The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 141: Siege Town

Chapter 141: Siege Town

Something dark echoed within Kir as he heard those final words from the General.

A sense of resonance with his prior life.

Dark knowledge.

Pervasive evils wrought of greed and oppression, carved into a stagnated society... One that saw power only through destroying those who tried to break free.

And he remembered the sense of a responsibility to... someone... some people... But they had to stay hidden... like an underground nation...

"I need a fight," Amarena growled, shoving herself away from the table with enough force to make it shift.

"The sparring grounds are on the west side of the camp," Sreev said. "Do not kill anyone."

Amarena turned without a word and stomped off. Noir tried calling after her but quickly gave up.

Kir couldn’t blame her for wanting an outlet. Not after what had been revealed. He looked at the blood on the table and pushed away the sense that he knew why it was there. What had clicked in his mind might not be true, after all... But she’d known a lot about Forbiddings...

"Young Master," Sreev turned to Kir, "May I inquire as to your intent, now that I have apprised you of the current situation?"

The others at the table all turned their eyes back to Kir, though Litty reached awkwardly and pulled the plate out of the way, before plucking up a slice of meat and popping it into her mouth.

"I have things I need to take care of in that city, as soon as possible," Kir said.

"May I inquire as to what those are?" Sreev raised an eyebrow.

Kir took a breath to look at Noir, remembering his oath. "I have a score to settle with the Syndicate. People to see... and we need rest."

"Ah, those people. People like them are why we use contracts to protect those of us who visit this world. Whatever your score to settle with them is, it sounds as though it won’t be good for them... But be careful, the syndicate is associated with several angelic choirs. We are trying to avoid the notice of heaven until the right moment." Sreev once more bridged his fingers together. "Are you willing to wait here for the next few days or weeks? The siege will conclude soon, and I would be remiss in allowing you to remain ignorant of your condition..." His eyes flicked down to Kir’s glowing chest.

"I cannot," Kir said, worried about getting back to Kordia and Rain.

"You are welcome to rest here, in the camp. I am sure your father will want to meet with you after his mission is completed in the city."

"Maledict is in the city?" Kir asked, reigning in as much of his shock as he could. The need to return to his lovers gained gravity inside of him.

"He has a mission there. Until he reveals himself, we hold the siege. I will not say more." The General shifted a bit. "I apologize, but your ignorance of your arcane condition is like an allergenic to me. I know I don’t have the authority to detain you, but would you at least remain until tomorrow? I feel compelled to educate you..."

Kir was surprised. He’d thought, perhaps expected, something more insidious or at least political could come up... But the General was holding himself like a teacher who just heard a student say the world was flat.

"I would favor it, but I’ll ask my companions," Kir said, looking around the table. Lacking Amarena, the consensus seemed to be a tepid willingness to follow his lead. The exception was Stella, who enthusiastically wanted to stay for reasons that Kir chose to think of as being homesickness-related. He just hoped demons didn’t have a capacity for sexually transmitted infections.

"It seems you are in agreement," the General said with a look of relief on his face. "I’ll need a few moments to get ready and tell my replacement she will be on duty for longer. There is much you need to learn. Please send Litty if you have any issues before I return."

Standing and bowing, the General left the tent, along with his vampiric Captain, who gave Kir once last look - with what he hoped was not a smouldering gaze - before following him out.

Litty, who had stood for the General’s exit, sat once more. "Sorry if the General was a bit pushy... He tends to go into monologues when it comes to magic stuff, so he was really holding back..." She awkwardly plucked a cat spine out of the mess of cooling meat and broke it into bite-sized pieces.

"Gnossinians are all like that for whatever shit they like," Stella whispered to Kir.

Says the half-gnossinian excited to research magic for sex...

Kir’s emotions were mostly rebalanced at this point. After all, it wasn’t like he’d had a strong connection to Maledict’s rule or people... But they were still people. He couldn’t fault them for finding a way to fight back against Heaven, not after learning what Heaven was after, but at the same time attacking Norneau seemed an odd way to go about it.

Part of him felt ashamed for feeling so distant, but the political tragedies of Heaven and Hell didn’t quite feel like something he had a stake in, not when he was barely returning to dealing with his own tragedies.

There was context he was still missing. Contradictions that he still didn’t understand.

Perhaps if he’d remained in the Academy he would have learned more from its library, but circumstances hadn’t allowed it... but the first thing he would do once he was back was make up for lost time.

With his appetite long since fled, Kir stood. "I’d like to see more of the camp."

It was more of an excuse than anything else, but Litty was more than happy to be his tour guide. Before they could leave, however, Noir pointed out that Sam needed a rest. Indeed, they seemed a bit overly stressed by the whole situation, and so their first destination ended up being an infirmary tent on the far southeast side.

Most of the demons in there were suffering from wing injuries, and even then it was more of a place for waiting until the healer mavens and mages could see to them. Thus, aside from the dirt floor and whatever blood it had absorbed, the tent was relatively clean and they even had a soft bed for Sam to lay on.

The healers seemed a bit surprised to see Aytherians, but Noir agreed to stay with Sam and make sure they were okay while being checked.

Kir and Stella continued their walk, with Litty talking the entire time even though Kir very quickly lost track of the conversation to sink into his own thoughts.

The voice had called what was happening to him "part of the process," so Kir hadn’t delved too much into understanding what the deal was with the glow in his chest, and eventually it had slipped out of his thoughts. What did it mean to fuse body, mind, and soul?

He thought back to his first encounter with a monster... a crystalhorn deer. It was also the first time he’d been tempted to eat mana stone. Were his insides the same now? How far did his ’condition’ have to go before it finished?

He almost didn’t realize when they arrived at the General’s tent, until Litty explicitly said so.

"And this is General Sreev’s tent," she smiled.

Outside the tent were a pair of guards at the entrance. One of them looked at Litty before turning to Kir. "State your business," their voice was low and rough.

"Knock it off Dennis, you know if I’m here then the General wants to see him," she laughed nervously.

"Hm," Dennis replied humorlessly, "Front area only. You’re watching him."

Him? What about- Kir turned to find that Stella had disappeared.

As soon as he followed Litty inside, he asked, "Where’s Stella?"

"Oh, she left a while ago. When I showed you the cubi tent..."

"Oh."

Kir checked his bond with Stella. Through it, he could sense building waves of distant lust.

Almost immediately he let go of the bond, leaving Stella some privacy. Now that he thought about it, before the dungeon, he’d been highly susceptible to the bond, unable to resist feeling it. Now, he had more control. He could still feel it if he looked for it, but he could also choose to not feel it, and realizing that made him wonder just what was happening to him.

He wondered if he could break the bond without possession of the contract... Give Stella her freedom...

In less than five minutes, the General arrived.

"Young master, thank you for agreeing to stay," he gestured Kir deeper into the tent, letting Letty open the flap to the living space. A comfortable but spartan arrangement of furniture had been added, built for utility over style or comfort. The one exception to the rule was a gargantuan four-poster bed that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a gothic horror film, and it was so out of place that Kir couldn’t help but stare.

"My staff insists I take good rests when I exhaust myself," the General said when he noticed where Kir was looking. "Sleep is fascinatingly scarce in war, but it does help sort the mind..."

"You wanted to speak about my magic," Kir decided not to waste time. "I haven’t exactly had the time to study lately, since I had to fight my way out of a dungeon from the bottom up."

The General’s jaw dropped, before he swallowed heavily. "Letty, please return to the command tent. What we are to discuss would represent a deadly risk to a mage at your level.

Letty looked like she wanted to stay, but after a moment she replied, "Yes, General," and turned on her heel.

As soon as the flap of the tent close, General Sreev pulled a mana stone out of his own dimensional storage and placed it on a small device that was resting on the desk.

"No one will hear us now," he said, looking at Kir with fascination. "May I ask... how deep was the dungeon?"

"More than twenty floors. Maybe twenty-five, not including dead ends," Kir answered. "Why?"

"Because I am wondering once more where to begin... Unless you lost a magic tool that helped you, I have trouble understanding how you are even alive right now."