Red-Eyed Demon, Red-Haired Swordsman

They looked through the whole cave, but with no results. They were two. One of them was a young boy, with crimson eyes and red, quite long, spiky hair tied up in a ponytail. The lower part of his body was protected by a steely armor, under which he wore black pants. The upper part of his body was covered by a red shirt with black, long sleeves. On his left wrist was a metal brecelet which extended on the outer part of the arm, almost to his elbow. On his back he carried a great sword, whose blade was made of three parts.

He noticed a small tunnel he didn't saw before. He walked over to it. Lighting it with his torch, he got the impression it was quite deep, and the echo which followed his words convinced him more about it.

"Amelia! Maybe I've found it!"

"Roger!" a female voice answered.

A woman walked over to him. She had neck-long, blonde hair, on which she wore a golden, jeweled tiara. Her hands, her shoulders and her strip navel were bare, but the rest of her body was covered. She wore black, knee-high boots, a pair of white pants, a bra-like white shirt and two white sleeves kept on by a pair of leather straps. She was holding an apparently wood-made bow. Her eyes were an extremely dark shade of yellow. Also, she had very long ears, like no human could ever have.

She looked at the tunnel for a moment.

"Good job, Elsword" she said while patting the boy's head. He covered himself with his arm to prevent her hand from reaching him.

"Quit that. I'm not a child"

"Oh, you are"

"I'm fifteen, dammit!"

"That's not even a twentieth of my age" she mocked him.

"Oh, just shut up, Amelia."

She laughed softly.

"Ok, shall we go?"

"Sure"

They headed down the gallery, with Amelia ahead of Elsword. They walked for less than five minutes before they reached a dead-end.

"So, nothing here, uh?"

"Wait"

The elf probed the rock with her hand for a while, until she found something. She pushed, and a small push-button clicked. The stone in front of them moved to the side.

"How did you know that?"

"Just a feeling. You know, treasure hunters's stuff"

"Yeah, yeah"

They walked for five more minutes, until they reached a wooden door.

"Found them" hummed Amelia.

She slowly opened the door. They found themselves inside a quite large cave. Inside there were seven armed men, and a pair of chests. Judging by their look, they were probably bandits. The ones they were after. Elsword rushed in for their boss, a tall and large man with a scarred eye, a weird necklace and a sword almost as big as himself. Despite being taken by surprise, he managed to avoid Elsword's first strike and drew his sword.

"You damn brat!"

He stroke with all his mighty, but Elsword blocked the attack with his sword and another one, red and white, he pulled out from a sheath which had appeared for a brief moment out of nothing.

"So it's you again, Banthus! I thought you were in jail"

They exchanged a few blows, then Elsword blocked the bandit's sword with one of his and sent it flying with a blow from the other. Banthus, now disarmed, shouted and tried to deliver a fist to the young boy's face, but his arm was severed. There was no blood. It was an artificial limb. Elsword knew that. After all, the one who severed Banthus's real arm, years ago, was his sister. He hit the bandit on the head with the hilts of both his sword, causing him to fall unconscious. When he turned, Amelia had already finished dealing with the other bandits, who were all on the ground, unconscious like their leader.

"Quite disappointing" said Elsword while letting go the white-red sword, which disappeared into the air, and putting the other one on his back.

"What?" asked the elf.

"This guy. I thought he could at least put up a fight, but nothing"

"I can be your sparring partner, if you want"

"This is going from an extreme to the another..."

The lef giggled.

"Anyway..."

They opened the chest.

"... just some money, and... hey, they have a few jewels inside here. Maybe you're interested in them" said Elsword.

"Found it!" hummed Amelia while taking a large, cristal-like, blue stone out of the second chest "The Eldrit they stole from your village, right?"

"Yeah, it's that. No doubts about it"

"Perfect. Now let me see what's there"

She walked over to the other chest and looked inside it. There weren't that much money, and the jewels all looked quite crappy, at least for her.

"Nothing particular, I would say. What a shame"

"What do we do with them?" asked Elsword.

"We're near Elder, right? Why don't we just tell the guards there about these guys?"

"Yeah, you're right"

They left, bringing the Eldrit with them and blocking somehow the secret door from the outside. After telling the guards of Elder about the bandits's location, they began to walk back to Ruben. It was along the way that Elsword began to talk.

"It's been almost five years since my sister left the village..."

Amelia looked at him.

"Do you want to leave the village too?"

"As if I could. I know you'll resume your journey soon, and if I leave, there would be noone left to protect Hagus, Anne and the others"

"There's still Lowe"

"Well... not to talk bad about him, but he has never been that strong... and he can't even wield his sword properly ever since he badly injured his arm's bones one year ago. I mean, it's not like he can't deal with bandits now and then, but..."

"Well, you're right"

The old, but young-looking, elf looked at the red-haired boy. He would never admit it, but the truth was he was worried about his sister. She used to send them some letters, usually one every two or three months, but it had already been two years since the last one arrived. Elsword wanted to go look for her, but he couldn't. Amelia was there, that was true, but she was a wandering treasure hunter, and he didn't feel right with leaving someone who is living there only on a temporary whim to protect the place.

After two days, they had almost reached Ruben. The sun had almost set, and they were walking on the road when Amelia stopped Elsword.

"Wait"

Her ears moved a bit, and she smelled the air.

"... I have a bad feeling. We should hurry"

They accelerated the pace, until they reached the village. All the lanterns were extinguished, and there was a weird silence upon the whole place. Not even the crickets could be heard, which was not normal.

Elsword was just about to call out for someone when Amelia silenced him.

"There's something wrong here"

They both took out their weapons, and walked through the empty roads. However, with the sun almost completely set and with no lantern lit, Elsword couldn't see much. They went at Anne's house. When they arrived there, they found the door smashed. No, cut. It had been completely sliced. Elsword took a lantern and lit it, then they entered the small, wooden house.

Just as they walked in, a terrible stink reached the young boy's nose. Amelia felt it even from outside, but told nothing because she hoped she was wrong. She wasn't.

They found her. Rather, they found what was left of her corpse. A gruesome, almost surreal sight. She had been tore in two, and almost all her flesh was gone, leaving most of her bones almost bare. There were a few parts of her organs scattered around the room, but there wasn't as much blood as there should have been. Her head had been torn off and left on the ground.

Elsword almost screamed at that sight, but his throwing up prevented him from doing so. Amelia looked at what was in front of her. There were a few bloody footprints going from the corpse, if it could still be called that way, to one of the windows.

"Who... who could have done this... are the others...?" muttered Elsword.

"It's still around here"

"What?"

"Whatever did this to Anne, and probably to everyone else, is still here. Also, I would say it's watching us"

Elsword took out his second sword from the sheat, which appeared and disappeared just like in the cave, and looked into the darkness. He was trembling. Despite his age, he had already faced many dangers, but this... this was different. It was all... surreal. Suddenly, with no notice, everyone in his village was dead, killed in an horrible way. And whatever did that was still there, and was now waiting the right moment to strike.

Amelia, however, was just as tense as Elsword. She had travelled for more than an hundred years, and she had experienced things normal humans could hardly even imagine. Because of this, she could recognize a demon's doing. She was sweating slightly, her bow ready, scanning the area around them.

"... should we go out?" asked Elsword.

She thought about it for a moment. Staying out, they could be attacked from every direction. Still, looking at how the door had been destroyed, those wooden walls couldn't be considered a solid defense. Also, outside she would have a better line of fire.

"Yes. I'll walk out, watching the outside. Stay right behind me, and look the other side, in case it gets into the house again"

Elsword nodded. They began to move, slowly. They stopped every time they heard something. When they got out, the sun had completely set. It was night. Elsword couldn't tell if they had been there for five minutes or for three hours, when he saw something. Two red, animal eyes, in the darkness. They weren't far. And they were staring at him. He flicked Amelia with his elbow. The elf looked over her shoulder. The young boy could only see two eyes, but the elf was able to see much better than him. In front of them was... a girl. A beautiful girl, dressed in white and dyed in crimson, with long, silvery hair and... nine silver-plated, almost shining tails. Her fangs were longer than those of humans, as well as her fingernails, which looked like claws. She was holding a long spear, on whose blade were still hanging some fresh organs.

What... what is she?

"Step back, Elsword. You can't handle this"

The red-haired knight obeyed. Amelia faced the tailed girl. In response, she grabbed one of the organs from her spear and brought it to her mouth. She bit it. Amelia was happy Elsword couldn't see it.

She pointed her bow at her, waiting. Then, something happened. A noise. A squeaky door being opened. The girl istantly ran over to the sound, ad blinding speed. Amelia shoot more than a dozen of arrows in less than a second, but none of them hit their target. She tried to catch up to the girl, and Elsword followed her as he could. But they both lost sight of her. Then, a scream. They rushed over to it. What they found was Lowe, completely tore apart, and a black-haired girl, unconcious on the ground, in a pool of blood.

Elsword closed in, enough to see her. He realized what happened was that girl's doing, and rised his swords to hit her, but Amelia stopped him.

"Wait. I've seen something like this before" she told him before he could say anything, while bending down near the girl "She is... possessed by some demon, I think"

"And so?"

"Don't kill her"

"Wha... are you kidding me?!"

"I'm just being rational. If you try to kill her, the demon who did all this will probably come out to protect his host. Besides, there are a few things I want to ask her when she wakes up"

"..."

Elsword walked away, probably to prevent himself from hitting Amelia of that girl. The whole thing was still... just unbeliavable. Everything was normal. Then... everything disappeared. With just no reason.

"... Damn it!"

He slammed his swords into a three with all his mighty.

"... damn it... damn..."

He looked far away, to the horizon.

"Sister... at least you... you are still there, right?"

Author's notes

Well, first chapter is finished. I've just a few things to say. First, there will be at least one original class (for Elesis, since she still has no official second jobs). A lot of (probably all) the epic NPCs will apppear.

Also, I tagged it only as "Ara", "Eve" and "Raven", but the story will revolve also around Elsword, Chung, Aisha, Elesis and Rena. Sometimes probably even around one of the epic NPCs.

Last thing. The "Adventure" tag may get switched with Angst, because I'm not sure which one of the two will be more preponderant. That, and I'm not sure about how to write and angst.

I hope you liked this chapter.