The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 333: Outbound Flight

Chapter 333: Outbound Flight

When the world stopped blurring, Kir had to resist the urge to vomit as he came to rest at the very top of the tower.

He quickly looked around, prepared to dodge, but then saw that the Elevated were nowhere to be seen.

Of course... they must be looking after their peers.

"No one’s here," Amarena growled, clearly raring for a fight.

"That’s good for us, it means I can set up quickly."

"I’ll get the others."

Before Kir could reply, Amarena disappeared again, reappearing seconds later with Kordia and Kassin under her arms. She dropped them both before disappearing again and appearing with Moshui.

"Rena!" Kir said, grabbing her attention. "Is it safe for you to use your power like that?"

"As long as I’m not injured... it’s probably fine."

Kir noticed that her last lock of colored hair was growing white from the roots.

"Rena-"

"Just get set up. We need to leave before more of them get here."

"I need everyone here before I can do that. And I need to know where to aim us."

"Northeast!" Amarena disappeared again. This time, she was gone for longer until a dizzy-looking Bowbo finished vibrating up the stairs on his large, padded feet, Amarena pushing him from behind. Azalee was braced on Bowbo’s shoulder, and the moment she got off, she puked on the platform.

Encke wasn’t far behind.

"Everyone get behind me," Kir warned before reaching into his dimensional storage.

He extracted a hollow cube of nearly pure gold and stood in the center of the platform.

Construct magic was difficult for most because it relied the most upon understanding what it was that was being created. Simple concepts like holding, turning, and cutting grew far more complicated when one had to make magic mimic material properties, especially multiple differing ones.

But Kir had Kiryu, and so piecing together a ramjet engine had been simply a matter of encoding the proper formations into the cube that Kir now suspended over the glowing center of the tower’s mana accumulator.

With his mind guiding the process, he created a construct large enough to hold everyone. A massive flying wing that tapered towards the front in graceful, aerodynamic curves. Seats filled the space behind him, and Kir warned everyone to buckle in as the accumulator peaked and the circuit switched to powering the launcher.

As Kir walked forward, the construct and its cube went with him, and he paused at the edge of the northwest pylon, which was already accumulating mana. Placing his hands on the floor of the plane, he rendered its underside an opaque, glowing blue.

If you gotta go, go with style... He thought to himself.

"Everyone ready?" Kir shouted. They had twenty seconds until the mana building up behind him cast them into the air on an upward trajectory consistent with the incline of the pylon’s ramp.

Kordia had figured out the buckles and was helping Kassin.

Kir needed to take an extra moment to manipulate the construct into something Bowbo was comfortable with, before Azalee finally sat down and figured out her buckle.

Encke was practically laying down, her back to the wall, and Amarena...

Amarena stepped next to Kir. "I have no idea what this thing is, but you’ll need my directions."

"You can get up and move around once we’re in the air."

"I’m staying here."

The finality in her tone made Kir not want to argue. So instead he adjusted the construct to plant a seat right behind her, before taking his own.

"This part gets a little rough," Kir warned.

The accumulated mana pulsed, and then suddenly they were in the air, riding a beam of light and force high into the upper atmosphere as the launcher followed the instructions Kir had programmed into the logic cube.

Amarena braced and grunted for the entirety of the ascent, but it was from behind that Kir heard the excited yelps of Moshui, Kassin, and Azalee.

At 18,000 meters, their ascent ended.

"Stay seated, everyone, this is the rough part," Kir warned.

"What is?"

Kir sent the construct into a dive, accelerating them toward Ayther as he adjusted the squeeze on the ramjets. They were already close to the speed of sound, and seconds after the dive began, a burst of mist signaled when they crossed that barrier.

"Mach 1... Mach 2..." Kir tracked their speed with Kiryu’s help. "Mach 3..."

Fire burst into life behind the ramjets as compressed air ignited thanks to small bursts of true fire that Kir cast into the engines. The plane rocketed forward, its altitude now a mere four kilometers above the rushing landscape, and an eerie silence spread into the plane as its acceleration peaked and became constant.

Moshui broke the silence first.

"That. Was. AMAZING!" she shouted. "Ohmygods, the forces we just survived! I’ve never felt anything like it!"

Kir shed his war form and signaled Mimzy to resume clothing him. Now that they were at their cruising speed, Kir stepped out of the control room at the forward center of the craft.

"How fast are we going?" Kassin asked.

"About six times the atmospheric speed of sound," Kir answered.

"The speed of..." the young foxkin’s eyes widened. "How are we supposed to survive the landing?"

"I’ll land us when it’s time." He saw that there was a lake near the city, at least on Rena’s map, and hoped it would be enough.

Amarena emerged behind Kir, her face a little stunned. "You’re faster than me..." she sounded disappointed in herself.

"It’s not a contest, Rena. Besides, look at everything I need to mimic a fraction of the speeds you can reach naturally." Kir gestured around them.

Now that they were well out of sight of Norneau, he let the floor lose its light and become merely an opaque, dark blue.

"At this rate, we’ll hit the coast in about three hours. I need a map to adjust our course unless you want to guide us by landmarks."

Amarena pulled out her map and Kir went back to the front before he got to work, drawing the northeast line out of Norneau and then marking the northern shore of the lake in that direction for a turn of...

"Minus eighty-one degrees..." Kir muttered to himself as he made the floor in the pilot area clear. About two minutes later he set their course, and then returned to sit with everyone. It was a rough estimate, but they’d arrive on the evening side of the planet... not that it would matter that far north of Ayther’s arctic circle...

As soon as he informed everyone of this, a new mood started to come over his passengers.

"So... do I finally get to learn what’s going on?" Kassin asked.

"I’d really like to know as well!" Moshui said enthusiastically.

Encke crossed her arms and stared at Kir.

"I can tell you," Kir said to Kassin, "But I think you need to hear it from Kordia more than me."

Kordia nodded, standing up and sitting across from Kassin, which brought her next to Kir.

She settled in, holding his hand and webbing their fingers together. Once she was composed, she took a long breath, and started. "Three years ago..."

It was a strange experience for Kir, having so much of his life compressed in the telling. In places where Kordia couldn’t explain well, he filled in the gaps, but for the most part he remained quiet as he heard Kordia’s side of things with fresh ears.

Yet the more Kordia confessed the sadder Kassin seemed to become.

And when she finally concluded...

"You... really love them, don’t you..."

"I do," Kordia said. She’d spoken a lot about Rainier and Kir, and she even found nice things to say about Stella. Explaining the constellation of their relationships had taken more time than any other single issue, and had evoked ambivalence from Moshui, boredom from Azalee, and barely-hidden scorn from Encke.

Kassin had also been a little fascinated, but now he just seemed hurt.

"That doesn’t mean I would love you any less, if you really do care about me," Kordia said.

"You said I wasn’t ready... and you’re right..." Kassin looked down, pensively. After a long, awkward pause, he continued. "Mother warned me about this... that there might be... other people." He sniffed heavily, wiping his eye. "I thought if I loved you that would be enough... but... I..."

"It still hurts... I know," Kordia said, bending forward to reach across the space between them. "But if you’re willing to try, then we can still be together."

Kassin stopped sniffling and looked at her hand. If he rejected her here, Kir knew that it would only get harder for everyone moving forward...

Kassin put his hand in hers. "I’m still not ready... I think... I want to know more before I make a choice..."

"I’ll tell you as much as I can, as many times as you need," Kordia said gently. "Just remember I meant it when I said we are not jealous lovers."

Their hands parted, and Kir got the sense that things would be alright, even if they were a bit uncertain now.

Clearing his throat, Kir announced, "We’re about an hour from the city now... Yes, Moshui?"

Moshui had her arm raised and was waving for his attention from behind Azalee, who had fallen asleep in her lap.

"Now do we get to find out how you came up with all the weird knickknacks and this?" she gestured at the plane around them. "I mean... this is beyond any of the conceptual laws in magic. The constant thrust from those things alone..."

Kir grimaced, feeling Kiryu’s "gaze" sharpen.

"You know what I’m going to say." His past life warned.

"I need to tell them something... Kordia’s put up with this shit for years!"

"You want this cooperative relationship to continue? Tell them..." Kiryu gave Kir the least satisfying instructions on what to say, before finishing, "...and then go to the cockpit and have a smoke, because I’ve been a good boy and didn’t interrupt all the prime drama you and your constellation got into."

Kir sighed and stood. "That... is a story for another time."

Moshui’s visible disappointment made Kir feel like he’d kicked a puppy. But then Kordia comforted her.

"Don’t worry about it. I’ve put up with this for years."

Kir wasn’t in the pilot’s seat long before Amarena followed him in.

"Since when do you smoke?" she asked, eyeing Kir as he took his first pull from the kiseru he kept in his storage.

"Just once in a while," he said, noting her hand before passing her the pipe.

She took a long drag before sighing out, "I need to tell you what we’re up against... and who my teacher is."

"It’s Halie, isn’t it," Kir said. He’d made the inference after Encke joined them.

"It is... but... it’s complicated. I didn’t expect you to come to my aid so swiftly."

"I would do the same for anyone I love."

"I... thank you. But there’s more to the story than just Halie being my teacher... She’s the one who sent me south. To find you. To bring you to her."

"To fight for her against this... Satanos?" Kir let out a stream of smoke and accepted the pipe back.

"To kill her... before there’s nothing left to fight for..."

"Why?"

"Because that was the prophecy she gave me."

Kir bristled at the word. "No, Amarena. Screw this prophecy. I’m not going to kill her just because she said it had to be so." He took another pull of smoke. "I won’t even fight her. Not if there’s someone else to take care of."

"But-"

"I’m not getting led around on this one. I’ll buy you whatever time you need because I know you’ll figure something

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