Wolf of the Blood Moon - Book 3 - Chapter 52 - Tartarus Lesson Part I (Patreon)

                                                  Scarlet

The next dusk has me immediately being pull out of bed and told to get ready for my outing with the Demon King, very much confusing me until Tar reminds me what happened last night. At which point I just start going through the motions, taking a bath in that lovely bath chamber that has reminded me of how much I’ve always loved baths, and finally changing into a comfortable shirt and shorts and activating my armor. Then I scowl at my royal guards on the way to the front gate due to them outing me to the Demon King. Not that I expected them to really do anything else, but still.

Once I reach the front gate of the castle, I find the Demon King standing there in his usual armor simply talking with Leonidas with a blood domain pulled up around them to keep their conversation private. But when I get close enough, they both turn to me and pull the blood domain down.

“Good dusk, Scarlet,” Leonidas says, a smirk touching his lips that has me narrowing my eyes. “How did you sleep?”

Something about that smirk is suspicious. I don’t know what, but something about it is.

After a few seconds I eventually answer, “I slept well,” failing to figure out what’s up.

His smirk grows a little bit at that, and he nods to his father, saying, “Well, I’ll be off then,” and leaves.

Very suspicious.

“Hello again,” Grandpa says with a smile of his own. Although his doesn’t look suspicious. It actually looks a tad scary and too warm. “As we discussed last night, we’ll be going on a trip to the city so I can introduce you to demon society.”

I nod at that, not exactly the most happy about this turn of events, but not exactly all that against it either. Because while I would rather go hunt, I do understand that I need to know this stuff if I’ll be living here for a while.

So we set off.

Flying.

My feet immediately flounder around in the air as I try not to panic at suddenly being lifted into the air as he takes us straight towards the city, but Grandpa just laughs, amused by my reaction. Which has me glaring at him.

But that just makes him laugh even harder, so I eventually cross my arms and refuse to look at him, instead looking at the city.

The city itself spans for about fifty or so kilometers, and the infrastructure is entirely made up of medieval fantasy style buildings with a lot of blood metal being used in the buildings themselves. Which I guess makes sense since blood lycans can make it themselves.

Each of the buildings are rather extravagant, making it a slightly odd looking city since it’s like a city made up of mansions of all kinds. Meanwhile the streets have hundreds of blood lycans wandering around everywhere, including blood lycan children who are weaker than myself.

Overall it’s a rather beautiful sight, but also one that would terrify most humans on Earth just from the vast quantity of Nobles down there.

“The economy between the duchies is a rather simple one in terms of what the blood lycans offer the other demon races,” Grandpa says, noticing my examination of the city.

“Blood metal?” I guess, and he nods immediately as we continue floating down to the city below.

“Correct,” he states before we land in a large plaza. “The blood lycans are the only ones who can make it, and it’s the strongest metal on the planet. So it’s rather strongly desired in terms of armor.”

As he’s speaking, all the blood lycans around us, Noble or not, bow first towards him and then towards me, albeit slightly less so towards me, before continuing on their way without a word.

Grandpa puts up a blood domain around us to keep our conversation private while we begin moving through the plaza towards one city street filled with large stores on both sides of it. “We blood lycans tend to live amongst our own with very few other races of demons in our cities outside of visitors and merchants, simply because our pack is rather close together most of the time.” I look around as he talks, taking note of how almost everyone here is indeed a blood lycan but there are also a few other demons here as well, including some vampires, an orc, some walking skeletons, and several other interesting demons. Most of which are in the stores. “Although the cities we do live in are generally separated based on the individual in the pack’s rank, but while the lowest members of the pack aren’t exactly treated as well by the higher ranking members, they’re still seen as mostly superior to the other demon races by fellow blood lycans. So they’re not treated poorly per se either.”

That part I knew about. It’s rather common knowledge after all.

We continue walking through the street until we seemingly leave whatever shopping district we were in and end up at the crossroads between what looks to be a district full of inns along with a large residency district full of homes.

“This district is meant for the visiting merchants and any demons wishing to greet your father or challenge a blood lycan for the prestige that winning would bring them,” Grandpa says as he waves towards the district with the inns, the man stopping in the middle of the crossroads. Then he points at the other district with the homes and continues, “And this is the residential area where the homes are located. Meanwhile back where we came from had more homes as you could probably guess, and honestly, most of this city is just full of homes.”

I blink at that, briefly wondering what part of that was good teaching.

“We blood lycans have a rather strict hierarchy, and most of the governing over the city takes place in the Castle of Ruin itself, so there isn’t a need for a city hall or other governing buildings in the city itself,” Grandpa answers the look I’m sending him with a shrug. “Listen to those above you in the pack. That’s all. And our family is at the top of the pack. The only exception is if you’re the same age as someone else who is higher up in the pack. Then you can challenge them for the right to refuse their orders.”

Oh. Wow.

This is just like I expected it would be.

“Now,” he says, my feet suddenly leaving the ground as I bite my tongue so as to hold back a yelp. “Let’s move onto the common sense of the world itself.”

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