14 Chapter 14 Imps Near Town

As Thomas slept on the floor of Lily's room, he sat up quickly and mumbled "Crap… I forgot I wanted to do another quest while I'm still getting those blue windows." Thomas held his left eye for a moment before saying, "I've been completely exhausted ever since dealing with that mega mole… maybe it's also linked to my eye color?" After sitting there for another moment, he stood up and began to walk towards the door, but before reaching it he paused and then glanced at the window as he said, "If I go down the normal way, I bet Cali would stop me." Thomas continued to stare at the window for another moment before climbing out and then making his way towards the tavern. Upon entering the tavern Cali tapped his shoulder scaring him as she said, "I sensed that you left the inn, are you by chance running away?" Thomas began to panic, but before he could say anything, Cali said, "You know if you run away, she can choose to have that seal on your back cause you an enormous amount of pain." Thomas flinched as he quickly and nervously said, "N-no, I was just gonna do a quest, I promise!" Cali stared at him intently and then glanced around the tavern as she said, "If I were you, I'd wait until that smell of death went away." Thomas stared at her for another moment as he asked, "Does that mean I can't go?" Cali thought for a moment as she said "No… I suppose this is technically what Jason wanted… he wants you to be strong enough to protect Lily." Cali walked over to a table and sat down as she said, "I won't stop you from doing simple quests, but I will stop you if you try to do anything above what I believe you are capable of." As Thomas sat down with her, Grace walked past and said, "It's rare to see you here, especially so late, are you by chance looking for some more easy quests?"

Thomas nodded and some after Grace brought a pile of papers as she excitedly said, "Here are some of the new requests, take your time picking one." Cali stared at the pile for a moment and then grabbed one off the top as she asked "These are all safe right?" Grace glanced at her with a thumbs up as she said, "Relatively safe." Cali flipped through a few quests as she said, "These seem at least somewhat reasonable." Grace nodded and agreed with her before leaning in towards Thomas as she asked, "Is she like your girlfriend or something?" Cali glanced at her as she said, "No me and him aren't together, besides my life span I much longer than his, so I don't think it would work." Cali froze for a moment as she said, "Actually… I just realized… I can't sense his life span through his mana." After realizing this, Cali stared at him intently as she said, "This is a first… even after all the years I've lived, I've never run into this type of thing before." Thomas stared at her for a moment, but before he could say anything, Cali sighed and said, "I know what you're thinking and no, I'm not going to tell you my age." Thomas glanced back to the pile of quests without saying a word as Grace said, "You know you shouldn't ask a lady her age, right?" After sitting there for another moment or two, a man walked in holding a paper as he said, "Some imps have been spotted just outside of town!" Upon hearing this, Thomas glanced at Cali with an excited look for a short while before she glanced at him and said, "I suppose it's fine since they're just imps… but if anything bad happens, you should run away immediately." Thomas then glanced at Grace with the same expression as she said, "I suppose it's alright." After hearing this, Thomas quickly got up and began to make his way out of the city, but upon exiting the city he stood outside the city for a short while and then realized that he has no clue where the imps were spotted nor how they look. After standing there for a short while Cali walked towards him and handed him the paper as she said, "They're apparently somewhere along the shore line, you should be able to find them fairly easily since they look like fat little red humans with tails, they should be about a foot tall, so like I said they should be fairly simple to find." After glancing over the paper, Thomas handed it back to Cali and embarrassingly said, "Thanks… I sort of forgot it."

Cali nodded as she said, "Just return back safely, I'd much rather not listen to Lily cry come tomorrow." Thomas flinched as he asked, "Wouldn't it have just been easier to wish me luck?" As Cali walked away, she said, "I suppose… but if you don't come back, I'll find you and bring you back whether you're dead or alive." Thomas flinched once more than shivered from fear and said, "Scary." Once she was gone, Thomas began to walk towards the ocean as he said, "She said the shore, right?" Upon reaching the sandy place where the ocean met the land, Thomas looked up towards the moon and said, "I'm pretty sure Lily mentioned being able to find out which direction you're going just by looking up at the sun and moon." Thomas glanced back at the beach as he said, "I think she said that the ocean is to the West… or was it the East… no, maybe it was South." After thinking for a short while, Thomas began to walk the beach as he said, "Nope, … not a clue." After walking for around half an hour he came across a group of small fat red men with tails, and horns surrounding a tall slender red woman with long black hair, yellow eyes, a heart shape connected by a long thin black tail, a pair of horns, and her clothes consisted of black fabric that just slightly exposed her stomach, she didn't seem to be wearing shoes, and she had a chest which looked like two red coconuts that were ready to burst out of her shirt at any moment. Thomas stared at her for a short while before asking, "Are you imps?" The tall red woman then glanced at Thomas for a moment and then nervously said "No… well… they are… Y-yes! N-now prepare to die!" Thomas stood there confused at what she was saying as he asked once more what they were, however she panicked once more and posed while shouting "Y-yes and no… these little guys are, but I'm a demo-" however before finishing her line she paused for a moment and said "Forget that… it's too embarrassing." After standing there for another moment or two, she said, "I'm just going to quit trying to go by the demon lord's handbook… I've never even seen her, so I'll just say a few things, okay?"

Thomas nodded as he said, "Alright, but are you imps or not?" The tall demon lady pointed to the small fat creatures as she said, "Although I have some resemblance to them, I'm actually a demon who goes by the name Scarlett, but yes, they're imps." Scarlett then smiled with a somewhat evil look as she said, "Now then… let's get straight into it." Thomas then quickly pulled his new sword from his storage and began to mercilessly kill the imps one by one as he said, "No, thanks, I was just told to kill these imps, I wasn't told anything about a demon." Scarlett began to panic as she shouted, "What are you doing? I thought we were talking?" Just as Thomas finished killing the last imp, he put the sword away and said, "Hey, you seem like a professional with this kinda stuff, do imp bodies sell for anything?" Scarlett began to panic even more as she said, "You're just gonna kill my kind and then ask if they sell for anything?" Thomas stored the bodies away as he nodded and said, "Yeah, survival of the fittest, do they sell for anything?" As Thomas got closer to her, she began to panic even more as she shouted, "Stay away from me!" Thomas put his hand on her shoulder as he said, "I already told you, I was only sent here to kill the imps, so long as you don't try anything to kill me… okay?" Scarlett began to nod nervously as she said, "A-alright." As the two of them stood there another demon with wings landed beside them, this demon, however, had very sharp claws and much more refined muscles but for the most part still resembled Scarlett. Thomas stared at him for a moment as the demon man laughed and smiled while saying, "Look at this pathetic demi-human, I wonder what it's doing all the way out here alone." The demon man stared at Thomas and then glanced at Scarlett as he asked, "So, why is he still alive, newbie?" Scarlett seemed fearful of this man as she said, "H-he killed all the imps." The man began to laugh as he said, "Don't be ridiculous, you had seventeen of them with you, there's no way he killed them all." While this was all going on, Thomas was staring at a blue box that had appeared in front of him telling him about his objective being complete and that the reward for completing it would be another skill page, he also got three other boxes that appeared telling him that he had leveled up.

Scarlett pointed at Thomas as she said, "It's true… he pulled a sword from the air and began butchering them." The demon man glared at Thomas as he said, "Then this little demi-human has a lot more power than he's letting on." The demon man then approached Thomas and picked him up by his head as he said, "Hey, show me your power, there's no way a demi-human can be stronger than even the lowest level demon, right?" Thomas stared at him with a somewhat blank expression before asking, "Are you an imp to?" The man began to laugh as he said, "Oh you're funny, of course not, I'm dozens of times stronger than an imp in fact, I could probably kill you with just one attack." Thomas stared at him for another moment as a blue box appeared saying "Linked quest system to your storage magic, all quest items will be deposited to your inventory immediately after quest completion." Thomas then pulled a page from the air and stared at it for a moment before saying, "Blaze?" The demon man stood there staring at him as he said, "That doesn't look like any sword I've ever seen." The demon man glanced at Scarlet as he said, "He's not very strong in fact, I'd probably kill him if I squeezed too hard." After another moment, the page burned up and Thomas was just staring at the demon as he said, "Since you're not an imp, I guess I won't have to kill you." The man paused for a moment and then glared at Thomas as he angrily asked, "What the hell did you just say? You wouldn't have to kill me?" Scarlett seemed scared after hearing him say this as she panicked and nervously said, "Y-you shouldn't have said that… he's scary when he's angry." The man began to laugh as he said, "How about I kill you instead." Thomas locked eyes with him for a moment as he said, "I can't do that… it would make Lily sad." After saying this, the demon pulled Thomas closer and angrily asked, "What was that?" Upon being pulled closer, Thomas smiled and grabbed on to both of his wings and began to tear them off while shouting, "I said it would make Lily sad!" Upon tearing his wings off, Thomas jumped about three feet back, still smiling as the demon shouted out in pain and then shouted, "You damn demi-human scum!"

The demon man stood there for a moment, grasping the spots where its wings were as he glared at Thomas and then shouted, "I'll kill you!" The demon man begun to charge Thomas with his sharp claws as he continued to shout angrily. Thomas stood there and put his wings into his storage as he said, "I was originally just gonna go back to the tavern and grab a new quest or something, but I guess dealing with you comes first." The demon slashed at Thomas, just barely managing to cut through his shirt while shouting "Shut it you damn demi-human!" Upon dodging this, Thomas grabbed the demon by his head using his left hand and said blaze, after saying the word blaze his hand began to emit fire. The demon began to laugh as he said, "Such a weak fire. You thought this could kill me?" After another moment or two, Thomas began to pour in more mana as he said, "Of course not, that paper said I was able to make it as hot as I want." The demon smiled as he said, "You can't burn a demon, your fire is too weak." The fire began to glow brighter and bigger as Thomas said, "So you have some sort of resistance to fire?" The demon grabbed Thomas by his head as he continued to laugh while saying, "Of course, only an idiot wouldn't know that." Thomas glared at the demon as he said, "Then I'll just continue to turn up the heat until it actually does something." Upon saying this the fire got even brighter and even bigger and soon after the demon grabbed Thomas's hand and began to try to free himself as he began to shout "How much mana do you have? You shouldn't have this much mana! You're just a demi-human!" Thomas began to squeeze the demo's head even tighter as he said, "Like I give a hell, now hurry up and die." The demon continued to crush Thomas's arm as he asked, "Why the hell isn't my demon strength able to crush your arm?" After another moment, the demon's arms fell to his side and just dangled, revealing Thomas's sleeve to be even more torn than it was before and showing his severely bruised arm.

As Thomas let go of the demon's face, the body dropped to the ground, revealing that the demon's face was now nothing more than a skull with fangs. Thomas rubbed his arm a bit and exhaled as he said, "That hurt a lot." Once the demon man was dead, Scarlett stared at Thomas with a fearful look as she said, "P-please don't kill me… I'll be good… I won't harm anyone… I'll even quit serving the demon lord!" Thomas glanced at her for a moment as he said, "I don't care about any of that, just tell me about that demon strength stuff, is it real?" Scarlett stared at him nervously before nodding and saying, "Yes, we demon's usually have at least two times more strength than what you'd consider to be a normal human's strength, although he had roughly four times more than an average human." Thomas stared at his body for a moment as he mumbled, "Killing him gave me seven of those level things… maybe the stronger my opponent, the more experience I get." Thomas thought for another moment and then began to walk back towards the city as he said, "Well, I'm gonna go back, I'll see you around or something." Scarlett stood there in terror as she asked, "B-but… what am I supposed to do?" Thomas glanced back at her for a moment as he said, "Well, if you're trying to be good or whatever you called it, wouldn't your best bet be to go to a town or something and get a job?" Scarlett stared at him as she said, "B-but… I'm a demon, they'd never let me anywhere near a town." Thomas thought for a moment and then pointed to the dead demon as he said, "Carry that corpse to the city and say you've defeated it, I'm sure they won't fear a demon who kills demons." Scarlett flinched as she said, "You want me to carry my comrade's dead corpse to a human settlement in order to gain recognition from them?" Thomas thought for a moment and then nodded as he said, "I'll wait at the gate for you and jump in if it doesn't work."