Chapter 8 (3): How NOT to keep a low profile, part 1
"I'll take charge of Astaroth and hear his side first, the rest of you shall stay in a cell until I'm ready to hear your statements" (Different commander)
We got collars placed on our necks that prevented the use of magic altogether, and as we were being dragged out, I saw the commander grin as he cut off Astaroth's chains, letting him just walk out of the guardhouse without giving any statement whatsoever. After our weapons got taken (my earrings and bracelets stayed on me, however) and getting thrown into one large cell, we were left entirely alone, even though Tuare and I asked them to send someone to ask Lars to come speak with us and verify our identities.
"Well, if they are going to let us rot without any chance for justice, we don't need to go through entirely just methods to get the right things to happen... as such, here's the plan" (Ryuu)
Ver shifted into her wyvern form, breaking her collar, then went into my summoner's subspace. Immediately after, I walked to the cell's bars, stuck my hand out, and summoned her on the other side. She shifted back, hid herself with light and barrier magic, and snuck out of the building. Half an hour or so passed, and someone came to check on us.
"Well, here's the verdict. All seven of you are to be executed here and now... seven? One, two, three, four, five, six... where's the seventh?" (Guard)
"My group only has six people, never has had more than that. However, an execution without hearing the accused party's side of the situation is illegal, and won't really work on us. Even without our weapons or magic, many of us can fight back just fine, and we are within our rights to do so as you are trying to kill us without a legal execution order. Still, this is even more proof that the guards are corrupt, so I'll make sure that Miryuu, sorry, the Demon Lord to you, I guess, will investigate this" (Tuare)
"You know, that's made me curious. Let's say that you hypothetically manage to leave this place... Who are you to be able to speak with the Demon Lord, let alone get her to investigate something like this?" (Guard)
"I am Tuareninya Lars, and her fiancee. I wish I could say that it's a pleasure to meet you, but I can't" (Tuare)
Just then, I heard a sharp splintering sound, and smiled.
"Sounds like Lars heard about what happened and has shown up..." (Ryuu)
***** Lars's PoV *****
As soon as I heard what happened from Verene, I dropped what I was doing and cleared the next hour or so from my schedule, despite the fact that that was a meeting with Baal's trade minister. I know that Tuare is supposed to deal with everything without relying on her family name, but in this case, it's needed. Political corruption, illegal arrests, and more are enough to call this situation an exception to that rule. I didn't care who saw me, I ran all the way to the guardhouse, and didn't wait for them to let me in, I just threw open the doors myself.
"Where is the commander?! I must speak with him at once!" (Lars)
"Who are y-" (Guard)
"Look at my cloak. I am Takigawa Lars, first seat of the demon generals, and I demand an audience with whoever is in charge here! I don't care if he is currently meeting with the captain of the royal guard or asleep, I want to speak with him within the next two minutes! I'm counting, so get going!" (Lars)
They fled, and 116 seconds later, the commander strode into the room with an annoyed look on his face.
"What is it? I-" (Commander)
"I heard that my daughter is currently being held for the crime of simply being near someone who killed Zekram Gremory in self defense. I would like to speak with her, a-" (Lars)
"Your daughter is not here. If that is all, get lost. We have other things to do, so your being here is a disturbance to our work" (Commander)
"That's odd, I have some very reliable information that she is, namely, information that came straight from her fiancee, well, from her fiancee's other fiancee, but it was a message my soon-to-be daughter-in-law asked her to deliver to me. As I've met them and heard the relationship between them all, I have absolute faith in the veracity of the information" (Lars)
"I do not care about what you think is the truth, as your daughter IS NOT HERE. Leave. Now" (Commander)
"That is no way to speak to a demon general, and I have the right to investigate your holding cells as I wish. I am going to exercise that right, and you are unable to stop me in any manner that is legal" (Lars)
After I said that, the commander began to open his mouth with his face red as a tomato, but was cut off by an ice-cold voice from the entrance to the building.
"And I have the right to level this building, should you continue to piss me off. Just saying" (Ver)
"How did you escape from your cell, girl? You should be with-" (Commander)
"Miryuu Maou, my master and fiancee, summoned me on the outside of the cell you have her locked up in, alongside some of her other fiancees, including Tuareninya Lars" (Ver)
"Master? Summoned? What are you-" (Commander)
Verene shifted into a large wyvern, breaking a wall and two tables in the process, and I spoke with a bit of a sadistic grin creeping onto my otherwise wrathful face.
"Meet the eleventh divine beast, the Wyvern Lord Verene. As such, she can do, well, whatever she wants to protect what she cares about, including her master and future wife, who, as she just said, is the Demon Lord Miryuu Maou. Oh, right. The one who executed Zekram Gremory is the aforementioned Demon Lord, so what she did was entirely legal, especially considering that he tried to kill her first. Trying to obstruct the two of us from carrying out an officially sanctioned investigation of the premises is... a very bad idea" (Lars)
"Oh, you don't have to investigate the cells any longer. We're already out. However, it's time to catch Indra Astaroth, and extract information about the rest of the radical faction from him. Hmm... this commander could be a useful information source too" (Ryuu)
***** Normal PoV, backing up a few seconds to where the normal PoV left off *****
With the splintering as a cue, I drew my swords from my earrings and cut the cell's bars open, and knocked out the dumbfounded guard. I went to the armory and impound center to regain our weapons, and then used my daggers to remove our collars, before moving to where Lars and Ver were about to barge past the commander.
"Oh, you don't have to investigate the cells any longer. We're already out. However, it's time to catch Indra Astaroth, and extract information about the rest of the radical faction from him. Hmm... this commander could be a useful information source too" (Ryuu)
I knocked him out with a thrown dagger, the pommel striking his temple beautifully. At that time, Ver shifted back to her human form, grabbed the unconscious commander, and brought him with us to Lars's place. He took charge of him, while we tried to find Indra Astaroth. It didn't take us long, as he'd actually just returned to his mansion. After I heard about that, I went over, kicked down the front door, and spoke in a loud, sing-song voice.
"I'm ba~ack!" (Ryuu)
That triggered an explosion of sound and movement, and yet, we couldn't find him. we did, however, find written evidence of his plans to hire us to kill the Demon Lord, then kill us off right after, and it included evidence that showed that Gremory was in on the whole plan. Thanks to that, and my having carved the Demon Lord's seal into his body, I could say that the Demon Lord had physical evidence of Gremory's treasonous actions, as well as that my party took action on her orders, without any of it coming up as a lie.
Once everyone had evacuated from the mansion, and we'd searched everywhere within, we decided to remove the roof to try to find hidden rooms. The best way to do that, of course, was to have Ver do it in wyvern form. Of course, the people in the city were surprised by a massive greater wyvern showing up inside the walls, and then by the fact that it destroyed the roof of a mansion before vanishing like it had never been there at all. Looking from above, we found two hidden rooms, which contained evidence of other wrongdoings, but neither contained the person we were looking for. So, she removed the ground level of the building, exposing the basement, which, surprise surprise, contained more evidence, as though we needed more than we already had. It also revealed his hiding spot, which I, daggers drawn, jumped into from above.
"Now, you are also guilty of the crimes of resisting arrest and escaping incarceration. You'll live for a nice, long time, as information is extracted from you by the best of the best. Now, this time, I'm not going to have you walk, I'm just going to knock you out and carry you" (Ryuu)
"Eh? I-" (Astaroth)
He didn't get a chance to say anything at all, as I slammed the pommel of my dagger into his skull, sheathed them both, and then, holding onto him by the back of his clothes, jumped out of the basement to the street. Ver, in human form, was waiting for me by Gremory's corpse, while she was covered by nothing but her armor and collar, which she'd manifested for some reason... oh, right, because she'd shifted, it automatically showed itself. The rest of my party was at the guild, explaining what had happened to the guildmaster, evidence in hand. However, Ver wasn't the only one waiting for me. A group of 20 or so adventurers of B rank or higher were as well, weapons drawn. They hadn't been there when the basement was uncovered by wyvern form Ver, so they hadn't seen her shift, I think. Iroh was in the front of the group, his spear the only weapon not drawn.
"Mind if I ask a few questions?" (Iroh)
"Ask away" (Ryuu)
"First and foremost, what's going on?" (Iroh)
"Well, to say it somewhat briefly, my party got a designated request of unknown content from Astaroth, and when I went to meet with him to learn more, I learned that he wanted me to assassinate someone for him, namely, the Demon Lord. With that, my party arrested him for high treason, brought him out of the building, where we were blocked and then attacked for no justifiable cause by the late general Gremory, his corpse seen at Verene's feet, and we were arrested for killing him in self defense. Astaroth was freed without even taking his statement, and hid in his residence. Things happened, and we were freed by the work of Miryuu - the Demon Lord - and tasked with catching him and obtaining further physical evidence of his crimes, the second part we did before slowly and carefully dismantling this building to search for the person we had to catch, as we had reliable information he was, in fact, inside the mansion. We found him, and that brings us to the current situation of us talking about this while I'm holding onto his unconscious form right here" (Ryuu)
Most of those in the crowd were shocked at that proclamation, including Iroh. However, nobody lowered their guard, nor their weapons. Iroh glanced towards the corpse at Ver's feet, then at Astaroth in my hand.
"That's a lot to take in... regardless, I have another few questions. My second question is what happened to the golden wyvern, and my third is as to why this girl, Verene, is wearing a slave's collar, considering that slavery is, you know, illegal. To uphold the law, I must have you free her, even if I must make you do so by force" (Iroh)
"The answer to both questions is simple. Verene isn't a human, demon, elf, high elf, dwarf, or beastkin. She's the Demon Lord's summoned beast, specifically, the eleventh divine beast, the Wyvern Lord. Care to guess what her natural form is? It's a golden wyvern... so, that collar is the mark of the summoner's contract" (Ryuu)
Just about everyone was stunned by the three facts stated, being that the sweet and kind looking Verene is the golden wyvern that showed up to wreck a building twice, that she's actually a divine beast, and that she's not my contracted beast, but the Demon Lord's.
"I... uh... Haaa... okay, now I have another question... what is the relationship between your party and the Demon Lord? You got freed by her, got a task of high importance from her, and one of your party members is a divine beast that is also contracted to her. There's gotta be more to it than just that" (Iroh)
"I mean, basically... the entire party is going to marry her. Actually, we've been looking for a name for our party, maybe 'The Demon Lord's Harem' would be a good name?" (Ryuu)