Minute Mage: A Time-Traveling LitRPG

Chapter 63: Welcome to Hell. What the Fuck is with this Guy?

A Devil walked with some Humans in a dirty, overgrown forest. The Humans were obviously unhappy to be traveling with a Demon – especially that one. They walked with a wide berth around the Devil, and he could see them constantly glaring sideways at him.

The Devil hardly cared about their hostility, though. He was much more focused on his environment. Specifically, he was focused on the mud in the ground that splashed onto his feet, the leaves and branches on the trees that thwipped into his face, the noisy calls and sounds of various animals in the forest, and the general chaos that was the wilderness.

How fucking disgusting, he thought. Why was there so much living stuff out here? The trees moved, the animals were bothersome, couldn’t everything just stay still? And stop being so wet? Really, he was doing the Humans a favor in burning this place to the ground. At least then it wouldn’t be so gross.

He really didn’t want to be out here in the Overworld, but after the fiasco that had happened with the Humans before, the Devil had no trust that they’d pull this off without his direct supervision. Of course, this wasn’t the only group working on the current plan, but it was one of the more important ones, and there was only one of the Devil.

The group’s job was simple: start a forest fire. To do this, they’d use some specialty incendiary bombs that the kingdom had on-hand.

Now, was it completely necessary for him to come alongside them to do this? No. And he knew that. Really, a big part of him coming along was that it almost felt nice out here, in the Overworld. Not because the realm itself was pleasant – really, did it have to be this wet out here? – but instead because of the company he was there with.

These dumb, pathetic Humans were the perfect punching bags he needed to relieve some stress. He just couldn’t go back to the Underworld now. Losing his personal office, going out and working with the fucking Gargoyles and Ember Mites, it would kill him to do that. Out here, at least he held a semblance of power. Sure, that power was held over a few pathetic Humans, but he just needed to boss someone around and get it out of his system before going back to the soul-crushing abyss that was his new job in the Underworld.

“Really,” he muttered to himself as he walked alongside the soldiers in the forest, “what kind of stupid fucking superior pins an impossible amount of responsibility on someone, then punishes them for not being able to keep up? Doesn’t that show the superior’s incompetence at managing their underlings, and not the incompetence of the underling themself? I mean, what a fucking–”

“Sir?” a soldier interrupted him. “Are you saying something to me?”

He scowled over at the voice. It was coming from a familiar suit of armor – one of those two royal guards that he spared the lives of. He’d made sure both of them came along with him on this little expedition – he wouldn’t have them fleeing the kingdom while he was gone to avoid their punishment. They were getting that week of torture, he’d make sure of it.

As for which of the two was speaking right now, he had no idea. He couldn’t really keep track of who was who here – this one was the one with the bow on her back, but her name escaped him.

“No,” he eventually said to her. “I’m not talking to you. I would never voluntarily speak to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Devil just sighed and rolled his eyes. Fucking Humans. This one’s name was Asmo, he remembered – she was the one who admitted their wrongdoings to him. He disliked her a bit less than the others, since she seemed to at least know her place. He didn’t care if she actually liked him or not, only that she at least recognized that it was no use struggling against him and the Demons. Seemed she was the only one around with some common sense.

“You’re sure these will work?” the Devil asked her after a moment.

“Yes, sir, they will. They’ve been specially made to spread fire.”

“What about the other group?”

“Sir? What about them?”

“Okay, yeah, stop calling me ‘sir’. That shit’s annoying.” The Devil sighed.

Humans had the strangest conventions for talking to their superiors. ‘Sir’? What the fuck did that mean? If she wanted to respect him, she should call him by his name. But he could never expect someone as stupid as a Human to be able to remember his name. That was what was so nice about being around them – he knew he was so much better than them all that he didn’t even have to try and keep up appearances around them. No matter what, he’d always be better than the Humans.

“Anyway, to answer your question,” the Devil continued, “The other group’s going to be in charge of directly confronting Arlan Nota and making sure he doesn’t make it out of here alive. He’s got someone with him that uses fire magic. So, the other group won’t be using the highly explosive incendiary bombs, will they?”

“No, sir, they won’t. Their bombs have been enchanted to resist fire and other forms of tampering. We normally use them to deal with Dragons, but they should work just fine here, too.”

The Devil nodded, looked away, and kept walking. He’d make sure the Humans didn’t fuck this plan up, too.

Before long, the group got to the first planting spot. They’d set off explosions in a half-circle around the area Arlan Nota was suspected to be in, effectively funneling him into an ambush that the second group was in the middle of setting up.

They had to be careful about how far away they set off the explosions, though – if the fugitive heard them go off and fled too soon, he could get through gaps in the fires before they completely took over. So they took great care to set them off a good deal away from where they suspected him to be. It was the middle of the night, so he should have been asleep, anyway.

The Devil watched the soldiers plant the circular gray explosive device no larger than his head. Human ingenuity was certainly interesting – how they fit something so powerful into something so small, he didn’t know – but he knew it to be nothing more than a curiosity. Who needed craftiness when you had power? The Devil didn’t participate in the planting process, of course. He was there to supervise and step in if anything went wrong. So he just watched.

The bombs themselves were metal spheres, and seemed to be magically operated and activated. Contained within the spheres was an explosive powder, and etched onto the inner walls were ignition Enchantments that, when Mana was poured into them, would go on a short timer before activating, causing an explosion.

It really was a creative way to effectively give the ability to create fire to those who didn’t naturally have it. This would be blasphemous to the Demons, of course – if a race of Demons couldn’t naturally do something, it was because they weren’t meant to do it. Going against nature would only end in disaster. But it seemed to work well enough for the Humans.

Once it was set and armed, the group fled, eager to get away from the soon-to-explode device. The Devil took more of a leisurely stroll away from the bomb since he knew such a small blast wouldn’t be able to harm him.

About thirty seconds later, a massive explosion rocked the forest, and the Devil found himself surrounded by fire. As a Devil, he wasn’t bothered by fire, of course, but it was still a bit startling.

Once they ensured the explosion had gone off, the group moved forward to the next planting spot. They were on a time limit, now; the fire would be constantly spreading, and they needed to get all of the bombs down before Arlan Nota became aware of the danger.

The Devil went along with the group. It seemed like they were trying to move quickly, but to the Devil, it just felt so slow. Part of him regretted coming along and supervising these people. It was just so boring. But then, maybe boring could be good. Taking a ‘break’ as the Humans called it. A period of not working. At first, the entire concept seemed completely ridiculous. But now he sort of understood.

At least, for beings as stupid and incompetent as Humans, it made sense that they’d need to rest their bodies, so it made sense that they’d need to do that. The Devil would never need to take a break. But he still felt the beneficial effects of it. Just walking along and doing nothing. It almost felt… nice.

After about an hour, they got to the next spot. They planted and detonated the second bomb as the Devil watched, setting fire to another patch of forest. The blast echoed throughout the wilds, scattering birds and other animals into the dark night.

And then they went off to the third spot. There were about a dozen of the bombs in total, forming a circle around Arlan Nota’s location, so it would take a while.

During their hurried journey to area three, though, the Devil noticed a rustling in the nearby woods. He narrowed his eyes at the strange sound. It could’ve just been the wind or a small animal – he still wasn’t very accustomed to what it was like out here – but he couldn’t shake the thought that it was something else.

He looked over at the battleaxe-wielding woman – Ripley Tenet – that was next to him. “Do you hear that?”

She scowled at him. “Hear wha–”

A being crashed through the treeline, slamming a blade into one of the Human soldiers and knocking him to the ground. The figure stood tall, raising his knife-wielding fists in preparation for a fight and facing the entire squadron.

“I am Aankin the Stalwart, and you will not destroy our home!” he shouted. The figure was tall and muscular, and looked Human-like. The Devil would’ve thought he was a Human, in fact, if it weren’t for the being’s four eyes staring at him.

The Devil stood and looked at the thing that just killed the soldier, then at the Humans surrounding it, staring at it in shock.

“...What the fuck is with this guy?” he asked.

Three of the Human soldiers drew spears and rushed forward, but the ‘Aankin’ thing ducked beneath their simultaneous stabs, then leapt over at one of them, stabbing his knife into the soldier’s throat and pushing them to the ground to bleed out. Another took a swipe at its back, but he reached over his shoulder and caught their spear, flexing its hand to break the wooden pole in half, then he fully spun around to punch the soldier hard across the face, sending them tumbling back.

Ripley Tenet and Asmo began drawing their weapons, but the Devil held out his hands to stop them.

“No, no,” he said, “stay here. I wanna watch.”

The scene of the Humans’ slaughter was pretty amusing. The Devil was technically on the Humans’ side, but it was always entertaining to see them squashed – especially after all the frustration their species had caused him.

After a few Humans had died, the Devil looked back and saw the fire from their bombs creeping up on them. He sighed, supposing that this little diversion had gone on long enough. He didn’t want the mission to be compromised just because he’d gotten bored, after all. No matter how funny it was to see those little Humans explode into blood and guts.

“Hey, buddy,” the Devil walked forward, “let’s cool it. Go ahead and skedaddle.”

Crunch. Aankin stomped a foot through one of the Humans’ heads and looked over at the Devil. “Ah, another challenger! Tell me, why do you destroy the forest? Perhaps we may depart on amicable terms if you remedy your blaze and promise to never return.”

“Uh, no,” the Devil laughed. “I think I’ll just kill you instead.”

Aankin smiled at the challenge – strange, the Devil thought. He was used to people cowering in fear. No matter, really. He stepped forward and Aankin charged, swinging his knife in a wild swipe across the Devil’s torso. The Devil stepped back, the knife cut through nothing but air, and the Devil threw a swing at Aankin’s head.

You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 2.81k damage using your fist.

You have slain Level 29 Faerie Champion.

The Devil huffed a breath, straightening his mildly ruffled clothes back out. There was a speck of blood on his left pant leg. He pursed his lips – he’d have to get that cleaned out later.

“Okay,” the Devil announced, “keep moving.”

It took a moment for the Humans to start marching again, but eventually he led them off in the direction they’d been heading before, the soldiers squelching over the corpses they left behind. Nobody said anything, obviously stunned into silence at the Devil’s show of power. Though, he could hear some muffled sobs that the other soldiers tried to shush after he glanced in their direction. That was more like it, he grinned.

Another half-hour later, and another detonated bomb behind them, the soldiers and the Devil were on their way to the next planting site. But once again, the Devil began to hear another rustling sound out in the trees. This time, a few of the soldiers seemed to hear it too, glancing around and looking for the source of the noise.

But before anyone could do anything, a being crashed through the trees, yet again attacking the Humans in his entrance with the tear of a knife. He looked similar to that Aankin one from before, with his solid build and four eyes, but he was still different enough that he was obviously not the same person.

“I am Aankin the Stalwart, and you will not kill me so easily!” he said.

…Clearly the Devil was mistaken.

“How did you survive?” The Devil took a step forward, eyeing Aankin curiously. He’d seen the butchered corpse of this thing from before. No way he could have lived through that naturally.

Aankin chuckled. “You clearly do not understand my might!”

“Yeah, of course I don’t understand, dumbass. That’s why I’m asking y–”

“You surprised me before, but now we will fight on fair scales!” Aankin lunged at the Devil, swinging his knife. The Devil bent backward to dodge, falling back a step to support himself. A stab at his gut, and he stepped back once again. Another swing downward, and the Devil recognized the overextension. Aankin was disabled for a moment too long, still caught in the follow-through of his attack, and the Devil threw out a quick strike at his head.

You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 3.25k damage using your fist.

You have slain Level 29 Faerie Champion.

The Devil frowned down at the reddened corpse. Still Level 29, still a Faerie Champion. Seemed like he really was the same monster.

“Cut off his head,” he ordered the nearest soldier. He wasn’t sure how Aankin came back, but he didn’t want another distraction like that again.

Half an hour later, another bomb had been detonated, and the Devil was glancing around suspiciously. It’d taken about that long before Aankin had reappeared the previous time, and if he was coming back, it’d be around now.

And, just on schedule, the trees rustled and a figure burst from them. Once again, the figure was somewhat similar to the Aankins of the past, but not quite the same. He had different height, hair, and skin tone. But, despite those differences…

“I am Aankin the Stalwart, and you will cease your destruction of our home!”

This time, Aankin seemed to have a target. He rushed at one of the soldiers near the back, stabbing his knife straight through the man’s throat. A sack on the soldier’s back fell to the ground, metal balls rolling to the ground.

The bombs, the Devil realized. Aankin had targeted the soldier tasked with holding the explosives! The Faerie clenched his fists, raising them up to slam down on the bombs.

The Devil scowled. It was one thing to kill a few Humans, but he would not allow this Aankin to ruin his mission. He rushed forward, but he was a bit too slow, and Aankin’s fists crashed into one of the metal balls, crunching it and bursting one of the sides open, the explosive powder within spilling out, and the magical sigils inscribing it becoming useless.

Just as Aankin broke one of the explosives, though, the Devil arrived, and slammed a fist through the Faerie’s skull.

You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 2.98k damage using your fist.

You have slain Level 29 Faerie Champion.

The Devil frowned, looking down at the dead enemy. He’d broken one of the bombs. It wasn’t like that’d fully prevent them from completing their mission, of course – they’d brought extras – but it was annoying. And it seemed like, somehow, this thing could come back from the dead. So Aankin would likely be able to destroy more, if they gave him enough time.

“Where did he come from?” he asked.

None of the soldiers answered, instead solemnly looking down at the dead Human. Right, the Devil remembered. Humans seemed to get severely distressed if they saw another Human die. So strange.

He looked around, and found the nearest Human near him. He grabbed the soldier’s arm and squeezed.

Snap.

You have struck Level 7 Human Swordsman for 71 damage using your fist.

The soldier fell to the ground, clutching her broken arm and screaming in pain. The Devil rolled his eyes.

“Do I have your attention now?” He asked.

The soldier just groaned, trying to push herself back to her feet.

“I asked you a question. Tell me where Aankin came from.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. He rolled his eyes and reached down to grab her other arm.

“Hey,” Ripley Tenet, that Berserker girl from the royal guard, grabbed his wrist. “You said you wouldn’t kill any of the Humans. We had an agreement.” She looked over at the other soldiers and called out, “Do we have anyone left who knows healing Spells? Someone help her.”

The Devil chuckled. “And what, exactly, will you do if I break that agreement?”

She stared into his eyes. “I’ll kill every soldier here, then kill myself. You can have fun doing this on your own.”

The Devil clenched his jaw. Did this fucking Human seriously just threaten him? But then, she was pretty high-Level. She probably could kill most of the Humans here before he could kill her first.

He scowled. “...Just tell me where Aankin came from.”

She pointed without looking away from him, off in a direction in the forest. “Over there.”

“He came from that way every other time too, right?”

She nodded slowly, frown not melting away from her face.

“Good. I’ll go solve the problem that you can’t seem to figure out. You go ahead and finish setting this forest aflame.”

“Fine. Go.”

The Devil scoffed and left. It was good that he was going to go and kill something, because he really needed to let some anger out.