Knight Anastacia was literally in the enemy’s hands, and there was a secret that nobody knew, but she was acrophobic, from the current situation, all she could see was death, an insignificant dishonorable death, but not even that was going through her mind right now, such pressure of death gave birth to the absolute will to live.

Seeing the “child” in front of her acting all normal it reminded her that he was indeed Hero Akira, he may be able to help her. And still on her knees, she crawled to his direction, and firmly hugged him.

“Hero Akira, please, save me! I need your help!”

The crying elite knight, her face was sharp before, but now it looked like some pretty crying princess, the blue eyes pleading for safety.

“Ok, look Ms Knight, we were never planning on harming anyone, so please calm down. Worst case scenario the army will attack us now, right?”

“H-huh?”

“Well, if they attack Milly here, she will have to move, and we are not in the most stable situation, it would be nice if the army was a little more reasonable, but you guys are all trigger happy… Would it be possible for you to ask them not to attack us?”

“E-Eh? I-I’m n-not sure i-if they will h-hear me…”

“... And my car is still there… Maybe a hostage exchange? Give me my car back and you return, something like that?”

The Knight looked at him from slightly below with crying eyes. Vermillion didn’t know what to do, sure they were both on her hand, but it’s not like she wanted to start a war if possible.

~Should I try? The hostage exchange thing?~

Vermillion tried to lower her voice as low as possible to avoid the knights from listening. As Vermillion moved the hand holding them next to her mouth, the more Knight Anastacia increased the strength of her hug.

“H-Hey, stop with this hug, you planning on killing me?”

Vermillion’s face showed a high dislike in her face from what she heard.

~If you kill Akira I kill you and all those in front of me, understand?~

Knight Anastacia looked at the seriousness of the huge face in front of her, she was whispering, but the voice was firm, and slowly moved away from Akira. Akira understanding that she is not calm, holds her arm.

“Here, I’m holding onto you, just please, calm down, getting nervous will help no one here. She won’t do anything as long as you don’t do either.”

The crying knight nods to his words and starts to try correcting her breath.

~The army looked confused as to what happened with you two, but they are starting to look at me. They may decide to attack.~

“So we need to do something fast, what is the best option? I don’t know.”

~*sigh* well, let’s at least get the car back and try to show some sincerity.~

Vermillion moves her hand to the ground, trying to let the contents be shown to the army.

“I’m currently in hold of Hero Akira and the Knight that was holding him. No harm has been done to her, so I’m going to release her, I would just like to ask for Akira’s car back. Would that be possible? Then I shall leave.”

Vermillion tries to make the most friendly smile her “sexy executive” villainous face is able to achieve. At least the army movements felt less likely to make a mistake now, if they do attack, it’s because they properly decided to do so, with little to no mistakes in management and decision.

With her hand on the ground.

“Here, you can climb down, right?”

Anastacia, looking at the huge face above her, gulps and slowly drags her body over the giant hand until she is able to sense the ground. Upon sensing it, she jumped down and threw herself on the ground, breathing in and out as deeply as possible.

Vermillion stands up again.

“I have let your Knight go, so I would like to walk there to get the car without being attacked. Would that be possible?”

One step. Two steps. In 3 more steps she will reach the car, but also the army. She is quite nervous in the fact that she may just place her hand in a place where many people may just decide to attack her. But it didn’t need to get that far, a single “flash” of light appeared right in front of her hand.

One of the Elite Knights was flying in the air over something that looked like a magic circle.

“You demon! This artifact was made with Your Majesty resources, and hence has just returned back to the place of its original owner. If you intend to steal it and trigger your so called called war, this Ed-”

There was an explosion where the Knight was, and he fell from pretty high up. Even Vermillion stepped back and was surprised.

“So your gods kidnap me, steal everything that I had, then I make something nice for me, and now you say it’s yours too? You idiots piss me off, children this, children that, justice meatheads, fuck off!”

In a similar height to where the Knight was, Akira was standing over a strange semi-invisible circle in the air, and looking down to where the army was.

“Eh? Akira, I didn’t know you could fight. Fufufu, I guess I want to test you too, you know. So, need any help? I didn’t know you had this side.”

With the light smile of his friend, Akira tells her over the communicator before warning the army.

[It would better not, but thanks for the offer anyway, so I would ask you to stay behind for now. Of course, be prepared for support, It’s not like I’m some sort of cheat battle guy, but once I get into the car things should be calmer, I will keep contact.]

“You idiots, the one that is triggering hostilities is not the Demon King or his daughter, but me, the one you call Hero. I don’t know nor care how I’m seen in human society anymore, that’s how shit this is. Now give me back my car, or face the consequences!”

Akira body was filled with artifacts, mostly defense and for long range ones weapons. Of course, his shooting was not lethal, he wouldn’t be able to keep peaceful negotiations, as unlikely as they are to happen, if he were to do it, so at most it threw over the armored people to the ground and didn’t let them approach. Not many soldiers wanted to start a fight against the Hero either, so he had that advantage.

Slowly, Akira approached the car, opened the door while still shooting whoever approached, and then entered inside. Some soldiers didn’t know if the previous reasoning by the flying general given was true or just some sort of provocation, and they weren’t sure if they could attack the artifact, some soldiers however tried nonetheless, but were blocked by an invisible barrier.

Akira activated the shields, he could just teleport with the teleportation stone he had added, but he thought that, if there is still a chance of negotiations to work, to return somewhat slowly, in hopes of some knight trying to talk again. He was aware though, there was little reasoning to for them to still want it, he did attack one of their knights, although the idiot had almost attacked Vermillion first.

As he slowly got away of the knights, with none of them approaching him anymore, he gave up his hopes. As he returned to Vermillion, another Knight appeared in his vision, the blond blue-eyed Knight Anastacia that had lost all the sharpness of her face was walking slowly back to the army with her face down, and he was soon to pass by her side.

But her movements changed once she noticed he was approaching, and she prostrated. Akira could guess…

(Did she saw the attack before and thinks I will attack her? This will just leave me with a bad taste after all.)

As the knight does not move from her position, he stops right beside her, she lifts her head in surprise.

“Look, I didn’t want to attack anyone, and I made sure to avoid direct injuries, so I’m sure they are all mostly fine. We tried to talk and you guys tried to steal from me, but that’s all, we will be away from here. Next time we meet may be on a battlefield, so good luck until then.”

“M-My Lord, w-would n-negotiations still… b-be... impossible n-now…?”

“... I don’t know why the sudden change in behavior, but no, it’s not impossible, from our side at least. Can’t say anything about your side though.”

“P-Please, a-allow me to t-talk with them. I w-will seek a p-positive response.”

“Ok, sure, you want a ride? I can get you there if you can’t walk properly.”

“I-I apologize f-for my previous b-behavior, and t-thank you for the o-offer…”

“Well, you probably won’t fit inside, so sit somewhere on the car and try to hold on somewhere, I will try going slow.

Milly, this may take some time, so I suggest you to sit. If you want, maybe we can raise a camp there, but if they try to attack us again, no need to hold back, I will help in the fight.”

“Ok, thanks for calling.”

Anastacia didn’t know how the two were communicating, just that they were, and she heard the story, if she fails, the Demoness and the Hero will join forces to fight them. Although not directed, the reason why Akira said all that aloud is to make it a threat. If they start casualties now, they will lose. Because he has kept the ability to teleport the car hidden, the other side shouldn’t know that he can escape anytime (He still needs Vermillion to prepare the reception though), the best they can do is suspect.

Anastacia sits in the front of the car, Akira warns her not to sit in front of him, and they start moving towards the army. The army seems to be drawing their weapons in anticipation of another attack, but as soon as they see Anastacia signaling to them that it’s not hostile, they sheath their weapons.

The car stops in front of the army, and Anastacia stands up. Some of the knights approach her, worried about what happened, but although not feeling good, she dismisses them.

Akira doesn’t really care, he activated the shields and is just waiting for a signal. If they attack he retreats, if the signal is more positive, he will hear, right now, he is impatient, but at the same time, he places his hopes on the crying knight that.

From the gestures, the other knights seem to not agree with her, but she is being just as forceful, and seems to yell something that the knights couldn’t protest, the conversation comes and goes, eventually Vermillion had already came back, but she just placed her luggage around and started camping. When the knights protested, Anastacia seemed to have properly warned them.

Eventually, they seem to have mostly agreed with the situation. And Anastacia directs herself to the car. Akira considered leaving the car to properly talk, but thinking that they may just decided to disagree with him, he reconsidered the idea. Anastacia knelt right next to the car’s door to be able to better look at Akira when talking with him.

“I have talked with the others, we would like to discuss the future with you. Is there still time for that?”

“Sure, but just to be sure there is no misunderstanding. What about her?”

Akira points out at Vermillion who is preparing something to eat herself. Since she is listening to his conversion, and noticed she was pointed out, her sudden change in attention may have alarmed the other knights..

“I-If possible, Lord Akira, w-we would like to t-talk about it only with y-you, if p-possible.”

“*sigh* Of course it’s impossible, I could give you many personal reasons, but here is a non-related one that is of most importance: She is the representative of the Demon King, not me. Dealing anything with me will have no reflection on the other side.”

“W-We d-don’t have the a-authority t-to-”

“Calm down, I’m not expecting you to have either. We came here to avoid wasting time, or would you have prefered to have marched all the way to the border to then have to return?”

“I-I a-appreciate your th-thoughtfulness”

“So, is it possible to send a messenger to the palace? Either for that permission, or for one of their representatives to come here?”

“Y-yes, we w-will send a messenger, b-but Lord Hero should be faster with y-your artifact-”

“I hope you remember which side I’m here with, I’m acting as a buffer. I don’t trust you guys alone with me, nor with her, besides, if you wanna talk about speed, she is way faster than me. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind just sending the messenger and returning, I put full trust on that.”

“I-I appreciate you o-options, b-but-”

“I know, do what you think is better, but we can’t stay here forever, I hope you do understand the princess there eats quite a lot-”

“Hey! Don’t call me princess!”

The army soldiers all drew their weapons.

“Eh? Sorry, I was just… Muuu...”

Vermillion, who had suddenly shouted to retort to Akira’s joke found herself in the vision of all soldiers in the vicinity, she apologized,silenced herself, avoided their gazes, and pouted. While looking at her, Akira apologized.

“I-I see, we will send a messenger ourselves, I will go with them to properly explain the situation.”

“Thank you very much.”