No longer sensing any dark aura in the area, Emrys pulled his haki back to its usual 200 meters and stopped channeling his magical energy into his greaves, letting himself drop.
He felt no impact whatsoever upon landing, a testament to his armor's terrifying shock-dissipation capabilities.
"Dubs really screwed me over," Emrys said, stunned by the quality of the weapon. "There's no way the greaves alone aren't a sacred treasure in their own right."
He would have gladly stayed a little longer marveling at Dubs's frankly monstrous talent, but a detail from the demons' last exchange stopped him.
"They mentioned a camp," he mused out loud, starting to walk. "That complicates things a bit, especially since it must be relatively close, given he thought he could hold me off long enough for his subordinates to reach it."
There might be a good amount of arrogance in that, but I don't think that's the case, given the crushing gap in strength he clearly sensed between the two of us.
"So leaving right now wouldn't change anything for the village," he said, scanning the whole area again in search of survivors. "Seeing that nearly twenty demons aren't coming back, they'll definitely send someone to find out what happened."
Damn, they didn't hold back, there's not a single survivor left on the surface.
Emrys passed by a small body and was immediately hit by the smell of blood. With his other four senses heightened as they were, it was genuinely hard to keep himself from throwing up. The only reason he didn't was that he'd grown used to this sight. Even so, it still disgusted him just as much.
Stepping past the child's body sprawled on the ground, Emrys started cursing.
"It's in moments like this that I wonder if being blind isn't actually a good thing," he said, clenching his fists. "The further this goes, the more I feel like I understand Fujitora's choice."
After a moment of searching, Emrys sensed auras coming from beneath a large house at the center of the village, one of them very faint.
"They took shelter underground," Emrys realized. "Not a bad idea, but it wouldn't have stopped the demons from finding them."
The building had collapsed right on top of where the villagers were, so they were logically trapped.
"I could clear all this away without much effort given time, but I can't be bothered, let's get this over with quickly."
A nameless Noble Phantasm appeared above the pile of rubble, and shortly after, red lines appeared across the blade.
Broken Phantasm.
Boom.
The explosion vaporized the top of the pile and sent the rest flying clear of the area, opening up a path. Not once had Emrys actually touched the sword directly, yet he'd still managed to reinforce it all the way to a Broken Phantasm.
That was thanks to the upgrade Reinforcement had received. Emrys no longer needed to touch his Projections to reinforce them; he could do it from any distance. Unfortunately, that only worked on weapons he himself had projected, which remained a real boon given the time it saved.
The upgrade received by Reinforcement's sub-branch, Alteration, was also saving him decisive amounts of time in combat. He could now project weapons already altered from the start, the way he'd done with Hrunting, materializing all three copies of the weapon directly in arrow form.
The range over which he could apply Reinforcement and Alteration had also grown. To the point where he could resize a sword down into a dagger while keeping every one of its other properties.
The way now clear, Emrys searched for an opening leading to the villagers' shelter. Unable to find it with haki alone, he decided to run a shallow Structural Grasp over the entire area.
"Found it."
The trapdoor wasn't at the center of the house but tucked into a corner of it, which made sense both architecturally and practically.
The trapdoor was made of stone and firmly locked, but that wasn't going to stop Emrys. Especially since even if he asked the people inside to unlock it themselves, there was no chance they would, unless they were seriously lacking in survival instinct.
Emrys dematerialized, his armor along with him. He still hadn't figured out by what feat of engineering Dubs had managed that, but he could only applaud it. Taking advantage of his intangibility in this form, Emrys slipped through the ground, arriving in a wine cellar converted into an emergency shelter.
There were about twenty villagers in the cellar, mostly women, children, and elders. The fading aura he'd sensed belonged to one of the very few men present in the room.
They're probably going to panic when they see me, but there's no point delaying the inevitable.
Emrys materialized in front of them and began speaking in the gentlest voice he could manage.
"Hello everyone, I know my appearance might seem suspicious, but please don't panic and listen to what I have to say."
Needless to say, that didn't work. The moment the villagers spotted him, they started screaming, and a few of the men in the room even pulled out axes and scythes to defend themselves.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" one of them shouted.
They were trying to keep stern faces to intimidate Emrys, but the trembling of their hands betrayed their shared fear.
"Please, calm down," Emrys said, still in that gentle voice. "I saw your village being attacked by demons and came to help. You have nothing to fear from me."
"And why should we believe you," another man asked. "This could just as easily be some demon trap."
Sigh. Panic really does make people stupid.
"Please don't let fear cloud your judgment, sir. It's unbecoming."
"E-Excuse me?"
"Did you honestly think a demon would bother setting a trap for you when it could just as easily kill you, or torture you for whatever it wants?"
That simple logic silenced the villagers, and after a moment of hesitation, they lowered their weapons.
"Wonderful," Emrys said cheerfully. "I can sense that one of you is badly wounded, close to death; let me heal him, and then we can head out," Emrys said, stepping forward.
Though it had eased, the villagers' suspicion was still present, so they never let Emrys out of their sight for even a second.
Reaching the back of the cellar, Emrys found the unconscious man, covered in blood, a deep wound slashed across his abdomen. Beside him sat a woman whose eyes were red, most likely from crying, and a little girl who looked remarkably like her.
As Emrys approached, the woman pulled even closer to the wounded man, a certain fear in her eyes. She also tried to grab the little girl, but the girl had already moved closer to Emrys on her own.
"Are you gonna heal my daddy?" she asked innocently.
"Yep," was all Emrys answered.
Right after saying that, he activated his magic, and a white staff with serpents coiled around it appeared in his hands.
It was Dubs's Scepter : Asclepius.
"Sacred treasure, release."
White magical energy burst from the staff, spreading over the wounded man. After a few seconds, his breathing steadied and some color returned to his pale face.
The light then faded, and Emrys discarded the staff.
"He's still wounded, but his life is no longer at risk," he said, turning around. "He should wake up within the next few days."
Back at his starting spot, Emrys jumped and delivered a punch to the trapdoor, sending it flying off.
Boom.
Thud.
The stone slab crashed down some distance away, while Emrys used the stairs to climb back up. Once outside, he noticed no one was following him.
"What are you all doing? Come on up," he told them.
"But what about the demons outside?" one of the elders asked.
"They're all dead, don't worry," Emrys answered. "There should still be the bodies of 2 of them nearby; 3 others too, but I'm not sure about those; as for the rest of them, I don't think there's anything left of their bodies at all."
Emrys's words left the villagers stunned.
"A-And who killed them, if I may ask?" the same elder asked.
"Well, me. Who else?" Emrys answered, making no attempt to hide the truth.
He started walking away from the cellar entrance, leaving the villagers to their stunned silence.
One of the men still holding a weapon stepped up to the elder and spoke to him. "Chief, do you think he's telling the truth?"
The elder, who was apparently the village chief, rubbed his beard. "I don't know. But the fact that we're not dead yet, even out in the open like this, has to mean something."
"I-I'll go up and check," the man said, gathering his courage.
"Are you sure, Muird?" the chief asked, worried for the man.
"Well, someone's got to do it."
Muird tightened his grip on his pitchfork and slowly climbed the stairs. His heart was pounding and his mouth had gone dry. His hands and legs trembled with every step he took upward.
"Come on, you can do this, Muird," he kept repeating to himself.
"You can do th…"
"Would you hurry it up already, I don't have all day for this."
Emrys popped up out of nowhere, giving Muird a terrible fright that he failed to contain.
"Kyaaa!!" he screamed.
Emrys froze in place and stared at him, shocked by the scream he'd just heard. He blinked several times to make sure he wasn't dreaming, but he still couldn't quite believe what he'd just heard.
Muird was sweating buckets and panting. His face was red with embarrassment, and he couldn't even bring himself to look Emrys in the eye.
Emrys decided to spare him further embarrassment and grabbed him by the arm.
"Better not to think about it," he said, pulling Muird out of the cellar.
After spending several hours in the relatively dim cellar, it felt to him as though the daylight was burning his eyes. It took him a moment to adjust, but once he had, he wished deep down that he never had.
"O-Our homes, our crops, our families," tears welled up in his eyes as all he could see around him was devastation. "Our lives."
He collapsed to his knees and started crying like a baby.
"WAAHHH!!"
Emrys stood off to the side, trying to make himself as small as possible. He hadn't anticipated this reaction, but on reflection, he realized he should have. These people had just lost everything, and what he was about to tell them wasn't going to make things any better.
Ten minutes passed, and seeing that Muird wasn't coming back down, several others volunteered to go up. Once at the top, all they saw was a sobbing Muird and their homes destroyed. Several of them ended up in the same state as Muird, but others, more emotionally resilient, managed not to let themselves be overwhelmed by their emotions, even while still in shock.
They soon spotted the bodies of the blue demon and the orange demon that Emrys had killed first. Further on, they found those of the three other demons he'd killed afterward, giving them confirmation that the threat had indeed passed.
They warned those still in the cellar and helped them come up. Emrys watched, somewhat unsettled.
Up until now, every time he'd arrived at a site ravaged by demons, there had never been any survivors left. This was the first time he found himself directly confronted with the grief and despair of the survivors.
Damn demons.
He was starting to resent the very existence of those monsters.
No, calm down. You need to calm down. This is a war, there's never a good side or a bad side in a war, and if there had to be one, it would mean everyone is the bad guy. I can't judge just because the only atrocities I've witnessed happen to be the demons'.
Emrys thought back to the name of this war. A name he had always despised and held in contempt.
"Humph. Holy war, my ass," he said, looking up at the sky. "No war can ever be holy."
"My lord," Emrys heard from beside him.
It was the village chief calling him.
My lord? Seriously?
"I wouldn't know how to thank you enough for what you've done," the village chief bowed deeply, and Emrys could sense the other villagers, men, women, children, and elders, doing the same. "You saved our lives, the debt we owe you can never be repaid."
Emrys hadn't expected this and found himself quite embarrassed.
"Cough! Cough! Let's not speak of it, please stand up," he told them, crossing his arms.
"But, my lord…"
"You have more important things to do than bow before me," he said. "Your priority right now should be gathering every provision you have and searching for a town willing to take you in."
The chief raised his head, unable to believe Emrys had just told them that. "But what about the burials?"
Here we go.
It pained Emrys to say what came next, but he had no choice.
"You don't have time for that," Emrys shook his head. "Those demons have a base with reinforcements relatively close by; I don't know when they'll realize contact has been lost, and even if I went and killed them all right now, there's no guarantee there isn't another camp nearby. No, staying here is too dangerous, you need to leave."
The chief was about to say something but stopped himself at the last second. "I understand, I'll speak with the others."
The chief walked away, his shoulders slumped, looking as though he'd aged ten years in an instant.
Once the chief had spoken to the villagers, many protested, but none could deny the ironclad logic of Emrys's reasoning.
It took the villagers 4 hours to gather all their still-usable provisions and the means to transport them.
During that time, Emrys extended his Observation Haki as far as it would go, trying to determine whether the demon camp fell within his detection range.
And sure enough, it did.
About 7 miles (11 kilometers) to the northwest.
They were far more numerous than the group Emrys had just wiped out, a solid hundred or so, in fact.
Paradoxically, I get the feeling this one's going to be easier.
They were about to set off, and so was Emrys, but the chief and the villagers insisted on thanking him one last time.
"Thank you again for everything, my lord. We will never be able to repay what we owe you."
"Tch. I already told you there's no need to thank me," Emrys said, annoyed. "And stop calling me 'my lord.'"
"But then what should we call you, my lo…"
The chief abruptly stopped talking, realizing he'd almost slipped again, which drew a sigh out of Emrys.
"Call me Em…" Emrys, too, stopped himself at the last second and started thinking.
Is it really a good idea to give my real name? There could be curses or spells out there that use it to target me.
"Faker. My name is Faker."
The chief could clearly tell that wasn't his real name, but he nodded anyway.
"Very well, Sir Faker. I hope we may meet again someday."
With those words, the chief turned and left the village with all the survivors, leaving Emrys alone. No longer needing to watch over them, he could now rush toward the enemy base.
He too turned around, positioning himself exactly northwest.
"Alright. This is about to get ugly."
The ground beneath his feet turned elastic, and pushing off it, Emrys launched himself toward his new prey.
And so, the very first mention of Faker, who would one day become the protagonist of countless legends, came to be.