In the end, my journey took two full days, after all—but not because I was too slow, or because I slept a third of it, but because the farther I went, the more humans I met. To protect my secret, I had to either kill them all or hide, and since killing wasn’t very secretive by definition, my choice of options narrowed to one.

Small human settlements were a marvel to look at, with their dried grass roofs and so many fat humans and animals inside. Tamed animals—and so many of them. Some looked massive and intimidating, with their curved horns and heavy bodies, while others—like the small speckled birds—must’ve been kept for meat.

I smelled that meat being cooked in their houses, with more food scents that were unfamiliar and so, so tempted… Oh, be damned my mission. If only Devourer knew how close I was to forfeiting it entirely at that moment… But I caught myself.

I was not just some scavenger rabble. I called myself a master, THE master! The Master of Sin, which included gluttony. I was the master of my stomach, not the other way around. So I swallowed my saliva and crept farther towards the goal.

At least now there was no fear of me getting lost—I found a road and it wasn’t a far-fetched guess it led to Tinaris, especially since I was told already there was one by that adventurer. I didn’t have to interrogate any more humans to guess—and it’d be a hard task if I wanted, since every so often armed to their teeth squads walked up and down it.

I knew guards when I saw them. The insignias, the formations, the square faces not blessed with much intelligence. So while I walked along the road, I didn’t come out of the groves and bushes at its side.

The city itself, when I reached it, didn’t impress me much. At least cities I’ve seen plenty—this one was a strange mix of Dis and an overgrown human village. I climbed the walls under the cover of the night—there weren’t many people on the walls, probably because only a demon or its like could climb a stone wall that tall without noise.

Then came the hardest part—finding a few specific people, using only Devourer’s vague directions as my guide. He described the road to Bishop’s house the best, and this is where I went.

There were even more guards in the city. I noticed two distinct kinds. One had the shiniest armour and the most colourful uniform. They also had way too much fervour for normal guards written on their faces, even in the dead of night.

The other kind looked just like any other guards.

Whenever I spotted the two of the guard types alongside each other, I saw them looking at their colleagues with badly hidden disdain. That was curious, and if the ruler of this city asked me, I’d tell him about this glaring flaw in the organisation of his domain.

Guards serve together, fight together, and die together. With how weak they normally are, numbers and team work are their only strengths! Any disagreements destroy half of their effectiveness.

After half a night of wandering, I was seriously thinking about risking it and grabbing some homeless from their hiding spot to ask them for directions. There were no people walking the streets despite the burning lanterns, but twice I had to hurriedly hide from the way of guard patrols.

This couldn’t continue. I was also tired after the long walk, and the last time I dozed off was a few hours off from a full day ago.

With an annoyed click of my tongue, I sat down on someone’s porch to think about my options. The dawn wasn’t that far off, too, and it would be hard to get out of the city at day—and even harder to spend it inside. Maybe it was the time to leave the walls and rest, then interrogate someone…

Someone’s scream, brought to me by wind, made me jump to my feet. In the time I’ve been here, I learnt screams weren’t a norm in human cities, at least at night. I heard none during my time here. Something was going on.

The scream sounded more angry than afraid, and more female than male. ‘To look or not to look?.,’ I wondered. Then decided that it was better to know than not to know and ran towards the sound.

I slowed down when more shouts became audible, and with them—an unmistakable, even with all the clinking of metal on metal, music of battle. In the bright lights of their lanterns, I saw a squad of guards—nine, and three more were lying dead or dying—fighting against three people, which seemed to protect a few more. I saw movements behind them, but anything else was hidden from me by the fight.

The trio used the narrow alleyway to prevent the guards from attacking them all at once, but that didn’t work very well for them. The numerical advantage was just too big, and the alleyway wasn’t that narrow. They fought well regardless, though.

The red-haired woman—I was sure she was the one shouting, because she kept that at almost every swing of her axes—hacked left and right. Her allies—children, judging by their heights—covered her flanks and stabbed anyone who opened with their daggers.

Children. The sight of them fighting made me pause for a moment, from pure shock. It was like seeing a child-demon—such an impossible rare sight… I didn’t even connect the human children I saw before with demons their kind turned into, but these two—they brought back memories. So few children lasted long in Hell, but these—they would.

My surprise lasted only a moment, but it was enough to miss the kick that send the taller child flying onto the stones.. With a roar, the fighting woman turned to look at him, and this was when I noticed her eyes were red, too.