"Master where are we?"

Terry gave a smile and patted her on the shoulder before he answered.

"Home."

Mal looked around at the elvers on the streets and up at the high rises again before she muttered.

"...Home, I wonder where my people are."

Mars gave a smile and pointed to a sky person that flew by and said.

"They are right here in the forest Mal."

"Eh..?"

"I moved them here."

"You did...?"

Mars gave a nod and walked over and laid a hand on Mal's shoulder as he activated his healing skill, watching as Mal's shoulder grew back a little bit. Satisfied Mars gave a nod before he signaled Mel and Terry to follow him as they walked through Green river's busy streets, soon they reached Mars' building and Mars turned to Mal and said.

"Come here once every day from now on and I'll gradually heal your arm."

Mal bowed down deeply as she expressed her thanks.

"... Thank you very much Mars."

Mars gave a smile and turned around and left the two of them behind with a wave before he walked into his building...

2 weeks pa.s.sed, Mars spent his time with the girls and healing Mal's arm which was what he was currently doing, there was just one thing that bothered him with his daily sessions with Mal.

"--- Anyway he doesn't even touch me, can you believe that Mars!?"

Mal would talk, or rather complain about her master Terry's lack of... Physical affection towards her. Mars didn't really want to know about his junior brothers s.e.x life, but when he did ask Mel to drop the subject she only got louder about it and so Mars had decided to just suffer silently through it.

"... There Mal, I'm done for today."

Mal looked down at her hand which were about half healed, up to about her wrist the only missing her hand and fingers now, Mal moved her arm a little before she thanked Mars

"Thanks as always Mars."

Then she jumped off the roof and flew off towards Terry's building. Mars watched her fly away as he gave a sigh before he walked back down into the penthouse as he mentally reminded himself.

'I need to have a rather awkward talk with Terry at some point...'

While thinking such thoughts Mars walked into the living room and collapsed on a couch before he rolled up into a ball by pulling his knees up to his chin, as he did absolutely nothing but breathing for the next half an hour when suddenly he remembered something.

'That's right... The kel trunement should be going on right now...'

With nothing better to do Mars decided to head to the wasteland for a bit, maybe visit the old demon and the demon princess Velvet. Having decided on his course of action Mars walked over to the workshop and picked up his newly crafted bone sword, opting to leave his adamant.i.te broadsword behind before he went up to the roof and called out.

"Victoria."

As Mars called out VIctoria jumped out a nearby shadow as her horns flashed.

"What is... It Mars?"

Mars kneeled down and patted Victoria on the head before he asked her.

"Do you want to come and visit Velvet?"

"Yes... I want... To go see Velvet."

"Well then let's go."

Mars ripped open a portal to the wasteland and stepped through, Victoria also jumped through the portal before it closed again...

Mars stepped out of the portal and as soon as he did, he gave a frown before he drew his bone sword and looked around. When Victoria emerged from the portal she lowered her body down to the ground while she raised up her ears before she looked around before her horns flashed.

"What... Happened here?"

The streets were empty with occasional spots of dried blood on the ground, the sandstone houses looked worn out like they had been abandoned for sometime. Mars took a deep breath before he answered her.

"I don't know Victoria.... I'll take a look from above, you search for any life down here in the city, okay?"

"Sure..."

Mars floated up into the air and looked the city over, there were a lot of destroyed buildings and the mighty 15 meter tall walls were breached in several places.

'Someone attacked the capital of demons... More like they raided it and then abandoned it... If the capital is like this the other 2 cities are probably not intact either...'

Mars looked around some more, but didn't spot any signs of life from the air and landed down again and waited for Victoria to return which she did a few minutes later Mars quickly asked her.

"Did you find anything?"

"No..."

"I see..."

Mars fell silent and thought for a moment before he flew up into the air again and looked at the damage to the walls more closely, also examining the surrounding wasteland close to the city and soon discovered carriage tracks leading east and gave a frown before he landed next to Victoria again.

"I think I know who did this... It was probably the NNE"

"How do you... Know for sure?"

"I don't it's just a guess for now, but never mind that let's head east and follow the tracks."

Mars flew off, following the tracks with Victoria in his shadow. As he flew out into the wasteland only the occasional big boulder dotted the horizon and perhaps because of the amount of carriages that had driven in one row the tracks were deep and since it didn't rain often in the wasteland it was easy to follow the tracks east. But even after a day of traveling they were still in the wasteland without having found anything, Mars was about to call it a day when he spotted something up ahead.

"Is that... a carriage?"

Mars flew closer and looked at the carriage, it was more like a cage on wheels than an ordinary carriage and it looked like it had crashed into a boulder and then been left there. Mars flew a little closer and looked inside the cage.

's.h.i.+t... those slaving b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!'

Inside the cage were a group of decayed corpses with horns, clearly they were demons. The copses also had collars around their necks and they were bunched up in a corner of the cage embracing each other as they had likely starved to death, Mars was now sure that it was the NNE that was behind the attack on the capital of demons, and from the looks of the corpses it was about two weeks ago that they died.

"... Let's head home Victoria."

"Yeah..."

Mars opened a portal to Green river and steeped though...

Mars sat at the table and ate dinner with the girls, but instead of the usual chatter that was around the table it was silent as the girls felt Mars was in a bad mood and thus kept silent as they sent concerned glances his way. After he was done eating Mars gave a sigh and spoke.

"The capital of demons are no more, they were attacked by the NNE and the city was razed and the people there were enslaved before they were transported east out of the wasteland."

the girls fell silent expect Yel that asked.

"Master... What is the NNE?"

"It's an empire that is north of the Mother forest, the reason it exists is because I killed an emperor of the old empire, then a long civil war followed and the NNE was born."

".... Then do you feel responsible?"

"A little, I had close friends in the capital of demons, it was only a year since I was there last to watch the kel tournament."

"...I see."

"Therefore I plan to search for survivors of the attack and free them from slavery."

The next morning a portal opened next to the abandoned carriage, Mars stepped out along with Victoria. He breathed in the wasteland air and gave a deep sigh before he floated off the ground and flew east, following the carriage tracks. After flying for a couple of hours Mars gradually left the wasteland behind as the surroundings grew more lush and gra.s.s started on the so far barren soil, this proved to be a problem as the tracks got more and more unrecognizable. Mars gave a sigh frown when he no longer was able to follow the tracks, after thinking for a bit he flew upwards to just under the clouds and looked for a city or town in the distance. Soon he found what he was looking for, a border town with high walls in the distance. Mars flew closer before he landed and walked towards the town, soon he reached the walls and lined up to enter the town, and soon it was his turn.

"identification or toll?"

Mars flashed his golden mercenary tag and the guard stepped aside, then he walked into the town.

'Now where to find information?..'