The quest we accepted was about taking the heroes to the demon king.
We had been working in the fortress city for a long time, because we accepted a designated quest, when we received a new request.
I honestly thought it was a pain, but the reward being offered got my fellow party members excited, and we ended up accepting it by majority vote.
There was also the fact that they accepted a lot of our requests in the fortress city too. Apparently their expectations in terms of rewards had been growing.
To be honest, I heard rumors about demons being strong, but only from low ranks. Some said demons were absolute monsters too, but I was pretty confident we could shove our feet up those so-called monsters too. That’s just what S ranked adventurers are like.
We were a party of seven, but if we combined our strengths, we could even hunt a dragon. We actually did beat an earth dragon in the empire’s dungeon.
When I first met them, I just thought they looked so young, but once we faced off, I thought ‘is this the power of heroes’.
The youngest boy talked and acted weird, and felt like he was all talk.
As for the tall man with the gaudy head, I felt more power coming from the sword hanging from his waist. Some of my party members had their eyes light up when they looked at him, and I really didn’t want them to start any weird trouble.
The one that creeped me out the most was the woman in armor. I couldn’t tell what her face was like because she was wearing a mask, but she moved without a single wasted movement, and there were no openings in her posture.
I wasn’t too happy with my fellow party member whistling at her nice figure either, but we just had different sensibilities. Seriously, so many people from the empire are vulgar. There was no denying their power though, and when a battle started, I felt like I could count on them.
Afterwards, we moved out as a detached force, and entered the dark forest.
The main force was drawing monsters to them, but suffice to say, not all of them. We ended up encountering and taking down monsters a few times.
Some of them were superior species too, and when I let some monsters reach the heroes to test their strength, they didn’t disappoint.
The gaudy-headed man and the woman honestly felt like they were as strong as us, or more.
Especially the man… Naoto, I think. The moment he drew his sword, it was like he changed into a different person.
The woman didn’t say a single word unless she had to, and kept killing monsters. The way she handled her spear made me tremble a little. The same went for the rest of my party, who watched how they fought closely.
The knights accompanying us complained about us causing the heroes trouble, but it was important to test how strong they were.
This repeated a few more times as we went through the dark forest, until we finally reached our goal, the demon king’s castle.
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Apparently the main force was pretty close too, but they were acting as a diversion.
First they attacked the demon king’s castle, and after some time, we would snuck in.
That was when I got to see demons fight from afar. They didn’t seem all that threatening.
Oh, there was an S ranked adventurer from the empire that worked alone. I forgot his name, but he was pretty good. Watching him run wild confirmed to me that demons really weren’t that big a deal.
But then, one of the heroes, a boy, surprised me by running towards the demons.
I rushed to stop him, but when I saw his eyes as he glared at a demon, I gulped. How long had it been since I saw so much bloodlust in someone’s eyes?
After some trouble, we managed to get near the castle.
There was a scuffle with demons who noticed us and ran towards us, and golems, I guess? The statues near the entrance suddenly started moving.
Both the heroes and my party were fine, but some of the knights were brought down by the demons.
The surviving knights left the wounded to face the other demons that were coming our way, and we used that opportunity to sneak inside.
The suits of armor decorating the halls also attacked, but they weren’t any match for us.
“Are you sure this is the way?”
I asked the man named Naoto, who was walking forward with no hesitation. He said his sword told him where the demon king was.
We all looked at each other, but decided to trust him. I still don’t exactly know why though.
But just as he said, he took us to the demon king.
In the hall before the room where the demon king was, there were golems, armor, and other strange things. They didn’t move when we opened the door, but we stayed cautious.
Once we got in, we saw a throne where a woman sat, and demons around her. I was charmed for a moment, thinking ‘is that really the demon king’, but the ones from the empire laughed with scorn when they saw her.
I saw her pointy ears… Which was a peculiarity of elves that I read about.
So the demon king is an elf? I thought, and the heroes moved out.
We rushed after them, but what followed, was hell.
One of the demons took on the heroes, who could do nothing against his overwhelming power.
My party members yelled about them being soft and rushed to help, but we were blocked by other demons. We thought we’d beat them quickly like before, but one, and then another one of ours went down.
They were so much stronger than the demons outside.
There were still some demons in the back who did not move, but we were already…
That was when we realized how much we underestimated the power of demons.
“What do we do!?”
I heard an irritated voice, but had no time to respond.
Another one of ours went down, leaving four.
I realized that my partners were agitated, and already making plans to abandon the heroes and flee. We’d been working together for a long time. I was thinking the same thing too.
But then, something happened that changed the battle a lot. Through the same entrance we used, a girl appeared.
The demons fighting us looked surprised, and stopped fighting. We couldn’t use that opening to take them down, but we did manage to retreat.
And that was when I managed to get a good look at the girl.
“And elf…!?”
Yes, she was an elf.
I wondered if she was related to the demon king. The fact that a second elf appeared in such a short amount of time, even though I had never seen one before made me wonder…
And I wasn’t the only one. A member of my party quickly ran to her.
A demon gave chase, but I blocked him. He was flustered, because his attacks lacked the precision from before.
Finally, my fellow party member grabbed the elf girl, and twisted her arm behind her back to restrain her.
The girl yelled, and my partner’s head flew.
“Eh?”
Someone yelled.
Next to the girl, stood the demon that was fighting the heroes.
When I turned to the heroes, I saw them all on the floor. And when I turned back to the demon, I felt something cold on my back, and an indescribable fear.
We probably did something we shouldn’t have. The moment I thought that, I felt pain in my abdomen, and my consciousness sunk into an abyss.
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So the adventures into the demon king castle well they are quite blood thirsty especially when they saw that elf but looks like messing with her friend was really the wrong move for them