Château de Cougoussac, in the south of France, the Languedoc‑Roussillon region, Lozère department, Gabrias canton, turned out to belong to the Gremory Pillar, my new family, since approximately the beginning of the 20th century, and wasn't too far from the Cévennes National Park — that is, a mountain range where one could go skiing.
It's not that I was so passionate about skiing that I'd come here of my own free will. These attempts to cure something that doesn't exist had already worn me out quite a bit, but to be honest, this was the first time when, being in a world so similar to my native one, I wasn't rushing around like a headless chicken from quest to quest, and at the same time I had the opportunity, in principle, to buy anything I wanted. I didn't need to look for part‑time jobs from an early age, and the conflict between me and my elder relatives had been greatly exaggerated.
Previous experience had rightly taught me to look for hidden catches and be paranoid, but something told me that I'd only be cut off from the inheritance if I went off to become a cannibalistic renegade, or, I don't know, turned some super‑powerful twisted psycho into a demon — who, instead of being subjugated by me, would subjugate me in return, with all the consequences. They'd do it simply for self‑preservation, yeah.
Not that I had any intention of touching anyone's soul in such a way, to begin with, but these were the only scenarios I could imagine for this family to disown me — and that after more than half a year of living and travelling side by side with them.
When we returned to my father, mother and brother, I kept silent and listened, because no command to stop doing so had been given, and it was easier not to make a fuss. Runeas, sweetly puffing out her cheeks, complained that she'd found me in the "Bad Place" — and this clearly meant something more, because it sounded like a name, not a description. I had no idea what she meant, so I kept silent and listened.
Venelana immediately made plans to go somewhere to rest, so that her dear daughter would quickly forget all the bad things — something had clearly frightened her, it was visible in her eyes. My brother turned pale, and Grayfia clung to him to stop him from running off somewhere — I didn't know the purpose of his sudden jumps and attempts to fly away, but I automatically trusted Grayfia's judgment, even though she gave me the creeps, as if a grizzly bear were trying to hug me in a friendly way in my first life. My father supported my mother's decision, but afterwards he simply appeared a couple of times a month for lunch or dinner. This, I think, was also because Venelana had taken Misla — her… let's say, close friend, yeah, — with us for some fun.
And Sairaorg came along too. For some reason, he felt somewhat guilty and involved in my disappearance — his logic eluded me. But the result was that I got a sparring partner I could beat up as much as I liked, and the buddy wouldn't get beaten up. No, I know I can kill him quite easily and simply — if my evolution of the Destruction power hits him all at once, in large quantity, so he can't dodge in time, it can disintegrate him into atoms in no time. The guy so far had no counter against the power of the Pillar Bael.
Thus, I figured out that the main problem the Pillar Gremory had with me and my inheritance were the servants of human origin from the old ages of humanity — but obviously after the invention of demonic chess by Ajuka Beelzebub. That is, the medieval and Renaissance period, when a woman as an heir was like eating shit in front of everyone in the market square. Too good an attitude and lack of strict drill on the differences between sub‑demon-former-humans and real-deal pillar devils — which usually played to the advantage of the Pillar Gremory and made servants more friendly — had failed in this case.
In the childhood of the same Sera‑chan, for example, any servant who dared to do what Agrippa had done — that is, assume her stupidity — would have been met with at least a kick out of their domains, because the servants back then were mostly either remnants of non‑pillar demons created by Lilith as cannon fodder for the war with Heaven, or many half‑bloods from everyone's promiscuous relations. A rarity, of course, due to demons' difficulties with conception, but humans definitely increased the probability, although they decreased the "supernaturalness".
In short, such genuinely caring attitude from relatives — simply because I'd apparently ended up in some "Bad Place" — changed my perception of the whole situation.
And unfortunately, my study of magic as such — to fulfill, in fact, the purpose of my vacation as a devil in this world — stalled at first, and in general no one even remembered about it, until the certain moment.
Serafall, who was in the know about the deception, didn't particularly worry and periodically took me "to play with Sona-chan", or back to Hell, or to their territory on Earth, in Japan. Sometimes Sona-chan was just an excuse to make me watch Maho‑Shōjo with the Satan Leviathan. I didn't really mind, but once I asked for an opportunity to go check on Frieren.
The elf and I had agreed that she would call me herself through that crystal Runeas and I had left her, and I felt somehow awkward to impose. We even talked a couple of times about magic; she told me about interesting monsters in her region, but I hadn't received an invitation to visit by that point. This was around the first month after my journey to that little world, so I didn't fuss much, although I understood that our time flows were out of sync, and she clearly wasn't very interested in communication.
I didn't ask why Frieren hadn't thought of evacuating with the huge crowd of her kin to Alfheim — Serafall confirmed that these elves were, in fact, one of the branches of our local elves. I, of course, being a naive soul, asked for details and got a one‑hour lecture about the worlds of Yggdrasil, the common origin of the Fairy Courts and Elvish lands, and about pocket domains of gods, pantheons, powerful mages, and so on, and so forth. God endured and told us to do the same, that's how the saying goes, but I was literally one step away from revealing my unique ability for demons in this world — to utter the Lord's name in vain — right in front of Sona-chan. Because by the end of that lecture, I still didn't understand why they were, after all, a branch of our local elves, and how that was even possible.
In short, the time came — at little Sera-chan's place, of course — when I decided to step up and call myself. And whether it was my magical power of Luck or just how circumstances aligned, I called at exactly the moment when Frieren least expected it, but needed it most.
For me, just one sluggish month had passed, but for Frieren, a whole lifetime had gone by. Of course, not her own lifetime, but that of someone extremely dear to her. That's how I realized that this feeble back and forth in this friendship, the way it works with Akeno, simply wouldn't work with Frieren. Akeno had, let's say, a support group, more or less adequate Cadre around her, thanks to her scary father, who wasn't particularly corrupted in the head, unlike many others from the Grigori Faction, and even if we wanted to, we couldn't communicate every day.
Frieren, though… I hadn't taken into account that she really wasn't an adult yet at the time of our meeting, and that for the best outcome I should have taken this communication into my own hands.
Her teacher, the great mage Flamme, had died and, in fact, somewhat ordained her to kill the local Demon King someday in the future — but that wasn't the most important thing. The most important thing was that she was alone and hadn't even thought of sharing this sadness with anyone. By this time, I'd already learned that Elves, although a bit stuck in their heads, yeah, still had emotions and reactions to them. As I understood from books and articles in DevilNet, Elves were just a bit autistic and tried very hard to achieve perfection in whatever field of activity they took a liking to. Of course, we should also bet on the fact that devilish information might differ from reality — but certainly not on the thing that devils in this world simply had to clarify over these hundreds of years: whether it would "blow up" or not if you turned it into a figure. And yes, obviously, if these Elves had no emotions, the "blow up" option simply wouldn't exist. So I was sure that Frieren felt and perceived things no worse than ordinary human.
So, after learning about this event and, as usual, hearing Frieren's completely calm, melancholic and measured tone, I decided to boldly suggest a visit — and she didn't refuse.
I stepped into the portal, assessed the situation at a glance — the forest was peaceful, there was no danger — and simply made her accept my embrace. I grabbed her like a toy, forcing her to bury her nose in my shoulder, and held her like that until her arms wrapped around me in return, clutching at my shoulder blades, and her face soaked my T‑shirt — with tears streaming from her nose and eyes.
She cried loudly and convulsively, although at first she'd been as quiet as a mouse under a broom, but my comfort had clearly released something in her. My own eyes ended up wet too, so when I returned home with a kind of relief, I got caught out. And no, not for running off to another world to see a girl for adventures — that could only have been spotted if someone other than Serafall had seen my return portal.
No, Mom and Misla just looked at my face after obvious tearful sobbing, and without even asking anything, immediately started planning more and more varied activities.
What the hell is this "Bad Place" if it can scare Venelana, who clearly went through the Great and Civil Wars of the Underworld with the same expression on her face?
In short, it was like this — months after my unfortunate birthday, I ended up in a winter castle in the south of France, for skiing and, overall, a good rest in a safe area.
And yes, ever since Flamme's death, I made it a rule to call Frieren at least once a day if I couldn't jump over there — and I almost always couldn't, because the fuss from my mother hadn't stopped yet, and moreover, living independently wasn't an option for me at all yet.
I was even considering accepting Serafall's offer to officially hire me and give me the chance to get away from at least half of this itchy, annoying, colic‑inducing constant supervision and babysitting. I was ready to do it all, just to get some free time to study and practice what Frieren had shown me and what I'd been trying to pull off using the principles of local demonic imagination magic.
The elf's magic was something transcendent to me and akin to breathing for her, but she was a decent teacher, even remotely.
That's why I predictably and deliberately got "lost" while skiing — mountain swirls weren't our way, because I could fly anyway, and falling awkwardly, just shaking off the snow and walking on, would draw unnecessary attention; compassionate people might pester me and end up having their memories erased.
All in all, I was already ready to disappear for five minutes here and reappear for several hours there, but then suddenly, on my path — chosen completely at random, I should note — a thin boy tumbled out of the bushes into a small snowdrift.
My demonic sense of smell caught the scent of blood, suffering and pain, but I didn't waste time on trifles. Instead of trying to find out anything from the dying child, I spread my wings, pulled off my skis and gloves, checked his pulse, and then picked the boy up in my arms. To heal, not to harm — and that's exactly why I didn't yet know how to do that, although I certainly wished I did; I'm not an idiot, after all.
I naturally remembered the approximate direction towards the adults — not my first rodeo — so I sped up and tried to abstract myself from the moans of pain and the stale stench of an unwashed, sick little body.
A cross hanging from his neck fell onto my wrist, and of course there was no reaction, but I couldn't remove it without letting go of the boy, so I had to hope no one would notice it upon arrival.
"God is with us, buddy," I muttered quietly when I spotted the familiar triangular roofs of Château Cougoussac in the distance. "And who did this to you… And more importantly, what's the purpose?"
"Tosca…" the boy moaned and, in a strange moment of clarity, began to cry. "Tosca, forgive me, forgive me… I'll come back… Wait… I'll come back…"
"So…"
My mind calmed down abruptly, shifting from that panicky teenage "I don't know what to do with a wounded person without a first‑aid kit" mode into "I've seen all kinds of crap as a hunter of ghouls and Grimm". And I had seen it.
I handed the child over to the servants, scaring them with a growl completely uncharacteristic of either me or Rias, ordered them to fix the kid as best they could, and then dashed back into the sky.
There might be other survivors.
And I'm not going to wait and pretend I'm just some immature teenage demon. I've done this sort of thing as work for two lives in a row — saved people from all sorts of otherworldly horrors — so there's absolutely nothing stopping me from stepping in for this poor guy and saving someone else along the way.
Moreover, it was quite clear, judging by my plans to recklessly and without much warning head off for a walk in another, much more dangerous world — I'd clearly been stuck in one place for far too long.
I really wanted some adventure.
Well then, it turns out the power of Luck worked, and the adventure found me on its own. Let's believe in this version of events, rather than the one where I just have an adventurer's itch, yeah.
***