[Has Manic Blade and the target made contact yet?] - Man in the Shadows
[According to our spy's they have yet to make contact, we expect that to change by the end of the day.] - Subordinate
[Good. Keep me apprised of the situation as it develops. Now go!] - Man in the Shadows
Dismissing his underling the Man in the Shadows chuckled slightly. He never thought when he was young and fighting to survive on the streets that there would come a day when he ran an organization as big as this. Even then he knew that only the strong were able to survive and that made him hate Demi's for the natural advantage they had. Luckily that hate had caught the eye of a ambitious noble and he had been taken off the street to be trained in espionage, nearly 40 years later he was now controlling that very same organization.
[The gang would be surprised to see me now, if only those bastards hadn't killed them! I'll never forgive those monsters!] - Man in the Shadows
[Why did you call such a powerful Adventurer for something like this?] - Rando Teacher
[The truth is that I had called him for something completely unrelated and when he heard of what had happened he volunteered himself. Here, file these.] - Principal
Organizing a stack of paper's which she then handed to the teacher before continuing her way through the massive stack of documents in front of her. The woman turned and started filing each paper in various places in a large cabinet before continuing their conversation.
[Oh? It must have been something important for you to call someone with a known hatred for your kind to this school. Do you mind me asking what you called him to do?] - Rando Teacher
[Hmm, yes I don't mind sharing that. You see I wanted to call him to hunt down a couple little rat's that had snuck their way into my school.] - Principal
The female teacher jerked slightly before continuing to file.
[Rats huh? So he's an exterminator?] - Rando Teacher
[Oh Carol Carol Carol... You have been so useful with spreading misinformation to the Church these past 10 years. Now are you going to come quietly or do I have to get a little forceful?] - Principal
[I-I don't know what you mean Principal I wouldn't have anything to....] - Spy?
Quickly pulling out a blade from her sleeve she turned and threw the dagger while running towards the door. She knew she stood no chance at defeating the other woman but hopefully she would be able to escape and inform her handler that the information she had been relaying to them was compromised. Unfortunately for her she didn't even make it out the door as her hand froze, trembling, on the door handle.
With great effort she turned her head to see a massive scorpion's tail piercing her back and if she could she would have screamed in terror. The offending tail was connected with the matronly shapeshifter's back as she slowly shook her head in disappointment while approaching.
[You know I was hoping that you would switch sides when I cornered you like this but I see that you won't live up to my expectations of you. As an educator I feel that it's such a shame that a talented person like yourself will meet her end here. Such a shame.] - Principal
[Y-you monster! I-I'd never help something like you! You killed my family you bitch!] - Spy
Spitting out her disgust at the Demi in front of her at great effort she felt darkness closing in at the edges of her vision and for the first time felt regret at her decisions. She hadn't been able to avenge her family after all this time, and the culprit of that whole ordeal was only smirking as she felt death embrace her.
[Hah... Such a disappointment, never could see past her hatred to see the bigger picture. Oh well! Time to clean this up!] - Principal
Letting the dead spy who had once been a teacher slide off her tail she transformed said tail into a mouth and proceeded to get "rid" of the evidence of what had happened. It would be at least a week or two before the Church realized that their mole had disappeared and in that time she would make sure every single rat was taken care of. She knew that they would send more but this move would slow down their efforts considerably.
[Hmmm... Maybe I should have Rose and her party take out some of the cells? Might make for good training and Shade needs to remember who is in charge here...] - Principal
Laughing to herself as she picked up the paper's that the late spy had dropped during the scuffle she continued said spy's last job.
Soooo... Manic Blade is a bigot, but pragmatic enough to accept Demi's money, or does he have his own aggenda. Like, although he dislikes Demis, he dislikes the Church more, or something?
We'll see a bit more of his story and motive's in Chapter 20 which is posting here on the 16th but is available on Patreon currently... He's.... complicated.
Not sure how I feel about the principal after this. Why had she attacked the spy's family in the past and what did she mean by "the bigger picture"? It's also disturbing that she disposed of the body by literally eating it rather than use magic to get rid of the body. Kind of makes you wonder what exactly is she (other than a powerful shapeshifter).
Glad that it was disturbing as that was what I was going for...
@TheMangaGod you didn't answer the question
@Baconbread Yep. On purpose since the Principal’s past is important to the story.
Tail Vore, huh...?
Jokes aside, guess you don’t become principal of a school that has a lot of powerful people in it without being pretty strong yourself.
I have a fondness for Shapeshifters using Shapeshifting in combat. Cool
Yeah and this current scuffle wasn't even really a challenge to her, more like an annoyance.
So, is it only the humans calling them Demis, or do they refer to themselves by that name as well?
Most of them refer to a group of mixed species as Demi and an individual by their species. For instance if you were talking about all of Rose's roommates you'd call them Demi's but if you were referring to Rose by herself you'd call her a Lamia and Malaise a Foxgirl/kin. Human's tend to be a little more... stereotyping.
@TheMangaGod By that explanation you're essentially splitting the sapient races into humans and demis (aka demihumans), which I'd understand if it were coming from humans alone, but if the other races also referred to themselves collectively as demis, that'd be rather depressing...
@ARFitS Sometimes racial divides aren't only on the side of the one stereotyping. Demis themselves also view themselves as separate from humans. Oh and Fae are their own group. As well as Demons. So you have Humans, Demis, Fae and Demons. The Demis themselves go by their own species name of course when in groups as do Fae and Demons.
@TheMangaGod I'm just saying, if they call themselves demis, or demihumans, it means they're basically calling themselves half-human, as if they're beneath humans. It'd be honestly more realistic if they just referred to themselves by their own races. This would also make the humans just another race, albeit an overly prideful one. But if EVERYONE refers to all the sapient races, that are not humans, as demis, then what exactly makes the humans so special that they need to be divided from the others as their own category, like the Demons and Fae?
@ARFitS Nothing. Honestly human's are not only massively outnumbered on this planet but also far weaker than most other races as well. They're kind of in a bad spot. The way I think of other races using the word Demi is in the same way that the N-Word is used today. It's been appropriated by Demi's so that it's not necessarily a slur. Anymore. Although I will say that it is used by certain people as one.