Rebellious Grey: The Demon Girl Rises from Slavery
In the city of Granveld, where human greed turns flesh into currency, demons are born already condemned. Gurei—thirteen years old, horned, hungry, and utterly alone—has known nothing but the stinking gutters of the Ash Bottom slum. When a bounty hunter's iron grip drags her from the rain-soaked streets into the slave market's cold machinery, she is stripped of her name, her rags, and what little freedom she had left, reduced to nothing more than "property" to be priced and sold.
But something b
Rebellious Grey: The Demon Girl Rises from Slavery - Shadow of the Abandoned Church — The Night the Sword Is Lowered
Morning light dappled the cobblestones of the village.
Gurei stopped short just outside the inn. The weight of the greatsword biting into her shoulder felt heavier than usual. The smell of last night's assassins' blood still seemed to linger at the back of her nose.
(I don't like it.)
A mud-like emotion churned deep in her chest. That night, she had cut down people by her own will. Not under orders, not for the arena—to protect. The feel of it was somehow different from the sensation of slaughter she had cultivated over three years in the arena.
"Gurei! Look, look!"
Yuuto's bright voice split the morning air.
She turned to see the thirteen-year-old boy bouncing on his toes in front of the village notice board, waving his hand. A worn white shirt, a small leather satchel slung from his shoulder. He looked like any ordinary child—nothing at all like a hero summoned from another world. But those innocent eyes of his were clear enough to seem out of place in this grimy world.
"What is it."
As Gurei approached, Yuuto pointed at a piece of parchment pinned to the board.
"This! It's a request about the abandoned church. People keep going missing. Let's take this one!"
On the parchment, in hard-to-read cursive, was written: "At the abandoned church on the village outskirts, people vanish night after night. Investigation requested. Reward: thirty silver coins." A signature that appeared to belong to the village headman was scrawled in faded ink.
"The abandoned church, is it."
Gurei glanced at the parchment, then swept her gaze around them.
The villagers' stares pierced straight through her. Women heading to the morning market stopped in their tracks, whispering to each other. The man selling bread pointedly turned his face away. From a house window, a small child peered out at her. The sound of the mother hurriedly shutting the window followed.
(A demon with her, is it.)
Two great bull-like horns extending forward from Gurei's head. A brand burned into her chest with a hot iron. A black iron collar around her neck. Every one of them was nothing but an object of fear and disgust to the people of this village.
"That demon's still in the village?"
"Someone ought to turn her over to the military police."
"Why would the Hero bring something like that along, anyway?"
The deliberately audible mutters dissolved into the morning air. Gurei ignored them. She was used to it. For three years, both inside and outside the arena, she had been bathed in words like these.
"All right, decided! I'm taking this job!"
Yuuto laughed without a care.
"Why."
Gurei's voice resonated low.
"Huh?"
"Why help a village like this. They despise me as a demon, and they laugh at you behind your back. Whether people like that vanish or die—it's nothing to me."
Gurei flicked the parchment on the board with her finger.
"You have no obligation to take it."
Yuuto looked up at Gurei with a blank expression. Then, cheerfully:
"Because there are people in trouble, that's why."
Gurei's brow twitched.
"...Is that all."
"Yep. That's all. If someone's in trouble, you help them. Isn't that just what a hero does?"
There was not a single cloud in Yuuto's eyes.
Gurei found herself overlaying that gaze with the memory of a boy from long ago.
(Kain.)
The boy who, in that arena, was the only one to look directly at Gurei. The boy who taught kindness to Gurei, a demon orphan.
"Become free..."
Kain, too, had reached out to those in need without any calculation—just as Yuuto did now.
(I don't like it.)
Gurei gritted her teeth.
"...Do as you please."
"Yay! Then let's go to the village chief's place right away!"
Before Gurei could even finish answering, Yuuto was already running.
Gurei followed the boy's retreating figure with dark purple eyes. Her eyes, devoid of highlights, swallowed the morning light and looked like bottomless darkness.
(Why does this one—)
(Why does he irritate me so much—)
No answer came.
---
The village inn was a two-story wooden building. The first floor served as a dining hall and common room, where the fireplace slowly warmed the damp air.
As Gurei passed through the door, the innkeeper looked up from behind the counter. A thin man in his mid-fifties. He wore a grease-stained apron and was wiping the same plate over and over with a cloth in his hand.
"...Oh, the demon."
The innkeeper's voice was artificially bright.
"Sorry about this, but your room's already been taken. The Hero is welcome to use the guest room on the second floor, but you... let's see, the stable out back is empty."
The innkeeper's gaze slid from Gurei's horns to the brand on her chest, then to the collar. Gurei did not miss the curiosity and contempt mingled in those eyes.
"Hey! What are you saying!"
Yuuto rushed up to the counter.
"Gurei is with me! Please let us stay together!"
"Well now, Hero. Even if you say that, this is a small inn. And, you see, there's the other guests to consider."
The innkeeper smiled as though troubled, but his eyes were not smiling at all.
"A demon sleeping under the same roof—the other guests wouldn't like it, would they. And if something were to be stolen, it'd be my responsibility."
"Gurei would never do that!"
"Enough."
Gurei cut off Yuuto's words.
"I'm used to it. The stable is plenty."
"But...!"
"You sleep upstairs. Tomorrow comes early."
With only that, Gurei turned her back and went around to the rear of the inn.
"Gurei!"
With Yuuto's call at her back, Gurei stepped into the dim stable.
The smell of straw hit her nose. Two horses in the stalls along the wall were restlessly tossing their heads. As Gurei drew near, one gave a frightened neigh.
(Even beasts despise me.)
Gurei lowered herself onto a pile of straw by the wall. Slowly, she brought the greatsword down from her back.
Thud.
A heavy sound. A hundred and fifty centimeters of executioner's blade. The very weight of that woman—the Queen of Cruel Blades—who had left it behind.
Gurei cradled the sword in both hands and stared at it.
(I still can't swing it.)
She murmured it in her heart.
No—that wasn't quite right. She could swing it. In the arena, she had cut down hundreds of enemies. The knights of the Holy Order, last night's assassins—she had cut them all with this sword.
But—
(The sensation of swinging the blade comes tangled with wrongness.)
Gurei opened and closed her right hand.
The feel of that moment three years ago still lingered at her fingertips. The unpleasant resistance of flesh as she stabbed Serafina. The sensation of warm blood running down her wrist. And that instant when a life vanished within her own hands.
(I don't like it.)
The same words repeated over and over deep in her chest.
Gurei gripped the greatsword anew. She rose onto the straw and slowly took a practice stance.
She drew a breath.
One flash.
A whum, the sound of air being split.
But—something was off. The sword's trajectory wavered, just slightly. That sensation lingering in her palm. The feeling of stabbing her own master threw off her blade path.
(Since three years ago, always—)
(Every time I swing the sword, that sensation throws me off.)
Gurei lowered the greatsword.
"...I still can't swing it."
A voiceless voice dissolved into the smell of straw.
---
The next day.
The sky was overcast, and a cold wind blew through the village streets.
Gurei waited at the stable entrance for Yuuto.
"Gurei, good morning! Did you sleep well?"
Yuuto came running from the inn's back door. He showed no sign of worrying about last night.
"Whatever."
Gurei resettled the greatsword on her back.
The two of them set off down the road toward the abandoned church on the village outskirts. The cobblestone path quickly turned to dirt once they left the village, with weeds growing thick on either side. On a distant hill, the spire of an old church jutted against the cloudy sky like a needle.
"Hey, Gurei."
Walking beside Gurei, Yuuto spoke up suddenly.
"Gurei, why is it that you're so strong, but you don't understand freedom?"
Gurei's feet nearly stopped for an instant.
(Freedom.)
That word again.
Kain's word. Serafina's question. And now Yuuto's innocent doubt.
"...I don't know."
Gurei kept walking.
"Ever since I can remember, I was in the slums, and after that I lived as a slave gladiator. I've never once thought about what freedom is. I've only ever thought about forcing down the present that I don't like."
"I see..."
Yuuto thought for a moment, then said in a bright voice:
"Freedom is a fun thing, you know! Going where you want to go, eating what you want to eat, seeing what you want to see. If we go on adventures together, I'm sure you'll understand!"
Yuuto's smile was strangely dazzling under the cloudy sky.
Gurei found herself squinting at that brightness.
(Freedom is a fun thing.)
(Is it really that simple?)
(But for this one, it probably really is.)
Something deep in Gurei's chest creaked.
The reason she swung her sword. It had become nothing but for the sake of cutting. Fighting strong opponents and winning. That alone was the only way to clear the sediment in her head.
(What am I swinging my sword for?)
(Not for freedom, not to protect.)
(Only to cut down the present I don't like.)
Gurei felt the weight of the greatsword on her back anew.
---
"Gurei, look! That's the abandoned church!"
Yuuto pointed ahead. By the time they reached the abandoned church, the sun had already begun to sink.
On the hill stood a stone church. Its spire leaned, vines crawled over the walls, and every window was shattered. One glance was enough to see it had gone untouched by human hands for a long time—a desolate ruin.
But—
Gurei furrowed her brow.
(Something's there.)
A cold presence that pricked at the skin. Something like the killing intent she had felt countless times in the arena, yet more clinging, more unpleasant—flowing out from deep within the church.
As dusk closed in, the two of them stood before the church.
Gurei drove the greatsword into the ground.
Shhk.
The blade bit deep into the damp earth.
(What am I swinging my sword for?)
(To learn what freedom is?)
(Or just because I want to cut?)
No answer yet.
But—
That was when it happened.
Beyond the shattered window of the church, a pale blue light flickered softly to life.
"...Huh?"
Yuuto noticed the light and stepped forward.
In that instant—
Creak, creak, creak.
The ground beneath Yuuto's feet began to groan ominously.
"Gurei... the ground..."
Yuuto's voice trembled with fear for the first time.
Gurei pulled the greatsword free and stepped in front of Yuuto.
"Stay back."
"But..."
"If you come, you'll just be in the way."
Gurei's voice was cold as ice.
Yuuto looked momentarily sulky, but seeing Gurei's serious expression, he fell silent and stepped back.
Gurei slowly pushed open the church door.
Giii...
The rusted hinges let out an ear-piercing sound.
A faint stench of rot flowed out along with the cold wind.
(This smell...)
Gurei had smelled it before. The sickly-sweet stench that drifted when corpses rotted in the arena's underground.
Deep in the chapel beyond, a pale blue light wavered.
Gurei gripped the greatsword anew.
"Wait here."
"Gurei...!"
"I said don't move."
Without waiting for Yuuto's reply, Gurei stepped into the church.
The cold air clung to her skin.
(Something's ahead.)
(Something that's making people vanish.)
Gurei advanced step by step into the dark depths of the church.
Feeling Yuuto's anxious gaze on her back.
And in Gurei's mind, last night's words from Yuuto came back.
"If it's with Gurei, I can go anywhere. So... stay with me. Partner."
(Partner, huh.)
Gurei gritted her teeth.
(Can I protect you?)
(With this greatsword whose path keeps wavering?)
Deep in the chapel, the pale blue light swayed slowly, as though waiting for Gurei.
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.