Chapter 22: Survive
Armored Dragon Calendar Year 417 – Rudeus, Age 10 – Demon Continent
[Rudeus POV]
Ruijerd led us to a cave.
It wasn't much, a shallow opening in the rock face, barely large enough for three people, but it was shelter. Protection from the wind and the creatures that prowled the wasteland after dark.
"Rest," he said, his voice carrying an accent I didn't recognize. "We travel at dawn."
Eris hadn't sheathed her sword since we'd met him. Her grip was white-knuckled, her stance combat-ready, every line of her body screaming distrust.
"Eris." I kept my voice low.
"Put the sword away."
"He's a Superd."
"He saved our lives."
"Superd eat children." Her voice was flat, reciting something she'd been told.
"Ghislaine said so. Everyone says so."
Ruijerd's expression didn't change, but something flickered in those ancient eyes. Pain, maybe.
Or resignation, the look of someone who had heard the same accusation a thousand times.
"I do not eat children," he said quietly. "I protect them."
Eris's grip on her sword didn't loosen.
I stepped between them, facing her. "We were going to die out there."
"You know that. Without him, we'd be monster food right now."
I met her eyes, willing her to understand. "I don't know if we can trust him, but we can't survive without help."
The silence stretched. Eris's jaw worked, pride and fear and exhaustion warring on her face.
Then, slowly, she sheathed her sword. Shink.
"If he tries anything," she said, "I'll kill him."
"You can try." Ruijerd's voice held no mockery, just acknowledgment.
We settled into the cave, Eris pressed against one wall, Ruijerd crouched near the entrance, and me somewhere in between. The tension was thick enough to cut, but exhaustion won eventually.
Sleep came, dreamless this time.
Morning on the Demon Continent looked exactly like afternoon had looked. Which looked exactly like evening.
The red sky never changed, the dim light never brightened, and the sense of wrongness never faded.
Ruijerd had found water.
I didn't ask how. The container he handed me was leather, the water inside clean and cold, and that was enough.
Eris drank greedily, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"North. The town of Rikarisu lies three days' travel from here."
Ruijerd's spear rested against his shoulder, casual but ready. "From there, we can find work, earn money for passage."
"Passage to where?"
"The Central Continent. Your home."
His eyes met mine. "That is where you wish to go, yes?"
"Yes." The word came out harder than I intended.
"My family is there."
"Then we go north."
We walked.
The Demon Continent was nothing like the stories.
I had expected wasteland, endless desert, barren rock, the kind of post-apocalyptic landscape that featured in every fantasy novel I'd read in my previous life. And there was some of that, in the northern reaches where we'd landed.
But as we traveled, the terrain changed. The cracked earth gave way to scrubland, then sparse forest, then something almost resembling normal wilderness.
The red sky persisted, but the land beneath it supported life. Strange life, twisted life, but life nonetheless.
And everywhere, the monsters.
Ruijerd killed them with casual efficiency. A pack of wolf-like creatures that tracked us for hours, dead in seconds.
A massive serpent that erupted from the ground without warning, bisected before it could strike.
Creatures I couldn't name, couldn't categorize, couldn't even fully see, all fell to his spear.
"How old are you?" I asked, during one of our brief rests.
"Five hundred years. Perhaps more."
He didn't look at me when he answered, his attention fixed on the horizon. "Time loses meaning, after a while."
Five hundred years. Half a millennium of wandering, fighting, surviving.
No wonder his eyes held such weight.
"The war," I said, remembering the stories. "You were there in the Laplace War."
Something crossed his face. Not anger, something deeper. Shame, maybe.
"Yes. I was there."
His grip on his spear tightened. "I did things, things I cannot undo, cannot forget, cannot forgive."
"The Superd were not always what we are now. We were warriors once, protectors. But Laplace... he changed us. Made us into something else."
"Monsters."
"Yes." The word was barely audible.
"Monsters."
I didn't know what to say to that. The legends painted the Superd as irredeemable, demons who had slaughtered their way across the world for the pleasure of it. But looking at Ruijerd, seeing the weight he carried, I couldn't reconcile the stories with the man in front of me.
"You protect children," I said finally. "That's why you saved us."
"Children should not die for the sins of their elders." His voice hardened.
"Children should not die at all. Not if I can prevent it."
Eris made a disgusted sound from somewhere behind us. "So you're trying to make up for it. All the people you killed."
"Yes." Ruijerd turned to face her, his expression unreadable. "I cannot bring back the dead, cannot undo what was done. But I can save those who still live. Can try to show the world that Superd are not what they believe."
"By saving children."
"By saving anyone I can." He resumed walking, his spear balanced across his shoulders. "It will never be enough. I know this. But I will try until I die."
Rikarisu was not what I expected.
I had imagined something like the frontier towns from westerns, rough buildings, rougher people, the kind of place where you kept your hand on your weapon and your back to the wall. And there was some of that.
But there was also civilization. Markets, merchants, demons of every shape and size going about their daily lives, buying and selling and arguing and laughing.
It wasn't home, but it was a town. After days in the wilderness, that meant everything.
"We need money," I said, stating the obvious. "And we need to hide your identity."
Ruijerd's hand went to the gem in his forehead. The mark of the Superd, the thing that made him instantly recognizable, instantly feared.
"The stone cannot be removed. It is part of me."
"Then we cover it. And your hair."
I thought quickly, drawing on memories of every fantasy novel I'd ever read. "We form a party."
"An adventurer party. We take jobs, earn money, and work our way toward the coast."
"An adventurer party." Eris's voice was skeptical.
"With a Superd."
"With a warrior who doesn't show his heritage." I turned to face them both.
"We need a name. Something that people will remember, but for the right reasons."
Ruijerd was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"You are clever, for a child. What name would you choose?"
I thought about where we were. About what we'd survived to get here.
About the warnings and predictions and despair that had surrounded our journey.
"Dead End," I said. "We're the adventurer party Dead End."
"Dead End?" Eris frowned. "That's a terrible name."
"It's what everyone expected us to be. Two human children, stranded on the Demon Continent. Dead end. No future. No hope." I smiled, and it felt sharp on my face.
"We're going to prove them wrong."
Ruijerd's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes. Interest, maybe.
Or the first stirring of hope.
"Dead End," he repeated. "I accept this name."
Eris was quiet for a moment. Then she drew her sword, inspecting the blade in the dim red light.
"Fine. Dead End."
She sheathed the weapon with a practiced motion. "But if we're doing this, we're doing it right."
"No half-measures, no backing down."
"Agreed."
We stood at the edge of Rikarisu. Three unlikely companions with nothing in common except the desperate need to survive.
A Superd warrior seeking redemption. A noble girl far from home. And a reincarnated failure from another world, trying to find his way back to everyone he'd lost.
Dead End.
The journey home had begun.
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