"Happy?...The fuck you mean happy ending?" Maruti shouts. She felt like she had just been scammed. Her shoulders slump in exhaustion.
Everyone knew the Demon King was evil, and she had been waiting this whole time to hear how he became evil. She endured all of Esdeath's painful history lessons just for that part, yet nothing came.
"It's a good thing that you were paying attention," Esdeath replies.
"Well... kinda a happy ending for a certain period. I don't have the full idea either. Maybe he turned evil after his mother's death. Or maybe because he wanted absolute power or something like that," she adds with a small shrug.
But inside Esdeath's mind, her thoughts were completely different.
"If this was before, I would've just blamed FLF for being a trash game... but now it seems Jeanne herself had no idea how her father turned evil. That's why she couldn't show it to me either," she thinks.
FLF was never actually a real game.
It was just something Jeanne created by manipulating Fable's mind in her previous life, making her believe she was inside a game world.
And since Jeanne herself didn't know how her father became evil, she couldn't pass that information to Fable either.
"Hm... useless story, but it did answer some things I was curious about," Maruti says.
"So systems are made by constellations... and demons are actually human hybrids? Half human and half demon?" she asks while thinking for a moment.
"Is that why they look so human?"
Esdeath lightly nods.
"Yes. The only pure demon is the Demon King. Meanwhile, the demon lords used to be humans, and their children are half-human and half-demon too."
A faint smile appears on her face.
"That's why it's pretty easy to manipulate people like Ethan by saying, 'You're actually killing humans.' Hahaha..." she laughs lightly, remembering her days at the academy.
Maruti also smirks a little.
But a moment later, her eyes move forward.
Far away in the distance stood a massive wall with a giant entrance gate. Behind it, rooftops of houses and tall structures could already be seen.
"Is that the Demon Kingdom?" she asks, pointing toward it.
Esdeath nods again.
"Yes. We'll reach there in half an hour," she replies.
She glances toward the sky on her right. The sun had slowly started rising, faint orange light spreading through the clouds.
Morning was approaching.
Soon enough, the sunlight begins peeking through the clouds completely. The cold early morning air brushes against them as Esdeath and Maruti calmly approach the giant gate.
Two demon guards were sitting there lazily.
"Where are you ladies coming from?" one of them asks while sitting on his chair.
"Went hunting last night," Esdeath replies naturally.
Instead of admitting they had come from far away, she purposely made it sound like they already lived nearby and had only gone outside for hunting.
The guard looks at them carefully, then glances behind them.
There was no corpse of any animal, beast, or monster.
"Bad day, huh?" he says.
Esdeath makes a slightly disappointed expression and nods.
"Yes."
"Could've just bought meat from the store instead," he suggests casually.
For a moment, Esdeath says nothing.
Then she calmly points toward Maruti.
Maruti looks slightly surprised, her eyes moving between Esdeath and the guard.
The guard immediately understands what Esdeath meant.
Bull demons usually preferred eating what they hunted themselves rather than buying meat from shops.
He lets out a tired sigh.
"My mother told me to choose my friends wisely," he says while turning toward the other guard.
"Open the gate for the ladies."
Maruti's lips twitch in annoyance after hearing that.
She really wanted to punch him.
But she couldn't start trouble here. Esdeath would definitely get angry at her if she caused a scene, so she had no choice but to stay quiet.
Once the gate opens, the two of them calmly walk inside without any trouble.
"Easy," Esdeath murmurs to herself with a mischievous smile.
Upon entering the kingdom, the scenery that greeted them felt... surprisingly normal.
Since it was still early morning, the streets were mostly quiet, but there were still people walking around here and there.
Some shopkeepers were opening their stores while stretching sleepily. Restaurant owners and food vendors were already busy preparing for the day, smoke slowly rising from cooking stoves.
The smell of grilled meat, soup, bread, and spices spread through the cold morning air.
Honestly, it looked almost identical to a human kingdom.
The only real difference was the atmosphere.
Most of the houses were made from dark-colored wood, almost black in color, making the entire city feel slightly gloomy even under the morning sunlight.
The stone roads were also a little dirty and slippery, as if heavy rain had fallen a few days ago.
But other than that, the place felt peaceful.
People casually walked around while talking to each other, except almost everyone had horns growing from their heads.
There were public bathhouses, entertainment areas with stages, taverns, even a red-light district.
Maruti's eyes also caught sight of a large academy building where magic, swordmanship etc was taught.
"It's basically a photocopy of a human kingdom," Maruti says while looking around.
Esdeath glances at her. "So what did you think it would look like?"
Maruti shrugs.
"Houses floating in the air like ghosts. Weird alien-looking creatures walking around. Demons eating raw flesh in the middle of the streets or something like that."
Esdeath lets out a small amused breath.
"You've got quite the imagination," she says calmly. "But demons are basically humans after all. They're intelligent too."
The two continue walking through the streets for several minutes, simply observing the surroundings.
Maruti slowly rubs her eyes.
"I'm feeling really sleepy. How about we rent an inn?" she suggests tiredly.
"I was thinking the same thing," Esdeath sighs. "But our gold coins are useless here. We're basically broke right now."
"How about selling the gold instead or essence stones?" Maruti replies.
Esdeath lightly nods.
"That's exactly what I was going to say. Come with me."
She starts walking ahead while Maruti quietly follows behind her.
After a short walk, Esdeath leads her inside a tavern.
The place was warm compared to the cold streets outside.
There were only a few customers inside, and most of them looked like warriors or monster hunters, similar to adventurers from human kingdoms.
Some were quietly eating breakfast with tea or coffee.
Others clearly didn't care that it was still morning and were already drinking alcohol while eating large chunks of meat.
The smell of roasted meat and strong liquor filled the tavern.
Esdeath walks directly toward the counter.
The owner himself was handling both the cashier work and serving customers. Beside him were his wife and another female worker moving between tables while carrying food and drinks.
The moment the owner sees the two girls, he raises an eyebrow.
"New here?" he asks casually.
"How do you know?" Maruti asks back.
The man chuckles lightly.
"I've lived here for years. Almost everyone in this city has visited this tavern multiple times."
He points toward a group of rough-looking adventurers.
"Even those adventurers who only come here twice a year."
Esdeath nods lightly.
"You guessed right. We came from Solaris, a small countryside village."
"The use of money is pretty rare there, so we don't really had much of it. The few coins we had disappeared like sand in hand."
As she speaks, Esdeath takes out a small rectangular piece of gold that looked almost like a gold biscuit and places it on the counter.
"That's why we brought this with us instead."
She looks directly at the owner.
"Can you exchange it for money? Of course, you can cut the payment for all the food we order and one day of rent for a double-bed inn."
The owner quietly looks between the gold biscuit and Esdeath's face.
Then suddenly—
"Are you a noble vampire by any chance?" he asks.
"Huh?" Esdeath blinks in slight surprise.
"Where did that come from?"