Chapter 42 - "It's Better to be Feared Rather than Loved, Right?" (6)

A large "bang" rang out around the battlefield, everyone froze and looked over to the direction that the sound had come from. 

"NOOOOO!" A screaming cry was heard as Tzara rushed over to her brother's falling body. Her face was soon full of tears as she clutched what was left of his body, crying out the same thing over and over again, "Yerez, Yeraz! No, no, no!"

Due to Frederick using a smaller version of an ability he counted as his trump card, and him having hit all of his vital parts, Yeraz was now half of what he was before. His head was missing, and the top part of the side of his torso was gone along with bits of his gut area. Frederick had reduced him to a pair of legs.

"UGH! YOU FUCKING MONSTER!" Tzara screamed at the Captain standing over the two siblings, his face devoid of all kinds of emotion, just staring at the two.

"Oh, but how could I be a monster? I'm only human, besides, I thought you were warriors, you should know that things like this can happen on the battlefield," Frederick glowered at the crying Dragonborn, looking at her with great disappointment.

About 50 feet away, Arwan was staring at them and biting his bottom lip in frustration. The two got into a gigantic argument over battle etiquette and how Frederick killed her brother, Tzara soon started to pick up her giant axe and use it against Frederick.

"Tch," Arwan clicked his tongue in annoyance and at the sudden display of anger shown by the Dragonborn, 'How annoying, I suppose if I want things to go quicker I better take care of them myself,' He thought.

While Arwan was going in the direction of the Vice-Captain duo, the soldiers still surrounding him ran towards him with their swords brandished in his direction, trying to keep their last hope of victory alive. However, their efforts would soon be deemed useless, as they all suddenly burst into flames from a large-scale spell used by Arwan.

During his march, Arwan turned the outer part of his Jian-modeled sword in the opposite direction of his body. He had named it after the drive of power he gets from his love and loyalty for his liege, Delmira. It was named with the sole purpose of carrying out his Liege's orders using it, he hadn't used it till the day he was brought to Zyon as a Knight.

He sharpened it every day until the day he met Saito! Lev, and even still he continued to sharpen it, so it would be ready for the day it would be used to cut down his Sky's foes.

So he was so happy he could use it not only while in the Eruption Mountains, but also this evening. So he walked with pride towards his prey, his sword's sharp edge in the right position, waiting for its master to use it to cut down his enemies.

"UGH, Just die already!" Tzara screamed out, tears still streaking down her face, she swung her axe at Frederick with all her might, but even with his muscular body, he still dogged her strike with ease. 

"Sorry, but I don't plan on dying until I've seen the end of the reign of this tyrant," Frederick replied, his voice filled with calmness, not a hint of anger, annoyance, or sorrow in it. However, only the sharpest could feel his pity when addressing death.

Frederick hardly noticed Arwan walk past him, he was so distracted with the ragging Vice-Captain that he was totally unaware of his stronger ally coming to "aide" him.

"I'd step back if I were you," Arwan whispered to him as he walked past, and Frederick followed his advice. Knowing that he did so, he lifted his sword towards the Dragonborn, and before delivering the final blow he had one last thing to say to her, "I'll be praying for you to see your brother again." Before almost slicing her waist off and continuing to walk past her, towards the location of his Sky.

Then Arwan transformed back into his full dragon form and flew in the direction of the setting sun, west towards his Liege, with the intent of going to protect him, and obviously the thought of doing it better than his senior.

***

"UGGGH!" The last demonic knight groaned as Victor kicked him to the ground and ran his sword through him, turning his blood to ice when doing so.

"Everything has been taken care of over here, Your Grace…Would you like some assistance?" Victor asked, seeing his Lord subduing the other soldier, but not killing him and simply tying him up.

"Haaa, no need, I have everything under control," I sighed, getting a headache from the current situation, "Can you and Vetle just look around and see if you can find anything?"

"Understood," the two said in unison.

"Alright, then demon, I think it's about time you start answering some of our questions," Vendetta said, crouching down to his level and almost getting into his face. She was using her intimidation tactics quite well, but I could tell they wouldn't work on a soldier like him.

"Hey, what's your name?" I asked the demon soldier, wanting to know so that I could address him more directly and so that my interrogation would be more intimidating, wanting to make him more scared.

"It's Mavros, but what's it to ya'?" Mavros asked with a snap, it was the one with the odd accent, he was also older out of the two. I could tell by the grays in his hair and the size of his horns as well as the length of his tail.

It wasn't well known in the actual world of the novel, but you could tell the age of era the demon was born based on its horns and tail. Let's say, for instance, Diarmaid. He is over 500 years old, and according to him, his tail is around three feet long and his horns extend up from his forehead to about the size of some wig from the 1600's.

However, as he described it, younger demons that aren't even 16 yet, haven't yet developed a tail and have horns less than an inch high. Then after each century, their tails grow around 13.9 inches, while their horns grow 1 inch.

Mavros's tail looked to be around 4 feet, and his horns came out from the side of his head about 6 inches. Signifying that he was about a century older than Diarmaid, though I could only know because he and his partner transformed into their demon forms while fighting the four of us.

'I'll have to do something a little different for this geezer, I'm sure he's seen things that'll help him be less shaken in situations like this.'

"Alright, Let me take care of this," I said putting my hand on Vendetta's shoulder, and once she backed up behind me "BAM" I slammed my foot on the wall only a foot away from Knight Mavros.

Victor and Ventle finched behind us, and considering that they had their back turned to us they didn't know what happened, so Victor almost drew his sword as he turned around, but soon relaxed after seeing the current predicament.

"Alright buddy, here's how we're gonna do this, I'm going to ask questions, and every time you refuse to answer or lie to me, I cut off a finger, how's that sound?" I threatened, giving him a maddening stare and leaning down to squeeze his wrist tight.

The man started to tremble beneath me, I could practically hear his shaky breath, but he soon fixed his expression to a more solidified one full of doubt against my words.

"HA!" he laughed at my threat, then looked into my eyes, i could still see a hint of fear in them, but I knew his pride as a knight wouldn't let him give up so easily, "Sorry, but whatever you dare to do, I still won't spill it!"

"Hm, is that so? In that case, I must commend you for your loyalty, however…" I paused for a while, then stood up in front of him, I slowly grabbed my pistol from my back pocket, but before I could do anything a voice resounded from one of the space's entrances.

"If I were you I wouldn't do anything to harm that soldier, especially in front of his superior," A familiar voice said, too familiar for my comfort. Before turning around, I heard the sound of Victor unsheathing his sword.

Finally turning around I saw the one person I hoped not to see again, the man who stabbed me and almost killed me just by using his demonic energy, Gale Kieran. 

Instead of wearing his old butler uniform, he was wearing a full leather battle suit, and his skin had a sort of blueish tint to it, though it was very faint. He had his horns and tail out, they were both dark blue like his eyes, speaking of which they had a sort of star-like pattern near them. His tail seemed to be around five feet long and was wrapped around his waist like layers of belts, his horns sticking out the side of his head and twisted to the front to look like a sort of crown.

'So he's an Archdemon huh?'

I could tell due to his skin tone and the shape of his horns, and he seemed to have a pretty high position in the demon army. This world's demon hierarchy was a bit different than Earth's, With the demon king being at the top, and spirits of demonic instead of natural energy were placed at the very bottom, though depending on how they evolved they could become something like a daemon, lesser demons, or perhaps even an Archdemon.

"It's been a while, Gale. I hope you've been well these last few months," I said, snapping out of my surprise, and giving him a mocking smile.

"I could say the same, Lieutenant Colonel. I'm surprised to see that you're alive, I almost wondered if you went to go see a priest, though you're a half-dark elf so I suppose you would've died if you got their purification," Gale jabbed, crossing his arms and leaning back slightly.

"I would say I'm surprised after you told me you knew that, but I suppose it's a part of your job," I said in response, and Gale rolled his eyes, instead I chuckled, "What did you want me to have another reaction like, 'Wow! There's a big surprise, I think I'm going to kneel over and die from a heart attack due to shock!' Something like that, yes?"

I mocked him, putting my hand to my mouth as I recited my jest, trying my best to get on his nerves. Looking at his ticked-off face, a wide smile of satisfaction spread on my face as I chuckled.

"HAHAHA," he laughed a villainous laugh, befitting of his current role, "You sure do have a knack for pissing people off, y'know?"

"Why of course, I take quite a lot of pride in it, it's one of my best attributes, and a redeemable quality I have, unlike you who have none," I jabbed, trying to see how far I could drag this out before Arwan gets here.

'I'll just stall for time, it shouldn't be long till Arwan arrives, then I'll have him help me take care of this fucker.'

"Oh my, it seems like someone woken up on the wrong side of the bed, huh? Mr. Cranky pants. Though maybe it's just your annoying ass personality, or perhaps the fact that you need anger management, yes?" he jested back, using a tone full of amusement and sarcasm.

"Darling I don't need anger management, what I need is for people to stop pissing me off…oh! Sorry, I meant person, which is you if you couldn't tell."

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn, so why don't you stop stalling for time and go buy a brain while I continue my work."

"Sorry, what was that? I don't speak skank, could you please translate that into my language?" I jabbed one last time, waiting for him to start swinging after being found out.

"Now I feel bad, especially that you're such a dumbass that you couldn't understand something like that! Here, I'll put it in simpler terms…" Gale paused then took something out of his back pocket and pointed it at me, "Shut the fuck up and get out of my way before I shoot a bullet through your head."

"..." my face darkened for a moment as I gave the ground a mischievous smile, saying in a high-pitched girly voice, I said something I used to say to my friends every time they tried to scare me, "OHHH NUUOOOO, I sure hope that doesn't happen to me and cause some, big. Strong. Man, to come and save me!"

Just as I finished my bit, the ground, or rather roof, above us, fell in, and then Arwan appeared. Gale looked at me with shocked anger, before yelling something inaudible at me and running in the opposite direction through the tunnels.

"HAHAHAHA!" I burst into laughter as I chased after him, going through different tunnels, "You can run all you'd like, but I'll continue to hunt you down till you've paid for what you made my ass go through!"

-

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"What the hell was that?" Vetle said, standing there with a confused and startled look on her face.

"I honestly have no clue," Vendetta replied.

"Don't worry, you get used to it the

more you work and are around him," Victor reassured the two, watching his master and junior run after the demon spy.