Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 111: Peace

Chapter 111: Chapter 111: Peace

The castle was a smoking ruin.

The surviving demons were all lined up before the villagers. I saw them for the critters they were.

Starving ones.

But how could I show them mercy, I asked myself, even if they were just skin and bones when the villagers were jeering?

When they were demanding death, destruction, and blood on the grass?

"I demand a trial," I had no right to. These demons had ruined the lives of these people.

But I still demanded it. Because it was the right thing to do.

Should someone put me on trial, I would be grateful for that kindness.

It beat getting thrown in jail without having a say.

"What? You are going to listen to what they have to say?" Hugo yelled.

I wondered then if he was like Cassiopeia. If he was not who he seemed.

"No! Of course not!" I knew why they had attacked. For all that they were lust demons, there wasn’t a single report of rape during my entire stay by the refugees.

"Then what?" Hugo snarled as he took a single cross from the ground.

One broken in half. He walked towards me.

I knew that he was going to try to hit me. That he was going to pummel me for standing in the way of justice.

"Yes! Let God decide!"

This man had lost everything. I knew that it was unfair to use faith in all things to save the demons.

And I had no idea what to do with them afterward...

But it was going to be just a series of executions! I knew that, should I not con these people, then I would have blood on my hands!

"God?" Hugo stopped. His eyes were blazing.

His eyes...

They really were blazing!

"You!" I pointed at him.

He jerked back. Oh! He was no man!

"You aren’t human!" I yelled.

The refugees around us parted like a river! I knew then that it was now or never!

"There is a barrier around your hand!"

This was probably one of the demons who was coming here together with the second wave! I had to act fast!

To use the demons of the first wave to defend against the second one! Because these bones wrapped in skin could be bought.

And I had the perfect currency:

Food!

"What? What are you...?"

There wasn’t one.

But I still jolted his right hand. The one with which he was holding the cross.

He dropped it. A couple of strongmen moved towards him with murder in their eyes.

"No! Stop!" I yelled.

The best way to survive was to not start any fights, Methuselah had told me once.

If one won too many, my aged tree had told me, as I was grumbling about the humans taking my shrubs, then one grew to be hated.

Gather enough enemies, he always claimed, and you get surrounded.

You get surrounded; you get trampled.

It was as simple as that.

This demon was my enemy. Just like the other one, who might not even be the real Cassiopeia, was also one.

But if I didn’t use a soft touch now I was never going to be safe.

"Let us put everyone to a Trial by Water!"

The crowd cheered.

Bloodthirsty.

Finally finding an outlet for their rage.

I hated the Trial by Water. It was a barbaric practice.

But I had a cheat. Something that would ensure that the demons who were looking at me in horror would survive.

"Let us make crosses!" I yelled, to be heard over the roar of the mob. These people were no longer kind or caring.

They wanted blood. They wanted to see all the demons dead.

Not caring about the backlash.

"Wooden ones! We don’t have time for anything else!"

It would have been ideal if we made stone crosses, but if I asked for something heavier than wood people would have gotten the idea that I wanted to save the demons.

Hugo narrowed his eyes. The skin and bones demons began to shift on their feet.

"Put them through the Trial by Water! Pure water won’t suffer such demons! But if they are under a curse, and no demons at all, then the water will show us that they are victims!"

I had to spit out dung out of my mouth seconds later.

I was certain that it was human waste and of animal origin.

There wasn’t a single dog, cat, or rat in the entire refugee camp.

I could guess their fate.

Titan stepped before me. His eyes shone an eerie blue light.

"One more throw like that..." he whispered.

That was the thing about Titan. He didn’t need to yell. He just needed to whisper, and people got cold feet.

But this time it was not so.

"You brought this on!" It was the crone. I scanned her mana, but unlike Hugo, her mana looked human enough.

I looked at Titan.

His eyes were narrowed but he was making no move to put her in chains.

"Stand the Trial by Water with the demons! Let us see if there is anything to it!"

I had banked too much on the desperation that came with war and the need to believe in a savior.

I knew at that moment that it didn’t matter what this old woman was going to demand of me. If I didn’t go through with it then everything was going to end with my head being sent to Telets.

The boy wasn’t going to just take it lying down. He was going to turn against these people.

For all that Solas adopted him, he was not a real Solaria citizen.

No, my grandson was a horselord.

They end a rebellion by salting the land. Leaving guts for carrion birds.

"I am pure of heart," I wasn’t.

Maybe I never was.

Still, I marched to the fallen wooden cross.

As soon as I picked it up, my heart sank.

It wasn’t heavy enough to make me sink. I was going to fail the Trial by Water for sure.

Huh, guess Cassiopeia was right. For I had fed these people.

Considered them my children.

And now... they were going to drown me.