When I first saw the status above her head, I was taken aback, for nowhere did it mention the word [Demon]. Every monster I‘d encountered had always been named after their species no matter how small or large or how powerful it was in terms of strength, speed, durability, and so on. This was the rule which this world followed. However, here in front of me was an outlier—an exception. Or was that really the case?

  According to the scriptures of the Kalmia Church, names were given by the gods as symbols of their blessed nature. To have a name from birth was to be granted an identity and the will to be free. As for those without a unique name, they were but mere creatures made by the gods for their blessed creations to do with however they desired. Even the most detestable person retained their birth names, for although they’ve abandoned the divine’s teachings, it did not erase the fact that they were once touched by the divine.

  Imagine my surprise when I saw that the so-called demon had a unique name and, in her defeat, started showing signs that strayed from the scriptures’ depictions of what demons were. Granted, it could be that demons were just another race like elves and dwarfs, who also possessed unique names, but my guts told otherwise.

  “Anna Bae—”

  “Do not call me that!” she cried, her face desperate. “That woman is no more. I am a demon. I will not be denied my right to see this world burn!”

  Your right? What is she talking about? I lowered my sickle, trying to put her at ease. “It’s alright. I won’t hurt you. Instead, how about I listen to whatever you wish to say? Maybe we can get to know each other. I’m Dmitri, by the way. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Forgiveness is a sin,” she said. “Especially to someone who's taken far too many lives.”

  “I never said I forgive you. That’s not the case at all,” I told her. “Many lives are lost because of your attack on this city. That I won’t deny. But just because you deserve to be punished, doesn’t mean that it always has to be with death. Moreover, there are things I wish to know about demons. If you were to die then how could we ever hope to put a stop to this war?”

  “The end this war shall have is when one or the other is utterly and completely destroyed. Not even a hero like you can change that,” she sounded like she was talking from experience. It begged even more curiosity to find out who she was and what she knew.

  “Nothing is impossible,” I said to her, speaking with both confidence and certainty. After all, I was reborn into another world in a body full of health and vigor. Who was to say that defeating the Demon King was the only way out of this calamity?

  I offered my hand, and with it, my trust, hoping that Anna would do the right thing. My eyes spoke to her, “We can do this. We can stop all this bloodshed. There’s no need to fight anymore.”

  “I …,” Anna paused, all of a sudden. Her expression paused into complete stillness while her eyes remained wide-opened as if they were in a trance. “This world … must burn … this world must burn … It must … burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn!” The second she spoke once more, her speech became deranged-sounding and kept repeating that word over and over and over.

  “Anna? Anna?” I tried calling her, yet she continued to repeat that same word. “Anna? Anna Baelin! Anna Baelin, snap out of it, we can—”

  “Burn the world!”

  “[Light of Penance].”

  A towering ray of light descended from the heavens, striking Anna, who was lunging at me, and disintegrating her without giving her a second to scream. She was just … gone, just as the tower of light returned to the crevice of daylight above, now shining upon the area even though it was clearly still night time. A group of five priests in red—Lessings in torn up uniforms then marched toward me. One of them was Archbishop Clement, whom I assumed to be the one responsible for that giant heat ray.

  “We meet again,” he said, calmly. “It seems Kalmia’s grace has favored you highly. To survive an attack from a demon, let alone beating one into submission is a feat in itself, especially considering your short time here. However, why did not slay this heretical creature?”

  “I had questions,” I replied, with great disappointment, as my eyes shifted toward the scorched patch of what remained of her. “I wanted to know more about demons. Who else better to answer than the demons themselves?”

  “It seems that demons have placed doubts in your mind,” the archbishop said. “It is alright, Hero Dmitri. It is within their nature to deceive others, whether it be to kill their prey or to flee a predator greater than themselves.”

  “Is that so …” Honestly, I wasn’t so sure about that, but Clement was an archbishop of the Kalmia Church. He was surely more knowledgeable at this subject than I was, except … Anna’s death still didn’t sit tight with me.

  “The demonic legion has been thwarted,” he stated. “All the remaining monsters have been exterminated and so have the demons leading them both the low-ranked,” he glanced at the ashen remains of Anna. “as well as the high-ranking ones. You can tell by the amount of clothes they’re wearing, which determines their hierarchy, but even the lowest of the lows are still considered more dangerous than most monsters. Which is why extra caution has to be taken care off when trying to exterminate these intelligent creatures.”

  “How many demons were there?”

  “Twelve low-ranked, including yours, seven mid-ranked, and two high-ranked ones. Our church order has exterminated the ones leading up to here, reinforcements to this one demon, so it seemed. As for the rest including the high-ranked demons, Prince Kaelys and his regiment have taken care of them.”

  “The prince?” my mouth slightly opened. “If Your Excellency doesn’t mind, how powerful is he compared to you?”

  “You speak too highly of me,” he said. “Let’s put it like this. For a power to rival the first prince, it has to be equivalent to the combined efforts of all three churches of Pylfur.” —My body and expression staggered— “And that is only when you'd discount the people under his command. The Third Legion did slay the Demon General of Wrath in the Battle of Norkey four years ago, and Prince Kaelys supposedly was the one to take the final blow.”

  Of the demonic legion, the most powerful other than the Demon King were the nine demon generals. Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Apathy, and Vainglory. Of the nine, three have fallen. Both Greed and Gluttony were killed in the invasion of Selestine and Kalizar respectively, though it resulted in almost half their lands taken. And as for Wrath, I knew that he was killed in an invasion toward Pylfur, but I didn’t expect for the first prince to engage the Demon General directly alongside his legion. And yet, with all that power, he never made any advances outside the territory.

  The First Legion was under the command of the king’s command, so they were basically always in the castle and the capital’s inner city. The Second Legion was a detachment to retake any land conquered by the demonic legion. As for the Third Legion, they took care of the borders, while the Fourth were the ones leading the charge. Was it precisely because they were powerful that the Third Legion remained within the kingdom’s territory? Except, with greater attacking force, Pylfur’s borders would surely expand.

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  This kind of ‘political’ thinking really made my brain work overtime, as I proceeded to take a look around. Although this side of the inner city had been evacuated, to see and feel the cold barrenness of the present situation alongside the tons of debris after that battle put me in unease, as I wondered if the people who once lived within these walls could return to their normal lives. Surely, their lost property would be compensated fairly, right?

  Who am I kidding? That king won’t lay a damn finger on this place. I thought. Maybe for the nobles who owned these broken cottages and business places, but the honest workers … Will you be able to change things, Princess?

  I looked up at the ashen sky, no longer raining, but depressing still. A true hero should’ve been able to prevent all this. He should’ve been able to prevent the destruction of a city and the killing of innocents. And yet, the reality of it was that he couldn’t do enough. I couldn’t do enough to safeguard this kingdom, which I’ve only started to love.

  Should I ever walk on this street, not as a hero, but as a tourist in a foreign land enjoying new adventurers, would I be able to look at people with my head up high? Should I come to face another demon, would I be able to truly kill them as what everyone expected me to?

  I … wasn’t sure anymore.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, at the site where the demonic legion first started their assault on the capital city, a lone man walked past the streets of dead bodies and dead monsters. They were burnt, skewered, ripped apart with their blood, flesh, and insides spattered across the fissured streets and broken rubble of what once were homes of ordinary people, living out their lives in perfect harmony. That was until at this time tonight.

  And in the middle of the destruction stood several armed powerful people. A silver-haired woman wiping clean her fourteen swords, a small knight easily pulling out an axe triple his size, a bald monk petting his two black wolves with moonlit tattoos, a mage in dazzling white robes calmly meditating in place, another one watching from a tower not far from here seemingly relaxing, and lastly, the dark-haired prince who led them.

  “It’s you again,” Prince Kaelys turned toward the lone man brazenly approaching the Third Legion’s elites, with the heads of the demons he slayed on his grasp. “You were right, again. The demonic legion did intend to attack the city. If only you care to warn us sooner.”

  “Easy there. It was only just a hunch. I didn’t actually think that they were going to attack.”

  The prince’s crimson eyes stared daggers at the lone man, though the man did not flinch. Instead, he calmly asked, “So, how did they infiltrate the capital?”

  “This guy right here,” the prince showed him one of the heads, an old man who bore no monstrous features whatsoever. “It seems they’ve perfected the art of deception to the point where they looked completely human. Changelings were one thing, but for a demon to have become a noble and risen the ranks as head minister of construction cause for great concern.”

  The previous meditating mage in white then spoke, “I couldn’t discover his true identity. Even though we’ve met several times over the years, the combined effects of my [Appraisal] skill and [Detect] spell could not see through the head minister’s perfect disguise. Most likely, the demons have adapted or devised a way to completely obscure their demonic statuses.”

  “Or maybe the current Demon King is different,” told the monk. “According to my ancestors’ tales, the previous Demon King was depicted as very aggressive and that aspect was reflected upon its legion, having begun attacking the kingdoms straight after its birth. The current one though seems to be quite methodical. The appearance of these changelings were something that had never been previously recorded in any piece of literature predating the Fourth’s birth.”

  The small knight swung down his giant axe on a moving dark blob, causing the ground to tremble. “Man, these things are such a hassle to kill. Can’t the Demon King create something more battle-heavy than these sneaky bastards.”

  “Apparently they’ve been caught near Brunstud Village, where your wife lives.”

  “I gotta get home!” the small knight hopped onto his axe and launched off the ground, as he then soared through the air like a witch riding her broom.

  “… Whatever the case is,” the mage continued, “the demons have definitely become smarter over the past couple of years. Before they would just attack like savage beasts, but now they’ve begun to strategize. Very creatively at that. Who would’ve thought that a whole army could pass through the capital’s underground sewers for weeks without notice. No wait, it could even be for months, if not years!”

  “Then we just have to kill them,” the silver-haired lady said, having finished cleaning her last sword and putting them all into an item box. “Kill and kill until there’s none of them left. Isn’t that what we’ve always done?”

  “Leave the complicated stuff to the smart ones, Lenore. Your pea-sized brain won’t be able to handle the amount of information I’m giving you.”

  “Shall I cut off that tongue of yours? Seems to me that you no longer have a need for it.”

  “Meathead.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “QUIET!” the first prince shouted, silencing the bickering between the two, which appeared to have caused him a headache. “So, ??????????, what brings you here exactly? You’re not seeking to gloat, are you?”

  “Not at all, sir,” the lone man spoke informally. “It’s just that I happened to come across a bit of news from some particular travelers.”

  “Spill it!”

  “Man, you’re such an impatient brute,” he showed no fear whatsoever. “This attack ain’t happening solely on Pylfur. It’s a simultaneous strike occurring everywhere, meant to kill the heroes before they get sufficiently strong. Of course, none of them succeeded in the end. While Selestine suffered major damage, the new upcoming ‘Saintess of Flowers’ hero is embarking on a nation-wide pilgrimage to bring back hope unto the people. Because of that, I don’t think they’ll send troops to aid in the recapturing of River Elysium.

  “Kalizar’s hero surprisingly managed to uproot the demons before the attack even began, so they suffered the least out of the five kingdoms. Now things get interesting when it comes to Meindottir, cause it appears that their hero has run away to live in the mountains two weeks after his summoning. Good luck trying to find him in that frozen wasteland.”

  “So basically,” Prince Kaelys pinched his sinuses, the veins on his forehead bulged. “the world has lost two of its heroes. That’s just great! The gods must be laughing their asses off on those golden thrones of theirs.”

  “Good news though, your kingdom’s hero survives. Just saw him on the border between the outer and inner city. The knights, priests, and citizens were praising him for having taken out a naked demon all by himself. You should be proud of him, Mister Vampire Pri—”

  Something suddenly flew right past him, missing the lone man by an inch of his hair and cheeks. A crimson spear made out of crystallized blood was now embedded upon the streets of Pylfur, which promptly returned into its liquid form. As for the one who threw it, he did not look at all happy, with a burning stare that ought to put any ordinary people into cold submission.

  “Well, I think it’s time for me to take my leave. Back to my travels and meeting new friends.”

  “You really have no ounce of fear in you.”

  “Oh please. I’ve lost that sense a long time ago.”

  And thus, the lone man walked away from the oddball group of elite fighters. His life temporarily returned to short reprieve, when suddenly, a small rat monster leapt out to latch its fangs on his neck. But before it could, a severed torso, which was once flung into the walls and got stuck on a window, fell on top of the rat monster, crushing it instantly. At the same time, the lone man took out a coin from his pocket.

  “Where oh where should I go next?”

  He tossed the coin up in the air. The small round gold object flipped over and over until it landed on the back of his palm. Heads or tails? Or in this kingdom, crown or staff? Once the result was revealed, his next destination was set.