Elillith was quickly called to take care of the soaked children, and Jean set to work cleaning up the puddle that had formed on the floor with a very displeased look on her face. Noth decided to leave the room before he became the target of her anger again, and finally was able to get to the bathroom and clean himself off. The towel he used looked absolutely appalling afterward, but he stealthily wished it back to cleanliness and tucked it at the bottom of the stack, paranoid that Jean might somehow find out he’d been using his powers.
For some reason Serris looked a little put out that Noth was removing the rust, but when he asked her why that was, she simply gave him a vague smile and said it was nothing.
Noth had idled his time away in the greenhouse reading for a while, and by the time night fell and he had checked back in on his room, Jean was still hard at work trying to clean everything up. She’d successfully cleaned his pillow and the dresser, but for some reason the rust that had gotten on the floor and his mattress weren’t being very cooperative, and the fact that everything still hadn’t dried at all meant that he would be spending the night inside the mansion. The teen didn’t particularly like the idea of staying in the building he felt to be so tainted, but he also wouldn’t have felt right staying in someone else’s room. It was a shame that Jean would definitely notice if his room was miraculously clean tomorrow.
As Noth wandered through the halls of the mansion with his mind full of thoughts of cleaning, he couldn’t help notice that the building was a little dusty from unuse. Even a web or two had sprouted up here and there. Could a building really become this dirty in only a few days? Had the maids been slacking off before he removed them? Perhaps he was just being too strict about how clean the mansion should be, since he’d always seen it in pristine condition. For how many years had he lived in a completely decrepit and dirty home, and yet now for some reason a bit of dust was catching his attention. How silly. It must have been because of how hard Jean was working to clean right now… Or maybe because he was looking for anything to find fault with in this building.
After trudging through the halls for a while, Noth finally came upon his room in the mansion. He stood outside the door for a while, frowning to himself as his various memories of the mansion ran rampant through his mind from the thought of having to stay there. Seeing that he had started to re-work himself up over the incident with Mellen, Serris gave him a loving hug and patted his head.
The way his angel had murmured the words ‘for now’ told him that she had something up her sleeve for sure. It would be right to try and stop whatever fiendish scheme she was trying to cook up, but Noth was quite aware how powerless he’d be to do any such thing. And besides… if he was being honest, he didn’t think he really wanted to stop whatever she was planning for Mellen. This was a problem he would be content to just have taken care of for him at this point.
The moment Noth let out a big defeated sigh, the door of the next room over suddenly opened. A small head of ashen hair, uncharacteristically not tied up in its cute little ponytail, peeked out from behind the door frame.
“Noth?”
“Ren? Oh, right, you’ve been staying in the mansion for the past few days. But why aren’t you off with Jean and Helt on some big cleaning binge right now?”
The small ashen girl meekly looked down and bit her lip.
“Um, well, I’m not that good at cleaning and I thought I might get in the way and uh, I, um…”
It took Ren a while to fumble over her words, and when it seemed like she was too distressed to continue talking, Noth thought about going over and giving her a brotherly pat. However, before he could make his move, suddenly the words came leaking out of her again.
“Well, you know how I um, h-hurt… my hand the last time we were over there. A-and I’m kind of afraid of being in the villa at night now. Plus I haven’t really been sleeping well the past few nights, so Elillith put me to bed early!”
She hadn’t been sleeping well? The usually unobservant Noth now tried his hardest to scan over Ren’s face. How had he not noticed sooner how fatigued she looked? It was as if her hair colour had somehow bled into her skin, she was so pale. There were even slight black circles forming around her eyes. Noth quickly rushed over and gave the small girl a firm hug.
“You’ll tell me if you need anything, right? I’ll do whatever you need.”
Ren’s eyes thinned happily and then started to water, so she buried her face against him with a big sigh.
“Don’t worry, big brother Noth, I’ll be okay. I’m just having a little rough patch, but things’ll be better soon. I just have to be patient.”
The small girl’s voice was so muffled and soft that Noth couldn’t make out the short sob at the end of her words.
~~~
It was now the third day of demon slaying. Serris had directed Noth to go even farther away from the town this time, and Noth could even make out the lush forested edge of his territory that he’d been told the demons infested, far off into the distance. Part of him was worried that she would say today was the day that they would annihilate the demons, considering they were basically knocking at their door right now. The teen was pretty sure he wasn’t really ready to take on the brunt of the demon force right now, considering the catastrophe that was yesterday’s fight. His skin still crawled when he remembered how the demons touched him and held him down with their filthy intentions. He wasn’t confident that he wouldn’t freak out from seeing just one of them, so how was he going to manage any fight against them, let alone a large scale one?
Seeing how shaken he was, Serris placed a small kiss on his cheek and lavished pat after pat upon his head.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
The way she unreliably finished off her words made Noth send a small glare her way. She winced slightly and made an apologetic face back. The teen sighed and dropped his glare; He knew she wasn’t trying to make light of his experience and was only trying to reassure him. However, knowing she hadn’t meant to hurt him didn’t mean he wasn’t still somewhat hurt, so instead his face shifted into a pout.
“Yeah, fine… So if they don’t want to hurt me then what do they want, because it seems like they want to do something unacceptable.”
Serris was at a loss for words on what to tell him. He was a teenager so she figured he’d probably guessed by now what the demons had been feeling towards him, but at the same time she still felt he was too young, and that he should have been a bit more oblivious about it. She certainly didn’t want to be the one to say anything about their unsavoury attentions to him, and yet she’d also once accused him of something in the same vein only a few days ago. The angel felt like she’d somehow dug her own grave.
But luckily for her, her saviours had arrived in the distance.
Noth was confused quite a bit by the odd swerve away from the topic, but when he heard the sounds of many feet and saw the dust that they were kicking up on the horizon, he knew what was happening. He squinted hard and used a hand to block the morning sun from his eyes, trying to discern what he was seeing. Off in the distance there appeared to be a large horde rushing towards him, consisting of a handful of humanoid figures and a surprising number of beasts. The beasts were far larger and more frightening looking than the figures he presumed to be demons.
Noth’s mind raced back to the day he saw his first demon. That demon, too, had brought a demonic monster to accompany it. A beast the size of a small hut. A monster. Though they were now demonic, making them quite a bit bigger and discoloured compared to what he’d heard of, the teen could easily recognize what they’d once looked like from the years of his mother’s stories. Many times she had pulled out fancy encyclopaedias and had shown him various pictures of monsters. He’d actually very much loved learning about them, and had even once asked her if they could have one as a pet one day, but of course she’d turned him down. She’d told him that monsters were scary, nasty things, the stuff of nightmares even. She'd told him that the God-dess had put them into the world to scare people into doing the right things, lest the monsters one day come and get them. She’d told him a small handful of scary stories about them as well, and from then on, Noth had grown to abhor such monsters.
Now those same monsters that he had so desperately hated were coming towards him.
And what’s worse, they weren’t just monsters, they were something even more horrific.
He might have called himself a monster hunter, but now he knew for sure that he must have been an immature child for thinking so.
His hand shakily found the hem of Serris’s robe. He was thankful he wasn’t alone right now. So very, very thankful.
“Serris, what… What do I even do?”
Her voice was nonchalant, as if they were talking about the weather.
“B-but, what if they get here before I finish? They’re moving so fast… The monsters might rip me apart!”
She may have still been smiling towards him like normal, but the look in her eyes that seemed to say he was asking stupid questions made him loosen his ever tightening hold on her clothes. Yes, he was getting worked up over nothing. Even if they were monsters, it’s nothing he hadn’t seen before, and in the end they’re still demons to be killed with all the rest.
“Right. Then… I wish for a barrier around me that won’t break from their onslaught.”
A moment later a translucent dome appeared in a small area around Noth, protecting him. The barrier must have been fairly strong, considering how big of a crack had formed on his bracelet. It was a bit reassuring to know that so much power had gone into it, and yet at the same time it was worrying that he’d already used up so much power on defence alone. At least the prayer wouldn’t really cost too much power, so if he fell into a similar situation to last time he should be able to mop things up sufficiently. Besides, he had the reserve of energy he’d been slowly accruing, what with all this demon slaying he’d been doing, to fall back on should he need it.
The crowd grew closer and closer, the sheer size of the wave heading towards him making Noth’s teeth clench in fear. Fear or not, however, he needed to make sure they were in good enough range that his prayer couldn’t possibly miss. Who knows what might happen to the barrier if he had to waste time towards chanting out an entire second prayer. When he deemed the horde close enough, he knelt down, clasped his hands, and began.
“Oh holy and righteous God-dess, who watches all from above. Look upon these sinners, these wretches inside your beloved kingdom. See that they’ve done wrong, see what crimes these heathens have committed, and pass your judgement down upon them. This child of our holy lord asks that you-”
Noth’s eyes had been closed while he prayed towards the incoming demons, trying his best to recite the prayer against all that were amongst them, but when they finally hit against the barrier with a deafening clang, his eyes immediately spread open. They hit against the barrier like a wave, surrounding it and even climbing it. The barrier was practically encased in demons, meaning Noth was as well. And what’s worse, he could see the snapping, drooling maws of the monsters that were viciously longing for his flesh. He watched as beads of slobber spattered all over the translucent dome in his direction, and imagined he could feel it dripping onto him. Yes, just like yesterday.
In an attempt to not be overcome by his fear, Noth crouched down into a ball, placing his head against his knees so he could no longer see, and did his best to rush out the rest of his prayer.
“Smite these wicked, warped, and corrupt I find in front of me! Rain down your judgement upon them and save us from their evil ways! We ask for salvation, and await your eternal gracious mercy. With ardent devotion I raise this prayer to you, mother and father, creator of us all. God-dess’s blessings abound!”
At first Noth was scared that he’d messed up the prayer somehow when a minute passed without anything obvious happening. But then a loud crackling sound rang out from above, and Noth’s body jerked upright to look at it. Through a small gap between his attackers he could make out a dark grey colour, and as soon as the thought that it might be a cloud entered his mind, it finally happened.
Over 30 bolts of lightning simultaneously hit.
With pinpoint accuracy, every demon there was thoroughly fried.
In an instant, everyone on the dome had been obliterated into a fine ash.
And because he’d never closed his eyes, even as the lightning struck so closeby, Noth was now blinded.