I've always been like this, whenever someone asks me for help I always rush to do whatever I can for them. It's a bit depressing to think that most people are too afraid to ask me for anything, so on the rare occasions when someone is brave enough to do it, it makes me feel a bit better. However, it seems like recently this has been happening more often, does that mean that my social skills are improving?

That said, the easiest way to stop that man's daughter from running into trouble is probably to rescue the captives before she makes it here. So we'll just sneak into the castle which is what we were planning to do regardless.

The castle walls are full of holes, so it was easy to sneak inside. This place is clearly really old, and yet, these walls feel extremely durable.

"Hey Xania, do you know if this castle was built with stone taken from the infernal caverns?"

"How am I supposed to know that? You're the one who went there."

"There were some really durable rocks in the deeper parts of the caverns. I was just thinking that these walls feel similar to them."

I can understand why the demon king would want to build his castle from that material; even I would need to put in some effort to destroy these walls. But getting enough stone all the way up here cannot have been easy.

Now... how can we find the captives? Longleg can somehow tell exactly where Kalroth is, but when I asked him about the beastkin he just shook his head.

"Hey Xania, how are we supposed to figure out where the prisoners are?"

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that? Coming here was your idea... Anyway, I guess we'll have to interrogate one of the guards."

"Interrogate? You're not planning to torture them, are you?"

"What are you talking about? I don't know what type of person you think I am, but why would I ever need to torture anyone when I have you here? Making someone talk is not going to be an issue."

"What does me being here have to do with making someone talk?"

"Are you serious? Look, just grab one of those guys and ask him whatever you want."

A few stone demons are patrolling the area. They look a lot like golems, except that they are wearing clothes and their movements are a lot less stiff. If they were naked and stood still, it would be easy to mistake them for golems or even actual rocks.

'Shadow bind'

I've been using this spell so often that I've become very good at controlling the ropes, now it almost feels like I grow some extra limbs whenever I cast it. One of the guards had wandered away from the others, so I used the ropes to grab him from around the corner while covering his mouth.

I lift him a bit so that we can see each other eye to eye. "Do not scream. I want you to tell me where you're holding the captured beastkin. Understood?"

He opens his eyes wide and nods frantically. Seeing something that looks like a golem be so expressive feels weird.

I remove the ropes covering his mouth to let him talk. "They are in a cage... Go down the stairs in the central courtyard and you'll find them. Please don't kill me."

He talked just like that. Is interrogating someone really that easy? Aren't there some people who are professional interrogators? I bet it's all just a scam. For now, I'll put this guy to sleep.

'Mind void'

"Hey Xania, do you think that he told me the truth?"

"I think so, it seemed like he was too afraid to lie."

"Are you sure? I didn't even use 'intimidate'."

"If you had used a skill like that he would have been too scared to even talk."

As much as I want to tell her that she's wrong, she's probably right...

'Black blur'

My spell covers us in darkness, making it easier to hide in the shadows. To be honest, I do not have a lot of confidence in my stealth skills, and yet, we somehow manage to reach the courtyard undetected. There are just not enough guards around for a castle as enormous as this one.

Now, I'll admit that I've not visited a lot of castles, but I was under the impression that most courtyards tend to be filled with flowers or trees or other plants. This one just has a lava pit.

I don't know how or why someone would place a lava pit inside a castle, but this seems like a very serious safety hazard for the people living here. For some reason, seeing a lava pit in a castle makes me want to jump over it, but this is not the time to play around so I'll just walk around it.

Out of all the doors here, only one leads to a set of stairs going down, that must be the place. This time Xania goes ahead of me and puts the two guards inside to sleep with 'mind void'.

"I just wanted to feel like I'm also contributing..." She said.

This does not look like a dungeon, more like a cellar, but there's a cage that seems to have been brought here from outside. I think that there are people inside, but it is too dark to see.

"W-who is there? Did someone use magic?" Says a voice coming from inside the cage.

"Don't worry, we're friends. We're here to rescue you," I whisper.

"Really? Who are you? We cannot see you from here."

"I'll open the cage, just give me a moment."

What metal are these bars made of? They were really easy to bend.

Some of the beastkin come out from the gap I opened and we see each other for the first time. Cat ears, dog ears, bunny ears, and many more... This is even better than I expected, I cannot avoid smiling when I see them all in front of me.

"Alright, let's get out of here before someo- Wait! Don't run back into the cage!"

"S-stay away!"

"I'm telling you that I'm here to save you!"

Uh... I'm used to animals not liking me, but does that extend to beastkin as well?

Mmm, I don't really have time to convince them to trust me, I'll have to take them like this. I bend the bars to close them again and pick up the cage with all the prisoners inside, the stairs are really wide so I think that it will fit.

"You are supposed to be a mage, but you are strong enough to lift a cage with twenty people like it's nothing..." I don't know why Xania still gets surprised by this stuff.

"This doesn't really require as much strength as you might think."

As I'm going back to the courtyard, the captives keep sobbing and hugging each other. I'm rescuing them, but they are somehow making me feel like a bad guy...

*CRASH*

"Nya! I found you! Kidnapper!"

Suddenly, a girl jumps into the courtyard through one of the closed doors, leaving a hole shaped like her body.

"Oops, I forgot to open the door." Eh? How can she forget that?

A cat beastkin with wild brown hair and little clothing. Could this be her? She seems to fit the description.

"Hey, is that Karin the 'destroyer'?"

"You mean the 'living disaster'?"

"Just when I thought that things could not get any worse..."

I can hear the beastkin murmuring to each other. That man said that his daughter's name was Karin, so this really must be her. And she seems to be rather infamous among the beastkin.

"I'm not a kidnapper!"

"Liar! I can see you carrying that cage!"

"Well, I understand how that could cause a misunderstanding. But I'm only trying to save them!"

I place the cage on the ground and open it again to show that I'll let them get out if they want, but nobody leaves. Seeing the girl they called a 'living disaster' get closer seems to scare them even more.

"You cannyot deceive my instincts! I can tell that you're evil just by looking at your face!" Karin yells while pointing at me dramatically.

"That's not 'instinct'! You just think that I look scary!"

"Can you two yell a bit louder? There might still be someone in the castle who doesn't know that we're here," Xania complains from right behind me. Why is she trying to hide?

"Hey! Xanya? Is that you?"

"You two know each other?"

"Ugh..." Xania decides to show herself. "We have met as enemies a few times. She's destroyed a couple of my undead armies, but at least she actually fought them..."

"You have a gray demon with you! I knew that you were evil!"

Oh, that's right, the beastkin and the gray demons have a history of fighting each other. But now that I've redirected that leyline there's no reason for them to fight anymore.

Karin is hissing at me. The way she moves her ears while making an angry face is too cute for me to resist... so I touch her ear with my right hand.

"NYAAAH!"

The next thing I know, I'm sent flying and fall into the lava pit. I think that she kicked me, but it was too fast to see. Other than a broken rib that I fix right away, I'm not really hurt at all. This lava is not particularly hot, but my clothes got all burned again... Since a lot of people are watching I'll conjure some rectangles of pure black darkness to preserve my dignity.

Is there a way to make her and the others trust me? So far, this has been going about as well as that time I tried to domesticate a wild cat back when I was living in the orphanage...

forli

It's already been over a year since I started writing this story. To tell the truth, I was expecting to be much further ahead by now, I wonder if I'll ever finish this because I still have a lot more stuff planned. Then again, web novels tend to be made to go on forever so perhaps that's not such a bad thing.

I wonder if I've gotten any better at writing in all this time. I don't really feel like I have, but to be honest, I've not really put as much time into the most recent chapters as I did for the first few...