Unchanging red skies, wispy clouds far out of reach. The place where neither sun nor moon existed, but light never left, as if telling its inhabitants of what they could never have.
That was Hell.
"How does it feel to go to hell, Eugene Hall?" Noa asked. The two of us had landed on a hill that overlooked a city. The ashy ground and the dead trees all around fluttered in the dry, raspy wind, but the place was still full of life.
"Nostalgic, I guess? I hasn't been that long, but I had fun." I answered her while pulling out my ring and tossing it into the spatial dimension. I liked the purple stone, but since it was going to help Dantalian it was better gone for now.
"You've been in Hell!?"
I nodded casually at Noa's words. After brushing my hair up, I tried to focus closer on the city not that far downhill.
"Where is this?"
"You're the experienced one, you tell me."
"Uh, I kinda drowned the place I country gone to previously. Not on my own though."
I thought Noa was stunned for the first time since I had met her just a few hours back, little victories.
"Ufufu, you both are useless." Right on time, my darling fairy fluttered in front of me and twirled around.
"That reminds me, can you see her?" I asked Noa.
"She can because I used my spell on her for an entire month."
I wasn't the one keeping her alive in my spatial dimension, Titania was. We were both gravely weakened thanks to the Dantalian's mind control, but she could still manage this. It seemed Noa had gotten accustomed to Titania's presence.
"That and my own fairy is constantly messaging me about her. Evil queen or what not, you fairies are strangely delusional, huh?"
"D-delusional!? I'll have you know that I truly was an evil queen."
"Proving my point."
It was useless to argue with chuunibyous.
"Titania, do you know how we can get to Dantalian?"
"Uhhn, she rules lives in one of the biggest cities in hell."
"This can't be it then. Where do we go to?"
Titania flew above my head and stared at the city, after making a quick circle in the air, she came back down and tapped her head.
"I don't know, teehee."
"Haha," Noa sighed. "Then we'll just make the demons spill it. I am guessing this is close to that Agares guy's home ground."
"That's probably it," I said and stretched my hands and waist. "Let's get this done quickly, I can't face someone until I shred all of Dantalian's puppets to pieces."
"I agree, we're totally doing this for justice."
"Yup, we don't care about the outer gods at all. It's just a consequence."
"Totally, we would never put the world in trouble, it's just going to happen."
I already knew it, but Noa and I shared a similar wavelength.
With that decided, I walked up to the edge of the cliff and jumped down. Noa Roselle followed right after. The dry wind brushed against our skin but it was barely enough to graze us. Many rocks and boulders came in the way but hopping over them all was as easy as playing hopscotch.
In no time at all, we were down at the bottom of hill and were facing the city.
No walls, no guards, a simple place propagated by demons that rather fit their environment. Dried up and shriveled trees with gray and black branches spread around the wood houses, some even grew fruits of strange shapes and sizes.
Octopi, goats, rams, corvids and just horned demons that resembled humans, all kinds of beings trotted about in the city. Some in torn up rags while others donned proper suits and clothes that one would never see back on Earth.
Interestingly enough, their roads were made with clean stones and were lined up well.
"It must be a backwater town, not a proper city," Titania said. "Real cities in hell are pretty lavish, almost on the level of the empire we saw."
"Really?" Noa asked. "Is that even hell then?"
"You bet."
I raised my brow.
"You suddenly know a lot about hell, Titania."
"Not suddenly, I knew all along. We weren't together here last time."
Ah.
"I had a chance to face that Dantalian before, you see. Seven thousand years back."
"So that's why she acted as if she knew you…" Noa muttered.
"Was it with your previous contractor?"
Titania nodded and landed on my head. "Jealous?"
"No chance," with a sigh, I shook my head and locked my eyes on one of the demons walking around. Even the edges of the town were strangely populated. We hid behind a boulder, but we couldn't much like that.
"Wait here," I said and peeked out.
A quick spell to muffle the sounds around me, I stared at the target.
The demon with a frame similar to that of a human's but with horns protruding out of its head was on the way to a house.
With a short breath, I shot off.
Faster than any of them could even see, I swooped behind the demon, knocked it out with a hit on the back of its head, and dashed back to the boulder before repeating the process for the next demon.
"Woah, fast delivery."
Noa had already changed into the demon's clothes. To take it a step further, she had broken the demon's horns and was trying to wrap it in her hair.
The demon looked as if it had been tortured for years straight.
I broke the second one's horn too and tried to balance it on my head, but it proved difficult.
Noa's horn was falling off too.
"Should I hold it in place with psychokinesis?"
"Won't it be a bother."
"No way! It's fine."
With a snap of my fingers, the horns stuck to our head. It took a little bit of concentration, nothing I couldn't do after spending two months like that.
Now fully equipped, we were ready to punch some fuckers and find out the way to Dantalian.
A smile emerged on both our faces.
"Nailed the demon aesthetic!"
Shut it fairy.
I was always like this.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦