The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 133: Interlude - Kordia - Part 1

Chapter 133: Interlude - Kordia - Part 1

The Week After The Dungeon

*****************

The halls of the Academy were quiet.

Kordia sighed as she contemplated the small box of commendation letters her professors had given her.

She’d thrown herself into her studies after Rainier was taken away, but now it was summer and she had nothing to do but study on her own and wait for her mother.

She wasn’t originally supposed to stay, but after everything that happened...

Almost on instinct, she touched her Adventurer’s Guild badge.

It had only recently been returned to her, and she would have thrown it out the window if not for the fact that it wasn’t the Guild’s fault everything in the dungeon had happened the way it did.

Rainier, Kordia, and Lugh had surrendered themselves at the outpost, and were swiftly transported and imprisoned for the crimes of killing a Knight Commander of the Arcane Knights and an Academy professor.

A judicial contractor had been called upon, and through their bond with an angel of the Choir of Justice, the three of them had been compelled separately into telling the truth.

Lugh had been the first to go free, spared largely by his ignorance.

Kordia had narrowly avoided revealing what she knew of Kir.

But Rainier...

When Rain had been questioned, his helpful personality had been wielded against him. It wasn’t long until their relationship with Kir was revealed. And then the investigation reached back to Kordia.

It was the judge who ended up saving them. Keeping their case focused solely on the issue of the slayings, they were released upon the determination that they’d acted in self-defense. And after some time, they were given a bounty for killing the Knight Commander, whose position as a demon’s spy they’d been encouraged to keep secret.

But even between the three of them, they didn’t have enough for an elixir to restore Rainier’s arm. Some of the ingredients could only be found in the Duat, so even if they could afford them, it would have taken months - or the price of a soulstone - to transport them across the world.

When she’d explained the sheer price of all the ingredients Rain, laying in his bed, had given her a sad smile. "It’s fine, Kordia. Plenty of people lose arms... And now I have an excuse to practice being left-handed!"

She’d broken down in tears when he’d said that.

And again when she found his note, saying that Heaven had made a deal with his family.

A note saying he was leaving to be healed. That the deal would help his family.

That he was going to be fine, and she didn’t need to worry.

She’d thrown it in the fire.

"Liar."

****************

Two Weeks Ago

****************

Today, Kordia was going into the city, the Middle Ring, which was as far as she was allowed to go.

On her way out of the Academy, she ran into Lugh in the yard.

Like Rain and herself, he’d been confined to the city. Only his confinement was on orders from just the Acting Knight Commander instead of Chancellor Lumis, the Mayor, and the Maester of the Adventurer’s Guild.

He’d greeted her, then tried for the hundredth time to apologize.

"It should have been you," she said, not caring that his sister, Ann was there.

"I know," he replied as Kordia turned her back on him.

She was almost at the gate when Ann called after her. "Thank you!"

Kordia paused, the only sign she returned was a flick of her left ear; which any of her kin would have known as the equivalent of stern acknowledgment.

The walk from the Academy was long enough that by the time she arrived at her destination, she was wrapped in her thoughts.

So much so she didn’t notice the soldiers marching in double time as she stepped into the tailor’s shop.

Kordia never talked much about her clan. Revealing clan secrets was a taboo she wasn’t inclined to challenge. Amongst beastkin, the foxkin were known for being less traditional - almost as much as the catkin - but the traditions they did have were strongly held.

To challenge her mother, Kordia intended to do everything by the book, and that meant looking the part.

An hour after entering the tailor’s, she was dressed in the traditional white and red robes of her family when a skinny human burst into the building.

"You... Kordia?" they gasped.

"I am," Kordia answered, her eyes flicking over to the Adventurer’s Guild badge on their left shoulder. They continued panting as they spoke.

"Scrymessage-" "Guild Maester says-" "-urgent-" "-eyes only."

Kordia’s eyes widened.

She didn’t bother changing out as she left the building, hurrying to the Adventurer’s Guild as fast as she could go, even leaving behind the messenger who stopped with their hands on their knees saying "You go on ahead-" "I’ll catch up-" "Just gotta... rest..."

Kordia arrived on her own, sparing only a glance for the canvas and scaffolding that covered the building’s unfinished repairs.

A clerk asked her to wait at one of the tables in the main hall, which doubled as a dining area. She was only sitting for a short time before the doors to the mostly-destroyed arena section opened and a group of Academy students filed out, the Guild Maester visible behind them, talking to some adventurers Kordia didn’t recognize.

She was still staring when someone approached her.

"Ah, fair Kordia, it is good to see you here! I had hoped to glimpse your fair form and lo-"

Kordia looked up to see a skinny blonde boy. "Who are you?"

The boy gestured with an arm, wasting magic on sparkles. She wondered how much practice he’d had to be able to do something so trivial wordlessly. "But ’tis I, Claud! The most handsome man in the school... and one who is keenly aware that you are free of relationships at the moment. Perhaps you would like to join me and delve our mutual passions in a dungeo-"

"Not interested," Kordia said flatly, standing up.

As she walked away he cried out, " I had heard you were a demure and chaste woman! Yet one who could inspire many such as I to seek adventure. Where has your shy demeanor gone?"

Did he even know what he was saying? she thought, before remembering no one knew she’d been in a relationship with two men who also shared each other. A polycule, as Kir had called it. Pod, as she’d preferred.

Regardless, the Guild Maester was finally coming out of the doors, so she made her answer quick, turning to barely regard him with one eye before looking at his beginner’s badge.

"It died in a dungeon."

Minutes later, in the Maester’s office, Kordia’s heart raced as she read the message the Guild Maester had seen fit to deliver personally.

Maester Graz was a giant of an elf, broad-shouldered with the look of a warrior gone a bit to seed. He stared across from his desk, one hand over the other as he waited with elbows on the top and one of his assistants at his back.

"Kir’s alive!" she gasped, holding back tears.

The message had been simple. Kir was in Darlbridge, he’d fallen into dungeon that let out far to the south and had been making his way home with Stella and some people he met along the way. By the timing of it, he expected to be back by midsummer...

"Thank the gods he was smart enough not to put his name to the message. We can keep quiet for now, but make your reply brief and anonymous. And tell him not to reply. The last thing we need is someone from Araqlun breathing down our necks while we’ve got perditions opening up everywhere."

Kordia understood. As she’d learned deeply, Heaven’s involvement always came with a price. The less reason the city had to get them involved, the less they would pay in tribute... and Kordia had already drawn their notice.

"Thank you," Kordia said.

"Before you go," Maester Graz slid a coin across the table. Only it wasn’t a coin, it was a guild badge. One with every skill token but one in green, and the mark for magic in black. "This belongs to that boy. Whatever else he’s done, he’s earned that."

Kordia accepted Kir’s badge, remembering that only a few people in the city knew of Kir’s being a hybrid, and that the Guild Maester wasn’t one of them. The most people like Maester Graz knew was that Heaven wanted him turned over to them as soon as he arrived.

"Thank you, Maester Graz," Kordia said with a bow.

On the way to the Guild’s scribe chamber, she thought of what she could say to get across to Kir that he was in danger, without sending a message that would readily identify him. She couldn’t tell him not to come... if the Guild Maester found out, she would likely wind up even more restricted than before...

It was with an air of insufficiency that she told the scribe to send her reply.

Do not answer. Rain is gone. Heaven knows.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.