As Neil walked into the royal castle, he was all alone. The guards simply showed him the direction to go, and he headed that way. There was no need to protect him, and there was no one here who could be protected from a rampaging S-rank. But still, as they didn’t want to leave him alone, they told him that there was someone to accompany him waiting inside the guest room.

The moment Neil heard that, he was a bit surprised. Not many could watch an S-ranker. For someone to accompany him, the castle’s guards need to be certain that that someone can stop Neil, or at least slow him down. Such people are rare, and could be counted on two hands in this region. Even as a retired, weak, and old former adventurer, Neil could still massacre an entire army and hundreds of monsters with his bare hands.

Arrows, bullets, and weapons are meaningless against him without true power to back them up, so he was a bit interested to see who they thought was the person who could hold him down. He had heard that the king was very powerful, so he had hoped to meet him quickly and be done with this... but he didn’t mind spending a bit more time in the castle.

As Neil approached the door of the guest room, he stopped. The two guards standing by the gate stared at him with terrified faces. Just what kind of expressions were on his face? The thing inside the living room wasn’t human. It monstrous. Did they bring a demon from the abyss or something? No, what worried him more was that it wasn’t just one signal but many.

"Sir Neil Bjorn, welcome." The two guards gave him a gentle bow, but he immediately silenced them. "I don’t care. Open the door, just what in the hell did you bring?" As he growled, the terrified guards, confused at what he was talking about, turned around and opened the door.

What Neil saw made him audibly gasp. Inside the guest room, the first person he saw was the most powerful; it was whom all of his senses decided to focus on, and he could tell just how much of a threat they were. But his eyes, they were lying to him. What he saw wasn’t threatening at all but the exact opposite.

Two little girls are playing with dolls, sitting at the large table in the guest room. One was short, had pink hair and eyes, and for some reason wore tattered clothes that didn’t fit the castle. If he had seen her anywhere else, he would’ve assumed she was a homeless orphan; just another pitiful existence in a world that was too cruel to care. But just looking at her made his bones quiver. Deep within her tiny body, an infinite well of demonic power burned like the flames of hell. She might deceive everyone, but not Bjorn’s senses; she was a demon.

The other wore only the fanciest clothes and had two chicken drumsticks in her mouth at once. Her long blond hair glistened like gold, and her bright blue eyes made even gems look dull. Unlike the demonic monstrosity playing with her, this blond girl burned with divinity and holy magic, and just one look told Neil that she wasn’t a nun, a cleric, a saint, or a pope. She was something of a higher realm, a divine being, an angel perhaps.

As he was still shocked, a voice called to him. It was a familiar one, but one that he hadn’t heard for the past thirty years. "Yo! Big bear Bjorn! It’s been like three decades!"

Just a few meters away from the kids, Alcott was sitting with another man, sharpening their blades. Putting aside that Alcott, who was supposed to be in his fifties, looked as young as thirty, the other guy beside him... wasn’t human at all.

Long black hair tied into a ponytail, six burning red eyes, a stern glare, and a dark demonic aura that could drown the sun. Neil understood well that he was already within the demon’s slashing range. Just looking at the way his hands moved, the way those eyes shifted, all of Neil’s senses screamed that the demon was nothing but a monster worse than the devil lords of hell

"Alcott... what is going on here?" Neil gasped as he took a step back, and Alcott looked around for a second. "Yeah... I should probably explain." He pointed at the demon by his side. "This is Kayden, the adoptive father of that little girl with the pink hair over there. That girl with the pink hair is one of my son’s wives, so she won’t bite you." He smiled and then pointed at the last one. "And the blond one is the sister of the another one of my son’s wives. She will bite you... so don’t get too close."

That explained nothing; if anything, it only made Neil even more confused.

"You’re just making it worse!" Lucy waved her hand and turned to look toward Neil. "First, I’m hungry; this is an orphan, and that’s your handler." She pointed at herself, Kali, and then at Kayden. Kali jumped to her feet and ran to hide behind Neil while crying. "They kidnapped me! The villains!"

As expected, the moment she approached, Neil jumped away and latched to the ceiling with his fingers. He had already drawn his handaxe and was ready for a fight. "The hell is going on here?"

Kayden sighed. "Calm down, mutt. Kali won’t hurt you; she is just playing." He stopped sharpening his sword and slowly turned around, sitting toward Neil. "I’m Kayden Daemon, a Demon God Slayer. That little girl with the pink hair." Kali waved her hand. "She is a really powerful demon that I’m raising. The blond brat is Lucy Lior Ruris, the goddess your new king brought."

Neil was still wary of them, so Kayden sighed. "It doesn’t matter if you hang from the ceiling or are hiding a hundred arms beneath the ground; you know that I can cut you in half. Standing normally or hiding, neither is riskier than the other."

Hearing that, Neil let go of the ceiling, dropped back to the floor, and gave Kayden a long stare. "What do you want of me? I expected something normal or weird. But nothing this... ridiculous." As Neil spoke, Kayden kept looking directly at him. What he could see wasn’t a gaunt man but an old, hairy, green-eyed Siberian husky.

"We need a guide through the entire Arctic North, one that knows the place like the palm of their hand, and won’t get tired quickly. You’re old, but you’ll do." Kayden waved his hand, and Neil understood that he wanted him to sit down.

As Neil sat, Kayde smiled. "Good boy." Neil was baffled for a second there, but since Kayden kept talking, he ended up forgetting that remark. "The orcs had proved to be a bigger threat than we expected. Even if they were weak, some of them were really capable of a harrowing level of destruction."

"I do like them!" Kali waved her hand behind them, and Lucy had to drag her back to the table so they could keep playing. They both had dolls; Lucy held one of Gojo, and Kali, one of Arad, and they were having them fight.

"The orcs have those things they call Batteries. They look mundane, and even regular people can carry and use them. But... they can explode with enough force to wipe several cities off the map, and even curse the land with death." Kayden crossed his arms. "You must’ve seen and heard it, the explosion that happened yesterday on the battlefield."

Neil indeed saw it; everyone did. It was so damn bright and loud that it shook the entire continent. He could swear there were two explosions, one right after the other... but he wasn’t sure. But that really didn’t matter. Is this demon telling him that they are going to track those explosives and disable them?

"I won’t survive such a blast. From what I saw, even its size was so big that I couldn’t escape its radius in time even if I had been warned a minute beforehand." Neil then smiled. "But... I bet a hole would do. If the ground is soft enough, I can probably dig and hide underground."

"Won’t work if it’s right on top of you, but if you are a bit far away, that would work." Kayden smiled, "You’re a good digger after all." He was only seeing the cute Siberian husky panting in front of him, proud of the holes he hadn’t dug yet.

Neil felt that Kayden had insulted him somehow, but he was too old to care. "Anyway, so we’re going to track and find them?"

Kayden nodded, "Indeed. We’re going off the orders of Archmage Merlin; she will give us directions, and we’ll follow them."

Neil blinked several times. "Merlin? The S-ranker?" He immediately threw a glance toward Alcott. "She is here as well? Didn’t she retire to a city down in Ruris?"

Alcott sighed, "Yeah, she did retire. But my son dragged her out of retirement." He then shook his head. "I don’t know what he saw in that twisted old hag."

Neil already counted three... but he wasn’t surprised if they were talking about Alcott’s son. Like father, like son.

"Don’t tell me the Bloody Berserker is here as well." Neil asked with a worried voice, and Alcott shook his head. "No, she won’t be coming with us. But she is here to coordinate between the local guild and the one back at the Capital of Orion."

Neil rubbed his eyes. "So... the rumors were true. She got to work at the guild, that violent, monstrous, and barbaric woman."

"Yeah." Alcott smiled, "She is the most civilized barbarian in the entire world... and one of my son’s wives." This was what snapped Neil. "Now hold it! I won’t believe it! That woman cannot ever marry. Who is your son?!"