I still remember the moment when I first killed a person. No, at the time I didn’t consider that the other party is also a ‘person’. Although, when I started to realize that they are no different with us, I felt an incredible nausea although both me and Bagus were able to suppress it, Reza and Surya couldn’t. Mira even fainted on the spot. What made it worse is that we came to the realization after we killed hundreds of them.

The first to realize was Mira, although everyone cringed when they saw that the so called demons also have red blood and not blue or green. As our hesitation grew stronger and stronger, the gentle Mira then attempted to talk with them in the midst of war only to come to a realization that they are also people.

At the time, the fact that we were summoned to a different world to become killers became clearer than ever. We stopped being ignorant about what a war really is. At the same time we also realized that it is also kill or be killed, we also wanted to go back to our world. In the end, we had no choice but to continue to be killers in the guise of being heroes.

Like somebody ever said, “a hero to some is a villain to some other.”

And if I have to say, I’m used to killing now.

***

“Artefr”

Liz chanted the magic word and changed to her human form. While I, sitting on my bed am holding the scarf Liz gave me while imagining myself in full gear, black jacket and the bluish silver light armor set. I could hear a typical sound effect when I made a cool pose or silly, I guess… with the scarlet scarf fluttering in the wind behind me.

I subconsciously made a facepalm. No matter how I look at it, THAT is embarrassing. What to say, such figure is too… uh, if I‘m not mistaking the Japanese term, chuunibyou-ish.

Okay, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the present but I decided to only wear it when I feel like it. So I stood and approach the door while putting the scarf into my bag. However, before I could open the door and leave to the guild, Liz glared at me with her expectant look.

“Uhh, Liz?”

*glare*

She kept alternating between me and the scarf which is still halfway into the bag.

She looked happy after I (reluctantly) wore the scarf. Oh, well…

“Okay Liz, today is the big day. The guild had also issued an order for all newbie adventurers who registered within the last 5 days to gather at the guild.”

“I, I hope I won’t be found out.”

Worry not lil’ lady, for I stand out more… is what I didn’t say.

“If the situation called for it, I’ll take care of things anyway so don’t worry.”

“Okay.”

I’m glad she trusts me, but spare me the scarf please…

Still, I’ve thought of this several times already, but the investigation method is too unreliable. What if we didn’t become adventurers and just passed this town? What if we never came here in the first place? Why they didn’t limit the inspection on only girls or, even to be more exact, little girls? I don’t think there are many adventurers between the age of ten to fifteen. The resident of this world are considered adult who must be capable to sustain themselves at 15 years old by the way. Not to mention that although the information was true, without knowing the fact, the content would be too dubious. Are they that desperate to capture Liz or is there some other objective?

We finally left the inn. Some people who seemed to be fellow newbies are walking in the same direction. I heard from one of them that several knights from both Rifst and Zagrant had just arrived this early morning although they don’t know yet why the knights are here for.

As we almost reached the guild, some guild employees stopped us, asked our names then wrote check marks on a roster. They then allowed us to go ahead. I thought I left early but there are already tens of people gathering at the guild plaza.

“Attention please.”

Aaand it just got started.

When I heard the voice, I turned to look at Martlea in her human form standing on a makeshift podium ahead with two other guild officials behind her. The other newbie adventurers also stopped chatting with each other and looked at her.

“Firstly, allow us to thank you all for answering the guild sudden call to gather here so early in the morning. As for the reason…”

I didn’t bother to listen any further and instead look at the knights standing near the podium. To the left are the knights of Rifst. Their white metallic armor with jade green decorations means that all four of them are from the 3rd main squad. Hey, I know that guy wearing the captain’s cape, he got promoted eh?

On their other side, wearing gaudy red full plates are 5 of the empire’s knights.

Somehow I felt a little stinging pain on my hand when I looked at them but I ignored it.

I made a quick glance and found one face I could recognize as well. Standing beside the one who must be a captain, is one of the highest rank in their army. Zagrant empire’s holy sword number 1, general Ruberius. Why is someone of such stature even here? Is he commanding the joint force?

(Kill!)

Hey, if the empire lost such a guy won’t that become a huge loss on their side?

(Kill!)

Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.

(Kill!)

But, didn’t I decide to wait until I’m even stronger before I can get their attention?

(Kill!)

Matters not, the end will be the same anyway.

“E, Erik?”

Yeah, then as the grunts are terrified when I torture their general I should throw his head at them to finish it. I’ll allow at least one of them to go back alive to the empire with the head. Of course, I’d kill the rest.

“Erik!”

“L, Liz?”

“P, please don’t make such a scary face. Also, doesn’t it hurt?”

Liz is holding my hand. I was clenching so hard that when I let go the nail marks are so deep and some are even bleeding.

“Erik… What’s wrong?”

The dangerous thought finally entered my consciousness and I dismissed them right away. Really, what’s wrong with me? I didn’t even notice I was smiling in a menacing way until Liz looked at me with her worried face.

Fortunately it doesn’t look like I was leaking my killing intent since nobody else but Liz noticed my state. I took a deep breath before sighing. I almost lost it. I can’t make a mess yet, Liz’s fate is at stake here.

I patted Liz’s head with my hand which doesn’t have any blood on and tried to make a natural smile.

“Sorry Liz, I’m okay.”

Liz still looking at me worriedly, but she then shook her head and took out a bandage roll from her bag and proceeded to treat my bleeding hand. I brought my focus back to the speech right when that Ruberius took the podium and began his speech.

“I hate long and useless speech so I’ll cut to the chase. As the guild lady has said, we believe that the demon princess is in this town and might be among you lot. But that is not all! A demon general is supposed to be here as well.”

The crowd murmured in response. That Martlea showed a surprised look as well. Wait, why did the guys from Rifst look surprised as well?

A demon general along with Liz? It wasn’t actually about me, right? Wait, he said “is supposed to be here” not “together with the demon princess”. Since even Martlea was surprised, the guild might not have known about it as well.

“Well, without further ado then… You, you, and that one over there. Come forward.”

“Fue?”

Ruberius pointed at Liz and two other. It seems that there are two other newbies who are girls about 10 to 13 years old.

“It’s okay, Liz. It’ll be suspicious if we don’t obey here. I’ll do something when the situation calls for it so try to be as calm as possible.”

Liz and the other two did as instructed and stood in front of the podium. Ruberius signaled with his hand and captains from both sides then approached the girls. They inspected each one carefully while the three girls looked very nervous, especially Liz. Perhaps because only the hair color and her demon race features that was changed, her traits matched that of in the information so the inspectors spent more time scrutinizing Liz. Liz looked down uncomfortably but finally the two inspector faced Ruberius and said

“Negative, the princess is not here. They are humans no matter how you see it.”

Ruberius didn’t answer but instead jumped off the podium and approached the girls himself. Is he still suspicious? Maybe he knows about the artifact to change appearance? If so…

“Hmm.”

“F, fue?”

As Ruberius looked at Liz’s face closely, I walked quickly out of the crowd to Liz’s side while ignoring surprised murmurs from the others.

“Oy, will you stop looking at my sister like a pervert, old guy?”

I ignored the surrounding gasp and surprised shriek and looked at his face while trying hard to contain my bloodlust.

“Hm?”

Ruberius looked at me uninterestedly, then he looked at Liz who is holding my arm with both her hands then at me again.

“Siblings, eh? I see… I see…However, I’d like to ask you about your sanity young man. I don’t know if you are fearless or stupid but doing something like this might warrant a punishment from the empire.”

I tried to not get too agitated before responding.

“Your subordinates already said that the girls are human. I won’t just stand when you lot are scaring my little sister any further.”

“Yeah! Just let them go already!”

“Fia has been with us since we left our village and form the party a month ago, there’s no way she is a demon princess.”

I expected this but I’m glad the support came rather quickly. Several people followed my example and approached the girls.

Ruberius just sighed then urged one of his subordinate to come.

“Are the preparations complete?”

“Yes, I’ve just received the report that team B just finished spreading the rumors that we found the demon princess to the whole town.”

“Well it’s a pity we couldn’t get the princess now but…”

Ruberius unsheathed his sword and channeled his mana into it. I prepared myself just in case.

“I chose to do the investigation to the adventurers guild like this simply because I hate it so we don’t lose anything even if we don’t find the princess. The main course is something else after all.”

What?

“I just need to make a commotion so the prey will take the bait.”

Ruberius swung his sword vertically at the crowd behind me. His sword produced a huge crescent shockwave which hit the ground near the crowd and exploded, scattering rocks which hit some of the adventurers and made the crowd disperse in terror. The other two girls and their party members also ran away in panic. I pretended to look scared and took Liz away as well before stopping at a hidden place to look at them while straining my hearing. I just made a gesture to make Liz stay quiet.

“Sir Ruberius! What is the meaning of this?”

“We never heard of this either, please explain.”

Martlea rushed at him while looking mad followed by her two colleagues. Next to her is Rifst’s 3rd squad captain, Fareyd.

“Oh, don’t worry. Nobody is hurt since I held back significantly. I just wanted a commotion right here, right now so someone might think a fight is in place. Although she is young, the demon princess should be capable to offer some resistance don’t you think? That is all… Actually maybe just spreading the rumors might have been enough but… I hate adventurers and their guild you know.”

Martlea gritted her teeth and clenched her fists but Fareyd spoke before she could move.

“As a member of the investigation team, I demand a detailed and proper explanation.”

Ruberius sighed.

“Our plan was to check the adventurer and merchant guilds. But how much do you think is our probability of finding the demon princess like that?”

“W, well…”

“Of course it will be lucky for us if we could find the princess, but the information is too dubious to begin with. However, there is somebody else who would bite the bait, a general from Orcus loyalist faction whom should have been moving alone or only with small number of attendants.”

“I, I see. So what sir Ruberius meant is that the princess was a bait for both us and that general.”

“And we of the empire decided to take a bite as well. The other side is laying down too much, so this is a good opportunity to kill an enemy general.”

I see, the empire’s goal is probably to rouse the war once again… not that I think I should care though.

Fareyd put a hand on his chin.

“I’ll dismiss your reason of not telling our side on this matter for now, but how can you be so sure that this general is moving alone or in small group?”

“Oh, I’m sure you could guess what is happening on the demon’s side right now. I just gambled on the intention of the other side who might have wanted to get rid of this general. I bet the minority loyalist faction can’t make any big movement. Then there is also the vast Suvaard forest invested with demon beast which render moving in a large group to be difficult.”

“Gambled?”

Martlea who has been quiet finally decided to enter the conversation.

“We of the guild will not cooperate any further in this farce so we would like all of you to leave Arx Norr immediately.”

“Ooh, this lady has a scary look on her face…”

Martlea didn’t respond and is keeping her menacing glare at Ruberius. Well, if the guild got involved just because of Ruberius’ whim then how can she not be angry?

“Hahahaha, well… I wouldn’t want to confront your guild master yet so perhaps I should obey.”

Ruberius sheathed his sword after looking around for a bit then walked towards his subordinates.

“Okay, it seems our enemy is rather careful and is yet to show their face. Or maybe the rumors haven’t reached them yet. Let’s continue to the next phase, take the dummy out!”

“Sir!”

The Empire knights quickly moved out as ordered and left the place while Ruberius just walked slowly to follow them.

“I… We apologize for involving the guild in such manner.”

Fareyd bowed at Martlea as soon as Ruberius can no longer be seen. Martlea herself just looked at him expressionlessly.

“We are expecting an official apology from the kingdom, we would also like to have your side to leave this town as soon as possible.”

For Martlea to be able to say something like that means the guild is considered to be important enough eh?

Although he looked troubled, Fareyd responded with a salute and take his subordinates to leave as well. Martlea who seemed to be at a loss and irritated at the same time told her colleagues to report to the guild master and walked to where Liz and I at so I decided to come out.

“So, what will you do?”

Martlea asked me.

“Although a lot of unexpected things occurred, I guess it is safe to say that Liz wouldn’t be found for the time being. So maybe we will continue our tower exploration. How about you or… the guild?”

“That bas… Ruberius didn’t even ask us about our new recruit registry… so yes, I think you are safe. As for the guild, we must apologize to the adventurers who were involved in the event. We will gather them again for that but I guess there is no need for both of you to participate anyway.”

“Erik.”

Liz nudged at my sleeve so I turned to look at her.

“What is it, Liz?”

“I’m worried about the general they were talking about so… can we at least take a look?”

If the demon general in question is one of the loyalist faction then Liz might have been close to him/her so it’s not strange for her to be worried, eh? Hmm, what to do…

“Alright, but let’s not forget to be careful.”

“Un. Thank you, Erik.”

“That’s how it is, don’t mind us and just go back to your business at the guild. See ya.”

Martlea sighed but then nodded and left the place.

***

In the vicinity of Arx Norr, on the west side between Suvaard forest and the town which is filled with people, there are actually several areas with buildings, or to be exact, ruins. There should be no one except vagrants and occasional demon beast roaming around. Before the war, there was a small road that leads to Leinadt which now is gone due to the forest’s growth. The area itself was residential area for those of the demon race who were in a good relationship with the humans especially the ones lived in Arx Norr. Within one of the ruins, two women and a man of demon race were gathering.

One woman was wearing purple breastplate decorated with golden engravings, she was also holding a large halberd on her right. Another woman wears a similar looking purple colored metal breastplate without any noticeable decoration and has a sword attached to her waist. The only man in the group instead only wears a light leather armor although if it was to be appraised then one would know that it was of a high quality leather capable to withstand slashing attacks to some degree. There is one feature they share in common, they have horns albeit different in size, shape, and color.

The only one with two horns, the one with highest quality looking armor hit the table before speaking out loud.

“What!? Princess Lissa’aelle has been captured? What a blunder… How could I let those humans found her first? That damn Berudis really had leaked the information to the humans… how despicable.”

The male demon answered her while he himself looked agitated.

“Yes, their knights have even begun the return march and I saw a figure of somebody who might be the princess in a carriage fashioned to be a cage.”

“We can’t waste any more time. I don’t care even if it was a trap, we shall save the princess no matter what.”

““Yes ma’am!””

The three rushed to the door and left the place.

***

At a considerable distance to the northeast of Arx Norr, about 15 of Zagrant Empire’s knights are riding their horses at a slow pace. They are positioned so that the carriage in the middle would be completely surrounded. The carriage in the middle appeared to be made almost entirely from metal and is pulled not by horses but by a pair of dordrumas, 4 legged docile demon beast with huge build protected by greyish thick leather commonly used to pull heavy carriages in the empire. The carriage’s speed is of course faster than a human walking but is far slower than a horse so the knights adjusted their speed to the carriage.

From the carriage’s barred windows a small robed figure could be seen with two knights sitting on both sides. Ruberius himself is sitting in front of the figure whose most part of the face hidden by the robe’s hood.

Suddenly the ground in front of the convoy erupted and became countless spikes that grows encroaching upon the knights, killing a knight and his horse. However as if they had actually expected it, the other knights didn’t lose their composure and instead formed a solid formation in front of the carriage with 2 magic users chanting a spell together which formed a wall of earth, stopping the spikes while also quelling the earth itself.

Some of the knights in the back were still surrounding and protecting the carriage when three horned figures, demons, rushed to the carriage from all three sides except the front. They each managed to kill a knight but the ones at the back and left sides received counterattack from the knights and had to stop in their track while the one at the right killed two other knights with a huge halberd and used wind magic to throw the other remaining knights in front of her out of balance and fell them off their horses.

“Princess!”

The demon woman shouted as she almost reached the carriage but then the carriage door was flung away with tremendous force at her so she had to parry using her halberd. In that split second a man jumped off the carriage and slashed at her from behind the flung off carriage door.

Sensing danger, the woman then used earth magic and raised the earth under her feet. Before the earth pillar was destroyed by the man’s sword, she jumped off toward the carriage, quickly fending off two knights in it by kicking them off the carriage she reached at the robed small figure with a smile forming on her lips which was returned by the robed figure with a faint, menacing smile followed by a blade thrusting towards her heart. She managed to change her posture to avoid the blade but it was a bit late so her left shoulder was stabbed instead. In addition, at the same time she dodged the blade, the figure threw two small knives which both hit their marks, the demon’s thighs. Ignoring the pain, she kicked the hand holding the blade that strangely managed to stab through her armor almost without any resistance before losing her strength, staggering before the carriage’s door. Her two subordinates managed to slip past the knights and rushed to her before taking her out and away of the carriage. However the remaining knights had surrounded them, blocking any path of escape.

“Yo, it seems even in the demon’s side there is someone stupid enough to take an obviously poisoned bait, eh? General of The lake of Estria, Nourrie Lei Asvell.”

The three slowly looked behind them at the source of the voice, one of Zagrant Empire’s strongest, Ruberius.

The three signaled at each other with their eyes. But before the male demon could even attempt to use magic an arrow struck his back and he fell down on his knees.

“Ruui!”

The female demon who was supporting Nourrie shouted his name worriedly.

“I... I’m fine, Fiel… but it seems our situation keeps worsening by the second.”

Right when they were signaling each other, Ruberius had raised his hand and in response one of his subordinate magic user started chanting a fireball and before he shoot the huge fireball to the sky, another knight shot Ruui in the back.

Signalled by the exploding fireball, from the hill to their northeast, several tens of imperial knights are approaching.

“I’m starting to wonder whether we need this much force or not since if it is the general from Estria then I alone would be enough. Too bad you were too slow and got a wound on your shoulder… at least there are three of you so it might still be fun. I’ll take you all on myself but your magic is too troublesome so if you try to use magic, several more arrows might kill you first…”

Ruberius made an exaggerated gesture, shaking his head and randomly swinging his sword around as if he was just playing around ignoring the three.

Among the three, only Nourrie is capable of chantless magic so this is truly a bad situation for them. Nourrie herself was wounded, lightly on her thighs and deeply on her left shoulder so her fighting capability has been significantly reduced.

“I’m sorry, Fiel, Ruui. It seems I brought you along to the gate of hell.”

Nourrie stood upright while holding her huge halberd with just her right hand. Her left arm is hanging down powerlessly but she seemed to be able to ignore the pain since her fierce eyes had returned.

Her two attendant shook their head. Ruui plucked the arrow from his back and held his short sword in a stance. Fiel also held her rapier in front of her chest while standing firmly.

“Please don’t worry ma’am.”

“Yes, we’ve decided to follow you anywhere since long ago.”

Nourrie only smiled at the two then returned her gaze at Ruberius.

“Finished talking? Then all three of you, come at me!”

Ruberius also entered his battle stance right as the three rushed at him.

Right at that moment, the empire’s reinforcements had just finished joining the rank when all of a sudden shouts could be heard and the knights positioned at the back got thrown into the air along with their horses, some got their limbs broken, some of them got their stomach literally destroyed with pieces of their armors, blood, and innards scattered around.

Even Ruberius and the three demons were surprised when they saw a disfigured bloody knight fell right in front of them with armor broken into pieces. No matter how one see it, the only thing capable of doing something like such would be a monster, a fierce demon beast.

Standing in the middle of the chaos, leaving corpses around and holding no weapon, is a figure with silver spiky hair and bloodshot red eyes. Two long horns facing upper backwards are on both sides of his head. The demon dressed in all-black has an expression which seemed to be a mix of anger and joy, full of bloodlust which sends shiver to everyone present.

“What the…”

Ruberius gulped his saliva before continuing.

“So there is a better prey around! Everyone else handle the three while I take on this scary guy!”

Ruberius doesn’t seem to be scared and instead looked to be delighted while dashing at the new demon.

“Divine howl rush!”

Ruberius channeled his mana in great amount to his sword and kept moving quickly forward at the unknown demon while relentlessly doing fluid slashes which send shockwaves reaching as far as 20 meters away but were all magnificently dodged by the said demon. As Ruberius made a diagonal upward slash for the tenth or so times from close range, the demon launched a counterattack, an uppercut which Ruberius barely dodged by shifting his center of gravity and letting himself fall to the side but following it was a roundhouse kick toward Ruberius’ abdomen.

Ruberius quickly responded by blocking with his sword only to be sent flying away at tremendous speed onto the carriage which then broke apart completely. Their reins now loose, the two dordrumas which had been restless finally ran away in panic. The demon seemed to had the intention of finishing Ruberius but he suddenly changed his direction toward the three who were struggling against the knights surrounding them. Realizing the impending danger, some of the knights who managed to look at the demon and realized that Ruberius is not even there chose to scatter and ran for their life while the ones that were focusing on the three were all literally crushed in mere seconds. His barehanded blows broke the knights armor to pieces then, not to mention their flesh. With just a sweep of his kick, several knights were sent flying away. Such capability is not strange in the rank of demon generals whom mostly utilize both magic and physical strength in their fights. However the one in question right now doesn’t show any sign of magic usage, in short, this is done purely by his physical strength. Moreover, none of the three know who this demon is.

Having finished the knights who didn’t flee, the silver haired demon approached the three. Nourrie, Fiel, and Ruui whom all already wounded didn’t let their guard down at first but since the silver haired demon stopped emitting any bloodlust and his face now calm, they relaxed their stance.

“I got a message for you from the princess. 「I am alright, but I can’t go back yet. Please return and take care. Especially Nou, please sleep and eat properly.」”

“E, eh?”

The three got dumbfounded. Nourrie was the first to snap out of it, she ran to then hold the silver haired demon’s shoulders. She seemed to have completely forgotten about her wounded left shoulder or legs and couldn’t feel the pain.

“Lissa’a… the princess, where is she?!”

“Don’t worry, she is perfectly fine.”

“I’m asking you, WHERE IS THE PRINCESS?”

“…”

Nourrie shook the silver haired demon’s shoulder but he doesn’t even seem to care and kept silent.

“Please, tell me… I have to give her back what was hers.”

“Do you mean her position? And what then? Will you take her back to the assassins waiting for her back there?”

“Wh, no…”

“How can I trust someone who got into this predicament to protect her from many of those who don’t want her back?

Nourrie was taken aback by the sentence.

“Let me tell you this, she doesn’t even desire the position, and this is just my thought but she is too young and green. Will you put burdens on her back more than what she already got? Of course, if that is what she is going to choose herself then I won’t say anything.”

“…. I… I don’t see any reason to believe any of your words!”

“Well, you’re free to choose whether to believe me or not, but personally, I don’t have any reason to save you guys. She asked me to. Well, now you should just go back and take care of your own homeland to the point that it is safe for her to go back. Until then, she will be in my care.”

The silver haired demon then walked, away from the speechless Nourrie. Fiel and Ruui rushed to catch her who finally lost all tension and was about to collapse.

“Wait!”

Nourrie, supported by the two, called to the silver haired demon who just stopped walking without turning back.

“Who are you?”

“Just a fallen… nobody”

The silver haired demon dashed away and disappeared from their sight right after he answered.

“Eh? What?”

***

Several minutes after Nourrie, Fiel, and Ruui also left the area.

“Now that hurrrrrrrrrt…a lot.”

From the rubble that was a sturdy carriage, Ruberius stood up nonchalantly.

“It seems that demon killed most of my men… the rest must have run away… Darn, so they left me here alone.”

“Not alone.”

A tea brown haired boy appeared out of nowhere behind Ruberius. It was the boy who sat in the carriage as the dummy.

“Oo, so you’re still here Zeras.”

“It’s rare that someone was able to make you lost consciousness that easily.”

“Yeah, I managed to block but that was a crazy strong kick. Some of my ribs are broken and I can’t move my arms well even though they don’t seem to be broken.”

Ruberius clumsily and slowly raised both his shaking hands up to show to Zeras.

“I don’t care about that, but… not to mention the demon princess, you couldn’t even kill the demon’s general. Won’t Marquis Amarkus and His Imperial Majesty get angry at you later?”

“You don’t need to remind me. I will have Amarkus who really wanted to get the princess to handle his imperial majesty for me. I just wanted a good fight since the war has been going stale… But, really I’ve never seen that silver haired demon before.”

“He is strong, perhaps stronger than me and the other two black lily members combined. Maybe he is a newly appointed general to fill in the three empty slots that were killed by the supposedly existed heroes? I don’t know why he stopped and didn’t finish you off though…What do you think?”

“What should I write about that demon in my report then… maybe I should write that he knocked me out after several hours of fight so that I won’t lose too much dignity in front of His Imperial Majesty… Or maybe… Wait, to begin with, what should we call him?”

“Aaand he had stopped listening…”

In the future, the silver haired demon will be known as the Demon of Arx Norr to many people who come to know about the event.

***

No one from the guild was patrolling around the places where you can get out of the town since it is no longer needed. Liz and I managed to catch up to the imperial knights’ march right when they just left the town. I could see a sturdy built carriage positioned in the middle.

“Let’s just follow them from afar for now.”

Liz nodded to my words while keeping her sight on the convoy and its surrounding.

We chose to follow them by running lightly on the top of a cliff south of them. Fortunately they aren’t too fast so we didn’t have to sprint. However Liz’s legs are shorter than mine so she had to sprint occasionally, that’s why I offered to carry her… on my back. She was reluctant at first, but since she didn’t want to slow ourselves down she accepted my offer.

About several hundred meters from Arx Norr, the earth in front of the convoy suddenly erupted into spikes. But the real attack comes next. From the bushes east of the carriage, from the hill to its west, and from inside a fake rock made by magic to its south, a total three of demon race approached the carriage in high speed. Wait, isn’t one of them the one I saw at the merchant road?

“That’s… Nou?”

Liz seemed to know one of them and started to look anxious. I turned back at the scene to see that the demons were doing well. One of them even managed to slip past Ruberius. But, I don’t think it will stay like so. It’s the empire’s trap after all. And I was right, soon enough the demon who was inside the carriage got bailed out by the other two, it seems she got wounded as well.

“Erik…”

Liz was looking at me with her pleading eyes. I know what she wants but… I can’t make a ruckus and make myself known to the empire yet. I’m sure I won’t be able to hold back much if the enemies are from the empire. I almost lost myself just by looking at them this morning, what will happen if I grab the chance to fight them now?

“Please… save them…”

Damn… should I just take the risk? If only I can hide my iden… wait, that’s right.

“Alright, but you should stay and hide here.”

Liz looked so glad and nodded quickly several times in succession.

“Thanks Erik.”

“No problem. But I’ll have to borrow your necklace of transformation. Also, should I take them here later?”

Liz dispelled her transformation and took the necklace off.

“Umm, please tell them that I am alright, but I can’t go back yet. Please return and take care. Especially Nou, please sleep and eat properly.”

“Are you sure? You don’t want to meet them? I think they will be more than just glad to see you safe and sound.”

“I want to see her too but Nou will surely ask me to go back with her. I will stay…”

Liz shook her head before continuing.

“…I want to stay with Erik.”

I was trying to use her, only danger awaits her if she goes with me, and she might come to loathe me when she knows the hidden truth about me and her father. Although at first I didn’t care so much about those things, the me now felt both guilt and relief when I heard she wanted to stay with me.

Well, for now, let’s focus on the matter at hand since I just saw that the three got surrounded.

“Thanks Liz, I promise I will save those three. Just wait here.”

I took off my light armors including the scarf to prevent any link to the man named Erik, wore the necklace, imagine a different me, a demon, I imagine myself with spiky silver hair, two long horns a bit like Orcus’, then with a bit darker skin tone.

“Artefr”

I felt a strange tingling sensation for a second on my whole body and… that’s it. I thought nothing else had happened but when I look at my hand, my skin tone had indeed changed and Liz looked surprised as well.

“You might want to close your eyes Liz, I don’t think I can hold myself back since it is against the empire.”

I don’t know how Liz responded to it since I dashed right off to the scene.

Then, the only thing I could remember clearly after that is the suddenly gushing anger and the word “KILL” when I see the empire’s crest on their armors and the moment when I first punched a knight, literally into pieces. The rest after that are fuzzy but I remember rampaging through the knights.

Then when I realized it, I was going to dash toward a destroyed carriage before I remembered my goal here. I turned to look for the three demons and since they were being surrounded by the enemies. I rushed to help them while trying to hold the dangerous emotion back. Still, in the end I couldn’t hold back the urge to finish off the knights. It was hard to stop myself from chasing the knights who ran away.

The three look cautious when they see me approaching so I tried to relax the muscles on my face and erase my bloodlust. So when they also relaxed themselves, I told them Liz’s message.

***

Liz felt happy that Nourrie and her two subordinates were saved, she also saw everything that happened on the scene, how Erik killed his fellow humans without hesitation. She got a hunch when she saw Erik being strange after looking at the empire’s knights earlier this morning. She is now convinced that the nation Erik wanted to crush was indeed Zagrant Empire. She never saw Erik made such expression before. However, instead of feeling scared, she felt a strong curiosity. She truly wants to know why the Erik who is always kind to her could become like that. What has exactly happened to him? Who betrayed him? What was the important thing that he lost?

Liz wants to know how someone who can be as kind as a family to her can become a rampaging menace, ruthless, and merciless to his enemies.