We soon reached that lower door. It was a bit more reinforced than the ones we passed before, but not so much that I couldn’t just break it down with one swift kick. The door deformed like the last one and fell to the floor with a loud thud.
“Ugh!” Nicole exclaimed, covering her face.
A pungent stench emanated from the dark room. It was a rather familiar stench, one that would usually come from places of death and decay; from blood and pain.
“I can smell it too, despite the helmet,” James said, and soon after threw a light orb to illuminate the room.
As soon as the light entered, we saw dark red markings on the floor, and the deeper the orb went the more I frowned, until eventually, the shape of a person lying on the floor was revealed to us. I couldn’t tell exactly if they were alive or not due to the mangled nature of their body, and from what my magic sense could tell me, they were either dead, or didn’t have magic to begin with—which would be rare on an Arretian…
“Oh my God…” Nicole whispered, her face still covered by her hands.
She didn’t waste time in going ahead of us and approaching the person on the floor. She hesitated slightly when she was close to the pool surrounding the body, but after a moment, she lowered herself and tried to have a better look without touching the body.
“That person’s dead…” James said and followed soon after, stopping only a step away from Nicole. “Come on, there’s still more in this place.”
As Nicole stood back up, I walked in and threw another light orb further away, it was more powerful than the one that James used, so we were finally able to see most of the room. It was wide, but mostly empty save for a few people that were in cages or chained to the walls, and…
“Eeek!” Nicole exclaimed, bringing her hands up forward and charging a powerful fire spell.
“Easy there, Fire Chicken. They’re not an enemy,” James quickly intervened, urgently bringing Nicole’s hands down as he also looked to the front and the back of the room. “That’s just… a demon…”
At the back of the place, a large demon was stuck to a wall. The skin was like a pale sickly pink, like that of a piece of meat that had been completely drained of blood; blood which I could see coming from several cuts and bruises. His torso was much wider than his thin waist, giving him the look of a starved person. His limbs were staked to the walls, where his arms spread to the side with spikes piercing his hands, while his feet were pierced in way that only one spike pierced both feet. In this position, his tall body—which was even taller than Bo’guth’s—was forced to be kept upright in a T shape.
As for the head, it was lowered to look at the floor, but from what I could see, there were a couple of horns that popped from the top-back of the head and spread to the side of the head to end in pointy bits upwards, giving it the appearance of a crown.
A moment later, he seemed to have noticed the light coming from our light orbs and lifted his head. He had no eyes. Only a flat surface where the eyes should be, and under it, a couple of slits in the place where a nose should be. His mouth went from one side of his face to the other with only pointy teeth that filled it and no lips to cover it all, giving him the appearance of a beast that was constantly baring his fangs.
“W-who…?” it asked with a deep, raspy voice that faded as soon as he spoke.
“Hey, it’s okay,” James said in a soft tone, “We’re getting you all out of here.”
As soon as he said that, there was movement from the cages and the chained people around the place. All sorts of people moved to grab the bars. They ranged from goblins, ogres, demons, beastkins, skeletons, and even elves… The same as it had been at the first base of the Followers of Leyfall that I went to.
I took a step forward to the demon so I could release him. It was then that I noticed there was someone else laying on the ground by the pierced feet of the demon. This person was in such a bad state that I could hardly feel their magic, and their body was so damaged that I nearly mistook them for a dead person.
“Oh my God, quick, they need help!” Nicole exclaimed and approached the body. She went on her knees and checked them by placing a hand on their body, slowly moving them to see how they were. “A beastkin…”
I got closer and looked at them closely. It sure was, and judging by the wounds on their skin, this was a bird beastkin. The feathers that would act like hair on their body had been forcefully plucked, leaving nothing more than a few bloody holes where their feathers should be. Their arms and legs were bent in completely unnatural ways, and in their face, where a beak would’ve been, there was nothing but a broken piece, leaving only the top part of the beak.
They were missing an eye, and as Nicole moved them, the one that still remained slowly and carefully opened to look this way. They looked for only a moment, after which it was shut.
They were close to being dead, so I hurried and started using healing magic. Slowly, a few superficial wounds were being healed, but it was hardly enough for the big things to be healed.
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“Let me help,” James said, and stood to my side doing healing magic of his own.
After a couple of minutes, this person had healed from most of their wounds, and the limbs that had been broken were slowly placed back how they should be, but we couldn’t do anything more to help. Everything else had to be done by their body’s natural recovery, otherwise, we might create more problems than the ones we’re fixing. But for now, they were going to survive.
The bird beastkin passed out after that, but was still alive. After making sure of that, I turned my attention back to the demon, and like we had done to this beastkin, we had to quickly help him.
I first moved to the feet, and carefully removed the spike that was piercing him.
“Grrhh…” he softly exclaimed as with every bit that I pulled, just as much blood would drop out of the wound.
However, as I was doing so, I noticed that the new blood was covering old dry blood on his feet. He had been here for a while already, and he might not hold on for much longer. I turned my attention to James, who was standing close to me. “Help me with healing.”
Without replying, he lifted his hands and started using healing magic. It wasn’t healing the wound right away as I was still carefully taking the spike out, but it was helping with stopping more blood from pouring out.
A few seconds later, I was finally able to pull it out completely, and his feet spread to the sides, while the weight of his body sagged slightly. Noticing that it could cause more harm to him, Nicole rushed over and helped by grabbing his legs and trying her best to keep him from falling.
I moved just as fast, using flying magic to lift myself up from the ground and over to one of the hands. Just like I did with his feet, I carefully removed the spike while James helped with healing magic. Carefully, I removed the spike, causing his arm to sag down and his body to lean forward slightly.
To make sure that he didn’t fall, I placed a foot on his chest and kept him upright. “Sorry.”
He slowly shook his head and refused to say anything. I looked at him for a moment to ensure that everything was fine, before finally removing the final spike, causing him to lean over. Once that happened, I grabbed him with both my arms and slowly brought him down to the floor, and close to the passed out bird beastkin.
With his back on the floor, he slowly turned his head to look at me. I knew he was looking at me despite the fact that this demon didn’t have eyes, since he was a Vision Demon. They were beings that could see the world beyond what eyes could see, meaning that with a powerful magical sense, not only could they see the world ahead of them like anyone could, but they could see a certain distance all around them, making it hard to ambush these kinds of demons… which begs the question to how he got captured in the first place.
But that was something that we couldn’t ask right now, as there were more pressing matters at the moment.
“That’s that. Everything else is up to you,” James said, slapping his hands as if he was cleaning dirt out of them. “You okay?”
The demon turned his head to look at James, and without saying anything, slowly nodded, but then looked up to the ceiling once more. “…Thirsty…”
I took a bottle of water from my Magic Pocket and helped by lifting his head slightly and pouring a bit of water into his wide mouth. He sighed in relief after a couple of mouthfuls and I laid his head back on the floor.
“Thank you…” he replied with a raspy voice.
With a nod, I acknowledged what he said and turned my attention around the room. “Lets get everyone out of here.”
“I shall contact the Support Team so they’re ready to pick you up,” Salrak said, and with another nod, I moved to the rest of the people.
* * *
A few hours later, outside of the manor, the large area at the front had a lot of black trucks parked. It was a similar situation to the last time, but this time, it wasn’t quite as noisy, and the people that came here were here to help me instead of questioning me. None of them asked anything as we pointed them in the direction of the few people that required more help than the ones that managed to walk outside with us.
As I was watching the people quickly moving to save the few ones that were inside, a man with dark skin, a bald head, and a large build approached me. He was wearing a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie to match it. His golden irises were focused on me as he kept a serious expression. It was strange to see him wearing that, since he was a Holy Knight working under the Emperor.
“Seems like things went well tonight,” he said with his deep voice.
With a nod, I turned to look at the people who were already leaving; to the Vision Demon in particular, who had his eyeless face directed this way. “There were a few people that couldn’t be saved, but we helped a lot of them—even if they weren’t in the best of shapes.”
“Strange… to see the Holy Hero saving demons, ogres and goblins…” he said with a near mocking tone. “And even stranger for me to be on the same side, doing the same thing.”
“Hmph, I’ve always said that you were probably being tricked by appearances, Renard,” James said, walking from the side and causing us to look at him.
He was no longer wearing his helmet, and in his hand he had a bottle of water. There was sweat causing his hair to be slightly damp, but overall, he still carried the same confident appearance that he liked to display.
“That might’ve been the case, that’s true,” Renard said with a nod, “Although, I must admit, I can’t help but feel uncomfortable aiding all these dark creatures.”
“I feel much more uncomfortable knowing that there are people doing these sorts of things to them…” Nicole said with a whisper and a frown at my side.
James laughed out loud and pointed a finger at Nicole. “Really? You were about to vaporize an innocent demon just from his appearance!”
Nicole pouted and looked down, tapping the tips of her index fingers together a couple of times. “W-well… he scared me and I just reacted, okay? I was on edge.”
With a smirk and looking down on her, James replied, “Well, be careful with that. Next time, me or Althea might not be there to ensure you don’t set someone on fire.”
“Yeah, yeah… I know…” she said with the same pout.
“It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that we did this right,” I said, standing up and walking past the people. “We should get going. The sun is going to come up soon, and there shouldn’t be anyone asking questions about this.”
“Right,” Renard said, following after me and giving a look around. “Everyone seems to be done. Let's get out of here.”
Saying that, we all got on one of those black trucks, which promptly left on the front and to a dark dirt road, one in which we traveled for a while, before reaching a normal paved road like the ones that were in every city, and to the next place we should be.