A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 132: Demon Introduction

Demon linguistics were a bit harsh on the throat. I didn't like to speak the language and gratefully let my vocal cords remain untrained, until I was sorely unprepared for the guttural speech I would have to use to converse with the Demon. She would not answer to any language besides the Demon language. I doubted she didn't know Bytristian, since the Demon Territory and Bytriste were literally connected by a long, wide strip of land that the wars were always fought on. Even soldiers of Bytriste commonly learned a bit of Daemon in order to interrogate the Demons they caught or even interpret orders with magicians listening in. It was a necessity to speak it in order to become a general or a high-ranking official in the army.

Huh...then didn't Father know some, then? I was sure he was some sort of official, since he was in charge of bringing his men to battle, but I never was there whenever he got sent off. In fact, I wasn't there when he came back either. I was always somewhere else, doing something, and I heard the news when I came back to visit home or Mother roped me into a family dinner. He'd only gone on two expeditions in my entire life, and the first was one he came back from when I was a month old. The second was almost two years ago, when he came back around the time of my debut. I remember that I went and got him after he got back to our home in Koraco, bringing him to the capital to be with us. He was really tired back then.

War.

The Demon War was still ongoing. It used to be full of big battles and the like towards the very beginning of the war, thirty-one years ago or so, but there were less and less as time went on and people lost their enthusiasm. There were always wars with the Demons because they were our neighbors forever and enemies just as long. Fundamentally, people and Demons couldn't get along because of racial attributes, moral values, eating habits, activities; the list went on and didn't seem to stop. It was nothing new for there to be bad blood between humans and Demons. The war that was still going on then was no doubt going to go on for a while, then stop because of some armistice or another, and then start again in a hundred years, then stop, then start...

Just as it had been for the last few thousand years. At least, that's what the records of the king's personal library told me when I planted myself inside for a good few weeks. It was really fun, although I may have scared the maid that came to clean that dusty place when I told him it was a health hazard and demanded he summon one. Reading on the ceiling was something I was used to doing with a good book, but it seemed others didn't take so kindly to it.

The Monster clipped on. Or, it was the Demon, I couldn't be sure how many beings were there with me. I stumbled over some rocks that popped up out of seemingly nowhere, skinning my knees on a tall one.

A hand stretched out of the darkness, one that I could see only because it pierced the black that felt like it was just hanging onto my eyes. It was black, with the stereotypical long nails I was expecting, but I didn't hesitate even when feeling the cold aura wafting off. It was meant to help me, not grab my wrist and entangle me in a grasp so tight I'd never be able to escape, or anything like that...

I mean, it felt like it, but it wasn't like that, really.

"Thank you," I replied with my already-sore throat uttering out the Daemon that I'd not spoken in a while, since Knight hadn't had to slay anything for a while. I reached upward for the hand. It grabbed on tightly and flung me.

I wasn't expecting the flinging part, so I gasped when that happened, weightlessly flying through the air until I landed on something hard.

A saddle?

My legs were neatly placed off to one side so I wasn't straddling it like I would've wanted to. I was made to hold onto the person in front of me, someone that couldn't be bothered to wear a shirt, someone whose gender was a mystery to me, while they went on. They began to clip a bit faster, spurring the animal to keep moving. I was sure it was a horse at one point, but the fur that brushed against my legs was disturbingly clearly not that of a normal animal.