Walking behind Laura as they headed into the forest, something peculiar caught Haruki's eyes. Right above Laura's ears, there was a curved scar, almost as if part of her ears had intentionally been scraped off.
'Even if elves are free to roam in human cities, I guess there are still people who don't accept them and consider them no different than us monsters.' Feeling some pity towards the girl, Haruki decided to walk alongside her.
Being the only two on the expedition to find the procession of monsters, Haruki sneaked a few greater spy demons out of his palm to hasten up the search. Scattered throughout the dense forest, their eyes let Haruki see if any kind of monster was approaching or stalking them from a distance.
'Nothing yet…Wandering around might be a waste of time, hopefully, the others have some luck finding any clues about the library.' A sudden rustle from the leaves made Laura stop in her tracks and grab Freya's wrist in fear.
"What's that?" hunched over, she whispered looking around.
"It's a squirrel Laura, and please don't grab my arm like that," fearing that she might get affected by his aura, he wanted her to keep her hands to herself.
Running through the women of the three duchies, he'd garnered countless abilities, both active and passive, a few of which combined with the others and caused all kinds of uncontrollable effects. The worst of them all was an ability called 'Aura of the corrupted' which caused mental degradation, and in some cases, even insanity.
"Ah…Sorry, I think I'm a little too on edge," putting up an awkward smile, Laura pulled her hand away.
"It's fine just don't touch me, okay?" Haruki replied.
Assuming that Freya, being royalty, didn't want to be touched by commoners, Laura simply accepted her order. For a while as they edged the borders setting Haruki's kingdom and Lamenia apart, they saw nothing of interest at all, but then while walking along the side of a river, both of them noticed in the distance a demon getting out of the stream and heading into the forest.
'These idiots, what the fuck do I have to do to keep them inside those walls?!' Infuriated by the sight, Haruki wanted to tear that demon apart, but with Laura already rushing off behind the demon, he had to feign ignorance and follow her.
Getting close to the demon, Laura hid behind a collection of trees to keep a watch on a group of demons the soaked demon was regrouping with. Fearing that he couldn't use his dark magic abilities, Haruki wanted to keep things brief without showing too much of her power to an adventurer.
"This is the group we encountered when the procession came out of nowhere," whispering to Haruki, Laura kept her watch sternly fixed on the gathering of demons hurdled around something gruesome and bloody. "Are they eating something or…someone?"
Bearing witness to the same sight, Haruki recognized the clothes of the deceased laying down by the dirt. And although he knew who it belonged to, he refrained from drawing any conclusions just yet.
"We should keep a watch on them, who knows how many more of-" By the time she turned her head to look at Freya, she was already gone from her sight.
'What?! Where did she go?!' Panicking, feared that one of the demons snatched her away. ''She's royalty dammit, I'll lose my head if she dies!'
And the moment she turned her head back to the demon group, her fears were further intensified. Rushing towards the group of five demons, Freya held a sword made from sharp shards of ice. The demons, upon hearing the sounds of her footsteps, jumped up to their feet and stood facing the direction of the noise.
However, jumping through a portal, Freya appeared behind them all. It happened so quickly that even Laura who was following her with her eyes lost track of what was happening.
"Shit, where did she go again?!" In the brief moment when Laura still hadn't realized that Freya was standing behind the demons, Haruki flung the sword sideways and cut right through all five demon's chests.
"Holy chain binds!" catching their limbs with the chains, Haruki deterred any of them from falling.
Lifting the binds up high in the sky, Haruki moved a few steps forward to take a look at the bloodied clothes he'd seen from afar.
"Who the hell are you?!" Screeched one of the demons from above.
Knowing well enough that cutting their bodies won't be enough to kill them, he held his palm over his shoulder and shot a hoard of ice shards right at the demon's face.
One after the other as the ice tore smashed into his eyes and jaws. Fearing the same fate, the others squealed like terrified puppies and shut their mouths before they met the same fate. They weren't the only ones who were shocked by the effective display of strength, even Laura who was slowly approaching Freya, couldn't bring herself to believe what'd happened.
Being the only one focused on a task, Haruki got to his knees by the blood-fed clothes. The tattered purple suit, and a golden silk woven attire, reminded Haruki of the only two men who were bold enough to wear such clothes.
'Rom and Arnold…Come to think of it, I never saw them after taking over the king's throne.' Glancing up at the demons still left alive, he wanted to know everything they knew about the mushed corpses.
"Did you kill these men?" He asked.
Fearful of their lives, the demons shook their severed heads in denial.
"Then who did?" Getting back on his feet, a look of unfiltered annoyance took over his face.
"W-we don't know! The body was there when we came here!" Exclaimed one of them.
"Ye-yeah! We didn't kill those humans!" Added another.
Further infuriated by their words, Haruki raised his hands in their direction and sprang forth a circle of ice magic. With the sapphire brooch tucked under his clothes, the essence of deathly cold mana traveled from his chest up over to his palms.
"Wai-no! We're telling the trut-" Before they uttered another word, Haruki rained them each with a hundred finger-thin ice shards.
Turning their bodies into minced meat, he had bodies hung until even the holy chain binds couldn't hold them up any longer. After the last ball of meat from their bodies fell to the ground, Haruki lowered his head and turned to look at the terrified Laura.
"Remember you promise…" Placing his finger over the lips, he reminded her of the deal they'd made back at the bath.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m