The Former Demon Queen Performs Her Nightly Duties

As soon as night fell, Mary—who had already returned home to her house up in the hills—quickly finished her dinner and began making preparations for her patrol.

"My lady, I would once again like to reiterate that it would be a great honor for you to let me come with you on your vigilantism. If anything, to at least provide aid and backup should you ever need it."

"Don't worry, Gustav. I'll be fine," Mary said as she pulled on her battle gear.

She wore a long, fitted navy-blue coat with gold embroidery and red cuffs, a white ruffled blouse underneath, and a brown lace-up corset bodice that wrapped around her waist, tying the outfit together. A short burgundy skirt fell just below her hips, and plate greaves—metal shin and knee armor—served as protection for the rest of her exposed legs.

A sword belt hung at her side, carrying a longsword—the blade known as Black Steam, which she had inherited back when she was crowned Demon Queen. And to keep her long hair from getting in the way, decorative dagger-shaped hairpins held it in place.

She looked every bit the heroic noble adventurer, and as she glanced at the mirror by her front door, she couldn't help the proud smile creeping into the corner of her lips.

She was doing a good thing.

And that made her extremely happy from the bottom of her heart.

The final things to be put on were her metal golden boots. She stepped out into the compound, then turned around to face her familiar.

"All right, Gustav. Take care of the house while I'm gone, okay?"

"Will do, my lady. Please be careful."

Mary gave a sharp nod. Upon command, giant ethereal black wings suddenly materialized from thin air, generated from her demonic energy on her back.

With a single downward thrust, she launched into the night sky with impossible speed.

For about an hour, she flew in lazy circles high above the town of Blendingbrook, scouting for any troublemakers that might emerge from the nearby forest—goblins, monsters, or even bandits.

She had no qualms performing these solo scouts for long periods at a time. Her demonic blood didn't tire as easily whenever she was in this state. Her horns had reappeared, which meant another battle with them the next morning, but it was necessary. She couldn't just fly whenever she wanted while maintaining her normal human appearance—she needed to tap into her full diabolic abilities.

For the moment, there was nothing. The town was quiet. A few night merchants still sold goods outside, but for the most part, it looked like everybody was sleeping. She was just about ready to move on to the next location when she heard the cries from down below.

"Please let go of me! Don't touch me! Please, no! Let go!"

Snapping her head in the direction of the noise, Mary used her demonic sight and hearing to both listen in and see what was happening.

Surprisingly, the location of the trouble was back at the Adventurer's Guild. It looked like a crowd of men surrounding a young woman. Wait—she recognized that person. It was the waitress from earlier, the same one she had accidentally run into.

"P-please let go of me! I just started this job! I can't let you in! I won't give you any money!"

They were trying to rob her. Or rob the place. And she wasn't letting them.

One of the men had some kind of weapon in his hand.

"Come on, sweetheart, why don't you just cooperate with us, huh? All we want is some little gold in there. Don't make us have to hurt you to get it, you know—you have such a pretty face too."

That was Mary's cue.

Just as the man pressed the woman against the door and slowly reached his knife toward her face, Mary swooped in at the last second. She easily disarmed the men by snatching their weapons away before quickly knocking them out with a single, controlled punch to their skulls.

One by one, they crumpled to the ground, not even knowing what had hit them. They weren't dead or permanently damaged, just unconscious. As whenever she was in her Demon Queen form, it was much easier to hold back and control her powers than when she was in her human appearance.

The waitress was momentarily startled. From her perspective, one moment she was about to be hurt—the next, all the men were on the ground, passed out. She looked around wildly, trying to see who had saved her, but Mary was already gone. She hadn't let herself be seen.

Next up, Mary flew as fast and as far as just forty percent of her full power would let her. She was blitzing her way through the night sky, her silhouette barely visible to the naked eye, toward the eastern frontier of the war, where holy knights were engaged in a stalemate with an army of demons. However, on her way, she still carved out time to perform other duties.

She swooped down to a farm where a field had been overtaken by overgrown grass. With swift, precise swings of her blade, Black Steam, she zipped back and forth, cutting down all of the thick vegetation, careful not to harm the crops and instead systematically clearing the unwanted weeds within the area, all within a matter of seconds.

The owner must have been awakened by the noise, as he soon stumbled outside the back of his house, lamp in hand to brighten up the night. But by then, Mary was already gone.

As she flew away, she looked back and caught a glimpse of the man's expression. It was a mix of shock, awe, and relief. He must have been struggling to clear the place for days. Mary smiled to herself. Her work here was done.

Her next stop brought her to a village still recovering from a recent thunderstorm. Fallen trees and debris blocked the main road, cutting off access to the nearby town. Mary landed, grabbed the largest logs with ease, and hauled them to the side, clearing the path in a matter of minutes.

After that was done, she proceeded to ferociously punch the bigger logs repeatedly, breaking them down into tiny pieces of firewood. The villagers, who were still asleep, would wake tomorrow to find their roads restored, and enough timber to last them for a long time.

Finally, she responded to a report of a monster lurking near a small settlement. It was a Reptar, a giant insectoid-like lizard creature with six legs and a powerful stinger.

She didn't even actually have to fight it. She followed it from above as it went after a bunch of goats and sheep. Then she tucked her wings and dropped straight down, her feet slamming into the top of its skull. The impact crushed its head and sent a booming rumble through the ground. She had already been killing such large, fully grown critters by the age of twelve during her training as a Demon Queen candidate back in the underworld. This one was barely a challenge.

"Yuck. Yucky, yucky. Yuck."

The sight of the creature's green, slimy innards and oozing blood always grossed her out though. She quickly wiped her boot in the grass before speeding over to grab the bunch of escaped animals and return them to their pen. She took off before anyone could even realize she was there.

The chores she had been busy performing weren't random. She had seen them posted on the notice board at the Adventurer's Guild earlier that day, when Leafy was helping her find work. They were already on route to her main destination for the night, so why not kill two birds with one stone?

When she finally arrived at the eastern frontier, Mary hovered above the battlefield, surveying the chaos below. Fire and smoke rose from the ruins of what had once been a forest. Dead bodies, both humans and demons, lay scattered across the scorched earth.

It was a hard scene to witness.

And it was her uncle's doing.

He didn't care how much life was lost. He didn't care whether the demons or the humans had families to return to. He didn't care how many bodies he racked up in his campaign against the people of the other races.

All he cared about was his goal.

To conquer all other living things.

Mary was suddenly sick to her stomach at the sight of such carnage.

She had always known demon kind was divided into two groups. There were those like her—civilized, capable of reason, with families and lives beyond the war. And then there were the others. The wild demons. Mindless beasts bred solely for destruction, created by her uncle's war machine. They were the ones she was planning to target without hesitation, the ones that threatened to consume everything in their path.

Gazing down, she spotted a few holy knights running for their lives from a pack of wild demons. She dove without a second thought.

Her blade cut through the first set of creatures in a single sweep. There were five of them.

For a split second, because she was moving so fast, time seemed to hang suspended as their torsos separated from their lower halves, blood spraying in slow arcs before the bodies crumpled to the ground.

She rose back into the sky in an instant, wheeled around for a second strike, and dove again, cutting down even more demons in the process.

She performed this maneuver six more times, each one just as swift and brutal as the first.

She was moving so quickly the knights never even saw her—only the aftermath of her work. Each sweeping pass carved a path through the attacking horde, giving the soldiers room to fall back and regroup. By the time the last demon fell, the holy knights were already retreating to safety, confused but alive.

She hung in the air for a moment, scanning the battlefield once more—this time searching for the general. If she could take him out, the remaining demon forces would retreat back home, which would at least significantly slow the tide of the war on this side.

She swept her eyes across every corner of the battlefield, but she couldn't find him. She was baffled. An army couldn't operate without a general, so who was leading these forces?

"Looking for me, Lady Vesperia?"

Mary spun around just in time, raising her sword to parry the attack aimed at her neck. Sparks flew as the two blades met, the force of the clash sending a shockwave through the air.

Both she and her attacker grunted as they struggled to get the upper hand, blades locked against each other. Despite being dressed in full body demonic armor—jagged, dark plates that covered her from head to toe—Mary could still recognize the person behind the helm.

"Emilia?"

"In the flesh, my queen," the girl laughed. "Or should I say... former queen?"

Emilia drew back, then attacked with her sword again, forcing Mary to go on the defensive. She parried each swing, the repeated clashing of steel ringing through the night air.

"So where have you been, huh?" Emilia shouted as she continued to press her assault. "Where have you been all this time? Let me guess—hiding among your precious humans, is that it? Disgusting."

Mary was silent, focused only on the battle. She blocked, dodged, and parried, counting each strike precisely, waiting for the right moment. Until it came.

Emilia swung in a wide arc and missed, exposing her shoulder. Mary saw the opportunity and took it.

Using her demonic blade, Black Steam, Mary swung and sliced clean through Emilia's sword arm. The woman let out an involuntary scream as her limb—and her weapon—fell through the sky.

Emilia flapped her wings and put some space between them, moving back a bit. The two women hovered there, suspended in the air, eyeing each other.

While the pain in Emilia's arm lessened and her limb slowly began to regenerate, she glared at Mary with a mixture of hatred and reluctant respect.

She gave a curt nod, then reached up to remove her headpiece with her only other hand. It came free, and she held it at her side, revealing the girl beneath: short blonde hair, blue eyes, and a smirk stretching at the corners of her lips.

"You've always been better than me at everything," Emilia said slowly, her voice cold and bitter. "Combat. Training. Even when we were kids, you always came out on top. Then the most prestigious and powerful title of the entire demon empire was practically handed to you, and you just threw it away. How is that fair?"

Mary ignored the words of her half sister. It was a ridiculous notion that the title of Queen was practically handed to her, when Mary had to fight for the throne just like every other candidate at the time.

"Emilia. What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"What does it look like? I'm a general now. Valar, our uncle, gave me this honor after you left. And unlike you, I don't plan to disappoint him."

While her sword arm continued to regenerate, she snapped her fingers with her other hand. Demonic royal guards materialized around her—eight of them in total, four on each side. They stood like silent statues, eight-foot-tall creatures clad in heavy armor, wielding jagged weapons.

Mary visibly moved back as her eyes widened in shock.

"I'm sure you recognize these guys, right?" Emilia said, her voice dripping with mockery. "Last time you all met, they nearly killed you for the treachery you had brought the Gorgora household. And you know what? They could do it again. Right here."

Mary gritted her teeth in annoyance, her eyes red with vengeance. She clutched the hilt of her sword tighter, ready to launch an offensive. But as her demonic aura began poisoning her mind further, urging her to focus only on battle, a single thought crossed her mind. Her mother. And what she had told Mary back when she was little.

"Whenever you feel your mind slipping, Vesperia. Whenever you feel that thing inside you trying to take control, trying to force you into mindless slaughter, you let it go. You breathe. You remember who you are. Because if you don't, it will consume you until there's nothing left but a true demon, the likes the humans fear. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Good girl."

Mary's grip on her sword loosened. She took a breath, just like her mother taught her to do in these situations. Then, without saying another word, she turned and began slowly flying away.

Away from the battlefield.

Away from the chaos.

Away from the queen's guard and her half-sister.

Her fight was over for the night.

Emilia called after her.

"Leaving already, big sister? Aren't you going to stay and catch up some more?"

Mary did not answer.

"You know, although my orders aren't to come after you, I've decided. When I'm done here, I'll be visiting soon enough. I might come alone. I might come with an army. Who knows. It will be a surprise, after all."

Mary's flight faltered for just a second, abruptly stopping as she was caught off guard by the threat. But then she shook her head, letting out another slow breath to keep herself focused, then kept going.

"See you later, sis," Emilia taunted, flying back down to the battlefield with the rest of the queen's guard following close behind.

Mary didn't look back after that. She hated leaving the rest of the holy knights—those who hadn't been able to retreat—in the hands of her half-sister, but she had no choice.

She was outnumbered.

Not only that, but her demonic aura was threatening to flare up out of control.

If that happened, it might give her enough power to wipe out the entire Queens guard, but at what cost.

She might very well lose her kindness and compassion, fully transforming her into a monster no different from her Uncle.

That was the last thing she would ever want for herself.

With that final thought, she flew back to Blendingbrook.