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When the demon's head looked at the one who was responsible for his death, enraged, he tried to curse him, but before he could utter a word, the head slowly turned to ash.
'No, I have no interest in what you do. I will find the Main character and see what he is up to.'
Kiddo then left the scene, searching for Aleph while pondering, 'Stories always revolve around the main character,' it was then that he spotted Aleph caressing a goat.
Not a word was spoken. The rampaging of demons continued, while Kiddo absorbed the unfolding drama before him. He remained completely still, as if frozen in time, staring at... No, it wouldn't be accurate to say he was staring as there was no light in his gaze.
Nonchalantly, Kiddo reached out and snatched an object from a passerby's waist, and without even aiming, he threw it effortlessly at Aleph.
The object missed its target and exploded in a blaze of bright colors, but it managed to grab the attention of Aleph and the goat. In that instant, the goat became frightened and ran away, and the stunned Aleph yelled at Kiddo.
"Hey! What are you doing?!"
"What the hell are you doing?! Didn't you come here to attack the demons?! If you continue like this, the secondary characters will eventually become the main characters!"
'Ah, my bad. I should speak more respectfully.'
As Kiddo collects his thoughts and calms down, a taller man places his hand on Kiddo's right shoulder and positions himself to his left.
'Huh?'
"I am so sorry. Please forgive this kiddo," said the dark blue haired man covered in white cloth.
Kiddo quickly understood the situation, as he turned to look at the face of the man who was acting familiar. Without hesitation, he yanked the man down by his white cloth and began to talk in a secretive way.
"Why are you here as well?"
"I have no other choice if you keep on interfering with the story..."
"Then, who is going to do the narration?"
"Leave it to me! I'm multi-talented after all," I said, thumping my chest.
"If you are so good at narration, then explain this!" Kiddo pointed to the obvious, "Look at him! He is here playing instead of hunting demons! Why?!"
I bobbed his head playfully as I pressed him to let go of his worries and glance behind Aleph. As Kiddo did my bidding, he saw a demon already on the ground, defeated.
"And the goat was only saved after the fight. This is what I wanted to tell you, but you interrupted me."
"Then why did you not show me this fight rather than that one?!"
While Kiddo and I were talking, the defeated demon slowly got to his feet and said, "Ahh, such a nice fist. I really like it. Hey, why don't you be my slave?" as he wiped the blood off his lips.
Quietly walking away from the remark the demon has made, a soft sigh escapes Aleph's lips as he utters, "Do you not realize it? ...You're already dead."
The words were so fragile that they faded instantly upon being uttered, just like the demon that is now disintegrating into ash.
"See, this fight is already over. Now, let's see some other fights."
"It was not over. You were the one who didn't show me that fight!"
"You really want to debate?! Then let's talk about what's wrong with your imagination! Just take a look around! All the surroundings, and everyone, from the people to the demons, are downright comical!"
Looks like I got him good, because I had him looking for an answer on the floor. I smiled at Kiddo, grabbed him by the collar, and made up my mind to drag him along with me to our next destination.
Kiddo struggled as he was being dragged, "Hey! You just can't do that!" but stopped when he saw a small girl feeding a bone to a white goat and spoke softly, "Ah, it's the goat from earlier."
As we made our way to the next stop, we sprinted, or I sprinted, through a narrow alley lined with quaint local shops, only to be scolded for disturbing their business. With a bright smile, I cheerfully offered my apologies, exclaiming, "Sorry, sorry!"
We continued through various alleys, some draped with laundry, others devoid of human interaction, until we finally reached the end. There, we were greeted by a towering wall, and yet my pace did not slow down.
Stressed, Kiddo yelled, "H-Hey! Mr Knight! Slo-Slo-Slow down! There is a wall!!!" but I ran as close to the wall as I could, took a huge leap, soared over it, and landed safely on the other side, leading us into a wide open space.
Even after we made our way carefully to this place, I still found myself confronted with Kiddo's annoyed words.
"Hey, you! Don't you have children?! What kind of handling is that?!"
"What? Got scared? If I have kids, there's no way they'll be scared of things like this."
By the time we reached the wide open area, chaos already took place in there. Several demons and humans clashed fiercely, exchanging blows and insults alike. Yet, amidst the turmoil, not everyone was insulting, as there was one demon who cried that it just wanted to enjoy the festival.
'Eh? Festival?'
The words of this particular demon brought back to my mind the very reason for their presence, which I had failed to tell Kiddo. I explained that there was a festival in this town today and the demons had made a plan to gather here, pointing to the vibrant decorations surrounding us.
Kiddo looked around when he heard that there was a festival today and his eyes widened in excitement. As he looked around, he saw various trees and walls decorated, and many small stalls that screamed out the mood of the festival.
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It would not be an exaggeration to say that his expression truly reflected that of a person who had never laid eyes on such a magnificent sight before... of a person who had no knowledge that such a beauty could be found in this world.
Despite his excitement, he remained wary of his surroundings and asked the actual reason for the demons gathering.
Just as I was about to speak, Kiddo was bumped by someone which made us stop our conversation. When we wondered and looked at the person in question, we saw a demon that had twelve eyes and a lizard-like face.
I suppose I should add that it had a snake's tongue dangling out of its mouth, which made it look more silly than intimidating.
For a moment, both Kiddo and the demon locked eyes in confusion leaving us all silent for a few seconds. However, Kiddo broke the silence and softly initiated a conversation with the demon, who surprisingly responded weakly.
"Who...?"
"Please, I-I-I-I-I-I'm not a dangerous person!"
"No matter how you look at it, you are a demon though..."
"I-I-I-I-I'm not like any of them! I-I'm only here because they called me here!"
"That means you are one of them..."
"Even though I'm trying my best to live with humans, why do they hold a grudge against me?"
"Probably because you are not a human..."
"I-I-I’m scared of fighting. Please let me hide with you."
"Hey, stop behaving like a human!"
The demon looked at Kiddo with puppy eyes, while Kiddo turned to me, clearly puzzled. I gave a single nod of approval, making Kiddo exhale a deplorable sigh.
While Kiddo made a gesture indicating the demon to take cover behind us, a little girl draped in a black cloth dashed past us and approached a demon adorned with a double ponytail.
'Ah, it is the small girl from earlier.'
The little girl, much like Kiddo, was filled with excitement even in the presence of demons. With the same excitement, she lively spoke to the demon adorned with the double ponytail.
"You said you came to enjoy the festival, didn't you? Then, would you like to enjoy the festival with me?"
'Woo.... What is this reckless bravado?!'
But the demon rejected her invitation, saying, "There's no way I'm going to spend time with a human!"
'Ahh, you poor thing.'
The girl then struck the demon in the knee with the bone in her hand, causing it to scream in pain, all the while calling it a "Bad Demon."
'Hey, what are you doing?! Do you want to die?! Huh?!'
While Kiddo's mind was focused on the little girl, I couldn't help but notice the goat that was with her moments before. The moment I realized the situation the goat was in, I called out to Kiddo, urging him to check out the goat. Without hesitation, he hurriedly turned towards it.
What we saw was a trembling goat slowly retreating while a one-eyed demon, with a comically huge torso, stared intently at it. Kiddo took a step in an attempt to help the goat, but I quickly grabbed him by his collar once more to hold him back.
"Aren't you going to help it?!"
"Just calm down. Didn't I tell you... that everything will make sense?"
"But what if it gets eaten?"
Just as the three of us set our gaze back on the goat, it bolted away in a panic, and the one-eyed demon began to chase after it.
As Kiddo started to frown, "T-That demon hates goat meat. S-So he will never eat it," stammered the demon hiding behind us.
'Then why is it…?'
As Kiddo stared at the demon, wondering why, the one-eyed demon shouted.
"Everyone I know who enjoys goat meat raves about its delicious flavor... and I abhor to see humans so pleased!"
'Ahh… Such garbage-thinking for a demon.'
"I was never able to enjoy goat meat when I was a human. So I decided... that I will become a demon and kill all the goats! Hehehehehe!"
'Do not just give up on humanity for such a stupid reason!'
"Although I claim to have turned into a demon, it was only after I had my way with the goats that I truly turned into one without noticing!"
'Humanity is the one who gave up!!!'
Kiddo then turned towards the demon hiding behind us.
"Hey! Isn't he one of yours?! Can't you-"
Kiddo stopped and slowly pointed to an object in the demon's hands.
"Hey... That... What is that?"
"It's just a bucket of water..."
"You… You are definitely trying to do something, aren't you?"
"N-No no! Y-You are mistaking me! This is just to calm me down... I-I feel comfortable with something in my hand..."
Regardless of how you look at it, the scene and the demon's words made no sense, leaving Kiddo and me to stare at the demon with doubtful eyes.
"P-Please don't look at me with such eyes! Light is...! Light in your eyes is…!"
"How disgusting! Hiding among humans! Can you even call yourself a proud demon?!" exclaimed a voice we had never encountered before.
As one demon tried to justify himself while stammering, a second demon, almost as tall as Kiddo, with glasses and long horns, made his way towards us. The short demon march continued towards us, with patriotic chants.
"This is why it's no good! We demons are given the power to rule everything! So we must take it all for ourselves and make sure we prosper for generations to come. And..."
Its speech trails off with a curious "Huh?", and calmly asks us if we have heard something.
At his question, we both put our hands to our ears and tried to hear what he was saying. We both heard the faint sound of hooves hitting the ground, and the short demon asked once more if this 'something' was drawing near from behind him.
Kiddo and I slowly made an italic 'I' pose and looked behind him. In the distance we saw a white horse coming towards us. We both straightened up and nodded twice at the short demon.
The short demon pinched his glabella and sighed, "Haa... Tch," and ran past us while screaming. As we watched him flee, the horse quickly caught up with the demon's pace, and soon they both became distant to us.
After watching this inexplicable drama, Kiddo then turned towards the demon that was supposed to be hiding behind us.
"Hey... What's making him run from a horse he hasn't even seen ye–?"
He wasn't able to finish his line, because he, or we, saw the demon sneaking up on a man, quietly tiptoeing while carrying the bucket over his head. We continued to watch in silence, awaiting the new drama to unfold, and just as we thought, he emptied the bucket on the man.