Nyx: The Worst Hero is the Best Demon

A Demon Rescues a Little Girl

It was official, I did not like this whole, traveling and camping in the forest bologna. I was a city girl, damn it! Why was I sleeping on sticks and worrying about getting eaten by bears in my sleep. Though, given I was on Zearsa now, there were worse things than bears out in these woods at any given time.

Don't get me wrong, I had spent more than my fair share of nights out on the streets, in god awful weather, and with the most degenerate of people around. But it was not the same as being out in the wilderness! When I say it gets dark at night, I mean its pitch black. Every noise is automatically a monster coming to eat me, I am sure, and you are just out in the open. No stores to pop into for like ten minutes of warmth, no buildings to sit behind to block the wind, nor over hangs to block the rain.

I hated every second of it!

And, though he did not voice his objections as strongly as my own whiny ass, I could tell that Edric was not the biggest of fans either. Though, He had been born a prince. Also, even as a slave, I doubt he did much back packing out in the great unknown either.

Pride was the only one who seemed wholly unaffected. I didn't think he particularly relished roughing it, just that it didn't seem to bother him all that much. Not like it did me, at any rate.

Three nights out of town and we were all crowded around the bank of a stream, filling our water bags and getting a drink. The weather had gotten colder and colder each day, despite that it had felt fairly mild before leaving the settlement.

"Temperatures fluctuate a lot in the autumn, East of the Chasm." Edric stated, filling up a second water bag, kneeling next to the stream. "To the north west, toward North Sterner River, Up toward the elven territory of Verveara it stays quite mild all year round, but rains a lot around this time."

Capitalizing on this burst of information, I reached into my bag and I pulled out our map, keeping a firm hold, not wanting the wind to take the parchment out of my hands and into the water. I unrolled it and looked down at the slightly yellow paper, the world of Zearsa splayed out before me. This hadn't been the only time I had looked at it since we set out.

The stella Empire occupied the whole of the east coast, stopping only where it met the Verveara Forest to the north- which covered the entirety of the northern portion of the map- and the huge mountain range labeled Reivier, blotting out the south. Sandwiched between forest and mountains were the human countries, crowded around the section of the map called 'The Chasm'.

Edric stood, tucked away the water bags, and stood at my side, looking over my shoulder, down at the map.

He pointed down at the Chasm. "Everything is a mess there." He said, brow furrowed like he was scraping his memory for everything he could muster about geography. "One moment it is as hot and wet as Verveara and the next its a blizzard. It is from the Chasm that all monsters are said to originate."

On the map it looed like a rather large forest with a great black bird claw in the middle of it. Id say it had nearly as much land mass as Stella did, but with none of the little dots with tiny writing labeling cities.

I watched as Edric drew his pale finger northward. "This is where we are headed: The Vespertine Kingdom. My family has ruled it since its founding. The Capital is there, near the center."

He pointed to a small dot not quite center of the northern kingdom. I squinted my eyes and looked closer till I could pick out the name 'Vesper'. "Real fond of that last name then, aren't you all?" I commented with a raised eye brow.

Edric shrugged. "Many nobles and royals tend to slap their names on things. I'd imagine anyone willful enough to go against Stella and form an entirely separate country would be just as self important."