Morning in the new world greeted Izayoi not with the hum of the city, but with dampness and the screeching of an unknown bird that, judging by the volume, was trying to compete with an air raid siren.
"Ten points for volume, zero for pitch," Izayoi commented, fastidiously flicking dew off the sleeve of his blazer.
He had been walking northeast for several hours. The forest was gradually changing: the giant trees were receding, giving way to rocky hills and waist-high grass. And the further he advanced, the more distinct the sensation of war became.
It wasn't anything explicit. No banners on the horizon. But the wind carried the heavy, greasy scent of burning. The ground was scarred with tracks: deep gouges, as if from explosions, and ruts from heavy wheels.
"Civilization is somewhere nearby," Izayoi concluded, nudging a broken blade out of the dirt with the toe of his boot. The sword was crude, jagged. "And judging by the quality of this scrap metal, technological progress here is stuck in a deep hole."
Suddenly, the wind shifted, bringing a new sound. Not the cry of a beast, but the rhythmic clashing of metal and desperate, choking screams.
Izayoi stopped. He turned his head slightly, and the cat-ear headphones around his neck shifted. To him, it was a standard accessory, but to any observer in this world, they would look like a bizarre, perhaps magical instrument.
"About two kilometers," he estimated, analyzing the acoustics. "Sounds like a brawl. Hope there's someone there who won't fall apart in one hit."
The ground beneath his feet exploded in a fountain of dirt—he launched himself forward. The youth's silhouette blurred, vanishing faster than the eye could catch the movement.
The village, whose name no longer mattered, was living out its final minutes.
It was a small settlement on the border: the palisade smashed to splinters, half the houses merrily blazing, throwing columns of black smoke into the sky.
In the center of the square, surrounded by a ring of fire and bodies, the survivors huddled together. They were protected by three knights in dented, bloodied armor. They could barely stand, yet they continued to hold their shields, shielding the women and children.
And around them, savoring the moment, stood them.
Demons.
There were five of them. Humanoid figures with pale skin and horns growing straight from their foreheads. They were dressed in long, exquisite robes that looked grotesquely clean against the backdrop of mud and blood.
"What a senseless waste of energy," spoke the one standing in front. A tall demon with a cane topped by a large scarlet gem. "You humans cling to life so desperately. Why?"
He spoke the human language fluently, but there was no life in his voice. It was a simulation of emotion, cold and hollow.
"Leave us be!" rasped one of the knights, spitting blood. "We gave you the livestock! We didn't resist!"
The demon tilted his head to the side. His face expressed the polite bewilderment of a creature looking at a talking piece of meat.
"'Need'? We don't need anything," he smiled, and that smile was more terrifying than any snarl. "We are simply... clearing space. You burn weeds in your fields, do you not? We are doing the same. This isn't malice. It is simply the order of things."
He lazily raised his cane. The scarlet stone flared, and the air around it began to melt from the heat.
"Ignis Vermis."
It was high-tier fire magic. A stream of plasma, twisted into the shape of a fiery serpent, tore from the tip of the cane. In this era, when human magic was still in its infancy under the guidance of Flamme's apprentices, such a spell was an absolute death sentence. It melted steel and vaporized stone.
The knight squeezed his eyes shut, realizing his shield would last less than a second.
BA-BOOM!
The shockwave shook the square. The fire on the rooftops was flattened against the roofs. But the scream of pain the demons were expecting did not follow.
When the dust and smoke cleared, the knight opened his eyes. He was unharmed.
Before him, in the center of a smoking crater, stood a stranger.
It was a youth. He was wearing clothes the knight had never seen: a strange dark blue military-style jacket with gold buttons, dense fabric unlike linen or wool. Around his neck hung an incomprehensible device.
The youth stood with his back to the humans, one hand fastidiously brushing off a smoking sleeve.
"Hey, horned freak," the stranger's voice didn't sound bored, but rather disappointed, with notes of irritation. "Do you seriously call this magic?"
The demon with the cane froze. His cold eyes widened.
"What..." he whispered, looking at his cane, then at the boy. "Where did the flame go?"
"I blew it out," Izayoi scoffed, demonstrating total disregard for the threat. "Literally. Waved my hand, and your little light went out. Seriously, is this your limit? I expected to see power capable of shaking mountains. And this is just a cheap parlor trick."
"Blew it out?.." the demon didn't understand the meaning of the words, but he understood the fact. His spell was gone. "A human cannot dispel magic with their hands! That is impossible! You don't even have mana!"
"Mana, laws, impossible..." Izayoi smirked. The smile was hard, predatory. "You guys are so limited. You keep repeating the same things, hiding behind your pathetic logic."
He took a step forward. The demons instinctively recoiled. Their senses told them that before them stood an ordinary human, devoid of magical power. A blank space. But their eyes saw someone who had just destroyed a high-rank spell with his bare hands. This dissonance caused a glitch in their perception of reality.
"Flamme promised me a world full of dangers. A Demon Lord," Izayoi cracked his knuckles. "And I see a bunch of costumed weaklings bullying the defenseless to stroke their egos. It is..." he grimaced, as if smelling something foul, "...aesthetically disgusting."
"Kill him!" shrieked the leader, feeling fear seep through his arrogance. "Tear him apart! All at once!"
The four underlings launched themselves forward. They moved with inhuman speed. To the knights, they turned into blurred smudges. Claws, globs of acid, blades of wind—everything flew at the insolent brat in the strange clothes.
Izayoi didn't even take his left hand out of his pocket. There was no laziness in his movements, only terrifying efficiency.
A dodge. The wind blade sheared off a lock of his blonde hair but didn't touch the skin. A sidestep. Acid burned the earth where his shadow had been a second ago. A pivot. The demon trying to gut him with claws fell into empty space.
"Slow. Primitive. Inefficient."
He appeared right in front of one of the attackers. The demon, panicking, threw up a magical barrier.
"Disappear."
A simple kick. No wind-up. The toe of the strange shoe slammed into the center of the shining shield.
The shield cracked and then exploded. Along with the demon's chest.
The monster's body didn't just fly back. It simply ceased to exist as a coherent object. The shockwave generated by pure kinetic force turned the flesh into a bloody mist and carved a clearing through the forest behind the village half a kilometer long. Trees toppled like mown grass.
BA-DOOM.
The sound of the impact reached the spectators' ears with a delay.
The three remaining minions froze. They stared at the cloud of red mist their comrade had turned into, unable to comprehend what had happened. The human had kicked. There was no magic. Why did their kin vaporize?
"One down," Izayoi turned to the leader. The demon was now trembling. Not from cold, but from the realization that the food chain had just flipped. "You are wasting my time. Who's next to demonstrate their uselessness?"
"You... you monster!" shrieked the leader, backing away. His aristocratic mask had slipped, revealing animalistic terror. "What are you?!"
"Me?" Izayoi looked down at him, cold calculation burning in his violet eyes. "I am someone disappointed in your 'greatness'."
He vanished.
In the next second, he was standing behind the leader. The three remaining demons fell to the ground simultaneously. Their heads separated from their bodies. No one saw the strike. Izayoi had simply run past them, and the air pressure from his movement had acted like an invisible guillotine.
"And now," Izayoi placed a hand on the shoulder of the leader. A heavy hand that felt like a verdict. "You are going to be useful. Tell me where to find someone who is actually worth a damn. Otherwise, I'll take you apart to see how you work. And believe me, I am very interested to know what's inside you."
The knights and peasants watched this scene, forgetting how to breathe. They saw the terror of their lives, demons feared by entire armies, annihilated in moments.
"Who... who is that?" whispered a woman, clutching a child to her chest, staring at the strange youth in the bizarre clothes.
The old knight, leaning on his sword, shook his head. In his eyes, accustomed to death, a faint, almost painful hope began to glow.
"I don't know," he answered hoarsely. "But pray to the Goddess that he is on our side."