The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 428: The Jungle

Chapter 428: The Jungle

The flight north started like most journeys with adolescents, with Myrti asking question after question despite the bugs that flew into her mouth at nigh-regular intervals.

Rain answered none of them, but when she figured that out Myrti switched to telling him things about herself.

Her mother had been a captain, and she had never known her father. One of the other boys said her mother died because she killed one of Maledict’s warriors, but most of the people she’d been imprisoned with had been liars. They wanted her angry enough to do things they were too scared to do themselves.

Her mother always told her not to lie. And not to fight until she was strong, but Myrti was better with a bow than with "anything stabby."

She liked peppers but hated broccoli. She was good with a bow because she could sense where creatures were, but she had to turn her "light" off to shoot or she would get overwhelmed.

Before night could fall, Rainier alighted atop a small rise and Myrti immediately dropped, shaking her arms out and rushing away.

"Where are you going?" Rain asked sternly.

"I gotta pee!" Myrti half-shouted, her tail poking out from behind the nearest bush. Rain felt a bit embarrassed as he turned away. It had been ages since he’d needed to use a bathroom for more than showering; ever since his body had been taken over by godflesh.

Conjuring a greatsword with Manifest Arms, he began to hack away at the half-dozen trees that occupied the top of the hill. It was mindless work, and in short order, he had a lean-to constructed for Myrti to sleep under. The rest of the wood he de-limbed and chopped up, drying it with magic so it could be used as firewood.

Even this close to the equator, there was a noticeable coolness in the air. The stars were invisible behind the now constant haze of ash, but the shadowy presence of Hell could be seen with the occasional glow of red from the Eye of Hell, its largest volcano.

Looking down from the sky, Rain poked at the fire, making sure it would keep Myrti warm. He didn’t need it.

"Why don’t you like to talk?" Myrti asked as she lay on a bed of leaves covered by a robe Rainier had drawn from his storage bag. It was a question she’d asked about a dozen times during the flight and one that returned almost as soon as the sun was down and he told her to lay down.

"Go to sleep," Rain replied, continuing to prod the fire.

"I can’t sleep... I hardly did anything today."

"Try."

Rain’s request bought him less than an hour of silence. Enough for the last rays of light to disappear and his thoughts to collect...

"I can’t do it," Myrti whined. Not asleep, of course.

"Why not?" Rain asked.

"Because you keep distracting me. Your light wants out but it keeps getting dark and then you keep trying to ignore it and not have anything in there but the light’s still there and that’s why it’s all shadows and-"

"Stay out of my feelings," Rain hissed, ignoring her babble.

He pulled his mana close, imagining it hardening and shielding him. Blocking out any touch.

"Now it’s all gone..." Myrti said, her voice sounding slightly muffled. "What did you do?"

"What I can. Now go to sleep."

Freecasting. Imbuing mana with will and pushing it out into the world. It was more effective with narrow effects but still costly. He guessed he could keep the shield up for only a couple of hours without another force acting on it.

Rain’s ideas about shields were tied to physicality, and so some of it came through in how his spell manifested, blocking sound slightly because it was also blocking air. There was still air inside the shield though.

He sat with his thoughts, hearing the occasional restyle from Myrti’s side of the camp. Watching the jungle was not particularly stimulating. On this side of the world, spirits and monsters were culled with some frequency, their heart stones taken to fuel Heaven’s unsatiable desire for mana.

Though he hoped the innocent people of Araqlun would survive, with Heaven fractured, the cullings would stop, and perhaps the world would grow as dangerous as Diurnus. That continent had been a preserve. A place for spirits to live and grow powerful for the harvests... and he’d been a harvester of them, before his fall.

When Myrti started to snore, Rain let his improvised shield go, feeling a slight rush of mana that made him realize he’d been blocking it too.

As midnight neared, Rain fell into a sort of meditation, one where he tried to keep from thinking about all that happened to him, focusing instead on the mission and what Maledict might want.

The tower near Dorred had looked small. Janice hadn’t seen fit to let him investigate it first, which meant there were likely already agents in place to investigate it. That indicated Maledict, or she, wanted him going in blind, perhaps to compare his insights with those of demons or other mortals sent to investigate.

Demons and angels alike were less knowledgable about dungeons because for the most part they’d never risk going into one.

Beings that weren’t manavores were more resistant to the high mana levels found at deeper levels of dungeons - where the most valuable manifestations of those high mana levels could be found.

She mentioned "inversion." If the dungeons are inverting into those towers, does that mean the crystal towers are made of mana?

It was an interesting thought, but one Rainier wasn’t overly able to investigate.

A sudden realization occurred to him. He was able to investigate, not by virtue of what he knew, but by virtue of not being a demon. He wasn’t just heading out to verify another tower’s existence, he was likely expected to get close to it. And that meant going into Beastport.

It was a city that made its claim to fame by capturing, taming, and exporting beasts of the jungle and beasts of the dungeons - be they animals, monsters, or spirits. The Academy had owned more than a few specimens thanks to Beastport trappers.

A frown quirked across Rainier’s face as a new thought occurred. It would have taken Janice mere moments to tell him all this, but she’d withheld information. Was it a test? And if so, was it Maledict testing him or Janice?

Demons had reputations for in-fighting whenever things were going well, but he’d seen little of that in the nation of Heresy... but then again, he wasn’t a member of that nations. He was an outsider. A thrall.

Maledict’s ownership of him kept him safe, but ultimately, he was a traitor.

And anyone marked as a traitor could not be trusted, no matter their principles.

Especially when those principles had their source in idealizing Heaven, as he’d already confessed to Maledict when he laid his life bare.

A part of him shriveled inside at the thought of what he might do to disprove those ideals to his new hosts.

He’d have to be more demonic than most demons. A caricature of a fallen angel, even though he was only a half-angel.

It roiled his stomach even to try to think it, and he knew that such a lie against himself would drive him insane eventually.

But also, there was one thing he intended.

One selfish, exploitative thing, for which he’d brought Myrti.

He turned to look at her, only to find her staring at him.

When did she stop snoring?

"You’re awake again," he sighed.

"If it’s after midnight, that means it’s morning, right?" she popped her neck as she sat up. "I felt you think about me... Something bad."

Rain held his tongue for a moment. He did say he’d talk to her in the morning, but he’d hoped for just a bit more time to figure out how he would go about that. Without that preparation, he defaulted to the truth.

"I brought you with me to use you, Myrti," he said.

"What for?" she pulled her legs up to her chest, her voice giving away a quaver of fear. And yet she didn’t sound surprised.

"I... need a messenger. Someone who won’t just turn around and go to Maledict... and someone who can tell me what some people feel. In exchange, I might be able to teach you enough enhancement magic to keep you safe from regular folk. And I will make arrangements for you to travel."

"You want to send me away?" she asked, the fear still in her voice.

"It would be a chance for you to escape. To have a life far from Maledict."

"I don’t even know who Maledict is. I mean, yeah, he’s a demon, and he made me a demon, but it’s not like my life changed much because of it. I was already an outcast because I can’t help but feel what people are feeling."

"Can you tell me what I’m feeling now?" Rain asked.

"You’re warm, but you’re trying to be cold. Ugh, it’s hard to explain. It’s like you’re making yourself feel things and that always feels weird to me."

"I’m being what I have to be," Rain said, "to ask a child to run halfway across the world alone."

"I’m not a kid! I can take care of myself!" Myrti pouted. "I just want to figure out where I belong, and I thought you’d get it because you’re, like, an angel living with demons. And you don’t feel like a bad person."

"I am a bad person," Rain said. "The worst kind."

"No, my dad was a bad person. I got that just by feeling how much my mom hated whenever he came up. She thought she was a bad person for hating me sometimes, but she thought the same about herself because she slithered closer to the royals to keep me fed. We barely ever talked, but I always knew when she was going back and forth over herself the same way you’ve been doing all night!"

"Shut up!" Rain’s whole body clenched. He felt violated. Not to the same degree as when the angels had compelled his obedience, but to the degree that the contents of his mind had been trod upon by-

No. He forced himself to calm down. He knew she was an empath—maybe more—which made her useful and likely to survive.

"I’ll give you a choice. You can take my offer and be my messenger, or reject it and I’ll cut you loose in Beastport or bring you back to Dorred, whichever you want. No matter what, I’ll take the consequences..."

"I-"

"But," he interrupted, doing his best to harden his heart, "you stay out of my head, or at least don’t talk to me about it. And while we’re together, you do exactly as I say when I say it."

Myrti glared at him but finally nodded. "When do I leave?" she asked bitterly.

"When you’re ready," he replied.

"And you’ll teach me magic? You said I’m a maven. Only mages get magic."

"I’m going to teach you body enhancement magic. Everyone can do it to some degree if they try."

"When can I start?" the girl’s mood visibly brightened, given away by her tail.

"Since you’re already up and full of energy, you can start now." He pointed with the stick he’d been using as a poker. "Start doing laps around the camp."

A groan escaped Myrti’s lips. "How many laps?"

"Until I say stop."