I was amazed, flying came to me as naturally as breathing, though clearly it didn't work on any principles of aerodynamics that I was aware of. In fact I didn't even have to flap my wings with any regularity, only occasionally to increase my speed beyond a slow hover. From what I could tell the wings were a byproduct of my ability to shape shift and like flying it was an intrinsic characteristic of my species. Though I could still feel some miniscule draw upon some vague pool of energy contained with in my being, the amount required to maintain flight was clearly negligible.

Once escaping the maze that was my castle I was stunned, as far as the eye could see was a massive sea of mangrove like trees laden with bright yellow-orange fruits. Their branches twisting together to form a dense canopy of dark green leaves that cast everything in murky shadows with only pockets of light filtering through the cracks. The trees soared overhead, reminiscent of the towering coastal red woods of North America. Flying up above the canopy my eyes were met with a vast aquamarine sea the rolled and lapped gently, to the east were magnificent rusty red mountains with white sleeping caps. North of me I could make out a number of small villages that snaked their way up the coast line surrounded by rolling hills laden with wheat and barely.

"How the fuck do I even know where the cardinal directions are" I questioned shaking my head at yet another unanswerable question.

Another wave of pings brought me out of my awe induced moment of stupidity, clearly there was something more important than the landscape that demanded my attention. With a couple quick flaps of my massive demonic appendages I was rocketing towards the direction of the pings.

 It was when I was almost right on top of them when I realised that I had forgotten to ask one very important question " how the fuck strong am I compared to the average person".

Unfortunately I didn't have much time to think about it as I could hear the shouts of men from below me, along with a lot of cursing and splashing. 

"At least the swamp is doing it's job, now it's time for me to go to work" I thought.

With a hand stretched out in dramatic pose I tried to recreate my luck with flight, only this time I was trying my hand a demon summoning. It was not going well, in fact I probably looked like a constipated retard with the way my face was scrunched in concentration. Then all of a sudden I could feel something, a thin thread spreading out from my core off into the ether. There was a sudden tug and I almost fell face first in the air, out of reflex I yanked back and came face to face with a wretched little creature.

The damn thing stood roughly a foot and a half tall, with warty green skin, stubby clawed limbs, and bulbous yellow eyes. It had bat like wings with a pale yellow membrane that matched the areas of a human would have naturally paler skin, to top it all off the thing had a long spiny tail that reminded me of a bat ray.

"Teh fucks you's lookin at ay tough guy" the creature I could only recognize as a quasit spoke in a new york accent while poking a stubby clawed finger in my direction.

Something in me kind of snapped for a second and I seized the little freak by his orange sized head and began to squeeze as waves of Demonic energy pulsed out from my body.

"Listen here ya little shit, I'm having one hell of a bad day capiche, so how about you shut your damn mouth like a good little minion" I growled.

"Yeahs what eveahs yous says boss, what can ole Tony do's fa yous" the creature hilariously tried to nod it's head only to awkwardly swing its body like a pendulum.

I slowly lowered us down into the canopy to take stock of the situation below, Tony still dangling by his head. Down below in the darkness I could make out five men in shabby armor, little more than moth eaten gambesons struggling to make their way through knee deep muddy water. In order to deal with the murk each man carried poorly made improvised torches, in their other hands they carried a hodgepodge of one handed blades ranging from proper swords to long knives.

"So, Tony if you had to how many of those men do you think you could kill" I questioned my minion with a sadistic grin.

"Uh Boss, I'm more of a sweep teh floors, take out teh trash, poison yous in ya's sleep kind of demon" he replied nervously fixing me with his bulbous yellow eyes.

I gave his head another squeeze, " oaky oaky, If wes gets teh drops on em I can sting one of em wit my tail, any more en tat an I'm fucked boss".

"Better than nothing I suppose, let's observe a little longer shall we" I replied.

"Fuck where did that little bitch go" Heinrich grumbled while pulling another leech off of his arm, the damn things were everywhere.

Nothing had seemed to go right after the boss decided to up move their little gang of bandits out west beyond the reach of Baron Rozenkreuze's territory. Though he couldn't deny it sounded good at the time, the Black Coast was so remote that they no longer had to dodge bounty hunters and knightly patrols. It also meant that there were next to no easy merchants fat with coin to rob and far more monsters than they had bargained for.

With out caravans to rob Heinrich had been forced to turn to alternative means of earning coin, he had over heard that Otter Demi-humans were supposed to be expert pearl divers. Now he wished that he had never heard that conversation, it had been easy enough to buy one off of a slaver but couldn't afford a proper slave collar. All he could get was a tracking bracelet, during it's most recent dive the damn thing had chewed through the rope they had tied to it's ankles and escaped. 

To make everything worse the brat escaped, with pouches loaded with enough pearls for him to escape this shity life. The bitch had led them on a merry goose chase down the coast before fleeing into this god forsaken swamp full of leeches and lord knows what else. He had already lost two of his better men to venomous serpents, if it wasn't for the tracking spell guiding them he would have already turned back empty handed.

"Hey, boss something don't feel right" one of his trackers, a skittish fellow by the name of Shanks, whispered.

"Something always feels off to you Shanks" another man replied with a chuckle.

"Nah, Boss it's one of them feelings, like my skin's itching" Shanks whispered.

"Fuck, everyone back to back" Heinrich ordered, he knew better than to doubt the man's skills they had saved his ass on more than one occasion.

I watched the men group together, it was a good thing that they didn't have shields, still I was hesitant to make a move. It seemed one of the men had some kind of passive danger sense, looking over at Tony I had something of a wicked idea. I cranked back my arm that was still gripping Tony's head and a wicked grin split my face.

All I heard was a panicked "uh, boss", before I unleashed the tension in my arm hurtling the screaming minion into the swamp.

He hit the surface with a loud splash turning the attention of the men towards where Tony face planted in the knee deep muddy water.

"What the fuck was that" one of the men screamed as I quietly dropped down to hover behind their backs.

I placed a hand on a man's shoulders and his head swiveled where our gaze met, he didn't even have time to scream before charm person turned him into a zombie. Charm person drained a considerable amount of my Demonic essence, at best I could probably use it two more times before running out.

I flew upward silently as the men moved towards Tony who was pulling him self out of the muck, I could feel a strange tether between my self and the man I had charmed. The man just stood there like an idiot until I mentally nugged him forward.

"Stab the man on your right" I commanded with a strange sense of devious glee.

A scream of pain erupted as my puppet stabbed one of his friend's in the lower back with a rusty long knife.

"What the fuck" Heinrich shouted as he spun on his heels to see one of the newer recruits stabbing his old friend Frank in the back.

I snapped the connection leaving the man stunned as the one who had been identified as the boss rounded on him blade in hand.

 The man freaked out and began panicking while shouting " I don't know, I don't know" over and over while staring at the blood soaked blade in his hand.

"Damnit" Heinrich shouted as he cut the rookie down with a single slash across the throat just to be safe.

"I-I-I told you we-we never should have c-c-come here boss" Shanks stuttered nervously while scanning the surroundings, his blade visibly shaking in fear.

"Two down, three to go" I mentally chuckled, not sure if it was my new body, game like environment, or fucked up childhood that made me enjoy making these guys suffer.

 If I had to guess, it was probably all three, I had never been the most mentally stable individual.

"Boss, it's a fucking demon" the one named Shanks barked while pointing towards the unfortunate mud splattered form of Tony.

"Tch, don't panic it's just a damn small fry, fan out and circle the damn thing" Heinrich ordered with a foul grimace, he knew even the lowliest of Demons was not something he wanted to tangle with.

That was my cue to swoop down from the shadows, my target was the lanky man the others had identified as Shanks. It was a miscalculation on my part as the man spun on his heels and slashed across the inside of outstretched my arm. I barely even felt the measly blade as it carved a shallow trench in my flesh, it didn't even faze me long enough to prevent me from seizing the fool by his neck.

Shanks flailed helplessly, slashing and hacking at my arm in a pitiful last ditch attempt at freedom. Choked screams and gurgles escaped his throat as I slowly clamped down while his companions looked on in frozen horror. From their perspective I must have been the embodiment of their deepest fears judging by the way they trembled like lambs before a wolf. With a sickening crunch Shanks' body went slack before I dropped him into the murky water like a discarded sack of rotting potatoes.

I gently floated down till I was giving off the impression of walking on water, I took a moment to regard each man with a feeling of disappointment and frustration.

"Either I have dreadfully overestimated their abilities or severely underestimated my own" I thought taking a look at the laceration on my arm that was already beginning to heal.

"Gentlemen, consider yourselves lucky, for you see I have suddenly found myself in need of henchmen, unfortunately there is only a single opening at this time" I spoke with a grandiose inflection of a motivational speaker.

The pair slowly bagan to back step while keeping their weapons leveled in my direction " the fuck are you talking about monster" Heinrich barked like a frightened puppy.

"Allow me to explain in more simplistic terms, either one of you dies to the other or both of you will die by my hand" I fixed the men with a cold stare to match my icy tone.

Heinrich had certainly killed people for less, and now that his life was on the line he wasn't one to think overly much about it.

"Sorry Seamus, I'll be seeing you in hell one day, you can have your revenge then" Heinrich thought as he plunged his sword into his buddies stomach before tearing it out with a twist

Heinrich swallowed his fear and turned towards me, trying to ignore his friend who was currently bleeding out from being disemboweled. His expression seemed to ask me "what now", as he nervously tried to relax.

"So, where are the rest of your butt buddies hiding out" I questioned nonchalantly while surrounded by the corpses of this dude's friends in a poorly lit swamp.

Heinrich was to stunned to think properly, he had heard of stories about Demons before, but it had been centuries since one had set foot in human lands.

"Why" he questioned out of reflex before he could try and stop himself.

"Ya see, it's kind of embarrassing really. I'm apparently massively in debt to a bunch of crime syndicates, and based on the performance of men I figured your buddies would be pretty easy to rob" I ran a hand through my hair as I explained with a friendly chuckle.

Heinrich was stunned by the absurdity of the situation, "who the hell would even have the stones to try and collect on an Arch Demon" he thought sith a panicked expression.

"There's an abandoned mine near the pass in the Bloodspires where the rest of the men have set up camp, it's a week's travel northeast from here" he replied with a slightly less terrified tone.

"Next question, what's your class" I asked while mentally taking note of the rough location for future reference.

"Uh the only one with a class is the boss, most of us only have three maybe four skills if we're lucky. In fact if you're a commoner you won't find a class outside of the guild, it's either too expensive or to dangerous for most people to obtain" that certainly gave me some information to chew on.

"Thanks, you've been a real help" I said with a warm smile while placing a friendly hand on the man's shoulder.

There was a brief moment when a look of relief covered his face, followed by an expression of pure terror as I plunged a clawed hand into his chest and yanked out his heart. I crushed it with a quick squeeze before the last bits of life faded from his eyes, there was something satisfying in the way that it popped.

I turned towards the surly looking quasit who was busy wiping muck and mud from his body, it was an amusing sight.

"You're more than welcome to extract these guys souls before our contract comes to an end, it's been a pleasure working with ya" I chuckled off handedly to the foul mouther little bastard.

"Yeah, fuck yous too ya hyuuuge bastard, hope I nevah have teh see ya face again" Tony replied giving me a small warty middle finger before disappearing in a puff of black smoke.

Amongst the spoils there were only two proper weapons, one a langmesser and the other a blade reminiscent of viking era swords. The messer appeared to be made of a much higher quality steel while the other was made from forge welded wrought iron. With a little struggle I got the sword belts from both bodies, along with a single coin purse that held a single silver and seven copper coins.

I chose the messer as my main armament and slung the viking sword over my shoulder by it's belt so I could easily ditch it if needed.

" Now what to do about you" I pondered while flying in the direction of the other weaker ping.

From what I could tell the ping hadn't moved for some time and was slowly growing weaker over time. I wasn't sure exactly what my thoughts were, the guys earlier were bandits which made it fun to crush them beneath my boot heels. Bandits were no different in my eyes than the thugs that used to try and jump me on my way home, they were scum and deserved to die like scum. As for whomever they had been chasing, I think it was curiosity that drove me forwards.

Laying slumped over a log, half submerged in water was a small figure dressed in a patchwork of rags. A pair of small triangular furred ears barely poked through mud streaked hair at the corners of her head, her forearms were covered in fir down to her first digits giving the impression of fingerless gloves. Upon closer inspection she had semi-webbed hands, clearly an adaptation for an aquatic lifestyle.

Every where I looked she was covered in little scrapes and bruises, I touched a the back of my hand to her forehead and found that she was running a fever. With ease I reached down and scooped her unconconcious body into my arms, where I noticed she had the same fur on her lower legs like she did on her arms complete with webbed feet. 

My first ever animal girl encounter, was not a cute kitten, adorable puppy, a loyal wolf, or even a sexy fox. Instead I got a god damn otter, well as a river rat and a fisherman there were few things more adorable than an otter, except when they're stealing your bait. Looking at her poor battered mud stained body, this otter might just have stolen my heart. I swear it had nothing to do with the sack of pearls dangling from her dainty waist