Legion of Darkness (1)

“Aaaaaahhh! It huuuurts!”

“Please bear with it a little longer! Lord Daemon! What are you all doing! Quickly go and stop them!”

Blood gushed like a fountain, and Daemon screamed sorrowfully, unbefitting of a commander. The aide, with a face turned white, pressed on Daemon’s wound and spoke to him to keep him from losing consciousness.

“It’s alright! Lord Daemon! Come, Lord Daemon! Imagine a happy future! Going back to the mansion! Living cozily with women! Forget about that crazy Kerberos and just rest safely!”

“Kughhh…! Kerberos…! Kerberoooos!”

Daemon became even more frenzied at the mention of Kerberos’s name. The aide, realizing his mistake, used all his strength to hold down Daemon’s body and soothed him.

“It’s alright! That woman is no longer here!”

“She…! She betrayed me…! Th-that bitch…! Kuaaaak!”

Daemon’s body was extremely weak. As the aide held down Daemon’s body with force, he once again realized that Daemon had as weak a musculature as a child. Feeling his blatantly exposed physical condition, the aide couldn’t help but be disappointed.

Is this really the bloodline of the Demon King?

If he had undergone proper combat training, he wouldn’t have suffered such a serious injury from Kerberos’s strike. If he had acted properly for even a moment, this worst-case scenario where Kerberos betrayed them and their forces were being pushed back wouldn’t have happened.

“It’s alright. It’s alright, Lord Daemon. Stop crying! We’re almost there!”

“It huuuurts!”

But the situation wasn’t as leisurely as the aide’s words suggested. The forces who had come to retrieve the hostage had suffered near-annihilation due to human soldiers and arrows that came from all directions as if they had been waiting for this moment.

“Calm down! Lord Daemon!”

“It, it hurts…! It hurts so much…! Da, Daddy…! Where are you, Daddy…!”

“We’ve all escaped now! Stop crying!”

They hadn’t even managed to escape properly. When the aide shouted that they had successfully escaped, they had only reached the forest adjacent to the Empire’s border. Soldiers were searching through the forest and still approaching, and the cart, carrying Daemon and the aide, couldn’t maintain its speed due to complex vines.

The aide firmly grasped Daemon’s hand and whispered:

“Lord Daemon. Aren’t you the son of the Demon King? Will you collapse like this here? Will you say you were caught crying like a girl? You should show a composure befitting the son of the Demon King!”

“I don’t know…! I, I’m in so much pain…! Please send me home…! Aaaaah! Uaaaah! Kuk…! Kuggh…!”

Daemon’s appearance repeated alternating between shouting loudly like a temperamental wave and then suppressing his voice and foaming at the mouth. Due to the sturdy physique of a high-class demon, he was enduring despite the deep laceration, but it was only a matter of time before he died if not treated.

The aide took out medicine from his pocket and began pouring it onto the wound.

“Here, there’s medicine! Lord Daemon! Apply the medicine and! Stop it! Stop!”

The skin contracted for hemostasis, emitting steam. The gaping wound was forcibly closed, and the surrounding flesh began to be mashed.

“Aaaaaaah! Uaaaaaaah! Don’t do it! It hurts! Aaaaaaah!”

But was the aide’s desperate effort not conveyed to him? Daemon struggled and even kicked away the potion the aide was pouring, sending it flying to the other side of the forest.

“You son of a…”

The aide tried his best to hold back the curse that rose to just before his lips, but he couldn’t stop the tense sound that broke through his lips. And Daemon wasn’t calm enough to point out the momentary disloyalty that burst from the aide’s mouth.

“Ah, aah…! I, I don’t want to die…! I don’t want to dieeee!”

Daemon shook his head repeatedly and moved his body. As the severely injured demon was using all his strength to throw a tantrum, the cart kept creaking and making strange noises as it was pressed by the weight. The aide, seeing the cart wheel bending, hurriedly shouted:

“It’s, it’s alright! Lord Daemon! Aren’t I here to protect you!”

“Uaaaaaaah!”

“For f*ck’s sake! Let’s go quietly! Huh? I can’t set the direction! Please stay still!”

The driver who had been patient turned his head and shouted. The aide covered Daemon’s ears and then shouted at the driver:

“You! What nonsense are you spouting to the commander!”

But the aide’s authority, at this moment, was at rock bottom. This was because the person with the greatest power on this cart now was the driver pulling it. When even the aide shouted at him, his face distorted, and he shouted:

“Commander my ass, why are you shouting at me, you bastard! Isn’t it that bastard who got us all screwed by fooling around with women! Huh? Is it so hard to stay still?”

“Y-you…!”

The aide gritted his teeth and trembled. His hand unconsciously went to his sword hilt, but it was also true that he couldn’t kill this driver now. If he rode a horse, the struggling Daemon would be thrown from the cart, and he had never properly driven such a cart in the first place.

Seeing the aide’s hand go to his sword hilt, the driver snorted and turned his body again. He spoke in a proud tone, gripping the reins:

“So, know your pla… Ugh!”

And with a single cry, he collapsed with an arrow stuck in the back of his head. Without a signal from the rider, the horse began to slow down.

“Uh uhh!”

“There they are! Catch them!”

Pursuers were coming. A golden-eyed elf was aiming a bow while traversing the trees above cavalrymen who were running at a wild pace, trampling vines. The aide, with a desperate face, drew his sword by the hilt and lashed the horse’s buttocks.

“You beast! You beast! Don’t stop! You beast!”

The horse, startled, began to run forward, making strange noises. The speed increased again, but without someone to direct it, the cart began to sway wildly from side to side, and the axle supporting the wheels broke, causing the wheels to sway just like the cart.

“N-no…! No!”

The aide firmly grasped the cart wheel and stabbed the horse’s buttocks with his other hand. The horse, stimulated by being stabbed in the buttocks several times, shook its head in excitement, then began to slow down again.

“Go forward! Go forward, you beast!”

The aide, with a face turned pale, struck the horse’s buttocks repeatedly. He swung the sword hilt, leaving blue bruises on the buttocks, issuing commands using language the horse couldn’t possibly understand.

“Set the direction! Go forward!”

“Stop right there! Halt!”

“Huaaaaaaa! Uaaaaaa! Daddy! Save meee!”

“Please be quiet! Lord Daemon!”

The aide, who had been striking the horse with an excited face, shouted at Daemon with his arm raised. Daemon, startled by the voice of the aide who was staring at him with wide eyes, blinked, then shouted with tears and snot streaming down his face.

He was displeased by the very fact that the aide had shouted at him. Because he was the son of the Demon King.

Because he was of a noble status incomparable to the likes of an aide.

“Y-you…! Don’t you act insolent too! Even though I’m like this…! I’m the son of the Demon King!”

But the aide didn’t answer. He was just staring at Daemon with eyes bulging as if they would pop out. Daemon felt the strength of the hands that had been holding him down fading, and the horse’s speed gradually decreasing.

“Wh-what…! A-are you protesting? Huh? Dr-drive the horse immediately! Drive the horse, I said!”

Daemon shouted and extended his foot toward the aide’s body. Even though he didn’t push strongly, the aide’s body tilted and rolled out of the cart. Three arrows were stuck in the back of the head of the spinning aide, and the aide’s arm, which had been lashing the horse until just before, was stuck like an ornament at Daemon’s headrest.

“Uh… uhh?”

Daemon tried to look around with a bewildered face. But in his physical state where he could barely move his feet and head, he could only see the horse’s buttocks, the sound of hooves, and the delicate appearance of the grass leaves gradually entering his surroundings.

“Uh…! Uhh…! Th-this…!”

Daemon applied force to try to forcibly raise his body. But as soon as he exerted strength to move his body, the part that had been roughly closed with the potion burst open, and blood began to pour out.

“Kuaaaaaaak!”

Daemon couldn’t overcome the pain and collapsed again. Tears flowed, and he could see the sun shining through the forest branches. The horse stopped moving.

The cart rattled back and forth from the recoil and then stopped in place.

The pursuers also leisurely stopped their horses.

There were no sounds of “stop there” or of hurriedly jumping above the branches.

“Wow, look at this guy. Our commander has prepared a bed and is lying down.”

“Ah, aah…! Y-you guys…!”

Daemon tried to deny reality by shaking his head repeatedly.

But what was before his eyes now was reality. While he coveted women and led the army as he pleased, the kingdom’s soldiers, full of malice toward the demons, had been calmly nurturing their hatred and waiting for this moment.

They tied Daemon’s body tightly to the cart with ropes and said:

“Be careful not to let him die. It would be troublesome if he died easily.”

In the dim sunlight, Daemon trembled with fear as he listened to their gloomy talk, and finally, with his eyes closed, he could only hope that this moment was just a dream.