The girl lay hidden among rubble and splinters, the raw, iron-tinged smell of earth filling her nostrils, the crackling of flames and the clash of armor ringing in her ears.
She forced herself to breathe as shallowly as possible, pressing flat against the ground without so much as a twitch, playing the part of one more corpse on this scorched, ruined earth.
The warmth that had been pressed against her back faded slowly. She buried her face in the dirt. Silent tears welled up and mingled with mud and grit.
Blood dripped down through the tangles of her disheveled hair.
She knew. Her mother was already gone.
The demons still prowling the area had not found her yet.
[Stay hidden, and no matter what — survive.] Those had been her mother's last words to her.
[Please. Just go.] Terror had nearly swallowed every thought. Only a single prayer remained, beating quietly in her chest.
"Who's there?"
The clank of armor retreated at a sharp pace, followed by the rasp of a blade being drawn.
Then, a lazy voice with a teasing lilt to it echoed out across the ruins.
Cinders shed from dying sparks crunched crisp underfoot as the girl lifted the wide-brimmed mage's hat from her head. She raised one finger, and a column of Mana rose from her body — thin and guttering as a candle in the wind.
"I'm also of the Demon Race. No need to be on guard."
"Ha — what kind of pathetic creature is this? I can barely even sense her Mana."
"Other than those horns, she looks practically human. What an embarrassment."
The demons' voices were flat — which only made the arrogance and contempt in them more pronounced.
"Oh, terribly sorry, terribly sorry! I haven't been around very long. I simply heard that the Demon King's Army was sweeping through everything in its path, and thought I'd come have a look — maybe find some weak little humans to test my magic on."
She opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and flashed half a small fang in a grin.
The lead demon gave a single nod, expression cold.
"We've already swept the surrounding area clean. There are no surviving humans left in this district. Your strength doesn't come close to qualifying you for my unit. Leave — sooner rather than later."
With that, he flicked a hand and led his column of armored demons away.
Among the Demon Race, strength is the only currency of respect. No demon would have spared Nanoda a second glance — she was utterly unremarkable. Letting a weaker member of their kind keep her life was already the fullest extent of their goodwill. And so that company of demons passed Nanoda by without another word.
Left behind them: half-burned ruins, and the broken shapes of bodies that hadn't yet been fully reduced to ash.
Once the traces of that demon column had vanished entirely from within her Mana Perception range, Nanoda — who had been standing perfectly still all this while — suddenly spoke.
"You made such a spectacle of finishing off those bandits earlier. Why play it so quiet this time?"
Nanoda found it genuinely puzzling. If It had simply displayed its real power and brought those demons to heel, they could have sent the entire unit out to search for the Goddess's stele — surely that would have been far more efficient.
"Because it's more interesting this way, isn't it? Humans can be more troublesome than demons sometimes — I felt like having a bit of fun with them." It smiled again, and then its expression shifted into something a shade darker. "And honestly, after all this time — the Demon Race is still exactly like this. I'll admit, it's a little disappointing."
Nanoda had long since stopped being surprised by Its mercurial moods.
Even if It behaved very much like a human — even if It occasionally did impish, playful things, even understood how to make a joke — at its core, Nanoda could sense clearly that all that warmth and expressiveness was, in the end, a performance. A mask it had never once taken off.
"In human terms, I do rather enjoy this feeling of playing an ordinary passerby sometimes. The arrogance of those little creatures, their coldness — it genuinely delights me."
"By demon standards, you really are a singular anomaly," Nanoda said.
She had the sneaking suspicion that her predecessor carried some rather peculiar tastes.
"Are you thinking something rude right now?"
"Hm? No, no — must be your imagination. Definitely your imagination."
As the time they spent sharing a body grew longer, Nanoda could dimly sense that the two of them were gradually learning to understand each other, to blend together. The discomfort of a soul and body that didn't quite fit — that had always been there at first — was slowly easing.
They drew near to a section of collapsed ruins. It suddenly broke into a smile.
"Just as I thought — not a single survivor left here. What a pity~"
It walked through the ruins. Three seconds passed — and then it doubled back without warning, crouching down directly over a heap of charred remains.
"So — did you just breathe a sigh of relief?"
The words were teasing, and it delivered them right up close, low enough to reach only one set of ears.
"Eek—!"
In a panic, from beneath a body that had been burned to black char — a tiny, muffled sound escaped.
The girl, realizing she had given herself away, pressed half her face back into the dirt and squeezed her eyes shut in despair.
It was over. She hadn't managed to escape the demons after all.
"To hide your presence well enough that ordinary demons can't detect you — even with help from another — at such a young age? That's a real knack for surviving in a world gone mad. Impressive, in its way. Unfortunately for you, the one standing before you right now has spent the better part of an eternity studying the art of concealment and going unnoticed."
It reached down, grabbed the charred corpse draped over the girl, and flung it aside — revealing the child curled on her side, half her body soaked in pooled blood.
The girl's eyes were screwed tightly shut. Her small frame trembled. Her beautiful long hair and what had once been a white nightgown were stained a deep, dirty red-black from mud and blood. Both hands were balled into fists, pressed hard against her chest.
Just as the girl braced herself for the end, the world around her went suddenly, completely quiet.
No stabbing pain from a blade. No searing heat of flames.
She waited. A moment passed. Her lashes fluttered. Blood and grit slid down her cheek. Her body shifted slightly, and — driven by something she couldn't name — she opened her eyes.
"Hello there."
She found herself looking up into a mismatched pair of eyes — eyes that belonged to someone who might have been a young woman or might have been a girl, wearing a pointed triangular mage's hat.
Though, given the snatches of conversation she had just overheard — this was nothing more than a brutal demon, using that hat to hide a pair of horns.
The girl pressed her cracked lips together and closed her eyes again, resigning herself to fate, letting her head drop back into the blood-streaked mud.
"Just kill me."
The childish voice trembled as it said it.
Nanoda, crouched beside her, finally let a small frown crease her brow.
"Alright, stop teasing her. You just think it's funny, don't you."
Nanoda could feel that It bore the girl no ill will at this moment. Or rather — It had never borne anyone ill will, not in the way that counted.
Killing the bandits earlier had been a matter of practicality and mild annoyance. Playing the weakling before that demon unit, and now needling this small girl — that was nothing more than a passing whim.
"I simply find this little one interesting. To conceal her presence so thoroughly that ordinary demons can't detect her at all — she has a rather extraordinary talent, doesn't she."
It paused, and then that guileless, carefree grin spread across its face again.
"A human youngling — a rare opportunity, this. Why not keep her close for a while? Raise her. See how she turns out."
"Are we here to find the Goddess's stele, or are we on a field trip…"
Nanoda let out a slow sigh and turned to look at the child trembling in the puddle of blood. For some reason she couldn't quite identify, an odd pang of familiarity struck her — a sense of having seen this before.
"A war orphan…"
The word left her lips in a murmur, and for a moment she was somewhere else entirely.
The girl waiting to die found the whole thing deeply strange. This demon spoke as though it were two people at once — holding entire conversations with itself.
Was this demon... perhaps unwell?
Strangely, some of the fear in her chest loosened its grip.
Then, a pale hand closed around the back of her neck — and took hold of her fate.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Oshi No Ko: Co-starring with Kana Arima
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone