“Lord Tendu isn’t here, neither are her guards. Where could she go?”- Carmi is with us outside, we are discussing what could have happened to Lord Tendu and her family.

  “Hey, I found some footprints. Maybe we can follow these”- Hana pointed at some footprints leading in the opposite direction that we came from.

  “That’s it then. That’s our only lead. We must follow it and find them”

  I don’t really know how to describe it, but I feel worried about lord Tendu, maybe I feel like this because she is better than the other lords that I have met until now.

  What am I saying? I can’t know if she is better than them without looking at her first but I have this instinct that she will be a good person to help us. From what Carmi told me she seems to be pretty nice.

  We followed the footprints until we could find traces of a fight.

  “Looks like they had fought with bded and blunt weapons here.”- Carmi crouched near one of the trees and inspected the cuts it had in it.

  “Yeah, the battle was no joke. Whoever fought here struck hard”

  I let my shadow tendrils survey the area near us, they had found pieces of broken weapons that were used in fighting, along with a few dead bodies.

  Dragging the dead bodies over Carmile inspected them, the majority of them were killed by blood loss caused by stabbing or sshing.

  “This ain’t good. These are lord Tendu’s guards. I think I have an idea where they are. Follow me”

  Hana and I ran after Carmi. I guess Carmi knows lord Tendu, I forgot if she told us that, doesn’t matter now. We must find out what has happened to lord Tendu.

  After a short while we reached the opening of a cave.

  There we could see a woman surrounded by 10 masked people, she is holding a sword and a shield.

  “There she is. Look, time to tell you something. I know lord Tendu. She is a good friend of mine. At the start, I was suspicious of you 2. But if you want to win her over then you must save her. Understood?”- Makes more sense now.

  We nodded to Carmi and we rushed into battle at her side.

  “What the heck are monsters doing here?”- I caught them by surprise. I didn’t hesitate to drive a shadow tendril through their head the moment I got the chance to do that.

  I sent off my shadow tendrils to see if others were hiding nearby and kill them on the spot.

  “Seems like no one is hiding in the bushes”

  Tendu stared at us for a long minute. Before she emerged Carmi let Tendu recover from the shock a little bit.

  “Are these 2 with you Carmi?”- Lord Tendu fell to the ground.

  “Yeah. What happened here?”- Carmi sat near her.

  “Lord Garoda sent his goons after me. He discovered that we were friends and sent mercenaries from Wieka to kill me. Answer me this. What are these 2? They are strong monsters that only Demon Lords can control. Their power is too high to be without a master”- Tendu took a deep breath.

  “No. These 2 are the 2 future Demon Lords, or the Sproutling Holders as they are known to most people. They came here seeking help from you. From what I can make out from them, they want to eradicate all of the discrimination monsters face on a daily basis from any kingdom or entity. That’s what they want to do. That’s what all Demon Lords wanted to do in the past, but failed”- She said the st part under her breath, but I could still somehow hear it.

  “Well, then, let’s not waste time. Lord Garoda can come here at any moment. Go in the cave and check on my kids”

  I rushed into the cave with Hana. I found 2 twins sitting in silence and looking at us.

  “Behind you!”- One of the girls screamed.

  I blocked the attack with my shadow tendril, Hana grabbed the attacker by the throat and smmed him against a wall.

  “You cursed beings!”- He screamed out loud.

  “Long time no see Garoda. We are still alive.”- Hana tightened her grip on Garoda.

  “How are you 2 still alive? You should have died in that forest!”- Garoda managed to say that sentence, but not so much of it was understandable for me, aside from how he was alive and should have been dead. These are the only parts I understood from what he said.

  “Hana, it’s better not to kill him now. I have a better idea”

  I put my idea into practice really fast. I used the same technique that Akira used on me to make the contract. Hana will have to erase his memories. The terms of the contract are that if we go to Wieka kingdom or Welcia he will die. I forced him to sign the contract with Hana’s skill.

  Lord Garoda left the cave confused, our pn seemed to work until now.

  After this whole incident, we talked with Lord Tendu. I was the one that is doing the negotiations now instead of Hana, she is calming down her children. They are pretty old but I guess getting attacked like this still leaves scars on them.

  “Thank you. Look, we will talk more about this. You 2 should rest for today. I will prepare the talks tomorrow. I will see how to get the other lords on the same track. And if it doesn’t work, then I have so much dirt on them that they will be executed for their crimes, so, you don’t really have to worry that much.”

  “Thanks. We will discuss more tomorrow then.”

  This day was good. Looking back I tend to sympathize more with Lord Tendu now, even tho she is the sort of person that I don’t especially like that much. But what’s done, it’s done. We will have to see what we can do from now on.