Chapter 199 Main Participants

"Ha-ah… that was pretty tiring. They were more challenging than I thought."

"Ouch… all of my muscle hurts."

"Keuh… my stomach is killing me."

The fight has just finished and the girls are sprawled on the ground, whining about how tired they are. I didn't lend that much of a hand to them, so I let them be; they have done their best.

The result is as I expected: Millonia is the best performer. Winerva and Lunea did all right but after seeing their fight, I conclude that they will be nothing when they are alone.

From now on, Winerva and Lunea will always be together, meanwhile, Millonia will take the role of the sole vanguard. There is still a lot for the two to learn but, overall, they did well in their first battle as my sidekick.

"Oh yeah… by the way, where is Genelos? I believe he was on your shoulder when the fight started," Millonia asks while huffing and puffing.

"You should worry about your injury," I answer. "You were almost disemboweled by that Knight, weren't you? Shouldn't have acted too recklessly."

"What are you talking about? You did much worse to me and I survived it," she retorted. "Did you tell him to do something?"

Millonia is really curious about Genelos' whereabouts. I hum faintly at that and then ask Teanosvera to cancel the Isolation Spell covering the forest.

p He does it in the blink of an eye but none of the girls seems to notice the difference in the environment. Even Millonia, the most experienced in the group, looks at me weirdly, still waiting for my answer to her question.

Whoosh!

When a strong wind crashes into their faces from above, all of the girls face their faces upwards. They find Genelos descending from the sky and look at him in wonder.

Millonia frowns lightly and is about to open her mouth when she smells something. She sniffs the air to make sure her nose is not fooling her before looking at me in astonishment.

"You burned the entire village?"

"I didn't; Genelos did."

"Under your command, that is."

The other two girls, who were not interested in our conversation previously, turn their heads to me. Disbelief is evident in their eyes as they question me with their gaze why I did what I did.

Instead of explaining a single thing, I walk up to Genelos and rub his neck. "The Knights from the Kingdom will come to investigate. It is better if we move soon."

"I thought we were supposed to avoid attracting attention," Millonia remarks.

"Before and during the fight," I add. "The arson is needed to cover up Mike's death. We can't let the Kingdom figure out that I am specifically targeting the Heroes."

According to tradition, the Demon King had always allowed the Hero to grow to their full potential before confronting them. That is a really stupid tradition since it is disadvantageous for humans.

Ilschevar told me that the Heroes were tightly guarded by the Kingdom, which made it hard for Cursed Creations to hunt them down. I say this is utter nonsense since the truth is that everyone from the Demon King's Army hates to act discreetly.

Humans realized this fact long ago and have been using it to their advantage. My journey will entirely break the stupid tradition.

Discretion is, of course, needed to make everything go as planned. If they figure out early that I am roaming around the world hunting their Heroes, they will definitely lock their Heroes up in the castle and do their best to level up the Heroes; therefore, the cover-up is needed.

"Many people died just because of that," Lunea mutters, awakening me from my thought.

"What I did was arson. I burned people's houses, not exactly them, so I am sure quite a lot of them survived," I explain. "Besides, suffering from collateral damage is the risk of being weak, no?"

Lunea looks at me with widened eyes as if she just remembered that I am a Demon. She seems to have this bubble filled with the thought of me being a different Demon and I just burst this bubble.

Even before becoming a complete Demon, I have done things that no one will normally brag about and that I am not really proud about. I have killed people on a whim and children for my scheme; so, no, I am not different from any Demons or humans in this world.

"You can brood about how pitiful the people are later. For now, let's get ready," I say as I jump onto Genelos' back.

"You are not even going to offer us a hand after forcing us to fight that many people?" Millonia grumbles.

"All of you proclaim yourself as independent women, no?"

"I didn't," Lunea says with a small smile.

"Then, bye."

"W-Wait, don't leave me here!"

The girls force themselves to stand up only to fall. None of them seems to be able to stand due to their exhaustion.

Sighing lightly, I ask Luxia to move them to Genelos' back. They sit straight the moment they are on Genelos' back but I can see the weaker ones—Lunea and Winerva—are wobbling.

'They will definitely fall in the middle of the flight,' I think as I look at their assuring faces.

The village we can stay in needs to be far away from Allegio Viscountcy, so the journey will be quite long. They will definitely sleep during that time and the Wind Shield I make will not be enough to prevent them from falling.

I can just use the Barrier that Rexorem produces to create an "extra space" but it is a waste of Mana, so I won't do it. No matter how much Mana I have, I don't want to spend it on mundane things, especially, when I am in the middle of a life-threatening journey.

"Lunea, Winerva, come here."

In the end, I chose the cheap way to keep them safe, which is to let them sit before me. They are small compared to me, so my hands will be enough to envelope the two in a hug at once.

"Eh?"

"Huh?"

They look flustered but are still quick to move. They even seem rather eager to do it, which is surprising considering how much energy they show, which I thought they no longer had.

They aren't even reluctant to lean back and relax. My mouth twitches at how much they are enjoying it, but I don't scold them since I was the one who offered them.

As I am about to instruct Genelos to fly, Millonia hugs my back. "Fuck, I should have taken the initiative," she mutters.

"Awh… our mad-woman is jealous?" I tease.

"Yeah…"

Processing the answer for a few seconds, I conclude that she is not joking. "Damn it, Millonia. Now, you make the situation weird."

She just scoffs and says nothing. I shake my head faintly and then instruct Genelos to take off as I tighten my hug on the two girls sitting before me.

Whoosh!

When we are already in the air, the girls' breath becomes even. They have relaxed enough that they can sleep now.

Just before they close their eyes, however, I am reminded of something important. All of the girls are covered in blood and I don't want to taint my clothes with blood.

Snapping my finger, I conjure water and then pour it on them.

Splash!

"Kyaa! What is this?"

"C-Cold!"

"Fuck it, Layland! It is not funny!"

I just wanted to clean them but they don't seem to be amused by my kind gesture. Of course, only Millonia dares to complain.

I then cast a Wind Spell to dry their clothes, earning another complaint from Millonia as they shiver from the cold. I cast another Spell to raise the temperature afterwards and the girls stop shivering quite quickly.

"Has the potion begun to take effect?" I ask, earning a light nod from them. "What you drank was a Low Grade one, so it will take a while to heal your injuries. Enjoy your time and sleep. I will wake you up when we arrive."

"Layland… so kind," Lunea mutters.

"Is he finally going to kill for all the shits I have done to him?" Millonia mumbles.

"He is definitely going to do something to us later!" Winerva dreads.

I am just being kind, but only one of them seems to see it like that. Well, at least I know the other two are just shy, so I don't mind.

…

After flying for 8 hours straight, we arrived at the forest near a small Barony named Anades. It is far from Allegio Viscountcy but rather close to one of the biggest Marches in the Antares Kingdom, which makes it a little bit dangerous to us.

"We have arrived."

"Ugh… can you carry me? I don't want to walk," Millonia grumbles.

The girls were asleep the entire flight, so they are quite sluggish. Millonia, especially, refuses to get down from Genelos until I agreed to carry her.

When everyone is already down, Genelos assumes his lizard form and then rests on my shoulder. I hide my horns, change the pattern on my mask just in case and then walk out of the forest with the girls (sort of).

Upon entering the Barony, we get all of the attention we can get from the people. That is to be expected since I look like a damned playboy with Millonia in my arms, meanwhile, Lunea and Winerva are leaning on me for support as they walk.