Chapter 5: A Different World.

“For your sake, I pray you are not leading me astray.”

“You are welcome to stop following at any time!”

I followed behind the Hero, and had been following behind her for a while now. True to her word, Ash had slain another rabbit; if nothing else, the girl was an efficient hunter. I did not know how elusive this ‘rabbit’ was, but judging by their taste, they had to be elusive indeed to have survived as a species.

The Hero had been following the course of the river, occasionally glancing left and right.

“Most races require constant intake of water. Without it, they die. You believe that by following this river, you will find other people.”

Ash stopped midstep, so suddenly I almost ran into her. “Did you figure that out on your own?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, chest puffed out.

The woman looked at me, shook her head, and kept walking. Time would tell if the Hero wasn’t simply leading me in circles. She certainly seemed confident enough. Then again, so had every fool I’d ever executed.

The clouds had been rumbling since the night before. The rain finally came at dawn. It was a light drizzle, cool on my skin, though this was not like the river’s coolness -this was softer. In the Demon Realm, rain was acidic. One did not simply walk in it, not unless they were strong enough that it didn’t matter.

I did not object to this ‘rain’. What I did object to was having to follow this girl at all. Perhaps I would simply leave her behind when the fruitlessness of her effort was laid bare.

“We need to find either people or shelter before it really starts pouring,” Ash said. “I’m not sure I could build something that would survive through that.”

“Hah, so there are limits to not having a [Skill] after all.”

Ash stopped in place. This time, I did end up running right into her. My armor clapped off hers as I took a step back.

“What is-“

“Shh,” Ash said, leaning down. She cupped her hands around her ears.

The sky grumbled again.

“You cannot hear-“

“Shh!”

I frowned and my left eye twitched. There was nothing to do but fold my arms and wait. Well, save for kicking her. The childishness of it was the only thing that stopped me, mostly.

“There’s someone nearby.” Ash was already moving. “Hurry! Put on the hood!”

The hood. It was a wretched thing she’d torn from her undergarment that morning, after a short and infuriating argument I had not won -or rather, had won, but that victory hadn’t been accepted by this thickheaded girl.

It was humiliating, to hide even a fraction of who I was. I pulled it on, and it barely even hid my horns. The alternative was being left behind, and I would not give her that satisfaction.

I raced after her. The rain had turned the ground into a mess of puddles, and water splashed under my feet. The girl was fast. She had to be using mana, and I was forced to match her. We didn’t have to run far.

She stopped at a small bridge over a wide bend in the river, where I saw a large green caravan crossing. Ash was already at the front of the caravan, smiling at a rotund man by lantern light. She turned, pointed at me, and waved me over. More lanterns lined the caravan, and there was nothing to do but step into their glow.

“This is my friend. She and I got a little lost in the dark. We’d appreciate some shelter from the rain, if you’ll have us.”

The man wasn’t just rotund -he was old. He smiled at Ash, and regarded me with far more caution in turn.

“I don’t like the hood, lass,” he said, turning and speaking to Ash instead as if she were the obvious ‘leader’.

“I’ll check her,” another voice said from a shadow I did not see. Hearing it made me start.

The voice belonged to a short black haired man, decked in leather armor, with a sword at his back. He stepped towards us cautiously, one hand on the hilt of the blade.

Ash stepped in front of me. “That won’t be necessary. We’re just looking for shelter from the rain. That’s all.”

“Do you think no brigand has ever spun that tale before?” the man asked.

He looked to the apparent owner of the wagon, received a nod, and moved forward. Ash tensed and looked back at me, then at the two.

“Very well,” I said, the barest of mana projecting my voice. Let this farce be over with -it was never going to last.

I moved the hood off on my own, letting my full demonic figure bear down on the two. They stared at me for a moment. No doubt, they were paralyzed by the deepest of fear. Surely the man in the armor was going to attack at any moment. I braced myself. It would be a short fight.

Oddly, they relaxed instead.

“Oh, it’s just a half-demon,” the carriage driver said. “Relax, Marsh. You’re always jumpy.”

“You can never be too sure,” the man -Marsh- said.

The barest pulse of mana escaped my grip before I could pull it back.

Excuse me?

Half-demon.

The man -Marsh- had said the word. It was a silly, stupid term. A term so stupid that it didn’t make the barest of sense on the face of it. One might as soon mention half-tree or half-ground or half-elf. Yet the man had been certain, certain enough that whatever suspicion he’d had faded away in an instant. I did not know the word, nor did I know what it could possibly mean.

The other oddity was that they did not revile me. Neither did they attack nor flee. They instead offered passage. We rode on the back of the cart, wedged in between closed boxes, with little place to sit but on the boxes themselves. It was no throne.

“-scared me right and proper,” Marsh laughed, sitting across from us. “Two dangerous looking folk coming out from the middle of the forest. I had half a mind to attack first and question later.”

“You would not have found me an easy foe, human,” I cut in.

He paused and glanced at me.

“I apologize for my f-friend,” Ash smiled. “She is…odd.”

Marsh nodded, then smiled. “Aye, I feel ya. I’ve got some friends back in Koralis who are the same. Must be hard on ya. Say, what’s the name of your party? You must be adventurers too, right? What with that fancy armor…”

The cart was bumpy, flailing over every single pebble in its path.

“They must be important ones,” the merchant -Tom- called back from the front of the carriage. “Definitely a step above you, Marsh.”

The adventurer in question laughed awkwardly. “Come now, Uncle, don’t embarrass me in front of our guests. You know I’m just busy moving up in the world.”

How spineless. Where was his [Warrior] pride? Perhaps it had melted in the rain.

“T-the Violet Blades!” Ash said quickly. “We’re only small though, so I doubt you’ve heard of us.”

What kind of absurd name was that?

The conversation continued, though I paid it no mind. My mind fixated on the simple word again: half-demon. Why did it bother me so? It was not a [Race] present in the system -that much I was sure of.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Why did Ash not ask? Surely she knew this as well as I. Surely she knew this entire situation was strange.

“So, what are your names, friends?” Marsh asked. The sky howled at almost the same time, nearly drowning out his question entirely. I still heard it.

“Ash,” the Hero said easily. “And this is-“

“I am Lysanthia, human,” I said, head raised. “Do be honored. It is not a name one can directly hear from my lips and avoid the blade that follows.”

Instead of being intimidated, the adventurer just looked confused.

He tilted his head and eyed me. “Lysanthia? Like…the old Demon Queens? Why would anyone name their daughter that?”

“Fool, it is because I am-“

An elbow struck my side -the blow was hard, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to notice.

I glared at Ash, who studiously ignored me. “Her name is L-Lily. She just…calls herself Lysanthia.”

“Oh!” Marsh said, eyes widening. “Some half-demons do that sometimes. I thought most of them grow out of it when they’re children. It’s rare to see one this old still keeping that up.”

What was this fool babbling about? My jaw tightened and I moved to speak again.

Another elbow came, harder this time.

“My friend is just odd,” Ash laughed. “Don’t mind her. Just call her Lily.”

Something had crossed Ash’s face when she’d said “Lily”, just for a moment -there and gone, as if the lie had cost her something. Heroes and their damned righteousness.

I clicked my tongue and pressed my back against the cart. Fine. If the Hero insisted on this charade, then I could relent. Just this once. She would owe me for it.

I found myself staring behind the cart, at the path it had treaded. The rain was pouring by now and the small puddles had turned into tiny rivers. The smell of it all hit my nose-it smelled like the earth itself, nothing like the burning air that came with my rain.

“Tell me,” Ash said over a crack of thunder, “is Koralis where we’re heading?”

“Nah, lass, that’s much too far,” Tom called back from the front. “We’re heading to Hamel. It’s just a small village on the way, where we’re both from.”

Ash’s smile tightened. “I can’t say I’ve heard of it, friend.”

“No one has,” Marsh said cheerfully. “In fact-“