"Whoa! What the hell?!"
Brian cried out in shock as people ran into this inn, seeking shelter from the people hooded in flesh that were swarming them like brainless monsters.
"Watch out!" One sobbing woman clutched onto his arm, "They're attacking everyone out there!"
"Why?!"Brain yelped as he grabbed a broom and started to swat at the people who were only moments before peacefully walking through the streets.
"What's going on?!" The kitchen staff shouted as they burst out of the worksite.
"These monsters have gone mad! Brian shouted, "Protect the inn!"
"O-Okay?!"
"Hold on!"
A call from atop the inn's roof drew people's attention to Momo who was standing there with a box of salt under her arm. Shifting the salt over to one hand, she held it up and her free hand, charged with electricity, punched the bottom of the container, sending the salt flying out over the area, landing on the attacking monsters and causing them to writhe in pain and retreat from the inn.
"What's this?" Brian frowned, brushing some salt from his hair, "Why are they retreating?"
"These monsters are weak to salt." Kaguya explained, appearing from seemingly nowhere as she pat Brian on the shoulder, "Go protect your guests. We'll handle the monsters."
"O-O-Okay..." Brian nodded nervously as he retreated with his broom.
"Corissa, can you santify the ground?" Helena asked as she walked out of the crowd, blasting any approaching monsters with blades of ice that sliced them in half.
"I certainly could, but..." Corissa bit her lip as she followed her out of the crowd.
"I know, what Roko said right?"
"Yeah..."
"I say let her use sanctuary." Roland scoffed, drawing his swords as he approached the gate, "Are we really going to blindly trust that evil man even in this situation?"
"Roko isn't normally evil though..." Corissa frowned.
"Well he is now! And he was evil when he gave you that advice too!" Roland snapped, "But whatever. We can't rely on him now so I'll pick up all the slack."
Wielding his twin blades, Roland went right into slashing into the nearest monster, cleaving him in two with ease.
"Nice." Roland sneered, "Looks like all my training is paying off."
"He's really confident now that he's done a few push-ups." Kaguya remarked.
"Hehe...Perhaps I've reached an entirely new form now?" Roland grinned to himself as he went about slicing through monsters.
"What new form?" Helena frowned, "What, is he gonna demand new armor now too?"
"Roland going to go from white knight to black knight?" Momo chuckled as she joined them on ground level.
"But that's Varis' color!" Corissa yelped.
"Where is Varis anyway?" Helena asked.
"I sent him to save as many people as he could across the city." Corissa explained.
"Well if anybody could show up out of nowhere to save us, it's Varis." Kaguya nodded.
"Kaguya sama!" Mikado's voice called from inside the inn, "I've secured more salt supplies!"
"Then do it." Kaguya called back.
"As you command."
And with that, Mikado began throwing salt over the men and women huddled in the inn. A few cried out in surprised but a few more began morphing and twisting as more and more salt landed on them, twisting their forms into monsters that caused panic among the crowd.
"Brian, keep salt on hand to check for monsters hidden among you." Kaguya said as Mikado landed on the ground and began exterminating the monsters among them, "Me and Mikado will keep his inn secure. The rest of you, head out and see what you can find out about what changed in the city."
"Already on it." Helena gave a thumbs up, "Keep em all safe for us okay!"
"B-But...we..." Brian looked around nervously.
"Don't worry. Just the two of us will do." Kaguya replied, "Especially with the salt supply we have here."
"Yeah. Don't worry. We'll be back soon if things don't work out anyway." Momo nodded, "Now, let's go!"
"They still haven't arrived huh?" Morgan said as she stood on top of a roof, her full demon form on display, "They must be up to something again. Did they actually pick up on my little hint? Hmph. Perhaps it was a bit foolish of me to give them a hint. But when that idiot says something so stupid in defense of me, well, it was hard not to gently correct her."
…
That man she made a contract with though. He was a peculiar one. A rather intelligent human Morgan had to admit. He had his secrets but his abilities were unreal. Modifying the contracts to strengthen the demons was something even the greatest demonic contractors struggled to deal with. Had she ever bothered to secure a contact, Morgan would've loved to see how that worked for herself. However, contracts were immensely personal for most demons. Simple exploitative contracts weren't usually done simply because it was a coldly pragmatic way of using something that should be personal. Most of the demons in their group were either already well experienced contract makers so making exploitative ones weren't anything new for them. But Olivia was always different. She always took things...perhaps a little too seriously. One of the rare demons that actually seemed to care about humans, at least, outside of being a resource for her to exploit. It wasn't a unique mindset, just a peculiar mindset to have on their side. Olivia herself was one such example. She always seemed mostly indifferent to humans but at some point she began to have some sort of compassion for them. When did that start? Gosh, it must've been years ago. Perhaps...after the mission at the mansi-
"Oh..." Morgan blinked as pieces started to slowly click in her head, "Oh that makes sense now..."
"Morgan!"
"Oh. Hello." Morgan turned as her fellow demons arrived on the same rooftop as her on wings and wind magic.
"What's going on?!" Their leader demanded as he pushed his way to the front.
"...You're asking me?" Morgan smirked.
"Right, I guess you wouldn't know either." Their leader sighed, "I don't get it. What's caused all the monsters to go crazy?"
"Hmmm..." Morgan thought carefully about how to respond, "Do you know where Olivia is by chance?"
"Huh? No, I don't know where she is." Their leader said, catching onto the bait that Morgan had left, "That human brat must've discovered something that caused a huge reaction then?"
"Did they find the grimoire maybe?" One demon suggested.
"Dammit, they better not have touched it and been seduced by power." Their leader scowled, "They're supposed to contact us the moment they have a lead."
"Brian's going to be so pissed if that human got Olivia in any danger." One demon snickered.
"Idiot, they broke up already, don't you remember?"
"Oh yeah!"
A small group laughed very audibly to the side which their leader tried to ignore,
"What am I running, a high school?" he grumbled.
"There they are!"
Turning around, Morgan watched as Momo landed on the roof across from them, "The demons Roko talked about!"
"Roko?" Their leader frowned.
"That's the human Olivia made a contract with." One of his subordinates tried whispering to him.
"I know that!" He snapped, "But if this human knows him then that means..."
"They're his comrades." Morgan said, watching as Helena, Corissa and Roland finally arrived on the same roof as Momo.
"Wretched demons!" Helena cried, shaking her fist at them, "Thou are the reason our friend hast turned against us!"
"Why is she using outdated terms?" One demon frowned.
"I started with 'Wretched demons' and just figured I had to lean into the terminology." Helena shrugged.
"Are all humans like this?" one demon sighed.
"Some of us are even more like this." Momo chuckled.
"Seriously? How do you humans even stand each other?"
"Hey, no badmouthing my princess." Roland said, pointing one of his swords at the demons, "Any who do will answer to me and my blades."
"You seriously think your piddly little swords can handle demons like us?" their leader sneered, "We're not just any demons you know."
"I thought so." Momo nodded, "Are you the ones controlling these monsters?"
"Hm? Oh no, not us." Their leader frowned, "We're after the grimoire ourselves."
"You're not responsible?" Helena said, confused, "Then...who is?"
"How should I know?" their leader scoffed, "For all I know it's your human friend's fault."
"Hey, that's not fair!" Momo cried, "This could be your demon friend's fault!"
"Olivia?" their leader scoffed, "That girl is not worthy of her title or status. Competent enough for a lackey but she doesn't have what it takes to accomplish our goals."
"Your goals?" Momo frowned, "What do you mean?"
"You still don't know do you?" The leader sneered, "We work for the Demon King."
"The Demon King?!" Helena gasped, "Then...the Demon King is after grimoires?!"
"That's right! With the power of these strange monsters, we will exterminate every human from the face of this planet!"
Morgan sighed.
"Typical demons." Momo shook her head, "We knew we would have to deal with all of you eventually."
"Wait, do we have to fight them?"
"Huh?" Everyone turned to look at Corissa who had proposed the question.
"I mean, neither of us are behind this situation, right?" Corissa asked, "And they're looking for the grimoire too right? So we could team up. At least until we find the grimoire right?"
Everyone stared at Corissa like she had said something completely out of pocket.
"Team up?" Momo said, more curious than offended, "With the demons?"
"Don't be stupid, human with the banging bod!" one demon shouted, "There's no way we demons would ever rely on you humans for help!"
"What about Roko?" Helena asked.
"T-That's different!"
"Yeah we don't need him for anything!"
"What about the contract upgrades?" Morgan blinked.
"W-W-Well he did help us ONE time I guess but that's all!"
"Roko helped you become stronger?!" Momo gulped, "That's the scariest thing you've said since we got here."
"Yeah! Check out this power!"
One of the demons summoned a fireball and threw it at the humans, said humans leaning away as the fireball flew past them and exploded into a giant fireball behind them.
"See! With that kind of power, you humans stand no chance!"
"...Is that it?" Momo frowned, "That's kind of weak."
"What?"
"Yeah, that was on par with the elves at best." Helena nodded, "Honestly, I figured demons would be stronger than that even without Roko's guidance."
"I...I uh..."
"Wasn't Roko making towers of fire bigger than any building in this entire town?" Corissa remarked, "Roko could definitely do better than this."
"Shut up! I'm not gonna take this from the most submissive and breedable human I've ever seen!"
"Can we kill the demons yet?" Roland scoffed.
"I mean, I'm down." Helena shrugged, "They've treated our Corissa poorly two too many times."
"I'm used to it." Corissa sighed.
"Don't say that." Roland said, turning his head to Corissa dramatically, "You deserve to be treated like a human being. Simply give me the order and I'll massacre all who dare besmirched your honor!"
"I'd rather you not kill everyone here including yourself, thanks." Corissa sighed.
"Damn, human with the hourglass figure." one demon said, "Are you sure they're your friends?"
"They're the best ones I got." Corissa smiled.
"For shame." Roland shook his head, "You should all treat Corissa better."
"I ain't taking that from the horniest and criminally liable human I know." Helena said, smacking a hand on Roland's armor, "Also, the fuck man, I'M the one you're supposed to be defending."
"A knight's chivalry has no borders."
"There's so much to comment on in that one sentence alone." Helena sighed.
"Is this what the humans call NTL?" One demon whispered to another demon.
"No, what even is NTL?"
"Yknow, that thing that happened to Brian and stuff."
"Nah, that human's just a swinger."
"Hey now hang on!" Helena cried, "What happened to Brian?! Why do you know about that?!"
"That's what you're protesting about?!" Roland snapped.
"I honestly can't believe we're still arguing." Morgan sighed, "Can we just fight already?"
"We all want to fight." Momo replied, "It's just Corissa's who's the hold out."
"And I still am." Corissa frowned, "We don't have time to be fighting each other. We need to find the grimoire or whoever's behind this."
"Okay, well do you have any idea where to begin for either of those questions?" Morgan asked.
"No...but do you?"
"No..." their leader admitted.
"Then we should work together!" Corissa pressed, "Maybe if we combine our knowledge we can figure something out!"
"The human who got it going on has a point." one demon admitted.
"Her name is Corissa, you know." Roland said.
"I don't care."
"You know we don't have to work together." Helena mused, "Just think of it like using each other."
"...Well...I suppose that's okay." their leader scratched their head in befuddlement, "But YOU go first! Tell us what you know then!"
"Alright, I guess we'll be the better person." Helena rolled her eyes, "So what do you want to know?"
"Uhhh..." the leader thought about it for a moment, "...Anything strange happen today?"
"Seriously?" one demon remarked.
"Hey, I ain't just asking how their day's been! I'm asking if anything happened that could explain what's happening right now!"
"Well...not much happened today." Momo crossed her arms, "It was a pretty normal day until all this went down."
"Right. Although, Lydia did ask us to look out for someone." Helena added.
"Wait, Lydia did?" their leader frowned, "Who?"
"What's it matter to you?" Helena frowned, "You know Lydia or something?"
"You could say that." the leader replied, "Just tell me who were they looking for."
"Well, it was a girl with black hair, and blue eyes and huge breasts."
Every demon's eyes turned to Morgan.
"Huh...you know..." Helena said as they followed the demons focus onto Morgan, "You DO fit that description, demon with the black hair, blue eyes and huge breasts."
"...Could be anyone." Morgan shrugged, "I can't be the only one who fits that description.
"Did Lydia mention a name?" their leader asked.
"Yeah, Morgan I think."
Every demon turned to look at Morgan again.
"..." Morgan did her best not to look anybody in the eyes.
"Morgan..." their leader frowned, "You've got some explaining to do."
"T-Them looking for me means nothing." Morgan replied, "You can't prove I'm responsible for anything."
"Wait, YOU'RE Morgan?!" Helena gasped, "But then...why was Lydia looking for you?"
"Lydia's the owner of the inn right?" the demon leader asked.
"Yeah."
"Well...I guess it's only fair that I tell you..." the leader sighed, "Lydia's real identity is Olivia."
"Olivia? Oh...Lydia…Olivi-...How'd I NOT figure that out before?" Helena frowned, clutching her head.
"Our disguises are foolproof!" their leader cried, "There was no way for any of you to have figured it out!"
"Wait, Olivia's the demon contracted with Roko right?"
"Yeah."
"So if Olivia's looking for you, Morgan..." Helena's eyes narrowed, "Then that means Roko's looking for you...right?"
"..."
"Morgan..." their leader frowned.
"Who are you going to trust, boss? Me, or these humans?" Morgan pressed.
"Hmmmmmm..." their leader didn't seem quite convinced by Morgan's flimsy return though he didn't seem quite eager to condemn one of his own.
"Quick question then." Helena added, "What exactly was Roko supposed to be doing for you all?"
"That plain looking human?" the leader replied, "He was supposed to be looking for the grimoire for us."
"So...if he's looking for Morgan..."
Eyes turned back to glare at Morgan. Nobody seemed to have any doubts anymore about who should be addressed. The problem in all their heads now was how to deal with her.
"Oh screw it." Morgan sighed, "If I'm outed, I'm outed."
And with a snap of her fingers, the possessed monsters on the ground below them jumped up and started attacking both humans and demons.
"Morgan you traitorous witch!" their leader cried as he was suddenly held down by a dozen monsters.
"Cry about it." Morgan said as she retreated.