Dim sunlight barely broke through the dark clouds shrouding the sky. A storm raged through the barren land. Not a storm of rain and thunder, but a storm of dust, threatening to suffocate anyone unfortunate to be caught within.
Cutting through this storm, traversing through the gray, harsh wasteland was a group of demons, huddled together, progressing step by step. In front, a white-haired boy led the group in pressing on ahead. At the center of this advancing column of tailed demons were two wooden, horse-drawn wagons, stuffed with water-filled jars, food supplies, and a few personal possessions in between.
Farah, walking side-by-side with her mother Daria, laid her eyes on the back of the boy leading them. A boyish figure, with a slender and short stature, shorter than his brown-haired companion beside him.
Just two hours ago in the morning, they had departed the village, firmly set on migrating to the Citadel. But the picturesque scenery of the lazy village by the lake was long gone now, simply memories. It gave way to a wasteland that stretched on endlessly. Despite this, the boy whom Farah watched strode on resolutely, progressing forward. And more than that, his magic protected them, even now.
Looking above, the girl saw that the dust storm passed over, as if redirecting its winds to avoid the traveling demons. The endless swirls of dust particulates flowed above and around them, leaving the tailed demons untouched. That didn’t completely soothe their fears, though.
Outside of their stormless, calm haven, they were shrouded in darkness, the storm acting as a veil on their vision; several meters to her right, Farah couldn’t make out what she saw. Only blurry lines hinting at landscapes covered by the dark fog.
“…Scary…” Farah nervously gripped her mother’s hand with her own, and Daria gently squeezed back in reciprocation and reassurance.
“Sweetie, do you want Mama to carry you?” Daria softly asked.
“Nuh huh.” The girl refused, despite her trembling hands and her low-hanging, fearful tail. All she needed to do was follow the boy’s example. He moved forward, step-by-step, unrelenting. The sight of him encouraged her to shake off her fear. If he could be brave, couldn’t she be too, even just a little?
Her renewed will to be courageous was immediately challenged. The earth beneath them began rumbling. The ground tremors came in periodically, in measured pulses, but with increasing amplitude with each occurrence.
“Everyone, there are monsters incoming! We’ll take care of it, focus on defending yourselves!” The order boomed from the white-haired boy, who had unsheathed one of his swords. The girl beside him brandished her spear as well.
Suddenly, with a snap of the white-haired boy’s fingers, a wall sprouted from the ground to surround the tailed demons, standing a meter tall. Farah watched as the spear-wielding girl jumped over the wall while Luqa sprouted black-feathered wings and took flight into the sky.
“D-do your best, Luqa!” Farah cried out, surprising the people around her, including her mother. As if her words shook them from their trance, the tailed demons started scrambling.
“Everyone, huddle close and take a spear from the wagon! Let the two of them do the fighting!” Daria said, her confident words commanding the rag-tag group of children, middle-aged women, and elderly. She held her daughter close to her with her left arm.
Daria began to see it, despite the darkness. A herd of stampeding large, goat-like beasts, with twisted horns, was rushing them from the right. The beasts’ tongues hung out of their mouths, salivating as they eyed the demons. Daria wrapped her arm around Farah ever closer. She was prepared to fight for their lives, to protect their future, even if she had to stand against those things.
But the tailed demons found themselves surprised again. The threat did not come their way. Or rather, the threat simply could not.
The winged boy, flying mid-air, rained down continuous barrages of high-momentum sharp icicles alternating with explosive fireballs. Each ball of fire burned alight, bringing light to darkness, and each icicle pierced the approaching goat beasts, culling them as they mindlessly charged on. Even Shara, who leaned against the wall, ready to defend, watched with slight astonishment, or perhaps disappointment that she would not get to play a role in helping.
Each goat beast killed was replaced by another, but with each icicle launched, another materialized from mana as well.
The boy’s endless mana ultimately persevered over the beasts. It had all ended. The ground was now still, the air quiet. The boy slowly descended down, standing right outside the wall by Shara.
“It should be safe now,” Luqa said while turning his head slightly to face the tailed demons behind him.
“A-amazing!” Farah broke off from her mother’s grasp to come running to Luqa. “That was awesome, Luqa,” she said from behind the wall.
“No, it was nothing.”
The other demons reacted differently however as they approached the wall.
“What in the hell…”
“Oh, gods…”
As the crowd of tailed demons dispersed, curious to see the scenery outside of the wall, chills ran through them. The countless corpses of the beasts littered the ground, blood flooding everywhere. Some of the monsters’ bodies had been mercilessly torn to shreds, left as mutilated messes of fur, muscles, innards, and bones.
But the boy simply and nonchalantly went on with business. With a flick of his left hand, the wall descended back into the earth, as though it never existed.
“These centicores make for great meat. If you all are fine with it, I think we should stop to retrieve some of their flesh,” he said with a slight grin.
Stunned silence.
The tailed demons, even Daria, didn’t know how to react just yet. The sight of the corpses stretching to the horizon was still busy implanting itself into their minds, to make its reality real and palpable.
The boy glanced at them and saw it again. His grin disappeared. It was that same expression they wore from the day he demonstrated his magic for the first time. An expression of deep, extreme fear. Was it for the brutal sight before them? Or was it for him?
He quickly turned away, hiding his face even from Farah, the girl right beside him.
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“Luqa, w-what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
***
The darkness of earlier had turned darker still, as sun gave way to moon. The tailed demons had passed through the worst of the storm, however. The plateau on which they camped and stoked fires afforded them a clear view of the lands left for them to traverse through. A bustling of conversation and noises came over the tailed demons, who worked to make camp for the night.
Farah busied herself with helping her mother, pressing and flattening balls of dough on a hot, iron pan over the flame to make fresh, circular flatbread.
“Mama, there’s no more dough,” she said.
“Okay, sweetie, I’ll make some more,” Daria said.
Stepping towards one of the carriages, Daria reached to grab a large jar, covered by a cloth wound over the top with a string.
It’s light? Wait, don’t tell me…
The weight of the jar gave little resistance as she carried it. Fearing the worst, she laid it on the ground, knelt beside it, quickly unwrapped the top, and looked into the jar.
Empty.
It was empty.
In confusion, Daria picked up the jar and examined it hastily. The bottom outer part was damp. Drawing it closer to her eyes, she couldn’t see any holes or openings through which the water could’ve leaked. But the truth was still clear to her.
Dammit, it leaked all the way through! How badly made is this pot?!
Further suspicion creeping into her, she quickly stood back up to examine the other jars of water in the wagon.
“Daria, what’s going ‘ere?” a young woman, Daria’s sister, inquired.
“…Something bad happened, Sareh. Our water, it might’ve leaked.”
“What?!” Sareh exclaimed, her tail rising in surprise.
The two unloaded all the jars they had.
Out of the twenty they had, seventeen were empty. The rest of the demons were drawn into Daria and Sareh’s panic, yelling as they realized what had happened.
“The water leaked! The hell?!”
“What now?”
“We should’ve never left the village, I told ya!”
“Daria, what do we outta do?” Sareh asked. Daria didn’t answer, simply staring at the empty jars with despair. What could she do? Had she doomed everyone with her ill-made preparations?
Farah watched the panicking villagers with confusion though. Did they forget? Couldn't they just ask him? she thought. Soon enough, the solution that was on her mind had arrived.
“What’s wrong, everyone?” the approaching Luqa asked.
“The water… our jars leaked most of the water…” Daria said. “What do we do now?”
“Oh.” The white-haired boy responded with seeming apathy, as if he couldn’t care less about what happened. Or as if there was no problem at all.
“Luqa, what do we do?” Daria continued.
“Leaving was your idea, half-demon!”
“We’re doomed!”
“Everyone!” The boy yelled. “Calm down.”
“We can’t go on! There ain’t water out here! We gotta turn back now,” Sareh said to the boy, grabbing his shoulders.
His attempt to calm down the distressed demons landing on deaf ears, Luqa simply took a deep breath, approached the jars, and conjured water from his fingers, filling them once more with clear water.
“Everyone, here, they’re not empty anymore,” the boy said.
“Huh?”
A wave of surprise hit them before realization set in. Daria felt stupid for having panicked alongside everyone else. The boy had materialized ice just a few hours earlier, after all. Water was no issue.
“The water I conjure is safe to drink, I promise,” the boy said. “If they leak away, I can refill them anytime, no problem. And I have more than enough mana to do this many times over.”
The boy refilled all the jars, turned around, and walked away, not even pausing to hear and examine the reactions of the tailed demons around him.
“I’ll be out to survey and patrol the area to make sure it’s safe again. Call out my name if there’s an issue.”
The observing Farah could only see the small frame of his back, receding as he walked away.
***
“Hahaha!”
The tense situation of only an hour before was gone as cheers filled the campsite. Two women played music, one energetically beating a lively rhythm with her hands on a drum and the other running her fingers through a four-stringed lute, drawing out a lovely summer’s melody.
The villagers sat in a circle, engaged in bright conversations and laughter. A few busied themselves on the side, cooking the centicore meat they gathered from earlier to supply a feast for themselves.
In the middle of the circle, those willing were dancing around a fire, their feet and arms moving to the animated music filling the air.
“Eeek!” Sareh squealed as the pulls and whirls of her partner’s dancing gave her a rush of adrenaline. Dancing as her partner was Shara, who decided on making herself the star of the party. Pulling from techniques rooted thousands of years ago, she impressed everyone with her unorthodox but undeniably stylish moves, dazzling too the demon woman swooning in her arms.
“Wooo! Go get it, miss Shara!” Even the sour old ladies of the village couldn’t help but cheer for her as she shone brighter than the moon, dancing among the demons.
“Hmph, that lion girl’s being pretty shameless. Did she drink some of their wine?” a white-haired boy remarked. He stood afar from the celebrating demons, content with watching from a distance. His moment of solitude was soon interrupted though by an approaching girl.
“L-luqa, what are you doing here?” Farah asked. “You… don’t want to join?”
“Hey Farah,” Luqa responded. “Sorry, I’m busy watching to make sure no monsters approach us. Very important job, y’know. Besides, I’m fine with not joining.”
“No!”
“Huh?”
“You want to join, I know it!” Farah insisted.
“No, really I’m fine…”
“Not even for a minute? Please…” the girl pleaded with large eyes.
“Uhh,” the boy said, genuinely troubled. “No, really, I think it’s better if I stay here.”
“Luqa, if I can, I think my daughter’s right.” Daria approached the two. “You saved our hides many times today. Go ahead and join in for a bit, I’ll be the one to keep an eye out. And I’ll holler if there’s anythin’ crazy.”
“But…”
“Oh dear, no more buts,” Daria said. “Enjoy yourself for a bit. It’ll make me guilty as all heck if we keep working you to the bone all the time.”
“Ehm, again, keeping an eye out is not really that much work…” the boy’s words trailed as he looked at Farah, whose begging eyes continued to bore into him. He closed his eyes and turned away as if to break his gaze from a witch’s enchanting eyes.
“Please, Luqa, please…” Farah begged.
“Oh, fine.” The boy finally faltered. The eager yet stubborn girl before him reminded him too much of someone similar from his life in the horned demons’ village, an emerald-eyed girl to whom he couldn’t say no.
“Yay!” Farah cheered and immediately dragged the boy by the hand toward the rest of the demons.
“Will they be fine with me joining?” the boy quietly whispered to himself. His face wore a neutral expression, but internally he dreaded the expressions he would see once again.
“Hey, it’s Luqa!”
“He’s gonna dance with Daria’s girl, huh? Go at it!”
“
“Huh?” Surprise momentarily struck Luqa. Those expressions, he had never seen them before from the tailed demons, aside from a few exceptions. They were expressions of warm welcome and joy. Was it simply tonight’s alcohol?
“Let’s go, don’t just stand. Let’s dance!” Farah cheerfully said.
“Okay,” Luqa sighed. “Sure, then.”
Farah delighted. The same smile that she found endearing appeared again on the boy.
***
“Are you sure of this?” A woman on a throne said. A veil covered her face, revealing only her mouth.
“Yes, Lady Minerva. Lady Diana has but confirmed the same. Those remarkable ripples… that can only be him. It may be related to the mysterious appearance of those beasts,” a man clad in white robes responded. A full mask covered his face.
“Hmm, I suppose it is time for a new Champion. We may not be able to handle it ourselves. Let us be patient.”
“Lady Minerva, I believe the wiser approach would be for ourselves to act now.”
“Oh? Do elaborate.”
“The strength of those ripples is as of yet relatively weak. The threat posed is not to the same degree as in the past.”
“…Do you speak of confronting him yourself? There is much we do not know yet. That would be hasty of us.”
“We will not learn more if we simply sit here and do nothing. And I do not mean to jump straight to force. At the very least, we will be able to gather information, Lady Minerva.”
“…That is true. What do you think, Lady Diana?” the veiled woman addressed the black-haired woman standing by the wall. She wore a half mask that left her mouth and her gray eyes revealed.
“I am of the same opinion as Sir Phoebus,” she said.
“Is that so? Then I’ll allow it.” The veiled woman turned to the kneeling man. “I, the Mouth, grant permission to Sir Phoebus, the Left Eye, to act to fulfill the following mission: Seek out the source of disturbance and gather information from him. If necessary, eliminate the source.”
“It shall be done.”