“And don’t forget, the best loot is always at the bottom of the bandit lair, Sensei!”

With the threat of the situation clear to us, it also meant that Daichi couldn’t continue inside with us. It was too dangerous for him.

As such, we had to send him back to the subspace with a portal, telling him to inform Hestia about everything and to have her get ready in case we ran into a problem. It would be best if she didn’t simply come over here now, otherwise it might blow our cover. Besides, scouting was my duty in Aurora.

Before he left, he handed Grimnir the equipment he was holding onto. Aside from his blasthammer which he had with him all this time, Grimnir also equipped his prototype gauntlets and sabatons. The rest of his attire was his newly made armor made from Hestia’s scales.

“I’m sorry the dream isn’t done yet,” Daichi said, motioning to the still unfinished armor piece and helmet he took out from his storage.

“Stop worrying, lad. That project can wait for us later. The lass also needs more time to work on it, so go on and wait for our return.” Grimnir patted Ellaine’s shoulder, causing the latter to feel ashamed at how little time she had to work as an artificer lately.

“Yeah, I get it. Still, sorry for being the weakest link. Good luck and come back alive!”

And with that, we were four, one shy of the original members of the Aurora.

[“In and out. Quick. Let’s try not to fight the demonkin contractor if we don’t have to. We’ve faced worse, so let’s do this!”] I encouraged everybody as Varya returned with her scouting report.

Cloaking everybody in my [Shadow Armament], we sneaked inside the fort through a blind spot in the sentries she found. Before we entered though, Klea’Hatma warned us there was a mana barrier surrounding the place and that we should enter the facility with [Shadow Dash].

She might be untrustworthy, but wisdom denied was not smart. After we made it in undetected, we began looking around, where Ellaine noted how a couple of the guards inside looked like the people who came to the grand opening of the bistro and confectionery and were causing a ruckus with their dragon bigotry crap.

[“I only arrived there at the end with Tatsuya and Kyouya, but I still remember the guy Hestia humiliated. The tall and burly one.”] Ellaine pointed at a man with a greatsword.

This means the Resurrection emblems they had on them on that day were false. Hestia was right, this gang was trying to frame the Resurrection and have us destroy their rival for them. So, is the slave bandit ambush also related to these people?

If so, then we have some talking to do…

After we found our way into the stone hideout, Grimnir noted how there probably was a basement around, noting how there was evidence on the stone walls that there was something below the ground floor.

Splitting up was an option here, but it was too risky since we didn’t know who our enemies were. We knew there were at minimum two demonic contractors of some kind around after Klea’Hatma warned us. As a four-man group we were easier to detect than if I was alone, but our fighting potential was higher. Also, it wasn’t as if it was that bad if they found us.

Four Auroras were here. I had full trust in our coordination together.

We decided on leaving the upper floors for last, going with Daichi’s advice despite how I found it too unreliable of a tip. And, what did you know, his intuition was correct.

The ground floor had mostly barracks with a few facilities where the gang members could relax and eat. However, the floor below? An alchemist cave full of people experimenting on slaves with their concoctions and other items. Some of the said items were even manatech, but the most horrendous part was when they transformed a person into the same monster from the slave bandit attack.

“Grouuuuuahkkkk!”

“Ahh, I see… Damn, we still can’t reproduce Davison’s recipe. What the hell are these last two ingredients?”

“Argh, whatever. We still have enough time to find something to beat out that bitch Resclave. Taking over the guild for her damn fucked up ambition! Not even acknowledging the people bringing in the money!”

Hmm? Reajaen is the alchemist guild’s master? I placed that information in the back of my head for now, as I was too occupied scowling at what these “humans” were doing to other members of their race.

The alchemists were absolutely indifferent to the agony and fear they were inflicting on their test subjects. It was absolutely stomach wrenching. I felt disgust lingering in the back of my throat as I watched them perform their cruel acts.

“Mhrm!” Grimnir suddenly grabbed my arm, surprising me.

When I looked down at what he was pointing at, I noticed black thunder was surrounding my hand. I clenched it into a fist and stopped the mana surging around my arms. I also noticed my eyes were glaring again, emitting red mist. Reflecting on my emotions, I had to admit I wanted to attack them right at this moment.

While I was contemplating on what to do, Ellaine pointed at another entrance at the end of the basement’s hallway. Sneaking passed all the alchemists and their guards, we went down another set of stairs until Klea’Hatma warned us to “Look out.” We instantly readied out weapons.

As we opened the door, the deep booming voice of a man burst right into our ears.

“My fellow Olden Money! Long have we waited for our revenge. To enact our grudge onto that wrench Resclave. A random commoner beastmen coming into our country and attempting to ruin us by taking the foundation of our organization down!”

A grand hall like a church’s nave could be seen as we opened the door, where seven people were seated at a large round table placed upon a giant wolf’s pelt.

Hold on?

I felt Quatre suddenly growling from inside my shadow, but told him to stop. To stay quiet as I inspect the seven humans in the room, each flanked by two guards and an attendant of sorts.

Four of them were wearing gaudy-looking golden suits with jewelry and other accessories to flaunt their incredible wealth. While most of the men at the table were built leanly, there was one I wasn’t able to take my eyes away from as he gorged himself on a ton of pastries like a pig.

“Today, our order has received another message!” that very man announced. “A stain on our master’s glory was inflicted in Artorias, land of the Griffons. He has called for us to prepare for war. As such, it has become paramount that we retrieve our master’s gift from the damn beastmen! His orb of power that they have stolen from us. Our scouts have confirmed it is hidden in a village east of here!”

And then the bomb dropped.

“Our master has sent us help! A help most wanted. Please, welcome with me our war power! Sir Hee’Rlak!”

And from a room, a person with red skin and bright yellow hair appeared. With red eyes looking like life was unappealing to him, he shuffled into the room with little to no enthusiasm.

“Our very own demonkin of wrath.”

I took out my daggers out of instinct.

“Mhmm.” Grimnir grabbed my arm and I shook him off. I gave him a thumbs-up, gesturing to him that I wouldn’t be attacking them just yet. There was still information to be gained and we still haven’t found the stuff from the Resurrection.

I just wanted the others to get their guards up. One of the targets Klea’Hatma warned us about was here, and it was the second worst case possible: a demonkin. Why couldn’t he only be a demonkin contractor?

The others nodded to me, understanding my intentions. As such, we continued watching with our hands on our armaments. We stared down the balcony we stood on, watching the procedures. Outside of two of the three gaudy-looking senators, all of them were gazing at the red-skinned person with eyes of wonder. The overly obese one was even laughing with joy.

A demonkin… of wrath. Who was he?

The demonkin stared at them, sighing after inspecting them before showing his disinterest. For someone encompassing the sin of wrath, he sure was calm. Even his build wasn’t what I expected. I imagined a wrath demonkin to be more muscular, like a bodybuilder viking, but this man was lean, like an MMA fighter.

There was an unnerving silence in the air, to the point the demonkin started to look even more bored. He gazed around the room, even glaring at the guards protecting each senator before looking over at the balcony. We didn’t move. I was confident he couldn’t find us while I was around. And as expected, he didn’t react to our presence.

“My fellow senators! I have learned from our master that the recent attack on Griffonpeak was a success! Our master, the demonkin prince of pride, took down the Kingdom of Griffon’s true king! He snapped their wings!” the fat man spoke, spitting out pieces of pastry as he chortled while his sycophants clapped. “However, in the process, we lost Hamil. Slain by Shaturein. As you might have noticed, their pawns are in the process of integrating themselves into our beautiful city! No more, I say! For when we become Estralia’s rulers, we need naught the plague of another country!”

Did Hamil really die? I thought he escaped according to Tasianna and Pestrodus.

“What about the saintess, Senator O’Bloom?'' One of the others brought up, confirming for us that the fat one was Senator O’Bloom. “She might be dead, but the Empire still hadn’t taken its move. Do our masters have a problem in Folschreck?”

“Nay, Senator Plymeir. Our masters managed to slay multiple blessed of the Light Goddess, but controlling the damn heroes without them noticing has been a problem. Damn otherworldly brats!”

My eyes widened. Blessed? Slain? As in saints and champions of Aurena were murdered in the Empire? If that was the case, then maybe this was the reason for Aurena’s silence to Hestia’s questions? If so, then this was starting to look bad.

“Then how are we supposed to attack Artorias then?” another senator asked. “Outside of ourselves, the other countries Master Envy tried to cajole to our side have been unsuccessful. Our master’s other pawns are imbeciles. Unable to rise in power like us.”

“Oh?” O’Bloom stopped eating, grinning with a mocking frown. “ ‘Like us?’ Ha! Senator Urlandor. You must be jesting! You and Senator Plymeir were fortunate to have me sponsor you, otherwise your brothers’ wives would have taken over the senator roles of your houses. Without me, you would have never known the grace of our master. If I hadn’t approached you, you two would have turned into mere fodder once our masters gift us Estralia to rule.”

“Gahaha!” One of the less gaudy senators laughed out loud as his right arm began to turn into what looked like Ellaine’s [Claw]. He bashed the table with that arm, showcasing it to the shocked Plymeir and Urlandor. “The gifts of our masters. In this place, it’s not your wealth that matters, but your faith in our masters. Your loyalty! Our order has been here before the two of you joined to get revenge on the Resurrection.”

[“Aho, my blood is in him…”] Klea’Hatma noted. [“I guess it’s similar to that Charleslyt boy. Instead of forming a contract or pact, someone just injected my blood into him. Not a very good alternative if you want to stay human. Or sane.”]

[“It’s what Goddess Kronnaz wanted to warn me about. The more I used Klea’s abilities, the more I’m prone to fall into her sin,”] Ellaine added. [“If five out of the seven senators were similar to that person, then we have one demonkin and five with demonkin blood inside them.”]

I frowned. That still wasn’t ideal at all. We were outnumbered, and the laughter of the senators sounded to me as if they were mocking us, despite it being directed at Senator Plymeir and Urlandor. The two named senators could only look at their colleagues in shame and fear.

“Regardless! Soon you may join us, though…” O’Bloom showed a greedy smile at the two men, twisting his body like a beast eyeing its prey. “However, before that can happen, we must first acquire what is needed for the future. Our invasion of Artorias will happen soon, but first, our master, the demonkin prince of envy, requests us to hand his orb back. We must reacquire it from that damn Resclave!”

The attention then shifted to Plymeir, who gulped as he took out a sheet of parchment. “As mentioned, my spies managed to look into the situation in that beastman village. The orb is definitely there, hidden inside a dungeon created from all the onnikai.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Ah? Fighting a dungeon with its master around might be difficult. Hire as many black mercenaries as possible. I heard there are a few former Yanderu members around after the local group broke apart, right? Send your messengers with pouches full of coins!” O’Bloom announced.

“Senator O’Bloom.” One of the lower senators raised his arm. “What about that dragon princess? Have you forgotten about the news we received?”

“Aye, never! She and Resclave are currently our most problematic issues. A champion of Aurena, I heard from my contacts. That she fought against the creatures there and also possibly responsible for the death of the hero who killed that saintess.” He threw his jam-filled bread on the table, looking too irritated to continue eating. “The Church of the Edjurl cannot falter. We will succeed and become beings beyond humans. Once the demonkins have conquered the world and the Edjurl gods rid Peolynca of the Origin Gods, we of the chosen elite shall rule the world. The world will be back in the hands of its inhabitants!”

I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Grant themselves freedom by getting rid of the Origin Gods? What is that supposed to mean? Wouldn’t the Edjurl gods or some tyrannical demonkin prince just take over? In all of history, when there was a power vacuum, some “god” would appear to goad the people to put him on the throne.

Louis XIV, the sun king, had a megalomaniac personality and thought he was the God of France simply because his advisors led him down the correct path to secure his control as king. Robespierre of the French Revolution took down Louis XVI to liberate the common man from the nobles and rich, only to fall into the delusions of a tyrant while trying to bring out his ideal republic. A path of blood was his legacy with the first usage of the guillotine.

“Sir Hee’Rlak!” O’Bloom called out to the dozing demonkin, waking him up before he fell on the ground. “What say you? We have many enemies of your master in this city. Not only must we regain the orb, but there is a person here who managed to kill a demonkin, weakened after he defeated one of the blessed! You must wish revenge!”

“Hrmm…” He looked sleepy before speaking in a demotivated voice. “Whatever. U’Skaie knew the risks and still managed to fulfill one goal. Lord Pride is probably happy about it. I don’t know why you humans are glorifying us demonkins so much, anyways. Cool, he killed one of our top enemies. He’ll go down in history, or whatever. Not like I knew him or something.”

… Is he really a demonkin of wrath?

The mood dampened as the demonkin showed no interest in their scheming. Instead of continuing their interactions with him, they turned back to their original plan, talking about how their attack would happen in a week. They needed time to gather the necessary mercenaries and bodies. Afterwards, they would attack the Resclave’s mansion and beastman village.

They also talked about attacking us and Hestia, but quickly understood doing that wouldn’t be good since it would invite retribution from the various dragonkin. As such, they decided it would be better to go for their plan B — drive Hestia out through dissent from the people.

Attacking anybody from the Aurora would only bring about political drama, but they’ve learned from their spies and rumors in Artorias that Hestia was more kind-hearted than they initially thought. As such, to defeat somebody that was nice, it was best to stay in the shadows and manipulate people to vilify her. To make her unwanted.

They planned that bigotry moment during the grand opening of our pastry shop and bistro by specifically buying out mercenaries who had bad experiences with wyverns or any dragonkin. There were already quite a few humans who only thought of beastmen as lesser people or slaves in this city. Narrow-minded, I must say.

To the senators, the money they’ve earned in this city was meant for this moment. In a week's time, the people they’ve hired to come to Gleisvale to launch another propaganda movement would arrive. They knew Hestia supported Artorias from the dinner, as she had pleasant interactions with King Drangleic and his dukes. They didn’t want her to get her claws around “their” city.

“How boring…” the demonkin complained as he left the room with a loud yawn. In the perfect moment, too, as the senators were done with their attack plans and were now discussing how to control the senate.

However, that was more than we thought we would learn today. We now knew even more people were associates of the demonkin and that this group was even working with the prince of envy, the one posing as the pope.

The Church of the Edjurl was a name not even Muraina knew about, and if this was a proper secretive organization, then this might become a real threat if humans actually supported the demonkin. Like moss or a fungus slowly destroying the foundation of a building. This was probably part of the “rot” Aurena was talking about.

They eventually also talked about the loot they got from the Resurrection base and how the attack on the slave auction was meant to retrieve all of that in addition to saving the slaves. Apparently, the Resurrection has been targeting any place where beastmen were sold, evident of how the street auction I saw was so heavily monitored.

Once the discussion went to what they would do with the loot, we managed to learn the location of it. Second floor, in the storage room. I could probably assassinate the senators right now, but Tasianna told me we shouldn’t with the demonkin around.

Quatre protested, of course, since his pelt was right in front of us. I also thought getting rid of the problem now was better than waiting for later. Still, I acquiesced. I didn’t want take the gamble of appraising the demonkin’s status now, since we didn’t know if he had countermeasures. No information, no go.

As we left for the second floor, Grimnir suddenly spoke out about what was worrying me after having the time to think about the situation.

“We don’t know how strong the demonkins exactly are. Combat-ready ones, I mean. We fight on our terms.”

Grimnir’s words resonated with me. How strong were demonkins exactly? Not only was this race isolated to the southeastern part of the world, meaning dwarves and elves didn’t know their current strength much, but outside of Hestia, none of us ever fought one of them.

Even in Hestia’s case, she dominated that demonkin of envy in no small part due to her berserk moment from [Battle Frenzy (Major)], all on top of being the strongest member of Aurora. The demonkin was also weakened after he fought Eshe and her guards. That gave us no way to properly assess them.

I felt anxious now after having some time to think about it. Assassinating those senators would be for the best now, but maybe we were being reckless. Infiltrating enemy territory was already dangerous regardless of our power strength, even more since we were expecting a demonkin contractor to be here. And, what did you know, there wasn't a contractor here, just an actual demonkin and five who partook in demonic blood.

I was even considering if all demonkins were this powerful, and that these weren’t just warriors or trained fighters. A pretty weird thought, honestly, but warrior societies like the Spartans used to exist. Even the lowly baker was a trained warrior… sort of.

After knocking a few guards out, I [Shadow Dash]ed everybody through a protected metal door into the storage room. There, crates were everywhere, letting us know little of what was inside of them. The only thing we could do was to start breaking into them.

“Oooh!” Grimnir let his excitement out, drawing our attention to his chagrin. “I, uh, this crate has a ton of monster materials in them. I kinda want to bring them back.”

“Focus on the task, Grimnir. We need to get out of here now.” I shook my head and returned to another crate.

After a while of breaking through everything, we eventually made it to the jackpot. The mark of the Resurrection, the serpent coiling around a vial, was inside. We didn’t check for the rest of the items, simply stuffing everything we could into my [Storage Magic].

With our goal fulfilled, we snuck back to the ground floor and decided on leaving the premises for today and coming back tomorrow to launch a full-scale attack with Hestia with us. However, as we were about to leave through the base’s blindspot, I suddenly felt a presence.

[“Oh oh.”] Klea’Hatma’s voice gave me a terrible feeling. [“I think we were found out.”]

[Danger Perception] and [Foresight] activated as I felt something coming from below, quickly warning everybody in time to spread out. The ground exploded, burst open with rock and earth flying around like a fountain. The dust covered the area, blocking our site and making it hard to breath until Tasianna blew it all away.

“Found you, rats.”

[“Incoming!”]

A silhouette jumped out from the hole left by that blast before my attention was turned towards a flaming spear nearly drilling a hole into Ellaine’s chest. She instantly retaliated by extending her whipsword with a [Piercing Shot], only blocked once the flame spear morphed into a shield.

“Oh, this is exciting…”

A humanoid with red-skin and bright yellow hair. He only wore casual clothing that made him look slightly plain, but I saw flames begin to form around his shoulders, only so slightly. However, what wasn’t there before were four small flaming horns sprouting from his head, like a toddler growing teeth.

“I really didn’t think it would become this interesting today.”

All four of us took our opportunity to ready ourselves with our weapons and equipment, letting the man speak his monologue.

“I thought it was weird to find beast tracks coming from the forest. A bit unfortunate for you that I went outside to take a dump, only to find those tracks replaced by those from shoes.”

Identify!

Profile:

Name: Hee’Rlak

Level: 99

Race: Demonkin of Wrath

Age: 37 Years

Job: Elemental Scourge Level: 24/30

Status:

Health: 10257 Mana: 3790 Strength: 3572 Intelligence: 831 Vitality: 3056 Wisdom: 1924 Agility: 2389 Stamina: 14190 Effects: [Excited: 23%] [Anger: 1%] [Fear: 0%] Skill Points: 50 (-1550) Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 5] [Mana Control Lv. 6]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 3] [Fire Magic Lv. 5]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 3] [Mental Stability Lv. 1]

[Wrathful Emotions] [Elemental Manifestation Lv. 6]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 7] [Elemental Meisterweapon Lv. 2]

[All-Damage Enhancements Lv. 3] [Mana Strike Lv. 7]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 10] [Sadism Lv. 2]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 2] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8]

[Concentration Lv. 3] [Foresight Lv. 1] [Tracking Lv. 7]

[Danger Perception Lv. 8] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 7] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 7] [Night Vision Lv. 5]

[Presence Killer Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 2] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 7]

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 1] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 9]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 8] [Torpor Resistance Lv. 9]

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 10] [Fear Resistance Lv. 4]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 8] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 1]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 3][Water Resistance Lv. 4]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 1]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 7] [Wind Resistance Lv. 7]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growth and related:

[Mana Recovery Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 5]

Others:

[Handicraft Lv. 6] [Woodworking Lv. 4]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 5] [Terror Aura Lv. 6]

[Battle Mind Lv. 8] [Dismantle Lv. 8]

Ability List:

Unarmed:

[Warbringer’s Body] [Bloodreaper’s Tearing] [Power Punch]

[Emotion Surge]

Elemental Meisterweapons:

[Myriad Slasher] [Hammer of the Elements] [Flashdrive Ever-Piercer]

[Shield of Lion’s Bane]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Flame]

Fire Spells:

[Fire] [Firebolt] [Imbue Fire] [Fire Ball] [Strengthening Flame]

[“People, meet your first demonkin of wrath. The sin of the unending anger. The everliving emotion that can drive even the sanest people into insanity.”] Klea’Hatma’s voice echoed through our heads as the four of us looked at each other, already forming a plan on how to fight him. [“The power of the demon of wrath is their uncontrollable emotions. Calm and collective at its lowest, but all-consuming once they reached their peak. Their ‘racial ability’ is to manifest their mana into elemental weapons. Only one element can be chosen, and this one chose fire as his companion for life.”]

“Emotion SurrrrrrrgGEEEEEEE!”

Mana exploded around him like an aura, creating a wind pressure as his hair began to flare up and grow in length, starting to look like a stream of fire once it reached its maximum length. The four horns grew in size and twisted into the forms of shotels, shining a bright orange. Another set of eyes opened up at his forehead, moving around the area as they adjusted to everything.

“Hammer!” He cried out before stomping the ground. That outburst showed the most emotions I’ve ever heard from this person.

[“Do not allow him to reach 100% with all three of his emotions. At that point, even if he’s not a Prince of Sin, this demonkin could prove too much for the four of you to fight.”]

Identify!

Effects: [Excited: 61%] [Anger: 0%] [Fear: 12%]

“My name is Hee’Rlak! An apprentice of the third Warbringer of Lord Wrath! To honor Master Vifi’Yok’s name, as her squire I shall grant you a glorious battle and honorable defeat! We reap, to water the blood lilies!”

Now, it’s time to die, asshole! Humanization!

“AhrwooOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH!”