The mental torture of yesterday's lecture had left Noth feeling completely drained. His angel had treated him like some kind of criminal for hours, and had forbidden him from spending any more time around the children for the rest of the day. No matter how much he tried to defend himself or insist that she was being absurd, she wouldn’t listen, and instead just stood at the door blocking it and giving him a harsh judging glare. She’d flinched a little when he’d claimed that perhaps she was just jealous that he’d been showing so much affection towards Jean at the time, but since that only seemed to increase the harshness of her glare, he gave up on trying to reason with her. He’d ended up falling asleep after a few hours of his confinement, and had actually slept all the way until the next morning when his angel woke him. And yet somehow, despite all the sleep he’d managed to get, he still felt absolutely fatigued as if he hadn’t slept a wink.
Just like last time his family had assembled to see him off, although this time it was a little less emotional. Noth could feel some of the townsfolk peeking at him through their windows as he made his way outside of town, and he wondered if he was just too nervous to notice them yesterday. Perhaps he’d not been quite as sneaky as he’d thought. He was far too tired to let himself be bothered by it, though.
There wasn’t a hint of fog anywhere this time around. Noth had thoroughly scanned over the landscape in case the fog was just farther off somewhere, but everything seemed just as clear as normal. As if she’d been reading his mind Serris chuckled as he scanned, and leaned in close to whisper into his ear.
The way she punctuated her sentence with a big mischievous smile at the end had Noth very concerned. Just how big was the force they’d sent? Would he even be able to deal with that many demons at once? At least he’d get to see them coming this time, but would that even change anything? Would he be able to complete his prayer before they managed to bowl him over? Maybe if he had Serris’s help again he could make it out in one piece, but it would be a mistake to just implicitly expect her to do something.
“...Will you protect me like last time?”
“Wait... moles-?”
Before Noth could finish his words Serris had jumped on him and wrapped him in her embrace.
“What in the God-dess's name are you talking about?!”
As Noth tried to wrestle the angel off of him in embarrassment, suddenly a cloud in the distance caught his eye. A large group seemed to be dashing his way, all carrying various forms of weaponry. When Serris felt Noth stop resisting she also looked over and clicked her tongue, begrudgingly letting him go and crossing her arms in annoyance.
Noth desperately counted how many demons were coming his way, worry creeping over his features as he realized that there must be at least 20 of them coming to attack him. He pressed his hands together hard as he started to pray, hoping that he might be able to suppress the way his hands had suddenly started shaking by using sheer force. His lips trembled a bit as he tripped over word after word, but he managed to rush through his prayer with less than a minute to spare. Knowing that it had worked for him yesterday, Noth had used the same prayer. The all too fast group of demons suddenly disappeared in bright flashes of light, one after the other, and he felt the bright glowing energy flood into him once again.
Noth almost felt dizzy from the large amount of energy he was absorbing combined with the still present feeling of fatigue weighing him down. He closed his eyes, focusing on getting used to the feeling, and trying his best to not become nauseous.
But Serris’s warning came too late.
Four demons suddenly flanked him.
Serris made a grand sweep with her arm, but it only managed to knock back two of them, the other two successfully managing to tackle Noth, and sending him flying down onto the ground. They were so big and heavy that the teen’s only slightly muscled body couldn’t possibly put up any resistance, and yet he did his best to struggle anyways. Serris quickly came to his rescue, yanking the two demons off and sending them flying a few feet away, but the first group she’d swept back was already coming back once more.
By the time Noth was able to struggle back to his feet he was launched onto the ground with a tackle once again. Serris had managed to catch one of the two, but this last one had slipped through her defences and was now pinning Noth down, its eyes hazy, and its open mouth drooling on his face. His eyes were locked onto the demon, his hypersensitive vision due to his fear did its best to memorize everything about the face in front of him. It seemed oddly feminine, and yet Noth would be hesitant to classify the demon as a female. Something about its build seemed far too masculine and strong for him to draw a conclusion from that as well. All he knew was that it was looking at him as if it was seeing something irresistible, like it would take a bite out of him at any moment. The feeling of its drool dripping down his face was uncomfortable enough already, and yet somehow the way he was being looked at felt exponentially worse.
After a moment that felt like an eternity to Noth, Serris finally fought off the three other demons, launching them far enough away that she now had ample time to rescue the teen. The sudden lack of a body pressing him down felt almost too cold, even in the warm environment they were in, and yet Noth welcomed this all too powerful chill. His head seemed to clear somewhat thanks to this new cooling sensation, and his mind, now freezing over in indignity, could only think one thing.
They have to die.
The only way to erase what happened is if they all disappear.
Noth glared daggers towards the demon who’d sullied him. His eyes grew bright hot with power, the rusty orange colour they were now emanating beginning to bleed out down his face. He pointed a finger shaking with rage at the demon, and his voice seemed to echo through the land and into the heavens.
His finger swept across to the other three as well.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Each demon coughed out blood, one after another, their eyes rolling up in their sockets as they collapsed down. Noth panted with exertion as he stared at their bodies, making sure to watch closely in case one of them suddenly got up. His eyes and his bracelet felt hot, as if they would start to burn or bubble any second, but he couldn’t care less. He ran over to the nearest body, cautiously nudging it with his foot a few times. When they didn’t react to that, he tried kicking them. And then he did it again. And again. He kept kicking and kicking, tears welling up as the helplessness he felt from before replayed behind his eyes again and again.
Seeing his terribly agitated state, Serris slowly hugged him from behind. The twisted smile that had blossomed on her lips was cleverly concealed amongst his hair.
Her words echoed through his mind.
The world in Noth’s eyes grew somehow darker.
Suddenly everything began to spiral.
In only a moment the teen was out like a light.
~~~
Noth awoke in his bed in the old villa. His eyes stung a little, so he brought his hands up to wipe at them, hoping to remove the sleep that had gathered. But when he pulled his hands away, they were strangely covered in flakes of rust. He got up and dashed to the dresser, staring closely at himself in the mirror placed there, and gasped at the sight of the lines of watery rust that seemed to be running down his cheeks. He roughly rubbed at them with his sleeves, trying to remove all of it, but that only made it smear on his face all the more. Eventually he gave up and left for the bathroom in the hopes that it might wash off.
When Noth left his room he immediately ran into the children who had all been camped outside his door waiting for him. They each had cats in their hands that they’d been cooing over, petting, and playing with, but when Noth suddenly opened the door, all of the cats scampered away. At first the children pouted that the cats had randomly ran, but when they realized that Noth had come out they immediately brightened up. They called out his name in unison and crowded around in front of him.
“We were waiting for you forever!”
Jean, their ever beauteous leader, was the first one to speak. She was pouting in a way that actually befitted her age, and when she noticed it she immediately blushed a little and looked away.
“We missed you so we were waiting for you!”
Ren quickly explained after Jean, reaching out and grabbing hold of Noth’s shirt as if he might run away or suddenly disappear.
“...What’s that on your face?”
Helt, the level headed one, was the first one to finally ask the obvious question. He reached up and patted at the rust flakes, bringing his hand back down to stare at the odd orange residue afterward.
“Is this… rust?”
At the reminder of the previous half of his day, Noth quickly snatched up the boy’s hand and swept off the rust dust with the hem of his shirt.
“Ahhh that’s not important. What is important is that it’s uncomfortable and I need to get it off my face.”
His words made Jean look back towards him with a serious look, as if some sort of duty was calling to her.
“Right. Helt, go get Noth some warm water. Ren, go bring him a towel.”
When the two children performed a mock salute and then ran off to complete their missions, Jean suddenly began pushing Noth back through his doorway.
“And you, Noth, show me your room.”
Noth let Jean’s small weak arms push him into his room, and once they made it inside he moved out of the way, and let her explore as she pleased. Her eyes swept over the floor, then to his dresser. She walked over to his bed and smacked the pillow once, sending a small puff of orange into the air.
“... Yeah, I thought so when I saw how easily it got on Helt’s hand.”
The teen quirked his mouth uncomfortably seeing how much flaking and dust had come up from the pillow, but he still didn’t bother saying anything. What excuse would even work on Jean right now? That he got everything covered in rust because he was busy killing off the demons that tried to do lewd things to him? If he could manage it he was going to keep that fact with him to his grave.
Jean let out a small sigh and peeked at Noth out of the corner of her eye.
“It’ll take a lot of cleaning to get all this stuff off. If we still had any of the maids then maybe this wouldn’t take too long, but with just us it’s going to probably be a little while before your room’s ready to use again.”
Serris let out a low chuckle from where she was crouched on his bed playing with the still floating rust particles.
Noth’s face took on a small apologetic twinge at how rude his angel was being to Jean, even if she couldn’t hear it. But Serris did have a point. He decided to parrot her words in a much nicer way.
“Or... I could just fix all of this easily myself, you know.”
The small girl’s head snapped towards him as she sent him a glare.
“You, who came home out of nowhere after fighting literal DEMONS and then passed out like you were dead for 3 hours, are now saying for me to trust you to use your powers and fix this. God-dess, Noth! I don’t care how powerful you are, you look like absolute garbage right now! We all know you have to go and do this all over again tomorrow, so why don’t you just give it a rest?!”
Jean had gesticulated left and right during her rant, and her face, although still as breathtaking as ever, was now absolutely fierce as if she might stab him at any moment. This was the first time Noth had ever been yelled at in this particular manner, so he had no idea what to do but shrink back against the wall and do his best to hold on to it for strength. Somehow this action had only upset Jean more, however, and the small girl let out a shriek of absolute frustration before planting her flustered face into her hands.
“Look…”
Her sonorous voice was muffled by her hands, and yet still it conveyed its loveliness clearly.
“Just let us try to deal with this first before you go and kill yourself with overwork, ok? Nobody’s [Gift] is limitless, so just go to your room in the mansion and leave this to us while you rest.”
Though he was still a little scared of her, Noth opened his mouth to try and refute. He knew he had perfectly enough power in his bracelet left right now for him to handle such a simple task. Hell, if he really wanted to he could clean both the villa and the mansion easily. Perhaps with the added energy from all the demons he'd slain he could have wished to clean the whole town. What was the point of getting his loved ones to waste their time like this? But the sound of his angel’s wicked giggle, and the expression on her face like she was going to enjoy what was coming next, quickly shut him up. Perhaps it would be best to just concede this one.
“B-… Alright, thank you, Jean.”
Jean looked up from her hands with a weak smile. She took a step closer and raised her hand towards his shoulder. And then suddenly-
“I came as fast as I could, but the water took a little while to heat up!”
“I didn’t know what kind of towel to bring, so I brought one of every kind!”
The two children finally arrived, clambering dangerously close as they tried to enter the room at the same time. Ren couldn’t see past the large pile of towels and crashed into Helt, causing him to spill the basin of water all over the both of them, and soaking both their clothes and the towels.