Demon's Virtue

Chapter 26 - Broken

Confused, the Imp looked at the Child as it was just sitting there like nothing just happened. It seemed to be scared for a moment there, but that soon changed and it just started smiling. So, the Imp chose to push the dagger a little deeper. And the Child didn't seem to even notice, and just looked forward.

This wasn't good, this wasn't good at all. But the Imp couldn't show the child that it was worried. There was something wrong, but the Imp had no idea, but at the very least he could be sure of one thing. He did damage the child, even if not by a lot.

[Arc -10 Damage]

"Arc?" The Imp asked confused, for the other three people that he killed there were always two names there, but for this child just one. But before the Imp could think about this even more, the child turned toward him with a smile on his face.

"Hm? Yeah, what is it?" The child asked, as if it was speaking to one of its friends, and the Imp looked at the child confused. So its name was 'Arc', then. That was good to know. At the very least that's what the Imp thought. It would be easier to speak to it if it knew the children's names.

Instead of replying to Arc's question, the Imp just slowly pulled the dagger back out of the side of his leg, causing a little bit of blood to start flowing. It seemed like that freaked the child out for a few moments again, at least judging from its heavy breathing, but soon enough he calmed down and looked forward with his regular smile.

The Imp was confused, but also intrigued. Intrigued and scared. This child didn't feel hurt being stabbed, and even if it wasn't a deep stab, it should have at least hurt a little bit. Arc was still damaged, but there just didn't seem to be any pain.

Even thought the Imp wanted to play around a little bit to see if he could find out how much pain the child could actually resist, he knew he shouldn't do that, because that would probably just end up killing the child sooner or later.

But this made the Imp interested in the other children as well. If this one was like that, then maybe the other children were as well? Even if he couldn't play around with Arc, then he could maybe do so with the others! At the very least, that's what the Imp thought, and he wanted to get to it when they stopped moving later that day, but for some reason Arc stopped the carriage by the side of the road before that.

"Why stop?" The Imp asked, immediatley holding the dagger toward Arc's throat, and the child pointed forward at the two horses strapped up to the carriage. Once more, he was shaking a little bit at the start, but soon managed to calm down.

"It's been like four hours already, the horses need to rest for a while. And we should probably take a look to see how the other kids are doing in the back, right?" Arc suggested, but the Imp wasn't really all that happy with that idea.

"Why rest? Horses Lazy?" He asked, but the Child just sighed and shook his head. "Lazy? They're not lazy, but they have to pull this super heavy carriage for this long! If we don't let them rest, they'll pass out and die, and then you'll need to go on foot." Arc explained with a frown, so the Imp started grinding his teeth, angry at the way that Arc was speaking to him, and just nodded his head.

"Down." The Imp said in a commanding tone, and Arc did just as asked, sighing and jumping off of the carriage, letting the horses loose from the carriage for a little while before bringing them to the small river that they stopped next to, binding them to a tree standing next to the water.

"I'll get them back later, don't worry." Arc told the Imp with a sigh and stepped up to the back of the carraige, taking the initiative to open the door up on his own to let the children out.

And immediately when he did so, the other children stepped out the door, three of them walking on their own, but one of them a child at the same size of the child the Imp brought with him, so it still didn't seem to be able to walk.

"Arc..?" One of the shorter children asked as it stepped out, immediately trying to hide from the Imp, before it noticed the blood dripping down its leg, immediately jumping to the ground next to him. "What happened?" The child asked, but Arc just moved his leg away.

"Nothing, Clementine. Don't worry about it." Arc told her as he leaned in toward her, but Clementine swiftly placed her hands onto the wound, and before the Imp knew it, she pulled them away again. The wound on Arc's leg disappeared, but in return, Clementine suddenly started crying and holding her leg at the spot that Arc's wound was before as blood slowly dripped out from under her hand. Confused, the Imp just stood there, unsure what was going on. He didn't want to let any of them out of his sight, and he constantly had his dagger in his hand, ready to use it when needed. But before he could do anything, another one of the children looked over toward the Imp. It was obviously scared, just like the other children beside that tiny one and Arc, but even then, it seemed to want to say something to the Imp.

"Wh-What did you do to A-Arc?" It asked with a stutter, and the Imp just looked at the Child and frowned, "Stabbed. Arc not hurt. Damaged yes, hurt no." The Imp told them quite clearly. He had no reason to lie about it, and he had no reason to just let this child just yell at him like that.

"You quiet. Or Imp stab you." He said quite clearly, but another one of the children stepped toward the Imp, giving the child it was carrying to the one that just spoke up before that. "I-If you want to sta-stab Sammy then you have to stab me fi-first!" It exclaimed as it stood in front of the Imp, and with a frown, the Imp did just that. It was really annoyed by this kid, what did it think it was? It was the one that was the Imp first met, which led him to this carriage in the first place, and back then, it was more than just terrified, wasn't it?

But apparently, it was a lot stronger than the Imp thought.

[Rudy -0 Damage]

Confused and in a panic, the Imp looked at that notification and tried to figure out what exactly happened. The only time that the Imp saw a '-0 Damage' until now was when he tried to attack Zaragon... So that meant that this child was as strong as that monster there?

That seemed to also be wrong. Seeing that the Imp was a bit startled and frightened at not being able to damage Rudy, the slightly round boy swung his fist at the Imp. At first, he thought that was his own end, that he would die right there, but the notification that appeared after feeling a slight touch to the side of his head said otherwise.

[-0 Health]

And then, there came the next attack.

[-0 Health]

And the next.

[-0 Health]

And then a few more, until the boy was a bit too exhausted to continue. That was something the Imp never experienced before, and it was more than just confusing. He noticed that this child in front of him was trying to attack the Imp with as much force as he could extend, but no matter how often he tried, the Imp didn't receive a single point of damage. It really just felt like someone rubbing the side of his head a little hard as well, it really, really didn't hurt in the slightest.

"Argh, this damn skill!" Rudy exclaimed after finally stopping to try and 'Attack' the Imp, holding his hands to his face as he did so, while Arc hurried over from the younger girl, Clementine, over toward this boy, Rudy, to cheer him up this time.

"Don't worry, Rudy! We'll definitely find someone that can hurt you at some point, and when we do, we'll seal that damn skill away so that you can be an Immortal Warrior! We spoke about this, didn't we?" Arc asked the other boy, who slowly rubbed some tears out of his eyes before nodding his head.

"Yeah, you're right! I will- I will definitely do that! And then I will protect all of you!" Rudy said, now really starting to cry, and the Imp just stared forward at the children with a confused expression. There were a few things he didn't understand, and a few things he roughly picked up.

So some of these 'Skills' were the reason why the Imp couldn't damage the boy, Rudy, but also why Rudy couldn't hurt the Imp? The Skills the Imp had right now all seemed pretty helpful, so that was pretty confusing. But at the same time, at the very least the Imp didn't need to worry about being killed by that boy.

But then again, what exactly did Clementine do to get rid of Arc's wounds? He saw something similar before when Avalin was drinking that red liquid after that monster attacked her so violently, back before the Imp leveled up his first time.

"Now then, I think we should all try and get along here, shouldn't we?" Arc suggested with a smile on his face, turning around toward the others with an even brighter smile, but they all just looked at Arc confused, before the young boy began to explain, "Come on, he's an outcast, we're outcasts, and technically he did kind of save us. And he came with a cute little child, and cut up his own clothes to make a diaper for it. He can't be so bad, can he?" Arc asked as he stepped closer toward the Imp with his constant smile, but the already confused monster of course didn't know what the hell was going on, and the other children didn't seem to be any better off at the current situation.

"Imp not save you." The Imp exclaimed, trying to clear this out first. That was not at all what was going on, and the Imp really didn't want this dumb child to think so. But before he knew it, Arc looked at the Imp with his cheek so up high that his eyes were being pressed into horizontal slits.

"Of course you did. If you hadn't killed those three, we would have just been used in the most cruel of ways." Arc said, and slowly stepped away from the Imp toward the other children, Clementine still crying and holding her leg while Sammy was comforting her, holding a tiny child in her arms, while Rudy just stepped up to them with a sad expression. And then, when he stood next to these for children, Arc turned back toward the Imp.

"After all, we're all Broken."