Chapter 29:

In Whom Do You Trust II

The Demon Lord Shouldn’t Be At This Much Of A Disadvantage!!: What do you mean the descendants of the Heroes are overpowered due to nepotism?

Geist struggled to look at the state both women had been reduced to. While they had killed him over and over for close to a hundred days, it had always been clean and mercifully quick. Even getting trampled to death was far more merciful than this.

“I can probably do something to stabilize her for now, but…” Reaching out to hold his hand over the fallen brunette, he selected the Metamorphosis spell and targeted the weapons sticking out of her.

The weapons were enveloped in a dark mist that dripped from between the plates of his armor, vibrated slightly for a moment, and then melted into pure matter that flowed like water. The fluid of indistinct substance wrapped around the open wounds, tightening around the flesh and solidifying into clean, sterile cloth wrappings and bandages.

Inessa the Champion [Advanced] | Race: Human | Level: 10
Hit Points: 54/274 | Mana: 0/46↓ | Stamina: 0/70↓
Status: Burned, Poisoned, Unconscious

“It’s not enough… She still has too much poison in her. She won’t last much longer at this rate.” He growled in frustration, turning the brunette over onto her back.

“Isn’t there something else you can do?” Lylia asked, seeing that Inessa’s face had relaxed a bit.

“Not with the spells I–?” The tense situation making it difficult for him to remain patient, Geist was about to raise his voice, but a high-pitched squeaking sound caught his non-existent ear. Looking down at Inessa, he saw that Varney had sunk his fangs into the girl’s neck and was sucking her blood. “Hey, Varney! What do you think you’re–?!”

“Whoa! Stop, you stupid bat! Her blood’s poisoned.” He said, quickly trying to pull the blood-sucking pet from his master, only for his hand to be pushed away by its wing.

“What are you doing?! Get that thing away from Essa!” Lylia demanded, moving to swat Varney away, but Geist moved to block her. “I didn’t bring Essa here to be a snack for her pet monster! If you’re hungry, you have a fresh-looking corpse over there!”

“He’s not feeding on her…” Geist said, watching both Inessa and Varney’s stats closely.

Inessa the Champion [Advanced] | Race: Human | Level: 10
Hit Points: 52/274 | Mana: 0/46↓ | Stamina: 0/70↓
Status: Burned, Poisoned, Unconscious

“I mean, he’s doing damage, yeah, but he’s…”

Inessa the Champion [Advanced] | Race: Human | Level: 10
Hit Points: 50/274 | Mana: 0/46↓ | Stamina: 0/70↓
Status: Burned, Poisoned, Unconscious

“...he’s reducing the amount of damage the poison is doing. I think he’s trying to drain it from her!” He said as the rate that Inessa’s Hit Points were depleted went down. “He’s trying to save her.”

“What? Really?” Lylia asked, dumbfounded by the show of loyalty.

“Yeah, but you should really stop, Varney. You bought us some time, but you don’t have the Hit Points for this.” Geist said, watching as Inessa took less damage.

Inessa the Champion [Advanced] | Race: Human | Level: 10
Hit Points: 49/274 | Mana: 0/46↓ | Stamina: 0/70↓
Status: Burned, Poisoned, Unconscious

But the domesticated monster ignored him and continued, knowing his mission wasn’t finished yet. His master was still in danger.

“Varney? That’s enough.” Geist tried again, his voice a bit sterner.

“Varney! I said stop–!” Reaching out with the intention of not allowing a weak push from the bat-like monster’s wing to stop him this time, Geist was going to pull Varney off Inessa, but before he could, Varney released her himself.

Inessa the Champion [Advanced] | Race: Human | Level: 10
Hit Points: 45/274 | Mana: 0/46↓ | Stamina: 0/70↓
Status: Burned, Unconscious

Whether he could taste it in her blood or sensed it through whatever bond he and Inessa shared, Varney knew that his accomplished his objective, and collapsed onto her chest.

Lylia watched as the Corrupted creature’s breathing got slow and shallow, but nuzzled his head into Inessa’s soft chest with what looked to be a satisfied smile on his furry little face. The very creature she had initially urged Inessa to kill.

“Thank you… Varn–?!” As she reached out to pet the winged ball of dark brown fluff, she gasped as his body began to disintegrate into thin air. “V-Varney?”

The small creature didn’t respond, no longer breathing. It all too quickly vanished, leaving only a pair of small, pointy fangs and a silver of silvery-blue crystalline ore.

“Wh-What the hell was that?” Geist asked after a moment of silence, looking at Lylia.

“A beautiful display of self-sacrifice that I thought a Corrupted incapable of.” She replied softly, just as shocked as he was.

But Geist shook his head. “No, not that. Didn’t you see… or I guess sense that? What Varney’s body dissolved into? Do all monsters and demons die the same way?”

“Not all leave being special materials or Mana Crystals… Have you not seen a Corrupted die before?” She asked, confused by his surprise.

“I can’t exactly observe my own death.” He replied dryly, looking at Inessa. Her Hit Points remained unchanged for a while, and her breathing wasn’t as shallow as when she was poisoned, but it was still labored.

Inessa the Champion [Advanced] | Race: Human | Level: 10
Hit Points: 44/274 | Mana: 0/46↓ | Stamina: 0/70↓
Status: Burned, Unconscious

“She’s not fully stable, but Varney bought us some time.” He said after about a minute or so, when her untreated wounds proceeded to accumulate enough damage by means that Seepu’s display didn’t formally track. “But when he died, most of Varney’s magic didn’t turn into those fangs or that Mana Crystal… It was released into the air.”

“Of course. The Corrupted release tainted mana when they die, and it will Corrupt the mana it interacts with.” Lylia explained, wondering why he would dwell on that, now, of all times.

“Except, it wasn’t Corruption. It was, what, would you call it ‘Pure’ mana? ‘Normal’ mana?” He asked, shrugging. “Just plain ‘mana’? In any case, maybe you Pure can’t sense it, but it was definitely not the type of Corruption that I sense around us now.”

“Are you implying that the Corrupted do not create Dark Magic Corruption?” Lylia asked skeptically.

“If they did, why is your world overflowing with it despite how few there are?” He countered. “You even need a gigantic array of purification spells for it, yet how many Corrupted are there around your kingdom again?”

Lylia thought about it for a moment, and the answers she had been brought up not questioning no longer seemed to fit. “Then… if the Corrupted are not the source of Dark Magic Corruption, but instead the victims… what is the true source?”

“I have a guess, but for now, have you calmed down? We need to think of how we’re going to save Inessa.” He said, picking both women up and walking over to a pile of debris he transformed into a soft, cushy, slightly warm bed.

The distraction having the effect the cunning Demon Monarch had intended, Lylia shifted on the bed next to Inessa, the slightly fuzzy bedding slowly turning a deep crimson under the brunette. And perhaps it was because of her previous line of thought, but the blonde had an epiphany that might solve their predicament. Part pragmatic, largely desperate, and maybe with a bit of spite, she smirked. “You could Corrupt her and turn her into a demon. The process will reconstruct her body, healing her at the same time.”

Geist simply looked at her like she had grown two more heads. “Okay… This is a test, right? After how much you–”

“We were almost killed, Geist. By the most powerful group of people who control the entire kingdom. I think I am allowed to question a lot of things.” She said, cutting him off. “We cannot go back. Whether we become Corrupted or not, they will hunt us down now. I’m sure Essa would agree. She was fond of you despite being the being she needed to kill long before discovering you were from her world.”

“Granted, you make some… compelling arguments, but I still can’t do something like that to her without her consent. I mean, wouldn’t Corruption twist her personality and all that? You said it before, repeatedly. While stomping on me… repeatedly.” He replied, pacing as he thought about it. “You know, toying with lives, manipulating emotions, betrayal, killing, feeding? All that? I don’t want to turn her into that, even if she did ask for it.”

“...Then, what if I told you that would not happen?” The blonde asked, her voice growing quiet and slightly guarded. “Would you do it then?”

“But you said–”

“I know what I said!” She snapped back, her voice louder than she meant. “I… I know what I said. I had to say it. It had to be true. Otherwise, what would the public think about striking down demons who cannot be redeemed? What would it say about… Lilith?”

Geist glanced at Inessa again, monitoring her condition.

Inessa the Champion [Advanced] | Race: Human | Level: 10
Hit Points: 42/274 | Mana: 0/46↓ | Stamina: 0/70↓
Status: Burned, Unconscious

Thanks to Varney, they had time.

“Who is Lilith?” He asked, broaching the subject with the care of someone who knew it was a topic the other person still wanted to deny.

After a moment of silence, her eye searching the magically manifested, otherworldly soft bedding as if it had the answers, Lylia sighed. Pulling back the bangs covering the right side of her face, she revealed two purple crescent-shaped arcs, one smaller and nestled inside the other, forming an orb-like mark on her forehead closer to her temple. “Lilith… was the name I went by, after being Corrupted as a child.”

The Demon Lord Shouldn’t Be At This Much Of A Disadvantage!!: What do you mean the descendants of the Heroes are overpowered due to nepotism?

Author:

Nathan Harding

In Whom Do You Trust II

The Demon Lord Shouldn’t Be At This Much Of A Disadvantage!!: What do you mean the descendants of the Heroes are overpowered due to nepotism?

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