The Demon Lord’s Successor - 99

“Sacrifice?” you mumble.

Are you really ready to sacrifice your team members? Well, maybe the dumb orc, but could you really guarantee who survives and who doesn’t? You catch yourself ranking your party members in terms of fuckability likeability and shake off the notion.

“Wait,” you whisper to Epsilon.

“Wait for what?” the bunny girl whispers back.

Good question. What other options do you have? Rosetta is barely alive, in your arms. Can you just carry her out of here?

Since you have absolutely no idea how to get out of this predicament with as few casualties as possible, you decide to stall while you think of something better. But how to stall? The Knight does seem pretty talkative so you decide to try the older than dirt approach.

“Oh, valiant knight,” you speak up. “I fear that we indeed are outgunned and unmatched. If it is the fate of my party members to die this day, could you at least tell who it is that will strike them down?”

The dark knight stops his approach. He then clears his throat and says, “Well… I suppose I could offer them this last courtesy.”

He then holds his left arm up and points his index finger up to the high ceiling. Flames shoot out of the armored knight’s finger and form letters. A single word.

“My name is Steven, Lord of Fire,” the dark knight proclaims in his deep echoing voice. “I am the older of the two brothers, known in the seedy underground of this kingdom as The Doom Brothers!”

“And what dastardly plan are you hatching with your brother?” you ask.

“Oh, no!” Steven wags his finger. “I agreed only to reveal my identity so that your comrades would know who it is that sends them to the afterlife.”

“Oh, is there an afterlife in this world?” you ask.

“Well, no—that was just an expression.”

“So, you’re an atheist?”

“What’s an “atheist”?”

“I can’t believe my party is about to be killed by someone who doesn’t even know what an “atheist” is!”

“And what is it?” frustration seeps through Steven’s voice.

“Why would I tell you?”

“You’re right—it doesn’t matter,” the knight says and raises his arm, preparing some form of attack.

“By the way, look what I found in the sewers,” you say and snap your fingers. “Xi, come here boy! Step into the light so that Steven can see you properly.”

The ghastly bunny boy crawls on all fours past you, past the half-circle of your party members, and sits down half-way between Gorrazsh and the Doom Brother.

“Oh, it’s him,” Steven reacts with the same excitement that one would react to a fly that returns through an open window for the sixteenth time. “Ugh, and he reeks too… Wait… Is that stench coming from all of you?”

The dark knight waves his hand in front of his helmet, trying to get rid of the stench of the capital’s sewers. At that moment you hear something clanking against Steven’s plate armor. Again and again. The knight reaches behind his back and pulls out a small, glass-like sphere, about the size of a grapefruit.

Even in Steven’s armored fingers, the sphere continues shaking and hitting the metal. Yet it does not have a single scratch.

Steven holds the ball up, looks into it, and says, “Yes, brother, what is it?”

You do not hear an answer, but soon Steven speaks again, “Understood. I’ll be done here shortly. I might have found an interesting specimen…”

Steven then puts the magical ball away, and you ask, “Who was it?”

“My brother,” the knight answers.

“What did he want?”

“Oh, there’s some little fly causing a commotion up above. I’ll show you after we’ve taken care of the others…”

The knight once again raises his hand, his open palm points at your group.