During the time Nanoda and Himmel went to the Church of the New God to borrow troops, and then afterward rushed toward the Kinton domain—
"Heehee! I should've run far enough away by now, right?"
Chased by terror, Aura had run for a full day and night, fleeing all the way from the Northern border down to a small town at the very top of the Central Lands.
The girl who used to collapse from exhaustion after running a mere thousand meters had, thanks to years of training under Nanoda, become something like an athlete.
"Good. Now let me take a look at how things stand in Gaderia!"
Aura was curious—with the Hero's arrival this time, which side had ended up living, and which dead.
Her mana stretched out along the way, reaching to connect with the familiars she'd left behind in Gaderia.
It had to be said, Aura's skill at manipulating mana ranked among the very top even within the Demon Race.
A super-long-distance Mana Link was no great difficulty for her.
In Gaderia at that moment—
Threads of Killing Magic, fine as silk, shot up into the high sky. An ordinary person couldn't possibly track them; they'd only feel a flicker of light and blink, dazzled.
On the road toward the research institute, Qual, having cleared away the last familiar, had meant to use its residual mana to trace back and investigate whose handiwork it was.
Then he watched as Aura's mana came rushing in from afar, circling and searching, and—having failed to find its link target—flew back again.
"Heh heh." Qual split his great fanged mouth into a wicked grin, wickedly at ease.
"Just who the hell destroyed my surveillance?!"
Aura was getting a little frantic. Without that long-range monitoring, she had absolutely no idea what was happening in Gaderia now.
To go rushing back would be like offering her neck up right in front of the Hero.
And her surveillance being destroyed made it all the more suspicious.
No. She absolutely could not go back.
So then? Maybe hide out somewhere for a year first?
And secretly gather some intelligence!
Once Aura decided to go, she went—without so much as a backward glance she plunged once more into the central region of the continent.
The magic that conjured a black cloak.
This was a spell she'd wheedled out of Nanoda. If a member of the Demon Race wanted to travel discreetly, they had to hide the horns atop their heads. The humans in other lands were nowhere near as friendly as those in Gaderia and Weise.
A week had already passed.
Demons are abandoned by their parents from the moment they're born.
That was the commonly held belief among humans. In truth, even the Great Demon Aura had no idea how she'd come to be—by the time she had consciousness, she already existed in this world.
She had long grown used to journeying as a lone demon.
Boots pinched in her hand, the soles of her feet breaking the water's surface, treading the pebbles beneath the stream—one step, one leap, spinning and springing—Aura was as graceful as if she were dancing.
"Waah!"
A little fish suddenly darted past, its slick, cold touch, and the dancer on the water stumbled at once—splash—falling into the stream.
"Splish-splash!"
Her purple hair trailed flung droplets of water, like a lotus rising fresh from the water.
Aura, face scrunched sour, spat out a mouthful of stream water and shook her head back and forth a couple of times.
Once she confirmed there was no one around, she leisurely and gracefully rose to her feet again.
Fishing up the pair of boots she'd lost from underwater, Aura carried them and walked step by step to the far bank.
"Heat Magic."
Wisps of hot steam rose from her sopping clothes and boots, and Aura gave a shiver.
Arms wrapped around herself, she came to the rocks on the bank, and just as she was about to put her shoes back on, she saw an extra little fish flopping around inside one of her boots.
The scene shifts.
Night. A crackling campfire, a fish grilling on a rack of branches—apart from the sound of dripping fat, only scattered fragments of moonlight remained.
Aura sat on a little stump, swinging both feet, head tilted as she gazed up at the boundless starry sky.
After setting up a simple magical alarm, she covered herself with an enormous leaf and fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning, she couldn't shake the feeling that the morning sun was growing hotter and hotter.
Perhaps it was because of the night wind that had suddenly kicked up—
An unbelievable sight appeared before her eyes.
Aura stared blankly for a moment at the fiercely burning forest.
Stepping over the teetering campfire and stamping it out completely, the expressionless Aura slipped away as fast as she could.
Running once more past that stream she'd fallen into, Aura vanished into the woods that the flames had not yet reached.
Another two days passed.
At last, faint signs of living creatures registered within her Mana Perception.
A small town, the kind you'd find anywhere.
Aura didn't even know which Central kingdom this little town belonged to.
Right now she badly wanted to just use the Magic of Obedience to take this town, and have its people gather intelligence on Gaderia's current situation for her.
What she didn't expect was that, not far off, another group of "demons" came riding on black horses, clad in bizarre armor.
The reason to call them demons was that they all sported identical sharp horns atop their heads, radiating a ferocious aura without the slightest restraint.
But at their very front rode a middle-aged human in broad, heavy noble's garb.
"Don't tell me this town's going to be done for today?"
No sooner had the words left her mouth than the gate guard stopped that human and the "demons" behind him, agitated, muttering something under his breath all the while.
The middle-aged noble merely waved a hand, a black horse swept past, and the gatekeeper's head parted ways with his body.
Aura, watching from the bushes, was taken aback—this was the town she'd had her eye on.
Just as she thought to step out and handle the problem, Aura suddenly felt something was off.
Why should she go meddling in other people's business?
No, wait—she was a Great Demon of the Seven Sages of Destruction. How could she simply hand over something she'd set her eyes on?
Having spent so long with Nanoda, Aura felt she really had changed. Things she once wouldn't have given a second thought to, she now actually hesitated over.
Those few "demons" were very wrong. Their mana was pathetically weak, yet they obeyed a human's orders.
"Wait…" A new idea suddenly struck Aura.
As she was now, she couldn't harm humans, and there wasn't much fun in simply enslaving them outright with the Magic of Obedience.
Let them slaughter each other. The stronger side could become her subordinates.
Aura didn't realize this was malice—she simply thought watching such a good show would be rather fun.
Seeing that whole party enter the town, Aura listened to the screams within, glanced at the round, blossoming-red human remains, and strode through the gates of hell.
—
"Demons! There are demons!"
"Where are the guards?! Someone, come quickly!"
"I've twisted my leg! Somebody help me up!"
"No, please—don't!"
Shriek after shriek. Merchants toppled onto their stalls, staining their wares red; passersby fell in every twisted, contorted heap, everywhere you looked; guards rushing to the scene were trampled by the charging warhorses, or skewered through the throat and flung by lances thrusting down from above.
This batch of "demons" riding black horses trod over fresh corpses, transformed into blood-soaked butchers.
"Hahahahaha! That's right! Demons! This is all the wicked work of demons! They coveted the ore beneath your feet, invaded this place, hollowed it out—how pitiful! Innocent people dying just like this! And I—I, the lord of this land, truly—boo hoo hoo hoo hoo! How it grieves me!"
Weeping and laughing all at once, impossible to tell whether he was an opera performer or a madman, the noble man astride his horse grinned wide and shed tears!
Inside a single-story house—
A boy tried to poke his head out to see what was happening, why it was so lively outside, only to be pressed down by his father's large hand.
Beside them, his mother crouched, trembling ceaselessly, murmuring over and over in a low voice, "It's alright, it's alright."
"Child, go out the back door now, take this food, and run toward wherever there are no people—run fast. Whatever you do, don't look back. Best if you make it out of this whole town! The farther the better!"
The man slung a bundle stuffed full of homemade dried fruit over the boy's neck—it had originally been meant for the boy to share with his classmates at school as a treat.
"But what about you, Papa, Mama?"
"Papa and Mama will be right behind you, protecting you."
Atop the town's tallest clock tower—
Aura, blowing in the faintly bloody noon breeze, watched the scene below with an expressionless face.
After watching for a while, she found this grand show wasn't to her taste.
The disparity in strength was too vast.
Those "demons," all garbage in her eyes, could still effortlessly send the town's ordinary guards toppling over in rows.
Human despair suffused everywhere—yet this was not the kind of despair Aura enjoyed.
For the first time, Aura found a battle somewhat boring.
From participant to bystander.
"Still, I have to admit—boring as it is, humans really are rather interesting."
Her gaze lingered on that human noble.
Perhaps the executioners were those "demons," but the one giving the orders was a human.
The victims amid the screams all laid the blame on demons—including on the very culprit who had caused it all.
Still, those voices cursing the demons left her feeling somehow uncomfortable.
"Pat, pat, pat." Hurried footsteps pulled Aura's thoughts back.
The Magic of Obedience was long prepared; she set her gaze on the clock tower's stairway.
A boy with a small bundle slung over his shoulder came panting up, gasping for breath.
Just a little human.
Aura didn't even deign to lift a hand.
"This is my turf. Get lost, now."
The cold words made the little boy flinch. "Um… I'll share my dried fruit with you—could you let me hide up here too?" He reached into the bundle and pulled out a small handful of bright red dried fruit, each piece about the size of a thumb.
"Hide?"
Humans really had no eye for things.
Aura, draped in her black cloak, resisted the urge to pull back her hood, strolled up close, and looked down at the human whelp.
"I'm not afraid of those down below."
"Then—then I'll give you all my dried fruit! Could you—could you go help my papa and mama?"
The boy untied his bundle and spread all the dried fruit out before Aura.
"The dried fruit my family makes is the tastiest in the whole town."
Whether to call it pure or naïve—in Aura's eyes, it was simply stupid.
"On what grounds?"
"I—I've given all of these to you!"
"What makes you think this counts as a bargaining chip?"
"I—I'm sorry, ugh." The boy held back his tears, a look of dejection on his face. "I'll go down now."
Just as he was about to gather up his bundle and leave, Aura stepped on the edge of it and, plucking up a single piece of dried fruit, swallowed it whole.
"Did I say you could take it away?"
"Wahhh! How can you be such a mean person?!"
Such an act struck a massive blow to the little boy's tender heart, and he could no longer hold back his tears.
"This is mine. And the lives of those fellows down below are mine too."
Aura smiled. She'd already been somewhat annoyed with that pack of "demons" below, and now she suddenly discovered that bullying a human whelp now and then was actually rather fun.
The little boy still didn't seem to grasp the meaning behind Aura's words.
Then he watched as Aura scooped up the dried fruit from the ground, slung the bundle straight over her shoulder, and with a burst of speed leapt right off the clock tower.
Such a dangerous act truly startled the weeping little boy, sending him into an endless fit of shivers.
He ran to the edge and looked down, a gust of strong wind whipping up—
and when he looked, that big sister in black was already floating in the air!
Everyone below had their attention seized by this abrupt turn of events.
The noble man looked up, and the increasingly unbridled smile he'd worn gradually vanished.
Just who on earth was this?
Only a Mage of rank three or above could hover and fly in the sky.
And he certainly hadn't seen any Mage listed in the household registry of the town under his rule.
"Ngh!" A demon in armor suddenly felt his body refuse to obey him. The lance he'd been about to thrust into his target halted midair, his muscles tensing beyond his control.
"What in the world is going on?"
The part of his vision that had been blocked by his helmet was restored, and by his ear came a cold, indifferent voice.
"What's this—you're not demons at all. No wonder your mana is so weak."
That pair of horns was connected to the helmet, only made to look quite convincing.
The one on horseback was just a human with a buzz cut.
Aura descended slowly, holding the helmet aloft; the scales in the sky had long since tipped.
The Magic of Obedience had already unfolded—though only targeting these beings who had invaded the town.
"Who are you?!"
The noble felt an indescribable sense of wrongness in his body.
"A passerby."
Aura had little desire to bother with this weirdo.
"Hey! I paid a fortune to hire you lot! Why aren't you moving?! Deal with this Mage, now!"
The noble urged those mercenaries on, yet received no response at all.
"From this moment on, every one of you—shut your mouths!"
At a single command, every stray sound vanished.
The noble's eyes went wide in disbelief—he couldn't open his mouth! Fear and unease began to creep up into his heart.
"You lot—strip off your clothes, kowtow before everyone here until your foreheads knock, and apologize for masquerading as members of the Demon Race—until every single person here speaks the words forgiving you!"
Aura's voice echoed across the town that had been nearly half destroyed.
The wounded cast their gazes over, those in hiding secretly peered out, those who'd resisted halted their movements.
Under everyone's eyes, including the noble man, all of them dismounted, peeled off layer upon layer of armor, down to even the very last piece covering their shame.
A whole crowd of grown men knelt on the ground kowtowing again and again in confession, crying out things like "We disguised ourselves as members of the Demon Race, we were wrong."
Aura watched this scene and nodded in satisfaction, then, hauling that sack of dried fruit, swept off in grand fashion.
Leaving behind only a single line: "You lot can decide for yourselves what to do."
Everyone came to, as if waking from a dream.
They looked at those killers, so utterly humiliated, kowtowing and apologizing on the ground.
Shock, fury, exhilaration, sorrow, joy, relief, hatred, deliverance—every kind of complex emotion, every different gaze, as if they would pierce and tear those men to shreds.
"Isn't that the lord himself?!"
"Those demons were all just people in disguise?!"
"Unforgivable! To think they'd do such a thing!"
"Boo hoo hoo, my child, my beloved!"
"So what if he's the lord, after committing a crime like this? Kill them!"
Had it not been for Aura, the true culprits behind this town's destruction and its plundered mines would have spread far and wide under the name of the Demon Race.
Listening to the town behind her, briefly silent and then growing lively once more, Aura grabbed a handful of dried fruit from the bundle and chewed.
"Mm, not bad at all."
Her tongue licked her lips, and she revealed a faint smile.
This time, too, was an easy victory for her.
____
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