Piperka

On her way back home from the forest, Nancy hears a high whistling sound, followed by an earth-shattering boom and a thunderous roar like an avalanche - and the sound is coming from her village! Running as fast as she can, she finds the source of the noise isn't in her village afterall, but right before it - a circle of fallen trees and scorched ground, along with a wounded man pitifully crawling away from the mess.

This man claims to be pursued by a demon, but, according to Nancy, no demon can reach this close to her home village; it is protected by the Holy Birch, a blessed tree with a powerful holy aura that affects a wide radius of the forest around it. Approaching this place means unbearable pain or even death to all demons who try.

Now safe in Nancy's family's Inn, the man introduces himself as Herbert, a witchfinder who suffered a witch's wrath in the form of a demon. This demon threw him far enough into the forest that he made it into the Holy Birch's protective area, safe but not unharmed… or so he claims.

In fact, there was no witchfinding and no witch, though there was a demon - Herbert himself, on the run from Hell because of a huge, unpaid debt! That he can live and breathe so close to the Holy Birch is something he doesn't understand, but intends to take full advantage of; and so Herbert's new, powerless life starts in a dingy, small village, as he laughs to himself in the belief that he has cheated both God and the Devil... not knowing that life as a human has its own share of hardships.