Chapter 53: Public Relations And Executions

Lucien walks down the inn stairs into a silence that feels almost louder than the mob waiting outside.

Doors shut before he reaches them, quiet clicks of latches falling into place just ahead of his footsteps.

Staff scatter into back rooms without a word, a broom left abandoned mid-sweep leaning against the wall, its owner nowhere in sight. Hallways empty the moment he steps into them, like the whole building is holding its breath just to avoid being anywhere near him.

"Ouch." he pouts, as a fellow patron dramatically backpedalled into their room as soon as they stepped out and saw Lucien.

It stings more than he expects. He pauses on the last step, one hand on the bannister, and lets that sink in for a second before continuing down.

Serenith, drifting above him at a respectful distance, notices how quiet he’s gone. No running commentary, no half-formed pitch about turning the mob into future clients.

"Scared?" she asks, and there’s less mockery in it than usual.

"No. Much worse. Emotional." He keeps his eyes forward. "People flock to me, Serenith. That’s who I am. I create wealth, opportunity. Things people want. Not this... not something everyone runs from, especially when I’m actually trying to help and not just rake in profits and pus... nevermind."

She watches him a moment longer, something shifting behind her eyes as she takes in the set of his shoulders, the way his usual swagger has gone quiet and careful.

Despite everything, the depravity, the ego, the sheer chaos of him. He genuinely wants to do good here, in his own ridiculous, roundabout, debaucherously insane way.

She floats closer, squeezes his shoulder. "I’m here. Whatever happens, I’ll make sure you survive it."

He turns to her, and a massive grin splits across his face, eyes brightening like a sinner finding salvation.

"Oh, please." Serenith sighs, soundly genuinely defeated, "Don’t, ruin the moment."

He bites his tongue, visibly restraining himself with real effort, then turns sharply toward the door, shoulders squaring back into their usual confident line.

"Fine then, my feathery friend." he says, that swagger in his voice firmly back where it belongs, "Our angel-slash-demon-lord bonding session will have to wait until after I talk my way out of an execution."

They step outside together into a sea of torches and raised farm tools, the whole village packed shoulder to shoulder across the square, morning sun glinting off metal polished just for the occasion.

The crowd goes dead silent the instant they spot him in the doorway.

He takes one step forward.

The entire mob takes one step back in unison, a visible ripple of retreat spreading outward through the packed bodies like he’s dropped a stone into a very hostile, very crowded pond.

"Impressive. Truly, deeply united in your hatred of me. I don’t think I’ve ever managed that kind of consensus with a business proposal." He chuckles under his breath, low and genuinely a little impressed.

A sharp whistle cuts clean through the crowd, and it parts down the middle like water, revealing a massive boar-kin man flanked by two armed guards, tusks polished, chest bare and marked with old scars.

He looks Lucien up and down slowly, deliberately, and laughs. A booming, genuinely amused sound.

"Scrawniest demon lord I’ve ever seen."

"Seen a lot of them, have you?" Lucien asks, one eyebrow raised.

The boar-kin flushes, tusks twitching. "No."

"I lost my powers the moment I left the Ashlands," Lucien says, spreading both hands wide, almost apologetic. "And the underwhelming presence is, unfortunately, a side-effect. Wish I had better news for you."

"Are you insane?" Serenith chokes audibly behind him. "Migth as well hang yourself at this point!" she hisses.

He waves her off without so much as glancing back, eyes fixed on the chief.

The chief bellows another laugh, deep and rolling. "So what exactly are you doing here, then, if you’ve got no power to back up the title?"

"I’m not the demon lords of old." Lucien says, meeting his eyes steadily. "I want to help. I bring investment and innovation, not invasion."

The chief studies him for a long moment, then barks out another laugh and turns to the crowd, "FALSE ALARM!" he bellows, "No demon lord here. Mad man with an ego too big for his boots. Back to work!"

The crowd deflates instantly, a wave of grumbling rolling through the square, torches lowering, someone in the back complaining loudly that nothing interesting ever happens around here anymore.

One man stomps out his torch against the dirt, furious he’d spent his entire morning carefully building it for nothing.

"I AM the demon lord," Lucien yells, panicking slightly as the crowd parts, genuinely upset that they won’t believe him. "I’ll prove it if I must!"

The crowd spins back around, grinning, torches relighting all at once.

"BURN THE DEMON LORD! BURN THE DEMON LORD!"

The lynching, apparently, back on the table.

"That is not the reaction I was hoping for." Lucien mutters under his breath.

"You are genuinely terrible at this," Serenith says, hovering just behind his shoulder, not bothering to hide the disbelief in her voice.

The crowd parts again as two enormous minotaurs shoulder their way through, clearing a path, and behind them Kamiko appears, smiling warmly, entirely untroubled by the chaos around her, gown trailing elegantly through the dust of the square.

"Sorry," Lucien calls to her, offering a small, sheepish wave. "Might be a little late for our meeting."

She waves him off with a lazy flick of one wrist, twirls her other hand through the air, and a chair materializes beside her in a swirl of purple smoke, ornate and entirely out of place amid the mob. She settles into it without hurry, lights her pipe, takes a slow first draw, and gestures for him to continue with an idle wave.

"Please, don’t delay on my account, I’m very interested in this proof you’re to share."

"You don’t actually believe me?"

"I thought you were lying," she admits, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. "Typical business posturing. Figured you had Ashland connections and were dressing it up to seem more impressive. I even laughed it off, at first, back at the brothel."

He thinks back... and yes, now that he considers it properly, she had laughed for an uncomfortably long time when he’d first mentioned the title, longer than any polite social laugh really warranted.

"This might seriously affect our friends-with-benefits arrangement," he says, only half joking.

"That would hurt." she says, genuinely wounded at the thought. "But I’ll survive."

He groans, dragging a hand down his face. "Fine. I’ll prove it."

He considers, briefly, calling for Val. And immediately discards the idea as a one-way ticket to further humiliation. Instead he leans toward Serenith and hisses through his teeth for her to do something.

Magic. Anything.

"I can’t," she whispers back, wings pulling in tight against her back. "We aren’t even supposed to be outside the Ashlands under the terms of the resurrection contract. I’m honestly amazed we’ve made it this far without consequence. I have no idea what happens if I expose myself to an entire village of beast-kin at once. They could be smited on the spot, or worse. I’m not willing to test it over a crowd’s patience."

"Hurry up!" Someone in the crowd shouts, "I’m late for work! Got goats waiting!"

Lucien sheepishly turns back. "It appears, due to some technical difficulties, proof is momentarily off the table, but if you’d just—"

"I woke up early for this!" The man throws up his hands, "For nothing!" then stalks off.

The rest of the crowd follows suit in ragged clusters, grumbling amongst themselves about wasted mornings and wasting good pitchforks on some crazy out-of-towner.

Someone near the edge suggests, almost cheerfully, that they should lynch him anyway, purely on principle, and the crowd laughs that off good-naturedly and begins to disperse for real this time, torches guttering out one by one.

"That was rather emasculating." Lucien exhales slowly, shoulders sagging.

"Be grateful," Serenith says, drifting down beside him. "They were genuinely, seriously ready to kill you."

He’s already turning back toward the inn, half-formed apology to Kamiko forming on his lips, when an old tortoise-kin woman waddles forward through the thinning crowd, moving with the slow, relaxed certainty of someone who has never once in her long life been in a rush.

"Ask the Beast Mother!" she calls out, voice creaking with age but carrying across the square nonetheless. "If he’s truly the Demon Lord... a threat to us... she’ll make it known!"

The crowd goes quiet again, this time thoughtful instead of hostile, torches lowering as heads turn toward one another, murmuring the idea back and forth like they’re testing its weight.

And Lucien’s face beams with anticipation.