Anri was curious, why was there a book here, and why was the skeleton clutching it, furthermore, why was it calling him here? Did it want something from him? If so, what? And what was in the book? He had many questions in his mind.
Slowly he walked towards the skeleton, while his eyes were fixed on the mysterious book. Very carefully he slowly reached for the book, with a tug he pulled on it, but it didn't move a bit, it was as if it was fixed, or the skeleton was clutching it tightly and didn't want to let go. Again Anri tried to pull, and again, now he packed all his strength into it, then suddenly it flew out of the skeleton's hand and fell open on the floor.
A black smoke filled the cave as the page opened, Anri looked at the book until the smoke completely obscured his vision.
Coughing he waved it in front of his face trying to catch his breath, then a voice spoke to him.
"Be honored, you have freed me from the book, I thank you. In return you have one wish, I will give you anything you desire."
Anri was skeptical at first, he didn't know the voice. He looked in the direction the voice came from to see if he could see outlines of a person, however he recognized absolutely nothing in the smoke.
"Who are you?"
He asked, it all seemed strange and he was not sure what to do, if Vaelus were here Anri would first ask him for advice, but now he was alone, without power and without knowledge.
"Well, it's not that important who I am, but if you really want to know, I am the Demon King."
Anri's eyes widened, standing before him was the arch enemy of his idol and to this Anri had freed him, he was ashamed of this, his curiosity had caused him to commit a great sin. It was clear to him how he could straighten this out.
"I wish for you to be sealed again!"
He shouted loudly, pretending to be brave, at the same time he was very afraid, if it was indeed the Demon King, then he could simply wipe Anri out, furthermore there was no guarantee that Anri's wish would actually be granted.
The Demon King yawned, then the mist began to glow.
"Your wish is my command."
The mistake Anri made was not being clear, which is why the Demon King sealed himself inside the book rather than inside himself.
Suddenly purple little demon horns poked out of Anri's head and wings unfolded inside his t-shirt, his eyes started changing color, ending in dark blue, for Anri this transformation hurt like hell and then he got a headache too, Out of nowhere memories of the Demon King rushed into Anri's head, the battle against the hero, how the He was sealed and how his last subordinate managed to escape despite serious injuries and hide the sealed book, this book that Anri had opened could only be unsealed by humans.
It seemed as if fate had made Anri walk through the forest at that moment while the seal was weak. It was almost as if the two had been mixed together during the sealing.
Then suddenly Anri's eyes went black.
When he wakes up again, he looks around, at first he thinks he had dreamed everything, but then he saw the book on the floor, slowly he approached it and opened it, there was a foreign language written in it, which he actually could not understand, but then he suddenly knew it anyway, because it was the demon script, which the demon king had known well, in the book he found various spells, which he read through one after the other.
["Do you feel the power yet?"]
The Demon King's deep voice sounded, but not in the room as before, it was more like he was haunting Anri's thoughts.
"Where are you?"
Answered Anri after being momentarily startled.
["Inside you, I want to see what kind of havoc a boy can make with such power, show me"].
Anri didn't answer, he had gotten his answer, so the Demon King continued to be in his head. He grabbed his forehead more slowly, where he then noticed the horns, he slowly stroked them.
"I can't go to any town like this, and I can't even go home".
He spoke to himself, where he was also right, everyone would think he was an evil demon who only used Anri's body, no one would believe his word. Although the statement was not addressed to the demon king, the latter gave Anri a hint:
["Well, if that's the problem, why don't you create a robe out of my magic?"].
"I can use your magic? How do I do that?"
["Just repeat after me, I'll tell you the spell"].
Anri was very naive, he had just gotten his magic, the demon king might as well say a spell now that kills everything and everyone, and Anri wouldn't notice.
He just wondered how he could use this power, at the academy they would hardly accept someone who looked like a demon, furthermore he had just been rejected. But how could he be a hero to the people with this power? He pondered this while the demon king recited the spell.
["effahcsre ebor"]
"effahcsre ebor"
Out of nowhere, threads of mana came out of his fingers and created a black robe, which Anri immediately put on, it wasn't particularly beautiful, but served the purpose of hiding his horns and wings.
"Even like this, I can't go back to my village ... Or should I spend the rest of my life wearing a mask? I should go after the old man, if I'm not mistaken should be in the direction the capital...."
Anri was sad, first he had to say goodbye to Vaelus and now he couldn't go home either, he pocketed the Demon King's book and now he strode out of the cave, he came in as a human and as a demon he left it again, he went back to the point where he and the old merchant had parted but instead of taking the way home he took the one towards the capital without having any plan at all what he was going to do there.
The road to the capital led through a ravine, it was full of boulders and quite winding, out of nowhere Anri suddenly heard many people talking, he did not understand exactly what, but he had a pretty bad feeling about the matter, he hid behind a huge stone and looked behind it to the people.
They were all standing around a horse-drawn wagon carrying weapons, apparently they were robbers, when he looked closely he noticed it was the wagon of the old merchant who was standing tied up next to the wagon.
There were about 12 robbers, two of them kept going into the carriage to carry out goods.
Anri realized he had to return the favor that the old man had given him a ride. Without making a deal with the demon king, he took out the book and opened a page, this one apparently had fire magic as its subject, or so Anri thought. He used the very first spell that was written.
"Ennos eseiw"
A white ball of flames appeared on Anri's hand, drawing the attention of the robbers as well. The boss of the robbers saw this too and reacted in shock.
"Who are you?!"
Anri, on the other hand, did not answer the question, but lashed out with the fireball.
"Make you way!"
Anri shouted boldly at the robbers, but secretly he was filled with fear himself and was sweating extremely.
The boss of the robbers looked incredulously at Anri and widened his eyes.
"Retreat!"
He yelled out, and he didn't even have to do that, because his men were already fleeing, it wasn't long before there was no sign of them.
The demon king liked how Anri scared the robbers away, not because they were evil, but because he had threatened them with death.
Then Anri made the white ball disappear and slowly walked to the old gentleman who did not recognize Anri and undid his shackles, when Anri asked the merchant if he was alright, the merchant recognized Anri.
"You, what are you doing here?"
Anri did not answer, he again played dumb as when they had ridden together, he only bowed to the merchant and disappeared into the corners of the canyon.
On the rest of the way Anri did not find any problems. He was already marching for a very long time when he saw the capital, so probably the next day had already dawned, he could have used his wings, however he did not know how to use them. When he could finally see the wall, he slowly approached it and went to the gate.
The capital was huge and surrounded by the massive and high wall, it protected the citizens from the monsters of the outside world. In front of the gate there were many guards who guarded the capital.
Suddenly, the demon king speaks in Anri's head to give a warning to Anri.
["Easy with the young horses boy ... If you come closer like this, they will identify you as a monster because of your aura."]
Anri was confused, because he didn't even know there was anything wrong with his aura.
"What about my aura?"
["You inherited my mana, so you inherited my aura. In order for them not to disown you, you just have to do something very simple: You have to hide your aura, to do that you just have to be able to control your mana."]
"Wait what? You do know that yesterday was the first time I used magic?"
["You got a point there ... you're going to have to learn to control mana willy-nilly. For now, you can forget about going to the capital. But first you need to sleep, you must be tired."]
There was something to that, Anri had had a long day, and even his first as a demon, that was pretty exhausting, Anri was tired and worn out, slowly he walked towards the next forest. He had no plan where he could sleep.
Anri walked further and further into the forest and then eventually arrived at a quiet spot in it, he spread his hands and cast the same spell he had used to create the robe to create himself a hammock from his mana.
"effahcsre ebor"
The hammock spread out under the moonlight between two trees and began to sway in the wind.
Tired Anri climbed into the hammock and lay down in it, he took a deep breath and spoke to the demon king
"Why are you doing all this? I am not the right one to create chaos. You should have called someone else."
["You will find out soon enough, be patient."]
Anri couldn't get these words out of his mind, why was the Demon King doing this? Why would he give a random citizen his powers? And why should he help him as well? Shouldn't he be more concerned with making everyone miserable, more concerned with being free? He didn't understand the world anymore.
With all these questions, Anri slowly fell asleep while watching the beautiful night sky.
He dreamed of how he would have been accepted to the Heroes Academy and Vaelus and he could have become heroes together, of the adventures they could have had, it was a peaceful dream for him, which could have gone on forever, but then it was already morning.
["Get up, you have no time to sleep, today you will learn your mana control."]
Spoke the demon king to Anri when he was still half asleep, he opened his eyes tiredly and looked around, he was disappointed that his dream was not reality. He yawned tiredly before answering the Demon King incredulously:
"In one day?"
He wasn't sure if mana control could be learned just like that and then in one day, yes he had more power by now, but still it had taken him over 2 years to even cast magic, furthermore he didn't even have a plan on how to control his mana. His self-confidence was still non-existent. The Demon King, on the other hand, while Anri had been asleep, had thought about how he could teach Anri to control his mana.
["Well, do you remember the feeling when you created the hammock? The feeling of your mana flowing into your fingers and becoming silk? You need to memorize that feeling and shift it to other parts of your body, imagine trying to make the silk come out of your foot."]
That's exactly what Anri tried to do, he tried to remember how he created the hammock yesterday, he thought of the strange feeling he had when he did it, which felt like he was throwing something, he took that feeling and tried to transfer it to his legs, it was difficult, after all you don't throw anything with your foot. Then he cast the familiar spell:
"effahcsre ebor"
But this time something strange happened, namely nothing at all. Anri looked around confused, after all it had worked before.
"Why didn't anything happen?"
Anri asked the demon king in his head, after all, as a learned magician, he should know what had happened.
["Mhh, it seems like you didn't focus enough on the legs and your mana got pulled back and forth between the legs and the arms. Try to let go of the arms completely and just stay with the legs."]
"But I did...."
Anri was about to say that he had already done that, but then the Demon King interrupted him.
["You must think as if you have no arms, you must absolutely not think of anything else."]
Anri took a deep breath, then collected himself and focused completely on his legs, everything around him fell silent and he recited the spell again:
"effahcsre ebor"
This time it was different from just now, around his legs wrapped strings of mana which gathered at Anri's feet, creating a blanket there.
"I did it!"
Exclaimed Anri, he thought that was all he needed to know and already full of joy to the capital.
["Exactly ... Now gather your mana in your heart and then repeat after me."]
When the Demon King said that, Anri realized that it was going on, he liked to learn and also saw a purpose in learning mana control, yet he would like to have contact with humans again.
"Ok"
Anri was confused and unsure if he understood what he was supposed to do, but he had to go through it now, or should he live the rest of his life beyond humans and not be able to control his mana? He would never find peace, nor be able to help any person, determinedly he looked into the air as the Demon King recited the spell.
["nekcetsrev"]
"nekcetsrev"
Anri imagined the mana turning to silk and wrapping around his heart, like some sort of sheath, until his mana had completely gathered at his heart. Now uncertain after all, Anri asks the demon king.
"Did I do that right?"
["Very good.... This should hide your aura from the guards for now, but be careful, especially strong people can still sense you."]
With the spell as a cover, Anri walked towards the gate, he walked slowly towards the gate and smiled kindly at the guards, he tried not to let on anything, which didn't work so well, because he even started shaking from nervousness.
Fortunately for Anri, there were a lot of people on their way to the capital at that time and he stood out only a little in the masses moving towards the city, he went through the gate.
While going through the gate, he took a good look around, he had never been in such a big city, even if the capital was not far away, it had never been worth coming here, or so they thought. Anri would gladly share this view with Vaelus, in the center is the great castle of the king, around it live the citizens and at each corner of the capital can be found a huge church, the capital was built strictly according to a plan, all houses were arranged in parallel streets.
Behind the gate, which Anri now passed, they found themselves at a marketplace, which ended directly at the guild house, Anri had already heard a lot about the guild house, adventurers come here every day to take orders and kill monsters of any kind, when there were still demons, many of the adventurers were even specialized in these, but after the end of the war they had to look for something else.
To become an adventurer, you just have to sign up, every adventurer starts at rank F, these ranks can be increased by completing missions, up to A, if the hero was an adventurer he would surely be assigned a rank of his own, Anri thought.
That's when Anri got the idea of what he could do, he could help people as an adventurer and become a hero. He became cheerful, indeed no adventurer became a hero yet, but there would always be a first time.
Loaded with euphoria, Anri goes for the door of the guild and tears it open full blast. This immediately draws the attention of every adventurer to Anri, who finds this very unpleasant.
He slowly walks up to the counter and is greeted by a friendly old lady who appears to work at the guild.
"Good day, sir, what can I do for you?"
Asked the lady Anri, who still seems uncomfortable with the looks in the guild. However, he did not break under the stares, but only became a little nervous.
"I would like to register as an adventurer."
He just glanced at the lady who reached under the counter and pulled out a form, it was quite similar to the one from the Hero Academy, but this time Anri could choose the magic type: Creation Magic
This was the only magic he could do so far, surely there would be more magic types in the book, but for now he wanted to focus on creation magic.
Creation magic, as the name suggests, is magic that is used to create items such as weapons, clothes and more, there are not very many who specialize in this magic.
Just as he is about to give the form to the old lady, a girl about Anri's age comes up behind him with a long knife drawn and holds it to Anri's throat.
"Who are you!"
She shouted in Anri's face, which realized what was going on, the girl had been able to sense his aura. She attracted all the attention in the guild, so the other adventurers were watching what was happening, some even had their hands on their weapons already to make sure maybe they could do something, Anri was hoping for help, which didn't come at that moment for now. She was just about Anri's age, but still stronger than all the other adventurers in the room, who didn't seem to feel the aura.