The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 101: Speed Run, Real Time Attack - Run 3

Chapter 101: Speed Run, Real Time Attack - Run 3

A black-wooled sheep beastkin was sitting on a log with a cup in his hands, talking to Stella who had her own cup.

"You let her out?!" Archer said as soon as she saw this.

"Oh, hello to you too, Namosa" the beastkin greeted the orc in a bored drawl. "You know a better hello would be ’Glad to see you’re not charmed, Noir. Dinner smells great, Noir. Hey Noir, those anti-mesmer charms you made actually work! You’re a genius!’" He said sarcastically. "This is Stella, by the way, we were just shooting the shit over our shitty bosses."

"Our shitty boss is dead," Grey said.

"No shit? Is that why you have a demon on your shoulder?" Noir asked Caroon as he stood off the log. He was only a meter and a half tall by Kir’s estimate.

"Saved us," Grey said. "Big grotesque."

"No kidding? Huh. Must have collapsed the way down coming up... explains the explosion and the fire."

"I made the fire," Grey said. "Caroon helped."

"We should still get out of here before the rest of the floor catches," Namosa said as she quickly tried to pack her things, shoving the chest into a larger backpack. "Best case scenario, that thing burns to death. Worst case..."

She started to describe the gruesome way Ledot had died, which was largely in line with what Kir had guessed.

"You look like shit, boss," Stella said with a grimace. "I thought I felt you try to cast something."

"’m gludh y’safe," Kir said, realizing then that his tongue and throat had grown paralyzed.

Stella turned, "Hey Noir, got anything for poison?"

"Vnnm," Kir slurred, trying to correct her.

Grey approached Stella and tapped her on the shoulder. She handed Stella a small vial. "Antitoxin... for wyverns. Might work... Only one I have."

"You must be Sam. Noir says Namosa told him Caroon likes you."

"Bloody fucking demon-" Caroon started to swear at Stella.

Sam nodded, a little smile rising to their eyes, or perhaps it was just the blurred vision- Everything was getting hard to distinguish distance-wise.

A moment later, Sam helped put Kir on his side as Stella unstoppered the antitoxin. Then, taking the vial from Stella, Sam administered it to Kir, massaging his throat to help it go down easier.

After what felt like forever, Kir felt the numbness and paralysis start to give way to a sharp tingling sensation.

"Thank you," he said to Sam.

Suddenly there was a high-pitched whistle for attention.

"Right," Noir said in the same flat tone as when Kir had arrived. "First off, welcome to our humble camp, imminently destroyed as it is. In light of the fact that our "employer" is dead, is everyone okay with me taking the lead at least until we’re out of the dungeon? I am the most studied one here - the expertise of our guest being undetermined." He gestured at Kir with a hand. "Simple vote. Left hand if you want me to lead us again, right hand if you don’t have a problem with it."

Everyone raised their left hands, except for Kir, who couldn’t.

"Looks like we have a quorum. Now, from what I hear, we got us a big ugly. Our best bet is probably to head out and collapse the portal with magic, but what do I know? Only problem is we’re one mage short of a mage." They pointed at Sam as if heading them off "And no, self-trained doesn’t count for our needs."

"I’m a mage," Kir said, a little surprised when his words finally came out right.

"I was just about to say that," Stella snapped her fingers.

"Norneau Academy," Kir continued. "I was on a first delve when I... fell through the wall."

"Norneau you say? I didn’t know they take demons," Noir said, hands rising as he chewed his lower lip. "How big of an explosion can you make?"

"Big enough," Kir said as he forced his fingers to flex. "Might need help aiming."

"You like the plan then?" Noir asked.

"I don’t hate it, but I also don’t know what you’re talking about when you say ’collapse the portal.’"

"I’ll explain as we pack up," Noir said. "Oh yes," he turned to the group. "One last vote: All in favor of making Kir and Stella here honorary members of the Black Sheep until the current crisis is over, say ’Aye.’"

"Aye," Sam said, followed by Namosa.

Caroon grunted.

"Aye," Noir punctuated the end of the vote. "I’ll take that as consensus then. Welcome to the Black Sheep. I’m the mascot, something of a witch, and sometimes leader-"

"Who got us enslaved," Caroon added as he balled up the cloth of a massive tent Kir guessed was his.

"Temporarily indentured," Noir quibbled. "But I’m glad to see Namosa had the foresight to grab the contracts. The anti-escape clause should help with closing the portal, assuming our new demon friend here can undo another demon’s work."

"Someone has to look out for us," Namosa said as she dumped a frying pan that had accumulated some leaves before packing it.

Kir was confused, but he could feel his leg up to the knees again, so that was good. "I’d appreciate that explanation now," he said.

Over the next ten minutes, the plan, and the explanation for it, was laid out to Kir. By the end of it, he was carrying part of the load dimensionally and a few tents in hand as he followed them toward the exit.

One of the lesser-known things about dungeons was that the spaces between floors had limits. The smaller the room, the more limited it was in the quantity - Kir inferred mass - of what could pass through its portals. But it also seemed that directly applying magic could also exceed those limits.

No one knew any hard numbers, but exceeding them would destabilize a portal and potentially close it. Explosively. The only thing certain about people on the other side of a collapse was that they were never seen again, and forcing the collapse of even one room could completely change how a dungeon reformed - if it fixed itself at all. Dungeons were like stalagmites, one wrong touch could change the way they precipitated.

Based on the size and likely tonnage of the grotesque, Kir and Noir both assumed it was big enough to collapse the smallest portals behind Kir. The plan was to stack the slave contracts in front of the portal, counting on Kir’s "most powerful spell" to detonate them and the door as the creature was coming through. As Noir explained, most slave contracts were designed to explode if enough magic was applied to them the wrong way, as a means of discouraging tampering.

The only thing that surprised Kir about the plan was that Noir seemed to treat Kir’s ability to break through layers of contract magic with the same attitude as everything else: irreverent, dry-witted calm.

While Caroon was all for just leaving, Kir, Stella, Sam, and Namosa all agreed that a grotesque like that could not be allowed to escape.

"It’s not our problem," was all Caroon added to the argument, glaring at Kir.

"Don’t be surly, Car-car-" Noir said, causing Sam to suppress a burst of potential laughter behind their mask. "As honorary Black Sheep, Kir and Stella’s problems are now our problems. Besides, now you can tell everyone you defeated a Corpse Collector, as I have decided to call it."

"Uh-huh. Just like it was our problem in Sousport? Or how about that shit you got us into in Botany Harbor? Or Mesa Zai?" Caroon said bitterly.

"Shut it Car," Namosa said, "We’ve all fucked up. So keep whining and it’ll be Sam doing all the cooking until we make it to the outpost."

Caroon shuddered, and the next moment Sam put a hand on Kir’s arm - they couldn’t reach his shoulder - because he was staring. "We look out... For each other," they said.

"Besides, Mesa Zai was your fault. I told you not to pat my back when I’m hiding gold in my wool," Noir rebutted. "You’re the one that wanted to arm-wrestle a loading crane without understanding basic leverage."

They passed through the portal and into a room that was all jungle, the Black Sheep bickering all the way using in-jokes and references that told Kir they deeply cared for each other under all the grit and emotional scars.

Just past the door, Sam silently made a small cairn on top of which Namosa placed the box she’d retrieved from Ledot’s corpse. Sam picked it open, exposing one scroll for each of them, which they rolled out on top of the cairn in a sloppy stack. They were identical except for one, which was four times as long as the others.

"That one’s mine," Noir said. "Turns out even when you’re not-quite-a-mage the damn demons get a bit itchy when it comes to specific language. Plus I’m the only one who negotiated for days off. No offense."

"I’m only half demon," Kir said.

"What’s the other half, dragon? They’d pay orichalc to watch that sort of thing in Aaru," Noir smirked. "You sure you can break four contracts at the same time? They’re mostly canned contracts from one of Pride’s slave contractors, but it would take a lot of magic. I know you got it in you but I wouldn’t want you to overchannel and burn out..." His eyes flicked to the seals in Kir’s ear. Kir had not said anything about them.

"I destroyed a contract made by Maledict, Duke of Heresy," Kir said, adding to the experience he’d relayed in vaguer terms earlier. "And he’s supposedly the strongest mage amongst demons, no?"

Noir shrugged. "Demonic politics isn’t my thing. I just get the Black Sheep jobs and fix clothing and sometimes try to throw a fireball without singeing my luscious wool." He shook his head, mimicking vanity.

Stella, who had curiously remained mostly observant from Kir’s shoulder, leaned in. "He’s flirting with you," she whispered.

Kir tilted his head toward her, "What? Are you-"

"I have nothing to do with that. Just stay on his good side so we can get out of this alive, you godsdamned nerd," she pinched his ear. "I just thought you should know, since he sounds the same no matter what he’s talking about."

"I’ll keep that in mind," Kir muttered back to her, suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed as he turned back to Noir. "Ready to blow this popsicle stand when you are," Kir said.

Noir raised a slightly wooly eyebrow. "What’s a popsicle?"

"I’ll show you later," Kir said, going prone and aiming his arm for the cairn. He would need ten painful seconds to build up a proper Nova Blast, since his Neutron Sweep hadn’t managed the job on the bottom floor.

Perhaps out of boredom, Sam started to pile round stones under Kir’s arm to help support it before resuming their position.

The tense wait stretched out longer...

"I assume that trouble with aiming you talked about has something to do with those seals in your ears?" Noir asked quietly, eyes fixed on the portal.

"I’d rather not talk about it," Kir said. "Not until later."

"Right..." The wait stretched longer. "It’s just... in magic sight those things look like hot coals and-"

"Noir. Shush." Sam said, appearing out of nowhere. They reached down, and a slice of apple appeared in front of Kir’s vision. "Found apples."

He let them drop it into his mouth and chewed, before refocusing...

Suddenly the surface of the portal rippled. Through the doorway stepped the corpse collector, its surface crusted black in places, cracking and leaking yellow ichor and red blood in equal measure.

The Black Sheep opened up with everything they had.

Caroon was surprisingly adept with the chain, using its length to deliver purple lightning from his maven ability.

Namosa launched arrow after arrow, trying hard to pin its tentacles to the ground.

Sam darted around throwing rocks and trying to grab its attention to keep it from advancing too far.

And Noir launched a black fireball that showed Kir he had a disposition for the dramatic.

Stella contributed normal-colored magic-generated fire to the battle, and it was the fire that kept the creature at bay as light gathered before Kir’s hand.

Pain clawed into every inch of Kir’s being. He could feel his body trying to stop him, rejecting his use of magic.

"Five seconds!" Kir roared when the time felt about right. It was the signal to get out of the way. In order to keep focus, he called out the name of his spell.

"NOVA BLAST!"

His world had gone red with the blood in his eyes, but now it went white as the blast went straight through the contracts and into the corpse collector. Half of its body disappeared in a circular arc as the blast struck home.

The portal absorbed the energies of the strike, white cracks forming in the space around it as it began not to explode but to implode.

The corpse collector and everything for meters around it started to fall toward the destabilized hole in the sky, with Caroon and Sam barely staying ahead of the expanding destruction as they sprinted with all their might until at last, mercifully, the destruction stopped short of them.

The micro singularity glared out through the warped space around it, a shrieking tone filling the air as it collapsed and collapsed until finally, it disappeared, leaving nothing behind.

Kir let out a satisfied laugh, then fell unconscious.

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