Chapter 92: The Necromancer and the Priestess (25)
"Joshua's strength lies in the power of his legs, along with his speed and agility. He is truly the perfect soldier, his only weakness being that he is slightly rash." El said.
"On the other hand, though Kai has high offensive power for a Knight Templar, the knights focus on a more supportive and defensive style of fighting. Because of this, the issue in this case is time and stamina - if Kai can outlast the demon, then he should be able to cinch the win." Leon added on.
The two of them had on very serious expressions as they continued with a play by play commentary of the fight. How Yin Mei could tell despite the fact that one of them was wearing a mask was instinct!
Yin Mei stared dead eyed into empty air, not knowing what to think about this situation. She felt like she was at some sort of sports game, and not a life or death battle that would decide the course of the war.
"Hmm... If Kai loses, I'll kill him," Yin Mei said, with an equally serious expression, interrupting the commentary of the two.
The three of them had on fierce expressions, their serious aura almost visible to the eye. On the other hand, only Rosella was left out, a worried expression on her face.
The two had already begun fighting. Joshua, the ram horned demon, was using a spear, and Kai a sword and shield. The two exchanged blows, and Yin Mei could tell that Joshua truly had a great amount of strength in his legs. Because of this, he was extremely fast. And with his maneuvering, the result was that each of his blows packed a lot of power in them as well.
But, Yin Mei tried not to be too worried. She had already decided to trust in the power of heaven's beloved son, aka, the protagonist's halo.
They would always pull through when it counted - that was the protagonist.
The issue was that whether or not Kai himself was supportive of the treaty. Because if he didn't feel passionate enough about it, how could he bring out the inner strength of the protagonist that would give him all sorts of power ups to allow him to overcome obstacles?
Yin Mei didn't think that Kai would purposefully lose - his "righteous" personality would prevent him from doing that sort of underhanded thing, even if he wasn't in support of the treaty. Though, Yin Mei thought that treaty would be just the sort of thing that this guy filled with thoughts of justice and fairness would like. Even so, if he was just half hearted about it, how could he activate his hidden power?
"And now Joshua launches himself at Kai again! His blade is covered in black flames! How interesting! What sort of enchantment is that? It's not something that is seen in the human world, a magic unique to demons! Kai attempts to dispel it, but it doesn't look like it worked. Huh... how interesting, just how in the world does that work..." Leon became so distracted that his commentary was interrupted and he continued muttering, trying to figure out the properties of the enchantment magic on the demon's spear.
"This black fire cannot be put out by any known means, aside from the will of the user. It will continue burning until its target becomes ash. It can even eat through magic." El explained, and Leon let out a whistle.
But, he also felt cold on the inside. Such fierce magic, if their army had battled against them... he didn't even want to imagine it.
The sun continued inching its way across the sky as hours passed, with no end to the battle in sight. Yin Mei couldn't be bothered to stand around watching them exchange blows and pull off all sorts of fancy finishing moves that never actually finished off the other person, and so... started playing poker with Rosella!
She had taught Rosella and the White Bird party all sorts of games when they camped out for missions, and as a result, now the White Bird party was addicted, especially to gambling with blackjack and poker.
Yin Mei had been surprised that this world didn't have those games, but apparently it did have similar games, but they were also different. After all, it was a different world, huh?
Some of the demons around them became intrigued, and though they didn't have good thoughts about humans, still couldn't help their curiosity, gathering around to take a look. In the end, a few even joined in.
By evening, the group had split into two - one group was watching the battle, with El and Leon continuing to provide generous commentary, seemingly not getting bored of it, and the other group was playing or observing the poker game.
"And the bet goes to this player here!" Yin Mei said, acting as dealer as she pushed all the chips toward a leopard-faced beastman. Yin Mei was surprised to find that among the many demon races, included were not just the classic demons, but also races like beastmen, vampires, succubus/inccubus, mermen/mermaids, harpies, and all sorts of different fantasy non-human races. Even races that were normally thought of as "good", such as elves, dwarves, and etc. were included!
For humans, they were all classified under the same title of "demon", but in actuality, that was just the result of human ignorance.
"For a human, you're not too bad!" The leopard faced man said in the demon language with a boisterous laugh, clearly having a good time after winning. "Your demon language is pretty good too!"
That's because of magic... Yin Mei retorted in her heart, but put on a polite smile. "Thanks," she said.
"You said this is your original game? You're quite good to come up with something as interesting as this. I could make a good buck or two selling it to one of the merchants back home," a demon who had been observing mused, rubbing his beard and mustache in thought.
The soldiers broke into laughter. "Yeah right! Not before someone else manages to sell it before you!"
Yin Mei didn't really care what they wanted to do with the game, but she was glad that something like this was enough to win over their hearts! Damn, if she knew this, she wouldn't have needed to have Kai duel at all, would she?
And here El had been saying that they would be hard to persuade! Bah, how dare he lie to her?
El: I'm innocent...
Two days of this passed, and by the time it was over, the demon army camp had practically become a casino. Meanwhile, even the full of stamina Joshua and Kai were becoming tired.
"It... looks like... you're getting tired... how about you forfeit already?" Joshua said, panting heavily as he had his hands on his knees.
"I would say the same about you," Kai responded, also breathing hard, his sword stabbed into the ground as he leaned on it for support.
They glared at each other, and Yin Mei felt that at the end of this, they would be best friends. Such a classic exchange of words! Mm, it was the staple fight scene between the protagonist and his rival. In the end, they would be laying on the ground, laughing, and make up with each other over whatever they had been arguing about.
Yin Mei nodded wisely.
"Make your bets! Make your bets now before the battle is over!" She called out, holding up a sign as she walked around, calling out. That's right, she took advantage of the battle to set up a gambling ring...
What? She had to get profits where she could.
Although... actually, even if she got any money out of this, all of it was the demon world's currency! She didn't think of that.
But oh well, she was already here.
Most of the best were for Joshua, of course, but many demons had been impressed by Kai's skill and tenacity, and so there were a decent number of people who had bet on him, much to Yin Mei's surprise.
"You... were a good opponent..." In the end, Joshua grinned as he fell to the ground, unconscious. The crowd went into an uproar - the last one standing was Kai. A human had actually ended up beating one of their most elite warriors! They were shocked, but it was a good fight... of which only a small part of those present had completely watched through, the rest occasionally watching while also partaking in all sorts of games held by Yin Mei.
"Hahaha, how unexpected! You humans are more tenacious than I gave you credit for," A demon said, slapping Yin Mei on the back.
"Damn, I shoulda bet on the human!" Another demon said.
There was excited chattering, but by all appearances, it seemed that the demons had accepted them.
The first part of the mission was accomplished.
After signing the treaty, they could proceed to conquer the whole demon world! Yin Mei was thoroughly satisfied.
"Eve!" A girl called out from the door to the guild toward a girl with silver hair who was sweeping the entrance. Eve looked over, raising a hand in greeting. "Come back in. It looks like it's about to rain," the girl said, tilting her head upwards toward the gray sky. She shook her head as she went back inside, closing the door behind her.
Eve glanced up. The sun was covered up, and the clouds were a pale gray. "I hope it doesn't rain," Eve murmured, before also going in.
A week later, Yin Mei was back with the demon army. The treaty had been signed.
(A/N: Me lazy so no details... yes, all these times skips are me being lazy... ;P)
Now, Yin Mei was to travel with the demon army back to the demon world as an ambassador. The demon world had been working for several thousand years on the way to not only open the demon bridge, but to also keep it open. Although the initial plan was to conquer the human world and completely migrate over the demon population, they knew that this would be difficult, and so had decided to instead research ways to keep the demon bridge open so that they wouldn't need to take this step.
In addition, although the human world was resource rich, without the source of their power and magic, the miasma of the demon world, leaking into the human world, they would lose their advantage over humans - in other words, aside from the difference in physical appearance and the type of magic they used, they would essentially be no different from humans in terms of physical and magical strength.
But due to this, Yin Mei could propose... a cultural exchange! That's right, she wanted to do a cultural exchange. Of course, they couldn't do it immediately. There would need to be research and surveying done before hand, and rules established, before being able to do so.
Because of that, a trusted advisor of El's would be staying here under Leon's supervision, while Yin Mei would be going to the demon world. Rosella and Kai were to accompany her. Yin Mei had also decided to bring along Eve as well - obviously, they still needed Eve for their plans.
Although she had been left at the guild forgotten for the last few weeks, Yin Mei still remembered the existence of this important hostage/pawn/experimental subject.
It didn't take much convincing, as Eve found it touching that her life savior would ask something of her. She had yet to repay the massive favor that Yin Mei had done, and as such, immediately agreed to accompany her to this far off foreign land that she spoke of. Foreign, in quotation marks.
Yin Mei disguised Eve, the brown wavy hair and blue eyes... looking exactly like Yin Mei while she was disguised. Meanwhile, Yin Mei took off her own disguise, and Kai could no longer deny that she was the high priestess - although she looked a little older now, and more mature, she was definitely still Celestina.
Yin Mei had already guessed that Kai had figured out her identity - Rosella had probably let something slip while the two had been left alone, or Kai had connected two and two when Rosella revealed her own identity. Yin Mei didn't know which it was, and nor did she particularly care. After all, she just thought it natural that the female lead would reveal things to the male lead. After all, the two were fated lovers, right?
Rosella as well, undid her disguise. She felt uneasy, like she was naked. After all this time, she had finally regained her true appearance, but all it did was make her feel insecure and unsure of what was next.
She didn't like this feeling. Only when she looked at Celestina beside her did she feel better. It had been a while since she had seen Celestina's true appearance. The golden hair that was like the color of sunshine, and those cerulean blue eyes that glistened under the light... when a person looked at Celestina, they would only feel good emotions in their heart, never bad ones.
Celestina was the type of person that people wouldn't mind dying for.
But, now that the inside had changed, was that still the case?
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
littlemist
littlemist Rec of the Day: Unhinged (webtoon, a story about revenge and psychopathic killers. Makes me hardcore tempted to write an arc with revenge and psychopathic killers... like female lead is a pyschopathic killer, male lead is even more of a psychopathic killer, and villain is the most psychopathic killer of them all. man, I should totally do that tho)
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