23 Demonic Actor

When Deon woke up, he found himself alone in a tent. He assumed that he had been carried back to camp, and going by the lack of pain in his stomach, he'd been healed quite thoroughly.

He expected as much. The war was only just beginning, which gave the soldiers plenty of time to use all of their efforts to heal him properly. Later on when people were getting injured every day, things probably wouldn't be so simple.

There was another reason for his fast recovery speed though, which was the use of the vital flower spirit. The 1-Star vital flower spirit's main use was to increase the shaman's vitality, giving them up to 10 extra years of life. It also had the effect of providing a temporary boost to their current health and wellness immediately following its activation though, so his recovery speed had been far superior compared to usual at the moment he activated the spirit.

After draining the glass of water to the side of his bed, Deon didn't get up but stayed lying down and stared at the tent ceiling as he fell into thought.

Given that he wasn't tied to the bed, it was safe to assume that he wasn't suspected of killing Benji. Well, the scene of the crime ended up so bloody and chaotic that it's doubtful anyone would be able to find the truth, even if they for some reason had the idea to search properly.

He had killed his comrade and gotten away with it…no, he killed many people actually.

Deon possessed a hardened mind and willpower, but he had not actually killed many people in his life. Not only that, but he had betrayed someone who held trust in him and took their life, a crime that would be viewed as pure evil by anyone in the kingdom, or the entire righteous path for that matter.

A faint smile crept onto Deon's lips.

'So what if I betray, kill and lie? This is the demonic path. Morality is a chain that binds the weak, it is something the so called righteous cling onto because they cannot bare to endure the lonely road of life. I refuse to be so weak, I refuse to be bound by anything in this world, the only thing I want from this life is the peak of the demonic path!'

This event unknowingly strengthened Deon's resolve to walk the demonic path. He was the inheritor chosen by Blood God after all. Way back then, Blood God created the underworld trial knowing that only a truly demonic individual could possibly succeed.

'Sigh…I definitely need to work on my acting skills though.' He thought mildly. If he was to continue using the military and this war for his own gain, going behind the scenes and obtaining the greatest rewards at the expense of those around him, he needed to make sure that he wasn't seen through.

Being a child was quite useful in this regard, people were naturally less cautious towards children. As he thought of this, Deon realised something that he hadn't exactly thought through in his earlier haste.

Wasn't he going to retain this childish appearance for the next 10 years?

He didn't care much about how he looked just for the sake of vanity, but it would take some explaining if his body didn't grow or mature for the next decade.

'Oh well, it should be fine for the next year or two at least. I'll deal with the problem later on.'

If he really couldn't find another way around it, he could always just leave the kingdom and migrate elsewhere.

"Deon, you're awake!"

To the voice that pulled him out from his mulling, Deon stared blankly for a moment.

"Vash…you're alive?"

"Yeah…I was shot in the liver and lost consciousness, but luckily I was healed in time."

Deon stayed silent and examined Vash's expression. The man was trying to act calm and composed, but Deon could see the pain hidden in his eyes.

His twin sister had been killed, it was impossible for him to feel fine. If he knew that Deon was largely responsible for her death, Vash would probably rip Deon apart right here and now.

"I'm sorry about your sister Vash." Deon replied with a sigh.

"Yeah…I'll tell the captain that you're awake." At the mention of Vanna, the sadness and rage in Vash's eyes became ever more clear.

This was war. With the loss of each life, there would be those left behind, forced to endure the sadness and hatred. This hatred would spur more on to join the war effort and fight viciously, thus speedballing the battle into greater heights, creating more suffering and devastation as the battle eventually reached it climax.

Deon saw that Vash was struggling to continue speaking, so he didn't press him any further. After Vash left, Captain Dan returned a minute later, along with Commander Reana. Seeing the commander enter his tent, Deon struggled to sit up.

"Don't get up Soldier Deon, you should rest." Commander Reana spoke quickly. Deon paused, then nodded and lay back down. He felt mostly fine, but he probably should rest up a little bit more. He stabbed himself straight through the abdomen after all, there's no way that he was 100% healed just yet.

"Did anyone else survive? How long have I been asleep for?" Deon felt that it would be best to ask these things first, showing that he cared for his companions.

"Only you and Vash." Captain Dan sighed and shook his head. "You've been out for three days." He added.

Three days. It was longer than he expected. Did he overdo it a bit with the spontaneous self mutilation…? At least it was quite convincing.

"I know it may be difficult, but could you give your account of what happened?" Commander Reana asked whilst Captain Dan stood there quietly, also interested to hear.

They heard from Vash the first part about the discovery of the cave, but Vash had fallen before reaching the cave, so the latter stages of events were still an unknown.

"Sigh…" Deon showed a pained expression, but then his expression became firm and he nodded.

"Fine, it was like this…"

He recounted everything accurately, all the way up until the entry into the cave.

"The others all dashed towards the five riflemen and swordsmen, but I noticed that an old man was hiding on the other side of the cave. I saw that the old man was about to target Benji, so I rushed towards him and somehow managed to take him down. Unfortunately, by the time I finished my battle and made it across to the others, it was already too late."

"All I could do was kill the remaining two soldiers, but by this point I was exhausted from fighting the old man and ended up getting stabbed before taking down the last enemy. After that, I fell to the ground. Luckily I was found and taken back to camp, or else I'm afraid that I might have died along with the others…"

From start to end, Deon put on an expression of trying to cover his pain whilst recounting the events concisely. He was forced to rely on his high school drama and acting classes, but he was unsure if this was much use.

Well, in the eyes of the others, he was a child who had been through a great trauma, it was natural that his demeanour might be somewhat off. It would instead be a bit strange if he was acting too perfectly with a shakespearean level of perfection.

As he finished speaking, Deon remembered something. Whenever the soldiers encountered the enemy, or had to deal with the loss of a friend and ally, they would also be filled with rage.

"That damned Fan Kingdom!" He gritted his teeth and spat this out under his breath with hatred, as if he was struggling to hide his emotions. It was barely audible to the captain and commander, but this was also good.

Captain Dan and Commander Reana shared a glance, then nodded to one another.

"Thank you for explaining things so clearly Soldier Deon. You should know that not only did you kill over ten enemy soldiers, but you even took down a renowned peak stage 1-Star captain of the Fan Kingdom, you will certainly earn great merit for this. We will take our leave now, please take your time to recover properly." The commander was being unexpectedly gentle with him, but Deon just smiled weakly and nodded.

After they left, he let out a breath of relief.

The fact that they knew how many soldiers he had killed, showed that the scene of battle had been investigated. Though, in all honesty, Deon's style of decapitating his enemies with the ancient demon sword was quite easily identifiable, it didn't take a genius to ascertain how many enemy soldiers he had killed.

The fact that he had gotten away with this betrayal was proof to Deon that even the shamans in the Kingdom of Restari did not possess good forensic investigation methods, or at least, those in the 37th unit did not. This was naturally a good thing for him.

There were likely spirits which could be used to trace back such murders to their perpetrator, but either these spirits did not exist in this kingdom, or they were simply too rare.

The spirits in the Kingdom of Restari were limited, but the range of spirits would increase as more were uncovered on Jing Mountain throughout the course of this war.

'Seems like they bought it. Haha, not only that, but I might even be rewarded this time! I was right though, my acting skills really do need work.'