Chapter 257 Heading Off

"Yeah, it very much is, but it really depends on whether Belphegor is willing to do something since he is mostly sleeping all the time. Usually, his loyal servants do everything around the kingdom while he sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, only waking up if a demon lord visits his territory or he is summoned by Hades himself… but, besides that, there is nothing very special about his territory. Though this next one is the complete opposite of that… Leviathan, the demon lord of destruction. He is definitely one of the strongest demon lords, and his territory can only be called a massive fortress of destruction. No demon lords dare to invade part of his territory since the losses on not only the opposing side but their side would be immense… and Leviathan never holds back. He is the type to always go all out, even if it means both sides losing immense amounts of men,"

"Whose thing was he again? Uhhhh… Oh yeah, Aisa, right?"

"Indeed. I think it fits her a lot despite how much I really don't want them to meet… if Leviathan ever gets his hands on her, I honestly don't think we'll see Aisa again,"

"Isn't there one more?"

"Yep, and it is probably one of the dangerous demon lords yet again… to be honest, it's kind of hard to rank demon lords since they specialize in one thing, but this one is definitely strong when you think about it… Mammon is a demon lord whose presence isn't very known since not only is he a type of assassin, but he also very rarely allows records to be kept of him,"

"Oh, he's Findir's, right? So I'm guessing his thing is erasing your presence or something like that?"

"Well… kinda. It's more like erasing your existence yet not at the same time. I can't really explain it because I don't know much about him, nor do I even know where his territory is. I just know its up north towards the border of Tartarus,"

"Alright, that's enough talking. Let's get some rest so we can finally head off and finish this damn mission,"

…

An entire week had passed, and my slightly cracked friendship with all of the people I had been traveling with was rekindled.

It honestly didn't take that long since training together really brought you together due to the amount of adrenaline that would normally pump through you.

"You all stay safe. Can't have you coming back with broken minds or under a dangerous illusion now~," Beezlebub waved as he saw us exit the palace.

We didn't dare to look back and wave him goodbye since we didn't even like him in the first place… and on top of that, his worry is solely focused on his own plan rather than our actual wellbeing.

Our travels through the disease-ridden city weren't as bad as we had thought since it seemed some of the actual diseases had cleared up.

Some people actually had tiny smiles slowly plastered along their faces, but then there were the few who were literally just dying with welts and sores all over their skin.

"Yuck… let's get out of here quickly," Bella muttered, and as we chased after her, we caught a glimpse of the break of dawn.

Somehow, a sun and a moon existed here… and the dawn revealed to us was incredibly beautiful.

Bella and Cy even started crying a bit as they both hugged each other and stared off into the distance, their eyes sparkling with awe.

"Weirdos," Luna rolled her eyes before dragging the duo with us all the way to the edge of Beezlebub's border.

We mostly ignored the monsters that continuously tried to bug us, but occasionally we would show off our skills yet again to the group, with most of them trying to impress me for some kind of validation.

"That's cool… I guess," I muttered as Findir sliced a black frog into hundreds of tiny cubes that pattered onto the swampy ground as they fell in front of me.

Findir looked at me with sparkling eyes, something that wasn't really common for him, but I guess he really did see me as an older brother.

I think Bella is the oldest, but she acts the most like the youngest child, with Cy following right up behind her for the idiot duo. Then, there were Findir and Aisa, who were a bit more mature than them and didn't do many stupid things, yet they were constantly seeking validation from either me or Luna. And finally, we have the "eldest" of our group, myself and Luna, of course.

I have no clue how this came to be, but it just kind of sets itself in place.

? It's not like we all just came together and decided that Bella and Cy were the youngest because they acted the most childish.

"Hey, Orion, where we going now?" Bella asked as we all stepped through the wet feeling barrier that left us completely dry upon stepping through.

We were back in the Tartarus wilderness that scorched us with the blazing sun, yet nobody really complained after the torturous events we went through.

It wasn't very visible, but everybody had matured by a large margin.

"Your demon lord's domain… Asmodeus and the Palace of Lust," I smiled, and everybody but Cy and Luna blushed profusely.

"W-we can't do that yet. I haven't prepared my mind and body," Aisa stuttered, gripping her own arms as she shivered with nervousness.

She was necessarily scared but just really nervous about this new experience that I could already tell her grandfather dramatized.

And the other two… Findir and Bella… well, they were completely pale and still as a stone henge.

"Oh, shut up. You don't need to fuck the guards to get into the territory… we're just visiting there for a few things. First of all, we want to visit there for the potions because I heard there are some permanent stat upgrading potions, though we will need to gather money for that. Second of all, the species that we're after resides somewhere around the borders of this territory. And finally, I want you, Bella, to meet Asmodeus. You're already practically best friends, so I don't see the problem,"

"Well… I guess… But I always get the feeling he's never genuine around me. His smile always seems so fake when he talks to me… I don't know; it just makes me incredibly uncomfortable," Bella lightly shivered in place.

"It's all good. A playboy like him is definitely a strong manipulator, but you know who is better?" Luna asked with a strong smirk of pride.

"Orion?" Bella squeaked out, and Luna nearly turned to stone and shattered into thousands of individual small pieces.

"N-No, I'm the better manipulator," Luna stuttered, feeling a bit of her pride get torn away by the innocent-looking girl in front of her.

"Heh,"

I let an annoying smirk streak across my face as I waltzed past Luna, who was frozen in place, wrapping my arm around Bella's shoulder.

"This girl gets it," I muttered, and I gave Bella a fist bump before we continued our travels to our next destination…

…

It was only a month into our traveling did we find our first objective at the very edge of our target destination.

At the border of the Palace of Lust, also known as Asmodeus' territory, we found a small camp of our target species that we were meant to eradicate.

So, we first came up with a tiny plan since they seemed pretty far in their technology, meaning we couldn't underestimate them.

Their tall spiked wooden walls intimated anything that got near it, and the small watchtowers just peeking over the corner of each wall was threatening enough with the arrows that could possibly rain down on us.

But… that wasn't the problem… it was more like the strong metal swords that they had acquired from melting down ore in the hill just beside them.

They were advanced enough to do such a thing, so we couldn't underestimate them no matter what plan we decided to take.

"Obviously, we can't have any of them escaping, so Luna, I'm sure you can set up a perimeter around the camp. That new [Tangible Illusion] skill should work wonders," I said.

"Well, it doesn't keep them back forever. It just stops them for a moment,"

"That's more than enough time for Findir, who will be patrolling the border of the camp and will also be slaughtering anybody who tries to get near Luna. I doubt she really needs the protection, but just in case, y'know,"

"And what do I do?" Cy asked, eager to know his already obvious role in this fight.

"I'll take the north corner, Aisa will take the east corner, Luna will take the west corner, and Cy, you will take the south corner… and I'm sure you can feel that thing practically radiating its own presence,"

Cy smiled as we all split up, immediately knowing the gist of our plan.

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