~ Third Person POV ~

“Kukuku… Kouta-chan… I’ll make you mine, but for now, I’ll get out of here first.”

Inside a dark prison cell, lies Kutz, the pervert male elf. While he was making some horrifying remarks while sitting down, he stood up and headed towards the prison bars. There was no one watching him, and this gave him a chance to escape.

“Kukuku… Pitiful creatures… I wonder how long will you last once I take over the world.”

Kutz then suddenly changed shape, from an elf, to a hideous monster. He had wings as dark as the night sky, a tail that has black scales with the length of about five meters, two horns on his head that are twice as long as a rhino’s horn, and scales that are pitch black, that looks like it can pull you into the void.

“Now thennn… Let’s get rid of these first!”

*BANG*

The prison cell’s bars were hit with a destructive force, causing it to break and fly to the opposite wall. Some of the bars were lodged inside, while others were beyond repair.

The sound of breaking metal was so loud, that it woke up the other prisoners, and alerted the guards. Sounds of numerous rushing footsteps were heard down the dark corridor.

“Hurry up!!”

A voice was heard from the corridor. The voice was from a man whose body was about 2 meters tall, with bulging muscles found everywhere on his body.

“Kukuku… Looks like I have myself a souvenir…”

“Guaahh!!!”

Kutz dashed towards the sound of the footsteps and swung his tail. A powerful gush of wind flowed through the corridor, causing all of the guards to stumble and be knocked back.

Kutz slowly walked towards the guards with echoing footsteps, causing fear and terror to rise up in the guards’ bodies.

“Kukuku… Ahhh… What pitiful creatures indeed…”

“!? W- Who are you!?”

When Kutz appeared in front of them, all of them had a face of shock and terror. Some fainted with their foam rising up from their mouth.

“Ara ara… Forgive me for my rudeness. I am, Kutzeros Lamphiba, the one you races call Demon King.”

“!? D-Demon King!? T-There’s no way someone like him would come out here on the enemies’ side!!!”

“Yesss… You are right about that, but I am here right now. So what you said is meaningless. Kukuku, now, how about I take along some of you to the Demon continent and have be my toys. Kukuku…”

“!?”

With a snap of his fingers, Kutz, the Demon King vanished from the place along with half of the guards he met down in the corridor. The surviving guards were lucky to be alive, but were also burdened with the gag order. It was only until a year from now that the event that happened in this prison was announced to the public.

…

~ Kouta POV ~

“Now, how are we supposed to find the princess?”

After having administered punishment to the three girls, we were now on the way to continue our search for the princess. The four of us were still inside the guild private room discussing our objective.

“Yes, about that, first, let’s talk about the bounties. Nine bandits were not recorded in their bounty list. Does that ring a bell?”

“Hmmm… Is that the number of bandits you encountered when we first met?”

“Yes. When we asked the reason from the other receptionists, they said that they haven’t committed any crimes yet, but those bandits were skilled enough to even push us back, the royal guards of the princess.”

“… So you’re telling me that those bandits had ties to the [Black Hand] organization you told me earlier?”

“Yes, that is most likely the case.”

I put a hand on my chin as I regretted the fact that I didn’t even leave one alive.

“…This is going to be troublesome.”

“It has indeed. For now, why don’t we create a plan to lure them out, the three of us will be bait while you turn into a dragon to make it look like you are just a monster, so they won’t think about targeting you.”

“Hmm… A plausible idea, but what is the benefit for me transforming into a dragon?”

“Since they don’t know that you can transform into a dragon, they might mistake you as a monster, causing them to target us more frequently. And while we are being attacked, you swoop down and save us, while capturing some of them for interrogation, simple right?”

“… That’s not simple at all…”

While I was having a headache on hearing her idealistic plan, I thought of a better way to find the whereabouts of the princess.

“How about we head to the dark side of the town, there is a [Black Hand] branch there right? I was thinking of joining them to gather information.”

“Are you stupid!? Once you join them, you can never get out! And if you try to betray them, they will never stop until they kill you!”

“Then why don’t I destroy their whole organization before they kill me? I can transform into a dragon where even the high-tiered ores can’t damage me.”

“… Ah mou!! Fine! But you better come back with information!!”

“Don’t worry. They know my face, so having me on their side must be like a godsend to them.”

I stood up and headed for the exit.

“Until then, try not to gather attention to yourselves, or JOKE around, okay?”

“!? Y-Yes!!”

“Un…”

“Hyii!!!”

I put a little emphasis on the joke word and the three of them stiffened up on their seats. I opened the door and headed outside of the guild.

First, I asked direction to the slums, if there are any in this town, and they kindly pointed me the way. Usually, hideouts of dark organizations are situated in the slums in novels, so I’m going with that perception. I hope I am right in picking this decision…

…

~ Third Person POV ~

“…”

“Now now princess. No need to be on guard with us, we are just having a little chat, alright?”

A beautiful blond haired elf, with green eyes as green as the forest, and had a look of a 16-year old, was sitting in front of a man dressed in a tuxedo. The man had gray hair and had red eyes, with fangs protruding out of his upper lip.

“So, what do you want, vampire?”

“Oh my, forgive me for my rudeness. Our job is to keep you in this place, just until it settles down back in the sacred tree. You already know what will happen if you were able to go back there after you accomplished your mission right? And we can’t actually kill you because if we did, we will have the whole elf race pursuing us. Anyway, our client wishes us to keep you under watch 24/7 and not let you out until after the sacred day.”

“…”

The elf girl, the elf princess became silent and stared at the vampire.

“Now now, what’s with that face? Just sit and relax, think of this as your long-awaited vacation.”

A smile broke on the vampire’s face as he continued drinking from his cup. All of a sudden, someone knocked on the door and entered.

“Excuse me Kuhaal-sama. Someone would like to join our group, and I thought that you would like to see him in person.”

What entered the room, was a man dressed in black robes, completely concealing his body, and only showing his eyes.

“Hmm? For you to come here, Jaarl-kun, just what kind of person that would like to join would cause you to report to me?”

“It’s the white haired, golden-eyed half-dragonewt, half-human.”

“…”

The princess elf was silent in the whole conversation, but deep down, she was shocked to hear that ‘that’ person would come here to join the [Black Hand].

“Oh! This is splendid! I don’t know who he is, but he wants to join our organization? They told me in the report that someone resembling that person was able to fend off numerous of our members. I wonder why would he come to this place to ask to join us?”

Kuhaal paused for a second before turning his head to the elf.

“Excuse me for a moment princess, it seems something urgent has come up so I bid you farewell.”

The vampire and the robed man left the room. The door was shut and a locking sound could be heard from the other side.

“… Why did you come here? Hero-sama?”

The elf princess murmured words that no one was able to hear because of her soft voice, as she spent her time, alone in the closed room.