"Is that so? But there's no expression on your face at all. Is that really how you should talk to someone you love?", Aura walked out of the water and observed Ash up close as he stood there expressionless, reading things flatly, her face full of confusion.
Unfortunately, Ash had no intention of responding to her, nor did he feel like complaining about her strange use of the word "love." He simply washed his hands in the cold river water, then stood up on his own and headed toward the bushes they had come from, speaking without even turning his head, "Are you done washing? If you are, let's go back. Otherwise, all that meat will get dragged off by wild beasts or monsters."
"Eh~ Ash, you're really boring."
"Show a little respect for your older brother, you bastard."
"I'd like to show respect, but you're way too lacking in care and affection toward your little sister. And who calls their most beloved little sister 'thing' or 'bastard' anyway?"
"Humans are basically like that."
"Huh? Really?", Aura immediately showed a surprised expression upon hearing that. As she subconsciously followed after him, she added thoughtfully, "Humans are really barbaric. Ash, you're a demon, how can you learn from those barbaric guys?"
"..."
'What do I do, she actually believes it. Should I tell her the truth? Forget it, it's kind of interesting to leave it like this for now,' Ash walked ahead, covered his face in annoyance for a moment, and then decisively tossed the issue to the back of his mind.
It wasn't anything important anyway. Better not to worry too much. If something really feels off later, he could think of a countermeasure then.
.
.
.
[One Year Later]
Without anyone protecting her, Aura lacked sufficient combat ability. However, with Ash and the beasts she controlled helping her, she built up a servant army of nearly a hundred at a snowballing, astonishing speed.
After years of basically figuring out the forest's layout, the two moved through the dense jungle and quickly arrived near a human village at the edge of the mountains.
There was no resistance at all. The controlled servants swept in like a landslide and occupied the village almost effortlessly, without spilling a single drop of blood.
Looking at the villagers who had been gathered in the center of the village, trembling with fear, Aura declared smugly without any restraint, "From today on, we are your masters!"
"From today on, you'll cook for us!", Ash followed up immediately with what was currently his greatest wish.
That left Aura momentarily stunned, "Ash, aren't your ambitions a bit too small? Shouldn't we normally just kill them?"
"What are you talking about? Isn't it good to have people cook for us? Or do you want to cook for me yourself?"
"Then let's keep them! Even though they're barbaric humans, they still have some value."
Although her instincts told her to kill, her desire not to work, along with memories of being ordered around and treated roughly by Ash over the years, instantly made her toss those instincts aside.
When the villagers saw a demon leading nearly a hundred beasts and monsters, about ten hunters initially wanted to resist. But the gravity Ash created with a mere lift of his hand forced them all flat to the ground, leaving everyone else to give up resistance in despair.
Still, the conversation between the two gave the villagers a faint glimmer of hope, and Ash stepped forward again at just the right time.
"Everyone, don't worry. We're good people... no, good demons... that doesn't sound right either. Um... anyway, we're good demons."
'Come to think of it, how do humans in this world view demons?', It was his first contact with humans, and as Ash looked at the people below, he felt a bit troubled.
Even though that damn system let him grow stronger through killing, the actual effect of wishing was hard to make sense of. Besides, if he slaughtered too much carelessly, he'd probably get labeled a Demon King first. He also didn't like indiscriminate killing, so for now he chose to lie low and develop cautiously.
Faced with someone who had suddenly appeared and surrounded their village with large numbers of monsters and beasts, the villagers were naturally half-believing and half-doubting his words. It was hard to trust what this "human," who mixed with demons and claimed to be one himself, was saying.
That's right. In terms of appearance, he looked completely human, with no demon traits like horns, making it difficult to distinguish between the two.
Unless it was a mage with deep knowledge of demons who could judge by aura, ordinary humans basically couldn't tell the difference.
Ash noticed this too, 'Claiming to be human would indeed be more convenient.'
But with Aura right beside him, and considering that revealing the truth later would only break trust, he figured it was better to be honest from the start. So he couldn't be bothered to disguise anything and simply spread his hands.
"Don't judge by appearances. I really am a demon. But we don't plan to kill anyone, so we hope you'll cooperate with us."
"Y-You say... cooperate?", An elderly man who seemed to be the village chief stepped out from the crowd.
"Yes. As long as you take care of us, we can protect you from monster and beast attacks. How about it? For a village on the edge of the forest like yours, it's a good deal, right?"
"Really, just that?", The old man was still doubtful.
"You can find out through our cooperation. Of course, you're not allowed to leave here for other villages or populated areas."
Rather than explanations, real actions were more effective. So Ash didn't explain much and simply forced the cooperation into being.
Under the trembling guidance of the villagers, they headed to the best house in the village.
Soon after, under the supervision of monsters, the villagers served them food.
On the table were cheese, bread, soup with milk added, meat roasted until fat dripped out, and roasted chestnuts releasing a sweet aroma.
All the scents stimulating their appetites made the two, who had grown up like savages in the mountains, exchange a glance before simultaneously reaching out, completely disregarding any past courtesy as they fought over the food.
They didn't need to worry about poison. According to their own understanding, ordinary toxins were meaningless to demons. As for poisons that could harm demons, there was no way this village had any.
It was precisely thanks to the meal that Aura completely chose to trust Ash's judgment and decided to settle here together.
.
.
.
At the beginning, the villagers were panicked. But with the help of monsters and beasts, the success rate of hunting in the mountains skyrocketed, the injury rate dropped sharply, and just as Ash had said, they were no longer threatened by outside dangers.
The controlled beasts and monsters could even help with farm work, greatly increasing efficiency and helping them reclaim new fields.
That first winter, this poor border village didn't have a single person starve to death for the first time.
This caused their mentality to change rapidly. By the third year, they even built statues for them, treating them as guardian deities who protected them. Just to avoid being labeled heretical, they quietly removed Aura's horns from the statue.
Living off the villagers' support, Ash and Aura were able to focus on studying magic and eat good food every day.
After the first year, they basically loosened restrictions. Or rather, they allowed the village chief and a few villagers who volunteered to accept control to move freely after Aura cast obedience magic on them, making them unable to betray the two. They could even go out freely to purchase supplies.
In practice, aside from the command to commit suicide upon betrayal, no additional orders were given. So their activities were exactly the same as before, except they could not defy Aura's commands or betray them.
For ordinary villagers, a life of full bellies with mental restraints versus mental freedom where they and their families might starve to death didn't really require much deliberation.
Although a shackle had been added, in this medieval era, this was a poor border village where people often went hungry and could genuinely starve to death.
Their kingdom was also at war with neighboring countries, and all kinds of taxes were extremely heavy.
It was through this human village that Ash learned about the structure of the world. They were currently in the southern lands.
This place was extremely far from the demon race's main base on the northern lands.
As a result, only scattered demons appeared here, and the threat from demons was much smaller. This also led to frequent wars between the countries here.
Everyone wanted to annex the others, but no one could truly swallow another. Wars broke out constantly, and the recent fighting seemed particularly intense, to the point that even this remote village had two war orphans drift in.
It was precisely those two outsider orphans who had fled here to escape the war that gave Ash quite a bit of information about the outside world.
"No matter which world it is, humans really do love killing each other in the end, huh?"
During a break from studying magic, Ash looked at the wheat fields in front of him and lightly reflected on the situation of the country he was in, then quickly tossed aside those boring philosophical thoughts.
The setting sun bathed the golden wheat fields beside the buildings in light. As the wind swept across the land, waves of wheat rolled like a golden sea undulating in the breeze.
Everything he could see was so peaceful it didn't feel like a border village of a war-torn nation at all. The peace was enough to make one lazy. Ash lay down on the grass at the edge of the village, leaned against a tree trunk, and quietly closed his eyes, wanting to take a nice afternoon nap.
Unfortunately, before he could fall asleep, in that half-dreaming state, someone suddenly kicked his shoulder.
When he opened his eyes, Aura came into view. She was already eighteen, yet hadn't changed much from before.
She looked down at Ash from above, frowning tightly, "Don't sleep. Something seems to have happened."
"What do you mean?"
"The magic wolves cooperating with the hunters were killed."
"I see."
He sat up from the ground, thinking about whether it was humans, monsters, or demons who had done it. Amid the wind mixed with the scent of wheat and flowers, a hint of blood seemed to drift in as well.
His ears quickly caught the sound of horse hooves and panicked shouting from afar. He immediately stood up and looked toward the sound.
A squad of cavalry with bloodstained weapons came galloping in from the fields not far away.
Judging by their banners, they bore the insignia of the Kingdom of Tertone, the enemy of the Kingdom of Tade where they currently were.
These cavalry, who had entered near the border line in a guerrilla fashion to guard against forest beasts and launch surprise attacks, were fully armed.
On the spear of the lead rider hung a familiar young hunter, Julius. He was one of the war orphans who had fled here to escape the conflict and had only recently become a full-fledged hunter.
"You wanted to escape war so badly, yet even after coming here... you still couldn't escape it in the end. How pitiful," Ash narrowed his eyes slightly and remarked calmly, casually taking the longsword the village chief handed him with trembling hands.
Compared to Ash, the village chief couldn't remain calm at all and pleaded in panic, "A-Ash-sama... p-please, you must protect us!"
"I'll do what I can."
In medieval warfare, there was basically no bottom line. Of course, real wars rarely have one anyway, but it was especially obvious in this era. Victors rap!ng, looting, massacring cities... it was all painfully commonplace.
Slaughtering border villages and towns could create terror, destroy the enemy's economic base and social order, weaken their will and strength, and was an extremely standard tactic. It also let soldiers quite literally indulge themselves.
None of that was surprising. The only thing was that with them, a different race, appearing in the village, it added an even greater sense of contrast and drama.
"Why is there a demon in this village, and so many monsters," An officer leading more than thirty cavalrymen on a sweep of the area noticed the monsters and beasts at the village's edge, as well as Aura standing beside Ash. His expression didn't look good.
The mage beside him, however, sized up the villagers with obvious magical reactions that weren't very strong and said smugly, "It's fine, Lord Menard. That demon and the mage beside him look like rookies who've just started out. These monsters are also pretty average. They're just common species from around here, relying on numbers to win."