Thankfully, Glaustro had gotten better at surviving traps that blow people up.

As we crouched in his improvised earthen shelter, I remembered the last time he had saved me from an explosion. That spatial trap on Berlis nearly wiped him out. This time, though, he was upright and fully conscious. Sure, he was gritting his teeth and looked on the verge of snapping someone’s neck, but at least he wasn’t leaking blood and mana.

Instead of pointing out this improvement, though, I just said, “Thanks. Again.”

Because, you know, I actually like having my head attached to the rest of me.

The words drew a grim smile from my demonic commander, who waved a hand negligently to let us out of the impromptu bunker he had conjured.

And he says he’s not a good mage.

I almost snorted, but settled on shaking my head. I can’t believe a demon has self-confidence issues.

I knew it was related to Glaustro’s intense rivalry with his brother. The funny thing was, I had never received direct proof of Graighast’s supposedly superior mage talents. Sure, he helped get us out of that spatial magic trap back on Berlis, but he and Glaustro had worked together on that. What was it about Graighast’s magic that made Glaustro feel so inferior?

I busied myself with these thoughts, because as Glaustro’s defenses unfurled like a multi-layered rose, that was a much better alternative to immersing myself in reality.

Reality was full of blood and mangled bodies and sights no sane mind would cherish and oh god did I step into someone’s brains again?!

Trying not to look at the bottom of my boot, I hastily conjured a few cleansing spells. I grimaced as I aimed them at myself, my companions, and the general vicinity. The spell wasn’t a perfect ‘scrub it all away and make it vanish’ type, but at least it shoved all the dirt and… stuff a decent distance from us.

“Well, that’s not great, but it’s not horrible, either,” I muttered, gauging the destruction. Though we were surrounded by a nightmare blend of rubble and viscera I was still trying to ignore, the explosion hadn’t wiped out every living thing.

Ironically, for once, Lagyel’s environment had worked in our favor. The mana aspect of such a blast would typically be far worse than the actual exploding bit. Sand and rocks could do plenty of damage, of course, but it was the monster-wave of magical energy that you really had to worry about.

Here, though? The sand had absorbed ludicrous amounts of mana before the mystical substance could wash over everything and devour us alive. Sure, the individual grains of sand had functioned like ammunition shot from a railgun, but that type of physical bombardment was still better than a mana tsunami.

Better for mortals, at least.

The ground was littered with the remains of a few unlucky demons who weren’t smart enough to shield their heads when the explosion went off. I knew their race could survive pretty much anything, but I still didn’t understand why demons put such little thought into protecting themselves. Most of them didn’t even wear helmets.

It’s like ‘stupid’ was contagious and decided to manifest as ‘forgetting to pick up some basic head protection.’

“Why are you smiling?” Mia asked, poking me in the cheek. “This isn’t the time to be smiling.”

“It’s either smiling or throwing up. Choose,” I stated honestly. Because, well, yeah. The view was lovely this time of year.

Mia considered for a moment, then nodded sagely and left it at that.

Unfortunately, the universe just couldn’t throw me a bone. With a battle cry certainly worthy of a warrior, one of the locals rushed straight at me with her sword gripped in both hands.

The woman was bleeding. She had an obvious head injury. She was missing most of her protective craggy layer of anti-magic skin.

And she was still trying to take my head off, based solely on the last words of a golem that blew itself up.

I raised my sword in a single smooth motion, slitting her throat easily. After killing my first three or four dozen locals, I had noticed they didn’t have a ton of anti-mana protection around their necks. Their skin was softer there, too.

And this is why EVERYONE should wear a helmet!

It was one of the first things I ever stole off a soldier I killed, and I had never regretted it.

All these killing-thoughts unfortunately killed my attempt to stay in la-la land. Forcing my brain to focus on the carnage around me, I looked around for some sign of the lieutenant general. That was when I noticed Glaustro standing as still as a statue, staring at the sky. I followed his gaze.

Like some angry, vengeful god, Crewe hovered far above the battlefield.

He was lightly scorched and perforated by the sand attack, but otherwise fine. The regeneration process was almost complete. His few wounds were mostly healed already.

Obviously, he had received the memo about protecting his head.

He did have an extremely sour expression on his face as he toyed with a fragment of crystal. I could only assume it was a fragment of the golem’s core, probably the only shred left after the explosion.

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That explained the lieutenant general’s scowl. Sure, he had won, but the golem had managed to keep its core out of enemy hands. The thing would have been a treasure trove of useful information. Crewe could have browsed its memories, even, and figured out a way to fix up the golem for personal use.

That was certainly what part of me wanted to try with the core I had stashed away in my dimensional pouch…

I shook my head to clear it, then looked again at the battlefield for a more detailed assessment of the aftermath.

The two armies had taken disproportionate amounts of damage. While outright death was a rarity on the demonic side, and Crewe’s forces were already pulling themselves together, the opposite could be said of the jinn.

Not only were most of their troops mortals and constructs, neither of which healed well, but the jinn themselves didn’t seem to possess much regenerative ability. Definitely nothing on par with powerful demons, at least. The jinn were scattered and looked dazed, and I had to wonder how long it would take for someone to—

Ahhh, there he goes.

I sighed as a maniacally grinning demon carved through a group of jinn before they even understood what was happening.

That opened the floodgates. The demons finally realized that they were very much winning, and that the enemy had lost all hope of decent resistance.

My own blood rose in response. Raising my sword, I threw myself back into the task of wiping out the defenders.

I didn’t feel any particular pity for the jinn.

Perhaps it was callous of me, but they didn’t seem to be entirely… there. They all had faraway looks in their eyes, like they could only be forced back to reality at sword point. Overall, they struck me as a race of arrogant immortals who weren’t even aware of the many ways they were using and abusing their mortal ‘servants.’

Sure, most demons were horrible sociopaths too. But you could still find plenty of them with some portion of empathy for others, if they cared about the people in question.

More importantly, they were perfectly aware of all the terrible stuff they were doing. They just chose to do it anyway.

In my mind, that was somehow better. At the very least, you threw away the notion of some vague moral superiority based entirely on a lack of your perceived fault. Jinn struck me as the type that would be super judgmental, then turn around and do the exact same thing without a second thought.

Now where was I?

I swung my sword and felt a bit of oddly fizzy blood splash onto my cheek. Looking down, I spotted one of the few jinn that was dazed enough for even my inexperienced human butt to take them out with relative ease.

This was only my third. Even in my bloodlust, I was trying to be smart and avoid a one-way ticket to the Abyss. Still, I looked forward to what those three souls would yield! If just one of those three jinn happened to be old and knowledgeable, devouring their soul would bring me unimaginable returns.

When most of the mop-up was finished, my eyes finally turned towards the city embedded in the tree’s boughs. It still looked impressive, doubly so now that I was closer and could witness its glory in detail. But the bark cover and superficial damage ruined the view a little.

So did the many terrified faces on the other side of the barrier.

As it turned out, unlike with demons, kids weren’t rare amongst jinn. Neither were they precious bundles of potential to be hidden away and nurtured until they reached some level of maturity, like demons tended to do with their young.

No, the children of jinn lived in their cities, right alongside regular citizens. That meant they had just been treated to the display of all their most capable adults getting massacred.

It also meant we had a whole city to pillage once we got through the barrier.

I didn’t want to complain, but I also didn’t feel like slaughtering so many innocents. So, when Crewe’s voice rang out like thunder through the air, I actually felt a hint of relief.

“Surrender! Surrender, and you will be allowed to keep your lives. Take down the barrier, and welcome your new rulers!”

The lieutenant general’s voice was as creepy as ever, but it was his words that caused a commotion.

The surviving jinn assembled quickly above the tree to form a response. They were clearly divided. Some of them, the majority from what I could see, wanted to heed the lieutenant general’s warning. I didn’t know what demonic treatment of higher level species was like, but maybe they were hoping to get bailed out through some kind of prisoner exchange or ransom.

Ransom was more likely. I wasn’t sure that any intelligent race would actually keep captured demons as prisoners. It would be only to easy for demons to see the inside of enemy fortifications, off themselves, and then pop up in the Abyss some time later with all their valuable information.

Regardless, the developing argument was way above my head, both literally and figuratively. No point in wasting time while I waited for the jinn to decide.

Instead, I took a page from Mia’s book and began scanning the fallen locals. Most of their equipment was damaged beyond use, but that just made me look around a bit more carefully.

After only a few minutes, I found a knife in pristine condition, complete with matching sheath. Next, I managed to pry a set of mana-resistant armor off a woman that looked like she was around Mia’s size, and got another set close to my size. Wasn’t sure either of us were ever going to use them, but they would be nice reference points for Yules when she made alterations to our sets.

I was in the process of prying a mostly okay sword from under a dead local’s body when something thumped its way down the treetop and landed on the ground a few feet away. Several somethings, actually.

Glancing casually in that direction, I did a double take.

The ‘somethings’ were heads.

The jinn were throwing heads down from the top of the tree. Heads which, only recently, had belonged to the high-ranking jinn who protested against accepting Crewe’s offer.

I glanced further up. Sure enough, the only remaining jinn were the proponents of peaceful surrender. They looked a bit worse for wear, but steely determination was etched in every line of their bodies.

One of them, a female with aquamarine skin, called out to Crewe. “We accept the terms of surrender you offered us!”

The barrier instantly crumbled away, and the change that swept over the locals was… remarkable.

We had captured some of them. A decent number, really, since some commanders seemed to prefer taking slaves to claiming souls. Not so much Glaustro, but I could see at a glance that his brother had tried to secure as many living prisoners as possible.

Up to the point when the barrier crumbled away like a dry leaf, those spared locals were still doing their best to kill their captors. It was sad, really, watching them snap their teeth like wild animals and try anything they could think of to hurt the demons around them.

The moment the surrender was voiced, though? All the fight went out of them. They turned into the same locals I remembered from the last few settlements: perfectly placid, smiley, and willing to please in whatever way they could.

It was creepy, and it was weird, and I distinctly didn’t like it.

“Put this away, too,” Mia suddenly demanded from right next to me, throwing a pile of stuff at my feet.

I jumped, dropping the sword I had finally managed to pry from the corpse. Then I scowled down at the huge bundle of weapons she had assembled.

“You sure you don’t need anything else?” My voice was dripping with sarcasm, but the cat girl just blinked slowly at me.

“No.”

I grumbled, but started shoving the many weapons into my dimensional bag anyway.

There was no arguing with an obsessive loot goblin.