Oh, it's getting really interesting now. 'Though honestly, I understand him being afraid of Mom,' I thought as I kept nibbling my snacks with a satisfied hum. Who needed popcorn?
"This is my kids we're talking about! Who knows what they'll become after you're done with them!" the man argued, trying to hold firm.
"Uh... they will probably become better than trash," I said, still focused on the plate in my hand.
"Ah! They are not trash!" he shouted, standing up briefly before slumping back down.
"I beg to differ. People-or humanoids-who attack innocent weaklings don't deserve to be anything but trash," I said, still not looking at him.
"..."
"..."
Kayda and Mom both looked at me, clearly waiting for a follow-up explanation.
"I've never attacked an innocent person with malice," I said, sighing.
"True," they mutually agreed, shrugging as if it wasn't a big deal.
"But you do attack weak people a lot," Mom muttered casually, making me shoot her a quick glare.
"That's something I can't defend myself against," I said, turning back to my plate.
"Hah! So you're no-"
"Hold your horses. I said innocent. I've never attacked innocent people, okay?" I interrupted, narrowing my eyes at Mr. Kuni.
"Grr..."
"Now it's settled. They'll come to the Draigs with us," Mom declared, as if that was the end of the matter.
"Why now?" Kayda asked, groaning at the thought.
"Because we're here and heading to the territory tomorrow," Mom said simply.
"Tsk... I don't like the Kunis at all," I muttered, grabbing a second plate of snacks.
"Kitsu, you're going to get fat~," Kayda teased with a smirk.
"You!!" I started to argue-before the world shook.
Boom!
Multiple explosions echoed outside, the walls of the mansion trembling slightly. My body stiffened immediately.
Mom was already serious-faced, her expression unreadable. The Kuni head looked like he'd been dunked in ice water-pale and gloomy.
"What's going on?" Kayda asked sharply, glancing between them.
"Dwarf. Tell us what's going on," Mom growled, grabbing a fistful of Unmun's hair.
"W-We don't know!" He stuttered, still refusing to make eye contact.
'Why, why, why does shit always hit the fan when I'm nearby?!' I screamed internally, rage bubbling just under my skin as screams from outside grew louder.
"Kitsu, calm down?" Kayda said gently, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Tsk. Fuck my bad luck!" I shouted, huffing afterward, the pressure around me flaring.
"Please do explain what's going on," Mom said coldly, still gripping Kuni's head like a bowling ball.
"The fucking Devil Cult freaks are here," I hissed, eyes glowing faintly with killing intent as I glanced at the window.
"How!?" Kayda said, more shocked than scared.
"How? You really don't know what's going on in this kingdom? I had my suspicions, but damn, you're worse than I thought," I muttered, glaring daggers at the Kuni head.
"How many?" Mom asked, finally releasing her grip on the man's scalp.
"Fuck knows. But the useless horny females are already fighting them," I muttered, walking to the window to get a better look.
"Winning?" Mom asked, grabbing my snack plate and holding it hostage.
"What do you think? If they were losing to those cultists, I'd kill them myself," I said, watching dark-cloaked bodies litter the streets below.
"Horny?" Kayda said, blinking at me.
"You didn't see? The twins are all over Canada. Nekro and Apricot are already head over heels too," I said, shaking my head in frustration.
"You?" they both said at once, blinking in confusion.
"Why are you two so confused? Isn't it obvious?"
"Yes, but... you're not actually that-"
"Don't even finish that sentence. I swear I will rip your arms off," I growled, my glare cutting through the air.
"Hahaha," Mom laughed, amused.
"You guys are making jokes while we're under attack?" Mrs. Kuni asked, absolutely baffled.
"What is there to worry about? It's not like they'll get anywhere near this room," Kayda said with a shrug.
"Ah, but I want to fight too," I said, my eyes sparkling slightly.
"I also want to capture one or two. Maybe we can get something out of them," Mom added, still not giving back my snacks.
"That might be tricky," I said. "They know about me. They've probably prepped better this time."
"Yeah, but that's for you, not me."
"And?"
"There is a big difference, my dear daughter," Mom said before casually slamming Kuni's head into the table and knocking him out.
Bang!
"There," I muttered as she walked toward the exit.
"How can she be so brutal to my baby?" Madam Kuni cried, cradling her husband's limp body.
"Why should she be nice to someone as useless as him?" I said this bluntly while shaking my head and turning to leave.
"Be careful, okay? They know about you," Kayda said.
"I will. You take care of this mess," I said, waving as I stepped out and closed the door behind me.
"Sigh... Always dumping the most annoying problems on me."
Chapter 151: Unexpected Company
While walking through the mansion toward the front door, I noticed how completely silent the halls had become. No footsteps. No distant voices. There wasn't even the sound of a passing servant shuffling. It was eerie-like the building itself had emptied its breath and was holding it.
Their mom must've told them to hide, or they were hiding out of sheer fear.
The reason I didn't think any of them would try to fight was simple. The Kunis were their masters. No one in their right mind would lay their life on the line for dumb dwarfs that spent most of their time either beating their kids or pretending their family name still meant something.
The quiet continued until something interrupted it.
Cough.
"What the fuck is that?" I said aloud, stopping mid-stride as something foul hit my nose like a punch.
My nose scrunched instinctively. It wasn't just awful. It was revolting. The smell was reminiscent of rot mixed with sewage and burnt rubber.
"Did someone shit themselves?" I muttered, glancing down the hall in both directions, trying to locate the source. There wasn't a trace of anyone, but then I spotted something-thin, wispy black smoke, nearly invisible to the untrained eye, drifting lazily in the air like it belonged there.
Narrowing my eyes, I followed the smoke. It felt familiar. Too familiar.
'This smoke... It's like the one I saw yesterday, I thought, a chill crawling up my spine. A memory of that ominous presence flickered behind my eyes.
For the next few minutes, I walked slowly, following the trail of black smoke. It twisted and moved strangely, sometimes vanishing entirely before reappearing again further down the corridor, like it was teasing me.
Eventually, I found myself at the front door of the mansion. The moment I reached it, the smell hit me ten times stronger. I almost gagged.
"Sigh. To think demonic mana would have such a foul stench," I said in disgust, pinching my nose even though it didn't help. The stink seemed to settle into my sinuses, clinging to me.
Why can I smell manure all of a sudden? I could never do that before...' I thought, "Alarm bells are going off in the back of my mind." The behavior wasn't just gross. It was new. And new usually meant dangerous.
My eyes scanned the area outside. To the left, I saw Nekro's undead-still as creepy as ever-fighting a devil cult member. Their movements were jerky, quick, and efficient. One of the zombies rammed its spear straight through the cultist's chest before twisting. Brutal.
On the right side, Chinada was slicing through heads like it was nothing. Three swings. Three corpses. That guy moved like a windstorm when he wanted to.
Looking straight ahead, I caught sight of Mom. She was standing atop a tall clock tower in the middle of the city, arms crossed, her hair swaying in the wind like a banner of war.
"I guess the devil mana isn't very close by," I muttered before disappearing with a short-range blink.
"You joined me as well?" Mom asked me if I had joined her as I appeared beside her on the narrow rooftop ledge. She didn't sound surprised-more like she'd been expecting me to show up eventually.
"Yeah. I started smelling devil mana," I replied casually, gazing over the city's skyline. The streets were chaos below us-screams, magic flares, and silhouettes darting from building to building. But there was something oddly still about this vantage point.
"...Is that even possible?" Mom asked, her voice laced with disbelief.
"It shouldn't be," I said, shrugging with a helpless smile.
"So they're drawing you out?" she asked, tilting her head.
They might be drawing you out, or they could be planning something big again. My voice dropped lower as I stared at the thickening black smoke in the distance. It had a pull to it. My senses buzzed the closer I looked.
"Sigh. "How problematic this is," Mom muttered, her eyes narrowing slightly in frustration.
"Agree... Do you think the Demon Kingdom's behind the cult?" I asked, looking over at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Nah. This cult feels like it came from the Federation," Mom said without hesitation.
"...Then what about the Angels? Could they be involved?" I asked, confused at how confident she was.
"No. They might come from the same country, but they'll never see eye to eye," she replied, shaking her head like it was obvious.
"I guess that makes sense. Ugh... I located the source." I winced slightly as a headache pierced through my skull.
"You okay?" Mom asked, suddenly concerned.
"Yeah. They burned one of my clones," I said, rubbing my temple and pointing toward the southeast. "It's that way. Four blocks from here."
"I'll follow behind," Mom said, patting my shoulder.
"Are you going to use me as bait like you usually do?" I said, giving her a mock grin.
"Tsk. I hate doing that, you know," she said with a sigh.
"I know, Mom. I'm just pulling your leg. Anyway, I'm not even close to strong enough to fight these things head-on." I gave her a nod and blinked away again, vanishing from the clock tower.
"Tsk," I heard faintly behind me.
Running across the rooftops toward the southeast, the smoke only got thicker. The smell was overpowering. Every breath was like swallowing ash mixed with rotten meat. I tried not to gag.
"Ah!?" I yelped as a black, monstrous arm suddenly shot out of a rooftop beside me, almost grabbing my leg mid-leap. I flipped in midair and landed on a slanted rooftop with my claws extended.
"Hehe, you dodge, you dodge, hehe," a crazed voice giggled. A deformed head poked out of the roof below me, its smile twisted and wrong. Its body was black and humanoid-but melted and writhing, like flesh never meant to exist in this world.
"The fuck is that!" I shouted.
"Hehe-ugh." The thing didn't finish its laugh. Before it could understand what happened, Mom appeared behind it in a blur. Her foot came crashing down on its skull, splattering it into a puddle of black blood.
"Mom... Have you ever seen— Wait, I guess you have, I started to ask, then paused as I saw her face. Cold. Focused.
"Where's the place you were heading to?" she asked sharply.
"I pointed quickly in the direction and said, 'Another four blocks straight that way.'"
"Okay. Go back to the mansion. Call Kayda. Tell her what we saw," Mom said, her tone leaving no room for argument.
"..."
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to debate. But... What are they?" I asked, glancing at the black blood staining the rooftop.
"They're what you'd call a human-devil child," Mom said grimly.
"Huh?"
"Sigh. "They were born from humans and devils."
"Like... normal pregnancy and everything?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah," she said flatly, not hiding her disgust.
"Ugh. Disgusting," I muttered, gagging again.
"Now go. And if you see any more-destroy their heads," she said firmly.
"The only way to kill them. Got it." I nodded, then sprinted off.
"Be careful," she muttered just before vanishing again from my senses entirely.
"Of course," I replied softly, already racing back toward the mansion.
[10 minutes later]
"Haah... Kayda, we've got a problem," I said, crashing through the drawing room window like a tornado.
"Huh? Why are you back?" Kayda said, sitting in a chair with an extremely red-faced, high dwarf bent over her lap, one hand raised mid-spank. The room was... something.
"...You doing parenting now?" I said, blinking at the absurdity.
"Well, they won't do it," Kayda said, shrugging as she looked at the parents tied up nearby.
"Anyways, we've got a problem," I said, hopping down from the window sill and walking toward the center.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"This is what I mean," I said, dropping a monstrous, severed head on the table with a wet thud.
"You should destroy those before they infect you," Kayda said, casually tossing a ball of scorch mana at the head, reducing it to ash.
"Yeah... Mom said the same thing. However, she didn't reveal the reason. I found it just outside the mansion's grounds." I added quietly, frowning.
"They duplicate," Kayda said, her face emotionless.
"Ah. So all of them are actually from one source..." I said those words while beginning to piece things together. My brows furrowed. "That's... not good."
"Most probably, yeah. Anyway, I'll go help Stacy before things spiral. Again." Kayda leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Okay, what should I do?" I asked, watching her grab her sword.
"Nothing. Just watch these dumbasses," she said, nodding toward the bound Kunis.
"Alright, but you guys owe me a full explanation of what these things actually are," I said as she stepped through the broken window.
"Not much more to say. They're devils. Multiply by losing their heads. Destroy the heads to kill them. That's it." She was gone before I could say more.
"Hey, can you let us loose now?" one of the Kunis asked desperately.
"No. I'm just here to supervise," I said, flopping onto a couch and crossing my legs.
"But-"
"How much do you know about the devil cult?" I asked, cutting him off.
"T-The what?" The Kunihead blinked at me.
"You know, the devil cult," I repeated slowly.
"I have never heard of them," he said, looking genuinely confused.
"You didn't?" I asked, staring at him like he was brain-dead.
"Yeah, we haven't had any problems in my territory since the war years ago," he said proudly.
"Hmm... Guess that's why everyone's running around like chickens without heads," I muttered.
"W-What?"
"I'm just talking to myself," I said, waving him off.
