The Demon King’s Hero Of Light - Volume 1 Chapter 208 208 Hot Mess

“For crimes against the crown, I sentence you” Seifer was saying as Aella teleported in.

She took in the situation quickly and landed on the floor in front of the throne. Ruth, Frank and Louie had muzzles over their faces and chains wrapped around them, keeping them from being able to move.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, as the demons all paused in shock at her appearance.

“It’s the king!”

“Your Majesty!”

“About time she came back”

Seifer stood up with a scowl. “Convenient timing; your return.”

“Why are you sentencing my hydra?” growled Aella, waving her hand and burning the muzzles so the three could speak.

“This beast refused to allow entry into the room you had stored all of the royal treasures during your absence,” he growled back. “I am tired of trying to deal with it, since it is your pet, not mine.”

Aella nodded, and turned to the three who looked at her hopefully.

“Since ‘it’ is mine, then I shall deal with them. They won’t bother you ever again,” she said softly.

Touching Ruth gently on the top of her head, she teleported the baby hydra to her home, leaving the chains behind.

“Where have you taken us?” asked Frank, glancing around hesitantly.

“Momma came!” chimed in Ruth with a grin. One of her front fangs was missing.

Reaching out and healing them, Aella watched a new fang pop into place.

“We almost had another sibling,” muttered Louie, looking at the spot in their back where a head had formed before.

“This is my new home, and not it’s yours. What happened?” asked Aella with a shake of her head. This was horrible!

“When you went missing, we tried to keep your things safe, but bad people kept attacking us,” whined Ruth with giant tears pouring down her face.

“They burned us, and stabbed us, too!” cried Frank, tears trailing down his face as well.

“We tried to fight back, but there were too many of them,” muttered Louie, still looking down at the floor.

Aella soothed the trio by rubbing their heads and holding them in her lap, until they were all done crying.

“You will stay here, and protect my things where no one can bother you,” said Aella. “I even built a play area for you!”

“A play area?” perked up Ruth, scrambling out of Aella’s lap to run and see, but then skidded to a halt and turned back to look at her. “Could Momma get Ruth a new bow? The bad guys ruined the last one!”

“Of course,” nodded Aella, feeling relieved they were fine. Louie seemed a bit depressed still, but she was sure with the other two, he would perk up after a while. And if not, she would deal with it then. “I need to go deal with politics, but I’m going to leave Precious here to play with you.”

“What?” gasped Precious, looking up from her shoulder in panic as Aella grabbed him.

“Ohh! Pretty kitty!” chirped Ruth, coming closer to see.

“He looks just like the flying lions the new king chased off!” observed Frank.

“What?!” exclaimed Aella.

“He said they ate too much, and chased them off as soon as the storm started to lessen,” whispered Louie, looking up at Precious despite himself.

“Aella! You can’t be serious!” hissed Precious as she dropped him in front of the curious triplets.

With a smile at their antics, Aella teleported back to the throne room. Seifer appeared to be waiting.

“I demand you return the treasures that belong to the Demon Kingdom,” snarled Seifer.

“What has happened to you?” asked Aella, tilting her head to the side. She didn’t see anything magical about him. Could someone have corrupted his way of thinking? Glancing around the room, she tried to see who might be behind the corruption. No one presented any hints to her question, so she turned back to Seifer.

“Have you any idea how difficult it is to do this job without the coin you promised people before leaving?” he demanded, standing up and pacing.

“I believe I understand how difficult the job is,” she nodded. “Can you imagine how much more difficult it would be with people constantly trying to sabotage all of the hard work you do, so you end up even further behind than you started? How about trying to get things better, so the people have a chance at happy healthy lives, when everything is crumbling around you?”

He stopped and looked at her, then took a sigh, waving his hand. Everyone left the room, except for him and Frederik.

“Forgive me, but I guess I forgot some of that in trying to keep what you started going. I guess it makes sense some of the problems I have, when I think about the fact most of these practices are new to the people. You’re not going to bring back those treasures, are you?” he asked.

“No. I will bring you a portion of coins, to keep your kingdom going while I work on something else, but I see no reason to introduce all of the magical items back into the world, when most people don’t have a good enough understanding of what magic even is.”

He nodded, rubbing his hand over his head. “If you are going to take those you set in place, I would have you take Jogug, all of the assassins, and those blasted lions. I’m sure there are others I would have you take, but those come to mind immediately.”

“I am working on building a trade hub during the coming full moon, where people from all the kingdoms can gather to sell and trade between each other, without overly risking each of the kingdoms. Once I have the city complete, I will take them away to live there. May I ask where you have them at the moment? I don’t want a repeat of the hydra”

“Jogug is in the dungeon. He caused a scene and refused to accept me as the new king, so I placed him there until he was willing to accept me as king. I haven’t had any problems with anyone else accepting me, but I didn’t kill him outright, because of his connections with you.”

“Yet you were willing to kill my hydra?” asked Aella softly, raising an eyebrow.

“Your hydra killed fifteen people that I sent to get coins from your room,” growled Seifer.

“I will take Jogug now, then,” said Aella, worried about his condition. She would just have to leave him in her house with the hydra, and stay away from them. “The assassins will move to the new city as soon as it is finished.”

“Will you order them to stop killing people?” asked Seifer.

“No, their orders are to only kill thieves and murderers. So, if people die by their hands, there is a reason,” she said, shaking her head. “You will miss them once they are gone.”

“You are probably right,” he nodded, not asking her to leave them. “The lions are somewhere. I ordered them to leave as soon as it was safe. They were eating beggars off the street because of the lack of food. The people were scared to leave their homes.”

“I understand. I will find them and explain to them they are not welcome here,” she said, frowning. So much for her idea to allow them to form friendsh.i.p.s with the people. “What of the pets the nobles took into their homes?”

“They were killed. There was barely enough food to feed the people, much less deranged cats that tried to kill their feeders and tenders. They were given to the lions to eat, and they obliged. I barely have enough animals left to breed in order to bring our stock back up to the numbers that are needed to feed the people.”

Aella sighed. “I didn’t intend to leave and not return. I was busy dealing with volcanoes.”

“We figured when we saw the smoke after the storms started to subside. Scouts said there were monsters playing in the molten lava, and they were burning all of the fallen trees around the volcano.

“Monsters?” asked Aella with a frown. She didn’t remember there being monsters.

“They said there were dozens of them, moving about and playing in the lava,” shrugged Seifer.

Aella would have to check on that when she went searching for the lions.

“Have you got any idea where the lions might have moved to?” asked Aella.

“The last reports I got from scouts said that they have moved into the mountains and were preying on a group of lizard people who lived in a swamp at the base of the mountains, on the other side of the mountains from us,” said Seifer.

Aella’s mouth dropped open. Surely not? Blinking a couple of times while her mind started racing, she nodded and turned to leave.

“I will be back in a bit. Please have Jogug brought up from the dungeons, so I can take him away when I return,” she said before teleporting to the nearby mountains. She had to find the lions and lizards before it was too late.