The Demon King’s Hero Of Light - Volume 1 Chapter 197 197 Accounts Of The Past

“What do you mean?” asked Aella. “How could it be 400 years? Are you sure about that?”

“Drink your cocoa and let me talk,” said Bridgette, grabbing several books from a bookshelf nearby and hurrying over to the table.

Aella did just that, and savored the flavor of the drink on her tongue. She wondered if Bob knew about hot cocoa? Surely, he did?

“I was skeptical when I saw the reference to his bar, so I did some extra digging and found several more references to him in different books throughout the years. It looks like he first arrived in the human section, taking advantage of the church’s complete control to cater to the richer elements, but as his bar aged and he didn’t, questions started to arise and it looks like Bob moved his bar to the demon side. That’s where I first started seeing references to the bar in some of the hero accounts. I don’t have anything from the demon library, of course, since it was locked away.”

Aella watched as she showed her accounts written in languages she didn’t recognize, where it mentioned Bob’s bar dating back almost four hundred years, as Bridgette had said. Did he not age? Was he a god in his own right? She knew that Jozef was scared of him and had cautioned her to steer clear of him. Since she had just finished paying off the last of her debt to him, she didn’t really want to run over and start asking more questions.

“I don’t care about Bob right now, I need to know about the heroes,” said Aella, setting her empty cup down and staring at it wondering if she wanted another. Precious jumped to the table to sniff at it. Wrinkling his nose, he sneezed.

“I don’t know how you could like that,” he sniffed, licking his paw as if nothing had just happened.

“Does he want some milk?” asked Bridgette, raising an eyebrow, before heading back over to the box.

“He would love some,” purred Precious, watching her carefully and twitching his tail expectantly.

With a laugh, she set the cup down and sat back in her chair. “If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he could understand me. Now, concerning the heroes, there’s a ton of info on them because the church was trying to figure them out.”

“I know that the church took all of the heroes from the other races and bred them to all be mostly human,” said Aella, petting Precious as he guzzled the milk.

“That’s right!” exclaimed Bridgette in surprise. “Only the light hero was actually full human. All of the other heroes claimed some other race in their long lineage, though I doubt you could tell by now. The interesting thing is that there were people who held specialty magic, similar to the heroes, but weren’t considered heroes, so the church didn’t claim them. I don’t know what happened to them, but I believe they don’t exist anymore.”

“What kind of specialty magic?” asked Aella, leaning forward in interest.

“Plant magic, specifically in the elven kingdom, movement magic in the gnome kingdom, and weather magic in the halfling lands. There was also animal magic, communication, food, healing, gate, and necromantic magic,” said Bridgette, reading out of a book.

“What?” asked Aella. “Some of those sound pretty important! How could we get some of that back? Is there a book or something that would tell me how to gain those magics? I especially need the weather one right now!”

“Hold up,” laughed Bridgette. “From what I can tell, the ones that the church thought were important to preserve were lost when those people were obtained. I guess they died or managed to escape and went into hiding. Seeing how the church treated people, I can’t understand how they were able to get away with it without being caught or causing a realm-wide war. Though, there are references in this one book, where the elder of the church at that time had written of how it was believed the king of the demons had hidden some of those capable of using this magic somewhere and they couldn’t figure out where. Later in the same elder’s writings, there is mention that only the demon king could access them so it was very important that no demon king should remain alive long enough to use them against them in the upcoming war. I guess he was talking about the war that never ended,” said Bridgette.

“Is that how everyone referred to the war?” asked Aella, surprised. She had never heard that before.

“It had been going on for over a thousand years, with more fighting some years than others, so yeah, everyone just started calling it the never-ending war.”

“Wow,” said Aella. “At least I ended it now.”

“Only if these humans don’t continue to teach their children to hate demons,” said Bridgette. “I want to open a school where the two races both attend, so that the hate doesn’t continue.”

“Why end with just those races?” asked Aella. “Why not let all of the races send their children? We could make it a place for the children to grow in safety and learn everything that every race has to offer, so that none are behind.”

“That’s a grand idea, that maybe you could actually manage to pull off sometime, but I don’t think it’s possible anytime soon,” said Bridgette thoughtfully. “We have too many other things to worry about right now.”

“You’re right,” sighed Aella, pushing her plans to the back of her mind for the moment. “The elves lost their whole forest in this storm. The gnomes lost their city, and their bunkers were uninhabitable. The dwarves are overcrowded in a large empty cave, and the halflings are basically living in dirt holes in the ground. That doesn’t even start to bring into account the lions and the lizards. They still don’t have homes.”

“Lizards?” asked Bridgette, looking up in surprise.

“I’ll tell you about them later. Tell me about the powers the heroes had. I need to know them all.”

Bridgette looked like she was going to argue for a moment, then nodded and put the books she had back on the shelf, and grabbed another two. Sitting down, she started leafing through the pages.

“We’ll start with air abilities, since you were born with those,” said Bridgette, coming to the page she was looking for and reading for a moment.

“I know that I can fly and walk on air, as if it were solid,” said Aella.

“Well, I have a list of abilities that air heroes have been able to do in the past,” said Bridgette. “One was able to purify air that had been tainted, and could remove smells from the air. She was known for hiding the scent of one of the consorts of the church leaders before they changed the rules allowing them. She could also create a stench to drive people out of areas when the local people tried to object to things the church did.

“There was another who could make gusts of air in very specific areas. It said here that she could push over a tree in a forest without touching any of the other trees. She could also see through debris in the air, like smoke and sandstorms. Can you do any of those things?”

“I can’t see very far through this storm, but that could be because there is so much in the air from it,” admitted Aella, thinking of the fight with the devourers. “I can do the other things, I imagine, except I haven’t tried to make somewhere stink really bad.”

“Oh! This one could change his whole body into that of air, like an elemental, and move through cracks in doors. He couldn’t hold the form very long, and it tired him out immensely, but no other hero has been able to do that,” said Bridgette, sounding impressed.

“Does it talk about any being able to create walls of wind, or a windstorm?” asked Aella.

“No, nothing like that. It does say here that one could make mini tornadoes, but they didn’t do much more than amuse the other children,” said Bridgette, shaking her head.

“Alright. Then, let’s move on to fire,” said Aella, sitting back and petting Precious as he climbed back into her lap.

Bridgette quickly flipped the pages until she found the accounts of the fire heroes, then began reading, “Most could ignite fire, and create sparks. There were a few who could make the flames look like things, like dancers or faces. Most could sense when there was fire nearby, and many could make the flames burn hotter. A few could calm fire until it was small enough to be put out, but that seemed to tire them out a lot. There are a handful of accounts where they could shoot fire from their hands or create smoke screens.

“One account tells of a fire hero who was better than most. He could throw balls of fire that would explode when he wanted them to. He could also sheath his weapons in fire, to cause extra damage, and even create weapons themselves, with his fire. He tried to use his flames on his armor, and the account states he achieved a body of flame, only it didn’t hold and he lost control. It says he was dead within seconds as the fire consumed him.”

“I could see that,” said Aella, thinking about the hunger her fire constantly felt.