I woke to the sensation of being dragged along cobblestone. Not one of the most pleasant awakenings, but I’d take it over waking up in a pool of blood. My whole body hurt; my face in particular felt like one big bruise.

Noticing my eyes open, the demon girl who’d been struggling to carry my deadweight dropped me. “If you’re awake then get up.”

“What happened? I thought I was dead.” I gingerly touched my nose, it was definitely broken.

“I called you back.”

“You can do that? Call me back from the dead?”

She lowered her head and held it in her hands. “I can’t.”

“But- “

“You weren’t dead, you idiot! I just teleported you to where I was.”

“Oh.” I felt a little foolish at that point, but I think it was excusable. What with my head trauma and all. “What happened to the Paladin? Is he still chasing you?”

“Probably, but I think we lost him. At least for now. Hopefully it gives us enough time to get out of the city, he won’t be able to follow us out there. So hurry up and get moving.”

Clutching my aching head, I got up. My surroundings spun me and I grabbed a nearby wall to stop myself falling. “Maybe you should just leave me. I don’t think I can run like this.”

The Demon Lord’s little red lips twisted into a sneer. “You have to. I am not leaving you here after all the work I did to summon you in the first place.”

I strongly believed that her effort would have been better spent elsewhere, but I guess what was done was done. “That’s all well and good, but I’m injured here. All I can do is slow you down.”

She shook her head. “We don’t have time for this nonsense, just walk.”

She strode off and I followed, limping along as quickly as I could manage. Luckily it was still dark out, all the citizens were indoors where they wouldn’t get in the way. It made me glad that the world’s technology seemed roughly medieval.

God bless the lack of electrical lighting, or whatever it was that was keeping these people indoors at night. Passing through the streets, we emerged on a mostly wooden waterfront. “Should we take a boat or something?” There was an ample supply of them moored around us.

“No, we’re not going somewhere near the water.”

“Where are we going?”

“A place in the forest, it’s not far from the outskirts of town.”

The forest? I suspected that she was from the lower rungs of society, but that confirmed it. There was no way she had wealth or status if she was hiding out in a forest.

Honestly, the idea that she was a ‘Demon Lord’ seemed laughable. Not that I was in much of a position to laugh, given that being her servant meant I was beneath even her in the social order.

As we made our way through the waterfront, something heavy slammed into the ground behind us. “Fuck.” I wasn’t that stupid, I knew without looking that it had to be the Paladin.

And sure enough, as I glanced back, there he was. Except now he was glowing again, too bright to look at. Just how dedicated was this guy? I whole-heartedly wished he’d take a break already. He must be tired by now, right?

If he was, he certainly didn’t look it as he surged toward us. If anything, he was much faster than before. He blew right past me as I tried to intercept and seized the demon by my side before she could splatter him with blood again.

Holding one of her arms in each hand, he wrenched them until there was a series of loud snaps. The terrible sounds sent a shiver down my spine. Unsurprisingly, the Demon Lord screamed.

She was still screaming when I slammed, shoulder-first, into the Paladin. The impact caught him off balance and sent him reeling. Toward the water. Scrabbling for a handhold, he managed to catch the edge of the pier.

Right in time for my foot, in full swing, to catch his head. My foot hurt like hell, but it was worth the pain to see that glowing asshole sink.

The demon’s breathing was quick and shallow. “We need to keep moving.” She jogged off, arms flapping grotesquely. I couldn’t stand the sight of it and grabbed hold of her from behind. Manoeuvring the struggling girl so that she lay across my shoulders, I ran. I don’t know if it was just the adrenaline or what, but my fatigue and pain had stopped bothering me.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She struggled but could accomplish little with her broken arms.

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“You’re injured, you’ll only slow us down. This way is faster.”

The grinding of her teeth was so loud it was clearly audible, but she didn’t argue further. For a demon she seemed surprisingly reasonable.

Following her directions, I carried her all the way to a house beside the tall stone wall surrounding the city. I knocked on the front door and a tall woman with greying hair opened it. She looked both ways down the street, then gestured for us to get inside. Once we were in, I set my burden down.

The woman waited until we were inside before speaking. “Are you alright, mistress? Do you need assistance?”

“It’s okay, Junivan,” the demon said, waving her off as she came forward to offer her help, “I’ll live.

“I see that you were successful in your summoning. But you’re awfully late, what happened to using the route we planned earlier?”

“A Paladin caught up with us before we had a chance to get there,” the Demon Lord said, as if it had been no big deal. “I had to improvise.”

“I see. You did well to get here in one piece then. Your new servant must be quite competent.”

The demon made a disgruntled sound, but she didn’t disagree. I risked my life after being pulled into this world against my will and that was the thanks I get?

“Seriously? You don’t have anything nice to say? You’d be dead if it weren’t for me.”

She sighed. “I never said I wasn’t grateful, but it’s only natural that you’d protect me. That’s part of your job.”

It sucked, but I couldn’t really disagree. I don’t know why I was expecting kindness from a literal demon anyway. It was a foolish notion at best.

Junivan led us through the simple, wooden house into the cellar where a massive tree root protruded from the ground. Nearly as tall as I was, its hollow interior was exposed for all the world to see.

Carrying a small lamp with a glowing stone inside, Junivan lit the way ahead. The passage within the root was so spacious I only had to duck my head slightly to fit inside. “What is this thing? How did it get here?”

Junivan tapped the outside of the root. “There was already a system of caves here. I just let it grow through that.”

“You did that all by yourself? That’s amazing.” Not that I had the faintest idea how she’d done it.

“No, really. It was nothing.”

The demon behind us groaned. “Be quiet you two, I have a headache.” Fearing her wrath, we both kept quiet for the rest of the short, underground jaunt.

Once we emerged on the surface, I took a deep breath. Other than the thick stench of blood that still clung to me from… well, the blood I was still coated in, it smelt much nicer here than in the city.

Junivan politely, but firmly, insisted that her mistress rest after the journey, while she went ahead to prepare some food. The demon sat down in the grass and I joined her a short distance away. I waited until Junivan was out of earshot. “So, she’s one of your servants? Is she a demon too?”

The Demon Lord rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Does she look like a demon to you?”

“How many other servants do you have? Other than the two of us.”

“At this point? None.”

I blinked, struggling to believe what I was hearing. “Aren’t you supposed to be a Demon Lord? How can you only have one other servant?”

“Mind your tone. I did indeed have many servants in the past, as befits my status. I’ve just had a run of bad luck recently.”

It seemed like a lot more than just ‘bad luck’ to me, but I let it drop. There was nothing to be done about it now. “I suppose I should get to important questions. What are your goals?”

“What?”

“Your goals. I should get to know what I’ll be helping you work towards, right?”

She glanced away, frowning. “I suppose. My only goal right now is to take back my home from the usurper that has taken control of it.”

“Usurper?”

“My uncle.” She got to her feet, stretching her now-recovered arms. “I intend to see that they are properly punished for their insolence.”

“Also, I’ve been wondering… how old are you anyway? Like a thousand?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What gave you that idea? I’m sixteen.”

I tried to hide my disappointment. So, she really was just a kid. “Err, I don’t know much about this world, but that seems quite young for a Demon Lord.”

She shrugged. “It is. What of it?”

“Honestly, do we really have a chance of taking back your home? It’s just the two of us, right? I can’t imagine Junivan will be much help in a fight, unless I’ve badly misjudged her.”

“You’re basically right, her role largely ends here. As for how we’ll be able to accomplish this with just the two of us… I won’t lie to you, it will be difficult. We’ll quite likely die.”

“Is that really it? Don’t you have any other allies you can call on?”

She laughed, bitterly. “There’s no one. I tried everyone I could think of. At best they threw me out after they’d heard what I had to say. One of them even tried to sell me back to my uncle. Believe me, if I’d had any other options I wouldn’t have summoned you.”

“And why exactly did you summon me? Couldn’t you have picked someone, y’know, more competent?”

“Trust me, I would have loved to but the summoning isn’t capable of that kind of discernment. All it can guarantee is that it will bring forth someone unbound.”

So, it was just dumb luck that had brought me to this terrible situation. And it was terrible, there was no getting around that. But I wasn’t much for whining about something I couldn’t change, what good would it do? “Fine, I’ll help you.”

She scoffed. “Like you had any choice in the matter.”

“You know, you could act at least a little happy about it.”:

“What is there to be happy about? Weren’t you paying attention? Our chances of success are quite slim, there’s nothing to celebrate. That’s for after our eventual victory.

I scratched my head. Was she confident or not? “If we’re going to retake your home, aren’t we going to need equipment? I can’t fight very well with my bare hands.”

I wasn’t sure I could fight very well period, but there didn’t seem much sense in pointing that up. I thought I’d handled myself surprisingly well against the Paladin, despite never having been in a real fight in my life.

“Quit your whining, I’ve already prepared arms and armour for you.”

I looked around, not seeing anything of the sort. “Well where are they then?”

“Back at our accommodations. Follow me, I’ve rested enough.”

She still looked a bit unsteady on her feet to me, but I wasn’t going to point that out to her. Travelling a short distance through the forest, we reached a clearing with a wooden cabin. “Is this it? It’s quite… rustic.”

“Shut up. It’s only temporary. If anything, it’s better that it’s not too comfortable. Stops us from getting distracted from our goal.”

“And how long have you been living out here in the woods?”

She faltered for a moment. “No point standing around outside talking, we should eat and get back to planning our assault.”