The Imp looked at the Children in front of him, trying to figure out what they meant. He knew about the word 'Broken', because it was in the story in his book, but he didn't understand what they actually meant with that in this situation.
Broken things were supposed to be unusable, useless, or shattered, but these Children seemed to be normal to the Imp, even if they made him worry about a lot of things. Either way, the Imp figured it wouldn't make sense to beat around the bush and just ask.
"You broken?" He asked, and Arc replied with a nod, "Yes, we're broken. We are children that nobody else wants, because our skills have control over us, and not the other way around. What do you say, Mister Imp? Will you throw us away like everyone else did, or will you let us stay with you?" Arc asked, while the children behind him were seemingly scared of the Imp, but Arc himself wasn't.
"Broken, how?" The Imp asked next, because Arc seemingly didn't understand what he asked him. With a sigh, Arc just crossed his arms and looked at the round boy next to him, Rudy.
"Let's start with him. You saw it already, so it shouldn-" Arc started, but before he could finish the sentence, the girl behind him, Sammy, stopped him. "Wh-What are you doing..? It's a Monster... We can't trust it..." She told the boy quietly, thinking that the Imp didn't hear her. But on the contrary, he heard it quite clearly.
But Arc just turned around toward her and smiled like normal, although a deep shiver ran over the Imp's spine when he saw just the edge of Arc's eyes. "You're saying he's a Monster, but what about everyone else? Everyone that treats us like we're inhuman, like we're some tool to be used. Maybe you didn't realize it yet, but we were going to the Capital. Do you know what they do with Broken Children there? They turn them into tools of war! Clementine would be someone used only to keep the soldiers alive over and over again no matter how much damage they take, you would be used to talk others into killing themselves, Leon would be used to rile up monsters!" Arc exclaimed, slowly starting to get louder and louder as he was speaking before he started up yelling at the girl in front of her, both of them, Sammy as well as Arc himself, shaking heavily.
But in response to what was happening, not only did the child that Sammy was holding in her arms start crying, but the child that the Imp had to care for started crying as well.
Immediately the Imp rushed forward toward the carriage without a moment's hesitation. When he did so, all the children flinched in response and stepped away thinking they were about to be attacked, but they never thought that the Imp would jump through the open door of the carriage toward the child in the basket.
As soon as he got there, the Imp leaned forward to see if it soiled itself again, but noticing that this wasn't the case, he quickly grabbed the bottle laying next to it and wanted to feed the child some milk, but the child didn't seem to want to eat either.
Instantly after realizing that something was wrong, the Imp turned to the children outside of the carriage and grabbed the basket, carrying it outside before looking at Arc, who seemed to have caused the state the child was in.
"You hurt it! What you do?" The Imp asked angrily as he ground his teeth together and leaned in toward Arc, and even now he didn't seem to be able to hold back and all of his emotions came out together, causing Arc to break down and drop to his knees while holding his face, sobbing.
"I-I didn't- I didn't do any... anything... I..." He began to stutter, and the Imp slowly got way too annoyed at him to let this keep going. He thought this child might be of use, but the Imp might as well use it to get stronger again by killing it. Because that's what he needed to do right now.
He was a Monster, why would he care if he killed a person? The Imp was supposed to do that, wasn't he? So why, why did it feel wrong to stab this child then? It was right there, his dagger was in his hand, so what the hell was this child doing to him that he wasn't able to just stab it?
Angrily, the Imp ground his teeth and looked around himself, before noticing that the child that Sammy was holding already stopped crying. So, the Imp figured it was more important to think about this now.
"You, what wrong with childs?" The Imp asked as he stared at the young girl, and she looked at the toddler in the basket and shook her head.
"It... It was startled... I think..." She replied nervously, and the Imp continued to just stare her down, "How get rid of startled?" He asked, and slowly, Sammy gave the child she was holding to Rudy, before she leaned toward the child in the basket to try and pick it up, but the Imp stopped her and held the dagger in front of her.
Why he didn't just stab her arm to show his point was also unknown to him, after all, that's what he did with that woman from before. But somehow, he thought he shouldn't do this right now.
"No touch." The Imp told her, but Sammy looked at him confused, "B-But I-"
"Imp say, no touch." He interrupted her with a glare, and Sammy took a step backward and nodded her head. "Th-Then... Hold the child..." She explained to him, and the Imp nodded and placed the dagger down on the ground so that he could use both his hands for this.
Slowly, he picked it up like he thought was right, which was under its arms, but Sammy quickly stopped him and shook her head. "N-Not that way..." She told him, and slowly took the other child from Rudy again to demonstrate. She placed the child's body against hers, the child upright, with the head above her shoulder, held by her right hand. And the other hand was underneath the child to hold the brunt of the weight. Slowly, the Imp tried to hold the child like that as well, and slowly copied what he saw her do.
And so, he was now holding the child like that, and was waiting for new instructions from Sammy. "Erm... Just walk around slowly now..." She told him, demonstrating what she just said again, and the Imp quickly did the same, trying to calm the child in his arms down.
And soon enough, it seemed like it finally stopped crying, and the Imp looked at the child next to him, while it was now starting to giggle for some reason, moving its hands around happily, even pushing the Imp's hood off of its head as it was doing so.
The Imp was a bit annoyed at it for doing that, but for now, he was at least glad that it wasn't crying anymore. But then, Sammy looked at the child and ripped her eyes open, taking a few steps backward confused.
"Wait... That... That baby is..." She muttered confused, and the Imp looked at her with a frown, not wanting her to yell and make the child cry again, but Sammy just continued, especially when Arc seemed to have calmed down a little and took a look at the child the Imp was holding himself.
"Is that baby the..." Arc asked quietly, but the Imp just once more stared at him with a frown, although this time he was a lot angrier, because Arc was the one that made the child cry in the first place.
[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Leveled Up!]
Slightly annoyed at the sudden notification that appeared in front of him as well, the Imp quickly turned toward the children, "What?" The Imp asked, and Sammy and Arc looked at each other nervously, before they stepped up closer to the Imp.
"She's... The Holy Priestess, right...? The One who's supposed to kill the Monster King together with the hero..?" Arc asked confused, but the Imp quickly shook his head.
"Child... Fool. Imp bring child away." He explained, but none of the children understood what he was talking about. But Rudy then stepped up next to the other two children, "But didn't Mister Irnhoff tell us that she's supposed to be able to kill demons just by touching them..?" Rudy asked, and Sammy and Arc turned toward him confused, before Sammy nodded her head.
"Yeah... And Imps are Demons, right?" She asked in reply, but before she knew it, another one of the children walked up to the Imp.
"Mister is hurting..." Clementine explained, and immediately, Rudy ran up to her and grabbed her without hesitation to make sure she couldn't approach the Imp.
But that Imp was still confused about everything, although right now he really just wanted to know one thing, "What 'Holy Priestess'?" The Imp asked. He read the word 'Holy' before, and it was part of the notification floating right in front of him as well. The Imp already figured out it had something to do with the child, but he really wasn't aware that it was supposed to be something bad that could kill the Imp that easily.
"The baby you're holding... Her eyes are shifting between every color there is, 'Rainbow-Colored Eyes'... That's a trait only the Holy Priestess has..." Arc replied with a frown, completely confused at what was going on at the moment, but the Imp just looked at the child happily giggling in his arms, confirming that its eyes were changing colors.
And when he looked at the other children, theirs weren't changing their color at all, they just stayed the same. If that was the case, this child was supposed to be able to kill the Imp that easily? But it was so weak and fragile, how was it supposed to do that?
Sure, he felt a little bit of burning whenever he touched it, but it wasn't anything special. Just a bit of slight burning, as if he slapped his arm too hard.
"But..." Clementine muttered quietly as she looked toward the Imp, "If the Holy Priestess likes him that much... Can Mister Imp really be that bad?" She asked with her head tilted to the side, and Sammy immediately spoke up in response.
"H-He killed three people right in front of us for no reason! Of course he's bad!" Sammy exclaimed, but the Imp somehow had an issue with what she was saying. It wasn't like he just killed them for no reason. Even the Imp learned that it's unnecessary to kill things that didn't attack you first, because that's something that Avalin, Thomas and James also always did. There were a lot of monsters in the forests that watched them for a few moments and then ran away, and they never hunted them after that.
"White man attack Imp." He told her in reply, and Sammy turned toward him confused. "White man Wave stick and hurt Imp. Strong man attack Imp too. Woman not attack Imp, but Woman with scary white man, so Imp hurt woman. Imp kill Woman, woman already near dead." The Imp explained to them as best as he could.
It wasn't like he had any regrets about killing them, that's not what it was at all. But they were dangerous to the Imp and the child he was supposed to bring away, so that's why the Imp had to kill them. And on top of that, after being injured by that strong man, the Imp did kind of want to kill him, but that was also just because the strong man attacked him first.
The Imp didn't care about 'right' or 'wrong', he just cared about 'Dangerous' and 'Not Dangerous'. Those people were dangerous to him, so the Imp killed them. That's all it was.
