A Merry Band of Monsters - Chapter 7

“Gallant.”

“...”

“Gallant.”

“...”

“Please answer the beast’s question, Gallant,” Vegemite muttered from behind his mask. “I can’t handle its insufferable voice.”

“Do I have to? It’s kind of awkward explaining why you want to kill someone,” Gallant muttered.

The four had returned to the forest trail and had almost reached Stronglen again. Ever since they had left what used to be the Demon King’s castle, Cho the wolf pup had been attempting to question Gallant on his motives.

“You absolutely must, Gallant!” Cho raised his voice. “You were my best friend! You shouldn’t know that Vorigan had taken over my body. What reason do you have to hate me?”

“I don’t hate you, ol’ buddy ol’ pal,” Gallant began. Cho knew the cursed knight always referred to him like that. There wasn’t a hint of change in his disposition, even after eight years. “I just hate the role I’ve been forced into.”

“Role? You don’t mean...”

“Look, let’s not dwell on it. You know, leave it for later, for dramatic effect later down the line,” Gallant bit into his fingers. He then waved them around, using the blood squirting out as dramatic flair.

“Hey! Don’t use such a contrived reason like that!” Cho yelled. It was all for naught, however, as Gallant then snapped his jaw off, tossing it to the side. “Oh, come on! You can’t just take your mouth off just to avoid answering my question. How does it keep on growing back anyways?”

“Don’t mind him, Mr. Cho,” Grace said. “He’ll probably say it later when he’s drunk.”

“At least one of you is respectful to your elders,” Cho sighed. He laid down on top of Grace’s head.

“Unfitting, really, considering he’s the oldest one here,” Vegemite muttered. Cho’s eyes widened, and he stiffened again. “Grace is roughly between 200-300 years old. I’m 132 myself. Gallant is 40, meaning you’re the youngest here at 38. Well, maybe a week or two, if we’re counting per body.”

“Does that mean Mr. Cho has to call me Mr. Grace?” Grace asked.

“If you want, Mr. Grace,” Cho muttered through grit teeth. He could see Gallant give him a half smirk.

“...Nah, it feels too weird,” Grace said, shivering. “Hey, look! I can see Stronglen from here!”

Cho peeked out to see a quaint little village in the distance. He had fond memories of visiting these places. Listening to the villagers’ never ending conversations, raiding their houses for equipment, and sleeping at the inn every twenty minutes to regain his strength while fighting demons. The nostalgia gave him a warm feeling. “Why is Grace so excited about this Stronglen?”

“Grace had, unfortunately, become friends with one of the local villagers. A little girl, possibly around seven years of age,” Vegemite explained. “Why do you think a gigantic lizard has a tiny puppy in the first place.”

Cho’s face shrunk when he realized the connotations of possessing Chompy. “Don’t tell me that he wants to…”

“Yep! You’re going to be Aria’s forever pet,” Grace exclaimed. “You know, until you die from the malnutrition.”

“You can’t do that! I’m the chosen one!”

“No, you’re a spirit possessing a wolf,” Vegemite said. “You’re currently worthless to us. What skills do you bring to the table?”

“Well, I could be a good mentor for-”

Gallant drew his blade and held it in front of the wolf pup. “No one’s going to teach them but me, got it?” Gallant said, his jaw healed. Before Cho could continue his questioning, he tore it off again.

“That’s an intriguing proposition, but we’re going to decline,” Vegemite said. “You didn’t need your predecessor’s help, so we don’t need yours.

“That… That changes nothing! My help will be invaluable. I know my own weak points. I can help you defeat me!”

“You want to steal your body back, don’t you?” Vegemite pointed menacingly at him. Cho couldn’t deny the claim. “No one cares about the soul. We just need the body dead.”

“Please! There’s got to be something I can do to convince you!”

“Oh, you don’t need to convince me. You need to convince Grace.”

Cho looked down to the scaly forehead, humming happily to himself. He sighed in defeat. The lizardman was too carefree to convince. The rest of the journey was in silence as Cho didn’t feel like asking Gallant any more questions. The cursed knight ripped his jaw off again, just in case.

~

“Strange. Aria isn’t here,” Grace said, looking around. The single fence post she sat on was devoid of the small black-haired child. “She should be here.”

“It’s getting pretty late,” Gallant noted. “Perhaps she started her shift.”

“This girl works? On a Sunday?” Cho asked. “Don’t people usually get their days off on Sunday?”

“She doesn’t get paid, so I assume she might not have days off,” Grace said, leading the quartet to Dragonhand Inn.

“Isn’t that illegal for an employer to do?”

“Child labour laws. If she doesn’t get paid, she’s not employed.”

As the quartet walked to the inn, they noticed a large gathering of villagers huddled together holding pitchforks and torches, while demons floated above them in their true forms. Cho could hear what they were saying with his enhanced hearing.

“Confess your crimes, demon girl!”

“Give her a thousand lashings! Make her scream out for mercy!”

“I want first pickings! She smells delicious!”

“Um, there’s something happening over there,” Cho pointed out.

“Well, there’s always a weekly witch trial in the most remote of places,” Vegemite shrugged.

“It sounds like the demons want to eat someone. Also, why are there demons here?”

“What?” Vegemite jerked his head. Cho finally figured out what made the lich focus. He had a strange fascination with ‘consuming’ things. “If the demons here want to eat it, then it should have a good amount of magical energy. Not offering it to their future god. Hah! I will teach them proper manners. Grace, Gallant, please hold me back if I summon Glowsigidarus again.”

Grace saluted, while Gallant offered a weak thumbs up, before ripping off his jaw again. Cho sighed. The four marched towards the gathering.

“What is happening here?” Vegemite asked with a grandiose tone. The group ignored him. “I said, what is happening here?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s you three,” LeGrouche muttered. She was at the back of the pack, but her large stature gave her enough height to see inside. “We’re doing one of them public executions. Want to watch?”

“Who is it?”

“It’s my incompetent not-employee-”

“Aria!” Grace exclaimed, peeking over the crowd to see a little girl in the middle. Cho tumbled off his head as he pushed through the crowd. The villagers and demons yelled out as the half-dragon sweeped them aside with his massive logs for arms.

“...Grace?” Aria asked weakly as Grace kneeled next to her. Her bruised and bloody skin stained her ragged dress that had several new holes in them. She clutched her ball in her hands.

“What the hell! We were preparing for a feast!”

“Yeah! Buzz off, lizardman!”

The demons were getting agitated. Grace glanced in their direction, a feeling of rage welling inside of him. His cold stare made them freeze in place.

“What are you doing to a little girl?” Grace shouted, his voice gruff and deep. His round pupils turned into slits as he growled.

“Little girl? She’s a monster!” A villager argued. “She harmed our children when they went to go play with her. She’s the most despicable type of scum.”

“That’s not true,” Aria said. Grace crouched to her level, wrapping his arm around the girl.

“What happened then?”

“Those guys. They approached me. They took my ball from me, and they threw it around near a torch. I told them what you told me. Don’t light it on fire. And then…”

“And then…?”

“They were attacked by wolves. Jumped out of the bushes and everything. Looked sick as hell.”

“That’s…not how I expected that story to go,” Grace murmured, “But there you go. She didn’t do anything!”

“Bullcrap! That was such a blatant lie,” the villager said.

“Then how do you explain the obvious bite marks on your kids?” Aria asked. “The wolf-shaped ones.”

“Well… You could’ve summoned the wolves!”

“First, I have a few bite marks myself.” Aria lifted her hand up, revealing a few deep gashes. “And second, how would I, a child, know how to spontaneously summon wolves.”

“How else did they come here?” another villager asked. “Stronglen is built away from wolf hunting grounds. If they came here, that means they were brought by an outside force.”

Gallant looked away from the crowd and whistled to himself. “Hey, Condiment, do you think we have something to do with this?”

“Did you three do something?” Cho asked, as a lightning bolt struck Gallant. The fact the cursed knight remained unfazed surprised Cho, but he brushed it off. Too many things were strange around his old friend.

“There’s a good chance that wolf pack we drove off was the same one here. It’s only natural that they would abandon their home in my presence,” Vegemite bragged. “We’re not going to admit it, though.”

As Cho scolded Gallant and Vegemite about their aversion to help clear up the situation, Grace stood up, wagging his tail to get rid of his unease. “Look, let’s say this was an accident. Let bygones be bygones.”

The crowd paused for a second. They lowered their pitchforks and conversed between themselves. The demons floating above them joined in. It was the first time in the history of Stronglen that its human and demon residents had a polite conversation.

“Yeah, no.” The villagers raised their pitchforks and torches again, while the demons brought out their claws and fangs.

“You were never going to convince them,” Aria muttered. “They finally have a reason to get rid of me. There’s no doubt that they hate me for being my dad’s kid.”

Aria looked up to Grace with cold and distant eyes. They reminded him of someone close to him. The one that never looked at him with warmth and locked him away for years. He turned away from her gaze, before grabbing her shoulder and pulling her closer.

“Fine, then. You’re my daughter now,” Grace said. Aria’s head jerked towards the lizardman in shock. Whispers and murmurs came from the crowd. Gallant and Cho’s jaws dropped as Vegemite shook his head. “It isn’t a problem now. Aria is my daughter now, so it’s fine, right?”

“That isn’t fine at all! She’s still the daughter of the man that sold this village to the demons!” a villager argued.

“No she’s not. She’s my daughter. I said it, so now it’s true,” Grace argued back.

“He does have a point,” LeGrouche muttered to herself.

“No, he doesn’t,” Cho barked. The talking wolf pup shockd LeGrouche, but she kept her focus on the soap opera happening in front of her.

“Grace… That’s not how it works. You aren’t someone’s parent just because you said you were,” Aria explained, “Besides, I still have a dad, even if everyone hates him.”

“Then this is that whole adoption thing or whatnot. That works, right?” Grace asked. Before Aria recited the logistics from the law book she had read, Grace patted her on the head and gave her a grin. “Besides, I’m a half-dragon. Things work differently with us.”

“That may be fine for the humans, but not for us!” a bat-winged demon yelled. “Do you understand what she’s done to us for the past eight years?”

“Offer high-quality service?” Grace asked, remembering her job as a waitress. The bat demon paused before placing his claw on his face.

“This is why lizardmen are idiots. That girl has been exuding strong magical energies since she was born! She’s practically a feast for demons!”

Hearing this, Cho tensed his body, trying to feel for magical sources. Despite his inexperience in Chompy’s body, he picked up three large signatures. One mostly positive, one massively negative, and one with a mixture of both. The negative one was likely Vegemite, and the positive one was likely from Grace, the only positively polarized being in the village. Gallant had nothing, as per usual. The mixed signature came from within the crowd. It was most likely Aria’s.

“Interesting,” Vegemite muttered to himself, rubbing his chin underneath his mask. Cho froze as he turned to the him. The lich had an obsession with consuming magic. He feared for Aria’s safety.

“Do you not understand how stressful life had been for us?” Guzzlejaw asked. He stepped forward from the crowd, now in his true form. His stomach splurged out as the mouth on it chomped the air ravenously. His face had become even more rugged and handsome than before. The disconnect between both sides disturbed everyone greatly. “Imagine having the greatest dessert you’ve ever seen in front of you, but you can’t eat it because you owe its father a debt. Because of this trial, we now have a reason to kill her!”

“If you step even one foot closer to my daughter, then I’m going to punch you,” Grace warned. Guzzlejaw took it as a challenge, smirking as he took one huge step forward. He was suddenly launched into the air as Grace rushed forward, his fist connecting with the glutton demon’s belly. Guzzlejaw screamed in pain as he crashed into the inn, breaking through the wall. “I warned you.”

“Guzzlejaw! No!” LeGrouche exclaimed, dramatically reaching out for the demon. “Watch where you’re getting hit! That’s coming out of your paycheck!”

“Anyone else want to try?” Grace asked. He intended it to be threatening, but it came off more as a challenge once again. Immediately, the demons in the crowd, hungry for Aria, lunged forward, dogpiling the half-dragon. Grace covered Aria with his body, protecting her from the bites and slashes from above.

“You’re not going to help him?” Cho asked, worrying from the sidelines.

“He got into trouble himself. Not like we’re at fault here,” Gallant muttered, picking his nose.

“Yes, if Grace is acting like an idiot, we have to punish him for it,” Vegemite said.

“He’s your friend!” Cho argued. The two weren’t listening, however. They just watched the demonic dogpile along with the rest of the village. “Overlord Vegemite, if you don’t do something, then Aria will be eaten by the demons.”

“I’ll just eat them afterwards,” Vegemite explained. Cho racked his head, trying to think of a reason to save the two underneath the demons. His previous experience as the hero forced him to.

“Well, that girl is only a few years of age, correct? That means that she hasn’t reached her peak. There’s a good chance she can become even more powerful, and appetizing, if she were to live.”

“That’s… A fine idea, beast. I’ll let Grace handle it, though,” Vegemite said, rubbing his chin. He held out his right hand as a purple circle formed around it. Ethereal chains shot out, launching themselves into the demonic dogpile. They connected with Grace’s back, tightening and pulling Vegemite forward. He muttered a few words before flicking his hand, shattering the magical circle.

The chains connecting Vegemite to Grace broke into pieces and faded away. The crowd backed away as a bright red flash came from the inside the demon pile. Suddenly, the demons shot into the air much higher than Guzzlejaw. Grace stood up over the cowering Aria, one fist raised. His scales glowed red and his cloak burned away to reveal his draconic wings and grand horns.

Grace flapped his wings, pushing upwards into the air. He stopped in front of the first demon, before elbowing it into the ground. Flapping his wings again, he flew to the next flying demon, kicking it into the distance. The half-dragon continued to fly from demon to demon, knocking them away with little effort.

Guzzlejaw stumbled from the broken inn, clutching his head. He gazed up, pausing in horror as he watched Grace punch and kick his brethren into oblivion. Grace looked down, spotting the glutton demon. Now at the highest demon, he planted his feet into its black flesh, before kicking off, launching it away and him towards the ground.

With no chance to escape, Guzzlejaw held his arms over his head. His stomach lunged forward, prepared to intercept the half-drake.

“B-Beli? What’re you doing?” Guzzlejaw asked his stomach. It turned back to him, gurgled a bit, and smiled. It looked back up, letting out a battlecry. Guzzlejaw smirked, before planting his feet into the ground and bracing himself. “Okay, Beli. Let’s do this!”

It was all for naught, however, as Grace tackled the demon, grinding it into a crater. Guzzlejaw and Beli let out a silent gasp before they fell unconscious underneath the weight of the half-dragon.

“Anyone else want to try?” Grace asked in a low monstrous grumble. He stood up hunched over, looking back at the crowd of human villagers with red eyes filled with rage.

“N-no, we’re good,” a villager said, dropping his pitchfork. Quickly, the rest of the crowd followed suit and got rid of their weapons. They quickly retreated into their homes, some of which had demons Grace had hit lodged into the walls. Soon, only Aria, Cho, and the Merry Band were left in the wake of Grace’s rampage.

Gallant whistled, his jaw half-reformed. “Nice.”

“Is that really all you have to say?” Cho asked, glaring at the cursed knight. Gallant shrugged. Vegemite disregarded the two as he approached the still agitated Grace.

“Did you have to release me?” Grace growled, sitting down on top of Guzzlejaw. “You know I hate the resealing spell.”

“Punishment, for acting crazy,” Vegemite answered, creating the purple magic circle. “Gallant can’t learn. Your idiotic side can.”

“I’m sorry, but… What’s happened to Grace?” Aria asked. Her dress was in even more pieces than before. If there were anything less, then this story would be rated much differently.

“Multiple personalities,” Vegemite answered monotonously, focusing on the magic circle in his hand. “Don’t worry about it. The normal idiotic Grace is the real one. This one is just a result of his tragic backstory. Now, let me concentrate.”

“Let me ask the next question,” Cho said. “What the hell is Grace?”

“Half-dragon,” Grace muttered, his deep tone now a bit lighter.

“Why’s the dog talking?” Aria asked, turning to the wolf pup in confusion.

“Let me handle introductions,” Gallant announced, walking between the two. He gestured towards Aria first. “Cho, this is Aria… Something or other. She’s an illegal worker hired by a grouchy orc.

“And Aria…” Gallant spun around in a circle, before dramatically pointing towards Cho. “This is Cho Senone, the former chosen one now trapped in the body of a puppy because of his hubris. I hope you two will get along.”

“Okay then. Nice to meet you.” Aria bowed.

“You took that in too quickly,” Cho muttered. Aria shrugged. “At least someone had respect for me, though.”

“What was that?” Vegemite asked, turning to face Cho. The puppy instincts beat Cho’s, forcing him down into a whimper.

“I intended to give the wolf to you as a pet,” Grace explained. “You seemed miserable in this village, so I thought that having a wolf as a pet would be a good idea.”

“Well, the thought’s there,” Aria responded, crouching down to Cho and petting his head. “I’m more of a cat person, though.”

“I figured as much.”

Cho was lost in thought as Aria continued to pet him. The fear of Vegemite and the pleasure of Aria’s petting overridden the control he had over Chompy. It was only the snickers of Gallant that forced his eye to open.

“That’s enough!” Cho ordered. Aria stepped back, surprised at the sudden outburst. The former chosen one sighed to himself, and looked up to apologize.

As a wolf pup, Aria towered over Cho in a way that unsettled him. She had short black hair and a dirty face, most likely from the public execution before. She seemed relatively calm after such an ordeal. Her tattered dress revealed splotches of her pale, somewhat malnourished skin. Something caught his eye through one of the holes.

“Aria, I’m going to ask you to do something weird,” Cho prefaced. “I need you to pull your dress down.”

Aria froze for a moment. She looked up to Gallant, who shrugged again. She then kicked Cho in his stomach.

“Ergh, not like that!” Grace gasped, flustered. “I just need to see your collarbone.”

“Bluntness is his specialty,” Gallant muttered. Aria glared at the flustered wolf pup. She sighed, before pulling down her scrap of clothing and revealing a strange marking on her collarbone.

“You wanted to see this mark, right? Just a scar that never healed properly” Aria commented. The mark interested Cho.

“That’s not a scar. It’s a birthmark,” Cho said. “Lack of a proper diet can result in a slightly deformed marking, but within that reason it’s exactly like the one I used to have. The one my predecessor had, as well as theirs. Tell me, how old are you?”

Aria paused, trying to figure out what Cho’s reason for asking was. Grace began to answer for her, saying, “She’s eight years of age, turning nine in two months, on the 15th. She told me three days ago. She looks younger because of her lack of nutrition.”

“Cho, what’re you trying to say?” Gallant asked. He was beginning to have a clue, and Vegemite had paused his incantation, realizing what the wolf pup was about to say.

“Don’t you see? Born with the birthmark on the day Vorigan took my body and possessing a high amount of magic that can irritate demons. We don’t need a dead demigod to tell us what’s clear as day.

“Aria is the next chosen one.”