"Vermeil?" Vance called.
"Mmh? Hello..." The heroine muttered, still half asleep on the ground.
The hero of cleansing rain could not believe the sight in front of him.
He'd gone to look for Vermeil earlier this morning to discuss something and was surprised to see she was not in her tent.
He scoured the entire camp for her and was surprised to find her in the same tent as the one the prisoners were in, sleeping deeply on the ground.
For a moment, he believed the captives might have killed her somehow but he soon heard Vermeil muttering something in her sleep about being on a farm with fluffy animals.
Vance briefly noticed the captives were all huddled together in a corner sleeping silently as well. Near them, there was a plate of chicken bones and other remnants of food.
'Did she feed them too?'
"Come outside for a moment please." Vance asked.
By this point Vermeil had already remembered the events of last night and scrambled up to talk to her mentor.
Once the two were a fair distance away from the camp, Vance whirled around to face his young mentee. "Vermeil... what were you doing in the tent with those fallen??"
Vermeil's expression became unfriendly as she replayed the scene from last night. "I saved one of them from being molested by one of your drunken idiots!"
The hero's gaze immediately became serious. "Truly? Don't joke about such a thing,"
"Do I look like I'm joking to you, Vance? One of your men was trying to force himself on the werewolf girl and he would've if I didn't bury my foot between his ass cheeks!"
"Idiot..." Vance growled as his eyes glowed bright blue. "I've expressly told them they are forbidden from using high-level captives like that."
Initially, Vermeil was glad to see Vance was as upset as she was, but her joy was soon replaced by disbelief. "Only high-level ones? They shouldn't do that to anyone!"
Vance had seemingly forgotten that Vermeil was new and sighed as he brought his hand to his head. "Look Vermeil... In our old world that is certainly a reprehensible act but here it's only considered to be that way if it's committed against another member of the races of light."
Vermeil's heart sank to the bottom of her shoes.
As her world felt like it was spinning, Vance continued to explain.
"But my men know they aren't supposed to touch one of the noble fallen! The king finds the act of interspecies sex reprehensible even if it is just to relieve one's lust. So when we bring captives to be executed at the capital, they are supposed to remain untouched."
The hero finally noticed Vermeil's face was growing paler by the second and she was struggling to remain upright.
"I know it's a big shock and it can take a lot of getting used to but once you're around for ten or twenty years it won't even bother you. Hell, by the time you reach the overlord realm you'll have a 1,000 year lifespan! That's plenty of time for you to come to terms with-"
"Are you fucking insane?! You think I'll just 'come to terms' with women being violated and everyone being okay with it?!"
"I-It's not just women, Vermeil. If you find a fallen man you're aroused by then you're free to-"
"What the fuck kind of person do you think I am?!" Vermeil screamed, teary eyed.
She couldn't believe this.
The fallen were supposedly the evil ones, yet the humans were forcing themselves on them and acting like it was no big deal?
This wasn't the kind of thing she had signed up for!
Vance sighed and decided that they weren't going to get anywhere like this.
"I'm going to go and find the one responsible. We can skip training this morning." The sound of his armor clattering as he walked away echoed in Vermeil's red ears.
'This is insane!'
Suddenly, a sinister thought wormed into Vermeil's mind as she clamored back to her feet.
"Vance!!"
The hero turned around to see his mentee giving him a hateful glare with her fists balled up.
"I'm only going to ask you one time... Have you ever done that to someone?"
The silence was deafening, but it was all Vermeil needed to hear.
For the first time, something inside of the human girl snapped and her eyes began to glow with a golden light.
"Disgusting bastard..." Vermeil's fists began to glow as bright as miniature stars and she instinctively held out her hands in front of her. "All of you are so fucking filthy... I can't believe I was actually going to fight for any of you."
Vance's eyes widened as Vermeil's angered words sank in. "You-"
"Cleansing starlight."
A ball of gaseous, golden fire left from Vermeil's hands and shot directly towards Vance. She was too angry to realize that she'd just used her first bit of arcane since she'd come to this world and as a result had officially become a one star mage.
At this moment, that didn't even matter.
All that she cared about was inflicting pain unto the man in front of her whom she no longer considered to be human.
Vance sighed before he moved at an inhuman speed and delivered a swift chop on the back of her neck.
Vermeil's world immediately went dark as she slumped over unconscious.
He caught her before her body could fully fall to the ground, but he sighed when he realized the gravity of what had just happened.
Never before had a hero rejected the races of light and declared their intention not to fight in the war.
He didn't know what he was supposed to do with her.
His only option now was to take her to the king and have him decide what should be done.
"This is unfortunate... you were really like a younger sister to me, Vermeil." He muttered as he carried her towards the tent where they were keeping the rest of the prisoners.
The beast girls were slightly alarmed to see that the girl who had been so kind to them the night before unconscious and being carried by the man who was responsible for capturing them.
Vance lowered Vermeil onto the ground beside them and ignored the growls he was receiving from Kuro.
After sealing Vermeil's cultivation he grabbed a spare set of shackles and locked her slender wrists in.
He made sure to leave her body on the opposite side of the tent so that she could not be touched by the fallen opposite her.
Before leaving the tent, he gagged the girl's mouths once again. "I don't need you poisoning that girl's mind with any of your nonsense."
When he tried to gag Kuro however, she left forward and bit his hand as hard as she could muster. Unfortunately, the skin of a venerable realm cultivator is not so easily pierced, much less by someone whose cultivation is being forcibly suppressed.
Even though it didn't hurt, Vance still didn't take too kindly to being bitten.
Smack!
A hard slap filled Kuro's mouth with blood and nearly knocked her unconscious as well.
"MMH!"
"HMPH!"
Both Keran and Kohaku screamed in anger at seeing their friend and sister struck.
Vance however cared nothing for their outbursts as he continued to tie up the tiger kin's mouth. "That was her own doing. If she had sat quietly, I would never have hit her."
The hero stood up and left the tent without another word. He needed to prepare his men to head back to the kingdom for Keran's execution.
And he had to come up with some sort of explanation for why the twelfth hero would be suddenly traveling with the captives.