This piece of shit. He probably set this up as a test. I only had two choices now, kill these innocent people or be killed at the hands of the Legionnaires. Probably. They had yet to even introduce me to anyone outside of the castle, probably as a way to prevent me from gaining favor with the people before they could test me. It was well thought out and I didn’t even see it coming. I’m an idiot.

“Well my Lord, will you carry out your duties and kill them or would you rather have the guards do it to not bloody your robe?” Barbatos asked.

I stared at the prisoners for a moment before standing up and pushing my chair back in the process. Barbatos looked like he was getting excited. “No, release them. Send them back to their homes with double the food you claim they stole and enough money to compensate them for their imprisonment.” I declared but no one moved.

“WHAT!?!” Barbatos shrieked. “You are no Demon Lord if you show kindness and mercy to humans. Guards execute them.” All I heard was a single collective scream mixed with the sound of blades slashing through flesh and bones before all fourteen of them fell to the ground as headless corpses. 

“W-why?” I stammered in shock.

“See, I told you he was weak-willed. He showed weakness the moment we summoned him.” Adrammelech spouted.

“Adrammelech, we understand.” Barbatos said silencing him. “Legion, if you wish to be our Demon Lord then you must kill and not show weakness.” His voice snapped me out of my shock but now, now, I wanted to kill. Every bone in my body was screaming and wailing. I could almost hear a faint voice screaming, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. I felt as if I was losing both myself and my sanity. Not from watching them die as for some reason, I couldn’t care less that they were dead in front of me. It was because I could do nothing to save them, I was useless.

“We should kill them, make them pay for killing those people. We are justified in doing so.” I heard from a voice in my head. It sounded more demonic than any of these demons that were around me… and I listened.

I grabbed Barbatos by the neck and held him up in the air. I could hear him gasping for breath as the other legionnaires pulled out the blades they had out earlier and surrounded me. Although, every ounce of anger and disgust leaked out of me in a similar fashion as the magic flames I produced earlier, instead of flames, the ground beneath me crumbled along with the surrounding five meters. Sending a rapid shockwave as a result, knocking all the other Legionnaires on their asses and shattering every stained glass window in the main hall. Under any other circumstance, I would have been sad about such beautiful art being destroyed, but not now. The air around me became much denser, so dense that a few of the Legionnaires had trouble breathing.

“Good, that is how a true Demon Lord acts.” Barbatos gasped out with the little bit of air I allowed into his lungs as the guards fell to the floor unconscious. What was I doing? I was about to kill everyone here. I couldn’t do that. I can't kill, even if they deserved it, even if I was justified. I was starting to gain control of myself again. Looking around, I saw people in pain, dead bodies, and in my hands was a piece of shit’s throat but I couldn’t kill him. No, I wasn’t going to kill him. Dropping him, he slumped to the floor unconscious and barely breathing.

Running at the nearest broken window on my left, I jumped out through a decently large hole of glass and metal. Hoping the wings on my back weren’t just for show and could actually fly, I fell for only a moment as I desperately attempted to get them to flap but it wasn’t working. Sadly, I couldn’t flap fast enough to defy gravity. Falling about a few meters before slamming into the ground face-first. Owww, Plan A of escape: fly, has failed. Plan B of escape: run like hell, commencing. So I got up and ran like hell.

There was only one way to run, down a long grassy path. A steep cliff of a wall that I wouldn’t ever be able to climb was all that lay on my right and to my left a steep downward slope that I would die if I fell down. Maybe, I don’t know how durable a demon's body is. So I ran straight, in my way was a fence but anyone could climb it really easily, as long as they had some upper body strength. Vaulting over it with ease and was met by two demons dressed like the guards in the main hall. 

“Hello, could you point me in the direction of the nearest town?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could. The two eyed me for a moment before looking at each other, nodding at each other they pointed towards a forest with a dirt path through it, much to my surprise.

“We are always willing to aid a court mage, sir.” One of the two said. I was now confused as to why they thought I was a court mage or something similar. Maybe it had to do with my robes. That would explain why Aldua wondered if I was good at magic when I chose them. Did these robes boost magic abilities or something?

“Thank you, you have been very helpful,” I said with a bow before booking it towards the forest path. The path itself was lovely and the lighting that passed between the leaves of the trees made it even more beautiful. That’s what I would think at least if I wasn’t running at full speed through it. The trees themselves, I couldn’t identify but it looked close to oak. Of course, this was another world so oak wouldn’t be known here.

Even though I was running for my life, I was also desperately flapping my apparently useless wings like an idiot. I kind of looked like a chicken pretending to be a duck but ended up looking like a pissed-off goose. It was an embarrassing sight to behold. After a few hundred flaps I got my wings to synchronize and I started to take off, slamming right into a tree branch. It probably wasn’t a good idea to learn how to fly in a forest but damn, why am constantly slamming my face into things today? It’s as if some greater power has it out for me. (Author’s Note: I do.) 

After a good ten minutes of running, which was exhausting by the way. 0/10 would not do again. I mean why would anyone run other than when they were being chased? It’s awful. Anyway, I entered a clearing. It wasn’t very big but it was big enough that I could attempt to fly now. I started flapping in a similar fashion to when I succeeded before. Well, sorta succeeded. I started to take off but I couldn’t go far. My wingspan to weight ratio made me only float a meter off the ground. I was discouraged and wanted to start running again before they could find me but then I had a revelation.

I tried to create the flames I made before that hurt Aldua but I tried to focus them into a steady stream. Like that of a rocket ship, I lifted up even farther but slowly. I would have thought I was a genius had I not stolen the idea from scientists in my past life. Blasting off, I was over ten kilometers above the ground. Behind me I saw the castle I was just at. It was built into a mountain and behind it was the ocean. This sight was beyond comparison with beauty, like something out of a Renaissance painting. It was like a dream to be able to fly. Humans have desired to fly since we witnessed birds doing so, and here I was doing it. I wanted to enjoy every second but I had to get far away as soon as possible so I flew in the opposite direction of the castle. 

From below my flying body stuck out like a sore thumb. Imagine a bird the size of an average human with a gout of fire blasting behind them. Of course, the awkwardness of being seen in the air wasn’t going to stop me. I flew as far as I could in the same direction but stopped once the sun set a few hours later. My lack of experience with flying showed as I attempted to land. If you had to guess, I didn’t land, I crashed with terrible style, and man it hurt. I am just not having a good day. 

Only after landing did I realize how sore I was. My wings hurt any time I attempted to move them and it stung when I touched them. Since my legs didn’t seem sore from doing nothing the whole flight, I decided to walk around and find a nice place to rest. Sadly, there wasn’t much around me. The forest was dense but I did find a comfortable spot between a couple of trees whose branches wound together to make a sorta shelter. I attempted to lay down but as soon as my wings touched the ground I sprung up in pain. The sting it caused reverberated through my whole body making me wish I was back at that castle but the more I thought about it the more I realized that that was probably a bad idea. 

If I had stayed then I would have been killed or forced into doing whatever they wanted. It was a better decision to leave. However, I still regretted the fact that I was starving and desperately wanted to eat. No matter, I will find something to eat in the morning, for now, I will sleep and let my hunger drive me to find breakfast.