The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 65: Recruited

Chapter 65: Recruited

As soon as Lumis said "Enter," the door cracked open and a tall, broad-shouldered man in a gambeson stepped into the room.

"Kir Gale, meet Sir Cael Dunn, Vice-Commander of Norneau’s Arcane Knights, Sir Dunn, meet Kir. He’s the prospect I told you about."

"Demkin, eh?" the man - a human - smiled at Kir and offered a hand to shake. Kir took it and received a vigorous wrenching of the arm, along with a firm, testing grip which he countered with his own squeeze but did not escalate. "Strong arm. Good." He took his seat. "You know what they say," he released Kir and spoke to Lumis as he took his seat. "Any hand against Hell is worth shaking."

"Not all of your compatriots see things that way, Sir Dunn. I would like to know that Kir will not receive... undue attention should he be allowed to shift his courses as I indicated."

"What changes?" Kir asked.

Lumis cleared her throat. "Obviously given the seals on your abilities, you will no longer be able to participate in the standard magic courses. So I’ve arranged a new schedule that would be more in line with what you are capable of at this time." Lumis reached, opening a drawer and presenting Kir and Sir Dunn with copies of his new schedule.

It showed, quite simply, that he would retain his usual mathematics and history courses. The rest of the day simply said "Arcane Knight Training."

Sir Dunn raised an eyebrow. "I’m sorry, Chancellor, but is this some sort of joke? I understand he wasn’t sealed as a criminal, but no mage has ever elected to spend this much effort in joining our training without, well, being expelled."

"It is no joke, Vice-Commander," Lumis said. "As you are no doubt aware, the disturbance at the Guild was caused by the appearance of the Demon Breaker. What you are not aware of is that this young man was responsible for the majority of the damage to the Guild, as well as the explosion in the lake about a month ago. Given the upcoming war, what Halie has essentially done is take one of our most powerful potential pieces off the board." She looked at Kir. "This is the best I can propose without having to resort to special treatment. My contract with the Academy forbids me from doing much more."

Sir Dunn’s jaw dropped.

The way she emphasized the word told Kir that it had to be more than a simple contract. That also partially explained why she allowed so many students to skip their first year of basic courses.

"What if I don’t accept this?" Kir asked.

"Then you will no doubt suffer both in performance and evaluation here. At least until you quit, or cannot afford tuition," Lumis said simply. "I don’t think I need to remind you that those dueling bands on your tail will not deter others from trying to provoke you. I’m of a mind to ban dueling altogether, but as there is not yet a Heavenswar, I would need more cause than one student’s vulnerability to get past the Board of Directors."

Sir Dunn leaned back a bit and looked at Kir’s tail. "Five duels. Not so bad for a second year."

Kir twitched a bit self-consciously, aware that the school’s arena marked students with black lines for victory and red for defeat. The magic marks only stayed within the city’s bounds, though some students got tattoos over them to make them permanent.

"He’s a skip, Sir Dunn. Kir has barely been here a month and already he’s beaten seven other students, most of them at least one year ahead of him."

That made Sir Dunn’s eyes narrow. "Well now, that has my attention. I can’t promise there won’t be trouble, but I can assure you he will be trained. The rest is up to him to earn his peers’ respect."

"Assuming I agree to this," Kir said, scowling slightly.

"Regardless, I’ve already taken you out of all the mage courses for your safety," Lumis said. "You have until the day after tomorrow to decide. I’ve spoken with your remaining professors already."

The day after tomorrow meant he’d only have one day of classes since both his math and history courses were on the same day.

When no other topics of discussion came up, Kir stood. "If there’s nothing else, Chancellor Lumis, I’d like to head back to my dorm."

"There is one last thing," Lumis said, reaching back into her desk and extracting a stack of papers. "Give these to Kordia and Rainier. I made sure the guild arranged a rank commensurate with their performance."

"What about me?" Kir asked as he accepted the stack. Even if he had to figure out how to become capable without casting, he didn’t want to be left behind.

"Sir Dunn will be given your paperwork. He or the Knight Commander will decide when you are able to risk yourself on such mercenary work. Until then, you’ll just have to be satisfied with visiting the city’s labyrinth once a month."

"Once a month?" Kir asked. He had thought he wasn’t going to be allowed at all.

"Arcane knights train in the labyrinth in groups," Sir Dunn explained. "Provided you aren’t a complete slouch in physical combat, you’ll be assigned to a group and put into the rotation."

Kir’s hopes rose a little. Even if he might not get to adventure with Kordia and Rainier yet, he could at least have the city dungeon as a common experience they could share.

"Oh, and Mr. Gale, you may want these before you depart." Chancellor Lumis reached into the air above her, pulling out Kir’s wingbone daggers with one hand around both hilts. She placed them on the desk. When Kir tried to store them, however, the shock of pain from his seals made the task impossible.

He had to settle for carrying them. "Thank you," he said briefly, bowing slightly to boh before making his exit.

As soon as he closed the door, he heard Sir Dunn’s voice.

"Seems a bit ungrateful. Is that his attitude all the time?"

Lumis sighed. "He’s had a rough weekend. Would you be in the best mood if the world’s strongest woman beat you to within a hair’s breadth of your life?"

"Tell me more about him..."

Kir walked away, not feeling vain enough to want to hear what was being said about him behind closed doors.

Since it was the last day of the weekend, the halls were pretty sparse. He stopped by the cafeteria for water and breakfast, sighing when he realized he couldn’t do his normal coffee experiments anymore.

He found Rainier still asleep when he entered, and quietly pulled the night stand over so he could put his food on it. While he chewed through fruit, he ruminated over his options.

"Gosh boss, what’s got you so down?" a tiny voice from above interrupted Kir’s thinking. His familiar, Stella, descended from her bat form into that of a petite student, complete with school uniform. She hardly looked innocent even in her ambiguously human/elven/dwarven form, given how openly she wore her blouse. Being a succubus, Stella could have been very problematic if not for Kir’s restrictions on her.

"How long have you been up there?" Kir asked.

"Let’s see... Long enough to see you come in, pass out, and disappear while I was asleep," she stretched her arms above her head. "Girl’s gotta conserve her strength... but... uh... is it just me or are you running on empty?"

Kir sighed and showed her his ears. "I don’t suppose you know how to get rid of seals written in angelic script?" he asked.

Stella climbed up on the bed. "What the Heaven... wow you are fucked," Stella said as soon as she got a closer look. "What uptight prick did you manage to piss off?"

"Someone named Demon Breaker Halie," Kir sighed.

"Wow. I haven’t heard of her in decades. Thought she was dead or something." Stella poked at one of the piercings and both of them received a small shock for their troubles. "Fuck! That hurt!" she said.

"No shit!" Kir said, trying to shush her. "Keep it down."

"Fuck... serves me right for forming a familiar bond with the world’s dumbest half-demon..." she started rubbing at her chest. "That explains the weird pain in my dream... thought I was discovering my masochistic side but no, that was you, wasn’t it?"

Kir didn’t want to waste time on Stella’s kinks, so he focused instead on what she said earlier. "Stella, I swear if you can give me anything that’ll help me find Halie I’ll... let you get a partner."

"Partner?" she blinked at him.

"You know. A boyfriend or girlfriend. Or someone who’s nonbinary," he explained.

"Non-what?" she tilted her head.

"Never mind. Do we have a deal?" Kir asked.

Stella narrowed her eyes. "Two. One of each."

"One," Kir said, holding his ground on the basis of wanting to limit whatever chaos Stella could cause.

"One and a half!"

"How the hell can you partner with half a person?" Kir asked.

"Don’t need the top half for what I want, heheheh," Stella joked before their eyes met again. "Guh... fine! But I get to pick!" Stella huffed.

"Why would I choose for you? I don’t care who you hook up with, just make sure it’s consensual," Kir emphasized.

Stella rolled her eyes. "As if any succubus worth her tail would stoop to forcing someone. Lust given freely is less work for me."

Kir did not even want to start with that.

They shook on the deal.

"Now... tell me what you know about Halie."

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