Ch.173Short Break (3)

*

“Ash, what’s wrong!”

Alice rushed toward me.

She must have heard my shout and come running, as her strides toward me were remarkably quick and wide.

Her gaze immediately fixed on the boy standing across the stream.

In that same moment, Alice passed by me and sprang forward, a gleaming sword already in her hand.

“What, what! Wait, wait!”

The demon boy panicked and held out both hands.

Spreading his hands was a gesture of surrender, showing he wasn’t hiding any weapons, but that alone wasn’t enough to stop Alice.

She stomped down on the boy’s chest as if kicking him.

The boy made a sound like a squashed frog as he sprawled on the ground.

Alice pressed her blade against his throat and said:

“A demon, and judging by the horns, a high-ranking one.”

“Ugh…”

“Are you an assassin sent by the Demon King?”

“No… I’m not!”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re a demon.”

Alice raised her sword.

Seeing the blade gleaming with deadly intent, ready to plunge down at any moment, I instinctively crossed the stream and ran toward Alice.

“Sis! Wait!”

“…Ash?”

“He doesn’t seem dangerous. He didn’t attack me! His curse didn’t work either. There’s no need to kill him…”

“He’s a demon, Ash.”

Alice cut me off sharply.

“…B-but he’s just a child.”

“Even if he looks like a child, he’s older than you or me. Demons don’t live by the same timeline as humans.”

“No… that’s not what I…”

I stumbled over my words.

It’s true, of course.

I knew well that killing demons was the right thing to do, regardless of how young they appeared.

In fact, we had killed every monster we’d encountered while traversing this forest.

But this was the first time I’d met an actual demon.

More precisely, this was the first time since beginning this journey that I’d met someone capable of proper conversation.

No, to be even more accurate, apart from Sylvia and Alice, this was the first person I’d spoken to since being trapped in this forest after that carriage accident.

“He doesn’t seem… dangerous…”

“Ash, what are we doing right now?”

“…Huh?”

“What are we doing—have you forgotten why we’re wandering through this forest?”

“…”

Alice glared at the demon boy while speaking calmly.

I knew her logic was sound.

We couldn’t spare a demon while on a journey to kill the Demon King.

The boy might run straight to the Demon King and report our existence.

Still, I hesitated.

All the monsters I’d killed until now were beings incapable of conversation.

Their intelligence was closer to that of beasts, creatures that approached me instinctively to kill me.

Those were the only hostile life forms I’d encountered so far.

But killing someone who could communicate, who showed no hostility toward me and posed no threat, was an entirely different matter.

Somehow, it didn’t feel right.

No, it was closer to a violent rejection—I absolutely did not want to kill him.

“I know… I know, but…”

“Alright, I understand.”

Alice nodded.

“Come to think of it, Ash hasn’t killed a person before. You’ve only dealt with monsters and beasts driven mad by demonic energy, so this must be uncomfortable for you. I understand.”

“Ah…”

In that moment, I realized why I felt such strong resistance to killing this demon.

“Look away. I’ll end it quickly.”

“…No.”

I approached Alice and grabbed her hand that held the sword.

“Ash, what are you—”

“That’s not it, sis… I have killed people before.”

“…”

“Innocent people… you know that.”

Alice immediately understood what I meant.

The five priests, including Melvin.

The victims who entered this forest on Alice’s orders, only to be brutally slaughtered by my hands.

Alice shook her head and continued.

“Ash, I’ve told you clearly that wasn’t your fault…”

“I know, it was because of the curse. But…”

“…”

I swallowed dryly and exhaled slowly.

It was the curse that bound me to this forest, and Sylvia’s love that helped me adapt to it, but I clearly knew and remembered that it was that horrific experience that day that made me resolve to live in this forest.

When I spoke again, my voice was thick with emotion.

“This is different from then… This opponent doesn’t trigger the curse, and we can talk to him. Maybe we don’t have to make the same choice as back then…”

“…Ash.”

I grabbed the blade of Alice’s holy sword with my bare hand.

The holy sword couldn’t cut my soft skin and was slowly lowered as I guided it down.

“Let’s talk to him. If you still think he’s dangerous afterward, I won’t stop you anymore…”

“…Demons are far superior to humans in magic. Just because he has no weapon doesn’t mean…”

“I know I’m being unreasonable… I’m being stubborn because I completely trust in your strength… I know that… so… huh?”

“…Fuck.”

Alice squeezed her eyes shut and muttered a curse.

Then she removed her foot from the demon boy’s chest and stood up.

The holy sword had already vanished somewhere.

“When you look at me with those puppy-dog eyes, I can’t refuse.”

Alice said softly as she stroked my head.

The boy looked at us and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“…Whew, thought I was going to die.”

*

The boy introduced himself as a peddler.

He was one of many demons who had left, unable to serve the current Demon King who had killed the previous one and forcibly usurped the position.

The demons who left had been living either secretly among humans or self-sufficiently in remote areas, but recently, as demonic energy began to fill this forest again, they started gathering back one by one.

This was because they realized the Demon King wasn’t dead, and they were determined to help the rightful successor reclaim the throne.

In other words, this boy wasn’t our enemy.

In fact, we shared the same goal of taking the Demon King’s life.

“Calling you ‘peddler’ feels a bit awkward from a human’s perspective…”

“You’ll get used to it. It’s natural for us.”

When I asked if he had a separate name, he explained that demons don’t reveal their real names to anyone outside their family.

Demons always address each other by rank or profession, due to their strict hierarchical social structure.

After hearing this, Alice quietly spoke up.

“That’s strange.”

“W-what is?”

The peddler looked at Alice with a tense expression.

He was clearly afraid of her.

Understandably so.

Alice had just tried to kill him, and the holy sword she had raised could burn a demon’s flesh just by touching it. It would be stranger for a demon not to fear her.

Perhaps it was similar to the primal fear humans feel toward the Demon King.

“If demons are so hierarchical, why did you refuse to follow the current Demon King?”

“That’s right.”

I nodded in agreement with Alice’s question.

In a society where titles are determined by social position, following orders from superiors should be natural, yet the demons fled and rejected the Demon King.

Of course, this made the hero party’s adventure easier, but it was strange when you thought about it.

The peddler boy frowned slightly at the question.

“Hah…”

I instinctively closed my mouth at his expression.

His face, which had been full of fear and tension until just now, was now filled with disgust and irritation.

The boy spoke in a low, almost growling voice.

“Do humans do that?”

“…Huh?”

“Do humans do that? If some street thug with no qualifications or bloodline suddenly appears, murders your respected king, and declares ‘I am the king now,’ do you humans just curl your tails and follow like dogs, saying ‘Yes, yes, we’ll obey’?”

“Ah…”

“Sure, there were a few who followed. But most left. Many hid away, saying they’d rather break their horns and live in seclusion than serve that lizard bastard with no roots. Many demons were caught and killed for resisting.”

“…”

“We won’t give up. We won’t compromise. Whether we die, leave, or even hide our demon identity and live among humans forever, we will never serve that lizard bastard as our king.”

The boy’s tone of firm contempt silenced both me and Alice.

Perhaps we had underestimated demons.

Maybe we had arbitrarily decided they had a lower social level than humans.

Even from just the peddler boy’s words, it was clear that demons weren’t simply barbaric beings who followed the strongest power, despite their hierarchical society.

The hierarchy they followed wasn’t based on mere strength, but on legitimacy, politics, and clear consensus.

Just like human society.

As I was thinking this, Alice spoke softly.

“You might actually be better than us.”

“…What?”

“Because human society is completely broken now.”

“Ah, right. I saw on my way here—without leadership, they’ve all turned into bandits.”

“…Really?”

“You wouldn’t have seen it, hiding here because of that curse.”

The peddler boy nodded and said:

“Well, whether it’s you whose supporting society has collapsed, or us who are barely left, we’re in the same boat. That damn lizard bastard didn’t seem interested in ruling us as a king. It’s like he just wanted to burn the whole world.”

That was certainly true.

The human king opposes demons for the sake of humans, and the Demon King opposes humans for the sake of demons.

Humans and demons were more like competitors vying for their own interests.

But the current Demon King seemed to just want to burn everything and turn every place within his influence into a wasteland.

Incomprehensible actions and atrocities with no discernible reason.

That’s why the current Demon King had become an object of indescribable terror to humans.

“…”

I thought of the green lady.

According to her, even the demon god was perplexed by the current situation.

If neither the goddess nor the demon god wanted this situation, whose intention created this broken fate?

Who does the current Demon King serve, and what is his goal?

As I was walking lost in these thoughts, the peddler boy tapped my shoulder and said:

“We’re here. Over there.”

The boy pointed somewhere with his fingertip.

Through trees that had split into a V-shape, I could see a small village with huts and stone building ruins clustered together.

“That’s the temporary outpost where our people are staying now.”

“…Ash, be careful.”

Alice whispered to me with a hardened expression.

“Earlier I tried to harm that boy, but if they have numbers on their side, the situation could be different.”

“…You mean we might be attacked?”

“Yes. We need to be careful. I still don’t completely trust that boy.”

“I can hear you, you know?”

The peddler boy scratched the back of his head and said:

“If you’re that worried, I’ll go ahead and explain. You can follow slowly.”

“…”

“What, are you nervous about that too? Afraid I’ll go ahead and have them arm themselves? What do you want me to do?”

“…We’ll go in together. If things go badly, I can at least start by cutting your throat.”

The boy turned to me with an incredulous expression.

“Are all humans this aggressive?”

“…”

“She’s the one who kicked me, stomped on me, and held that terrifying sword to my neck.”

“Um… sorry?”

The boy sighed and started walking.

As the density of trees thinned and a wide clearing began to appear, we could see someone standing at the entrance to the village.

“Huh…?”

The boy’s voice was filled with shock.

“Ah…”

“Oh no.”

Mine and Alice’s reactions were the same.

“…We’re fucked.”

I whispered quietly.

A woman was standing at the entrance to the village.

She was wiping a blood-covered sword with a cloth, her platinum blonde hair fluttering.

The woman’s head slowly turned toward us, and her red gaze immediately fixed on me.

She smiled and opened her mouth.

“Ah, Ash!”

It was Sylvia.

.