The Kingdom of Ert. Night.
Squad Four's base, the Demon Hunters' organization.
"Why is somebody from Squad Three turning up here?"
"Ah, sorry about that. Our captain and vice-captain went off on a secret job with a big bounty on it. The captain told me to hand this over to you before he left."
The burly man sprawled lazily across the sofa was Squad Four's captain. He took the note held out to him, pursed his rather thick lips, and stretched a body layered with bronzed muscle.
Should he use this chance to wipe out a Squad Three that had no captain?
That was, in all honesty, the first thought that came to him.
Because besides being a Demon Hunter, he had another identity to begin with - a spy-noble of the Southern Kingdom.
"What's this about looking after them for a while, and buying me drinks and meat when he gets back? The guy's as free and easy as ever."
His gaze swept over the members of Squad Three. He rubbed his chin a couple of times, then finally nodded.
"Fine. But I keep to my afternoon naps, so don't come bothering me unless it matters. The rest of the time, sort yourselves out."
Pigg waved a hand and lay back down sideways on the soft sofa.
The most dangerous of them, the captain of Squad One, had already been dealt with. That left the Northern faction with only Squad Two, and Squad Three was harmless - the purest Demon Hunters of the lot. If Squad Four were the only one left, then quite apart from the risk of the infighting being noticed, he would still have to face the threat of Squad Two and a mountain of commissions besides. Somebody had to go out and clear the Demon Race away. Keeping Squad Three around cost him nothing.
"On behalf of Captain Rolwen, we thank you, Captain Pigg."
"Ah, think nothing of it. We're all comrades in one organization. When there's trouble, of course we help each other out."
Support from the Southern Kingdom, and a share of the profits from Ert, one of the nations of the Central Lands - he could have both.
Word was that the Southern Lands were locked in a bitter war with the Witch of Rebellion these days. Far more comfortable to be here, unchained, in the demon-hunting organization. Compared with facing the legendary Great Mage, facing a broken Demon Race that had already lost its Demon King was easy work.
His vice-captain and his squad members all had their own grudges against the Demon Race and were none of them weak. Intelligence gathering, pre-battle preparation - they threw themselves into all of it. All he had to do as captain was sit back and take the profit, and in a fight, land a few blows at the decisive moment to remind everyone how strong he was.
All that misery drilling with a sword as a noble boy in the Southern Lands had bought him this comfortable luck.
Every time he thought about it, Pigg's mood improved.
And just as the Squad Three members were about to leave, shouting broke out beyond the door.
"Captain! It's bad, it's bad! The Demon Race! They killed the vice-captain!"
"Huh? Is this some kind of joke? That man could go toe to toe with a general of the Demon Race. There's no way he'd die that easily. And this is the Central Lands - aren't all the powerful ones up in the Northern territories-"
Only when he saw the squad member stagger in, soaked head to foot in blood, did Pigg rise from the sofa, rattled.
"Oi! You're joking, right? Did you smear tomato sauce all over yourself just to scare me?"
Disbelief was still written all over his face.
"Captain Pigg... I think it's real."
One of the Squad Three men holding the wounded man up brought a hand to his nose and sniffed the scarlet smeared on his fingers, then spoke with a tremor in his voice.
"Damn it, damn the Demon Race, my God! No - impossible - quickly! Tell me where they are right now!"
Feeling the situation turn, Pigg snatched up the greatsword propped beside the sofa and shot forward to the front of the group in a single stride.
"By that little river... west of the base..."
With those words, the man passed out.
It was only when the Squad Three members laid him on the floor that they saw it: a deep, appalling wound down his back, running from near the nape all the way to the base of his spine. Where the flesh had split open, you could very nearly see bone.
"Squad Three! With me - we're putting the Demon Race down together!"
Pigg had already reached the doorway when he turned his head and shouted back at the Squad Three members he was supposed to be looking after.
The few of them looked at one another, then at the half-dead Squad Four man on the floor, and nodded as one.
Captain Rolwen had entrusted them to Squad Four. Squad Four had been attacked by the Demon Race. Naturally they would avenge their comrades in the same organization.
They were Demon Hunters. Every wicked member of the Demon Race was theirs to hunt down.
...
Beside the reddened little river, everything was silent.
Squad Four's vice-captain lay with head parted from body, the head wedged wide-eyed against a rock jutting from the bank, scoured over and over by water threaded with red.
Of the other Squad Four members, some had been burned by flame into charred black corpses; others had been stripped of limbs or organs and lay twitching on the ground, little by little. The scene was chaos and blood.
The screaming had long since died away. Only two enormous figures of the Demon Race stood there now.
"You certainly took your time."
With a rustle of undergrowth, shapes pushed through the trees and stepped into the slaughterhouse.
The moment Pigg, leading Squad Three, saw the demon who had spoken, every hair on his body stood up. Behind him, the men of Squad Three looked as though they were facing a formidable enemy.
Nearly three meters of terrifying height, a torso as thick as a water barrel - and worst of all, the thing had four arms, every one of them knotted with muscle, and every one of them gripping a long blade with a cold, savage edge.
Behind him stood another four-armed demon, a little shorter, its skin red. That one held weapons in only two hands. In the other two it cradled twin balls of roaring flame.
Neither of them moved. They seemed content to watch the enemy creep closer.
Pigg flung out an arm to stop Squad Three from rushing in, and swept his eyes over the ruined battlefield. Fear had already begun to work on him.
In the middle of that would-be standoff, one man felt a small tug at the hem of his clothes.
When he slowly lowered his gaze, he found a tiny child standing there.
"Um... please save me."
At the sound of that small plea for help, his eyes softened, and he began to say something comforting.
There was a wet squelch, and agony erupted in his stomach. He couldn't hold back the cry. "Gaaah!"
The scream shattered the silence, and after it came a string of mockery with no feeling in it at all.
"Hehe, Lord Refeldi, I did it! I stabbed a Human!"
The little girl - no, the Demon Race child disguised as a Human girl - went trotting lightly away, straight to the side of that huge, horrifying demon, and pulled the hood off her head to reveal two small, pointed horns.
The Demon Hunters understood, far too late. The battle had already begun.
As the first Demon Hunter went down, a formless mist began to settle over the surroundings, as though something meant to keep the Demon Hunters from ever leaving.
____
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