The Demon King's Hero Of Light

"Not really," said Bridgette, reading through the accounts and flipping the pages as she looked. "What element do you want to know about next?"

"How about earth?" asked Aella, leaning back in her chair.

"But..Rupert?" asked Bridgette, looking up from her book quickly.

"He didn"t survive the battle with the devourers," said Aella softly, shaking her head.

"Devourers?!" exclaimed Bridgette with a squeak in her voice. "I read something about them! I really hope it was mostly imaginative!"

"Did it say they ate everything and devoured realms?" asked Aella with a frown.

"Yes," replied Bridgette in a tiny voice of horror.

"Then it wasn"t made up," said Aella firmly. "I was able to kill them all and destroyed every last sc.r.a.p of them with fire, but I fear if they ever return, which is why I need to know everything I can about all of the elements and magics."

"But, shouldn"t Brian have gotten the earth magic instead of you?" asked Bridgette.

"Rupert didn"t think Brian should get the powers. He requested I take them. I agreed with him, and then cremated him when he died."

"That"s sad," said Bridgette with a shake of her head. "He was a nice old man, if a bit lecherous. I wonder how many kids he"s going to have in the next couple of months?"

"It doesn"t matter. Those children will be able to grow up without worrying about acquiring the hero powers. I have them now, and don"t intend to die anytime soon."

"Maybe having those powers in their background will make it easier for them to learn magic in my academy when they are older?" wondered Bridgette as she went back to the shelf to grab a couple more books. "Have you had any issues with so many elements?"

"Not yet," said Aella with a frown. "Air and Fire get a long pretty well and I haven"t had a chance to really use Earth. The little I"ve asked of it, it deemed important requests so I didn"t have any problems. When I get Josephine"s water, I may have a lot of issues though."

Bridgette paused in her return to the table and gave Aella a look of surprise and incredulity. "Water! What"s wrong with Josephine!?"

"Nothing," said Aella with a sigh. "She doesn"t want her kids burdened with the powers like she has been. She wants them to be able to live normal lives without constantly being hara.s.sed about using their powers. I think now that the war and the church is gone, it shouldn"t be an issue to get rid of the heroes, and since the realm has decided I am to be its champion, the heroes aren"t needed as much."

"Champion? Aella, do you have any idea how much work that will be?" asked Bridgette with wide eyes, sitting down with several more books. "I"ve read a little bit about it, and it takes tremendous work and magic to pull off what you will have to do!"

"I know, which is why I"m talking to you," said Aella.

"Well," said Bridgette, straightening her back and opening the first book. "I guess I have my work cut out for me too, if I am to be the one to teach you how to be a champion of the realm!"

"Just tell me about earth, please?" asked Aella, glancing around the library. She hoped to be able to rest like this some after she handed over the role of king to Seifer and became the king of the realm.

"You won"t be able to stay king of the demons if you do this," said Bridgette, glancing up at Aella.

"I know. I"ve already talked to Alfred about it. I plan to make Seifer king over the city and region. Alfred will become the mayor of this town, where most of the humans live, so they will be more comfortable with having a human over them. I think I want to be known as King of the Realm, instead of Realm Champion or Guardian."

"Ha!" laughed Bridgette. "So, you can still be King Aella?"

"Of course! I"ve worked far too hard to get this t.i.tle to just let it get s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the realm!"

"Fair enough," said Bridgette, shaking her head in amus.e.m.e.nt. "Now, earth only has a few entries by the church officials and most of them are older. It looks like they started shuffling the earth hero and his children off to run the gates around the last kingdom, to keep them from being able to gain power. They mostly seemed opposed to using their powers against the people, but were fine releasing monsters from the gates, when told those monsters would be used to fight the evil demons. In fact, every reference to demon has the word evil before it, almost as if the writers were trying to reinforce the belief that all demons were evil by repeating it constantly."

"At least by moving the earth people away, they weren"t being brain washed by the church," grumbled Aella.

"There"s an in-depth account about one earth hero helping to capture the mountain monster," she said, looking up. "Did you ever find out what happened to it?"

"Yes," said Aella softly, glancing down at the sleeping lion cub on her lap. He twitched a wing as if sensing her gaze. "Some dwarves went to find it, and were killed by the immense mana poisoning they had acquired. It is believed that the monster was either killed or weakened by the explosion of magic, and shouldn"t be an issue for a very long time."

"I"m sorry for the dwarves that lost their lives, but glad it"s taken care of," said Bridgette, turning back to her book. "There"s a couple accounts in here of the earth heroes being able to move earth easily, like Rupert did to build these cities, and others who could create rocks to fling them. One account had an earth hero who could cause people and monsters to be turned into stone, which may be why they decided to exile the earth heroes. The church leaders had wanted to use them to force the fields to remain fertile and flat, for planting and such, but the earth hero grew angry with such constant demands and caused one of the lower officials to become a statue. The official"s guard thought the hero had merely encased the him in stone, and went to free him, only to smash the statue completely."

"That"s interesting," said Aella, feeling the earth within her stir at the outrage of being forced to do such mundane ch.o.r.es. There was an order to how things should be done, and forcing such unnatural acts upset it. She would have to keep that in mind.

"Alright, then what about water?" asked Aella. "Josephine said she would teach me about water to make the transfer easier, but if you teach me about it first, then that should help even more."

Bridgette nodded, opening another book, but didn"t speak for several minutes as she read through the various accounts.

"Aella, there"s nothing in here about water heroes being able to heal," said Bridgette seriously, looking up to meet her eyes. "I think Josephine has two powers."

"Well, tell me what it says and then look up the healing powers."

"Alright," nodded Bridgette, flipping back a couple of pages. "It starts talking about how most water heroes could find and purify water, and some could even pull it out of the air, if it wasn"t too dry. Some could shape the water, like Josephine can do, moving it about through the air. There"re accounts where some of the water heroes could only use the water in cold forms, like ice weapons, frosting things to kill weeds, freezing water to form pa.s.sable bridges, and making the ground slick with ice, to stop charging monsters. One could even throw ice daggers. This one could walk on water, as if it were solid, no matter what the weather was like, and the author thought might have been able to breathe underwater, but he wasn"t sure how."

"That would be useful to fight monsters underwater to make fishing safer,�� mused Aella. Her fire wasn"t sure it liked the idea of going underwater. And it really didn"t like ice, but she had been in the snow enough, trying to survive the mana poisoning, that it didn"t argue too much about that.

Bridgette went to say something in response to her comment, but shook her head instead and continued perusing the accounts listed in the book. "I don"t see anything else that might interest you. What do you want to know about next?"

"Is there anything in there about shadow magic?" asked Aella with a small smile.