Chapter 39: Mr. Demon

The three of them followed the only dirt road in the wilderness, heading toward the highly suspicious caravan in the distance.

Blake and Nolan led the way.

Vivian followed behind them in silence, her head bowed as she stared at her toes. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

Nolan, who was in front of her, suddenly came to a halt.

*Clang!*

A loud metallic collision rang out.

Vivian didn’t have time to stop. She bumped straight into Nolan’s heavy, polished knight armor. She hurriedly took a few steps back, clutching her forehead, which throbbed with pain from the impact.

“Why did you stop so suddenly?” Vivian asked, her brow furrowed with dissatisfaction. At the same time, she reached out and poked the armor at Nolan’s waist.

Nolan didn’t respond immediately. Instead, his nostrils flared slightly as he inhaled the dry wilderness air. A cold glint suddenly flashed in his eyes.

“I smell a demon’s presence!” he said, lowering his voice so only the two people near him could hear.

“Are you a dog?” Vivian couldn’t help but remark.

‘I don’t see a single soul around, yet you can smell a demon’s presence? If you aren’t a dog, what are you?’

“That caravan? Something is wrong with them!” Blake ignored Vivian’s snarky comment and picked up where Nolan left off. Upon hearing Nolan’s words, his first thought was that a demon was hiding within that suspicious caravan.

With a *shing*, Nolan drew the Paladin’s sword from his waist. He gripped the longsword with both hands, holding it upright before his chest, and closed his eyes. Bowing his head slightly, he whispered a devout prayer.

A few seconds later, he opened his eyes again. His blue pupils were eclipsed by a pale gold light, and an endless fighting spirit surged within them.

*Hum!*

The longsword in his hand suddenly exploded with a dazzling golden light. Raging golden flames crawled up the blade, forming a longsword wreathed in holy fire.

“What kind of power is this?” Vivian muttered, quickly raising her hand to shield her eyes.

The holy radiance seemed to penetrate the sunscreen Vivian had applied to her body. A strong burning sensation washed over her exposed skin, as if she were standing inside a furnace. Her entire body was being ruthlessly scorched by the intense heat.

“Pick up the pace. Prepare for battle.”

Nolan exerted force through his feet, sinking deep into the sand. Then, with a sudden lunge, he shot forward to the front of the group. Vivian and Blake followed closely behind.

Following the dirt road, the three of them climbed to the top of a low sand dune and stopped. Vivian lowered her gaze and looked down.

A caravan consisting of more than forty people was moving slowly along the dirt road at the base of the dune. Two rows of guards, wearing simple iron armor and wielding spears, walked on either side of the caravan. They protected the wagons and personnel in the center.

Three or four pack beasts with orange-yellow skin and giant spikes on their backs were harnessed with thick ropes. They pulled wagons covered in burlap, their wheels plowing two deep furrows into the sand.

Vivian thought for a moment. This caravan… the humans looked like humans, and the beasts looked like beasts. She couldn’t see anything wrong with it at all.

Then, she tilted her head and simply gave up on thinking. She asked directly, “Which one is the demon? Who do I hit?”

Vivian clenched her fists, her knuckles cracking. ‘Let’s skip the boring plot and get straight to the fight!’

“Right there! I can clearly sense its foul stench.”

Nolan held his breath, his expression solemn, as he pointed toward several guards at the front of the caravan.

Just then, Vivian suddenly felt the sand dune beneath her feet begin to vibrate violently. The shifting sand at the top of the dune slid uncontrollably down the slope, kicking up a massive dust storm at the base.

“An earthquake?” she exclaimed in a low voice, her body swaying involuntarily.

“No, the demon is hiding underground!” Nolan quickly crouched, lowering his center of gravity to avoid rolling down the dune.

Blake also reacted, gripping his long knife. He thrust the blade deep into the sand dune to anchor himself.

However, our Miss Vivian was not so lucky.

A sudden gust of wind blew from behind, swirling up sand and stones to form a massive dust storm. The storm buffeted Vivian’s small body. She was like a small boat in a giant wave, tossed about at the whim of the natural forces.

Vivian squeezed her eyes shut and pressed down on her skirt.

“Ah… *ptui*.”

She had just tried to speak when the gale forced a mouthful of sand into her throat.

‘Damn it, I’ve got a mouthful of sand!’

Poor Vivian was spun around by the dust storm until she was completely disoriented. She unintentionally took a half-step forward. At that moment, the ground beneath her feet suddenly vanished.

“Oh, crap!”

Stumbling, she fell onto the sand dune and began to tumble down.

“Vivian!”

Seeing this, Nolan grew frantic. Without time to think, he tossed his longsword aside. With a loud shout, he lunged toward Vivian, wrapping his arms around her to protect her in his embrace.

The two of them curled into a ball, like a boulder falling from a mountain, and rolled uncontrollably down the dune.

Hearing the commotion, Blake endured the discomfort of the sand blowing into his eyes and struggled to open his eyelids. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two of them rolling down the dune.

He knew things had taken a turn for the worse. Blake quickly pulled his knife from the ground and sheathed it.

‘Grosh above, I hope nothing else goes wrong this time.’

He silently prayed to the God of the Beast’s Roar.

Initially, when his old teammate, the City Lord of Ma’en, Brun Griffin, had approached him and handed him the commission to suppress the demon, Blake thought this journey would just be a small taste of his former adventuring life. He thought he would just deal with a slightly troublesome demon to complete the task, collect a handsome bounty, and then return to his bakery. He would resume his peaceful life, continuing to knead his favorite dough.

Who could have imagined…

First, he had recruited a violent Vampire. His bakery… was just gone. Then came a Paladin, and they went to capture cultists together, where a giant fireball burned his chef’s clothes.

But it didn’t end there…

Along the way, they had even run into a Necromancer from the Death-Defiers Poetry Society. Fortunately, that had been a friendly creature… and now, they were finally about to see the demon.

Blake suddenly felt like he was on the verge of tears.

‘Mr. Demon, you’re finally here. Please, just let us kill you and end this difficult journey. I’m just a retired old Orc, an ordinary pastry chef. Stop tormenting me.’

Blake quickly composed his thoughts. He glanced at the figures still rolling down the dune. He took a deep breath of the sandy air and then jumped down without hesitation.

However, he did not fall uncontrollably like Vivian. His body performed a graceful backflip in mid-air, and his large feet landed firmly on the shifting sand. Like a skilled skier, he slid down at an incredible speed.

Before long, the tangled forms of Vivian and Nolan appeared before him. Blake’s gaze sharpened. He dug his feet into the ground and kicked back hard. With a burst of astonishing acceleration, he caught up to the pair instantly. He reached out, grabbing Vivian with one hand and Nolan with the other.

In the next second, a mountain of power surged from his legs as he stomped against the ground again.

*Boom!*

A low, heavy thud echoed.

Blake leaped high into the air, carrying Vivian and Nolan with him. The three of them burst through the massive dust storm, tracing a parabola through the sky.

After a long moment, a loud landing sound rang out. Blake set the two dizzy companions down steadily on the ground.

“Urgh…”

Vivian leaned on Nolan’s arm and bent over. She threw up all the yogurt she had drunk for lunch.

“This is worse than a roller coaster… I never want to experience that again.”

She wiped the corners of her mouth and then looked up. There stood a humanoid demon, skin a dark crimson and as large as a small hill. It shook its head, tossing the sand from its scalp. A pair of glowing red eyes, as large as wagon wheels, looked over. Its gaze was filled with uncontrollable brutality.

“Afternoon, Mr. Demon.”

Vivian rubbed her head awkwardly and gave a forced smile, greeting the demon.