One good thing about our deal with Lord Barker was that we would not be heading out right away. He needed time to organize his men, who would, apparently, be accompanying both us and their heroes to the battle field. I was glad that the lord wasn't just trusting the fate of his people to strangers, but, at the same time, I was kind of sure that the normies would just get underfoot. If this 'High-grade' monster could be taken down by simple men with swords, then he would not have hired us in the first place.

  Still, due to these preparations, Edric, Pride, and I got to rest up in an honest to goodness room for a couple days! Not in the same room, as Arlund had insisted on taking Edric to the slave's chambers, which were located in a rather shabby looking back building behind the lords mansion. I was going to put up a stink but Edric insisted that he was fine, and I was promised that no harm would come to him. The problem was, I wasn't really sure what these people considered to be 'harm' when it came to the treatment of slaves.

  Pride joined me in my room, however. Not that he looked overly impressed with the large four poster bed, the small fireplace, and the set of comfortable looking couches. It was a simple, but clean room, decorated only with a small bookshelf and two painting of what looked like the near by forest in different seasons.

  The real treat was the tub in the far corner! It, too, was not fancy, and I thought it a rather bad idea to have a wooden tub directly on a wooden floor. I mean, what about water damages! Or mold? Still, this wasn't my house, so who cares?

  Pride and I hadn't been in the room more than fifteen minutes when several maids knocked on the door and began carting in buckets of steaming water, filling the tub up. A bath! Oh how long had it been since I had a really good bath? Not that this world had anything like the shampoo of Earth, but the maids had left a bar of soap on a towel for me that smelt of some kind of herb.

  Once the women were gone I wasted no time stripping out of my nasty cloths and easing myself into the bath. The water was quite hot, but I didn't really care.

  Sighing, I looked over at pride who had made himself comfortable on the rug in front of the fireplace. Night was setting in by now and the maids had lit a small fire before they had left.

  "You want a bath once I am done?" I asked him. I hadn't cared about being naked in front of the demon, despite seeing him as a person not an animal. In all honesty... I wasn't body shy. The room could have been full of men and I still would have gotten in the bath without hesitation.

  "I would not." Said the hound, red eyes opening a crack before he shut them again, adjusting his large head across equally large paws. "I do not understand why creature without fur always seem to enjoy getting wet."

  "Ah, to get rid of the smell?" I said pointedly. Pride was getting pretty ripe himself. I started using the soap to scrub the grime from my body while my mind drifted to Edric. "I hope he is okay..." I mumbled out loud.

  "He is fine." Side Pride, not needing to as who I was talking about. "They are asking a favor of us; they would not abuse your slave under such circumstances."

  "Still..." I said, not liking that he was being seen as less than myself. "It's not fare that he has to be in some bunk room. And what if they only feed him moldy bread or something?"

  "They he will either eat it, or he will not. The boy may have been born in luxury, but he knows how to survive. A day or two of poor conditions will neither kill, nor break him. Let us get this job done, secure funds for the next leg of our journey, then you may fuss over your slave as much as you like. Putting up a stink about slave's rights at this time will do nothing but cause a ruckus."

  Grumbling to myself I draped my arm over the edge of the tub and sunk down till only my eyes and nose were above the water line. As usual, there was no solid grounds for me to stand on and argue with the hellhound. I would just have to check in with Edric in the morning.

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  The next two days went by without incident. Well, I got a few side eyes for my inability to act according to 'noble etiquette' or some such. Sorry, but I highly doubted I would ever adapt to that. Pride pointed out that learning might make my life easier, but he didn't seem to care if I did or not. From the way he made it sound, demons showed respect to other- more powerful- demons, but they didn't have any sort of rules for nobility and the like. So long as you were polite enough not to get scalped by your betters, you were good.

  Edric seemed to have survived as well. He had to stay with other slaves in a rather crowded bunk room, and didn't get the same lavish meals I did, but: "I am not being tortured and abused..." He had said with a stone face, yet I still got the feeling that he was teasing me somehow. I didn't like the fact that he was being treated different, but so long as he was okay...

  The real fun started on the third day. Finally, the lord had finished his preparations and I woke up to a lot of noise. Pride urged me to look out my bedroom window.

  I obliged, but I am sure it wasn't a pretty sight. My hair was a mess, I was wearing some ungodly old-lady nightgown, and i may or may not have had drool on my face. Rubbing my eyes, I stumbled to the window, and cautiously peeked beyond the curtain.

  Soldiers. Not near anything I would describe as an army, but about thirty of them, all dressed in variants of leather and iron armor with a dark green uniform beneath. This was to be our back up I supposed.

  My eyes wandered about the courtyard some more before they landed on our little heroes. Like the soldiers, they both had on green uniforms, however, their armor seemed a little more expensive than the average soldiers. I guessed that it wouldn't look good for the lord if the heroes he had spent so much of the tax payer's money on went out to battle looking like Value Village mannequins there may have been some side looks.

  "Ahem..." I heard a throat clear, causing me to jump for how close it was. I hadn't even realized that the window had been open, despite the noise coming through it. I needed to get better at waking up without coffee.

  I looked down and saw that Edric was standing below the window, looking up at me with a single handsome eyebrow raised, and a spark of amusement in his eyes. "We may have to leave without you at this point..." He said.

  "Ugh. I get it, I get it." I sighed, letting the curtain fall and retreating back into the room.

  I hurried to get dressed in my old, but now freshly laundered jean shorts, and ran my fingers through my hair in leu of an actual brushing, before hurrying both Pride and myself out the door. Not that you could really hurry and centuries old hellhound much of anywhere.

  "I was starting to think you flaked." Huffed Marie as I joined the group, Pride bringing up the rear. "But I guess you wouldn't have left your pet slave."

  "You're right." I said, flipping my barely tamed hair out of my face, tail twitching at my feet. "I wouldn't have left him. You are just so smart!" I added, the last sentence spoken as if the girl were a cute little dog who had just offered me her paw.

  Marie's face grew red, and she looked like she was going to snap something back at me, but was prevented from doing so by Ryan's outstretched arm. He shook his head, looking exasperated, as the lord himself came from around the corner, mounted on a rather impressive looking black horse. Instantly the knights stood at attention as their lord looked them all over, a slight nod of his head the only indication that he was satisfied.

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  A moment later, the lord's son also rounded the corner, and he was mounted on a chestnut stallion. But, unlike his father, Fredric was not dressed for battle, but merely another of his fancy suits.

  "Are you prepared?" Lord Barker asked, looking down on me from atop the well behaved steed. He looked stern but steady.

  "As I will ever be." I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck.

  "You don't even have a weapon." Stated Fredric, his judgmental eyes roving over me, then Edric. He noted the Prince's blade, strapped to his hip, but seemed just as unimpressed.

  "Neither do you." I pointed out with a sneer. Was this dick seriously going to nag at me about my gear when he clearly wasn't even joining us in the battle to come? "Besides, I am a weapon. And so is he." I added, pointing a thumb over my shoulder where Pride stood, glaring at the bastard and making his stallion nervous, it's ears laying back against it's head.

  "Fredric will accompany us to the wall, but he is to stay here and handle the running of things till we return." Said Lord Barker, glaring at his son who looked like he might have been about to snap some insult my way. "Arlund will be joining us once we reach the wall."

  I sighed, not nearly caffeinated enough to summon the energy to fight at the moment. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we just get this over with?"

  I don't think Barker was overly pleased with my tone, but he decided to take the higher road, offering me only a simple nod before leading his horse to the head of the soldiers, his son following suit, glaring at me the whole way.

  "A few, go-to manners, wouldn't hurt you know." Edric stated once we were relatively alone. Marie and Ryan were still close, but they were busy talking amongst themselves. "Perhaps 'please', or maybe even a simple 'yes sir'? They may do wonders for your reputation."

  "Tch." I said, glaring at the prince, despite being pleased about his new willingness to tease me. "I've never had a good reputation. Manners make me itch. It could, very well be, a severe, life threatening, allergy! What would the world say if it's newest demon died just from saying 'p-pleeee-'.... Nope, see, can't do it."

  Edric's lip twitched, but he made no further comment. Pride, on the other hand, strode forward and shook out is brown and black fur. "The boy isn't wrong. Unless your stance on simply killing people who oppose us has changed?"

  I pretended to think about it as Edric looked a little worried. "No," I said finally. "It hasn't. But I have to say that it really irks me to have to show respect to people who don't show me any. And most don't."

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  As Lord Barker had stated, Arlund was waiting at the gate. The walls were still impressively tall, but I couldn't help but feel that they were pretty useless if the Lord had to source out aid to take care of monsters. Then again, this was a place called the 'Warring States', so maybe not having funds for infrastructure, and a shortage of young and skilled men might be a given.

  Ugh, what a pain. Was twenty gold coins really a good payment for all this trouble? This monster better be good eating!

  "Good luck!" I heard a little voice call out, startling me out of my internal complaining. We were still at the gate, Arlund and the Lord exchanging last minute instructions with Fredric before we all marched out for the forest.

  My eyes landed on a tiny, but familiar red-headed child. It was the little girl we had found, Tilly. She was seated on the back of their mare, Frufa, and her aunty Ritz was holding the horse's reigns. Both smiled at us, while Tilly waved energetically, bouncing in the saddle.

  I saw Edric smile and offer a small wave of his own. Tilly was about the only happy face in the small crowd that had formed around our small, rag tag army at the gate. Many of the villagers had sons in the ranks that were about to head out to face a fearsome foe. Many of their faces were either grim, or were forcing smiles for the sake of the men they were sending off. It was a rather tense and heavy atmosphere. I wanted to get out of here already.

  Luckily, my wish was granted pretty swiftly, and a mere five minutes later the call was issued for the gates to be opened. We all filed out into the wilds outside the walls to cheers from the surrounding families. They may have felt melancholy but they were not about to send their sons off with silence and the shadow of expected defeat hovering over their heads.

  We were nearly at our destination, our formation solid and everyone uncomfortably silent, when I finally broke and had to ask a question. I mean, how could all of these people march into battle and yet only speak when absolutely necessarily? I knew they were all nervous, I was too, but the silence was killing me!

  I turned to Arlund, the only soldier I knew who was in easy speaking distance from me, and asked: "I don't suppose you or someone else here is ever going to tell me exactly what it is that we are going to fight?"

  Arlund, who had been walking a slight ways ahead of my group for most of the march so far, looked down on me in surprise. "You don't know?" He said, in clear disbelief. "You took on this job quite swiftly, and without much prior thought, true. But I had thought that you would have gotten information on this quest before now."

  "My mistress is an 'act now, ask question later... if ever' kind of woman." Pride stated bluntly.

  "Indeed." Agreed Edric.

  I grunted, irritated but unable to really refute their opinions. I had gone into this without asking a damn thing. Heck, that was basically the story of my life at this point. Damn... had I always been this reckless? Well, probably. People who use their brains usually don't get into as much trouble as I tend to get into.

  "Well, i am asking now." I huffed, royally irritated. Sure, I could have stopped and asked sometime in the last couple days, but wasn't it also the lord and Arlund's jobs to be sure the people they hire know what it is they are getting into?

  Arlund offered me a wane smile and a small, breathy chuckle, his eyes directed back to the front of our procession once again. "Very well. The truth is, we do not know what it is that we will be facing. From the report we were given from a survivor of the scouting mission that found the creature, we know only two things: One, the beast we will be facing is massive, and two, they said that it appeared to be covered in foliage."

  Huh? What, like a freaking broccoli monster?

  "Come again?" I said dryly, now doubly irritated. "Big and covered in bushes? That's all we got out of the guy?"

  Arlund nodded. "He was rather delirious by the time he had returned to Kardem, and his speech was erratic. His report was brief and panic laced, and the man died to his injuries not long after delivering it."

  "Oh..." I turned to Pride, deciding that I might get more information from him. "Does the description of the monster sound familiar to you?"

  Pride seemed to think for a time, his ears twitching from time to time as he listened for anything in the surrounding woods, but other wise looking as stony faced as usual. "Specifically, no." He said finally, sounding just as annoyed at our lack of insight as I felt. "But, monsters covered in plant life are quit rare."

  "They are?" I asked. Really, I guessed that would make sense. Plants and animals don't exactly gel, biologically speaking. I just assumed that it was normal here due to it being a world with magic.

  "Yes. Beings with clear, physical, elemental traits are not common. Sure, you may find monsters that can use the elements, but not often do you see ones that are the elements. Normally, it would be safe to assume that such creatures are of a spiritual nature."

  "Spiritual?" I asked, thinking of angles. There were demons so there could be angles right? Then again, there were only demons because Tristain- a one-time-human from Earth- had brought that concept with him and used it to create the demon races. It's not like they are natural to this world.

  "He means that they tend to come from the spiritual realm. It is a dimension that resides quite close to our own, and often beings from there, like fairies, undines, and- to some extent- elves, come to this world." Stated Edric, who was walking slightly behind my left shoulder.

  "Will that change how we fight them?" I asked.

  "It could. Mainly because it is far more likely that what we are up against will be using advanced elemental magic. Most monsters fight physically, or with rudimentary spells. Some times they are powerful enough to cast those basic spells with considerable strength, but they are still simple. Spirits are far more likely to cast more intricate and powerful magics."

  "Not to mention that many of them do not have what you might consider to be a typical body." Added Pride while Arlund nodded his agreement.

  "I'd imagine so if it had plants on it." I said a little sarcastically.

  "What I mean is that it may not have organs, or blood even." Sighed Pride, clearly resigned to my attitude. "And, most often, the bodies of spiritual beings do not linger. They fade away. There are no meat or pelts to harvest."

  "Wait?" I said, no irritated for a whole other reason. "Can we even eat it then?" That was basically the main motivation for taking this damn veggie-monster on in the first place. Why were we even here if Pride and I couldn't gain anything from the corpse?

  Er, besides preventing an entire town from falling to ruin, I guess...

  "So long as we do it swiftly after we finish the creature, it should be fine. It isn't guaranteed, but we should gain something."

  Some how I was not reassured. It sounded very much like we were out to fight an unknown threat, risking our necks, and getting next to anything in return.

  Suddenly, I thought that the 20 gold we were promised wasn't a fair price at all!