Demon's Virtue
Chapter 14: Pheasant

While a large number of Adventurers were rushing south to take care of the Monster Horde at the bottom of the bridge, Avalin, Thomas, James, and the Imp made their way to the northern bridge, which they without any hesitation started descending from.

There were a lot of other people seemingly trying to do the same thing, although the Imp didn't really understand why they seemed so scared. The Imp himself was starting to relax a lot because the weird, icky feeling that he got ever since they got close to the huge lake slowly disappeared the closer they got to the end of the bridge.

"Do you guys really think it was a good idea for us to just leave like that?" Avalin asked with concern as she turned around and looked at the island when the group had nearly reached the bottom of the bridge already, and Thomas sighed deeply and simply frowned at that question, just like every time that Avalin asked something similar, before finally turning around with clear annoyance in his face. "I already said, no dis… cussion…" Thomas said with a frown, which suddenly turned into shock and confusion, before he took a sudden step backward, bumping into the Imp and dropping to the ground.

"Gegh!" The Imp let out involuntarily as he dropped his book to the ground, which had started sliding down the slightly sloped bridge while Thomas dropped onto his back due to that slope as well.

And then, suddenly taken out of his trance created by trying to read, the Imp quickly followed the book and picked it back up, before turning around and looking into the direction of the others, before noticing that literally everyone on the bridge was currently just staring at the floating island in the distance, which hat turned into a pure mass of Flames.

While everyone around the Imp seemed to be pretty scared of the Flames, the Imp was more curious about them, because weirdly enough, instead of that red-orange that fire usually was, these flames were completely blue! Although, exactly that seemed to be the reason why everyone was so scared.

"Azure Flames…" Avalin muttered quietly and kept staring at the island in the distance, while others around her began to start moving again, although incredibly erratically and seemingly as quickly as they could. Even those that were going up the bridge started to walk down it again. And there, the Imp came in contact with a word over and over again, but he was pretty confused about it, because it was supposed to be in a whole different direction to the fire, and it wasn't usually blue either.

Although considering that even Avalin was saying it, it had to be true. "Th-The Sun… It's The Sun… Get going! Hurry!" Avalin yelled out and immediately grabbed the Imp by the hand, dragging him behind her as quickly as she could, while Thomas and James ran in front of them.

And once they got to the bottom of the bridge, they didn't stop either, but instead just continuously kept running without any sort of hesitation in the slightest. The Imp actually nearly lost his book a few times, so it was pretty annoyed and unhappy about having to run like that all of a sudden.

But after a while, one, two, or maybe even three hours later, the four of them finally stopped running, and everyone immediately collapsed on the ground while it already became dark out. The Imp was feeling surprisingly energetic even then, even if he would have been heaving for air just yesterday. That was probably just because the Imp was so amazing at everything he did, but he didn't feel like bragging while Avalin was obviously not feeling well.

With a pale, nearly pure white, expression, the young woman looked at Thomas and James with fear in her face. "What was a royal doing there..? What the fuck was a Royal doing there?!" She yelled out, but it seemed like neither Thomas nor James had an answer to that at all.

"I… I don't know, but… We really need to get going… We're taking a quick break here, and then we're continuing on to the Capital. N-Not even a Royal Would go there at the moment, right..?" Thomas asked with a wry smile, burying his face inside of his hands, and James quickly nodded his head.

"Right… Literally, the strongest fighters in the world are gathering there… Some of them should be able to take care of a Royal or two, r-right?" He asked while shaking all over, and the Imp just stared at the two of them annoyedly and looked over toward Avalin, pushing his hand into the meat-bag and offering her a fistful of his food. After all, he wasn't feeling as hungry as the past few days, so he would surely be able to spare a little for her.

"Th-Thanks, but I can't eat that… We probably should eat, though, right? Just some grilled meat should be fine…" Avalin muttered in reply before slowly standing up, "I'll get some firewood…" She said, but before she could even stand up properly, her body collapsed again in reaction to what she just experience.

"Oh, seems like I'm still a little tired… I can go get some in a minute. I just need to rest…" The woman added, but while she did so, James shook his head. "It's fine. I can go get it…" He replied, although he just kept sitting there, pulling his knees against his chest, while Thomas began to laugh nervously.

"So, you think you're going anytime soon..? I can do it as well if you want.." Thomas suggested, but similar to James didn't even budge at all besides the little bit caused by his constant shaking.

"Tsk…" The Imp clicked his tongue because he was annoyed at their laziness and looked over at Avalin. "Fire, wood?" He asked, and pulled his cloak to the side to show the dagger bound to the strap of his bag. "Wood?" The Imp added, and Avalin just so slightly smiled at him. "Yeah, that's wood… Do you think you can get us as many pieces of wood like this as you can?" Avalin asked, pulling over a stick that was lying near her, and the Imp took a closer look before nodding his head.

He saw a lot of those sticks a little while ago! They were all piled together already as well, so it would be easy to find a lot of them! "Yes!" The Imp yelled out and immediately turned around, trying to remember where he saw all that wood, although it was rather hard to do so because of how dark it was.

But after just a little while, the Imp got used to it while he was walking through the forest, soon finding the pile of sticks again. For some reason, though, some annoying thing was sleeping on it, and the Imp really didn't like that at all.

So, angrily, the Imp took the wooden dagger he had with him and stared at the thing! But the Imp knew that he had to be careful because even if it was harmless and asleep right now, he might wake it up and be attacked! He learned such a lesson the hard way before when he was still with his brothers.

Slowly, the Imp moved across the distance between him and the pile of sticks as quietly as he could, and when he reached the small thing laying on the sticks, he swung the pointy tip of it directly at its head! And with a loud crack, it seemed like some delicious-smelling blood splattered across the Imp and the sticks below it, but this beautiful scene was interrupted by some horrid notifications.

[Pheasant -40 Damage]

[You attacked without being noticed! Damage increased by 20%]

[You attacked a weak spot! Damage increased by 50%]

[You attacked a sleeping enemy! Damage increased by 50%]

[Total Damage: 108]

[You killed the Pheasant]

[You leveled up!]

[Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled Up!]

[You killed an Enemy with one hit!]

[Strength +1][Agility +1]

[Beginner Stealth Skill Learned]

Annoyed at their sudden Appearance, the Imp swung his wooden dagger at the Notifications and quickly made them run away in a cloud of mist, while the Imp stuffed the small thing into his bag to eat later, although that didn't seem to be the only interesting thing on the pile of sticks.

And all of them were pretty shiny, so they were probably good things! Happily, the Imp stuffed them into his bag as well and then grabbed the pile of sticks, which were stuck together pretty tightly, and pulled it along with him back to where Avalin, and the two bad people, were waiting for him. And it seemed like especially the latter two were quite surprised to see the Imp bring along that many sticks so quickly!

"You… found a nest?" Avalin asked with a light smile, and then took a closer look at the Imp and frowned slightly, "Wait, are you bleeding?!" She exclaimed all of a sudden when she saw the red splatters on the Imp's cloak, but he just shook his head proudly and stuffed his hand into his bag, pulling out the first enemy that he killed himself.

"Wait, this is a Pheasant's nest?" She asked, surprised, and Thomas smiled lightly, "Well, at least we'll have something to eat for now… We only have a little left right now…" He pointed out, but Avalin frowned at him, "Hey! He killed it, so he should keep it! You know that he eats a lot more than us!"

"Yeah, because it's a glutton! It has the overeating skill. It doesn't NEED to eat as much as it does. It chooses to. So, let's go ahead, and fucking eat it already, I'm starving!" James exclaimed, trying to take the Pheasant from the Imp, who quickly took a step back so that he couldn't do so.

"You fucking- Give me that now!" James yelled out, trying to move closer to the Imp, but Avalin quickly stopped him, "Seriously, stop! We spoke about this! We're treating him like I want to. He hunted it, so-" Avlain told him off, but was interrupted by the loud grumbling of her stomach, something which the Imp had learned to be a sign that she was hungry.

He didn't want to give it to James or Thomas out of his own free will, but he didn't mind giving his prey to Avalin at all. The Imp himself wasn't hungry anyway, so he swiftly looked at the thing in his hand and held it over toward Avalin. "Take." The Imp said, and Avalin raised her brows in response, "You sure?" She asked him, and the Imp slowly nodded his head.

"Imp not hungry. Avalin hungry. Eat." The Imp told her, and with a smile on her face, she slowly received the bird from him. "Thank you. You two, then at least take care of this, alright? I'll wash the blood off of him and the cloak so that we don't attract monsters…" Avalin said, slowly trying to stand up before giving the prey to Thomas and James, both of which slowly began to make a fire while preparing the bird for eating.