The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 329: Inbound Fight

Chapter 329: Inbound Fight

After shaking the reporter and making his way back, Kir was crossing into the Third District when he saw it.

A crowd of people, gathered near the Adventurer’s guild, watching what looked to be some sort of fight.

It wouldn’t have been the first time adventurers got into brawls in the streets, but what drew his eye from the bus was the mountainous figure that looked nothing like a giant, with a girl perched on top.

"Are trolls a thing? Because that looks like a troll," Kiryu asked.

"How should I know?" Kir had never come across mentions of trolls as members of the Myriad, but perhaps they were a sub-species of demon like-

Demon?!

Kir got up and looked more closely at the fight.

The "troll" wasn’t so much moving as vaguely swaying about, as if deciding whether or not to throw a punch despite the three adventurers poking at it. But then the troll turned and fighting off the harassing adventurers was a tall, blonde elvish woman of amazonian-

"Mom?!"

Kir ignored the exclamations of his fellow riders as he jumped from the open-air top of the bus and sped towards the fight.

The situation got only more muddled as he neared. A group of - by all appearances - slaves were standing around in and outside the double doors of the Adventurer’s Guild, and sheltered in the middle of them were...

Mother? Amarena?! What were they doing here, together? Why were they unconscious?

Approaching from behind a trio of adventurers, Kir grabbed two of them by the heads from behind and pulled until they were both on their backs. The third turned to Kir, only to receive a wolfish growl that made him abandon his friends and run.

With her mace-staff, Darlae uppercutted a bearkin man before turning. Her body and eyes blazed with mana, and as soon as she saw Kir closing, she scoffed. "I see they’re bringing out the big guns."

"Wait, Mom-!"

Before Kir could finish, her greaved shin connected with the space between his legs, hard enough to break his anti-kinetic shields on their way to his groin, and then hard enough to lift him off the ground in a kick that made half the crowd wince and groan.

While Kir was still catching his breath, Darlae raised her staff. Even if she was clearly not out for blood, Kir knew firsthand how badly it would hurt to get hit by that staff.

At the last moment, he dodged, rolling continuously until he got enough distance to push to a stand.

Darlae, tethered to the people she was protecting, jumped back well before Kir stood, and she kept her head on a swivel enough to bat away an attacker before returning to the biggest threat, him.

"Any other tricks you want to try?" she readied herself, a shield bubbling around her form.

"Just one," Kir put his hands to the sides and surged his mana-

SPRRRRR PRRR PRRR!

Sudden bursts from the whistles of the Watch interrupted Kir’s thoughts as he cast his spell, surrounding the area with a triple layer of latticed shields, forming an opaque wall of hexagons in blue and white that shoved the crowd and attackers away.

Instinctively, Darlae launched a spell at Kir - a bolt of fire - but it impacted the wall and was dissipated harmlessly.

"Smart. By rotating the shield you can minimize damage to sections, spreading out attacks."

"Amongst other things," Kir said, right as some enterprising young guard stuck his sword into the shield only to have its point immediately filed down. Kir had it rotating fast enough to generate the illusion of relative stillness, a drain on his mana to be sure, but worth it given he’d been enduring years of innovative attacks from his students.

"What’s going on here?" a shout from above announced the arrival of Kir’s least-favorite Guardswoman-turned-Inspector.

I bet the next thing she says is that she’s not surprised.

"Professor Nasumi, why am I not surprised?" Michelle scowled as she landed mid circle.

"Nasumi..." Darlae said to herself.

"I have the situation in hand, Inspector. You can flutter off somewhere else," Kir shouted up.

"In case you haven’t noticed, there is a troll in your vicinity. That means this is my situation to handle as a proxy of Heaven."

She sent a burst of fire toward the demon and Kir lifted one of his shields into the path of the blast.

Michelle swore and tried to get a new angle, only to be frustrated as Kir tilted and shrank and maneuvered his spinning shield into every shot.

Darlae, catching on that something else was afoot, stood down somewhat as she watched the interplay of spell against mavenry, before meeting Kir’s eyes.

"I’m afraid you’ve come at a bit of a bad time for demonkin in the city," Kir spoke in a low voice, using Michelle’s attacks as cover. "Professor Kiryu Nasumi, at your service, Mrs. Darlae Gale," Kir winked.

"Kir...ryu.." She stared into Kir’s eyes for a long moment before her face puffed up as she suppressed a laugh. She failed, and her outburst froze Michelle into hovering.

"What the fuck is so funny?!"

"Ahahah! Hahah! You don’t... you don’t even know..."

A sudden scraping sound against one of Kir’s lower shields made him look down to find the "troll" had started to bite into it. Kir distinctly saw the slight black edge of anti-magic on his teeth as he munched into the shield Kir had let stop.

"Tasty..." the demon said.

"Enough of this farce!" Michelle shouted, raising her hands to produce a massive, concentrated ball of true-fire.

Kir snapped the shield he’d been using around her, forming it into a perfect sphere that cut her off from the magic feeding the fireball, causing it to dissipate.

"You mangy mutt-faced bastard! I’ll burn the fur off your hide and tan your skin for gloves!" She put a fire-bearing punch into the spinning ball, only to come away with a scraped hand.

"Careful with that fire, or you’ll run out of air to breathe!" Kir shouted back up at her. He was letting some air in, enough that maybe the jets of flame at her feet would burn through the available oxygen only after a few minutes.

He let down his other two shields, and the city watch took a few tentative steps closer.

"Professor, ah... is everything alright with you and the Inspector?" a ferretkin sergeant who approached Kir asked, eyeing the troll who seemed disappointed to have lost his snack.

"Just a minor disagreement..."

"I’ll shove a fireball so far up your ass your skull will be my bedside lantern!" Michelle continued to batter at the shield wall holding her.

"... one that won’t be improved by this situation."

"Well, ah... technically she’s not Watch or Guard no more so..." The sergeant shrugged. The Watch and Guard were largely interchangeable, even though the former tended towards carrying more weight.

"I’m taking these women and the demons into my custody," Kir said. "Consider it a citizen’s arrest."

"Officially I’m supposed to stop you, but it’s not like I could," the sergeant was one of those who was well-versed in staying out of the way of highly-ranked mages. "Mind telling us where you’re taking them so’s I can tell the Captain?"

"My house, and perhaps a healer’s depending on their needs."

"Right. We’ll, ah, stay out of your way. Looks like they brought a fresh batch for liberation, and that’ll be a lot of paperwork already..."

Leaving the slaves to the city’s defenders, Kir walked over and checked on Brigit and Amarena, ignoring Michelle’s increasing vitriol as he bent to inspect them.

Amarena had a wound on her chest, and while there was no apparent injury to Brigit, she was unconscious and breathing shallowly. In manasight, she was clearly very depleted, enough so that she’d likely drained her body of its every reserve...

"She hijacked a teleporter to get us here," Darlae explained as she lifted Brigit. "She hasn’t done that in centuries... But she should be alright in a week or two."

Kir had a lot more experience over the last couple of years with both mana overages and mana exhaustion, and from what he saw, there might be damage to her well that could take longer than Darlae thought.

Amarena was in worse condition physically, and the wound on her chest somehow looked both recent and old. But more concerning was her hair, which had gone stark white except for a single lock of her original color.

As Kir lifted Amarena, a slave came forth and tapped him on the elbow.

"This was hers," the dwarf said. "Please thank the Knight for us when she wakes."

Kir knelt to accept the breastplate as it was laid on Amarena’s body. At its corner was a badge he vaguely recognized, but far more elaborate than the one he’d seen long ago. The badge of a Valrian Knight.

As they were about to leave, a sudden shriek of mana and sound caused Kir to look up. He saw Jassiel carving Michelle free with a sword of black. A sword that the angel pointed down at Kir as the shield spell died behind him.

"Drop the demon, beastkin, or face Heaven’s wrath," the Executioner threatened.

"This demon is a Valrian Knight," Kir shouted back. "I will ensure her custody until she is able to tell why she is here."

"The Valrians would never appoint a demon-" Michelle started to advise, only for Jassiel to raise his hand.

"Silence, servant. You’ve already interrupted an important task of mine," the angel scowled.

Task?

Without a word, Kir continued to walk away, but then Jassiel flew in front of the group, spreading his wings as far as they would go.

"By rights, I can kill you for defying me," he sneered, holding his sword up and pointing it right at Kir.

"Can you?" Kir asked, meeting his gaze. "I’m sure Jeviel will be quite pleased to hear you went rogue in the middle of a city, tried to strike down both an Archmage and a Valrian Knight, as well as innocent women and children, and then got your ass handed to you by a beastkin with his hands full."

Jassiel bared his teeth. "Insolent cur! I’ll-"

"You’ll do nothing without your uncle’s permission and we both know it. So grow some authority or get out of my sight."

Kir was deeply into bridge-burning territory here, since the opinions of the crowd were not likely to come out in his favor, but he didn’t care. He needed to get Amarena and whoever the "troll" demon was under Lumin’s protection fast, or get them out of the city. And with half the crowd already glaring or eyeing them with fear, the latter was probably the more likely, even if he could spin an excuse that satisfied the majority of people...

"This isn’t over!" Jassiel declared, taking off and turning towards Heaven’s Embassy in the northwest. Michelle took off after him a moment later, leaving only a shocked and confused crowd.

"I hope your house is nearby, because we’ve got a long story to tell you, son," Darlae said.

"It’s about ten minutes away by bus," Kir sighed.

"Bus?"

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