Theo woke up from his slumber, noticing that the sun was already high in the sky. The magic fabric no longer covered his head and his chest. They no longer hurt, as bad. The campfire was extinguished and Lyana's items nowhere to be seen.

"Guess she decided to run away huh?" He woke up to a sitting position and rubbed his now healed head. "Shame, she's a cutie."

"Who's running away?" Lyana voice made his body jump.

She appeared from the bushes behind him with her bag on her back. Her long green hair was lustrous wet, and so was her face. She wore an enchanted black cloak that emitted a magical aura.

'Does she hear me calling hear cutie? Or is she pretending not to hear?' He asked inside his mind. "Oh, where have you been?"

"Washing my body. There's a river nearby if you want to."

'Damn. If only I wake up sooner.'

"Might as well. The last few days was a pretty rough day for me." Theo answered with a smile that hid his disappointment.

Theo stood up and looked around. "Where are my armor and sword?"

Lyana pointed behind him. "That's your armor. And here.." She took his sword from inside her cloak. "Is your sword."

"You hid it? Well, of course, you hid it. That's the only sensible course of action."

"Glad you understand." She smiled.

"So, do you have your answer now?"

"I think I'll follow you."

"Why do you accept my offer?"

"Why? I'm lost in this land. Not knowing anything or anyone, surrounded by people who want to kill me. Following you is the best option, and you seems like a decent person."

He smirked. "Decent person? You're going to be horribly disappointed."

She chuckled. "I hope not."

Lyana seemed more cheerful than the day before. Did his distraction method worked, or did she still bury her grief with a fake cheerful attitude? Though her smile appeared genuine.

Tho stopped thinking about it and grabbed his armor. He froze. There was a big hole in the center of it. He could hear Lyana had a wry laugh behind him. "Hehehe. I'm sorry." She tried to act innocent.

'No. You're not.' He said it inside his heart. Theo moved again. "You know what, It's fine. I'm going to buy new armor anyway." Theo looked at his armor again and rub his finger on the hole.

"The metal melted. How did you do this?"

"I use a fire spell, I think. I'm so angry that time I don't realize what am I doing. Is it that incredible?"

"Incredible? No. This is something more." Theo took his chest armor and showed it to Lyana. "This here is made from Elven steel. Very light, but weaker than a normal steel. It was enchanted with a very powerful anti-elemental enchantment. It shouldn't have melted. Not from a tier 3 spell or lower." He put the armor away. "What is your level and talent Lyana?"

"I'm level 26. Pretty low, but I'm still young."

Theo looked at her agape. "Pretty low?! Are you kiddi-....." Theo closed his eyes with his hand. "Sorry about that. Demon, human, different. You know, the more I see you, the more I speak to you, the less I see our difference.......As a race I mean." Theo opened his eyes again. "Please continue."

"I have a Magic Class 4 talent. Pretty impressive don't you think?" She had a smug smile on her face.

Betraying her expectation, Theo wasn't impressed at all. Not in the slightest. He had a more impressive friend after all. "Okay. But do you know a tier 4 spell?"

"No. I can learn it, but I don't have the chance. I left all my spell and magic books back home."

Theo eyes went wide open when he realized something. "Wait. You're not the demon queen right. The exiled child?"

Lyana looked at him with a ridiculed look on her face. Her brow was raised to the maximum. "Excuse me? What made you get to that conclusion?"

"Maybe you ran away from the demon realm because you're being hunted by the other demon lords." Lyana was about to interrupt Theo, but Theo raised a finger to stop her. "My father said that it would be interesting if someday I would meet and befriend the demon queen. My father often said something random like that. Yet often enough, strangely, those random things he spoke become true. So..."

"I'm not the demon queen. I know her, but I'm not her. And even if I am her, what make you think I would tell the truth to you?"

Theo stood up. "Nothing, just asking. If you 'ARE' the demon queen, that could explain your sudden increase in power. Well, I'm going to wash. You're free to join me if you want to." Theo left for the river.

After Theo was out of sight, Lyana spoke. "Join, me? What?"

------

The water was freezing cold, but he washed his body anyway. It wasn't as bad as the water from well during a winter night. He cleaned all the dirt and the dried blood from his body, sword and even his broken armor. He had taken a hobby of cleaning his equipment. The shine he saw every time he wiped the dirt from his sword always brought a smile to his face, especially since it was a new sword.

Not a dent, not a scratch. Perfect. The sword was as good as Andre said. When he washed his body, he realized that the necklace given to him by Mary was nowhere to be found.

"Fuck! Did I dropped it during the fight?"

Panic filled his mind and sweat broke all over his body. Mary fury will be worse than hell if she knew he lost it just a few days after she gave it to him.

"Calm down Theo! Calm down! I can still ask Lyana. Maybe she hid it." After cleaning himself and his equipment, he returned to his camp. Lyana was combing her hair next to the now extinguished campfire with her back facing him. Her hair was green, straight, reaching her waist, and lustrous even when dry. It was beautiful.

He leaned on a tree watching her partially revealed neck. Her fair white skin captivated him, it gave contrast to her pitch black cloak. It stood out as one of the most beautiful skin Theo have ever seen and coming from him, that said a lot. "Lyana, have you seen a necklace with a silver pendant hanging from it?"

"With the word Theo and Mary inscribed on it?"

"Yes! How did you.... you hid it? W-where did you find it?"

"No. I'm safe keeping it. But here you go. " Lyana threw it at him. He caught it and wore it around his neck. "Who's Mary?"

"My woman."

"Tia?"

"My woman. And before you ask, yes Cynthia and Miki is also my women. You see what inside my bag don't you? you know it's rude to see other person's belonging without their permission."

She looked confused and surprised. "You're not trying to hide the fact or anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're a.. a.. what do you human call them? a person who have a lot of lovers? There was a strange look in her eyes, angry, maybe hateful look. The look that was directed at him. She seemed to have problems with men, men with a lot of lovers in particular. "You know what. I won't judge you for what you are. Maybe you are... different than most men I know. Maybe..... you are nice with your woman..women I mean." She sighed. She was obviously stressed. "Let's forget this thing. Tell me about the country we're in."

"Well, We're in the Amaryn Kingdom. A kingdom so proud in its knight and warrior, they rarely use magic and doesn't appreciate mage. Which might be good for you, since very few will be abe to see through you magic disguise. But the kingdom does produce the best knights in the Continent. Discounting the demon realm of course since I don't know much about their knight."

Theo observed Lyana's body language. She was uncomfortable. Something about the fact that he has many lovers disturbed her, and not just on a mental level. She seemed to be disturbed by it on a more personal and emotional level. Theo looked around. "I'm going to hunt for some rabbit for our lunch. Stay here okay?"

"O-Okay."

After Theo left, Lyana body went limp and she fell on her knees. "What is wrong with you Lyana? Why are you so weak to honeyed words?" She leaned on a tree trunk.

"So you like him?"

"Ye-THEO!" She shouted when she realized he was behind the tree. "D-did you hear what I'm saying?"

"I've been here all along. Don't worry, you're not the first to feel like that toward me."

Lyana sighed. "Only a blind baboon won't be interested in you the first time seeing you." She stood up. "But don't get me wrong. I won't be one of your women." She sat back again.

"Some women said the same thing to me. Their conviction didn't last long. You know Lyana, act as if I'm not here. What is wrong with the fact that I have more than one lover? I mean of course most women won't like a guy who has many other women already, but the fact seemed to disturb you on a more personal level. You can tell me if something wrong." She, of course, didn't reply to him. "Lyana, what if we made a deal?" There was a movement from Lyana's side, but she still didn't say anything. "If you tell me about your problem. I will try to help you fix it if I can. Better yet, if you tell me your problem, I won't make any advancement toward you. No flirting, no sweet words, nothing."

"Swear?"

"I swear."

Lyana took a deep breath. She didn't know why she trusted him this much. She shouldn't, but she did. "It was my father. Though I don't want to call him father. In the demon realm, It's literally the rule of the strong. The strong rule and set the law, but most of the time, the strong one are the craziest one. He is one of those crazy and crazy strong demons. He's also ancient, I don't know the exact number, but he is around a thousand or two thousand years old.."

"Two thousand years old? Was he alive during Alexander's age?" Theo realized that he interrupted Lyana heartfelt story. "Sorry to interrupt you. Just ignore me. Go on."

"He was... Very twisted. Everything is just an object, a possession to him. Including his wives, daughters, sons. Our life is like a livestock raised on a farm. His sons, my brothers and half-brothers, are raised to be warrior slave. When they are old enough, he chained them and sold them to whoever needs a warrior slave. His daughter....his daughter are raised to be concubines and sex slave. The one he didn't like, he sold them and the one he liked, he took them as his own concubines to 'expand the farm' and 'increase production'. Even my mother was the daughter of his daughter's daughter. And I was one of the daughters that he liked. But because of that, I was given education and proper living by him."

"So you?"

"No. My mother helped me and my sister escape his clutch before we are of age. Before he forced himself on us. Because of what she did, she was......" She swallowed the spit in her mouth. "publicly executed after being humiliated."

"Sorry. That must be painful to you."

"How about your father Theo? How is the light-bringer in his daily life?"

"My father is..... I don't know about him before the war, but from what I heard, he was an exemplary person, and Idol of goodness and morality, a religious person bordering of fanatics. But the father I know is very different than that. His experience fighting in the demon realm and fighting the demon king changed him drastically. He threw away his belief for God Ketu and adopt a very bizarre god to belief. He threw away his vow of celibacy. he became...... amoral, and from the view of normal person could be considered evil. He is, however, a good father to me. He taught me many things. Almost everything that I am now can be credited to him. Even having the greatest harem is a promise I made to him before he died."

"What?" Lyana asked in disbelief. "Are you saying that all those women, it's because your father told you to?"

"He said, continue my dream. And one of those dreams is having the greatest harem in the world. I only felt obligated at first, but come to like the Idea later on."

"Unbelieveable." Lyana said. "This strange god, is it the 'Varah' you pray to before?"

"No. That is my own strange god. My father thinks that this world is just a story. Created by some horny young adult trying to well, write. Don't ask me how he comes to believe that, even I don't know."