[Captain Hilgo]
It had been two years since the unknown demon had vanished from their continent, and in all this time Hilgo had been searching all over, but he hadn't found anything despite even flying over the entirety of the ocean and heading to both of the continents that were hidden from most of the world.
Indeed, it had been a nightmare to gain approval to do that, but in the end he had been watching the entirety of the ocean, scanning, searching for the first year after he escaped, together with an entire army, after all it would be a nightmare if such a monster one day just appeared at the castle, especially with the insane growth that this thing had shown to have.
That demon had after all arrived as an apex-rank, an especially powerful one, and left this world at a presumed lord-rank, most likely the peak, something that Hilgo had barely been able to reach after he had broken through the limitations of the species and been sanctioned by the royal family, gaining their favour after having fought the demon and becoming a kind of hero in the eyes of the public.
Finally, he had just reached the peak of the lord rank, although he probably wouldn't be able to rank up anytime soon after he had forced his body to gain all that power through countless elixirs and ancient treasures of the empire of rescue.
However, he didn't need to, no, he had been promoted to the commander over the holy knights of the great goddess, the one whose name he didn't dare speak aloud anymore after grasping at the true power they wield, the gods are indeed terrifying after all.
On the other hand Mangel had gone to somewhere else, wanting to do something that he didn't want him to know, however.
And now it was time.
While Hilo had been recollecting all that had happened, or at least the basics of it, he had been sitting on a small but comfortable chair in an overly decorated room covered in white and golden garments that kind of made it resemble a kind of pocket belonging to a giant or a kind of circus tent.
Interestingly enough this was exactly how the royal palace looked, and it wasn't made of stone, no, it was indeed made of cloth and soft materials, it was something that could easily bed destroyed by an attacking force, had it not been for the ingrained enchantment sorcery that covered every single square inch of this holy material that had to be created over decades.
And indeed, added to all of the protective charms that would've been enough to even take down the demon of the unknown had he come to this place, it was just plain beautiful when one wandered through the endless halls besmirched with all of the cloth that covered everything, and protected them at the same time.
He quite enjoyed doing that on a normal day of staying by the king's side, but right now he was simply in the room closest to the balcony from which the great parade was being viewed, waiting for hir appearance, waiting for the king to show him off, waiting for the king's investment to pay off, waiting for them to lie about him once more, as if he was just some tool to further their popularity, which in many a way he was.
Obviously he wasn't really a fan of this, but overall it also wasn't that bad, after all, after all the horrible things that happened because of that unknown demon the people needed someone to believe in, and indeed they did, to a stupid degree at that.
At least Hilgo thought so as he listened to the old king's longwinded story about how he battled the horrible demon, replacing his head with that of a jackal and turning his wings into something made of silver, a weird choice but understandable, after all, silver was often associated with being a bad sacrifice for the gods, though it was a good tool for artificing.
Finally his head sprung up as the king came to the part of the story where Hilgo was supposed to appear from behind him and look reliable, something quite ingrained in him seeing that he was quite the burly man, and so he finally stood up, putting his lethargic thoughts caused by the beautiful cloth all around him aside and pushing away some of the waving pieces of cloth, finally entering the balcony made of those very same pieces of cloth, ones that used one of their enchantments to harden, and began to use some of his aura to look radiant, just as a divine knight commander should.
The people, hundreds of thousands of them, filling the streets of the endlessly extending capital made of stone and cloth all looked at him at that very moment, each of their gazes filled with trust and reverence, filled with love and in many cases even attraction, though that mainly came from some older women who liked powerful men, a quite wide-spread attraction as he figured out after he ascended to this position.
And he was just standing there, feeling out of place, after all, this was the first time he really appeared on such a grand scale event, the even to finally celebrate the supposed defeat of the unknown demon, one of the worst disasters that graced this world in the last centuries, a disaster that caused other disasters by killing stable and mostly peaceful or highly territorial demons, except for the demon of wisdom who had been sighted on another continent lately, supposedly doing something that they didn't really understand, on the other hand the name of that demon was the demon of wisdom so that checked out.
On the other hand the endless speech of the king had finally come to an end, and Hilgo hadn't even half listened, he had been worrying about something for quite a while now.
He had been worrying about the silver order, those bastards that seemed to worship the demon of the unknown, they did so because of his strength but they had been showing movements lately, luckily they did however not seem to be here today.
And soon after the day of the parade had come to an end and another simply, menial day began for Hilgo, a day full of boredom, days full of researching the demon of the unknown to figure anything out, and to stop this from happening ever again, after all, over half a million people had died from just the unleashed harpies alone.
To be entirely honest, whenever he thought back on that time, he was truly just terrified.