Stray

Jude Major leaned triumphantly against the wall and gently stroked the head of his new demon.

During the reign of the Blood Queen Andrea Alastair, Alban changed a lot of draconian laws against demon worshippers— If the partner is a subordinate demon, as long as you honestly go to the designated demon laboratory to register, after it was determined that it wasn’t too harmful, the servant can use them for legal purposes.

At least in terms of garbage disposal and pest control, they were much more efficient than surface organisms.

Unfortunately, there was something to be said for it.

Demon worshipper Jude Major touched the beard on his chin and tsked regretfully.

Speaking of more than ten years ago, he had met Ann Savage who hadn’t become queen yet. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to develop any relationship.

Although she had been queen for about seven years, the Queen of Blood dragged her knights out of the palace and lived an adventurous life again. She wasn’t as crazy as the rumors were— Alban’s control over intermediate demons was still very strict, the procedures for registering intermediate demons were much more cumbersome than lower-level demons, and the deposit required was more than ten times higher. More harmful varieties were still prohibited from entering into contracts.

It would be great if that woman went a little more crazy

Jude shook the wine in the jug and sighed pretentiously…

Anyway, he won’t pay a deposit of thousands of gold coins for his new baby. Not to mention, his newly obtained intermediate demon wasn’t in the category that Alban allowed to register at all.

The demon who had made the contract with him was lying on his shoulders. Its translucent purple-black body squirming slowly, and its slippery, soft skin glowed with water.

The Hitz, an extreme poisonous squid, was highly toxic and its combat in power was particularly outstanding that it almost wiped out all his wealth but no matter. It would soon earn back those glittering gold coins.

The best thing was that its toxicity was very difficult to detect, and the cause of death of the victim could easily be recognized as accidental consumption of moldy food.

What’s more, the target age this time was quite old.

Jude turned around, leaned his back against the blind corner of the balcony, and glanced at the old lady in the room holding an herbal medicine and burying her head to quickly write.

There was no better place to start than an inn.

Five years ago, Godwin Lopez, who was in his prime, awarded his commander position to Victor, his deputy commander at that time, and retired from the front line. People have speculated that this “real Hero” would turn to the path of politics. Unexpectedly, Godwin had simply liquidated all his properties, ran to the remote town of Roadside Town, and bought the only inn in the village.

He kept the name of the Ramon Inn and began to try to operate it.

When this legendary hero first arrived in this small place, he caused an uproar. People from nearby towns came to watch, and many people even came from other countries thousands of miles away to see the excitement, thus the business of the Ramon Inn became prosperous.

Almost everyone agreed that Godwin Lopez was just taking a short break and taking advantage of the peace of the world to change his mood.

However, year after year passed, and Mr. Lopez’s third child had already learned to walk, and the famous Mr. Lopez still didn’t mean to give up the inn at all, and even seemed to be enjoying it.

For some reason, the new queen of Alban acquiesced in such behavior. At first, everyone was betting on when the envoys from the capital would come to recall him, but five years passed, and no one came.

It wasn’t bad, Jude rolled his eyes.

He just needed to wait for Lopez to leave the hotel and kill the old woman.

So what if he was a Hero? That silly old lady had just finished her breakfast and when she was eliminated with no traces of evidence, Lopez wouldn’t be able to refute anything even if he tried. Once the statute of limitations had passed, the demon’s toxin would be completely decomposed and even if Lopez investigated this matter deeply, he would most likely only get the result of food poisoning.

Not to mention that failure to find the murderer would tank Lopez’s business and drag down his reputation. On the whole, Mr. Hero won’t get any benefit at all. Who would do such a stupid thing?

Anyways, such a great person must be used to seeing life and death and wouldn’t make a fuss about the death of some old lady.

Jude pricked up his ears, pretended to taste the wine in the jug, and carefully eavesdropped on the conversation between Mr. Lopez and his beautiful wife downstairs.

“Ten years, Godwin.” Mrs. Lopez shook her head and huffed. “You can’t keep going to Ollie’s for get togethers. We should hold a family banquet here or something.”

Godwin Lopez snorted solemnly, but this solemnity didn’t bring him much authority— Not far away, two little boys were fighting with tree branches.

The youngest girl rode on Mr. Lopez’s neck, pulling on the blond hair hard and giggling.

“They just came back from a trip last week, and this time they will probably stay in peace for a few more years. How about inviting them over to dinner this time?”

“We can go to the tavern together.” Mr. Hero’s voice was a bit uncomfortable.

“What did you say?” Mrs. Lopez crossed her arms with amazing momentum. “That skull has been in this yard for so many years. My eldest brother’s visit will not cause any natural disasters. What’s more, this is Ollie’s—”

“Okay, I admit I’m still psychologically challenged, but you think those brats would have started to remember.” Godwin rubbed his temples. “We have to figure out how to explain now that they can still remember ‘Uncle Ollie’. In another ten years, we have to explain to them why Uncle Ollie became Ollie’s brother. Debby, your big brother looks even better than you now—”

“Hmm?” Debby raised her tone.

“Older than you…”

“Hmm???”

“…Nothing.” Godwin coughed twice, swallowed the second half of the sentence, and quickly changed the subject. “Olivia, don’t pull daddy’s hair so hard.”

“Okay, let’s talk about this after dinner. You, first go to the next town to bring back the new dishes, and when you come back for dinner in the evening, I’ll go to the orphanage to tend to it.”

“Okay.”

Very good. Jude tightened the lid of the jug and wiped his mouth as he watched Godwin Lopez leave the Ramon Inn in a carriage.

Now the owner of the Ramon Inn was just a beautiful girl and her kids, there was nothing to worry about— Godwin Lopez had done at least one thing logically. He married a lady who was quite good to look at.

Jude heard someone talk about Mrs. Lopez while drinking, but unfortunately, he was too drunk at that time and didn’t hear much, but it didn’t matter. It was just a woman that could be easily taken care of.

Making sure that the carriage had disappeared into the depths of the woods in the distance, and counting the time, Jude neatly pried open the balcony door and entered the room. Before the old lady had time to express her surprise, she just screamed a little, and fainted to the ground by the demon’s poisonous gas. Turning over the old lady’s eyelids and determining that the toxin had reached a lethal amount, Judge hummed happily and turned to the balcony—

Mrs. Lopez was squatting on the high-rise balcony in a standard mercenary posture; her eyes cold.

Fearfully, her eldest son, with a branch in his mouth, jumped up just as awkwardly.

“Abyssal magic… I thought it was a registered demon worshipper, but it doesn’t seem to be anymore. Eddie, go and inform the garrison.”

“Okay, mom.” The boy narrowed his eyes and disappeared on the edge of the balcony. Jude was pretty sure he didn’t hear the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground.

“Motherfucker!” Jude took out a weird fruit from his pocket and smashed it directly to the ground.

Suddenly, a thick yellow gas full of pungent odor filled the room.

Debby chanted, waved away the thick smoke, and rushed to the old woman who fell to the ground. Healing spells and detoxification spells were quickly completed in the air, but unfortunately, the old lady was weak, and the demon toxicity was really too strong— Thankfully her life was still safe, but Debby didn’t have time to chase the murderer.

“Mom!” her little daughter yelled angrily below. “Someone is running away to the woods; Rennie is going after him!”

“Catch your second brother!” Debby shouted downstairs while adjusting the healing spell. “It’s okay, he can’t get away!”

“Lies! He obviously ran away!” her youngest son screamed hard, sounding like he was struggling.

“There’s only one place the demon worshipper could go if he’s fleeing and that’s to Noer.” Debby cleared her throat. “Just leave that asshole alone. Go to the basement and get some marigold powder and snake blood vine. Uncle Nemo will take care of this matter.”

“……Hmph.”

At the same time, Jude was running wildly in the Border Forest.

Hell, seeing that Mrs. Lopez was young and beautiful, he didn’t do an in-depth investigation. Rich enough and with a good face, Godwin Lopez obviously didn’t lack beautiful playthings that would be obedient… Is that man a masochist?

It seemed that with Mrs. Lopez’s posture, this task was probably going to fail.

But it didn’t matter. Jude took two breaths.

Garland’s attitude towards demons was still much looser. As long as he mixed into Noer before the garrison of Roadside Town released the news, he could escape the possible pursuit.

He had been walking outside for the past few years, and it was time to go to the Dawn Tavern for a drink and buy some new information from his colleagues.

About twelve years ago, the original owner of Dawn Tavern, Talbott Vance, disappeared. As soon as the two-and-a-half-year retention period passed, two wealthy young people bought it.

Jude happened to not be nearby during that time. When he stepped into the tavern again, the two young bosses were no longer in the store, and he heard that they were on a long-distance trip.

Fortunately, although the decoration style has changed a lot, Dawn Tavern still didn’t exclude guests who were close to demons. Although it was a pity that there wasn’t Vance who he could exchange information…

Jude used magic to speed himself up desperately, and when he got under the walls of Noer, he panted like an old dog with lung disease.

However, he was not panting alone.

Not far from him, a man in a black robe took off his hood, bent down, held his knees with both hands, panting as if he was about to suffocate on the spot in the next second.

The man looked to be in his thirties. His black hair was stuck to his face by sweat, his skin was unhealthy pale, and his eyes were ominous dark red. The man’s face was handsome and elegant, with a hint of arrogance. It was just that the arrogance was swallowed up by his current demeanor.

There is a tin badge pinned to the man’s black robe. It looked like it was quite old as the pattern was somewhat faded.

Although this person didn’t bring a demon, he was quite sure that this wasn’t a good sign. Jude sniffed. He was pretty sure he smelled the soil from graves, skeletons, and strong potions.

The two looked at each other in silence and awkwardness for a moment. The black-robed man was first to stop panting. A series of spells smashed down. Numerous stone platforms floated out from the walls and the other man climbed up first.

Jude tugged at his gray beard and decided to take advantage of it— He grabbed the protruding small stone platform and climbed up after the man, happy and relaxed.

The strange man glanced at him in confusion with red eyes, and then leaned against the wall and looked around nervously, as if he was on guard for someone.

This guy was probably in the same situation as himself, and he was probably an unlucky fellow who had failed his dirty work and had been discovered. Jude smacked his mouth, also climbed onto the wall and jumped over first and ran towards the Dawn Tavern in his memory.

And the black-robed man trotted beside him taking the exact same route.

They glanced at each other embarrassedly again.

It seemed that he may not be able to get rid of his relationship with this kid. Jude patted his demon and ran faster.

The Dawn Tavern wasn’t in the center of the city. It had also been expanded by an extra floor, which made it very easy to find. There was no sound of armor clashing from soldiers running around. It seemed that he had escaped fast enough. Jude breathed a sigh of relief, walked into the tavern carelessly and touched the butt of the waitress in the shop…

As a result, before the hand could touch the waitress black skirt, the waitress with braided hair squeezed his wrist tightly. The cute girl with freckles looked at him with weird eyes and increase the strength of her hands with a smile.

Jude screamed and struggled desperately. Seeing that the woman finally let go, Jude cursed a few swear words secretly, rubbing his sore wrist bitterly. There was no waitress at the Dawn Tavern before so he thought he could skim some oil off the water* to comfort his injured heart.

*Metaphor referring to taking advantage of others in public.

His luck was simply terrible today.

The black-robed man who came in with him had already rushed to the wooden platform and spoke hurriedly to the young man in the waiter’s uniform behind the wooden platform.

“Mr. Light, can I borrow your kitchen to hide for a while?”

“Yes, it’s okay…” The waiter was a beautiful young man with black hair tied behind his head in a ponytail, and he looked a little inexplicably familiar, but Jude was very sure that he shouldn’t have met such a young guy before.

“Thanks.” The man in the black robe didn’t say much, and hurriedly rushed to the back kitchen.

The young waiter looked a little helpless, he picked up a book and sat back in his seat.

Jude brushed past and before he could order a drink, he heard the growing clamor outside.

“…A person from the Laddism Church…”

“Why is the commander of the Knights of Judgement here?”

“Shh, shh, keep your voice down!”

Jude’s heart thumped. He glanced nervously at the dangerous demon on his shoulder and swallowed.

Whether they were after him or not, it was too late to escape now, and was better to not attract too much attention to himself.

“Mr. Light,” Jude imitated modestly. “Can I borrow your kitchen to hide for a while?”

The young waiter raised his eyebrows, looked at him up and down, and then smiled.

“Of course you can,” he said with a smile.