Chapter Text
"Oww..."
Linie clutches her shoulder, wincing from the pain. She drops to the ground, her axe falling beside her. Her blood stains both axes and her clothes, while dissolving into mana.
"Go. You spared my life, I'll spare yours," Stark says, looking down at her. As Linie summoned a spear, Stark readied his axe, but she turned away, leaned on it like a walking stick, and waddled away ('till the very next day bum bum bum bum bubum bum), disappearing into the forest, leaving behind a trail of dissolving blood.
--A Few Days Later--
Linie sat next to her campfire, watching the flames flicker back and forth. While she usually enjoyed the orange flames dancing around, like mana, the demoness was more preoccupied with healing her arm. The pain had dulled now, becoming just a constant annoyance and occasionally a sharp stab. Thankfully, because she was made of mana, Linie could apply her mana to her arm to slowly heal it. It was at times like this then Linie felt glad to be a demon. By next week, it would be safe to try and buy some apples. She laid down and, ignoring the dull pain, fell into a painful sleep.
--Village Time--
Linie had two options, and both were suboptimal.
"Adventurers or boredom... but I need apples."
On one hand, the village was absolutely infested with adventurers. Mages, rogues, warriors, anyone could kill her. If she let her guard down and stopped suppressing her mana, ZOLTRAAK. On the other hand, she wanted apples.
"Apples it is..."
In the following days, she found another demon adventurer, Betrug. He was a short rogue with dark green hair and a very small presence. If you talked to him, he would absolutely freak you out and scare you, but otherwise, he was a quiet person, and thankfully not as impulsive as Draht or any other demons she had found. They were able to make it into an inn in the village and spent the rest of the night
...
"Betrug. I need some money," Linie demanded. She didn't really like the guy, but she needed it.
"Wh- why? Is the sun even up?" Betrug responded.
"No. I have recently developed an obsession."
Betrug teased, "With what, a guy?"
"You've been stealing too much from this town's bookshop. We don't have those kinds of emotions. Not the way humans do."
"Fine," he relented. "How much? Wait. How are you even in my room?"
...
Linie had thankfully remembered to do up her hair to cover her horns and all of the other disguises. Otherwise, the consequences would have been... not very pleasant. She uncharacteristically frolicked to the market and made a beeline to the place she had been told to go to - supposedly amazing apples, for a slightly higher-than-average price. Everyone she had asked said that Sanft's store was the best place for apples. Then, she saw the line.
"The apples can't be this good..." she murmured. Then she heard the reason.
"No, please, I have a stall to run. We can talk later, alright?" That was presumably Sanft. Then she heard a girl talking:
"You sure you don't want to come over? It'll be fun~ "
Then someone else burst out, "No, I saw him first!"
"Are you going to buy some apples?"
Linie was dead. Turning to one of the older women in the line, she asked, "Is it always like this?"
"Yes, although it is quite entertaining for us old folks. Are you here for him too?" she teased.
"No. I've asked around, and I've always gotten the same answer. Are the apples actually that good?"
"Yes. He claims to have a secret place where he finds them, but all of the other fruit stores are also very good, also cheaper."
Finally, after thirty minutes of watching the bickering and flirting, it was Linie's turn to buy her apples.