The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 311: Meting Out - Confession

Chapter 311: Meting Out - Confession

As the sloth demon barreled through the town, Amarena gave chase... Which wasn’t much of a chase since she called on just enough of her mavenry to accelerate her into a jump that put her well ahead of the painfully slow demon.

"Bwa!" The demon panicked and turned, only to find Amarena landing in front of him again.

"Stop running. I’m not going to hurt you!"

"Noooo!" The nothrotian kept turning as he looked for a way out.

Villagers started to peek out of the buildings, a mix of fear and curiosity on their faces, lit by the perpetual morning sky. A few children started laughing as Amarena used short bursts of speed to herd the demon until their back was against a wall...

"Just hold still!"

"No-oooo!"

The nothrotian turned and started scrabbling against the stone. And a the building just above him started to shudder as a crack worked its way ahead of his claws-

"Ahhh!" Seeing that the ground was about to crumble from under her, a human woman grabbed her child and started pulling away before-

Suddenly the cracking stopped as the nothrotian wound up on his back.

Amarena held him above her head, her demonic features now obvious by her face as her hood fell.

"Quit struggling!"

"You’re going to hurt me!"

"I’m not going to hurt you!"

A group of villagers suddenly arrived, armed with fishhook and butcher knives, with the Mayor and the Sheriff at their head.

"Look Mayor, it’s like I said! They demons are conspiring," he paused with his hands on his knees to wheeze.

"Conspiring?! I just stopped him from wrecking your town!"

The building chose that moment to crumble, one wall falling free with several planks and exposing a man in his night robe. He hurriedly covered himself even more.

"Mostly stopped him," Amarena corrected.

"Knight Amarena, as you can clearly see the demon is dangerous. There’s no reason reason to delay a verdict."

"I don’t believe for a minute that he killed the Cliff Lord."

Suddenly the nothrotian stopped struggling. "I killeded him... I killeded bad man..."

"There, you see?" The mayor said. "He just confessed."

Amarena let the demon down and he just lay on his back, his thick, short limbs barely reaching the ground.

She looked at him, her hands coming to rest on Patience and Time’s handles.

"Don’t hurt him!"

A little girl with an arm cut off at the wrist suddenly broke free of the crowd, running up to the demon.

"Azalee!" A woman called out, but she was hampered by the crowd.

This is a farce...

"I have not yet finished my investigation," Amarena said to the girl, as she took her hands off her swords and placed them behind her back. "I need to ask him questions... little human." At least she assumed the girl was human... she could have been a teenaged dwarf.

The woman in the crowd finally broke through. "Azalee, it’s dangerous!" The woman was portly and dressed in plain clothes and an apron. The ocean breeze carried a strong smell of fish with her, but it could have just been from the villagers in general.

"Bawbo’s not dangerous! She is!" The girl pointed.

"Bawbo?" Amarena repeated to herself.

"Bawbo’s sad..." the nothrotian wailed.

The mayor approached the woman, "You were supposed to keep her inside."

"I tried! But she heard the ruckus..."

This is a fucking farce.

The murmuring of the crowd increased as Rena tried to take in what was being said.

"Why is the demon loose?" "She’s a demonkin, right?" "Bawbo killeded someone..." "Where’s the other Knight?" "You’re going to doom us all!"

Amarena honed in on the last line, seeing that it came from the Mayor, who was absolutely irate at the woman who’d just arrived at the front.

With a move stolen from the Gale’s favorite chef in Isegart, Amarena issued a thunderous clap, its force enhanced with mana.

"You," she pointed at the woman who was being accosted by the mayor, "What’s your name?"

"M-Margit, Madam Knight..." Margit kept her eyes firmly on Amarena’s badge of office.

"Margit... We did not speak earlier. Why were you keeping this girl away from me?"

"I-I" Margit looked at the Mayor, before swallowing. "She’s an orphan... I was just following orders..."

"Orders from?"

She looked at the Mayor again, and Amarena turned.

"You I will deal with later," she announced, before turning to the demon and the girl. "Azalee, right?"

The girl made a nervous sound and hugged the nothrotian.

This was a part of her job Amarena disliked. Getting testimony from children. It had occurred to her more than once, as she learned the strength of justice from Halie, that mortal children were much smarter than imps on average, even if they tended not to find a niche until much later. That meant they could be smart enough to hold secrets. Smart enough to lie believably.

She remembered little from her own time as a youngling, but she recalled violent days and guarded nights until she was acknowledged as Wrath’s daughter. This girl had that look about her. And with her missing hand, she would not have survived as an imp without reaching evolution - when the body could be restored... physically, at least.

Now that she got a good look at it, she noticed there were stitches still in place at the termination point.

"Azalee... I won’t hurt you," Amarena reiterated. "And I won’t hurt... Bawbo... either." Just saying the nothrotian’s name filled her with distaste. It was not a name fit for a demon... though sloth demons typically did whatever would get them the most food for the least work- No, Amarena couldn’t think like that. She needed to be impartial. And while abandoning years of learned prejudices was hard, at least working with Halie had beaten much of those out of her. "Not unless he did something very wrong."

The girl chewed her lip in thought.

Amarena didn’t have Halie’s talent for truth-reading - which involved quickly learning and observing the subtle motions of the face - but she had the basics down and was getting better. The face must match the words...

"He... he didn’t mean to. He was just protecting me because..." her voice cracked at the end, and her words fled her. She put out her arm, showing Amarena the full wound. Rough stitches had been done with fishing wire, but there were no indications of magical healing.

Having such a healer would have been a luxury for such a small village, and hard to keep since healers were in demand in every city and could make far more.

"I see." Amarena continued to crouch as she asked more questions.

She didn’t notice when the mayor left, but she did notice how Azalee was able to touch Bawbo without injury. Nothrotian were well-known for their wooly hair. It hardened into steel-like fibers when they put mana into their defense, allowing them to tangle weapons and cut any flesh that made contact. Most of the time they used it for passive defense, and not being the most mana-rich members of the demonic myriad meant that they were mostly left alone or used for menial labor, and their ability to extract mana from the hardy plantlife of Hell was their chief feature, which meant they could be paid in obsidian grass or wood...

The girl’s story was thus:

"I found him on the beach... the one by the cliff with a hole in it, but not a house hole. He was just sitting there chewing on some driftwood, so I sat down and watched."

"How long ago?" Rena interrupted to ask.

"Um... a month?"

"Go on."

"He wasn’t friendly at first... but I got him some nice driftwood with seaweed and he started talking! So I asked if he had a name and he said ’no’ so I gave him one..."

"Bowbo likes name..." the nothrotian said.

For the next few weeks, she hid Bowbo near the village, but since there were few trees, wood wasn’t readily available.

And one day, Bowbo came near the village.

"He was hungry... and it wasn’t like they was using them!"

"Using what?"

"The drawers and planks and stuff... the Cliff Lord just tossed them in a pile. So I went picking... but he caught me and... and..."

"It’s okay, I think I understand. Bowbo came to save you, didn’t he?"

"He shouldn’t have come... I was all the way down here when the Cliff Lord... took my hand. He hit him... hard... and he didn’t move. I didn’t want anyone fighting so I told Bowbo to go wait... in the jail."

"Bowbo waited," Bowbo said. "Bowbo didn’t get food."

"I’m sorry..."

"Bowbo okay. Azee eats, Bowbo eats."

Amarena’s eyes went wide, and her tail curled with interest. She took a look with manasight, a much closer look than before...

The girl’s mana, weak and white, swirled with the murkish pink of Bowbo’s slightly stronger mana...

"An unrestricted bond..." she whispered. Such things were dangerous, which was why contract magic was imposed on those who would bond a demon... How had this girl formed one?

"Bowbo... where did you come from?" Amarena asked.

"A mean place," the nothrotian replied. "Lots of demons... lots of pokies..." "They make Bowbo walk and walk and walk." "I ran away."

As Amarena processed this a realization struck her. She stood, just as the Mayor returned, menfolk with knives, cleavers, pitchforks, and one or two swords pushed the crowd back as they surrounded Amarena in a circle.

"Azalee, get away from the demons," the Mayor said.

"I know what you did." Amarena announced, looking at the entire village, taking in their scars, their scared faces... their pain. "What you all did."

"And that’s why you have to die," Rhappad said, gesturing the men forward as they raised their weapons.