Soon, the powder which had been sprinkled on the drained husk of a young woman burned her body until there was only ash, allowing the two men to sweep her up like a pile of dust.
My eyes almost began to water as I took a few steps back.
“I don’t know… let’s get going! We don’t have much time now!”
It wasn’t dusty, but it still had that earthy, almost rich smell which I would take over whatever the hell that was back there, any day of the week, month, year, my life.
“Stand there,” She said, and her son pulled me back a bit from her desk, just barely allowing me to see what she was doing.
She bent over while in the chair, stretching down to reach down to one of the cabinets hidden with her desk, rummaging through a few documents before pulling a massive sheet of paper out.
“Since you want to find somebody, we need to know where exactly we have to search. We’re not sweeping the entire goddamn city just for your sake, so we’ll narrow it down and hopefully, just maybe find her,”
I waited for her to tell me to come forward, but such a thing never happened, so I walked up by myself, craning my neck over a raised part of the desk and seeing the entirety of the map.
“Huh? What is that?” I asked, pointing to a darker part of the map, which also had splotches of white dotted across it.
“So he’s lazy?”
𝑖𝐧𝓷𝓇𝙚𝙖d. c𝚘𝐦
“Damn… he’s a demon of war,” I chuckled lightly before the vampire continued to explain, all while her son had brought both of us a glass of ice-cold and refreshing water. “I appreciate it,”
“Uh huh, and? What else? Why’d you bring such a thing up?”
I glanced up at the vampire, attempting to read that demonic smile in some other way, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was almost preparing to die soon.
“Now, in a more general sense, there is the kingdom which is the largest territory out of all the other demon lords. So, the demon lord does need people to manage it… and that’s where I come in with a few others. There are ten Dukes and five Duchess’ who are extremely powerful politically, physically, magically, psychologically… you could essentially call them sitting warlords who have been suppressed by the demon lord,”
“Yeah, you could say that,”
“This is surface-level knowledge that everybody on your daily street knows… now, tell me, when you came into the capital, was it humid and warm or dry and cold?”
“Hmm… not ‘we,’ but my servants will. You have a much better and, let’s say… more taxing job since I do need you to acquire some political power. You’re a young talent that most would like to take in and teach… but that’s not enough. You must squirm your way to the top, and no better way to do that than killing a Quincy yourself.”
Her smile was like an icy hand gripping my spine, causing goosebumps to erupt from every inch of my skin.