Pyra was once more wearing her battle gear – a fresh suit of flexible, blessed, gymnast-like armor that turned many an eye as we passed through the crowded guild hall.

They looked, but no one would dare touch. Not even by accident. They parted before the Knight Captain like the red sea.

Some began to cheer as they saw the captain awake and well.

Others looked at me following behind her, giving me icy, narrow eyed looks.

We climbed the steps to the second floor, where Pyra came to a stop on a small balcony overlooking the first.

The entire hall began to cheer as the Knight Captain approached the railing and looked down at the assembled mass.

She observed them intently for a few moments while they cheered, then opened her mouth to speak.

“Alright, shut the fuck up,” she said, silencing the entire building in an instant.

She inspected

“I see some fresh faces,” she said, smiling. “Some returning ones too. Good.”

Salutes and cheers rose from the relevant parts of the crowd.

I could see Isabella, the healer Midas would be going on a date with, in the crowd of recently arrived reinforcements.

Pyra let go of the railing and stood proud and tall.

God was her body impressive. The yoga pants-like bottoms would completely distract me if Pyra’s booming voice didn’t demand all the attention.

“The town of Ratia is our home. A safe haven. A place where all adventurers are welcome!”

The crowd cheered.

“Men, women, and frankly, anyone in between. Deliver on contracts and you can identify yourselves as shrimp donglers for all I care.”

Laughter and voices of approval came from the crowd.

“However, when in the actual flying fuck.” She slammed her fist on the railing, cracking it and shaking the whole upper floor. “Did we become a town that shuns and sentences dragon vanquishing adventurers to death?!”

The hall was silent. The CELL-inners and Feminists were arranged in two groups on separate ends of the hall. They were silent with shame, but also visibly grumbling.

“It seems you idiots forgot what’s actually important for us adventurers, so now you got it right outside the town to remind you!”

The Knight Captain extended a hand, and her second in command stepped up to place something in it.

It was the severed demon cock of the former commanding officer, the one Gdol-Zayin was boasting as a trophy.

“You see this?! This is what awaits all of your asses if you don’t pull your heads out of them right the fuck now!”

She flung the demon cock straight across the hall, the appendage lodging itself in a large crest of the town of Ratia on the wall.

“And apparently the first demon gate to appear outside Ratia in a hundred years isn’t godsdamn enough?!”

Even the most militant of grumblers seemed to go quiet.

“Good. You’re listening.”

Pyra leaned back onto the cracked railing.

“Even as I speak, more and more demon filth pour through the gate into our beautiful countryside. So, anyone who’s a little bitch, is welcome to leave through the front door right now.”

No one moved.

Some were shaking, but immobile none the less.

“Those of you who are adventurers,” she said. “Have a single purpose to your lives: Killing demon filth!”

Grumbles of approval came from some adventurer’s in the crowd.

“So forget your petty fucking bullshit, hone your godsdamned skills, and murder every last motherfucking demon spawn in this world!”

Roars of approval rose from the more confident of adventurers, joined by the lesser ones who found their courage in numbers.

“The demons thought we are just a starting town. A weak, whimpering target for them to rape and pillage to their hearts content.”

Boos and other cries protesting the demons view rose from the crowd.

“But thanks to all adventurers, especially ones who saved even my own life,” she said, turning to look at me. “We showed them why they were so scared to come back here for a century!”

I swear I could see some of the feminists giving me expressions of reluctant acceptance instead of just pure hate.

“Tomorrow, we will march in force against those unwashed, limp-dicked monsters!” Pyra declared, turning back to the crowd. “We will cut off their stupid demon cocks, and catapult them back through the gate into the demon king’s mouth! Enough to fill it for a hundred more years!”

The crowd by now was driven to a frenzy of supportive chanting.

A single, burly hand rose from the roaring crowd.

It was a buff adventurer from the reinforcement group.

He was the literal definition of a brick shithouse. Built like an ox, a scar on his face and his hair cut into a Mohawk.

Pyra signaled the crowd to quiet. “I’m glad to see you back, Urabus. Speak.”

“How are we to seal the gates?” he asked, folding his arms. “Without any sage-level mages.”

“An excellent question,” Pyra said, smiling. “We have ourselves a secret weapon, one the demons are definitely not going to see coming.”

The Knight Captain turned around.

Not to me.

“And it will allow us to kill demons on a scale noone has ever seen before!”

She was looking behind me. At a girl.

Pink hair, kind but very nervous green eyes, a flowery white dress…

I was wondering where she went.

“A chosen of Athena, master artificer and engineer from the capital, who can create weapons of destruction our simple minds can’t even fathom!”

The pink-haired master engineer grew redder and shakier with every word and every extra set of eyes on her.

“With her help…” she paused, looking at the adventurers below.

They were already cheering. But she wanted them to cheer harder. Much harder.

 “We will unleash a holocaust of fire and death upon the filth invading our peaceful land!”

The crowd roared in agreement, beginning to chant the name of their now literal firebrand Knight Captain.

Violetta was a step away from collapsing into a catatonic state of stage freight.

And my divinely ordained task was still to seduce that poor girl.

“Pyra, Pyra, Pyra!” the crowd chanted.

“Purge them all in the holy flames of our wrath!”

Or die trying, if the level headed Knight Captain decided to burn the whole place down just to make sure no demons were left standing.