Devil's Business

Red forest

 Running for 5 minutes after the switch of ideas amidst the sprint of revelation, Juno finally reached the gate of his lovely city. For Juno’s another time of returning home, he needs to locate the precise region of the next city and unlock the ability he wanted for long ever since knowing that he could surpass the limitation of humanity with simple tweak of the stats. After all, progress is a must for being a hero of the realm, and he could not do the job if he never scale up to the responsibilty of pretending to be one.

Juno strides back to the inn and finding Mia behind the counter, doing her job as the inn’s servant to double her duty as the owner of the business. Yet, contrary to the usual day, a demon’s royalty was ahead of her. His face was bursting in anger, turning light red as his nerves were swelling tight upon the head.

However, in the wake of the boiling point of the first-class demon, Mia kept her smile just fine. As the male beast hang on to his protest, she seemed serene and have nothing on her own feelings in exchange.

“Just paid up the money, you swine!” pouted the male demon to Mia. To the protest, She responded accordingly,”I’ll give you the cash, Goro, but it is still mid-day for you to recall on this.” Said Mia in casual and warm tone of hers. By the seemingly unthreatened Mia and her reserved manner, the royal beast’s band of fury rising up much further. His right hand are lighting up in correspond to the reply, producing three floating ball of flames immediately for his last resort of menace,”I’m giving you this warning, woman. No pay, no work for your business.”

Juno was there as he waiting the tumult to finish, since he noticed that Mia could handle all of the hazard by herself, but perceived nothing about the flash of fire. Blitz of seconds later, the male demon throws the fire to the inn’s owner in hope of giving her an ample warning of his emotion. However, the attack does not deliver the message as much as he wanted, since Mia slapped all of the bustling fire to nothing but a childplay. The royal demon could not believe on what he saw, or what he could do afterwards, yet he froze himself in place despite the fact that he was defeated and humiliated on the go.

”If you want to ensnare me with your threat, just push it to the limit, Goro.” Muttered Mia accordingly. She pats the ashes of the male demon’s fire and blowing it up back to him. He could not laid one reputation-saving retort, or warning her of more, hence he turned his back in dismay.

“I’ll get my revenge on this, Mia. Watch your tongue to the royals!” Warned Goro as he left the inn, bathed in ridicule by the disappointment of his own prowess.

A click of minute passed after the fight, and the receiving end of the hazard was thriving and rolling in services of their own. Red lava beers were flowing out of glass once more and thwarting the misdeed of the royal beast. The crowd were back to their amusement, laughing and expressing their hysterical commentary to the royal’s face.

“So, you are not afraid of the devil’s upper class, Mia? I’m totally proud of being your friend right now.” Said Juno as he approached Mia to the counter. She nodded to Juno’s compliment and grinning while pouring another red lava beer to the glass,”He is the weakest of them all, Juno, and the youngest of them all, to add.” She then put Juno’s order up front for him to gulping it down in one shot before continuing to make some move on the other set of beer,”So, any hope in another city? You would need to complete a mission to do so, you see. Every human that had been here years ago have it all complete beforehand.”

Juno’s eyebrows raised up by the breeze of information that Mia has settled,”Really? I am not the first? That’s not true.” Stated him afterwards while shoving his empty glass to order another,”If I’m not the first, then what’s happened with the former hero?”

She paused for a moment, being silent and doing her errands with no words implied to the question. Her eyes narrowed down in deep thoughts over the correct answer to the test for awhile, tilting Juno’s inquisitiveness even more by the response,”They must be dead, huh.” Stated him to wrap up the presumed reasoning of her being quiet to the query.

“No, no, it’s not- ah, it might be better for you to find out by yourself. But first, you have to go to the chieftain’s house for the permit to the next city.” Said Mia to the doubt of the human. He seemed in distraught after Mia’s reluctance to answer, and drowning in his own scepticism to the title of ‘hero’ embedded upon human in the demon’s world,”So, I’m not truly a hero, I guess. My excitement to the role definitely too much for this world.”

Mia then grabbed Juno’s hand, looking at his both eyes directly,”No, You’re a hero, but it’s definitely better to challenge it by knowing the truth as it goes.”

---

By Mia’s recommendation, Juno drags himself to the chieftain’s house. Distinctive to common knowledge of a leader’s majestic residence, it is located far beyond the center of the city. The house itself is not big, rather too petite for one demonic chieftain to live. The red brick of the house are melting with the great wall of the city, which also formed as the layer for back side of the chieftain’s house.

The demon that he was searching for is gazing upon him while sitting on his porch’s wooden chair. He smokes cigarette as he flipped the pages of books that he reads at the time. Third eye of his is the one being watchful and evidently leering at Juno, scanning him entirely as it rolling head to the toe.

“You’re the future dead hero, eh? What would it be for now? Strangle? Suicide? Name it!” Barked the old demon to Juno, which were stood still a few meters ahead of the male beast. Spark of concern, who were emanated right of the bat from Mia’s dubious expectation, was shining true to the man. A wise personality of the region even called him lifeless in range, exerting truthful assessment to his faith upon the burdened responsibility of becoming their savior at large.

Nevertheless, it is still too early in the morning to consider his futility were suffice. Juno realized that no matter the cost, he has chances to prevail.

“I might be dead already, but I will never-“

“Never what? Never accomplished your goals and withered away? Just drink lots of lava beers and you’ll be back to sanity.” Retorted the old demon before Juno could finish his statement,”However, if you still wished to die as fast, please murder the immortal ghoul’s king to the north.  I’ll give you the entrance permit if you can do it, but I won’t consider this as hope anymore.”

Juno wished to continue the sentence brawl against the barrage of demise from the chieftain, but even the third eye of the old demon was not interested any longer to his existence and pushing him out of sight.

---

Juno activated the mystical prediction of power in his perception. By this talent, which is not counted under the terms of ‘random’, he could perceive the possible stats of the enemies by eyesight. Taken together with the lump of stats that he had adjusted alongside the available talent, which could also be considered as predictive to his potential probability, it would be easier to find out how long for him to decimate the enemies in every attack.

At times, the virtual predictions would be wrong, but most of them would be close to reality. When he encountered a group of ghouls without the demon for the first time, he had numerous injuries due to mismatch of his own virtual damage and health points pictured by his visual perception over the opponents. It made him feeling the breeze of champions and being caught off-guard when the ghouls were actually not dead by the s***h yet.

After outlayed minutes of sprinting continuously to the north, he entered the ground of red tree forest. The scenery of reddish leaves carried him forward to the laidback spirit of the autumn. Leaves of the trees were not withered away, however, since it truly being the theme of the organic structure of the trees itself. Numerous redwood trees, with which ornamented by actual red stems and branches, filled the nature of the forest with nuance of harrowing calamity.

“Where is the northern position that the chieftain speaks about? I wonder if-“

Suddenly, three ghouls appeared before him and posing their stance of assault. Its figure were much stronger than the ghouls outside of the forest. The hardened slime mechanism were not laid upon the spine, but rather sturdy brown layer of exoskeleton is growing on it. Down the hatch of its muscular upper hand-legs were featured red claws, of which are longer than usual ghouls of late.

They were impatient, Juno thinks as the bunch of ghouls were already started to attack once he spotted the three of them on site. Juno’s agility stats helped him to parry the three of ghoul’s maul at once, even forcing them to move backwards by the counter-slice from the sword.

“They definitely have more health points than the common ones. It’s still one-time hit for me, though.” Declared Juno with confidence. Lingering hunger and unmindful reaction of the ghouls, as they could not speak, made them unaware with the prideful statement of the man. Nonetheless, the instinct of hunger still controlling them to continue their second assault of the day and hammering their claws directly to Juno’s head.

(c***k!Splat!)

“One-hit kill confirmed.” Mumbled Juno after the obliterated ghouls, which remains were vanished on the spot,”May I ask you for direction, sir ghoul? Ah, they are all dead.”

By no exhaustion occurred within the glimpse of battle with the red ghouls, Juno continues to roam the jungle and sprinting in speed to the north. He runs for an hour to the direction that he presumed as north, but the destination seemed nowhere to locate.

“Am I lost? Oh, I know what to do for this.”

Juno then begin to cut the redwood trees in every angle that he could reach while running. By the enormous capacity of his strength, chopping down the trees would not hinder him at all to boot. Alongside the running speed and agility that he possess, most of the territory of the forest were obliterated in half an hour period. As a result, he could see one humongous, but dubious cavern up front.