The Demon King's Paladin

Chapter 12. A Crushed Hand and Boons

After coming back down to Gaia from his land of family memories and bragging. Warrick continues recounting the story.

" Continuing on. While we were busy raising a family. Dardus was busy in a separate matter. Simply put, he started attacking human settlements. After years of this and multiple high level human adventurers meeting a gruesome end. Promethia took the attacks as a declaration of intent of war and decided to invade Diablos which caused us to get involved finally. So, in our view because of what you could call bandits or pirates Promethia decided to attack us. Granted the humans were most likely looking for any reason to invade. You see the official state religion of Promethia known as the Teachings of the Light Gods looks unfavorably at anything demonic to the point where even human mages who use shadow magic receive rough treatment from its more enthusiastic followers."

Understanding his words Warrick continues.

" Now understandably, I am also to blame for this if I had settled the matter with less mercy and instead of simply letting Dardus leave as he pleased, I could have stopped it."

Warrick looking downtrodden after speaking, regained strength in his eyes and started to speak with more vigor.

" But I intend to make things right! After returning from war 9 years ago I immediately opened the Covert Operations Unit led by Sandra who has a vested interest in taking down Dardus. since you wouldn't know John, Sandra and Dardus are cousins. Sandra is an honest woman at her core, and she loathes the things Dardus has done. so far, we've tracked down several of Dardus's lieutenants and made them pay! But alas it was much too slow."

Warrick took a drink from and his cup and continued.

"With all this going on I decided to switch my war strategy from offensive counter attacks to defensive strategies in nature, and because of that there hasn't been much progress at all on the human's side. Because of that they got desperate. And for 3 years now they have been making perpetrations for the summoning of a hero and their party. I originally thought nothing of it until Sarah was cursed."

Warrick looks at Sarah warmly and then back to me and continues.

" You see John as you've heard us say, the Hero Job is a Human exclusive job and so is the spell to summon a hero from another world. However skilled demonic mages through the ages found a way to piggyback the spell and interrupt the summoning of the Hero, so as to bring them to the Demons side where historically they were executed."

Warrick sharpens his eyes continuing on.

" But we needed a Paladin or Saint Lord in order to save our daughter's life, so Aqua and I decided to gamble. After experimenting a bit with the mechanics of the spell we realized it was possible to search for a Paladin after piggybacking off the summoning spell. We just needed a catalyst of the highest grade. And outside of the gods the highest-grade catalysts you can find are materials from Sovereigns of a race."

Aqua put her hand on top of Warrick's who places his other hand on top of Aqua's. Sarah stares at her parents as we both realize what he's trying to say.

" Yes, we used my blood and life energy as a catalyst to bring you to us."

I sharpen my eyes and take a deep breath I hear muffled cries from across the table. Sarah stands up and runs to hug Warrick.

" It's okay Sarah. Because of John I'm good as new! His Holy Heal replenished me, your mother checked earlier and I'm better than I was when we used the spell, I'm completely healed."

Warrick wrapped his arms around Sarah and began soothing his daughter as Aqua joined in for a group hug.

" I'm really glad I could help you guys."