I just realised that both Allenya and Alex were carrying their weapons. Allenya had her sabres and Alex had his sword. I could sort of guess why.
They had no way of telling if I would or would not be followed. Also, the possibility existed that I myself would have attacked them after spending a certain amount of time in hell.
This was probably also the reason why I was summoned outside of the stone city.
All of them were looking anxiously at the statues in front of the entrance of the tunnel when I passed through. Even I was really nervous this time. I let my tail wag from left to right, much like when I first entered the stone city.
I had killed a man without regret just a while ago. Even though I still had no ill will against Agartha, I could tell that I had changed after making a connection with hell. I was not sure if the fake komainu would see me as a threat or not.
Eventually the presence of the second komainu left my mind without even the slightest change within the statue itself.
Everyone let a sigh of relief. But the dwarf kept looking at me with a suspicious glare even when everyone had passed through. I shrugged it off and kept walking. I was confident that if it was urgent, he would tell me.
I could hear how Alex accelerated his steps to walk next to me. He nearly tripped over a rock due to being almost bind in this darkness.
"You should know better than to run when you barely can see. Didn't anyone bring a torch or something?"
"Originally, yes. We did bring torches. But someone miscalculated for how long they would last!" Allenya replied in an unamused tone.
To which Alex blurted out. "Well none of you checked! So, it is also partially your fault!"
I shook my head. ("Yea, I'm truly glad to be back.")
with that I spit out some flames and controlled them with magic, so they kept floating next to me when I was walking.
Of course, Allenya nearly shoved her face in the fire when she tried to observe it.
"Wow, you can really breath fire now! that is so cool!"
I grinned. "yes, I can. But truth to be told, keeping it from disappearing is a lot harder than simply breathing fire."
Alex also cam close to the small flame that was hovering next to me.
"Is it real fire? Will I burn my hand if I touch it?!"
"Yes, it is real fire, and of course will you burn your hand whin you try touching it!"
Yohan turned to Elisa. "Did you teach him how to control fire?"
She simply shook her head to clarify that she did not teach me that.
We continued to walk in silence, but after a while of walking Alex suddenly spoke out. "can you please turn the fire down a little?"
"…yes. Why?"
"Nothing much. I just want to check something."
Slowly I lessened the amount of magic that I fed the flame to keep it burning. This ultimately led to the flame shrinking and while I could still see clearly, the others were once again surrounded by darkness. The flame, now at the size of a candlelight failed to illuminate more than a few rocks that would potentially endanger their path. I tried to shift it from rock to rock to make sure that the others knew where they would need to watch their steps.
"So, I was right!"
"right about what?" I asked in confusion. ("What did he need to check when he can barely see?")
"Your eyes. They are glowing!"
"Wait what!? When did that happen?" ("Well, I shouldn't be surprised about things like this anymore. It appears that this body keeps changing, especially when I grow stronger.")
I slowly made the flame brighter again so that Alex wouldn't actually trip. But it was also a passive attempt to shift their attention from my eyes.
After hell I realised how strong demons could be and what kind of destruction they could bring. I might have lost everyone I cared about in the past due to them. but, since I am one now, I could harness the same power as them, if not greater due to the mark. With that I could prevent them from taking anyone from me again. so, I was a little more okay with being a demon than before.
However, it was all just going so fast and I still needed some time to fully accept it. This made that I didn't want to hear how much I was changing in such a short period of time. Afterall, it had only been a few months.
Then I felt someone tapping my arm. I looked over. It was the dwarf who was looking at me from under his thick eyebrows.
"Can I have a word with you?"
I nodded and signalled to the five broken humans to keep walking, they hesitated at first but after Noah took the lead to keep going forward the rest followed. I let my flame float a few meters in front of the group so they wouldn't fall and break their neck or something.
When the dwarf and I had fallen around twenty meters behind he whispered.
"What have you one?"
I tilted my head, "What do you mean?"
The dwarf crossed his arms and stared me deep in my eyes. What should be rather easy right now.
"Back at the entrance you were incredibly nervous or really excited. But I doubt that you had anything to really be that excited about. So, you must have done something back in the demon realm that made you doubt if you were still worthy enough to be allowed to enter the tunnel. What was it?"
I bit my lip to the point where it was bleeding. As usual it took only a few seconds to heal. I no longer dared to look directly at the dwarf.
"I… I killed someone. A human. And I don't even feel bad about it. It… just feels so weird. It was my first time actually killing a human. not just waiting until he died, but actually killing him. Jet I don't feel anything about it. I… I should feel something right?! Why don't I feel anything about that?"
The dwarf sighed while shaking his head. "It is actually a miracle that you had come this far without killing someone. Don't worry about it kid during these times, it is more rare to find a person who didn't kill someone before.
Now let's catch up with the others again."