A Devil walked through the streets of a loud, bustling city. He was being escorted through, of course, by the same crowd of weapon-wielding Human guards that’d ushered him through before.
This time, though, it made a bit more sense that he’d be assigned such a massive guard. He wasn’t in the weak body he’d been in before. This time, he’d made sure to find a Projector Demon that could more efficiently transfer his power. He technically didn’t have the authority to strongarm his way into that anymore – many Projector Demons would actually rank above him now – but his demotion was recent enough that word hadn’t been spread around yet. Definitely against the rules, but fuck that. He needed to do something. They’d get over it.
He was much more powerful than he was before, but still not at complete capacity. Where his old vessel transferred about 4% of his power, this one transferred about 40%. Still, that would be more than enough for what he wanted to do here. Sure, he wasn’t quite as powerful as he should’ve been, but he wasn’t too worried. Devils were known for their cunning, but they were still incredibly proficient in combat, with unnaturally powerful arms and speedy reflexes – they were put in charge of the other Demons for a reason, after all. And that wasn’t even to mention their magic.
Still, the Devil was frustrated with the treatment he was getting. The Humans were supposed to be allied with the Demons, weren’t they? He should’ve been welcomed into the king’s chamber, not threatened the moment he appeared.
Whatever. Perhaps it was just in the nature of Humans to be afraid.
Truthfully, they could’ve also noticed his demeanor, and that was what put them on-guard. The Devil was not in a good mood. These Humans were the reason for his demotion, and he was here to make them aware of his dissatisfaction with their performance. So perhaps the amount of hostility shown to him was completely appropriate – after all, he was showing twice as much back.
Once he and the Humans escorting him reached the pathetic castle that held the sniveling king, the guards stopped, one of them holding a hand out to the Devil. “Wait here while King Koinkar finishes his current meeting. We will notify you when–”
“No. We’re speaking now,” the Devil shoved the guard out of the way, making use of his new body. As a Devil, he stood head-and-shoulders taller than most of the people around him.
Another guard stepped forward, spear pointed at the Devil. “You may not enter. If you do not stop now, we will be forced to attack.”
“If you fucking touch me, the Demons will be forced to resume the assault on your cities. Want to single-handedly cause the deaths of thousands of innocents? Try me.” The Devil threw open the castle doors and stormed inside.It seemed like the king was in the middle of a meeting with some other nobles. They all sat around a long table, with the king on his throne at the head of it. The nobles were all dressed in fancy clothes, all sorts of vibrant dyes covering them and their hair put up into exotic styles. They looked like they hadn’t suffered a day in their lives.
“I understand casualties were high,” one of the nobles was saying, “but I don’t see why we must acquiesce–”
“Koinkar!” The Devil shouted. “You and I need to talk. Right now.”
“D-Demon,” the king struggled to his feet, his frail body barely supporting him. “This is hardly the time! Guards, seize–”
“No, no,” the Devil shook his head. “We have some things that need to be discussed immediately.”
He looked over and saw that, as they’d been before, the royal guard was standing off to the side of the room. Each of them was wearing their signature silver-and-blue armor, with that damned woman – Camilla – standing at the front. There was no way she didn’t have something to do with Arlan Nota escaping their grasp.
“This is exactly what I’ve been talking about!” The same noble that was speaking before stood up. He had a bushy mustache that wiggled whenever he spoke. “We cannot allow these Demons to bully us into submission!”
“Rangonlin, quiet down!” The king half-croaked, half-shouted. “And would someone kick this Demon out?”
Many other voices rose up as well, nobles yelling at the guards, guards yelling at the Demon, and generally everyone shouting simultaneously.
SLAM!
Everyone fell silent, staring at the Devil who had just slammed his hand into the table, cracking it beneath his fist.
“You Humans have failed to uphold your end of our deal,” his voice echoed across the room. “And you clearly need to be shown your place.”
“What are you trying to say?” Koinkar said. “We have used Divination to find your fugitive, and sent out soldiers to try and kill him. Just because they weren’t successful doesn’t mean we didn’t do what you asked.”
“If you failed, it means you weren’t trying hard enough,” the Devil scowled.
“You were not invited here, Demon!” Camilla finally spoke up. The Devil could tell she’d been wanting to for some time now. “Leave now, and take your threats with you.”
“Oh, the gallant woman speaks,” the Devil said. “Say, you ran into Arlan Nota yourself, didn’t you? Mind telling me how it was that an entire squad of the kingdom’s elite managed to let a single person escape?”
Camilla glanced at the king, hesitating to respond.
“Go ahead, Camilla,” the king said to her. “Explain to the Demon what you told me. Maybe that will calm its anger.”
She looked back at the Devil. “When we arrived at the location where the Divinations detected Nota, we couldn’t find him. We searched for some time, but he was nowhere to be found.”
“Nowhere to be found, hm?” The Devil walked toward her until he was standing an arm’s-length away. “So, the Divination was wrong, then?”
“I do not know that. But we couldn’t find him.”
“Hm. So you just couldn’t find him. How unfortunate.” He looked back to the king. “Hear that, Koinkar? All’s well, just an honest mistake! Nobody has faced any sort of serious repercussions for this, after all.”
“Demon, please,” the king said, “if you would just listen–”
“Oh wait!” The Devil interrupted. “It’s not that nobody’s faced any repercussions, it’s that no Humans have faced any repercussions. Us Demons sure have. Would you consider that fair, Koinkar?”
“That is hardly–”
“Would you consider it fair?”
The king just stared at the Devil.
“How about you, Camilla?” The Devil turned to the soldier in front of him. “Would you consider it fair? That I have to suffer for your mistakes?”
“Yes, I absolutely would.” She had rage in her forced-calm voice. “You caused the Humans to suffer because you allowed your fugitive to escape, and now the Humans have caused you to suffer in turn.”
“Oh,” the Devil laughed, “she’s smart! So snappy. Makes me wonder even more how she let a kid escape from her, especially when she’s being backed up by an entire entourage of subordinates just as capable as her.”
“And what exactly are you implying with that, Demon?” she spat.
“Demon, please,” the king took a shaky step forward, putting one atrophied leg in front of another. “I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for her failure.”
“Oh, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation!” The Devil was shaking in anger, now. “She let him go! She found him, and could have killed him, but didn’t. The only thing unreasonable about this is that she thought I wouldn’t know.”
“Vile fiend!” Camilla shouted at him, putting a hand on the spear on her back. “If you do not cease your baseless accusations and leave immediately, I will be forced to strike you down!”
“Oh, you’ll strike me down? Okay. Let’s fight.” The Devil drew his fist back and, before Camilla could react, threw a full-force punch.
You have struck Level 27 Human Spearman for 3.72k damage using your fist.
You have slain Level 27 Human Spearman.
The mutilated body that was once Camilla flew back, slamming into the back wall with a wet splat. The entire room shook from the impact. Her head was completely separated from her body, and it rolled across the ground, tapping into the Devil’s foot.
The entire room stared in shock.
“Oh, look! You’re dead! You are fucking dead!” the Devil shouted at the corpse. “Great fucking idea you had, huh? Let the fugitive go, save the life of some random person, and you lose your own in return. Real fucking smart! You fucked me over, you fucked yourself over. Nobody wins, moron!” The Devil snapped his head back to the king and shouted at him, “Koinkar! Did you know she let Arlan Nota go?”
He hastily shook his head. “No, no, that would have been entirely against orders. I would–”
The Devil stopped listening, and looked back at the three remaining royal guardsmen who stared at him in fear. “Did any of you know? Were you in on this plot to let him escape?”
They all shook their heads.
“No,” one of them with a sword and shield said – Ragavan, Camilla had called him before. “We had no idea that–”
You have struck Level 23 Human Swordsman for 3.19k damage using your fist.
You have slain Level 23 Human Swordsman.
The Devil withdrew his bloody fist from the corpse of Ragavan. “Did any of you know?! Do not lie to me.”
The remaining two stood frozen, looking at him in silence for a moment. They were both wearing full-plate armor that concealed their faces, but the Devil could smell the fear coming from them. One of them had her hand on a massive battleaxe strapped to her back, but she didn’t draw it. She’d die if she did, and the Devil’s expression made sure she knew it. After a moment, the other – a woman with a bow on her back – spoke, bowing her head. “Yes, we knew. We were there when she told us to withdraw and let him go. I tried to convince her not to, but she was in charge. Please forgive us.”
The Devil stared at her for a few more seconds, snarl etched on his face as he considered whether or not to kill these two remaining guards. Eventually, he huffed a breath from his mouth and turned away from them. He’d gotten most of the anger out of his system, at this point.
“Koinkar,” he said to the king. “What methods of torture does your kingdom implement?”
The king blinked. “Uh, our main technique to interrogate prisoners is by tearing limbs from the body and then reattaching them using healing magic. But there is also–”
“No, that’s fine. I want you to do that to these two guards for, say, a week. That should be enough to teach them their place without killing them.”
The Devil heard a gasp escape the mouth of one of the two remaining royal guards – the battleaxe woman. He wasn’t sure what they were so afraid of. A week of torture was nothing in comparison to losing their lives.
One of the previously-silent nobles leapt to his feet. “You do not get to order King Koinkar around as though he is your puppet! Our kingdom is mighty, and you Demons are but a temporary scourge–”
“One more word and I kill you, too.”
The noble fell quiet.
“I don’t get to order Koinkar around, huh? Who says? One of you gonna stop me? I just killed the second- and third-strongest people in the room, moron. And the first is me. I quite literally do get to order you guys around. That’s how power works.” He sighed and started walking up to the king. “Stupid fucking lesser beings. It’s no surprise you couldn’t catch Arlan Nota, you’re all completely braindead. What have you done – specifically – to catch him?”
Koinkar cast a fearful eye as the Devil approached, and answered, “Now, listen. We tried our best. I set out a sizable bounty for the cities to catch Nota. Any of them whose soldiers accomplished this capture would be afforded a massive sum. Just because they failed does not mean I did not instate an appropriate incentive–”
“You did a bounty? A fucking bounty,” the Devil brought his palms to his face. “What do you think that incentivizes them to do?! If they tell anyone else whenever they find Arlan Nota, that just lowers their chances of getting the bounty, because the Infernals will come in and kill him before the city’s soldiers can. Do you even think for two seconds before you act? You need to incentivize for Arlan Nota to die, not for them to be the specific ones to kill him.”
“And how would you say we do that?” The king demanded, obviously defensive after being insulted so much. “It’s not as easy as you seem to think it is!”
“Take all the mayors’ families hostage and only give them back when Arlan Nota dies. There’s some incentive. Or threaten to take away their political positions if Arlan Nota isn’t killed in a certain amount of time. Fuck, you could just give a life-changing sum to all cities when Arlan Nota dies, not just the one that killed him.”
“We don’t have the resources to spend on that kind of thing!”
“You have a throne made of solid gold,” the Devil pointed behind the king. “Sell it! Sell all of your possessions! Sell your entire kingdom’s food supply, let the citizens starve, fuck if I care! This is the most important thing you could ever spend your resources on.” The Devil took a shaky breath, trying to restrain himself from killing the king on the spot. “You do not lack resources. You lack incentive.”
“I assure you we have incentive enough–”
“No, you obviously do not.” The Devil glanced around the room. Guards had rushed in from the commotion, but weren’t taking any obvious moves – they were probably too scared for their lives to do anything. Most of the nobles were still frozen around the table, though it seemed some of them had fled. “How about this: you obviously care about your kingdom – I mean, you’ve artificially extended your life quite a bit just so you can rule it for longer. So, maybe you’ll work a bit harder if we take some of it away from you.”
Koinkar’s frail face twisted in anger. “No. You cannot do that. I have worked with you for now, but I will not hesitate to declare war if you try to steal our land.”
“No, no. I will not be stealing your land. I will be destroying it.”
“Pointless destruction?! That is your answer?”
“Not pointless. You still know Arlan Nota’s general location, yes?”
“...Yes.”
“Perfect. So we know the area we should destroy.”
“I-I do not agree to this! Find some other way to catch him.”
“Y’know, it’s insane to me that you think you still have a choice,” the Devil laughed. “We’re going scorched earth on that entire area. The fugitive will either die in the chaos, or be chased out into a predictable location where we can have Infernals lined up to kill him.”
The king seemed to finally stand down from his defiance. “If Nota dies, you’ll leave us alone? You’ll leave the Overworld?”
“Gladly.”
“Fine. Destroy the area and get out of my kingdom.”
The Devil grinned. “Good. Let’s get to work, Koinkar. We have a city to burn.”