The calmness ater the fire

The noise of the creatures got on his nerves, it penetrated Asato’s skull and it hurt his brain on a fundamental level. They were loud and they were distracting. Asato was almost out of energy and he was not sure he would be able to survive if it came out to a full out blow.

The entity had disappeared as soon as the marble had shattered and the fire started. This meant that Asato was alone in this smoke with all those creatures ready to have a piece of him.

And yet none of them made an approach for him. They circled around the place he was at at a constant distance which made Asato wonder what was going on.

To test the things, Asato took a step forward, his bag making a jingling noise from his shoulder. The shadowy creatures took a step back as he moved one forward.

There was a limitation on their moment, they were not able to approach him within a certain diameter. This was convenient and yet shady.

How did this happen exactly? Was it his energy? It did feel raw and blazing, his senses still on fire. It felt as if his surroundings were on fire, and maybe that was the right answer.

His shield was a part of him and it had absorbed a fair amount of that fire before. From what he had observed, these creatures avoided the fire part like a plague while they concentrated on being in the shadows.

They were afraid of the fire now that Asato felt like the fire, they were hesitant to approach him too.

It was really great news for him though since it made everything so much more convenient.

To navigate out of the smoke was easier this time around with now having to fear an attack. The smoke was dense but without a source, it seemed to be dwindling.

Yet, Asato could not allow the smoke to remain as it was. Who knew how long it would hold on like this? It would just cause problems in the long run after all. And they could not allow normal animals to come in contact with this smoke, lest it causes side effects in them too.

So with what little energy he was left with, Asato called forth the katana once again. It was dull in look again without any charge which made Asato pull a face. This was something he always was unhappy about.

He forgot that to use its power he had to charge the katana first.

Hacking away at some nearby shadows with a swift hand, it took far too long to charge the katana. Mainly because most of the shadows were too far away to actually become a decent charge for his katana.

It took a long time but he finally managed to fill the meter of the sword and threw it toward the smoke.

The disappearing smoke was a blur to his eyes, his concentration breaking in parts a lot due to the energy he had utilised. But it was far easier this time to get the cleanup down quicker since there was no actual attack that followed. The difficult part was to get out of the forest now.

Approaching the smokey area to pick up the katana back before he made his way out, Asato narrowed his eyes at the bodies littering the ground.

These were clothes he recognised from earlier. The people were dressed in a similar fashion to the ones they had killed when they entered the place. This made him wonder if these people were the ones responsible for the smoke.

But on one would be foolish enough to actually get caught up in their own explosion after all.

If he took the entity at face value, then the only options that were left were him, Erin and Ten. Asato himself was not the problem here and Erin had been with him for a long time. That only left Ten.

But the other had been too nervous to actually do this. Not to mention his phobia of fire and how it led to so much death in the orphanage - even of the innocent ones.

But maybe the entity had seen these people set off the fire and felt Ten as familiar since he was at the scene of the previous fires?

But no, Asato never saw the entity at any fire he had been before? This was surely the first time for him.

Things just refused to make sense. If he followed the entity’s logical sense then it meant that Ten was behind all this which doesn't seem possible from all he had faced till now.

But if not then he was going off on a lost cause with no clear indication of an end in sight.

It was just a headache at this point and Asato turned his mind off for the time being. He’ll come back to the topic when he has more evidence.

Before that, he needed to make a report in the demon higher office about their breach in security. Were those people even aware of all the illegal smuggling of goods happening right under their nose?

Or was it a deliberate turn away due to the massive profit involved in the deals? Anyway, Asato would do his part and allow everyone else to do their part as well.

Getting out of the forest was a pain when more than half of his body wanted to shut down and go to sleep. His eyes felt heavy and Asato felt he was going to drop any second now.

He dragged himself toward the nearest demon security post with actual decent equipment available which took him almost one hour of travel.

The post looked old but it was clean and had a solid patrol going on. Finally, Asato was somewhere he could actually make use of rather than going on a wild goose chase.

“Get me to your captain” Asato approached the nearest soldier and he could feel the judgement in the eyes of the red-skinned ogre. Clearly, the other was debating if Asato needed to be dealt with or be allowed inside.

Asato just maintained his aloof and non-caring attitude but his eyes were digging daggers in the ogre who grumbled but led him inside.

The incharge was a slimy fish demon with a far too hot head for his post and refusing to listen to anything Asato had to say because Asato was clearly too young and not aware of what he was talking about.

That wasted another one hour over useless talks before Asato managed to convince the chief to let him have a talk with the higher-ups.

If the scythe and other dangerous weapons were involved then Asato was not going to say for it eroded his reputation on the topic. Thankfully, the chief along with everyone else left while he called the higher-ups connected.

“Master, you alright?” Nate’s voice was such a relief after dealing with a not so desirable company. Asato let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m alright and I have the ingredient with me too. But there was a problem during our exit” Asato reported, his voice filled with relief at being able to speak without holding back.

“The fire? Erin reported. They’re alright too” that was such a big relief. While he had not thought about the two getting injured at all throughout the mess, hearing that they were alright brought about a massive relief to his senses.

“Really? That’s good. But I’m afraid it’s far more than that though” Asato complained, his body relaxing back into the couch which was getting comfier than the second.

Nate’s eyes flashed at his words, a curious look entering his eye.

“More? Elaborate?” there was a noise in the background which clearly indicated that there was someone else in there with Nate too but Asato did not care much about it at all.

If Nate felt confident enough to have someone in the background while discussing this then that person must be trustworthy enough to be there.

“There were illegal smugglers. We killed the first group when we entered but another was found burnt in the fire. I’m not sure if they’re the reason for the fire or now but I feel you should look into it. They were smuggling luminescent grass to the orphanage” the silence that followed was expected.

Everyone knew the result of his words and the use such an ingredient might have in the orphanage. This was a far more serious situation than what looked at the first glance.

It was no longer an act of terrorism but a corruption scandal for the demon race which would cause a lot of power struggle right about now.

Really, this was not something anyone wanted to deal with but it came as a part of every society’s darkness.

“I understand. We’ll look into this more. Thank you for your information. Should we send you an escort?” Haru was the one called out and it didn’t surprise Asato to see that she was the other person in the room.

Her authority was higher than ate and she was his legal guardian till he came of age. And this worked well with Asato too, it meant he didn’t have to make a separate ping to her in the future to explain things.

“Please send one. It’ll be better after the drama I pulled here” Asato replied, trying to keep the exhaustion out of his voice but failing to do so.

Haru let out an amused scoff at that.

“Yeah sure. I’ll handle it from here. You can sleep now” before her words were over, Asato was fast asleep on the couch.

When the escorts arrived, they found a terrified demon post with their charge fast asleep on the office couch.

The journey back to the guest house was uneventful though.