"My name is Anri ..."
He said a bit anxiously, before the lady from the guild walks between them and directs the girl to her corner.
"Say, are you still alright? Why are you just threatening a new adventurer? You're never like this, Neve! Let him go."
Overwhelmed, Neve, the girl, releases Anri, who first takes a deep breath and turns to Neve. Neve, however, tried to continue talking to the lady from the guild.
"Don't you notice!!? That can't be a human! His aura is literally telling it!"
Well, she wasn't that wrong either, a human could hardly have such an aura, and after all, Anri wasn't a human by now either, he had to get used to that now.
"Don't argue with me! Apologize to him right now! You're not a child anymore, so don't act like one!"
Admonished the lady Neve, who only looked annoyed at Anri and continued to suspect him, it was only logical that Anri said nothing, he was a bit overwhelmed by the situation, just a moment ago he was threatened for his life and now the girl should apologize.
Neve on the other hand knew exactly what she was doing, she just looked at him stubbornly, she didn't want to believe that Anri was human, however she couldn't disagree with the lady from the guild, she had always been like a mother to Neve, however she didn't want to give in either.
"I'll keep an eye on you"
She said bluntly to Anri while pointing her index finger at his chest.
Then the demon king in Anri's head reports to Anri.
["Kill her, she threatened you."]
Anri, who had been momentarily frightened by the voice, now realized again that yes, it was the Demon King in his head. Anri's personality was weak, but he would not kill a stranger from a simple command. Which is why he only responds with an insult towards the Demon King.
"Are you stupid?"
Though all around him could not hear the Demon King, his voice rang through the guild, still a majority of the adventurers in the guild looked to Anri and Neve, the latter turned angrily, fist clenched, looking down at him, she had thought Anri meant her, she was about to kill Anri then an adventurer intervened, he was wearing dazzling golden armor and carrying a long sword, admonishingly he held out his hand to Neve.
"Excuse my party member, it is not proper to threaten strangers."
He looked deep into Neve's eyes and then looked to Anri.
"Your actions are understanding, I ask you to forgive her."
Overwhelmed Anri just nodded while looking at the shimmering adventurer, he also had the potential to be a hero, however he seemed to enjoy his life as an adventurer.
The adventurer, now that the dispute was settled, spoke to Anri
"My name is Ragnar, I hope this settles the dispute between you. Goodbye stranger."
The party of Ragnar and Neve apparently consisted of 3 other adventurers standing on the sidelines, Ragnar and Neve thus turned them around and walked to them, Neve casting an evil glance at Anri.
By now the adventurers in the guild had stopped following what was happening and were concentrating on themselves again.
Anri turned to the lady from the guild and handed in the form, the lady from the guild then said to Anri.
"Thank you very much. I hope you could forgive Neve, she's been going through a rough patch lately, her brother went missing on a mission and she's living all alone now."
Anri felt a little sorry for her, he is now alone too, he felt something similar after being separated from Vaelus, he had looked at him like a brother and he was there for him in every situation in life, but now he was no longer with him either and Anri was alone, he didn't wish this on anyone, not even Neve who had threatened his life a few minutes ago.
Anri only said understandingly to the guild lady
"It's not a problem, I understand, I went through something similar too."
But just then he wanted to change the subject, because he would like to get his first assignment over with now.
"Do you have any assignments for me yet?"
Anri asked the lady while she gave him his guild card, it was like a kind of ID card, with any information about Anri on it and big on the front was his rank, rank F, of course he would start at the bottom and Anri thought that was good, he had enough time to move up the ranks, so better slowly but surely. The lady from the guild searched under the counter for orders and then actually pulled one out.
"You need to go into the forest and get 10 healing herbs of the Dark Forest, for this you need to go deep into the forest. The reward is 35 coppers."
While the lady gave Anri this information, she showed a sketch of what this medicinal herb looked like, it is much more like a flower with red leaves, Anri thought back to the night he had spent in the forest, there were flowers like this scattered everywhere, and for such an order there should be 35 coppers? 35 coppers was not too much, but it was enough to rent a room in an inn for 3 days.
"I'll take that one!"
He said happily and quickly went towards the exit, not noticing that the lady had some information to share.
When he arrived in the dark forest it was already afternoon and he went in the direction where he had spent the night and indeed, there were these medicinal herbs everywhere. He immediately kneels down and starts picking the herbs, one by one he packed them, he was already picking the eighth herb when he saw a huge footprint in front of him, this footprint had crushed several herbs, Anri could conclude that the footprint is fresh because all the herbs had not withered yet. Anri he had less desire to spend his time with a monster, so he quickly picks the two more herbs and already wants to run away, however, he took too long.
The heavy footsteps of a monster moved towards Anri, but before the monster appears, Ragnar and Neve come running out of the forest towards him, absolutely nothing can be seen of the 3 other members of their party. What can be seen however is the giant bear following the two closely, it had been carrying traces of a fight with it, but these seemed to matter relatively little to it. The bear was more than three times the size of Anri himself, who could only see the three running towards him in shock. Then Ragnar shouted only to Anri
"Run boy! You don't stand a chance against him!"
Ragnar turned around and swung his sword at the bear's mouth, which stopped it by biting it with its teeth. Ragnar just yells to the two.
"Flee! I'll stop him!"
But Anri didn't move a bit, he was strong, wasn't he? Wasn't he? Why should he flee now, even though he was so strong? He had hardly any self-confidence, but he still didn't want to run away, in order to become a hero after all, he would have to overcome his comfort zone, he knew that too. While Neve was long gone and Ragnar was holding up the bear, Anri slowly pulled out the Demon King's book, he flipped through for creation magic and actually found an interesting attack.
"reroetsrezanam"
From his whole body mana flowed into the air and gathered there into a huge spike that could be seen even from the capital, there they thought this was an attack from another kingdom and they locked the gates, furthermore all the guards went into position and all the adventurers were gathered to protect the city, a huge commotion was made. The bear lashed out with his claws and boxed Ragnar away, who flew into a tree and fainted. Then Anri fired the huge spike, which disintegrated the bear into its parts, leaving a huge crater.
When Anri had made sure that the bear was dead, which wasn't hard to do since there was absolutely nothing left of it. He quickly went to Ragnar, desperate Anri leafed through the Demon King's book for healing.
["You will find nothing, healing is a work of humans, we demons on the other hand see no purpose in this magic."]
After the Demon King told this to Anri, he did not hesitate and took Ragnar on his back, he would need urgent help if he were to survive.
With Ragnar on his back, Anri ran towards the gate, which was locked, desperately knocking against it, calling over and over again.
"Let us in, we have an injured man!"
Without answer. From Neve nothing to see they remained without help, until Soth, the old merchant on his carriage came towards the gate, this had made a detour in a suburb, before he wanted to go to the capital. He too was now standing in front of the closed gate and saw the desperate Anri with Ragnar on his back.
Soth did not waste any time and took out a glass bottle with a red liquid, with this bottle in his hand he went to the two and poured it into Ragnar, it seems like a miracle that the wounds healed immediately. They packed the injured man into the carriage and sat down.
Anri spent the wait talking to the demon king, Anri wanted to find out more about the demons, furthermore he wanted to test a way to communicate with the demon king without others noticing.
("Why do demons find healing magic useless?").
Thought Anri, and indeed, the Demon King could read his mind, he just laughed out loud in his mind when Anri found this way of communication.
["We demons felt that healing magic was useless, since our mana could heal us quickly without a spell, and even if we died, we would be reborn, I however, have never died."]
Anri realized for the first time at that moment that the Demon King had never been properly defeated.
("What actually happened during your fight against the hero?").
Anri knew the Demon King's memories, but snippets of the memories of that day when the Demon King had fought the hero seemed sketchy, as if the Demon King did not want Anri to know those memories.
The Demon King heaved a sigh of relief at this question, he himself saw it differently than Anri, that evening he was defeated from his point of view.
["Well, it was already late when my castle in the depths of the underworld was attacked by the hero, with ease he defeated one of my guards after another, only on me he had problems, however, he had lured me into a trap, he made me work magic until my mana was weakened and his strong enough to banish me to my own book. Well, actually he was going to put me under strict surveillance, but luckily for me one of my guards was still alive, he ran to take the book and snatched it away in front of the hero, the hero tried to prevent the escape, but he too bore damage from the fight, and could no longer do so."]
Anri looked against the closed gate.
("Will you now remain in me forever?")
["I'm not allowed to answer that."]
Anri didn't like the answer at all, why wasn't the demon king allowed to tell him?
("Where is the underworld then?")
["Well, the underworld is thousands of meters below your feet and there is only one access to this realm for humans, a cave in the depths of a mountain in the north of the capital, the cave goes deep into the ground, so it takes a whole month on foot to finally arrive in the underworld, while we demons already have it much better, we possess a bracelet with which we can teleport to the castle, the hero knew that too, which is why he took it off a demon and used it to reach the castle."]
Anri found this very interesting to say the least, would he ever see the underworld? Did it still exist at all, or had the hero sealed it, as well as he had sealed the demon king.
("What's the deal with your book?")
["My book is the book of the demon kings, it has already been passed down from generation to generation, so even spells from the very first demon king are in it, some spells are easy to cast and require no training, but there are also those that require years of work, such as those of the first demon king, his spells are a mystery even to us and except for the first demon king no one understood how they worked."]
It pleased Anri to have learned more about the mysterious book, much of what the Demon King said had long been forgotten by the people, so most only knew the current Demon King.
("Who was this first demon king anyway?").
Anri was curious, he thought the Demon King would know many things, but he had to think about what he knew about the first Demon King himself.
["Well, the first demon king had created us, at first he was a powerful mage whose mana had changed his body, but shortly after his children also developed the same characteristics and so the demons were created, but the demons were not accepted by the humans and so they were cast out, from dislike they found no place to stay until they came across the underworld, during that time most demons changed more into monsters, which is why I'm surprised you still have human on you, I suppose with the very first demon king it was also triggered by a foreign mana . .."]
Interested, Anri continues to listen to the Demon King and he would like to learn more about the Demons, but that's when the gates opened again and a horde of guards rushed out to guard the entrance, so his attention switched to them as well.
When the gates opened as well, they drove the carriage forward to the marketplace, where Anri dismounted and put Ragnar back on his back and again thanked the old merchant with a bow, he had already helped him the second time, though of course Anri had already made up for the first time.
As Anri made his way to the guild with Ragnar he heard people all over town talking about the incident in the forest, it was THE topic of conversation and in this town there were only 3 people who really knew what had happened, Anri himself, Ragnar and Neve, where Anri thought about it, where was Neve anyway? This question was answered faster than Anri would have liked because when he opened the door to the guild he saw Neve sitting at a table, in front of her was a huge mug which was half full of beer, the other half was already drunk, she looked at Anri with Ragnar and then she turned her gaze back to her beer, she didn't even understand at first that they were both still alive, then she looked again and only then realized it, she widened her eyes incredulously and ran to Ragnar to take him from Anri.
"How?"
Asked Neve, she had already declared both dead when they did not enter the city before the gate was closed. She was grateful to Anri for saving Ragnar, but now her suspicion that something was wrong with Anri was growing stronger, but in order not to be rude or incur the anger of the lady from the guild again, she remained silent. Slowly, Anri put Ragnar down on a bench.
"You should still visit a healer."
Now the feat was accomplished for Anri and he left the drunken Neve alone with Ragnar while he went to the guild lady and dropped off the healing herbs.
"That's enough. Please wait here a moment while I get your reward."
The guild lady took out a sack of 35 coppers and handed them to Anri.
"I'll need your guild card then."
Anri didn't know why, but he handed it to the lady, who held it under a magic device and then handed it back to Anri.
The latter looked at it, everything appeared to him as before, name, magic and everything else remained the same, then he saw what was new, instead of the big F there was now a big D on the card.
"For saving the life of human you get promoted from F to D."
Explained the lady, while pointing to Ragnar, who by now was being assessed by a healer, who had been fetched by Neve. Neve had probably told everything that happened to the lady from the guild when Anri and Ragnar disappeared.
"Thank you."
It had gotten dark outside and Anri would have to sleep somewhere again, so he asked the lady for advice.
"Do they know where there is an inn around here?"
The guild lady pulls out a key from under the counter.
"For our members we have rooms upstairs to provide, one night would cost them 5 coppers."
Anri considers for a moment before agreeing and placing the bag of coppers back on the table
"Then I would like to book one for the next 7 days."
The guild lady handed Anri the key and told him his room number, tired he walked up the stairs to his room and unlocked it.
Anri was surprised, it was not comparable to the room in the hero academy, this room in the guild was much bigger, it had a big bed, a kitchen and its own bathroom, even in the orphanage Anri didn't have so much space, he took off his clothes and just fell into bed, after which he fell asleep.
The next morning he started his morning routine again, he trained hard and then he was going to eat breakfast, however he noticed that he didn't feel hungry, where he thought about it, since he became a demon he had hardly eaten anything.
["Demons don't feel hunger, your body uses mana to function, therefore it is unnecessary to eat anything."]
This actually made sense to Anri, which is why he didn't eat anything.
Just as he was about to leave the room, there was a loud knock on the door. Anri didn't know who it was? Had someone figured out that it was him in the forest? Anri actually hadn't noticed, but he was subconsciously worrying all the time that someone would have noticed him today.