The villagers had a total of eleven deaths and twenty-three injured, they did fight bravely against the invading bandits.
After having their wounds slightly treated by the village’s medic, Cain, Alice, Selena, and Sofia were sent to Lexi’s house to rest. Zaleria and Lexi were unscathed, with Gracie who only had minor bruises tending to them. No matter how hard Zaleria tried, she couldn’t find a trace of Kayden. He had disappeared like he was never there.
Lexi’s little sister headed outside to draw water from the village well, it was a fair bit away from their home and was located at the edge of the forest.
She reached the well and drew water into her waterskin, it wasn’t as heavy as it looked since the girl was used to working in the field.
As she lifted her eyes, she could see something moving inside the forest, or more like it was trying to hide in the bushes. She reasonably decided to investigate, ‘What could go wrong?’ she thought.
She rushed inside the forest to reach the moving thing before it could side, she expected to see a rabbit. Their meat was tasty and soft and she wouldn’t want to let such a thing run from her. But she found something else, something she might have been better not seeing.
In the bushes, Kayden and Meliliana were hiding. The Cubas growled as it tried to transform into an incubus as it had already gotten back into its original form. Transforming from an Incubus/Succubus to its Cubas form takes a long time, about an hour. But transforming from a Cubas to Incubus/Succubus was almost instant.
“Wait!” Kayden stopped Meliliana, this wasn’t any random village girl, to him at least that is.
Lexi’s sister stared at him for a moment before turning back, “I saw nothing, this is a payback for the last time.” And she headed back running.
Meliliana was a bit confused, “Do you know her?”
…About a day or so ago, Kayden was on the hunt for a merchant caravan. He knew they had some fine swords so he wanted to take hold of those.
The day was clear as he stalked the caravan, his gang didn’t want to pick a fight with them as they had a lot of trained guards. As he was doing so, he noticed the little girls chasing after the caravan as well, it was clear that she came from the village so he cut her short.
“Where are you going?” we should get you back inside. No matter how hard he tried, anyone who was significantly weaker than him looked just like a bunch of dogs. Just as when he used to work as a dog trainer before becoming a bandit.
The little puppy (Lexi’s little sister) standing in front of him seems to have run from the shelter, he better get her back inside less she gets hurt. She gasped in fear, she did hear about a demon wandering with the bandits but she didn’t expect to meet him.
“Get back, this place is dangerous for the like of you, he pulled his sword out.” His four eyes twisted from left to right as he kept observing the area around him.
“I…I have…”Lexi closed her mouth before she could tell him about the letter, it was already over now that she was caught it. Delivering the letter was impossible, ‘I’m going to get killed if he knows about it.’
“I just wanted to see the caravans ware…” She didn’t try the obvious fact she was trailing the caravan, she instead decided to change her reason to try and play him off.
‘It’s a waste but I could use this…’ He looked at the little girl before subtly using his magic [Hallucinatory Terrain]. The spell was illusion magic that changed a whole area but instead of doing that he kept it simple. The area didn’t change much but it just made it harder for people to recognize him as a demon.
Talking with him inside was like talking to a stranger and forgetting how they looked after the conversation ended. His demonic features were masked by the environment just like how people don’t seem to know the color was the person they talked with.
The area changes that induced that effect were simple. small voice and noises to draw the attention, beaming sunlight that makes it harder for people to see his face clearly, and a short sense of war air that people could feel when talking to him.
Kayden and Lexi’s little sister walked toward the caravan, the little girl was terrified by the monstrosity beside her. She would be killed with him if the caravan saw her walking with him. But to her surprise, they greeted him nicely. No one besides her seemed to recognize the monster he was.
“What brought you here?” One of the merchants asked while twisting his long mustache, a frown was apparent on his forehead. ‘Please don’t tell me you came to sell your daughter, I know it’s winter but I hate seeing that happen!’ The merchant thought as if it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.
Especially in winter, when families fail to feed and warm their children. They usually sell one or two to traveling merchants and use the money to make sure the rest of them survive. The child’s fate then depends on the merchant, it was true that some just sold them to slavery or nobles but the majority just adopt them.
Most merchants didn’t have a problem feeding ten or twenty kids so it wasn’t a problem for them. It was also a better fate for the child than to die of hunger and cold with family. More than half of the workers in the caravan were picked and raised by his father, some of them have even returned to their families.
The merchant took a look back, he had already picked three kids since the winter started and they were sleeping in the back, he could take more but what hurt his heart was separating the children from their families.
“I saw you carrying swords and I wanted to take a look, she also want to check what you had.” The merchant relaxed when he heard Kayden’s words.
“You lot, get him the weapons!” The merchant yelled and a man replied, “At once father Ryan.”
Kayden ended up buying a sword, all the weapons he found were of high quality it was surprising.”They were made to be sold to the elves since they had a civil war but that was stopped quickly. I wish someone had told us that their princess was going to win in such a short time.” It seems that the kingdom had lost a lot of money and resources making weapons just for the war to end before they could sell any, now they trying to sell them internally.
This major loss and Cain being the only one to predict it was one of the reasons the king had set his eyes on him.
“Listen, little girl, we can’t deliver you a letter without paying.” One of the workers said to Lexi’s little sister, she quickly tried to silence him before Kayden could hear him.
“You were trying to send a letter?” Kayden said as he them, there was no escape from his demon ears. Lexi’s little sister surrendered herself to death, neither she nor the caravan merchant will survive his wrath now.
“Yeah, the letter seems to be sent to her sister.” The worker said, he reasonably thought that Kayden was Lexi’s father and wanted him to at least know, and maybe pay…
Kayden started at Lexi’s little sister with an intense gaze, to her it seemed murderous. But he was just trying to understand what a puppy needed by sending such a letter…He gave up.
“I will pay for it,” Kayden said, quickly throwing a silver coin to the worker.
Lexi’s little sister was confused at him, why did he do such a thing? Wasn’t he a demon?
After finishing everything, Kayden and Lexi’s little sister walked back to the forest. She was sweating buckets, he acted the part because of the memories guards, he will kill me now! She closed her eyes, happy that she managed to at least send the letter.
It’s been a while since she walked without hearing him say a word so she turned back, he wasn’t there. “He…left?”
“Wait, she called them? And you paid for that letter?” Meliliana whisper-screamed at him, he shrunk back a bit and stayed silent.
“What should we do now?” Meliliana asked, “Morena must be thinking we’re dead, let’s keep away from this dragon conflict until I can kill one of them at least.” Kayden said as he dragged Meliliana away, they headed toward the west hoping to find a nice place to settle in and train.
…
Lexi’s little sister rushed back home with the water, hoping she will never Kayden ever again. Lexi immediately started boiling the water to used to clean the wounds.
“Go get us more,” she told her as everyone else was busy tending to the wounded. Cain especially was in a bad condition.
As she returned to the well, Kayden and Meliliana had already left. She was relieved that she wouldn’t have to deal with them again. Until she would bury the memories of what happened under six feet of dirt with herself.