Scarlet

The teleporter – a short man with short purple hair that is letting off little blue sparks – quickly brings me over to the supply storage before leaving again through one of his portals without saying a single thing. Which I’m perfectly fine with.

Although this smell…

I frown.

“That’s a lot,” Tar mutters, and I can’t help but nod my head in agreement as I watch the person who looks to be the person in charge here, assuming the badge on his shoulder labeling him as a general. Someone who is only under that gruff old man in terms of military authority.

Before the man can even speak after opening his mouth, I shake my head and nod towards the spectators moving through the storage space around us. And he immediately nods back as he says, “Welcome, Princess Scarlet! Please follow me to my office! We have much to talk about.”

I nod without a word in response before we both make our way through the storage area without doing anything about the people watching us. About a third of whom are changelings.

Fortunately they all seem to be in awe right now, so they aren’t doing anything.

“A rather nice perk of being royalty,” Tar says with more than a little humor in his voice.

We walk through what I quickly find to be a military base probably located somewhere inside of the city before eventually ending up inside of his office. And the moment we walk in, the door shuts behind us, and I find the room to have some pretty impressive soundproofing. To the point that I can only hear through it if I turn my hearing up to the max.

Something I quickly regret doing when the general in front of me says, “We should be safe to speak in here,” making me wince from the pain in my ears.

I quickly push the pain aside to focus on him as I tell him rather bluntly, “A third of the people here are changelings.”

His eyes widen in shock, only for him to grimace and sit down at the desk with a sigh.

“I expected as much…” he mutters, sounding more than a little despondent.

Poor guy.

A few seconds pass in silence before he raises his head to look at me as he says, “There’re probably a number of people out there who won’t believe you.”

And there’s the problem.

I purse my lips as I try to think of a solution.

“Any chance we could just kill one and let the dead changeling turn back to its original form?” I ask while tilting my head slightly. But the general just shakes his head and answers, “No. Changelings take at least half a day for their transformation to wear off after death.”

If that won’t work…

My eyes suddenly widen as an idea comes to me.

“Did you think of something?” the general asks, seemingly perking up slightly. And I just nod my head before turning around to face the door with a grin.

“This might be fun,” I quietly mutter while reaching for the doorknob.

The Supply Storage

The Princess is here! She’s really here!

Zvral feels overwhelming excitement as he stares at the human general’s office with more than a little awe in his gaze. Which is why he notices the Princess leaving his office the very moment she does so. And just the very aura of power the Apex Predator is giving off is enough to make Zvral endlessly proud to have her as his Princess.

Even if she is fighting on the wrong side of the war.

But she’ll return to her own side soon enough. As soon as the humans lose the war, she’ll be back where she belongs.

Zvral believes this with all of his heart.

Then he feels his body tensing up slightly as Her Highness steps up to the center of the main area of the storage zone, following which the general steps up beside her and shouts, “Everyone! Assemble in the main storage hub!” And Zvral knows without even hearing the echo that his voice is carrying throughout the entire base.

The demon doesn’t hesitate to move to join the assembling quadrant in the massive storage hub. Something that would’ve irked him a while back. Just the mere idea of obeying a human, even if it was to get into this location to be able to sabotage them.

But now his Princess is here.

And he would gladly do anything for his Princess.

Silence fills the storage hub for several minutes as all of the workers around the base gather. Then after everyone is in their place in the quadrant, the general raises his voice once more, “We have a guest today. One who will be sharing a few words with a number of you here!” He waves his hand to indicate the Princess. “Welcome Her Highness, Princess Scarlet Art Asger de Archeron! The Princess of the Humans and the Demons!”

Applause immediately fills the storage hub, mostly from the changelings hiding amongst the humans.

But then, without even waiting for the applause to die down, the Apex Predator activates her crest, making all of the changelings in the room flinch as they hold back the urge to immediately bow down to her – the holder of the Royal Crest. And while confusion is beginning to spread amongst the humans at the sight of the Demon King’s Royal Family Crest, the Princess simply raises her voice and declares, “Every changeling in this room, I hereby order you to reveal yourself!”

Zvral’s eyes widen in shock, but what he finds even more surprising is the feeling of his body beginning to go against himself as he lets go of his transformation in an instant without even realizing it until after the fact.

She… I didn’t know she was this close to getting the skill…

Then everything goes dark amidst the shouting humans, the last thing Zvral sees being the Princess appearing in front of him.