The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 228: Gun-Demon

Chapter 228: Gun-Demon

For the people dining at the long table of the Rosevine Hotel, Norneau was an unexpected opportunity. A chance to move up in a world whose fragile state meant many would sell themselves in order to live.

Thus, they’d brought a full workforce to sell to those who had had their city so recently burned, and it was with great shock that they received a promissory note from the Mayor himself, purchasing every last slave without even bothering to run an inspection!

Such a boon would hardly be considered a done deal until their ship was loaded with the gold and gone, but for the last few days they’d been treated as the finest guests, and recently they’d even visited the famous Norneau Academy - though in its rebuilt state it did not match the descriptions of its lost splendor.

"Say, Reginald, what is your opinion on the matter?" an elven man with orange-yellow hair asked the man seated at the front of the table.

"What matter?" Reginald Goldman, a human in his early hundreds - yet still in his prime thanks to his rank as a mage - asked in response.

"This ’Ghostheart’ fellow we heard so much about. We’ve been here for two weeks and he hasn’t made a single appearance."

"Likely just a myth concocted by the Breakers," Reginald answered, swirling his brandy before sipping with a light gasp. "I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Some angry little rodent gets it into their head to free a few vermin, then the rabble starts painting them up in lights and they panic and stop. Once we have the local guards under our control, we can root them out and then get down to some real business."

Across the table from him, a few of the local gentry and businessfolk sat chatting amongst themselves about what they would do when the next shipment came in. This dinner was, in part, to mollify them after the unexpected purchase of their entire stock, and Reginald smiled magnanimously whenever someone looked his way.

All of this Kir saw and heard as he peeked into the dining room from a rooftop about a hundred meters away.

After his meeting with Moshui, he’d arrived back at his house to find Stella waiting with a note. On that note was written the name of a ship, along with "The city has purchased and removed the people into asylum. Do not let that ship leave by next Stoneday."

He recognized Lumin’s handwriting. While clearly she meant to give him some time, and focus him only on the ship, Kir’s visit to the vessel had proven most informative. Which was why he was here after sunset, his glamour dispelled and his inner glow allowed to shine through his warform.

"What are you going to do about the locals?" Kiryu asked, interrupting Kir’s patient monitoring of the dinner as it unfolded.

"They wanted to do business with slavers. So they can face the consequences in whatever counts for an afterlife here."

"Everyone in that room wants to be a little tyrant. I’d spare the staff though."

"Of course," Kir replied. "Can’t have a tale about ’no survivors’ without survivors."

"Wait until they reinvent the selfie."

Almost as soon as this exchange of quips ended, a portly dwarven man burst into the room, his face covered in a sheen of sweat.

He approached the head of the table, where their leader, Reginald, sat. The man was grey-haired and brown-eyed, human-bodied, for all that he was inhuman enough to be a leader in his trade.

"There’s been an incident at the ship, sir," the red-haired, balding dwarven man leaned up to whisper. "Captain Turner is dead. Murdered."

"How?" Reginald asked, his voice devoid of emotion.

"The Guard didn’t say, only that he seemed to have been tortured. We still have the rest of the crew though."

"Get Merovan to find us a new captain. I will not have my business delayed."

"At once s-" SPLRAAT!

The dwarf’s head exploded, painting the wall with blood and ash.

Kir tsked. He’d been aiming for Reginald but the man’s shield had deflected the energy bolt.

He clicked the chamber of his rifle over, and three shots later each of the doors was sealed with ice, just as the screams began.

He managed to get two more slavers and a businessman before they got wise enough to shove the tables over for concealment.

"What is happening!?" One of the human slaveowners screamed, right before Kir switched to a different elemental effect - a cascade of pure sound that shattered the windows of the large dining room and every window for two floors above it.

Stunned, several slavers and slaveowners stood up in their disorientation, only to be picked off one by one. The woman who’d screamed went down with a single shot between the eyes.

Kir only took shots to kill. He didn’t want to compound the bloody deed with something as messy as torture.

What the dwarf hadn’t known before his death was that Kir hadn’t tortured the Captain at all. He had simply laid out his intent, and made it clear that as one who willingly carried slaves on his vessel, he and his crew would die this night. He had engaged in a brief contest of magic with the man, but ultimately the Captain had been too much of a mage to handle Kir in his war form.

But then the Captain had done something unexpected. He’d begged for Kir to spare his crew, because the choice of cargo was his alone.

Kir said he would, as long as they did not traffic in slavery, then killed the Captain with a swift decapitation using Kangetsu’s sword form. The collapsing body quickly drew sailors to the Captain’s quarters, where he allowed them a fleeting glimpse of himself before leaping through the window and onto shore, hoping he wouldn’t regret his mercy.

But for the people in the room, he had no mercy. They had wealth. Power. Comfortable lives built atop blood and suffering. And the more comfortable they got, the more others would wish to follow their wretched examples. The transformation of people into commodities...

Kir shot one last beastkin man in the back of the head, right as a squad of mages burst through the center doors, shattering the ice that had trapped the handles.

One point was all it took for them to spot him, and it wasn’t like he was hiding the gentle, pulsing glow inside his chest as he’d stood to properly brace for shooting.

As they began to gather spells, Kir realized that while he had taken pains to spare the building, they had no such obligations for the roof he was standing on.

It was time for him to make his escape, and so he leaped from the rooftop just in time for it to explode in a cacophony of debris and magic. He landed but was chased by spells as he bounded downhill towards the city’s outer rings.

Only one mage dared to rise into the air to chase after him, and as soon as his lightning spell struck Kir’s barrier, Kir turned and skidded to a stop. He switched to the seventh chamber of his rifle, spotting the horse beastkin man’s ready anti-magic barrier.

He’d been prepared for magic, but the bullet that took him in the head was a humble cone of lead, flying ahead of a puff of gunpowder.

With a flicker of failing spells, the man dropped, hitting the street with a wet thud.

Kir’s heart raced. No one was chasing him, but he could hear whistle calls going up from all over the first and second rings. Closing his eyes, he tried to reign in his senses as he began to suppress his mana as fully as possible.

As blood pounded in his ears, he began to hear murmurs and exclamations, and looking down he saw several late-nighters pointing up and staring.

Choosing that point to dampen his glow, he continued to leap from rooftop to rooftop, just in time to see a rocket-like flare in the distance as the Guard who had confronted him a few weeks back took off towards the first ring.

Guess Michelle’s going to have her hands full tonight.

*

His post-attack destination was a familiar one.

Corlwin’s magic shop might have burned down, but the basement was intact, and perfect for him to wait for his mana to refill before switching on his glamour and heading out.

A demon in war form disappeared underground, and a wolfkin in a clean white shirt and brown pants emerged.

Even in its partially constructed state, the former lower ring - now the third ring - had a lively nightlife going for it, completely unaware of the chaos in the upper city.

"Great shooting, kid. If it were me I’d have just bombed the place." Kiryu gave his assessment as Kir located the nearest mincemeat croquette stand and bought a handful of the meaty treats.

"What about the staff?"

"The people I would have bombed used androids most of the time."

Kir wound up coughing a bit into his first croquette, since he’d just bitten into it.

"You had androids? Seriously?"

"I didn’t. Rich people did. And not the sentient kind, either. Virtual intelligence, biometric software locks to make sure they only obeyed their masters. Couldn’t fit the greyware for true artificial intelligence into a body the size of a human’s."

"Having an android sounds pretty handy," Kir replied. "But I don’t think I’d want a humanoid one."

"Sure was. Until I learned what greyware actually was."

"What was it?"

The sensation of a sigh came across from Kiryu. "Let’s just say my enslavement was preferable to being made into that stuff."

"Oh," Kir said aloud.

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