The enraged cattle continued charging at the red cape, oblivious to the fact that one of their companions had fallen to the ground right in front of them. It was a terrible disaster. Another bull of the same massive size charging at you is no joke, even for a sturdy monster. The bulls were likely too worked up to properly assess the situation. Many of the bulls were left moaning in agony, unable to move. They were probably either crushed to death by the weight or had their leg bones broken, rendering them unable to stand. The few remaining bulls were easily dispatched by the gawking adventurers, who used their bows to shoot them down while they were distracted by the red cape. I quickly retrieved my cape. It was covered in mud, but thankfully, it wasn’t torn, so I could still use it. “Hee-ya!” I snapped the necks of the bulls that had broken their legs and couldn’t stand, putting an end to their misery. At first, the bulls had put up a lot of resistance, making it difficult to break their necks. But the more I did it, the easier it became. Now I could do it in less than three seconds. The trick is to grab it quickly and give it a good yank. I'd like to do the same to the neck of the gawking adventurer who shot my cape. “Erm, Duke, you seem to be getting more and more skilled at this... How can you break a Aegyl Bison’s neck with just your bare hands?” Cystie asked while stabbing a nearby bison with her short sword. I was able to break their necks faster than using the short sword to could kill them, so I gave it back to her for the time being. Personally, I thought it was far more brutal the way Cystie mercilessly stabbed her short sword into the moaning bulls. “Less talking, more working.” I replied, snapping the neck of another bison. I could feel the bones break, and the bull’s body went limp. I still wasn’t used to that sensation. “Such strenght is... not normal.” Cystie mumbled as she worked. On the other side of the field, the gawking adventurers were cheerfully finishing off the remaining bison. “Wa-ha-ha! I was planning to take the day off, but this is a great catch!” “Yeah, buffalo in such good condition will catch a high price!” “Let’s have a feast tonight!” “Man, what a great piece of information. If you wear that red cape and run around, you can lure the buffalo easily! Bison hunting is going to be all the rage!” The adventurers cackled with glee. Those bastards were overjoyed when they realized the bison’s couldn’t stand up after breaking their legs and rushed to finish them off. What a bunch of suck-ups. Then again, they were adventurers, so maybe this was par for the course. This was another world where the strong ate the weak, after all. Still, their hypocrisy was impressive. They had said something about how "helping new adventurers is a senior's duty" with big smiles on their faces. I’ll hold them to that statement and use it to my advantage eventually. ◆ We had successfully cleared our first quest by taking down more than twenty bison. It was already evening by the time we finished hauling the carcasses back to the guild with the help of the staff and the butcher. “Our first quest was a huge success! Look! We've already earned 300.000 Kurts each, in just one day!” Cystie gleefully showed off her purse, which was bursting at the seams with coins. In terms of actual combat, it had been a disaster, but we'd managed to earn a decent sum of money right off the bat. The reward for eliminating an Aegyl Buffalo was thirty thousand Kurts per creature. However, since the buffalo we’d taken down were in such good condition, we’d been able to sell each one for forty thousand. We’d only broken their necks, so the meat had been in good shape. Fifteen in total. The gawkers had taken seven of them, so our share came to 600,000 Kurts. Since we were working as a party, we split the money evenly, so each of us got 300,000 Kurts. It was obvious which one of us had been more useful, but we were splitting the earnings evenly. —However… “Hey, you owe me twenty thousand Kurts for every Fire Ball you hit me with. Medical expenses.” If I didn’t say something, I’d never be able to forgive myself. When I held out a hand as if to say 'Pay up', Cystie hugged the purse to her chest protectively. “Wh-what?! That would cut my share in half!” “No, it would cut it in half and then some! You hit me with Fire Balls eight times!” “…Huh? Wasn’t it six?” When I told her the correct number, Cystie tilted her head in confusion and began counting on her fingers. This girl! She doesn’t even remember how many times she hit her ally! Cystie mumbled to herself as she counted on her fingers, saying things like, “That one doesn’t count, right? No, wait, what about that one?” She suddenly opened her eyes wide.

“Wait a second! Duke, you’re totally unharmed, so you don’t even need medical care!” “That doesn’t mean you can just keep hitting me willy-nilly! Don’t play dumb.” “S-sorry!” When I shouted angrily at her, Cystie lowered her head with tears in her eyes. Well, Cystie didn’t do it on purpose, and I’m tough so it didn’t really hurt me. But it would be a different story if she worked with someone else. I mean, they might die. “All right, I’m not going to say ‘Don’t do it again,’ but please try not to hit me so much next time. Anyway, let’s hurry up and decide where we’re going to stay tonight.” “...Y-yeah!” When I said that, Cystie looked relieved and then smiled. Since the inns closest to the Adventurers’ Guild in the center of the castle town were expensive, we checked into a smaller place near the crowded shopping district on the outskirts of the city. We prepaid for a week’s worth of lodging and took two small rooms, one for each of us. For once Cystie and I were a man and a woman, but the more important factor was that I was a demon and she was a human. There was no way we could share a room. As an undead I didn’t sleep at night anyway. I was able to function just fine during the night. Thus I had to make sure I had a room all to myself. If our funds ran out, men would have to sleep with men, and women would have to sleep with women. Together in the same room. I had to make sure that never happened. Some might think I didn’t even need a room since I didn’t sleep, but even I had times when I wanted to be alone in my own space. I didn’t know how to read the letters in this world, so I wanted to study, too. I wanted to read books. Since I would have nothing to do at night anyway, I decided to start with learning to read and write. Exploring the city at night sounded fun, too. It was a good idea to familiarize myself with the lay of the land. I flopped down on the bed in the six-tatami-mat room that smelled faintly of dust and had a slightly cheap looking vibe. “Hmm, I the bed in the village chief’s house seemed better,” I muttered. Not that it made a difference to me, since I was always wearing my full armor, but if I could, I would have preferred to sink into a soft, fluffy bed. The only things in the room were a table, a chair, and a small bookshelf. When I had enough money, I’d buy a house. That alone would significantly reduce the risks I faced. “Duke! Are you not going to eat dinner?” I was lying on the bed, thinking about what to do next, when I heard Cystie’s voice from the other side of the door. There it is, the first hurdle. Eating. Since I didn’t sleep, getting a room of my own was a simple way to avoid suspicion. However, the same couldn’t be said for food. Cystie was in the same party as me, and of course, we would be doing things together. That meant we would be eating together, too. We had just arrived in the royal capital today, and I was tired, so I could get out of it this time by saying I wasn’t hungry and would eat later, but tomorrow would be a different story. Even in this world, people ate three times a day, in the morning, at noon, and at night. If I didn’t have a clear reason for refusing, she would grow suspicious. “Ah, I’m going to eat on my own,” I lied. “Why?” Cystie’s questioning voice came from the other side of the door. “Ah, it probably would help if you understood why I don’t take my helmet off. It’s not a very pleasant sight.” Of course, that was a lie. I mean, I was a dullahan, a headless monster, so of course it wasn’t a pleasant sight. In any case, I decided to go with the story that I had a terrible scar on my face. I made it look like it was a heavy topic that i didn't want to talk about with someone like Cystie that I had only just met. If she wasn't carefull with her questions, she could end up surfacing my painful past (which didn’t actually exist). “O-okay. I’m sorry. I’ll go eat on my own, then. Good night.” Cystie seemed to have been expecting me to say something like that, and she left without getting too flustered. I had stubbornly refused to take off my helmet even inside the carriage. When it came to eating, I had turned away and acted as if I ate everything in one bite. Cystie had probably wanted to celebrate our success on the quest by eating together. I felt guilty about deceiving my party member and not being able to share our joy together, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was a dullahan, nothing would change that fact. “...In any case, she will eat on her own today... Cystie is so kind...”