The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 367: Place Of Pride

Chapter 367: Place Of Pride

In the Knights Hall of Isegart, Kir stood before what remained of the Valrian Order as eight Knight Elders shouted him down the moment he stopped speaking.

"Out of the question!" "We don’t need your help, demon!" "It’s a trick! The moment we let them in, they’ll kill everyone that remains!" The five old men shouted while two out of the three old women elected to frown down at Kir. The last one slept.

Eight heads without a leader meant that it was a while before the room calmed, and Kir waited behind the small pulpit placed before them, trying to control the agitation he felt from the tips of his horns down to his tail.

Aside from the nine leaders, Rena stood at Kir’s elbow and the rest of the room was filled with Knights, city guards, and prominent city-state citizens.

None of them seemed enthusiastic about his proposal to have demons helping to rebuild the city. Nor did they seem to appreciate the lengths he’d gone through with Char to ensure that discipline would be strictly handled if the city agreed.

Kir raised a single hand for silence, but it took a citizen standing and issuing out a single, thunderously loud clap for him to receive it. He looked to find a balding human standing with a stern but respectful look on his face. The man motioned for him to proceed before sitting.

"That was uncalled for, Julian," one of the Knight Elder women said, before the attention of the room turned back to Kir.

"Elders," Kir began anew. "I did not have to come before you offering peace, and with everything that is happening in the world, I must act quickly." He sighed. "And so this is the last time I will make this offer -"

"Go back to your own kind, cannibal!" a voice from the crowd shouted.

"Ee do not want it," Elder Ahern, an old elf with hair of silver stood. He was the only elder in armor, which rattled a bit from the effort of his standing. "Isegart will rebuild itself. As it always has, and always will. Until the day Valria returns in glory."

The judicial pulpit behind which Kir stood shattered under his hands as his emotions got away from him. "I am trying to do what is right!" he shouted. "And if you can’t put aside your prejudice, then so be it. Freeze for all I care."

That silenced the room.

"Whoa, Kid, take it easy. Can’t expect people to greet you as a liberator just because you killed the guy who was trying to kill them," Kiryu said in Kir’s head.

"A little gratitude would be nice," Kir shot back, before turning and stomping out of the room, his tail lashing the broken podium and knocking it over.

The last thing he heard from the elders was "Knight Commander Amarena, please remain."

Alone, he made his way out from the citadel and into the shattered city.

The grey, magic-shaped stone buildings were bunker-like and largely intact to his eyes. They became more conventionally medieval the further away from the citadel he got, and throughout the city, citizens picked through fallen structures trying to gather supplies and artifacts.

The largest articles went to the city squares, while citizens helped each other by taking personal goods to small piles that were marked for such. There was a disciplined air, with no signs of looting. But as he passed, he saw their fear. He heard silence kill every conversation.

At the first square, he spread his wings and left the ground with a single flap, before sailing over the city and toward the camp almost two kilometers away. Below him, demons and myriadfolk alike picked through the dead, keeping a respectful distance from each other as they gathered, while larger crews took bodies away to be burned or buried.

Sometimes, they even helped each other untangle the corpses, before going their separate ways.

Kiryu continued from where he left off. "Don’t get me wrong, Kid, I know you’re trying to do something good. But it’s fine to take what you’ve got and go. Leave the diplomacy for after they clean the blood off the streets."

Kir let out a frustrated huff, feeling he’d wasted the last three days of his life on the effort. It didn’t help that Kordia was avoiding him, and Amarena was in such high demand that she hadn’t been allowed much sleep.

The elders Kir had just spoken to were the dregs of what had once been a robust command structure. And that was entirely the fault of the Valrians. They’d wasted their leadership on sorties to repel the demons from the walls. Then another to hold the middle-city. And lastly to assault both Kainur and Halie when their fight brought them to one of the city squares.

Only two of them were century mages, from what Kir could read by mana alone, but it was obvious that they were out of their depth and therefore cleaving as closely as they could to what they knew.

And what they knew was that Pride was the nemesis of Valria.

And now that Kir was Pride...

"Welcome back, my Duke," Char greeted Kir the moment he landed at the center of the demon’s camp. "I take it you were successful?"

"No," Kir replied, irked by the notion that his new rank amongst them meant they automatically assumed his success. "Have everyone start to pack, and prepare to head south."

"It will be done," Char stood, gesturing at her servants, who started walking off in different directions, before she squared her gaze with Kir’s. "There are demons waiting for you to host your court, my Duke. I have had your tent kept ready, if you are willing to receive them now."

Kir immediately hated the idea.

"It might be useful to get the lay of the place. Figure out which demons do what before you start issuing orders." Kiryu advised. "But yeah, I hate this royalty shit too."

Kir took a long breath. "Fine, show me."

Char led him to the largest tent, which was luxuriously warm inside thanks to the braziers at regular intervals. A highly impractical throne lay front and center where he entered, and the grass on the ground approaching it was clear of demons, the majority of whom stood to either side, watching and waiting the moment Char announced his entry.

"Hail to the Duke!" she shouted. "Hail Kir Satanos!"

Kir suppressed the urge to flinch at the name he’d inherited, as the gathered demons saluted and hailed him.

He towered over most of them as he stalked forward, before turning and sitting on the throne, which he found strange because it seemed covered in depictions of beastkin carved into fine redwood.

He was halfway to the throne when he heard a sudden cry from his left, and a demon with a collar around his throat rushed him, clutching a knife with both hands.

The moment the knife contacted his shield, Kir saw that the blade was enhanced, its iron ensorcelled to break through even magic as layered as his.

Against a normal shield, that would have been enough, but Kir’s shields were always made of sectioned hexagons, and the assassin’s wrists were caught as Kir shifted three of those hexagons together, trapping them. A shift of the hand and he lifted the demon - who seemed barely an adult - off the ground, dangling him in the air.

No one in the crowd moved. There were no cries of surprise.

"Who are you?" Kir asked the assassin, whose face had filled with fear the moment he failed, while plucking the knife from his hands.

"He is a slave, Duke Satanos," a demon replied, and Kir turned to find a large demon, the size of a giant, staring across the room and down at him. "One of Char’s."

"I’ll rip your tongue out and flay you with it, Hazzarn!" Char hissed a challenge at the demon, who smirked back at her, but Kir raised a hand for silence, ending their spat.

"I asked who you are," Kir said, his eyes boring into the demon whose life he held in his hands.

"I-I’m sorry, Duke Satanos... I-I..."

"What’s your name," Kir asked, more gently.

"I-I don’t have one..." he stammered.

Kir reached up and grasped the collar at the slave’s neck. He surged his strength with mana, putting all of it into his fingers as he pulled until the iron snapped.

"You are free now. Leave this tent, and choose a name you like."

Kir let the demon go, and he dropped to his knees, looking not at Char but at the giant demon who’d spoken earlier.

"No one is to harm this demon," Kir announced.

The demon bolted from the tent as Kir continued to the throne, before turning and sitting, his wings relaxing behind him.

Everyone in the tent had their eyes on him. Char, now the subject of accusation, remained standing where she’d halted in the middle of the tent. She knelt as soon as he regarded her.

"My Duke, the slave is - was, mine. But I swear I did not-"

"I know," Kir said, beckoning her forward. "How many slaves are there in... my domain."

"Perhaps a thousand here, my Duke. More with the civilians we left in Nyandor..." She approached, keeping her hands where he could see them.

"Contracted?" Kir asked.

"Most are not," she said. "Contracting is expensive, and the contracts do not hold up well without a bearer or mana vault to maintain them. Without knowing where my - where the previous duke," she corrected herself "kept the contracts that are now yours, it is likely we will not be able to know for some time."

Kir turned to the crowd and raised his voice. "Have all slaves brought outside the tent. Move as much of the camp as it takes, and make sure none of them are harmed before they arrive."

As many demons rushed to obey, Char swallowed, her body stiff as her eyes searched his for any hint of intent. But at long last she asked, "What am I to do?"

"You stay here," Kir answered, his tail curling around the throne as he regarded the most powerful demons who remained where they were, watching. A silent declaration that he was not safe.

It remained to be seen who wanted to serve, and who wished to replace him.

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