The Demon King's Hero Of Light 190 Chapter 190 Knock Knock

The two groups had their populations separated, so Aella didn't think fights would break out, and from what she could see, they were doing well so far. Food was definitely going to be their biggest problem, so the sooner she could get a bar for Bob in the halfling caves, the better they would be. She could ask Bob how to get into the gnomish bunkers after he had a bar open up.

"Ah, the king of the demons!" exclaimed a halfling when she teleported in, surprising him. "You really need to warn someone before you go popping into a place!"

"I didn't mean to scare you," Aella said with a frown.

"Demon? She doesn't look like a demon," said a young girl.

"Don't worry about him, dear," said a woman halfling. "He's scared of his own shadow."

"Hey! That was just one time, and it was dark out!" he grumbled, crossing his arms in annoyance.

"It sure was funny though!" laughed the younger girl.

"I hate to interrupt," said Aella, not sure what the three had been doing before she showed up. This corner of the caves was separate from the rest of the area where the halflings had their little cottages built, and Aella would have thought it to be empty, which is why she decided to teleport to it. Apparently, she was wrong.

"Oh, you weren't interrupting anything important," waved the older girl with a chuckle.

"Not important!" complained the guy with a huff, turning and stomping off.

"What were you visiting for?" asked the younger girl.

"I was wanting to talk to you about possibly opening a bar for a guy I know, who was wanting to buy food from you for the other kingdoms," Aella said quickly before they could change the topic again.

"A bar? What's that?" asked the younger girl.

"I think it's a place where you buy drinks, kind of like an inn," said the older girl.

"Oh, there hasn't been one of those in a long time," said the younger girl. "At least, I don't think there has been."

"Nope, unless you travel clear over to the other side of the country. I think they have one over there," said the older girl.

"What would we buy the drink with?" asked the younger girl. "We don't really use coins much."

"You could sell food to Bob for coins, and then spend the coins on the drinks," said Aella.

"Well, we have plenty of food. That sounds kind of fun," agreed the younger girl.

"It would definitely give us a change of conversation," agreed the older girl. "I'm so tired of 'Who has the best cabbages' contests."

"Me, too!" laughed the younger girl.

"So, where would be a good place for the bar?" asked Aella, jumping in before they continued to derail the topic.

"How about over there, in that empty barn? Old Mcdoodle killed off all his critters to stock the meat pantry last week, and it's kind of depressing walking by it, with it empty and all," said the older halfling girl.

"Will he mind it becoming a bar?" asked Aella, glancing over at the nice building.

"Oh, he died two days ago. We had the funeral last night. He won't mind a bit," said the younger girl with a wave of her hand.

"Ah," said Aella, not entirely sure what to say to that. "Then let's get it going."

The two halfling girls followed behind her as she walked over towards the barn, drawing the attention of other halflings in the area. It was kind of hard to sneak anywhere when you towered over the buildings themselves. Throwing open the door, Aella stepped inside and nodded to Bob, who obviously had been listening out for the conversation, and had already taken the liberty to plop his bar into place.

"Wow!" exclaimed the two girls, stepping inside and looking around. "That was fast! You must have used magic!"

"Of course," chuckled Bob, wiping the counter down and giving the girls a smile that caused them both to giggle.

"I need to know how to contact the gnomes," said Aella, ignoring the halflings as they streamed in to look around.

Bob nodded, "I know, but it's not going to be easy for you. If you had gotten the bar started before the storms, you wouldn't have to dig through the rubble now, but I guess you can just have the wind help you move some of it."

Aella sighed, but nodded to keep him talking. She just hoped he wouldn't add a charge to the information. She was tired of owing him things.

"Find the rubble of the halfling restaurant, and dig down where the back door was, to find the entrance to the main bunker. It will be difficult to open the door, because of how they have it locked, but you'll be able to manage," he chuckled.

"Will you be able to keep all of the kingdoms fed during the storms this way?" asked Aella.

"I don't like it, but yes. I would rather help in this way, than risk losing the hold I have in this realm when I lose all my bars."

"What hold do you have on the realm?" asked Aella suspiciously. She knew Bob was powerful, but she didn't like the idea of him having some control over her realm.

"Only that I can open bars here. I can't bring anyone or anything from another realm here, and if I lose all of my bars, then I can't open new ones without negotiating with the realm again. That was painful the first time, and with it weakened right now, I wouldn't want to do it again anytime soon."

"It's weakened right now?" asked Aella surprised.

"You don't think that shoving all that loose mana into the air, and causing realm wide storms, wouldn't cause some backlash? If Stella hadn't brought a world tree, and Joseph hadn't pumped the tree a little, your realm would have been torn apart, rather than just inconvenienced a little."

Aella swallowed and nodded her understanding. There was so much about realms and magic she didn't understand, and honestly, didn't want to understand.

"Besides, you should really go get Precious. When the realm saved your hide, it tied the two of you together. He��s going through withdrawals."

Aella opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, then decided it didn't matter. Teleporting to the throne room, she ignored the startled looks as she marched towards the throne, where Precious was perched.

"Where have you been!?" he mewed at her, twitching his tail angrily. "You've been gone forever!"

"I know, I know," she said, reached out for him. "I had business to attend to. And I'm not done."

"Are you really talking to the cat?" asked Firion, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

"Yes? Why? Can't you understand him?" asked Aella, moving Precious to her shoulder after he flew to her arm. The puncture marks from his claws healed almost as fast as they were made.

"Understand a cat's meows?" asked Firion, with a chuckle. "No, Aella. That would be a new one for me."

"Hmm," murmured Aella thoughtfully, glancing at the cat on her shoulder. "Is that on purpose, that only I can understand you? I could have sworn you were talking to him earlier."

"Hmph. Just because he can't understand me, doesn't mean we can't have a conversation," purred Precious, licking a paw.

"I was talking to the cat, yes," said Firion, rubbing his head. "But not because I could understand its little cries. Haven't you ever talked to something that couldn't talk back?"

Aella paused to think about that. "Maybe?"

"So, you can really understand what it says?" he asked, curiosity sparkling in his eyes.

"Yes, and if anything happens to him, I'll torture the person responsible," she growled.

Firion laughed and left the room, drawing curious glances from the people who hadn't heard their conversation. Frederik and Seifer shared a glance but neither of them was interested in adding to the conversation. Aella was just fine with that.

Teleporting to the halfling restaurant in the destroyed gnomish city, she sighed when she looked at the pile of rubble Bob had said she needed to move.

"Just use your wind powers," said Precious, wrapping his tail around her neck and laying down.

Aella nodded and turned to face the area that needed cleared. The wind was delighted at her request, flinging the rubble high into the air and dancing with it before letting it fall back to the ground. It only took a few moments to clear the s.p.a.ce. Aella found it was actually more difficult to get the wind to stop flinging debris around, than it had been to convince it to start.

Trying to pull on the door, she found it locked and wouldn't bust. Scratching her head after a moment, she finally just knocked on it. A few moments pa.s.sed, while she tried to figure out what to do next, before the door popped open and a gnome peeked out.

"What are you doing? Don't you know that we're not supposed to open this door?" he asked.