digging through the rubble, they still attempted to search for anything meaningful that happened to have survived. Since not all of the remains could be properly identified, this was one of the few ways that they could gain some amount of solace. Or so I was told anyway.

"Do you feel bad about any of this?"

"Tania, don't ask her that," her sister whispered.

The three of us stood on top of a three story house that had most of its roof missing. Parts of the building, including the stairs, had collapsed and that meant some special help was needed to recover the bodies of three soldiers that had somehow ended up here. I honestly couldn't remember how they had come to be up here, but since one of the armored corpses had been impaled to the point that the stone spike protruded fully from its torso…I honestly couldn't say that it wasn’t me.

Turning around, I saw that Tania and Luiza had stopped struggling to lift the disemboweled body, and looked towards me for a response. From the way Tania asked the question, I could tell she was expecting an actual answer; Luiza on the other hand probably expected something a little more explosive from me.

“Why do you ask?”

“How do I say this…you were rather against Lukas’ idea, using these…things,” she stated, pointing at the collar that wrapped around her neck. In Tania and Luiza’s case, the slave collars were functional and were actually tied to my mana signature, so basically they were my slaves at the moment. Lukas had explained that each being had a unique mana signature that could be exploited for this purpose; in the case of identical twins, that signature happened to be the exact same. But since Tania and Luiza were what were referred to as fraternal twins, both of them had their own mana signatures.

Quite frankly, the situation was disgusting, but I chose to ignore the symbolic meaning of the collar and considered it more like camouflage for now.

So basically I had yet again, swallowed my pride for the sake of trying something new. Did I like it? Of course not, but sometimes you just had to tell your pride to shut up.

I was 100% certain there would be other opportunities to stroke my ego anyway.

“...and now all of us are here helping to clean up, even you. So unless you felt bad about all of this to some extent, I can’t imagine you tucking your tail to do it,” she finished.

Stooping down, I carefully placed my hands underneath the corpse and slowly lifted. I took care only to put a small fraction of my strength behind it so to anyone else, it would appear that I was having a hard time. Scaring people with such a forceful display was what I was trying to avoid after all.

“You know it would be nice if everyone stopped asking why I did the things that I did,” I said nonchalantly.

“Sorry…”

I got the body over the tip of the spike, making sure no one was directly below, and turned around before it hit the ground with a thud. Ignoring some of the distressed shouts from below, I said, “I guess, I kind of was wondering if that part of me had changed at all...I don’t think it has.”

“I feel so confused right now…,” Luiza mumbled.

“Are you feeling off again? We can ask Helia to take a break and help you out for a minute?” Tania replied.

“No…no it’s not that…”

The two girls sat on top of the remains of a Jaguar tank, sitting on the intact rear part of the vehicle. Despite the mangled front half and the totally eviscerated crew compartment, Tania and Luiza had no worries about getting hurt; the wreck wasn’t going anywhere after all.

Thinking about why she was confused, Luiza jumped when she heard a muffled screeching coming from above. Quickly looking up, Alya’s white wings were spread wide, as she dove towards the ground with a small girl in her arms. At a certain point, the girl let go of the helmet she was carrying and it fells towards the remains of another tank, managing to go straight through the open top hatch with a whoosh and a clatter.

After the girl gave a victorious shout, Alya banked to the left and slowed down to land. Following from behind, Helia carried a slightly older boy in her arms, going through the same actions as the other two. But as the second helmet fell through the air, the twins noticed that the trajectory of the helmet was off. The falling helmet missed the opening by about a meter, glancing off the side and partially shattering at the point where it had impacted. As Helia landed next to the other two, the boy wailed that he had missed yet again. Helia tried to console him but to no avail; his younger sister had managed to do something he couldn’t.

Luiza watched Alya congratulate the young girl for hitting her mark and then smoothly switch over to try and calm the boy down. Distracted, she failed to notice the question that Tania had asked.

“Huh?”

“Did you figure out what you’re confused about?”

“I think…I think it has something to do with her but…I don’t know why.”

“Who? Alya?”

“Yea.”

As the twins sat in silence for a moment, Helia went to grab the damaged helmet from the ground, and examined it for a moment before handing it over to Alya for her opinion. Having decided that it was still good to use, she gave it back to her daughter before climbing into the target wreck to grab the other helmet. With both helmets in hand, the boy went into Alya’s arms while the girl went into Helia’s and they took off into the air once again.

“I could be wrong but, maybe you’re confused by the demon that is not in fact…demoning.”

“Demoning?” Luiza questioned with a smirk.

“Oh shut up. You know what I meant,” Tania replied, looking down at the ground. “But I think you may be going through what I went through.”

After a brief pause, she continued, “At first I was scared of her. Except somehow I got on her good side and didn't wind up dead. Somehow we ended up enjoying our time together and she ended up helping to reunite us.”

Tania took a hold of Luiza’s left hand and then said, “Despite being a demon, Alya is just as complex of a person as you or I. While I don’t think I’ll ever forget who she is, having a demon for a friend…”

“Doesn't make any sense?”

"I was going to say mind blowing," she said scratching her head, "but yea."

"Plus it also doesn't make sense that she's effectively babysitting, when she said she doesn't babysit," Luiza pointed out.

"Shhhh. Don't let her catch you saying that."

Before they could say anything else, the same toned down screeching came from above and as soon as the two of them looked up, they scrambled to jump off their ruined tank as two helmets came whizzing down in their direction. In the sky, they could hear Alya call down to them, "This is not babysitting!"

“I wasn’t babysitting,” I pouted.

“You were having fun with those two kids that survived while their uncle searched for their parents. We’ll just say you were helping watch them for a little while,” Lukas replied, turning on a lantern as he spoke.

“Doesn’t that mean the same thing?”

“Uh…yea,” he said, chuckling a little. “What’s your problem with that word anyway?”

I considered how I would answer his question as the crickets chirped away in the dark. Even though the moon was out, Lukas still needed the additional light from the lantern in order to see the map that currently lay on the floor of a military truck, currently parked close to Plailon’s inn. Other than Lukas and I, Helia and a demtrooper stood with us at the back of a truck, currently loaded with various containers of provisions for our journey. Basically it was food, water, cold weather gear, paper currency, and other things that Lukas and the aide had decided would be useful for keeping two demihuman girls and the Princess alive. Of course, they had gotten stuff for me and Helia as well, but our needs were…somewhat different.

And if anyone asks, I paid for all of the stuff. Why? Because money stored away in a bank means nothing to me. Actually, few material things really meant anything to me anymore, but the question of what I would do with all of the stuff I had amassed over the years would be answered another day. Meaning I didn’t want to think about it right now.

Is it really procrastinating when I have all the time in the world? Eh, probably.

Anyways…

“I don’t want anyone associating me with that word. Or thinking that I’m going to take temporary responsibility for someone’s well-being.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Lukas asked, “Is that cause of pride? Or something else?”

“What about me?” Helia interjected.

Hmph. Putting me on the spot. Thanks Lukas.

“Look Helia, you're different, alright. And I don’t want to get into an argument about semantics but…fine; I’m prideful. There. Happy?”

“I’ve got too much on my plate right now to be happy,” Lukas frowned. “But let me put it this way: if I had kids right now, and I asked you to watch them for me while Nina and I went out, what would you say?”

Sighing, I said, “I would say yes.”

“So it’s more the fact that you don’t like the connotation of the word more so than the actual concept?”

“I guess so.”

“What’s connotation mean?” asked Helia.

“Its words that have a similar meaning but make you feel different. If I called your mother confident, that wouldn’t be an issue. Now if I happened to call her arrogant on the other hand-”

“You’d end up missing a hand.”

“Oof. Well not the worst thing that could happen to me. Anyhow, did that answer your question Helia?”

After she nodded, Lukas went on to review our travel plans which was the original reason why we were out here. He was thorough in talking about what route we would be taking, where possible overnight stops would be ideal if we had to make them, and miscellaneous points of interest that we could stop at if interested. Despite my trouble with planning and properly preparing for things, I made sure to pay attention to the laundry list of problems that could happen along the way. While we had the entire discussion on babysitting, I had agreed to do this for Tania and Luiza after all; failure to get them home was not something I would be happy with.

Once Lukas finished up and questions were answered, I said, “You know it’s a shame that you and your wife aren’t coming with us…”

“As much fun as being the token male on this trip would be, we have problems to solve here. Like Vedran’s disappearance or the real objective of those Talzan soldiers,” he said while turning off the lantern. “The King has us and the other adventurer doing some investigative work on the matter. We figure there’s some sort of a plot but so far all of the leads that we have had so far have turned into dead ends…and one dead informant. So we gotta stay here and get this sorted out.”

“Are you guys going to be alright?” Helia asked.

"Honestly, I don't know. It would help a lot if we knew what they were after but it's not like we can ask the Talzans. Plus expelling them from the country probably won't solve the mystery either."

"The investigation aside, I'm going to be leaving some demtroopers behind and I'll leave them under your command...well both you and Nina anyway. If you need some extra bodies, don't be afraid to use them."

"Thanks. I know you don't care about the country or anything but knowing that you're supporting Nina and I is comforting."

"Just don't do anything stupid till we get back."

Lukas stayed outside while everyone else went back in. Pulling a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, he took one from the pack and started rolling it between his fingers.

“Is now really the time to be starting up again?” he said to no one in particular.

Tempted, he decided against it. He chucked the pack into the back of the truck, the box sliding underneath one of the bench seats. Certain that one of the girls was going to find it, he doubted anyone would pick up the habit because of him.

Hoping that he wouldn’t have another nightmare tonight, he sighed and started walking back.

******************************************************************************

Talzan cities were constructed fundamentally different from the Veplar ones; mostly because it was designed for more than just humans. The other important fact was that they had managed to completely eradicate all monster activity within their boundaries, which meant that thick walls were obsolete.

History had already proven that fact.

Located in the northeast corner of the largest continent called Leudrox, the Talzans had been blessed to inherit a land surrounded by the ocean in the north and east, as well as a stunning mountain range and a matching river that blocked off the southwest. Part of the Talzan's willingness to work with other races was the large number of dwarves that inhabited the Saunne mountain range. While they had contemplated rooting them out and extracting their own natural resources, the Talzans of the past had decided that that war would be too costly. Talza had other problems to deal with.

Crystal clear blue water flowed freely from Torremora's central fountain. Shaped in the forms of various common race and rare type people, the fountain had been costly but some donations from a particularly wealthy harpy had seen to its completion.

Clothed in a black dress shirt and jeans, Ziden stood taller than most of the beings around him. His black hair glistened in the sun as the mist from the fountain kept him cool. He watched as all types of individuals walked by, casually looking for the approach of someone he knew.

Sitting on the edge of the fountain, he saw a young male rabbit demihuman sitting on the lap of an attractive female, discussing some sort of romantic plans that they had. Over the sounds of the water, he could hear the sounds of a mother yelling at her child for attempting to jump into the fountain. Taking a look at the white watch on his wrist, he was about get up when he noticed a male elf approach.

"Too bad all of the cafes are packed right now. I think you still owe me lunch for last time."

Startled, the dragon in human form didn't let his surprise show. Not recognizing the brown haired elf that spoke to him, Ziden replied with, "Never was a fan of the food here."

The male elf laughed, the smile not quite reaching his purple eyes. "My wife isn't a fan of the food here either but sometimes she doesn't feel like cooking. I think you'll enjoy meeting her one day."

Ziden studied the elf and judged that he wasn't an immediate threat though he determined this was not a situation he wanted to be in. Still maintaining a friendly facade, he said, "I would introduce you to the woman I love but sadly I don't think she's interested in me in that way."

"Oh yes. That one is rather independent and feisty isn't she? With the way things are going, I believe I may have the pleasure of meeting her one day," he responded with a cocky grin. "Perhaps with time, she'll want to settle down. Maybe even have a girl just like her."

The nearby rabbit demihuman couple got up and headed away from the fountain, leaving Ziden and the unknown elf alone in this section of the plaza. Feeling his heart starting to beat a little harder, he looked directly at the elf and said, "It was nice to see you here. I was waiting on someone else though. It looks like they aren't coming."

"If you're talking about our mutual friend Ilphas, I'm sorry to say he suffered from a tragic chemical accident at his place of work," he said staring at the ground.

Clenching his right fist, Ziden could feel the tip of his wings gently struggling against the back of his shirt. He wondered if Alya ever had this issue but he concentrated on staying in form. Standing up, he said, "I don't think I'm in the right state of mind to keep chatting. If you'll excuse me."

"Of course. Feel free to explore the rest of Torremora to get your mind off of things. We don't see outsiders as a threat, unlike some other places."

Understanding the dual meaning of the elf's words, Ziden didn't look back as he walked away from the plaza and stopped at the nearest tram station.

Due to the country's diverse population, manatech was banned in the country, with the various cities relying more heavily on public transportation powered by the massive dams that spanned the Baxriel River. Or the few other sources of power that were available to the populace.

A red colored tram rang it's bell and slowed down at the spot where Ziden was waiting, coming to a complete stop with the door in front of him. He waited for the various humans, elves, and others to get off the car, before he quickly got on board. The tram continued on through the city, passing by mostly small storefronts and the residences that sat above them, before Ziden decided to get off at an arbitrary spot. Slightly unnerved he decided it would be best to leave the city; he could always obtain travel supplies elsewhere.

For that elf to have brazenly approached him like that, meant that he didn't take a dragon's wrath seriously. And the casual mention of a particular demon meant that they were more informed than he initially realized. After all, that bit of dialog had been only used to keep up the friendly ruse, but somehow that had ended up revealing that something bigger was happening.

Ziden had hoped that Ilphas had a few answers for him; dragons were notoriously impatient with not knowing things.