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Chapter 14

Apparently, our small group encountered five traders running down our ways. At first, we weren't suspicious enough since we couldn't smell anything hellish, which was our downfall. They asked for the way to Tanah region, which, at this point, was three days from where we met. Of course, looking at their carriage one could be convinced that the group of mixed Lycan-human traders was no other than normal traders. I couldn't believe I said this, but one of our...not so physique demanding friend, was the brightest one.

We passed them for at least half a mile when Azgal grabbed my shoulder and said, "Five traders, three humans and two werewolves. Does that strike you as odd?"

"I don't see anything weird with a five group trader. They are also selling fruits and stuffs..."

"And a hint of blood," interrupted the goat demon with a smile, a toothy grin that didn't look like a normal goat's. Maybe that was the reason why he could eat meat.

His comment lost me for a moment, which was picked up by him. He said "I'm quite impressed how my race has better olfactory senses than dogs. Well, we have a twist in fates, aren't we, Ifrit?"

"Oh, just shut up. Why don't you ask Thotha? He's the real wolf here, not me."

"He won't be able to smell it with the thick cheese smell in the air. They don't sell meats, so there's some untold secret that they didn't want us to know."

"Which was?"

"Watch me."

All of a sudden, Azgal stopped and started to run back to them. I didn't know what to do, but somehow I was drawn to him as I subconsciously ran to his aid, followed by Rhynsa. Both of us saw how Azgal approached the traders again, and he said, "Oi, have you lot forgot of something?"

"How are we forgetting something again? We just met."

"Oh...dear me, my mind is currently jumbled. I might've forgotten something there, especially on how I am a goat."

That seemingly random comment startled them, and the Lycans started to growl. This whole situation started to get tense and an uncomfortable silence followed. That random, Tragorian-accented comment made us realize on how foolish we were on obvious facts.

"I never remembered ever concealing my horns to you, right? You're stealing this carriage, aren't you? Well, you might succeed if it weren't for the red wheel that had an off-colored hue on the surface."

"You said you smell it? With your nose?"

"I never said 'nose' or 'snout', right? I only said 'olfactory senses'. Say, have you ever other means to feel the air, like...using your tongue?"

"That's not even olfactory."

"What? Oh...you're making me look bad! The main problem is how they never react on my clearly goat-looking body?"

"I don't know. Maybe there's a..."

"Ifrit...I am a wrath demon. I don't impregnate humans to make upright wolves' children!"

"For your information, Azgal, not all hellhounds look..."

My comment was cut short when the Lycan currently standing on the left of the caravan started conjuring the fire my race was proud of, which, from how unconvincing his appearance as a hellhound, made me angry as hell. For the sake of disguise they just casually cut of their horns?

Then something happened as quick as it happened. Rhynsa managed to dodge the wolf, but I was unfortunate. One of the humans grabbed me and raised me over his head, throwing me toward Rhynsa, who managed to open his wings just in time to dodge me, flying to the sky. My senses went wild, and in that moment I managed to reposition myself so my springy legs took the force from hitting a rock.

I was surprised when I managed to get to safety. When I recollected myself, I stared how Azgal, with his relatively small body, could match the strength of the human. In a rare scene unlike the novels, both were straining hard to maintain themselves.

"Azgal!" "Ifrit, if you can walk, defend the car! They are not of your caliber!"

I hated to admit, but it was true. The three humans were demon-possessed, and we could only fight the hellhounds. Despite of the urge of trying to fight harder and harder, I tried to oblige. My hesitation was noticed by the goat demon, because he said, "Ifrit, I know your wrath demon's blood is trying to coerce you to fight, but as a wrath demon myself, you're trying to get yourself killed, and for a dog, that's unacceptable."

"You're just weak, (chico)," said the demon to him while laughing. "What? Want to whack me? Look at yourself! You're a fucking disgrace! You can act tough but you look like a (chica)!"

I somehow understood that language, which made Azgal's rage understandable. With a sudden spike of rage, Azgal pushed the surprised human-possessed demon and said, "Oh, you think I look like a fucking girl? Huh?! What, my fucking horns are invisible to you?"

"You're more suitable for whore works, (chica), so I suggest you stop fucking with..."

In a fit of rage, I suddenly lost my breath when Azgal suddenly opened his claws and pulled out the human's eyes, which caused unearthly roar coming out from the man. Azgal quickly cut his hand and his devil blade came out from them. He was clearly pissed when he breathed heavily and started cutting barbarically, tearing the human bit by bit.

"Hah! You can talk big, but you're still in a human's body, you fucking (idiota)!" said Azgal. "What? Wanna talk to me, (cabron)? Still think I'm a girl?"

I must say, he really was a demon. The human-possessed demon was spitting blood to Azgal, and suddenly the goat, with the devil blade, shoved it into his mouth, then it split into half, cutting the man's face. For a hellhound, this kind of brutality was goddamn brutal, but Azgal was a demon bred for fights, so this must've been a normal thing for him.

The two other humans weren't as surprised as me, and they tried to push Azgal out from their comrade's corpse, while the reason they did that was trying to punch him with the needle-modeled devil blade. Azgal was quick enough, though. He dismembered the human's head and used it as a temporary shield, before using it as a vision blocker to his next attack, an elongated sword that pierced through the human's hand. Azgal was gaining the upper hand when they realized that his small and slender body was because of his weird fighting style, which was inhibited when he was possessing Sheldon's body. Just like me, he sensed many weapons around him, including the carriage behind the humans.

I couldn't watch them when a hellhound started lunging to me. Since their physique was of that of a Lycan, they were far stronger than me, and I were thrown. I made myself clear that I was a Schelkz when I produced a devil blade without cutting myself and tried to stab the hellhound, which was a hasty move. He knew my intentions, and held both my hands. He didn't know that was the thing I had prepared for him.

"(Only a spoiled prince)," said the hellhound with a spat.

I made a smile to him, which in around three seconds made him realized his mistake. He held his head up when he saw Rhynsa pointing his gun to his head and said, "(Good night, fucker)" before quickly pointed the gun to his neck and shot a dart, which quickly made the hellhound drowsy, making him sleep.

Truth to be told, I had never seen Rhynsa took a non-lethal way to finish a fight, which surprised me. I was trying to ask, but Rhynsa had known what my reaction was trying to say to him. He turned and said, "(I will kill if I have to, but for now, I am trying to make others turn from the life of killing. This hellhound has suffered without his horns, an insult to our race)."

I subconsciously pointed to my horn, which caused him to grunt and said, "(You did it for a good cause, Ifrit, not submitting to other demons)."

The other hellhound started to run to us, but Anenka was quick enough to use his rod to hit the hellhound square in the face, making him dazzled and fell unconscious.

"(Always watch your back, black eyes)."

I could see Rhynsa sighed, and said, "(Now, how about we help...holy fucking shit! That goat is fucking crazy!)"

I turned my eye to Azgal and I also swore to myself. The goat demon was carrying the fucking carriage over his head! What's more unsettling was how the other human was trying to dodge, but Azgal threw the carriage like a crazed goat (he was a goat, right), took the corpse of the other man, and started to use him as a weapon, which caused an awkward scene when the other human lost his balance and couldn't dodge the corpse.

"Imma hit you with another motherfucker, you motherfucker! You think you can talk trash to me, huh? Well, think again, (cono)!"

"(Damn, he's a swearing machine!)" I suddenly said when I realized he was saying 'cunt' in his own language. Azgal finished the final attacker with a swift punch to the face, which destroyed the skull beneath and crushing everything that was a human's head.

A disembodied voice was heard by us, but I knew they were traversing with their native language only, which roughly translated to:

"(Fucking whore! How did you even survive out there without a host?)"

"(It's a very long story, but I think I must say, it involved a very strong dog)."

"(Bah! You're a fifth circle demon! Those stray dogs are nothing and you claim to have one as your pet?!)"

"(He's a friend of mine, and I will be his guardian. He made me free to roam the surface of the earth with my own body and you'll need another human. Good luck with that)."

After that, the voice let out a high-pitched scream that slowly faded, replaced by silence and the bodies of those we actually killed (except the hellhounds). While my heart felt content that we survived another ambush, I couldn't seem to grasp the concept that we were killing the humans, not the demons possessing them.

We gathered ourselves after the attack, looting any weapons we could find from the carriage. Inside, I could see disemboweled bodies of an elderly human couple, a victim to our war. The bodies inside started to rot, and out of sympathy, I convinced Rhynsa to help me burn the carriage, alongside the couple in it. We never saw if it was burned properly or not, all I care was that we had given them a better rest.

The attack caused us to become aware with the increased danger after the evacuation to the districts, so we didn't make camp and relied on the caravan's fuel to get us away from dangerous towns. We couldn't trust anymore humans or even Lycans, for both races were now susceptible to possession.

Lucky for our group, there was a trailer park in big cities, giving us the opportunity to settle down for a while and recollecting our actions. In one particular briefing between us, we tried to discuss about our next actions.

"Karkos was desperate that we need to find more allies before the inevitable happens," said Anenka while opening a scroll of Ternor's map. "From Dusdolf, we need to find allies in Adaline and Tragoria. The other regions are off the map since our enemies are making their own bases there. Karkos made this group to ensure that we have our best chance to defend ourselves."

"What actually are we doing cross-country, anyway?" asked Jo. "If this whole mission is to find allies the hellhound can just find contacts around him, not risking a group of mercenaries in a potential suicide mission."

"The problem is, Weatherby, is that this mission is not about finding allies in a pure sense."

He then took another map, this time a detailed one of my first journey with my old friends, the Tragoria region.

"Karkos had a concern that for the past 3 years, many demon sightings were reported from this region. This region is not so advanced in technology and they are still relying on magic. I can't say for sure, but we can also assume that the...racism in the region boiled to the point they called Lycans as demons."

An uncomfortable silence fell around the room, to the point that Anenka tried to find a word to counter it, if not for Mitchel to say "I don't blame you lot for the treatment of werewolves. The old people in that region are superstitious and don't believe in medical advancement, preferring old necromancy magic. My line of necromancers had stopped our tradition when plain magic were outlawed. The reason why they hated Lycans so much is that they were said to be the spawn of the first wolf, a demonic entity that bit a human long time ago."

"How about the fact that we're descendants of our more horny cousins here?" said Thotha pointing to us, then said, "Don't...get the dirty idea."

"Apparently that's another reason of hate to your race, Thotha," said Anenka. "I don't want to offend you, but some demonic cults I found actually believed that Lycans are hornless cousins of the hellhounds, with more earthly canine features, and more wolf-looking than us. Okay, we set this matter aside for the one at hand. From what I've heard, magic is forbidden to use in plain daylight, and the use of automobiles like this caravan is limited to paved roads.

"My idea to find this cult is to rely on useful information from locals," said Rhynsa to the group. "Most of us haven't been to Tragoria before, and aside from me, Ifrit, and Mitchel, you can't anticipate what will happen to us when they see Azgal or me."

We all turned our heads to Mitchel, who shook his head and said, "Whoa, wait a minute, mate. I am from Tragoria, yes, but I never knew anything out of ordinary. I'm not a traveller like that black hellhound and I've never knew any towns aside from the village I lived in."

"Well, that might be a problem. Then, we can rely to another source." The half-bat then turned to me. "Isn't that right, Ifrit?"

I wanted to reply 'no', since I knew what he meant. I've lost contact with Lilac and Albreich after I 'died', which made me in the dark for their whereabouts. Also, when they found out that Eshdar did die and I didn't, he wouldn't be able to bear what Albreich would've done to him or any of our group. Lilac, on the other hand, might be hunting in the woods as a wolf so despite of being a local, she was out of options. Still, it was good to know that she was okay.

Then, something unexpected happened. Sammael suddenly sniffed the air like a proper dog would. He somehow reacted and started running away, which concerned me since he didn't look like a normal dog at all. I quickly followed him. He ran to many directions as if he was trying to lose me, but then, I realized...

"Sammael? Oh my god, you're back! I've thought I've lost you! Wow, you look more or less the same, huh? What have you been..."

Our eyes locked to each other. From the first time since I left them 2 years ago, I've always wanted to hear that voice again. Both of us stared at each other, and without thinking again, I ran forward and hugged him, an old friend. I quickly howled with all the happiness I've felt again. All of the sudden, my life seemed to return to me again.

"My god, Ifrit...you're still alive," said the man in disbelief. "This is a miracle! I can't believe it!"

"It's good to see you again, Albreich!" I said while hugging him. "I'm...so sorry..."

"Don't worry, my friend," said Albreich while embracing me. "You're back, that's all that matters to me. I wish Lilac is here with us."

With the mention of her name, I jumped back from Albreich and quickly said, "Lilac! Where is she, Al?"

He seemed troubled, but then he said, "Are you with a group of mercenaries?"

When I nodded, unsure if I was surprised or not, he said, "I must tell your group something, and this is important. I knew I wasn't wrong when I saw a hellhound carrying some guns on her back, and I thought it would be your friend. There's something important, and it concerned the problem."

"What is it, man, just tell us!"

"Tragoria has fallen to the demons, Ifrit! No one's there are pure human soul anymore! They're all possessed, and it will be time before this region is invaded!"