Chapter 29 Nature Demon (part 2)

-Moments before.

The situation started to get a little complicated since the appearance of that small group.

They are a problem, but nothing to worry about: three adults and a child with a white mask, a small group that shouldn't cause me any problems, but....

"Who would have thought that kid would be so smart?"

It was the moment he used the demon. I never thought anything like that, but it was a variable.

A variable that I didn't notice before, so all I have to do is....

"It will be some sacrifices."

"Sinners who must not live."

Exactly, that was to be it. So I held my staff and activated a holy shield with its help. This staff contains great holy power that is difficult to control, but not to worry.

I got out of the carriage and when I looked away, the child from before was releasing my greatest sin.

"That girl... it's hard to predict, she's even using that small group."

That elven girl, although she looks like a child, she really isn't.

"A sinner who killed her family."

It was the great sin a child committed, something like that cannot be forgiven.

Absolutely unforgivable, a child who committed a great sin not so long ago.

Then I raised the cane and a yellow glow began to come out of it. It was so strong that I had trouble controlling it, but eventually the sky clouded over and yellow lightning struck right in front of the small group of people.

"Starburst."

The lightning hit the ground and when I looked, the boy had dodged the attack as if he was someone very experienced.

***

-Scene change.

-Perspective of Asher Frostblade.

A burly middle-aged man wore a white robe with some yellow outlining around the edges of his attire, with a small white hat on his head and a white beard. He held a brown cane with a yellow sphere on the end.

This man is dangerous, but how dangerous is he? It shouldn't be a problem, but....

"I sense something is not right."

I briefly watched Elara and the demon's intense fight. They were slowly moving away from us until they were quickly about a hundred meters away.

I didn't even notice this fact, but that didn't matter to me. I briefly glanced at the middle-aged man, his eyes as black as ink and a smile that wouldn't come off. It only made me angrier than usual.

Why was I feeling anger like this, was it because this man was trying to kill us or because he was looking at us as one of those sacrifices?

It was then that a single word came to my mind.

"I must kill him."

It was the right choice. Not only I was thinking about that, after looking for a few seconds at Alicia's and Clara's stares, they were thinking the same thing too. On the other hand, Dile was simply ignoring this.

He was even making me angrier, but it's not like I was off guard. I couldn't just trust the man in front of us, although it's true that Dik helped in the fight against the monsters, I still couldn't fully trust him.

"Dull sound."

My gaze was fixed on the sky. A glow started to come out of the gray clouds and a lightning bolt appeared, but before that happened, Clara pulled her staff from the back of her back and raised it a little to the sky, from where a green glow came out.

An oversized shield appeared and the lightning struck the shield.

"Starburst."

After the impact, the shield broke into pieces, but once again a lightning bolt appeared and Clara managed to create another shield. This one was weaker; the shield cracked and the lightning passed through it.

"Starburst."

Although I dodged the big lightning bolt, it left some wounds in the middle of my body the moment I threw myself to the side.

I looked where the lightning struck, but to my surprise, a shield had been created and no one was hurt.

"Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, don't worry about us, but do you think you can do anything with that guy's shield?"

I briefly looked at the shield of the man in front of us. It was composed of a single layer, but this one seemed to be very thick, which meant that this shield would not break easily. Then, my mana moved and came out of my hands, heading towards my arms and covering my sword.

"Swiss."

"Clak."

My sword impacted against the shield, but nothing.

Nothing happened, just my sword bounced off. When I looked at the shield, there wasn't even a small crack or something that would have broken it at least a little bit, but nothing happened.

Then I backed up a few feet backwards and analyzed the situation.

"At first glance, it's not a problem to kill this man, but the only thing preventing us from doing so is his shield, how did he destroy it?"

A shield has a weak point, but what is the weak point of that thick shield?

"Brat, I thought you were smarter. The weakest point of a shield this thick is the top of the shield."

I looked at one part of the shield, it seemed thinner than the rest of the shield. So, that's what Encrid was referring to.

I finally found the problem.

"Starburst."

Lightning struck right in front of me, less than a meter away. Fortunately, I managed to back up a few steps.

I quickly ran towards the man and swung my sword at the thinnest part of the shield and....

"Clank."

I managed to get the shield to start cracking. That's when I swung my sword again and once again the shield cracked. After seeing the surprised look on the man's face, I kept doing the same thing until the sky began to thunder so loudly that I looked up and saw a huge glow.

"Child, you are so naive. I knew you'd find my weak spot, but this time you won't be able to dodge this."

That's when the lightning struck full on me.

My whole body tensed and I felt every part vibrate and a strange sensation ran through my whole body. My whole body was electrocuted and a burning smell began to emerge.

But I didn't let that affect me, so I gritted my teeth at the great pain I felt. That's when I used Aura of darkness and my body relaxed.

The lightning finally disappeared. I looked at the man in front of me and started to approach. Then I swung my sword; the muscles in my body were almost burned and the pain was intense.

"Burst."

The ground shook and a yellow glow spread throughout the air. That was when the shield broke and pieces of the shield fell to the ground in large size.

It was the quickest possible moment and again I brandished my sword.

"No... W-wait..."

That was when the man's head fell to the ground and blood splattered all over the air. I simply stood still watching the blood rushing to my face, but I felt nothing.

I was absorbed with emotions, I felt nothing else.

"Interesting," Encrid only said those words.

"..."

I didn't speak or anything, but Encrid spoke again.

"You don't feel anything, even after killing someone."

"Why should I feel anything? This... is normal for me."

That wasn't a lie. There were times where I didn't want to kill or I felt a few emotions, but at the end of it all I never felt anything again when blood was spilled and I always looked at the body of the one I killed.

It was a habit.

"Boom!!!"

A huge explosion snapped me out of my thoughts as I looked off into the distance.

Both seemed to be badly wounded; the demon was missing an arm, while Elara was missing her hand. They were both so exhausted and blood was pouring from all over their bodies.

I looked at the scene without feeling anything.

"Looks like I didn't need the transformation in the end."

Those were my only words as I looked at the two of them. They were close to finishing and, although I didn't want to admit it....

"I... I did almost nothing on this mission."

We only investigated and defeated a bunch of monsters. I even fought a paladin, but what did I gain from all this? It was just experience, but did I really earn a knight achievement for this?

I was supposed to do all the work while killing the demon, but I did nothing. I even killed an ordinary person.

"Asher, is everything okay?"

I looked at Alicia, she was holding the girl. Although I didn't feel anything from the child, she was trembling. She looked like a child of only 8 years old, even younger.

"What is your name?" was the question I asked.

"..."

She didn't answer quickly, but after a few seconds she opened her lips.

"J-Jessica."

Was all she mumbled as her gaze was downward.

She seemed to have some guilt in her that I couldn't see very clearly, but I could recognize a smell.

Exactly, that's the smell of blood of a killer. This girl...has killed someone.

The smell is very familiar; any killer would know if a person has killed before by the smell of blood that clings to the body. It is a smell that simply cannot be removed, only by dying.

Then I looked at the rest of the group.

"Starburst."

That was when an explosion echoed in the distance. After looking, finally the fight had ended with Elara's victory. I then prepared a spell, one I was about to use for the first time, a spell Encrid had taught me.

[Sphere of darkness.]

A large sphere of darkness began to emerge in the sky. Darkness began to appear, but it was not too much. Finally, a sphere with a radius of twenty meters appeared just above where Elara was.

Then she looked up and quickly looked at me. Running towards me with such an angry face, she shouted:

"You fucking bastard!"

"Starburst!"

Then the large sphere fell on top of Elara. This is a spell that consumes all my mana and accumulates it into a large sphere in the sky, a spell that only destroys.

A shield surrounded us and the blast wave of my attack enveloped us.

Finally, everything calmed down and I looked where before the ground was flat, but now there was a crater with a radius of fifty meters.

Thus ended my first mission with only one week left.

***

- Change of scene.

"Drink this, it's a medicine that will be able to heal your internal wounds."

A middle-aged woman handed me a green colored bottle. It had a strange smell and without a second thought, I drank it.

It had no taste and was like a sticky liquid, but then that strange feeling disappeared.

It had been only an hour since I finished my first mission and we still hadn't returned to Nortil, as it was so far away. It would take us at least a few hours to get there.

We were currently in a very deep part of the dry forest, near a cabin. Strangely, Alice knew an old woman who lived in this monster-filled place.

Her name was Aurora Froswen, an old woman of about 70 years or so.

She had been living in seclusion from society for a long time, but that didn't mean she didn't have visitors from time to time.

"They had a hard time," Aurora spoke.

"That's right, we didn't think the demon would turn out to be a 'demon Count' and the paladin turned out to be an enemy."

She had thought before why a paladin would do all that just for some sacrifices. There must have been something more to it, but I couldn't answer those questions since the paladin is now dead.

"It is very strange that a holy knight would do such things as sacrifices," Aurora commented in her already worn voice. She was right, a paladin why would he do that sort of thing?

No one would believe if we told, that's why the information about the paladin involved in human sacrifices was kept secret. For now, such information was not to be known in the empire.

It could become a problem.

A very annoying one.

"So, what will you do once you reach the village?"

"I think we'll continue with a new mission," Alice said. I was just listening to the conversation when Aurora glared at me.

"Why do you want to be a knight, boy?"

"I need to be noble, only then I can get into Laosa Academy."

"It won't be easy to be a knight. Understand that you could die at any moment."

"I'll keep that in mind."

I left the cabin and let Alice talk to Aurora. The outside was definitely refreshing. My gaze fell on the elf girl named Jessica, who was looking at a lake in the distance, one too big to simply be called a "lake." I walked over and sat down next to her.

"Are you bored?" was the first thing I could think to say.

Jessica doesn't usually talk much, but for some reason she only talks to me. Alicia was very surprised because Jessica and she are the same race of elves. Alicia didn't understand why Jessica didn't answer her, the same thing happened with Clara; she only talked to me, but rarely.

"Do you have family?" were the only words she said.

"No," I answered, but I felt something inside me changing.

I never had a family, never knew what it was like to feel like to have one.

"It's very boring, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Tomorrow I'm going out..."

"Starburst."

Suddenly, the ground began to shake and an explosion echoed in the distance. I felt something strange; the mana coming from there was strong.

"They're monsters," I muttered, as a large number of them approached towards us....