*Lucas Jaeger*

“Well, if it is any consolation, they are not well designed.” Lucas had been trying to explain his findings to the assembled group. Julian, Terra, and Archi were there of course, as well as Treslux and a group of nobles and military commanders- all of them had an extremely serious expression on their faces.

“We knew the demons were unnatural,” one of them muttered, Lucas didn’t see who. “But we never thought they were made- just that they came from elsewhere, and did not belong here.”

“Well, aside from the modifications I would guess they did come from here.” Lucas shrugged, “It is hard to say, but there is nothing ‘otherworldly’ about them. Conceptually, they are basically the same as a common dog- it is just that whoever modified them went about it in a different way than selective breeding.”

“For that matter, although I cannot say for certain with only this sample size, I would wager that the cancer found in C1 is indicative of problems with their modification process.” Lucas pointed to a picture pinned up to the wall depicting the tumors throughout C1, “though there are many other possibilities. The fact they are capable of parthenogenesis- sorry, that probably did not translate, it means that they can have children with themselves and without the need for a mate- could result in extreme inbreeding and lead to a higher cancer rate by itself.”

“As an aside, that ‘hero summoning’ ritual of yours is quite something,” Lucas mused offhandedly. “Although it may be due to some sort of psychological bias, I cannot imagine that I was not chosen on purpose- few others would have the background necessary to understand the ramifications of this.”

Near as Lucas could tell, he was essentially dealing with an amature here. Not that what was on display here was not impressive, but it was crude work. He highly suspected that there were more effects from those modifications than what he had seen on this first pass- he had stopped to brief the group on his initial findings after all- he was willing to bet there was some sort of modification to allow behavioral control via pheromones or something like that. Admittedly, he had no evidence of this, but why would you create something you could not reliably control? And anecdotal evidence implied the intelligent demons were capable of controlling them, so if the pieces fit together…

The point was, the being who had affected these changes was unable to isolate the traits they wanted from the ones they didn’t. The vestigial hip, the fact that the electrical organ was superfluous in two out of the three specimens he had examine, the tumors throughout C1… What made Lucas feel like he could start his own business was that he could separate desirable traits from undesirable ones, it was literally what he had spent his life working towards. Actually…

“Now that I think about it,” a thought had occurred to Lucas. “Haven’t you been fighting these things for millenia? That implies that whoever or whatever did this is long dead, and clearly their work was never improved upon.”

Though, from that perspective the being that had done this was an unparalleled genius. Lucas could do better than this, but if he had been from human society three millennia ago it would be a completely different story. At that time his world was just getting used to the idea of using metal instead of pointy sticks to kill each other!

“Or they could simply be working on something else,” Treslux said darkly, and Lucas had to agree that it was a possibility. Why spend resources on something that was doing its job just fine after all?

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Perhaps, but the timeframe is so vast one has to wonder what that could be,” Lucas tried to soothe them. “If they were at this level three thousand years ago, presuming they never stopped advancing, they would be so far beyond humanity that destroying us would be easy. If I had three thousand years I would probably be able to rediscover every science from my world and improve upon them. That much time, with my knowledge base, it would not be all that hard even. So I sincerely doubt that it is anything we have to worry about.”

“Instead, I want to turn this conversation to a way to kill all of them.”

*Julian Gandr*

Julian was stunned by this revelation- this was not something that could be let out into the general population, morale would plummet. No one wanted to imagine that there enemy could produce monsters the way a blacksmith might make a sword. Despite Lucas’s assurances that they were definitely not doing that- or rather, that he hoped they were because it would be an incredible waste of resources- that would be what people would think.

However, Julian would deal with that later. If he could, he might need a drink or two. Now though, Lucas had everyone’s attention with the implication that he could kill all of these demons. Knowing more about Lucas’s world and science than others, Julian had to raise the question-

“You told me your world’s bioweapons were simply too dangerous to be used.” Julian said, and although he didn’t add that he agreed, he most certainly did! Lucas’s descriptions of their capabilities were terrifying, and his warnings about how they could backfire were chilling.

“Well, this isn’t a bioweapon, though someone could argue that it is in a way.” Lucas seemed to be thinking about it, more hung up on the semantics of the definition than actually telling them all what he meant! “The thing is, these creatures might have been designed in a lab- but they were released into the wild and are now part of the ecosystem. At your level of development, you probably have yet to understand how fragile an ecosystem can be.”

Lucas was condescending, but Julian overlooked the slight- everyone in the room did. It was more than worth it if this conversation went in useful direction.

“It will take me a bit to figure out precisely how to do this,” Lucas continued. “Especially because I cannot observe the ecosystems I am talking about personally, but based on a couple of a hypothesis introducing certain invasive species into northern ecosystems may end up leading to these ‘demons’ to prey on each other more commonly- or perhaps lead to widespread starvation. I mean, it isn’t elegant, but if you break something in an ecosystem hard enough the whole system suffers. Normally, I would be against this, but everything in these ecosystems want me dead so I will make an exception.”

Lucas seemed to think for another second, and then hit the group with another surprise. “As an aside, I might be able to control the demons myself.”

This caused an uproar at meeting and just about stopped Julian’s heart, when everyone managed to calm down Lucas clarified.

“It is not controlling them like you are thinking,” Lucas sighed loudly. “More like telling them not to attack me and probably not much else. If I had the tools and the time, I might be able to do more, but it isn’t as impressive as you think. To put it in terms you would understand, they basically react to smell- and that is probably the reason so many attack here, though why they are attracted to here precisely is still confusing.”

“Anyway,” Lucas leaned back in his chair, showing an appalling lack of etiquette. “The real point I want to drive home is that these creatures are not so much ‘demons’ as ‘mutant animals.’ Though it does make me wonder what the intelligent demons are like…”

Julian had been slightly distracted as he listened to a messenger, and wondered if this was the Gods interfering in the world- the coincidence was too great almost.

“Well you are in luck Lucas,” Julian interupted. “One was just killed by a patrol, and they brought the body back.”

This whole time, Lucas had been seemingly unaware of the dried blood that stuck to him in various places- and now that he smiled the combined appearance made him look ghastly. Julian could not help but shiver.