~
Luffy was a mage. As hard as it was to believe, Luffy was a mage, but he was still learning. It was learning that he was out on the forest road in midday to gather some natural substances that the book told him he would find in the forest. Luffy was hoping he would also find some wild animal to hunt too, he was running out of meat back in his cabin.
The young mage rubbed the head of his familiar, Sunny, that looked like a golden retriever. "You think we are close?"
Sunny barked in joy and Luffy took that as a yes. The two were treading an unknown path, the forest had many such routes and it was advised, by Luffy's brothers, to not go in the forest when the sun would start to go down and at night because there a dangerous demon in there, there had been a few murders and mutilations reported in the recent days and that made most folk avoid the forest altogether.
Sunny stopped all of a sudden and Luffy crashed into him because he was looking anywhere but forward. "What's up boy..." His speech trailed when he looked ahead and saw a pitch black cat, no doubt a familiar, staring at the pair as if making a decision. "Where your mage?" Luffy asked and watched as the cat ran in a particular direction, stopping and turning back to see if the two were following. "Guess plant hunting is going to have to be another day."
Luffy ran after the cat with Sunny in tow and the more he ran, the worse the heaviness in the air got. The road was going uphill, Luffy felt a strange magic coming from the top of the road, and he didn't like it. Sunny didn't like it either, because he bit the back of Luffy's shirt and tried pulling him back.
"I can't stop, maybe the familiar's mage is getting attacked by that demon." Luffy told his own familiar who barked in protest. "Sunny we gotta help!" Luffy casted a protection spell to calm his familiar, he didn't blame Sunny, the sky up there was turning dark too and not the natural night dark, it was powerful magic and sinister.
The black cat was back in front of the two, constantly looking uphill, urging both to hurry. Luffy ran after the cat and was just a step away from seeing who or what was causing such a disturbance in the nature when he heard an inhuman, blood curdling screech and roar of fear and warning.
The young mage shielded his ears and watched as the cat ran ahead. Luffy followed the cat and finally saw the mage the familiar was leading him to. It didn't look like a mage at all. It looked more like a demon with its black skin, overgrown horns and teeth, and golden and red eyes, radiating black aura and waves of toxic magic. It was cornered against a tree.
There was another screech and it was then that Luffy's fixated eyes moved to the other party. It was a bunch of non-magical humans, with spears and arrows, pointing the sharp ends towards the other figure. Luffy then, had to make a decision and for that, he first had to understand the situation.
On the one hand, he had humans and on the other, there was a... living being that looked like a demon and whose magic felt demonic too, but it had a familiar... so maybe it wasn't a demon... Sunny seemed to think so too because right when the humans were going to throw a particularly sharp spear at the cornered figure, Sunny had run and bitten the human's arm.
The decision was made. Luffy charged too, pushing his sleeves back, he preferred to use his fists against regular humans. Knocking the humans unconscious was enough and after dumping them all near town, near civilization where they would be found before the forest demon found them, Luffy turned to the mage.
When the defensive magic had died down and the aura subsided, Luffy noticed a bunch of arrows and spears piercing the flesh of the other person. With the blackness surrounding it now gone, it really did look like a person instead of a demon.
