The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 106: Snap Back To Reality

Chapter 106: Snap Back To Reality

Getting out of the dungeon was a lot faster than Kir had thought it would be.

Compared to many of the floors he and Stella had passed through, the higher floors were practically paradise.

Most of the creatures stayed away from the Black Sheep, scared by the resounding stomps of Kir in his war form and the occasional, entirely accidental snapping of small trees that his tail performed when he wasn’t paying enough attention to it.

Since he happened to be the only one with magic tattoos capable of storing a decent amount of objects, Kir wound up carrying all of the spoils, not just the ones he’d earned alone, and some of the camping equipment to boot. This meant that they could travel light and still rest in relative comfort.

Thus, after a mere four days, they escaped the dungeon.

Kir took his first new breath of Aytherian air with an oddly heady feeling. Like he was standing at high altitude. It was a feeling that had been growing the closer they got to the exit.

"Let’s set up camp and see if we can find more supplies," Noir said, gesturing around the artificial clearing that had been made around the portal. Kir had leaped past the rickety scaffold when it became obvious it wouldn’t hold his weight.

Given his present size, the only thing the party asked him to do was make some firewood and shake a few of the nearby trees, during which it was confirmed to be evening and not morning.

After the fire was built, Namosa returned with a creature that looked like someone had stretched out a boar and given it a shovel-shaped face and thick-clawed fingers for its forelegs, and a pair of what could only be described as furred snakes, whose only scales were on their bellies.

"What is that?" Kir asked when Namosa placed the already-dressed creature next to the fire as she prepared a makeshift spit.

"Bullette," she said. "Nasty-aggressive one too; popped out as soon as I neared its burrow."

"And those?" Kir asked, pointing at the furred snakes.

"They’re snakes. Never seen a northern snake before?" she raised an eyebrow.

"It wasn’t ever on the menu," Kir said.

"Menus are for restaurants. You sound like you grew up posh," she said. "If you really got into the Academy."

"Not really. I grew up in Darlbridge, far to the north of here. It’s a frontier town." She handed him a long branch and he got to work shaving off the bark with his finger claw.

"Go with the grain, not against it," she advised, plucking it out of his hand and rotating it for him before resuming the conversation. "Frontier town... sounds better than a slum. At least out there, people look out for each other."

"When they consider you people," Kir said. "I didn’t really get to see much of the town, on account of... well..." He told her a bit more about his life, helping his mother practice her witchcraft and training with Darlae. He also told her how he got stabbed as a youth. "I didn’t know until recently that Lugh’s father was abusing him. Burning him with magic and threatening his sister."

"Most men are pigs," Namosa said without further explanation, spitting the bulette with the stick Kir had carved.

By the time the bulette was done cooking, with the snakes wrapped around sticks next to it, the rest of the party had gathered a healthy balance of local leafed greens and nuts. They enjoyed the bulette meat with a salad, and each of them ate their fill.

Stella spent most of the meal petting Cheshire, who fell asleep with her head on the demon’s lap.

Kir was thoroughly surprised when he looked up to find out he’d eaten a third of bulette, but Noir didn’t seem worried. "He’s a growing boy. That’s a lot of muscle he’s gotta feed."

"I wish I could figure out how to switch it off," Kir said. "I thought for sure I’d go back to normal up here where there’s less mana everywhere."

"Maybe it’s you that’s the source of mana," Noir postulated. "I have noticed you generate a lot of it... possibly enough to refine-" He coughed, cutting himself off. "Nevermind. I keep forgetting your seals. Point is, you make a lot of it. Maybe now that we’re up here, you have to exhaust it in order to return to normal, as you say."

Stella and Kir both looked at Noir.

"That’s actually not a bad idea," Stella said. "It’s like how a cubi’s bodies change to reflect the desires of someone - even changing their bits if they push it a bit. The changes happen naturally up to a point, but if they run out of mana they just go back to looking like themselves."

"So that time you tried to hit on the blacksmith-" Kir said.

"Sticking around him turned me a bit green, so I just left and pushed my form around to become an orc. He might look all quiet but his hankering for orc meat was strong."

"But your body didn’t turn male," Kir added, making Caroon sputter a little around his food.

"Yeah, well, I’m not exactly playing with all succubus cards..." Stella mumbled bitterly.

Noir coughed, reinserting himself into the conversation. "As we were discussing... maybe you should find a way to exhaust your mana tonight. Do some bodily magic and run a few laps or hunt."

"Could use... water..." Sam said as they patted Caroon on the back with both hands.

"Is it safe to go off?" Kir asked.

"We cleared this area before going into the dungeon... maybe a week or two ago at this point?" Noir said.

Kir nodded. "Fetching water sounds like a good task."

After accepting everyone’s water skins and canteens, Kir took a moment to stretch his massive body before he started to circulate his mana for bodily enhancement magic. He was surprised by how thick it felt when he concentrated on it, and how it was like he had a bit of that inner fire from the dungeon; thankfully painless.

"Too much of a good thing..." he said of mana before taking off.

With all the trees around, running was out of the question, so he focused on putting his enhancements into strength and taking very long, stretchy lunges until he was out of sight of the camp The sun set quickly, but his night vision was good enough to see with the slivers of moonslight that shone through the trees. Both moons were crescents tonight.

For a while, all Kir did was calisthenics, working with his body weight and the occasional tree. Once he was warmed up, he added compressing his internal mana to the light jog he was taking through the woods.

He almost missed the little stream.

The splash produced by his foot alerted him, both of his feet stopping and leaving dinosaur-like footprints in the leafy mud.

He bent down and reached into his dimensional storage, filling each container one at a time as carefully as he could.

Once that task was done, he decided to go back to camp before resuming his activities.

He arrived to find Namosa on watch. She had built a small shrine with three rocks atop a larger, flatter one balanced like the top of an inverted triangle on two more rocks. Kneeling in front of it on both legs, she was saying a rapid prayer under her breath as she held her hands palms up against her legs.

She looked up as Kir approached.

"I found a stream," he said, producing each water container and laying it near her. "It’ll need to be boiled." They had one very small cast-iron pot that Noir mothered, cleaning it every morning as he talked to it like an old friend.

"Thank you," she said.

After a brief pause, Kir asked. "You were praying?"

"Yes," she said. "To the Three."

"The Three?" Kir asked. Kir had heard of the Faith of the Three, but had never investigated it. "I know of the faith but not its contents."

"The Three are the first gods. Creators of the Triune Worlds and the Myriad," she said. She let out a breath "I have not prayed because we were in the dungeon, but here the gods can hear us. Do you wish to know more?"

Kir thought for a moment. He could use a little rest, and compressing his mana would at least keep him stable if he wasn’t moving around as much with his body enhanced. "I would," he said, sitting heavily across from her.

She nodded and shifted her body.

"The Three are gods and they are also concepts. Each is represented by one of the Triune Worlds, and each has a role in the procession of time. Unlike the Pantheon, they demand no worship aside from remembrance... But many still pray to them, especially in times of change; asking them to birth new gods to guide people to a better place."

She touched the leftmost of the rocks on the altar. "Aidaeb, whose time is the past. Creator and originator. Mother of Ayther."

She touched the center stone, which bore green moss. "Eyko, whose time is the present. Preserver and changer. Her gift to the Myriad is the freedom to choose, and she is Mother of Heaven."

Lastly, she indicated the final stone, which had been blackened in the fire, but did not touch it. "Shin Gir, whose time is the end. Destroyer. It is said he is unborn, a god awaiting his time, and those who worship him alone are often the worst of nihilists. I hesitate to say his name because it is considered a means of invoking an end to how things presently are... often for the worse. His world is Hell."

Kir nodded. "Thank you... for telling me. Faith is not something I’ve ever really engaged with."

"You are an atheist?" she asked.

Kir shrugged. "More that... I prefer to know more than believe. From what little I know of the Pantheon, gods come and go. It would be interesting to meet one."

"Pray you don’t," she said. "Most serve Eyko As Preserver, and by extension represent the will of Heaven. When the High Pantheon withdrew from Ayther, it is to Heaven that they went. A god of Eyko As Change might tolerate you better though. And the same goes for their priests."

"I appreciate the warning," Kir said.

With each name she’d spoken, something inside Kir had stirred. Not quite recognition, but more like... resonance. Aidaeb. Eyko. Shin Gir.

Deciding it was best to leave Namosa to her prayers, Kir stood up, and immediately felt an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and dizziness.

"Are you okay?" Namosa asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine..." Kir said as the world evened out. "I think... I might be ready to sleep..."

"Rest well then, Kir. You do not have to take a watch tonight." She returned her eyes to her altar.

"Thank you... again." He walked off, found a place on the ground to lay on his side, and quickly fell into a fitful, dream-filled sleep.

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