Short-lived Victory

"We need to run!" Ammine told everyone. If they didn't move now then they would all die. She glanced over at the baby dragon cradled in Jasyeu's arms. It was clueless to what was happening right now because of it. Ammine found it hard to imagine how something that small can grow into something as big as the monster behind them.

"Alright, I take one person and you take two?" Falte didn't wait for Ammine's response and quickly ran over to Kies and picked him up. He was the heaviest out of the three and hopefully, Ammine would be able to carry the other two.

Ammine looked at the two demons and the baby dragon and tried to think of how she would carry all three of them at once. The dragon was easy to deal with since Jasyeu could just carry it while she carried her, but Ammine had no idea how to carry the two demons. Her arms weren't big enough to fit all three of them. But maybe...

"Messa, can you carry Jasyeu?" Messa went over to the small demon and picked her up from behind and held her with no problem. Ammine then went behind Messa and did the same to her. It was a strange sight to see a person carrying another person carrying another person who was carrying a dragon, but this was the only way that she could fly with all of them in her arms.

"Hm... How creative," Falte observed. He had the easy job of only having to carry one person. "Anyway-"

The two demons unfolded their wings and got ready to take off when the ground suddenly shook and they heard a loud explosion from somewhere in the city. When they looked to where it came from, they saw a mountain of smoke rising up into the clouds.

"We need to go now!" The two demons didn't waste even a second and flew up into the sky and accelerated out of the place. Ammine made a glance back behind them to see what was going on and saw a massive dragon standing in the middle of the city and destroying everything with its claws. They were lucky that the forest was in the opposite direction of where the dragon is or otherwise they would be in trouble.

All they need to do is to get out of Silverfield without being spotted by the dragon. But since the dragon isn't even facing their way, it should be an easy task. They just need to hope that it didn't decide to look up at the sky for no reason.

While flying out of Silverfield, Ammine noticed that below them there were a lot of people running around and panicking. They were all pointing at the giant dragon in the distance and were too focused on that and didn't even notice that there were demons flying above them. It was funny how their most dreaded enemy was just over their heads and they didn't even notice.

"The forest is in right front of us!" Falte shouted from ahead. Normally, it was supposed to be Ammine who is in the front but since he has to carry two people and the dragon, she was significantly slower than Falte who only has to carry Kies. Despite carrying three times his cargo, Ammine was still flying almost as fast as him.

Ammine looked down and saw the mass of trees where the forest was. "We should go down before the dragon spots us." The lower they were to the ground, the less likely they would be caught by the dragon. Furthermore, they could use the walls as a cover.

Following Ammine's advice, Falte swooped down towards the ground with her and that's when he noticed a bunch of people fleeing the city and running into the forest as well. "We have people ahead!" he informed the others. But he didn't need to. Ammine and Messa had also already spotted them as well.

"Do I kill them?" Messa asked. She could easily take them all out from up here where she had a bird's eye view on all the targets.

"Don't. I think they might be beastmen," Ammine said. The last thing they wanted to do was get into a conflict with them when they both needed to hide in the forest.

The group descended down right outside the forest and beside the beastmen who spotted them and quickly drew their weapons thinking that they were the enemy. But when they saw their horns, they quickly realized that they weren't human, but they still kept their weapons and were on guard since they weren't sure what the demons wanted.

A tall beastman that looked stronger and bigger than the rest appeared from within the group and approached the demons. "State your purpose." He had his hands around a sword and was ready to attack them if something happened.

"We need to go in the forest as well."

"No," the beastman instantly said without even asking for their reason for why they needed to go in. "We're not letting you in."

"Why not?"

"Why? It's because I said so." The beastmen behind him all growled aggressively at the demons and began to slowly approach them with weapons in hand.

"Ugh, we don't have time for this. The portal opens in an hour." Why did beastmen have to be so complicated? Falte didn't understand it. If they fought with them now then they would have to take out all of them before the portal opens or they would have trouble leaving. But this wouldn't be such a big deal if there weren't too many of them. In this group alone, Falte counted at least thirty individuals and they all looked like pretty strong fighters. And there were also more in the forest. That, he was certain. The faces here were different from the ones that they've met when they first arrived here.

"Wait... I think I remember those two," one of the beastmen said.

"You do?"

"Yeah, I think it was them who freed us from the prison."

"Oh! Now that you've mentioned it, they do look like them."

"Are you sure? Weren't they a lot shorter? Also, I'm pretty sure that they didn't have horns or wings."

"We ARE the ones that saved you from that prison!" Falte told them.

The beastman in the front, who was obviously the leader of the group, raised an eyebrow. "Prove it," he told them. "If you can prove that you are the ones that saved my brothers and sisters then I'll let you in the forest."

"Prove it?" Falte put Kies down on the ground and used his disguise magic on himself to make him look exactly like how he looked when he went to save Messa that day.

The beastmen's eyes widened, but they all agreed that Falte was indeed the one they saw down there that night.

"Hmm... My apologies then," the beastman bowed his head and pointed at the trees. "I guess you are the ones that the boss was talking about. You're clear to go in, but, if I see you doing anything suspicious, don't blame us for attacking."

"Huh? Why the h*ll would we bother picking a fight with you when we just need to use it to escape from here."

"I don't care what you're doing in there. As long as it doesn't cause any problems for us."

"Well in that case," Falte picked Kies back up again and went into the forest. Ammine put Messa and Jasyeu down and the three of them followed Falte.

"Wait, what's that in her hands!?" The beastman noticed that Jasyeu was carrying something in her arms.

"Oh, that? It's just her pet," Falte told them.

"Her pet? Do you think I'm stupid!? That's a f*cking dragon. It's the same monster that's destroying the city right now!"

"Yes, and?" Falte didn't see what the problem here was.

"Are you trying to get us all killed!? Throw that thing away!"

"I will have to say no."

The beastmen all drew their weapons again after putting them away for just a moment. Falte drew his dagger as well and Ammine coated her fists with magic.

"It's still a child. It's not exactly big enough to do 'that,' you know," Falte said while pointing his dagger at the city which was now completely in flames.

"Wait... Did you kidnap that thing to lure that giant lizard to here?"

"So what if we did?" Of course, it wasn't them who did it but they might as well claim the credit for it. It was a lot easier to say that they did it than to tell them the actual story of how they ended up with the baby dragon in their hands.

The beastmen looked at each other and slowly sheathed their weapons one by one. "I have to say, you demons are quite sinister. To do something like this... While they do deserve death for what they did to us and everyone else, this is still a little too much."

"Ha! What they did to you was nothing compared to what they did to us. You should be grateful that we aren't attacking you as well for siding with the humans." Falte put his dagger away and gestured for the other demons to go into the forest already. "We won't cause any trouble for you, you have my word for it. In exchange, I expect you to do the same."

Falte locked eyes with the beastman for a few seconds. The two of them didn't say anything. The beastman smiled and laughed a little bit. "Fine then. I won't question why you have that unconscious person with you either when they clearly aren't a demon either. Do whatever it is that you are going to do. As long as you don't provoke us, we won't have a problem."

---

Grammar errors, story errors, other errors, and advice, email flightless05@gmail.com

Thanks!