After a few minutes of dragging the demon girl with me, we stopped inside the isolated back alley, both out of breath.
I promised Rudolph I would stay out of trouble, but the situation forced me to. I sat in front of the demon girl and looked at her appearance. Demons here were far from the demons as portrayed back on Earth in any fictional book. They were ugly and terrifying entities, whereas Demons here were like humans in appearance except for the tiny horns on their heads. This is my very first time seeing one, a real one. I think the demon is about ten years old, and she reminds me of Crissy. The child demon was wearing a white dress stained with footprints of the person who probably hurt her; even her bruises were fresh, but without it, she looked like somebody was taking good of her."I'm Troy, what's your name?"She connected both of her hands and looked down. "Rafaela…Hemsworth.""I see. We need to leave this place as soon as possible, and this place is no longer safe for you." I stood up and walked, but she immediately grabbed my hand."Big brother Kieran. He's waiting for me.""Your big brother? Is he a demon, too?""No, he's my master, the kindest human I have ever met... and his kind mother... and father... all of them are kind to me."Now that she mentioned it, a metal collar is dangling on her neck. Probably, she's a slave, a well-treated one, to be exact."I see. Let's just talk about that once I finally got you out of this kingdom. Do you know where the nearest exit from here is?"She nodded."Good, first we need to get something we can use to hide those horns. And also-" I looked at Rafaela. I need to heal her, but how would I do that?I acquired a healing ability but don't know how to use it. Should I just say heal? Or should I touch her instead? I remember Baldy Cain emitting a glowing yellow light on his hand. Should I copy it? But how did he do that, by the way? Unlike the Fire Magic, it automatically appeared, especially in my dire situation. But that's it. A plain fire. No shape, no form, just a fire, and I don't even know how I produced it. [Note: All kinds of magic use mana. Offensive magic, such as fire magic, automatically channels mana from your body to protect you from danger without your consent. It's a body defense mechanism. While defensive magic such as healing, requires a lot of mana and full concentration.]Oh, is that so? Okay. Thank you for the information. It was informative. By the way, who are you?[I am your Unique Skill, Cherubim]Are you like a system or like those anime I watch?[No. I'm your strategist or assistant and an imitator. Everything you see, especially skills, I can imitate and make them yours]Wow! Are you that awesome? So, then, I'm not crazy at all! There's actually someone speaking in my head. [Correct]So, about this healing skill?[Let your mana flow through your fingers. Once you feel the vibration, your mana transfers to the wounds of anything or anyone you want to heal. This kind of skill requires concentration and a large amount of mana depending on the wounds you want to heal]Okay! I'll try it. I patted Rafaela's head and concentrated. Cherubim said all I need to do is let my mana flow and feel the vibrations coming from my fingers. Once I felt the vibrations, I saw her bruises immediately healed, and to my surprise, even her broken horn regenerated back.Wow, I can do this shit?But I immediately felt drained and staggered when I tried to stand up. Why do I feel weak? I felt like my energy was drained from me. [Like I said, healing can drain a lot of energy and mana, especially if you restore something already broken, like her horn. Wounds usually only cost a little mana. Broken body parts need a lot of mana to restore them; once mana is consumed, you will be weakened.]Arck! I'll keep that in my mind. Rafaela probably felt that all of her injuries had healed, and she looked up at me. "Thanks... Mister, uhm, Troy.""Let me rest for a bit, then off we go."After regaining some of my strength, we started to walk, but the first thing I did was buy her a robe with a hood to hide her face and her horns as we traveled toward the nearest kingdom exit.The real difficulty occurred when we finally reached the gate.Based on Rafaela, to bring a slave outside the gate, you need to show the key to the slave's collar, but going back to her owner to get the key while with her is far riskier than sneaking through the guards because I don't know if the knights are already searching for us and climbing up to the wall is not a viable option due to the countless guards scattered around the kingdom wall.A violent approach is the worst option in this situation, and I don't know what's coming after me if I make a flashy uproar. I'm still new to this world. Hence, I'm not a skilled magic user.Upon reaching the crowded gate, one of the knights immediately walked towards us, but the sudden sounds coming behind us immediately took their attention.One of the carriage wheels behind us collapsed and the fruits and vegetables inside fell to the road simultaneously. One of the horses before us escaped and unexpectedly ran towards the outer gate.The knight who was about to approach us immediately joined the owner of the carriage to pick up the scattered fruit and vegetables."Thank you, kind sir.""I don't mind," said the knight who was supposed to check us.I touched the shivering shoulder of Misha in front of me. "Let's go," I said as a go signal.Both of us ran as fast as we could. I unleashed a huge sigh of relief when we reached the outer gate.I quickly took her inside the nearest forest and searched for a safe place for Rafaela to hide. The hardest part is finally done; that scared me big time.I guided her behind the tree and patted her head. "Now, I just need to take care of something."She looked at me with confusion in her eyes."We need to get rid of that thing on your neck."The wind was blowing through the forest around us, along with the sound of owls and wolves from the distance. I put my hand near the fire of the campfire I made as our source of light and heat in this cold and dark woodland.I drifted my gaze on Rafaela, munching the chicken on a stick I bought earlier before leaving the kingdom; I had already eaten mine.I have to talk to Cherubim to understand my skill. The child-like voice inside my head said he is my unique skill. But what is a unique skill? [Unique skill is a special skill. It means it doesn't evolve, unlike common skills. Unique skills can produce sub-skill and extra skills. These sub and extra skills have their own minor skill, which is your newly acquired elemental skill. But for some reason, a Unique Skill can evolve into its final form, the Divine Ultimate Skill]So, can you do that? [I cannot do that on my own. You need to grow and know what exactly you desire. Only then can I evolve]I see. I ended my conversation betwe
Third POVIn the beginning, the Father of Creation created a world named Orion. The Orion was divided into seven continents. Each continent has its own beauty, terrains, and nature. Then, the Father of Creation created the five Celestial Beasts and became the pillar of Orion the following day after Orion was created. On the third day, Elemental Archons were assigned to govern the planet's elemental energies and maintain the balance of Orion. On the fourth day, the Father of Creation breathed life into Orion, so races of living were born: human, beast folks, water people, demons, elven folks, dwarves, halflings, humanoid, and every other race. On the fifth day, the Father of Creation bestowed magic to every race he created, even assigned the Leader of each of them to govern each country they lived in, and gifted them magic.On the sixth day, the Father of Creation decided to move on and create another planet, leaving the authority to the Archons and Celestial Beasts. Like any oth
It's been five days since we started our journey towards the lawless town of Levearûn and the incident with the knights. To reach the town, we must pass through a massive forest and several small mountains.By hunting our food and drinking from the rivers we passed by, we easily got the things we needed to survive throughout the journey.And yep, as much as possible, I don't want her to drink my Water magic because I can't explain why it felt so wrong.According to Cherubim, for every new evolved skill I acquire, a large amount of mana will be used. When I asked him how to maximize my mana to avoid further side-effects when using a newly evolved skill, Cherubim suggested training myself and making my body used to skills like Hesphateus. The more one pushes their body to the limit, the more mana will increase. I have been training myself using Caspian's sword every day. On the first and second day, all my mana was drained, and I slept the whole day. The next two days, I improved a bit
After a total of almost a month of our long journey, we've finally reached our destination.Unfortunately, Rafaela and I don't have any information about this lawless town. I hope we're not going to have any trouble here. I gazed upon the massive settlement in front of us. We're still a few kilometers away, but I can already see the life inside the town."At last, we're finally here, Rafaela." I looked at Misha and found her smiling at me. "It's already nighttime, so we must find a place to spend the night. I'm excited to see what awaits us inside that town."Upon entering the town, what welcomed us was a shady place full of eyes looking at us with suspicions.They're not humans; some of them have animal ears and tails, and for some, their bodies are completely animal-like, but they're walking using their two feet, which I guess was what we called back home as beastkins or beastfolks.There were also some who, just like Rafaela who, had horns on their heads, which I believe were demo
Morning shone at the lawless town of Levaerûn. I stretched my arms as I gazed upon the view before me while sitting on the inn rooftop. I could see the wide green land surrounding the entire settlement from afar and the massive forest next to it where we came from.As I looked down, I could clearly see the marketplace beneath. The marketplace was completely different from what it looked like at night; at day, it seemed like a normal marketplace.The slave shops were still open, but no slave was being displayed outside, the same with the prostitute dealers who used to be scattered around the place last night.People were gathering to buy necessities from the shops that were not there when we arrived last night.Even with shady businesses at night, I can say that this place still functions as a normal community.As I watched them, I finally saw some humans joining the crowd, casually interacting with the demi-humans buying in the stalls.There really are humans peacefully living in thi
I rubbed my belly as I finished eating my food."Do you like the food, Raf?"She stared at me and nodded. "It's delicious."Some was left on her cheek, so I picked it up using my index finger."I'm so full. Isn't the food here the best?" Xin said as he leaned on his chair and gazed at both of us."Yeah, it is," I replied."Are you two planning to stay here for good?""That's my initial plan, but it still depends. If I want to stay here, I must find a sustainable job first.""There are very few jobs available in this place. To strive here, you need to be at least tough enough to survive, especially since business owners are wary of newcomers, which is understandable. If you want a proper job and think you are strong enough to fight, there are some that I can recommend; being a faction leader's security personnel is one of the profitable jobs here, or you can go to the second faction and apply as a mercenary. That's a decent job as well, if I must say." He covered his mouth as he used a
After the commotion inside the restaurant, I decided to leave the place and return to the inn.After observing the place and the people living here, I realized that this place is not as chaotic as it sounds, but it's not that safe either. Dubious people are lurking everywhere due to the lack of proper supervision throughout the place, especially since this place is being ruled by people called faction leaders. Abundances of conflicts can be expected to happen from time to time due to the problematic visitors coming here to cause problems.Some people like Xin are willing to help in case the situation gets out of hand, but we can't expect them to always be there when trouble arises.In conclusion, this place is not actually lawless; it has rules, but it is not official enough to make the violent-seeking visitors willingly follow them.That's what you expect from an anarchy-governed town. At least, that's my understanding as of now. There's still a lot of things I can't understand, b
Nighttime arrived at the town of Levaerûn. Just like last night, the dark side of the town once more emerged again from the surface of the marketplace.The human slaves were being displayed in front of the shop for the crowds gathering around to see, along with the dealers blocking and discussing with any potential customers.I closed my eyes as I felt the gentle wind touching my face and looked up to the starry sky where the full moon was currently present.The moon showed up again, which means It's already been some months since I was summoned here. It's hard to adjust at first, but life here has slowly become a part of me now.Besides, I'm actually an otherworlder, and nobody had noticed it aside from Rudolf. Maybe the magic book has something to do with this; too bad I will never know because I accidentally burned it into ashes.The wooden door opened, and the gentle smile of the old man emerged and walked towards me.I think he came here to get the clothes hung on the clotheslin