The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 205: Escape Clause

Chapter 205: Escape Clause

After thirty minutes of showing Stella how to properly hold an aim the rifle, for which she needed to shapeshift into a longer-armed form, and another five minutes figuring out how to mount the semi-indestructible contract on a tree - Kir had to use his claws to carve a slot for the scroll stick - Stella was finally ready to shoot.

"Alright, first charge it with mana," Kir instructed.

"Feels like the thing is trying to suck me dry, and not in a good way," Stella said.

"That’s just Kangetsu getting used to you. Now, focus your mana on the topmost bullet." He put his finger at the top of the revolver.

"Okay, I feel it... but there’s some kind of barrier?"

"Once you feel the barrier, it’s ready to be shot. But if you can push mana past it, you’ll get a more powerful shot. If you focus a bit, you should recognize a small hole where mana can pass through. Try it now." Kir watched as Stella focused more of her mana, managing to fill thirteen out of the one hundred layers in the bullet. It was impressive given he had only managed to cap out at fifty-one in a dry-fire test.

The exponential nature of each round meant a one-hundred percent charge would probably be equivalent to his Nova Blast at around five percent of its power, but with far more mana used. But it was the "elemental" effects he’d designed the rifle for that were the point. That, was a need for precision and deniability when it came to his casting technique. Putting mana into a weapon would obfuscate his methods and deliver consistent results without having to form the spells, saving valuable time.

It would also let someone like Stella cast spells they didn’t know, since all the caster rounds needed was mana, at least once he’d explained each bullet to them. He gave her a brief overview of each bullet, and let her select the first one she would use.

She went with the plasma bolt; charging it as far as she could go.

"When you’re ready, line the dot and the very top of the barrel sight up with the contract, and pull the trigger."

A charging sound not unlike that of an old camera sounded. "Trigger... that’s this thing, ri-"

SHREee~

The bolt of pure, plasmonic blue light shot from the rifle, blasting a hole in a tree to the left of the contract and setting it on fire.

"Haha!" Stella cackled. "Holy shit that was more fun than I thought!"

"I’ll go take care of that," Kir smiled and patted her on the back. "Then we can try again." He took one step towards the burning tree before he remembered, "Oh, and aim it at the ground if you aren’t going to shoot. Safety and all..."

For Stella’s second shot, she wound up pulling to the left again. This time Kir simply gathered water over the tree and sent it in a ball at the flaming trunk. A quick adjustment to Stella’s footing and grip followed, with Kir crouching a bit to sight along her arm, and Kir was confident she would hit it.

"Good, now use the tip of your finger instead of the middle on the trigger. Breathe out..."

This time, the bolt landed dead-center. A cascade of magic compressed around the contract as it sucked up the available mana to try to shield itself. In the end, the bolt wound up dissipating more than a meter away from it, but there was some clear damage to the spell from what Kir could see in manasight.

"So that’s how that works," he scratched his chin.

After a half-dozen more hits, Stella was at her limit. "Okay. I give up. It was a nice gesture, but I don’t think I’ve got what it takes to break this thing..." She panted, clearly drained.

Kir, who had kept track of the damage to the contract’s shield, could tell that she could damage it, but cracking through completely would take many times her current output of mana.

He’d designed the bullets to be charged for each shot, which would save him a lot of headaches and money by avoiding the use of mana crystals to hold pre-set charges.

If only there was a way to let Stella use his mana instead of...

A smile drew across Kir’s face as he bent to whisper a new plan to his familiar.

Ten minutes later, Stella broke through all the shields in a single shot.

"Haha! I did it! I finally fucking did it!"

Kir lifted his head from between her legs and turned, admiring the shatter-point she’d made in the layers of shielding, reaching all the way to the center of the contract where a slowly burning hole was blackening its way through. Oddly, for some reason, the contract seemed to be gathering mana as the damage grew.

"I’m so proud of you," Kir smiled, standing up.

"Aww, shucks... Although the contract’s not completely broken yet. I can feel that much..." Stella paused pensively. "It’s funny though... I was expecting more of a bang."

"A bang?" Kir raised an eyebrow.

"Yep. Everyone always said Maledict rigs his contracts to explode when damaged. Guess they’re-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Kir grabbed Stella and started running from the slowly burning contract. His prior experience with destroying a contract had involved forces that would have carried any lesser explosion far away, which was not a function he’d anticipated needing.

The way out of the forest had a few drops in elevation, and as soon as he found a small dip of about three meters, he jumped into it and pinned Stella against the berm.

"What’s the big idea?!" Stella shrieked as soon as she was covered by Kir.

"You said Maledict’s contracts explode, right?"

"I was about to say that’s just a rumor, you knucklehead! Why would anyone actually-"

BOOOOM

Overhead, a gust of air and debris began to shoot past them as the initial concussion of the contract’s detonation tore a large chunk out of the forest.

Stella’s complaint became one long scream, and Kir put up four layers of shields to protect them both, feeling it as the first three layers shattered from the impact of a whole tree that scraped by.

In a few moments, it was over, and Kir popped his head up to find that they’d quadrupled the size of the clearing and left a crater about a quarter of a kilometer across.

A moment later, Stella popped her head up to check on the damages, then quietly reached to hand him Kangetsu.

Kir took it without looking and shoved it into his storage. "We better go."

"Yep," Stella said.

"Think Lumin will find out about this?"

"Yep," Stella said. And then, "I won’t tell if you won’t."

"Deal."

Even as the two of them hurried back, Kir felt a lightness between them, evidenced by Stella’s smile.

"How are you feeling?" Kir asked as he kept to the road, suppressing his mana as much as he could in case someone was watching for mages.

Stella had resumed a disguise, this time going for an orcish version of herself. "It feels good to be free," she said, lacing her fingers with his.

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