How cruel. From what Kies could see, without a doubt, Messa had been brutally tortured down in the dungeon.
After Ammine and Falte finished treating her, they helped her onto the mattress that Jasyeu had been sleeping on just a few moments before, but the small demon didn't have any complaints. She could see how injured Messa was and let her have the mattress with no problem.
"I- I-" Messa was about to say something, but Ammine stopped her, placing her hand on hers and telling her to hush.
"Rest for now. Tell us everything once you've recovered," she told her. Ammine then turned to the other three and waved for them to go outside. The three did as they were told and left the small house and stood outside.
"Well then, I guess we will have to find our own houses," Falte grunted. He sounded pretty displeased about getting kicked out of the house but nevertheless didn't seem to care that much. After all, it made sense for an injured person to have their own place to rest. "And also, we will have to lay low for a while," he told Kies.
"Why?"
"What do you mean why? We literally just raided the castle and freed a bunch of slaves and prisoners along with a demon that was put under in a high-security cell. The Silvians might not know who did all that, but they sure do know that there's a demon and a bunch of slaves on the loose. Soldiers will be flocking the streets like rats do the sewers after tonight," Falte explained to Kies. He sighed and began to look around for a usable house.
"By the way, couldn't you have found a better place for us to use as a hideout? I'm not trying to be picky here, but this place reeks," Falte told Kies.
"Really?" Kies sniffed the air but couldn't smell anything. It might be because a demon's nose was more sensitive than his, but since Jasyeu didn't say anything when he chose this place, he assumed that it was fine. But then again, she didn't really say much. Unless it was with Ammine or it was something was bothering her a lot, Jasyeu usually kept quiet.
"Well, the other choice was the sewers," he told Falte.
"Oh."
At the very least, this place was definitely better than the sewers. Not only were there criminals, slaves, and other people down there, it smelled worse and was also a lot dirtier than this place.
"This will have to do then," Falte said after finding a small house that only had the bottom half of its door and windows still intact. "Oh, how nice, there's even a bed in here. It's in terrible shape but at least it's something." Falte opened the door and walked into the house. There was some rustling as he threw some trash he found inside over the half-broken door onto the ground outside.
"It looks like we will be using this house while the other two will be using that one," Falte told Kies and Jasyeu after emptying the entire place of its trash. "Oh, and by the way, did you find some way to solve our food and water issue?" Falte asked, remembering that none of them had brought any supplies since carrying around so many things would attract attention.
"No," Kies answered.
"Hm... Can you take a look at this and tell me what it is?" Falte tossed a small pouch containing something to Kies. He heard the sound of objects clinking against each other as the pouch flew through the air. Kies caught it and saw that the pouch was rather heavy despite how it looked. He untied the string at the top of the pouch and peeked inside. It was filled to the top with coins.
"I'm almost a hundred percent sure that it is money, but you can't be too sure. So, is it money?" Falte asked Kies to confirm it as he was the one who knew what human money looked like.
"Yes, this is money. How did you get so much of it?" he asked Falte while handing the pouch to Jasyeu who was standing on her tippy-toes and trying to see what was inside. It didn't seem to Kies that they had the luxury to go rob the treasury while rescuing Messa, so how did he manage to get his hands on so much money. This amount was enough to last a family of three well over a month, and in their case, he estimated that it would last them a bit under a month.
"Well you see, the soldiers were all carrying a couple of these around."
"Wait, does that mean-"
"Yes," Falte didn't wait for Kies to finish his sentence to answer his question. He flashed his dagger which was stained red with blood. "I'm not sure how many I killed, but if you want to know, you could do some simple math. On average, each human was carrying around three to four of those coins.
Kies didn't need to do any math to figure out roughly how many Falte killed. From the weight of the bag alone, he already knew that it was at least fifty. Out of all of the demons in their group, which was everyone except him, Kies thought that Falte was the least dangerous, but apparently, he was wrong. Falte may just be the most deadly out of all of them here.
"Ah, I could've probably filled a second pouch on our way out if we weren't in such a hurry," Falte added.
Yep, he was definitely the deadliest one here. Now that Kies thought about it, he should have guessed this when he saw his magic and weapon. Falte used magic to disguise himself and others and also carried around a wicked dagger. He was an expert at deceiving and killing. In other words, Falte was a master assassin.
"Anyhow, since you're the most familiar with this place, we're counting on you to use that money and make it last until things calm down," Falte told Kies. "No one else here can do it since we don't know the price of things. We would get swindled and lose it all very quickly," he stated the reason why they wanted him to be the one to handle the money.
"Okay, I'll do that then. Can you put it somewhere safe for now?" Kies took the pouch back from Jasyeu and handed it back to Falte.
"I'll just put it here then," Falte placed the pouch on top of a broken table inside the house where it was easy to see. "Well, I'll be going to sleep now. I'm tired as h*ll," he yawned as he walked over to the bed. He looked at it for a moment before saying, "Actually, I should be giving this to Jasyeu, shouldn't I?"
Falte went over to the door and beckoned for Jasyeu to come to him. He pointed at the bed and then at her and said something in Old Demonic. He fumbled with the words and had to pause a few times but eventually got the message out. Jasyeu said what sounded like a thank you to Falte and went into the house and jumped onto the bed.
"Ugh, Old Demonic. I could never remember the words."
"Is it that different from the current Demonic you speak?"
"If you spoke both, then you would understand.," Falte told Kies. He then turned around and said, "Good night." Falte found a comfortable place on the floor to lay down and went to sleep.
Just when Kies thought that he was the only one that was still up now, Ammine exited the house where Messa was in and waved at him to come over to her. "What is it?" he asked as he walked to her.
"Where did the other two go?" she asked while looking around, unable to find them.
Kies pointed at the house across from the one that Messa was in. "They're both sleeping in there."
"Oh, I guess I should go to sleep as well. What about you?"
"I can stay up and keep an eye out," he offered. Since he didn't need any sleep, he might as well keep guard in the rare case that someone came here.
"I see. Well then, good night," Ammine said as she walked back into the house from which she just exited.
"Wait, before you go to sleep, can I ask what happened to her?" Kies asked about Messa. She was in terrible condition and he already had an idea about what happened, but he wanted to know what exactly went on down there.
Ammine scowled and said in an angry yet low voice so that she wouldn't wake anyone up, "Those rats tortured her. I don't know much of the details myself, but you could figure out some of the things that she went through just by looking at her." Her eyes were burning with hate as she spoke. She shook her head and turned back around and headed back inside the house.
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