Second Chance in the Demon Kingdom

When the demons arrived at the dungeon, they were shocked at the sight before them. All the cells were cut open. Doors were either forced open or torn off from their place, and most importantly? Caro stood in the middle of the area… surrounded by the demon inmates, both dead and alive, covered in blood. By the looks of it, all the blood on her were the demons’.

“What the hell?!” the Demon Prince shouted. “All this damage… by that human?!”

“Don’t let your guard down!” the Demon King warned. “She may be human, but right now, she’s extremely dangerous! I’ll keep my word and explain things as best as I can later, but for now, do your best to restrain her!”

“Yes sir!” the soldiers all replied, charging into the fray.

With Caro, or her body at least, she continued to fight against the inmates. The human was overpowering each demon and killing off each and every one of them. Some tried to escape, but unfortunately for them, Caro easily caught up to them and ended their lives.

“W-What the hell is she?!” one reptilian demon with leathery green skin, spines on his back, sharp teeth and his tongue sticking out questioned. “That girl! Is she really human?!”

“She looks like one and has the scent of one!” exclaimed a demon with two faces, one human on the front and the other a hyena on the back.

“But her strength is nothing like a human at all! If anything, she’s stronger than even us demons! She’s a monster!”

“No… Not a monster,” said a scrawny-looking demon with moth wings and features. “That girl is… a true demon!” Just as he said that, ‘Caro’ charged at them, beheading the trio in one swoop.

This left only a handful of inmates left, all who were too frightened to keep a hold of the weapons in their hands. One not-so brave soul, a three-eyed rat demon, took up the courage to flee.

“Wha-?! You idiot! If you run-!” Before the warning demon could finish what he was going to say, ‘Caro’ rushed past them all to get to the fleeing one.

The frightened inmate tripped on his feet and looked back, seeing his soon-to-be killer raise her sword to end his life.

Rather than feeling cold blade cut through his body, however, the rat demon heard the sound of a blade clashing with the human’s. He slowly opened his three eyes and saw, to his surprise, the Demon Prince blocking the strike with his broadsword.

“Can you stand?” the prince asked him.

“Y-Yes!” the three-eyed rat demon stuttered out.

“Good.” The prince pushed ‘Caro’ back. “I want the remaining inmates protected from harm! Soldiers, make sure you be a shield for them! The people we’re protecting here may be criminals, but they don’t deserve death such as this! Not by a human.”

“Yes sir!” the soldiers responded. All had stationed themselves to protect the surviving inmates, while their leader faced the human girl.

As he looked at her, he couldn’t help but feel something different about her compared to their duel the other day. Using his Demo-Appraisal skill, he was shocked at what he was seeing.

’What the hell?!’ he mentally gasped. All of Caro’s information… Her attack power, defense power, mana points, health points, stamina points, heck even her level and name, were all replaced with question marks. ’What’s going on here? I know she had a clear status earlier,’ he thought.

Before he could process his thoughts any further, ‘Caro’ charged in again, this time to fight him.

The Demon Prince snapped out of his stupor and blocked the strike. This strike felt stronger than the last time they clashed, enough to push him back several inches and make his arms tingle from the force behind the strike.

“Your highness!” a soldier called.

“Stand back!” the prince shouted, pushing her back.

Just as ‘Caro’ landed on her feet, the Demon King came from behind his son and began his own attack against her. The girl managed to block each strike and slipped past the king, landing an upward diagonal slash on his back. His majesty endured the hit and went for a backslash, in which ‘Caro’ blocked with her blade again.

While she was occupied with blocking the king’s strike, the son appeared behind her on her left side, where she was blind, and charged in. He raised his broadsword and swung it down, expecting to knock her unconscious at the very least. It seemed simple enough, if not for the fact that this Caro wasn’t the same Caro from earlier.

‘Caro’ seemed to have sensed the attack coming and slid under the king’s sword. As a result, not only the prince strike his father right diagonally across the torso, but the girl also landed another swift hit on his back, forming an x-shaped scar on his back. The scar may be faint, but the fact that a human was getting their king beaten like so was surprising the other demons. It was one thing for it to be the prince, but the king? One of the Demon Legends? It was unspeakable!

The Demon King stood his ground, refusing to yield here, as Caro distanced herself from the pair of royals.

“I suppose time has caught up to me,” the king muttered out. “I haven’t fought in so long. I must have gotten rusty…”

“Then allow me to fight, father,” the prince said.

“My son-”

“You said it yourself! Age has caught up to you! You cannot fight as you are now.”

“You misunderstood me, boy,” the king interrupted. “I was not referring to my true strength. You, as my son, should know how strong I really am. No matter what memory.” Ignoring the confused expression on his son’s face, the king faced ‘Caro’. “It’s been so long since I fought, I don’t remember whether or not I should hold back against an unknown opponent, regardless of race. I should’ve known better than to hold back against this one.” The gem in his weapon started to glow. His blade was the next to shine, as he removed his top and gave his sword a few swings.

Upon the third swing, the weapon changed completely. Gone was the akrafena he had; in his hand was a large, double-sided great axe. Its blade was less than three times the length of the shaft, sharp, and seemed extremely durable. On the guard was a sigil that looked quite like a monster’s squinted eyes.

“Now then… How about we start the real fight, devil?”

******

Meanwhile, in Caro’s mind, she had been fighting against a lot of the skeleton knights, as well as some slimes, imps, and zombies. After finally killing off all the monsters, the human continued on down the path, looking around for anything suspicious. She stopped walking upon reaching a fork in the road.

Of what she can see, one path seemed completely normal. The other, however, was pure darkness, with a faint rotting smell and, of what she could clearly see, a dark aura of sort emitting from that path.

′It’s obvious enough what path I’ll be taking,′ she thought, turning to the safe looking passage.

“Don’t!” a voice cries out behind her. And a strikingly familiar one at that.

“Don’t go that way!” another familiar voice cried out.

If it were any other voices besides them, Caro would’ve ignored them and kept walking. But these two voices? How could she ignore them, or even remain calm around them?

Slowly and frighteningly turning, Caro’s eyes widened and dilated upon seeing the two people who caused her the most pain. Both in her current life and her previous one.

“Caro...” Ruby called.

“Hello, my love...” Alex followed.

Caro froze upon seeing them. Alex was one thing; she figured she had to fight against the people of her past life to escape from this mind game the hilt took her in, and he was one of the very few people remaining. Ruby? Why was she here? In fact... why were they both here?

“Caro-” Before Ruby can say anymore, Caro took off into the left path.

′Why?′ Caro thought. ′Why am I running?′ Those two were the ones that inflicted the most pain on her, and she had no problem killing off the other demons of her past. But why was she running from them?

It wasn’t until seconds after she sprinted away that she found herself in another fork in the road... with Ruby and Alex standing there, waiting for her.

Caro brought up her sword in a defense position. As she did so, she noticed her blade, her hands, were shaking. Was she nervous? No. Shaking in excitement? Far from that. She was shaking... in fear.

“Caro. Please, hear us out,” Ruby pleaded.

“I have nothing to say to you! Either of you! Real or fake!” Caro shouted.

“Caro-” Alex spoke and took a step forward.

“You, especially, don’t have a say! After what you did... after what you promised... you lied this whole time! Both you and Ruby! I’ll never forgive either of you for that!” Caro charged at the two with her blade.

Both Alex and Ruby did what they could to avoid each of her strikes, showing little to no sign of fighting back at all. This is especially true for Alex, who may or may not had much experience in fighting with a weapon. But Ruby? Caro had been with her since their childhood; why wasn’t she attempting to fight back?

It was then, Alex tripped on a rock and fell. Caro took advantage of that and went to jab her blade straight through him… when Ruby blocked it with a staff.

“Caro, please stop!” she called. “Just hear us out!”

“There’s nothing you guys can say to make up for what you did!” Caro shouted, swinging her sword at the half-human, who blocked all of her strikes.

“Caro! Please, we swear to you. What you saw back there, what you think is betrayal, it’s not what it looks like at all!” Alex exclaimed.

“Shut up!” Caro was having none of it, as she tried to break past Ruby’s defense. But no matter how hard she struck, her former best friend, or the illusion of her at least, stood her ground, not at all letting down her guard.

It took several hits for Caro to forcibly disarm Ruby, sending her staff flying away. The human tackled the half-human down and raised her blade to behead her.

’This is what she deserves,’ Caro thought. ’I’ll take her head, and then go for Alex’s. Illusions or not, that is what they deserve for playing me like they did!’

Those were her thoughts. Those were how she truly felt. And yet why? Why was she hesitating? Was it because she was staring down at one of the people she thought had cared about her? Was it because that one of the two was simply looking at her, not struggling or pleading her to stop, but instead was just lying there, ready to take Caro’s judgement?

Caro didn’t know what it was, but she tightened her grip on her sword, let out a scream, and brought down the blade.