Both their hearings did not betray them. Despite the ruined house and the dead people, they could hear something or someone shifting underneath the floorboard. Eshdar looked around, even stomping at the floors to try and find what he thought should be there.

Then he found it: a trap door, neatly concealed under a rug. It was fortunate the demon did not notice this. It was very apparent. Eshdar did not hesitate to pull it up, but Lilac realized that it was a bad call.

“Eshdar, look out!” she exclaimed, just as someone brandishing an axe swung the weapon. Eshdar was quick enough to stop the axe with both his hands just after throwing away his bow.

Eshdar soon noticed the person with the axe. The person was a human girl, younger than Lilac, possibly around 15 or 16. Her eyes were bright blue, which complemented well with her fiery red hair, though not as bright or orangey compared to Eshdar’s red fox fur color.

“I know you don’t understand me,” said Lilac, aware that she was no longer in Tragoria or Adaline. “But I need you to trust me, alright? We are not demons.”

The girl, while clearly did not understand what Lilac was saying, did not hesitate to trust her. She nodded silently as Lilac helped her out of the trap door. She then saw the mangled corpses and started to sob. Lilac shielded her eyes from seeing such horrible sight. Even she did not want to look at them for too long. The pseudo-hellhound was scared, too, but she acted strong for the girl.

“Don’t worry,” said Lilac, comforting the girl. “We’ll get through this.”

Yet Lilac quickly found that it might be harder to keep that promise, especially when she and Eshdar ran outside from where they came from and found the situation worsened. Lilac quickly became concerned and feared the worst for Albert until she found the blonde-haired human taking cover behind an overturned wooden carriage, which somehow survived being burned by the horse demon. The fire spreading clued them on how Albert fought: he ran around, trying to confuse the horse demon and shoot it while he had a chance.

Albert’s run and gun combat worked well in confusing the horse demon. He showed how proficient he was in guerilla tactics and improvisation using the environment, along with an arsenal designed to be deadly to a demon. Albert combined this with his Demon Hunter training, such as throwing a pot full of water that he blessed, turning it into a holy water grenade. He threw the pot shot it, spraying blessed water over the demon. It was burned by the water as if it was acid, causing it to become enraged.

This happened just as Eshdar, Lilac, and the human girl ran out of the house. They had no time to be in awe as the horse demon relentlessly attacked the overturned carriage to force Albert out. Eshdar was the first to realize that they would only distract Albert and implored Lilac to keep going to the car. They both ran towards Albert’s car, but Lilac realized that Albert would not be able to keep fighting. He needed a distraction so that he could break cover and escape.

As they got to the car, Lilac pulled out her rifle, taking aim at the demon horse. She was fortunate the demon was fixated to Albert and completely ignoring her. It was also standing out in the open, one thing that Albert cautioned her when in the middle of a firefight. She did just that, which was behind a brick fence.

“Lilac, wait!” exclaimed Eshdar. “I know what you’re trying to do, but don’t do it!”

“Al won’t last long without my help!”

“Are you trying to destroy our only means of escape?! If you draw that horse here, we risk blowing up this car!”

Eshdar’s comment, which was more strategic than to reprimand her, caught Lilac off-guard. She turned to the vulpine hellhound and said, “I did not expect you to bloody say that!”

“If you can fight, go for it! Just remember, you are not fighting by yourself.”

“Well, thanks for that suggestion, then!”

Lilac moved away from the car and took a cover behind a different brick wall. Using the half-wall to steady her aim. She took a couple of deep breaths, remembering Albert’s advice not to be hasty when taking a shot with a rifle. The horse demon’s bright crimson fur among the fire made it a very visible target, so it would be an easy shot if the demon kept still.

Unbeknownst to her, the heat of the fire, the tense situation, and her desire to maim and even kill the horse demon, turned her eyes red while also causing the demon more visible. The bright crimson fur blended too well among the fire, but she could visibly identify the demon. She also didn’t notice that just before took her shot, her rifle let out sparks, which was not something the rifle should do.

Then, she pulled the trigger, and again, she did not realize that there was a visible bullet trail, with the bullet itself encased in fire. The bullet trailed along and hit the demon’s arm. To her surprise, the demon flinched. It roared as it was holding its arm.

Albert, realizing that Lilac created the distraction, proceeded to ran towards the demon carrying a Hunter’s Crest he salvaged from one of the slain Hunters. Without delay, he put the Crest on the demon’s chest and exclaimed, “O holy patron saints of Dusdolf! Bestow upon me the power to smite this demon!”

The Crest became bright before unleashing a powerful force that threw the demon off its hooves and towards a home, demolishing it immediately. Albert did not have time to recover and ran towards the demon, intending to finish it off.

The horse demon, delirious, realized it had lost, but it did not care. It, however, was drawn to Lilac, who stared in awe of what Albert just did. He darkly chuckled.

“I see. She bore the sin of wrath,” he said cryptically. “Taken by he who was born in flames. How interesting.”

Albert stood over the horse demon and, without hesitating, unloaded his rifle on its equine head. The shot instantly killed the demon, reducing its head into ash before the rest of its body followed suit. He did not move, hoping that the shot banished the demon back to hell. He knew it would be impossible to kill a demon, though banishing them would prevent their return for a while.

“This is for my comrades and the villagers you slay, demon,” said Albert, in Dusdolfian. “Don’t screw with a Hunter.”

He sighed, knowing that he won only by the timely help of Lilac. The demon was a pushover for him, but that was only because he did not resort to the lengthy and often ineffective way the Demon Hunters used. He expedited the rituals and weaponized them, which made a high-ranking demon like the Orobas to feel like a breeze, especially for someone with combat experience like him.

But the Orobas was distracted and clearly underestimated Albert. It became cocky after managing to kill the rookie Hunters dispatched against it. Albert was sure that a more prepared demon would be more careful and would never underestimate their enemies. If that was the case, Albert could not be sure the results would be like the battle.

And the appearance of such a powerful demon meant that Dusdolf was facing a crisis similar to Tragoria. He knew they would need all the help they could get.

And Albert planned to do that. But first, he needed to pay his respects.

***

After making sure that there would not be any more demonic surprises, Albert returned to the car to find the red-haired girl being comforted by Lilac. He sympathized with her, knowing that her village was gone, and her family massacred. While she was old enough to live as an adult, Albert did not really want that to be her fate.

“I am sorry for all this, child,” said Albert, in Dusdolfian.

“You are not at fault,” said the child, also in Dusdolfian. “The man did.”

“Who?”

“A traveler. He is very suspicious,” she said. “I don’t know if he’s still alive or not.”

“Can you tell me where he stayed?”

The girl pointed towards a mostly intact pub. “There,” she said. “Our village’s inn.”

“I see. Child, I know it’s painful, but we can’t leave until we give your family a proper rest. Do you have anyone you can go to, aside from your family?”

“I…don’t know.” The child started to cry. “I’m scared, mister. I…don’t know.”

Lilac calmed her down as Albert said, “We’ll take care of you. It’s what we do.”

Albert then turned to Lilac and Eshdar and said, “Make a pyre in the village’s center and gather the bodies. I’ll join you after checking on the inn.”

“Shouldn’t we bury them instead? I don’t mind doing the hard work,” said Eshdar.

“We don’t have time for that. I will ask the Demon Hunter Association to build a monument here. I’ll tell the child. She’ll understand.”

Which Albert did, while also explaining that, by burning the bodies, it would make the village habitable in the future. The girl understood. He also told the girl to follow Lilac’s direction or, if she couldn’t understand anything, to stay in the car and shout when she felt she’s in danger.

After putting all the instructions, the three walked back into the village with Eshdar gathering the bodies and Lilac getting splinters and dry firewood to start a pyre. Albert, gun ready, walked into the abandoned inn.

Clearly, the carnage started from the inn. The half-destroyed state of the building and the high amount of bodies owed to the fact that the Orobas was summoned in there. The demon was not rampaging, meaning that whoever summoned the demon knew exactly what they were doing to the point where something went wrong, and the demon betrayed the summoner. Albert once had to deal with a rampaging demon due to a botched summoning.

However, unlike with the Orobas, the demon summoned was a low-ranking imp, clearly one intended to be enslaved. An Orobas like the horse demon was a higher-ranked demon with a certain independence. The summoner needs to be more experienced to keep the demon in check, which wasn’t the case with the Orobas.

As he walked to the second floor, Albert followed the trail of carnage towards a half-destroyed room, with two bodies in it. One, wearing a black cloak, could be the summoner. Another, a naked, tied up body of a woman with her entrails hanging out, was clearly the sacrifice. Albert wondered the wisdom of attempting a summon in an inn, which was clearly not wise. He was surprised no one actually tried to stop him. Either that, or he managed to do it so discreetly no one ever noticed until it was too late.

But then, upon examining the room, specifically, the demonology book and the presence of a Demon Hunter near the door, it was clear that the summoning was rushed. The summoner panicked when a Demon Hunter banged on his door, already knowing that something was amiss. The summoner was actually at fault and was clearly too arrogant to think that no one would notice, especially not an experienced Demon Hunter such as the one who died near the door.

The demon hunter, despite of his experience, did not stand a chance. He was quickly disemboweled while trying to stop the Orobas. The summoner in the room was bisected, but he possibly did not expect the demon he summoned to betray him. Albert could only sigh, knowing that it would be the case for someone as careless as the summoner.

“This is what you get thinking that an Orobas is always loyal to the conjurer,” thought Albert, shaking his head.

Then his mind started to think about Sammael, and how that demon could only be loyal after what the Schelkzes did to him. He was loyal to a fault, almost like a slave. Albert did not want to know how or what did they do to cause the demon to act like that, and he did not want to know.

Albert could only cover the woman the summoner sacrificed with a bed sheet to at least give her a sense of decency. While he had reservations of burning the summoner with the rest of his victims, he settled with burning him in the room he was killed, controlling the fire so it would not burn down the inn.

After handing the body down to Lilac and Eshdar, Albert returned to take the demon hunter’s body while also searching him. He found that the hunter belonged to a chapter in Struttemberg, their destination. With the city not that far, it would make sense for his and the presence of the rookies with him. They were supposed to be patrolling the countryside and got more than what they bargained for. Albert did not hesitate to try and call the Struttemberg chapter using the still functioning telephone in the bar (he was surprised the telephone was unscathed despite the carnage caused by the Orobas).

It did not take long for the telephone to be connected to an operator.

“Hello operator,” said Albert, in Dusdolfian. “Get me the Struttemberg Gestjager.”

“Please hold,” said the operator.

There was a short wait before someone, presumably the chapter’s receiver, said, “Gestjager, at your service.”

“I would like to report that….” Albert looked at the name on the badge. “Lieutenant Graff Sondheim and his company was killed in action in a fight against an Orobas. I am Commander Albert Schafner of Central Command. Please relay my condolences to their families.”

There was no answer but background noises of busy people for at least 5 minutes until someone else took the call.

“Hello, commander,” said the deep voice in Dusdolfian. “It is rare to find one of your ranks calling the emergency line. Then again, it is not against the rules.”

“I presume you are the chapter’s head?”

“I am. My name is Otto Renzinger. I don’t think it’s proper to talk with this line, commander, so I invite you to Struttemberg. You called just at the right time.”

“Problem?”

“A very big one. We’ll talk in detail when you have arrived in Struttemberg. Also, did you say an Orobas?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take care of it, then?”

“Barely. I can’t take most of the credits, though.”

“Well, unfortunately, an Orobas is the least of our concern. We’ll talk later in Struttemberg.”

It did not help Albert to know that Struttemberg was in danger. He wanted to call Marlene to ask whether she and the other engineers in the workshop were safe. However, he stayed on the line, knowing he had some priorities to finish.

“Oh, before that,” said Albert. “I request a monument to be built in the Olhander village. We are making a funerary pyre for the victims of the Orobas massacre. It doesn’t feel right not to have a monument for the survivors to mourn.”

“That will be a great idea. Some of ours were killed there, too,” said Otto. “Thank you, commander.”

“Welcome.”

Albert closed the call, then joined his friends in gathering the bodies.

The sun had already set when they finished gathering all of the bodies, including the viscera strewn everywhere. The pyre was finished and oiled, with the bodies arranged so that it would be more respectful instead of simply stacking them. Then, once everything was set, Albert made a torch. He then said his prayers under his breath before lighting the pyre, which had been doused with oil beforehand.

The pyre instantly lit up, and everything inside started to catch fire. The girl watched as the fire took the body of her parents, tearing up as everything went up in flames. She lost her home and her parents. She was scared and alone.

Lilac could understand the girl’s plight. Like her, she lost her parents when she was young, and now she lost her home. While she couldn’t compare because she still had Hans, she lost someone she cared for, namely Ifrit. She could add her Lycanthropy as another thing she lost, but it was partly her wish, so it wasn’t that great of a loss.

The four watched as the pyre burned through the night, before they decided to leave, knowing that their job was done. They sped through the night, leaving the stricken village of Olhander behind.

The pyre of Olhander continued to burn until morning came.