A young human soldier had appeared, begging for his life, tears spilling from his eyes. But then those eyes bulged at the sight of Arlosse. The soldier shook and retreated to the side of the protrusion, looking as though he’d seen a ghost. The degree of terror in his eyes intensified tenfold.

Arlosse raised a brow.

What had this young man expected to see when he leaped out pleading for his life? Was he, Arlosse, that ugly?

The Incarnate looked closely at the trembling mess of a man. He had dirty blonde hair, a square-ish face and downturned, brown eyes. He was wearing a surprisingly high-quality armour. It didn’t look as though it had weathered through any conflict at all in the last three hours and however long the battle had been raging on before Arlosse showed up.

Curious…

The Incarnate didn’t let his guard down at the sight of this human, but he didn’t feel enough of a threat from him to keep his sword pointing at his face.

He scoffed. “You look like you haven’t spent a day on the battlefield in your entire life.”

At once, the terrified human soldier trembled vehemently, the fear in his eyes cast aside and replaced by shock.

“You… you… can speak the same…” he stammered while pointing a shaky finger at Arlosse. “You can speak our tongue?!”

Arlosse reeled.

“Well…” he set to speak when realisation dawned on him.

The hulking warrior had been saying the same thing before the tall demon, Prevron, had intruded. Arlosse’s mind hadn’t lingered on this detail long enough afterwards because of the fear the came in that moment, but he started to realise how stupid he had been to not take this into account.

He ran his fingers through his hair. It seemed to help him think.

The Host Guide had a habit of making him understand things that would otherwise take decades of learning or at least a couple minutes of strict teaching. He hadn’t thought this applied to his interaction with this world, or perhaps worlds?

Communication was essential. Arlosse hadn’t considered how he was able to speak to Alabas. At the time, it simply felt as though he was speaking the language he remembered from his past life, and that Alabas was doing the same, but now that he thought about it, that wasn’t the case. The sensation was similar, but the words that left his mouth weren’t the same per se.

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Arlosse slapped his own face.

He had been hearing humans calling out things like, “Retreat to the Clerics!” but he didn’t once question if he, as a demon, should have been able to understand them at all. It was clear now that demons and humans didn’t have the same language – as obvious as it should have been from the start.

Arlosse looked at the white horse.

He realised that he had been talking to it all this time and it had been understanding his words.

So, the Host Guide ensured that he could converse with the language the individual he was talking to was familiar with? Since the horse was likely bred by humans, that was probably why the hulking rider had been able to hear him speaking to it in the human language.

On seeing him look to the side, the young human warrior followed the Demonling’s gaze and saw the scowling white horse which in turn gave him a glare. He yelped and jumped back.

“Oh, blessed Verdance! That… that is Tenet Commander Ryland’s horse! What did you do?!” the young warrior cried.

Arlosse frowned. Instead of answering the young man’s question, he narrowed his eyes and gripped his frail neck, pushing him against the rocky protrusion. The young warrior turned paler.

“Tell me. What exactly is the reason behind this war? What’s the Shard?” he asked.

The young warrior’s fear was once again substituted for something else; this time it was confusion.

“W-what? What do you mean?”

“You heard me. What’s the reason for this war? Why are the demons and humans fighting?” Arlosse asked again, this time bringing his face closer to that of the young man.

The young warrior was stumped. He wanted to satisfy his loot of questions with answers first, but obviously, he didn’t have that luxury.

“How… How can you not know what’s going on? Y-you’re a hybrid! Your people were informed enough to try and hurry ahead of us and so were we; we met your approach with our own! What else is there to tell?!” he cried with slight indignation.

Arlosse frowned deeper.

It didn’t seem like he was being encouraging enough. He didn’t have time to preface his questions with a “Hello, I’m new here, you see. Came for a bit of fresh air from the country” or a “I’m a special kind of friendly demon from overseas. Could I get to know why I’ve suddenly joined my distant kin in slaughtering your kind?”

Thus, Arlosse caused the Fickle Viper in his hand to extend and coil around the young man’s neck. At the same time, he released his grip on the soldier’s neck.

With a thought, the sword’s coiled blade began closing in on the young man’s throat. He shuddered in fright.

“You should know I won’t hesitate to kill you,” Arlosse said and glanced at the white horse. It didn’t seem to care; thank goodness. “If you want to live a little longer, start talking. Explain as though you are telling a child who knows nothing about the status quo.”

This seemed to work wonders.

At once, the young man, after yelling, “Alright! Alright!” started to explain more clearly.

He gave a vaguely hateful look at the Hollow Demonling and spoke.

“T-there is a relic, some kind of artefact – no one knows what it really is – that was said to have been left behind by the greatest and holiest human Emperor to have ever lived, Triayt the Unbecoming. He was a s-strong warrior. Signs of his strength are abundant across our lands. But, he was also known as a wise and upright man. He was the only Emperor in history to have driven away you filt-, the demons completely out of human territory! When he perished of old age, he generously left his wealth, carefully divided across all the human nations, but the objects of his strength, his weapons and all, he kept completely hidden.”

Arlosse frowned.

“Is that right?” he said.

The young man nodded furiously.

Arlosse scoffed and beckoned him to continue. He wanted to ensure the young man didn’t feed him falsehoods by causing him to falter to fear at least once.

“Uh… Emperor Triayt recognised human nature better than most, I suppose. He knew just how much hatred ran between humans and demons. Even if victory had come in his reign, he was sure either of us – humans and demons – would strike at the other if for no better reason than to rid the other from the world.”

“However – most say this was foolhardy, and I do too – Triayt… hid some kind of powerful relic which he called the Last Shard in a place that was yet unknown and told his successor, as well as a certain demon from back then, that this relic would one day deliver the world and end the struggle between our two races; that its purpose and location would be revealed at the right time. Well, now the location of this relic had been revealed. That is the cause for this war.”