Chapter 1:Off To The Human Lands!

I sit in my office, on my desk seat, thoroughly enjoying the feather stuffed cushions that my back and bum rest on, the comfy cushionless armrest holds my stretched arms as they move across my wooden work desk, sorting through the heap of contracts I have resting on my desk's top, a small blue scented wax candle held on a tall tin container floating directly above the seemingly endless pile of papers. Today is the day I leave my homeland, the demon kingdom, a nation on the large crescent-shaped island me and my people refer to as, Moon Island, so I must be prepared. "Hey guard number one come on over, I got something to ask." I speak out looking behind me to see a well carved wooden door and a demon holding a black iron glaive, wearing full mithril armor. Every part of his body except his wings, thick lizard-like tail, and head are fully covered with a thick sheet of segmented silver plates.

"Yes my lord." He walks to me, his armor creaking and ringing as his large legs move, the red rug crinkling with every one of his steps. Within eight steps he stands next to me, his lizard-like face expressing clear confusion.

"How long have I been serving the king?" I look to him with a slight smile, making sure that I am correct about today's date. He closes his eyes and begins to scratch his head creating a bit of an unpleasant sound as the sides of his arms rub against his sharp-pointed horns and his fingers rub against the rough scales on his head. After a few seconds of thinking, he answers with clear confusion in his voice. "It will be ten years tomorrow, what do you plan to do my lord?"

"Alright good. Goodbye, I guess." I begin collecting the papers on my desk with my right hand and start casting a storage spell with my left, completely ignoring the burst of bloodlust coming from that slightly annoying guard. I close my left fist and begin to slowly open it, releasing mana from my fingertips, causing a slight distortion to form at my palm's center. As my fingers stretch so does the distortion, when I finish opening my hand a small black ball wrapped in blue strings loosely connected to my fingertips. I press the ball against the stack of papers I had made, sending them to my personal subspace.

I stand up and begin to examine my office one last time. The stone walls are covered in several golden veins, small blue shining mana stones spread evenly across it, causing the small paintings spread above my desk to emit a slight glow. A small bookshelf reaching the gold and red flower painted roof in height rest on the left wall, small candles held by red bronze holders sit on its sides. I move my favorite seat back into the desk as the bottom is empty so I have room for my legs, and of course my precious seat, and begin to walk to the door only to be stopped by that pesky guard. He lightly taps the glaive's end against the ground, showing that he is willing to attack.

"You agreed to a simple service contract with a few extra restrictions so I understand If I were to leave, the king likely wouldn't be nice with you like I have, that and you know the consequences of desecrating a deal made with me." I look to the guard putting on the brightest smile I can, hoping he'd be willing to listen but unfortunately the idiot decides to attack me. He begins to madly consume his mana internally, causing his yellow eyes to shine as his body begins to grow, his armor creaking and clacking as his muscles begin to expand. He attempts to attack me but fails as a familiar paper appears in front of me. He looks at me and after hesitating once again begins swinging his glaive, aiming to decapitate me. The paper in front of me begins to glow, red words covering its surface, suddenly the stamp and signature at its end begin to expand, similar markings appearing on the guard's chest and head. He wither's up and dies instantly, his soul leaving his body and entering my mouth as he falls forward

Seeing the guards dried up soulless corpse I continue my walk, opening my door and entering the castle hallway. I have worked for my king for the last ten years under a contract, it's about time for our deal to end so I need to discuss with him as I am unwilling to continue acting under him as I have, due to some minor ideological disagreements. Recently after several years of war, he has begun discussing the possibility of peace, which annoys me to no end as the more fun way to achieve peace is to completely erase our enemy, the humans, instead of discussing with them and their allies as if they weren't overly dependent animals, which is quite ironic considering his bloody history.

The king used to be an ordinary man but after finding a large continent full of resources and unfortunately other civilizations on a long sea voyage, advancing seafaring technology to a level capable of advanced warfare and leading generals to develop a new form of group combat, conquering a large portion of the human ports and seaside towns, he was granted high nobility status. Eventually, he started a coup against the corrupt king succeeding and replacing him, and all of this involved quite a bit of death and destruction.

I walk through the long hall, rubbing my right hand against the cold stone and slightly rubbing my leather shoes against the small carpet lining the center of the hall. I may not be as tall as that annoying guard but still, I can be considered tall for our species, at least when compared to the average male. Occasionally I will pass a maid or guard standing by the several doors that line my right and of course like that guard, when they discover why I left my office they attempt to kill me, activating their contracts. Since my start I have slowly contracted the entirely of the high ranking demons as well as their guards and maids, just in case someone decides to try something to protect our king, but, unfortunately I had to be lenient and make it so that our deals only count when they continue to try and kill me after a single warning.

Within a matter of minutes, I stand in front of a large iron door. I don't bother to knock and instead just enter using a small portion of my mana to strengthen my body so that I can open the heavy doors. "Hello hello, my little puppet looks like its almost time do you want to renew our contract? Yes? No? Maybe?" I look ahead of me and see at the end of the large hall sits my king on a large throne made of pure red mana crystals. He's wearing a set of red crystal armor, fully covering every part of his body but his large dragon-like wings and head. "I'll have to refuse. Your services have been exceptional and I would like to continue our partnership but unfortunately, as you may already know, we simply cannot continue to enlist your services due to the heavy expenditure that comes with war." After he finishes speaking he stands up, revealing his large crystal-lined tail, and a smaller pair of wings. "So no? Boooo we're so close, who knows if we continue I'm sure we can kill all those stupid and evil humans."

I walk down the hall with a friendly smile, ignoring the king's stunned face. The hall is rather long so it takes a little bit to make it to my king, which is a little annoying but I guess it is worth the extreme amount of effort it takes to walk to discuss our deal, of course eventually I make it to the king. I offer my hand but he rejects, instead continuing to silently stare at me. "So if you have more resources and stuff you can continue? I can help with that if you want you can send me to the humans and I can collapse a few of the large towns. I'm sure that I can convince those greedy, stupid, fat, ugly, hornless human nobles to make a deal."

After several moments of silence the king finally responds. "If you're caught you will be killed and with your looks, it will be difficult to disguise yourself well." I lightly laugh at the king and pinch my cheeks. "I can just put on a heavy coat to hide my wings and for my tail, Ill just slide it between my legs and use it as a belt. I should be fine since my skin is a peach color and my pupils are round unlike you, Mr. red serpent. Ah, I'll have to get rid of the tuxedo...oh well." He begins to tap his feet as he puts on an expression of clear and most likely, very much so extreme annoyance. Huh never thought it was possible to become that red.

"We've begun peace negotiations with the humans and beastmen. I would like to make a deal with you but I'm sure you wouldn't agree to it." Hearing his words my face stiffens, as I've never really thought that the humans would be willing to concede and discuss how best to achieve peace. "...What do you propose?" Hearing my annoyed voice the king begins to quiver, filling the island with the sound of scraping metal as the segments of his armor begin to rub against each other. I begin to walk towards the king with a bright smile, my arms open wide. Every step forward for me is a step back for him, which annoys me a little, so in response, I release some mana from my fingertips creating ten small mana circles to appear.

"What do you want my liege?" The king, struggling, successfully manages to release a few quiet words. "Good boy. Send me to the humans and I will do it myself, in exchange I can assist you in your peacemaking." He continues to stand still, silently staring at me, trying his hardest not to anger me any further. "Don't worry we can talk about this a small bit. I have a few ways to kill humans without ruining human demon peace talks, like forcing a noble to intentionally mismanage his territory leading to mass starvation or maybe I can force a child in the slums to eat a sick animal add a little bit of fear-mongering oh this is going to be so fun."

"...Please as long as what you do does not impact the peace talks severely you can do anything. Please I'm begging you." Suddenly tears begin to flow from the king's eyes, dropping on to the ground, forming small mana crystals. Seeing my king fall backward and break into tears I decide to take pity on him. "Okay okay. Seriously your practically a god, you don't have to be so afraid of a small little demon soldier who likes to write on paper."

"Yes, my liege."

"So just to be clear, you will send me to the human kingdom and in exchange, I will not interfere with the establishment of positive interspecies relations. I can kill, steal, and live as I please as long as It's under the guise of a human."

"...Yes."

I move away from the king with a small twirl and pull a blank sheet of paper from my personal subspace, giving it to the king. Both of us inject it with our mana, suddenly words begin to appear on the paper forming separate clauses and agreements detailing what exactly our agreement will entail. "Look at section one clauses one A to one D, and sign under after clearly reading this section right here, here, and here then move onto the separate sections and do the same. Seven sections detailing what actions are permissible while the contract is in effect, what both parties are expected to do, what will happen when our agreement has been breached, as well as when this contract will expire, we can further negotiate that section. Once you have read everything you can sign and finally I will mark your heart, head, and spine once again."

The king begins to slowly read the proposed contract so I begin to examine the room out of boredom. The walls are made of polished stone and held together by collection mana stones and formations embedded into it, each stone gently shining a blue light granting the large room an aura of nobility and hostility due to the clashing colors of the grey wall, blue light, red carpet, and black iron laced floor. After a little over an hour, the king looks up at me, his eyes showing clear anger. "What, everything written there is perfectly acceptable under the term of not straining racial relations between demons and other species and empires." The king goes silent as an expression of discomfort and fear takes over his angry face. I wish to speed things up a bit so I decide to use my eyes a little bit.

In an instant I find myself directly in front of the king, wearing a bright smile, eyes shining white with a burst of mana. He screams and leaps back destroying the iron throne he was resting on. "Our contract ends tomorrow so no attempted murder until then, okay?" I walk up to the king ignoring his screams and tell him one more time. "So yes or no?" He stands up and screams, filling the island with his voice. "Yes!"

"Good boy." The contract in his hands launches itself towards me, exploding with pure white light. I grab it to see every signature signed with red ink created through the mana injected. "Goodbye see you in another ten years to renew our contract and don't forget this new one says you can't try to kill me." A large multi-colored and multi-layered magic circle appears below me, spinning, shrinking, and rising. The teleportation spell completes itself in an instant sending me to a random area or town in the continent us demons wish for, Bania.