Refusing My God’s Advances

"Are you the hero who saved us?" one of the guards asked, eyeing me with a mix of gratitude and suspicion.

"Yeah, yeah, that's me. I'm Leon. Now, let's get these demons tied up and figure out what's going on," I replied, trying to expedite the process.

With the help of the guards and the man with the rope, we managed to secure the demons. The townspeople looked on with a mixture of fear and curiosity, unsure of what to make of the situation.

Once everything was settled, I turned to the guard. "Now, do you have a place where we can interrogate these demons? We need to find out who's controlling them and why they are attacking the town."

"Controlling? That is just what these creatures do!" The guard exclaimed, but then flinched back as I narrowed my eyes.

"I didn't ask you to solve the crime, Sherlock. Find me a place to store all these people and healers, if there is such a thing in this world," I growled, and the guard nodded, looking like he was going to wet his pants, but he nodded and took off.

That was when Shelli tapped my arm. I looked down at her, and she had a worried look. "What's up?" I asked.

"While this world does have healing magic, there are no humans that will heal a demon, no matter what you say to them," Shelli explained, but I shrugged.

"I am not one for using words too well. I used to have to rely on my mind to think up plans, but now I have this lovely strength boost to drive my points," I said with a straight face.

Shelli shivered, even though it was very warm out, giving me a worried look. "Why do you seem scarier than the monsters we are fighting?"

"Because I am closer to a monster than they are," I said and then noticed the guard came running back with three priest-like humans.

"Where are the injured?!" The first, and I suppose the most handsome of the group asked with a haughty tone that I didn't like. 

Before answering, I examined the other two, but they seemed much more timid than the speaker. That was good, and my plan should work fine.

"Can you heal your own wounds? Like, if you broke your arm?" I asked as I walked up to the man standing proudly.

The man grinned, beaming with confidence and bravado. The type of person I hated.

"Of course I can! Ha ha!" The man laughed, throwing his head back, and using one hand to dramatically run through his blonde hair, but the laughter turned into a scream.

I had reached over, grabbed the man's forearm, and causally broke both the bones like twigs. The man dropped to the ground in pain, and everyone backed up in shock.

"Heal yourself, and then you and the other two will follow me," I instructed as the man glared up at me with tears in his eyes.

"What is wrong with you?! Do you think I would listen to you after you broke my arm?!" The man demanded as he healed his arm surprisingly fast, but then I broke it again, before repeating myself. 

Once I finished, I looked at the other two with a serious expression. "I am going to ask you to do something that you will not like,'' I explained and then pointed to the one on the ground. "I will not accept no for an answer, considering that I just saved your village."

Whispers from the people about me being a barbarian, and multiple other choice names started to pop up, but the average-looking male and female healers nodded their heads.

"Good. Now, come and heal the demons that have serious injuries or broken bones. They will not attack you," I said as I turned and led them over to the large group of silent tied-up demons, finishing my sentence while fanning my glare across the group.

The first two healers started right away, but the haughty one was still hesitant at the first demon. I walked over to stand behind him, making the man flinch as he noticed, looking back at me.

"Heal, or I will start figuring out how much pressure it takes to break the other bones in your body," I growled, and then the man started to heal the badly hurt demon almost twice as fast as the other two. 

The man was annoying but pretty useful.

When the group was all on its way with healing, I stepped back, and Shelli approached me with a weary look. "Umm... The guards want to know if they can start taking the healed demons to the warehouse they cleaned out."

Shelli looked scared of me, so I tried to relax my face. I personally didn't want to be the demon here, but my plans meant more to me than what people thought of me.

"Sure, but tell them not to lay a finger on them besides transport," I said, and Shelli nodded but didn't leave. "What is it?"

"Is it just me, or are you being harder on the humans than the demons? You know why you were brought to this world, right?" Shelli finally asked after a short pause, and I nodded.

"I defeated them and almost killed a few. I am doing my job, but being a human doesn't make you a saint. Until I know what is going on, I will be treating the demons like people. If I am wrong, I will kill them all just like the goblins, and be done with it, but I don't think that is the case," I explained, and then looked to the frantic healer. 

"As for him. Whoever he is, I don't like him, but that wasn't why I broke his arm. I asked if he could heal it because you said they wouldn't do it if I used words. Rather than waste time or build up something, I just drop the threat off the hop. The other two saw it, and they put up no resistance, as planned," I explained, and Shelli sighed.

"You are not how I expected after reading your files of your life. I had thought you would be the type that would want a chance to change themselves, but I am not sure now..." Shelli explained, her voice trailing off.

In response, I reached out and patted her head. I was a dick, but not a complete asshole. Taking another breath in, I tried to explain myself better.

“Everything that happened went exactly as planned, up till you got captured. I had already planned to knock out all the demons from the beginning. The plan is to use them as a labor force for completing quests I don't specifically have to do, since not all quests specify that I have to be the one to do it. Though, I ended up actually hurting them, so they had to be healed,” I explained, but that still didn’t seem to satisfy her.

“While I can accept you had a plan, why didn’t you just kill them? You are the hero, and that is your job, right?” Shelli replied right away, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“They are defeated,” I said, pointing to the tied-up mob, then took another deep breath. “Riddle me this. A group of humans raid another village, but they don't hurt anyone, or take anything. All they do is break and set fires to things while chasing people around. Do you kill them?”

Finally, Shelli’s concerned face fractured in the face of my question. It was more than clear to me that something wasn’t right, but it was more than the demons. 

The stink of that Mad God was all over this, but I had no proof. Even with it, I had no way to do anything about it currently, so I needed to tread extremely cautiously. I didn’t want to get mixed up in problems, but I also couldn’t just ignore this clear wrongness or my overall mission.

“I… I never thought about it that way… now that you mention it… there have never been any casualties unless the humans actually attacked the demons…” Shelli said, lost in her thoughts, so I ruffled her hair to bring her back to me. I didn’t want her to think too much about the cause, since I suspected she might be under the same kind of control.

“Don’t think about it too hard,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face that just felt weird. “Go deal with the demons.”