The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 338: Rain Catcher

Chapter 338: Rain Catcher

Rain was still on his knees when he felt something sharp jab into his side.

He’d spent the night in uncomfortable, dream-filled thoughts, his body regaining all of the base mana it needed to sustain itself, before equalling out and rejecting the dense mana of the forest.

Instinct and training overran his depression as he realized he was under attack, but when he grabbed what had poked him, it was to find a young, now terrified-looking demon holding a stick. It was impossible to tell much aside from that the demon was an imp, and that it had dark veins that glowed where they bulged, and a growth on their neck that was clearly mana corruption.

"What are you doing-" Rain asked, unable to get the last word out before the imp turned and ran.

The child didn’t scream, which was more eerie somehow.

Rain pushed to a stand to find that those presences he sensed, the monsters or spirits, were still far. Why hadn’t they come for him?

Maybe they recognize me... from when we killed the titan ratatoskr.

That had been one of their first fights, and they’d had other Loyal and Honored Wings assisting them, including Iriel, the forger of Rain’s sword, Torrent.

Knowing he could easily just fly up to find his position gave Rain pause as he contemplated what to do. On the one hand, he could make his way back. But on the other, investigating a demon, and especially an imp, surviving alone in the Forest of Titans might take his mind off of... things.

His feet were moving before he made his decision, and he followed the trail left by the demon, slowly so as not to scare them.

He made it a few dozen measures before the imp darted from one tree to another, staring from behind the curve.

"I can see you, you know," Rain called out. "I just want to talk." In truth, he didn’t even need to see the imp to feel its presence through the rich ambient mana. Not in a precise sense, but enough to get a sense of his general vicinity.

Maybe the demon child just didn’t understand him, because a few moments later the child repeated their sprint to a different tree. And then again and again, until the ground started to slope down a bit and they sprinted downhill in an almost straight line, disappearing behind a dead tree that had fallen, the length of it split and leaning on the splinters of a trunk about three times Rain’s height.

And when Rain finally caught up he saw-

"Where did..." He looked around and down, still sensing he was near the kid. A thick curtain of vines covered the fallen tree as it tapered away, and further up he thought he saw the remains of a fire, only-

"Fwww-wt"

A sudden whistle drew Rain’s vision upward, and he barely saw the demon child before a net fell on him. One made of thick vines and weighted with rocks.

It was barely a distraction as he ripped through it, but enough so that the dozen demons hiding beneath the curtain of vines had a chance to surround him. Males and females both holding tools, sharpened sticks, and the odd dagger toward him.

Rain could have drawn his sword but instead he raised his hands slowly, stowing his wings. The demons surrounding him were mostly of similar stock, mostly humanoid and red or purple-skinned. One was yellow-brown skinned and covered in spinules that were white with dark tips. A pain demon, or some variation.

All of them had marks of mana corruption.

"Who are you? What are you?" the pain demon demanded.

"I’m..." What should he tell them? If he gave them his real name, then it would only cause trouble if somehow that got back to the angels. As much as he hated to lie, he needed to say something...

"Gale. My name is Gale." He’d wanted to say the first thing that came to mind, which was Kir, but settled for using his dead lover’s last name instead. "And I’m just a person, same as you."

"Ain’t never heard of mortals with white flesh and gold," the pain demon pointed out.

"I... I wasn’t born like this. The angels did this to me," Rain confessed.

"And you, what? Got away from them?"

Rain nodded. "I was forced to run after... something bad happened."

"Sciore, we should just kill him," one of the demons advised the pain demon.

"I don’t want a fight," Rain said. "If you let me go, I promise I’ll leave and no one has to find out about you. But you should head north or east for the coast. The mana here is making you sick. That’s why you have those growths."

"Sciore-"

"Quiet," Sciore snapped at the demon that spoke, before pointing his sword at Rain. "How are you still pretty then, hm?"

"I’m tempered, so I know how to resist the outside mana trying to get in. At least up to what this place has."

"Is this something you can teach?" Sciore asked.

"I could try, but I don’t think we have enough time for that."

"And why’s that? Someone looking for you, Gale?"

"I... don’t know. Maybe." Rain’s voice lowered as he wondered. Would Cassiel come looking for him? Would anyone? He was good, for an Elevated, but hardly essential...

"What do you mean ’maybe’?"

"I mean the place I came from, there’s a base far to the west or... maybe southwest. On top of one of the mountains. I don’t think anyone knows I’m here, but if they’re searching, that’s where they’ll come from."

The imp from before finished climbing down the vines a moment later, having spent much of the conversation hanging upside down and watching.

As soon as they reached Rain, they tugged on his pants and he looked down to find them climbing up his body, until they could peek over his shoulder at Sciore.

"Hm. Looks like she likes you, pretty boy."

"She? What’s her name?" He winced a bit as the imp started to tug on his blue hair.

"We’ve been calling her ’Bait,’ ’cause she’s good at luring us food. Imps don’t get proper names until they survive long enough to speak. Or evolve," Sciore said, before sheathing his sword. "Gather up. We’re taking him to see the Princess."

"Princess?" Rain asked as half the demons disappeared back under the tree, extracting bundles of vegetables, tubers, and the carcass of a crystalhorn stag, its half-formed heartstone placed back in the ribcage of the dressed corpse like a grisly jewel.

"It’s just what we call our leader. Maybe if she likes you, you’ll get to learn her name. Or she’ll have us kill ya," Sciore laughed and started walking, and Rain was pushed from behind by one of the demons, who held a butcher’s knife, into following.

It was impossible to tell how far they walked, silent in case of nearby monsters. Since the group followed a game trail that wound its way through the trees, the path included a lot of climbing, but after what felt like five or six great measures, they came to a halt at a cave formed beneath the roots of a particularly massive tree, beneath which a shambling village formed of mud-brick dwellings rested.

Demons paused in their tasks to look up at Rain, and the most normal-looking ones amongst them, those with the least amount of mana corruption, seemed to be half-demons. Based on the number of demons he saw, there were maybe about four or five dozen if he included the hunting group.

"Lemina and Scyl, you stick with me. The rest of y’all can go home," Sciore raised his voice to the group, walking backward for a bit. Then he looked at Rain. "Don’t try anything funny now, just because we splitting up." He looked at Bait, who continued to cling to Rain. "Go home, Bait."

The imp clung harder, shaking her head and half her body.

Sciore shrugged and led Rain past the largest of the structures, around it and to a rough garden, in which unfamiliar plants were growing in thick clumps, clearly trying to out-compete each other. To Rain, something about their appearance was... Hellish.

Tending to the plants was a young-looking demoness, who was hacking the thorns off of one particularly egregious vine, so focused she didn’t turn when Sciore approached. Her features were heavily spined, even moreso than Sciore, and as her spines pulsed to her agitation over the vine, it gave a bit of an impression that she could, like a rather tall porcupine, come to resemble a pincushion under the right circumstances.

That wasn’t to say she wasn’t pretty, there was an arrangement to her spines that left her face and the front of her body mostly clear, but it was clear that she was the dangerous sort of pretty that glistened at the tips of her quills with yellow venom.

Sciore stopped a few steps away. "Caught someone in the woods today," he cleared his throat.

"Was it Bait sneaking off with Zkalro’s laundry again?" she continued to hack away.

"Nah, someone that ain’t us, I meant."

That got her attention. She let go of the vine, which seemed to chase her hand for a bit, and stood, brow furrowing at the sight of Rain.

"Who’re you?"

"Calls himself Gale," Sciore said.

Princess shot him a look, before turning to Rain. "Can you speak for yourself, Gale?"

"I can," Rain replied.

"What are you? Some kind of palestalker?"

"I don’t know what that is," Rain answered.

"Says angels did this to him. That he just got away," Sciore interjected.

"This true?" she looked him up and down.

"Yes," Rain said. "Look, I know it’s not ideal, someone like me being here... but you’re all in danger just from the mana levels. If you head east or north for the coast, things lessen out in those directions and-"

"Thank you, for the advice, but I don’t make the decisions around here except in a fight," Princess replied. "You here for a fight?"

"No... not at all. But they said you’re a Princess."

That got her laughing. "And if the Emperor of Heaven or whatever spat you out his loins then left you to pick scraps on the street, would that make you a prince? I might be related to the Duke of Pain but that don’t make me a real princess, not least because Sciore thought it would be funny to say so."

Rain couldn’t help but quirk a smile. "What should I call you then?"

"Hold that smile, fellow stray. You can keep calling me Princess until we all get to know you."

Rain nodded.

"As you wish."

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