After drawing out a ritual circle on a piece of cloth and giving it to Sophie, Zeth walked her back to their house, taking a prepared Hellfire Ritual along with him to act as a weapon just in case he needed to defend her from any monsters. But none came, so after taking her home, he headed back to base.

He did everything he could to disguise the appearance of the ritual circle on the cloth, drawing out an extremely small one and then smudging the rest of it with dirt and anything else he could find to try and make the circle itself blend in, so hopefully anyone who wasn’t actively looking for it wouldn’t notice. Even if they caught a glimpse, it’d really just look like a piece of trash.

Zeth had sent Astrys deeper into the base before taking Sophie out so that she wouldn’t be in range of the demon’s fear aura as she went back up the stairs leading out, so once he returned, he went to find her.

After looking through a few rooms, he ended up spotting her sitting alone in a blank room, staring at the wall with an inscrutable look on her face, like she was deep in thought about something. Her aura of fear had, of course, taken effect on him, so his first thought was automatically that she was secretly plotting against him and waiting to slaughter his whole family, but he pushed that assumption aside and entered the room.

“Hey,” he said. “She’s gone now.”

She shot her head over to Zeth, apparently not having noticed him enter. “Ah.”

Zeth stared at her. “...You gonna come out of here and come up to the main room?”

“If you would like me to, yes.”

She stood and began walking with him as he left the room at the back of the base and moved to the larger room set up at the front, where the entryway led into. The whole time, she was strangely silent, walking ahead with her head fixed forward.

When Zeth looked at her more closely, he saw her fist clenched so tightly it shook. Her breaths were unsteady, and even her face, which he’d originally thought was completely calm and neutral as always, betrayed the slightest bit of emotion. Her brows were slightly furrowed, lips barely quivering. It was almost like she was holding back tears.

He wanted to ask what was wrong, but pushed the issue aside. This demon was not someone to form a personal relationship with. He had to remind himself of that. For some reason, it was like he was instinctively being pulled to speak with her, to care for her, and get to know her on a more personal level. But those emotions simply made no sense. Perhaps if she were a normal human woman, they would, but he was working with a demon. A murderous monster, hellbent on the destruction of the human species. He knew it. His subconscious knew it, too—especially with the fear effect constantly existing in a corner of his mind. So why would that same subconscious be giving him completely contrary emotions? It was confusing, and frustrating.

Simply existing near her had Zeth constantly questioning his actions. There was something weird about her—he knew it. No other demon had made him feel this way, and certainly no other human. But what it was that made her feel so different, he had no idea.

Zeth heard the footsteps next to him stop, and he turned to see Astrys standing still in the middle of the room that was his destination. He hadn’t noticed their arrival, being so lost in thought. She still wore that strange expression on her face, standing perfectly still with her arms set tightly against her sides.

Just as Zeth was about to speak, she suddenly moved, pushing her body downward into a kneeling posture, one knee on the ground with her head bowed to look straight at the stone floor.

“I apologize for my incompetence!” she said forcefully, in an official-sounding tone.

Zeth stepped backward, put on guard by her quick movement, before realizing what she was doing. He frowned. “Wait, what?”

She held the position, fist squeezed so tight her knuckles were turning white. “My failure during my patrol allowed an unknown person to sneak past me, which put your life in danger. This is unforgivable, and I take full responsibility for the failure. My only request is that you show mercy on this lowly demon, and refrain from unsummoning me for at least some time. Please, allow me to learn from my failure so that I may never make that same mistake again. You have my word that I will—”

“Woah, woah,” he said, “don’t you think this is a little…much? It all turned out fine, didn’t it?”

She paused, still not daring to lift her head.

“I mean, I also got a bit complacent and went into my base when I kinda already felt like I was being followed. So the blame is partially on me. I’m certainly not about to unsummon you and have you killed just because you messed up once, right?”

Slowly, Astrys raised her head, looking up at Zeth with an intense expression on her face. “...Please, sir, do not give me false hope of survival.”

“What? No, I’m not giving you false hope—I’m serious. I’m not gonna kill you. You don’t have to beg for your life. Why would you think I’d do that?”

“You expressed your frustration to me directly after the person got into your base, correct? Or was I misreading the situation? You assigned the blame of the failure to me.”

“Well, yeah, I was a bit mad, but that was it. I got over it pretty quickly.”

“I-I thank you for your mercy, sir.”

With that, she stood, bowing her head once again, and turned around to hurry out of the room.

“Woah, wait,” Zeth said.

She froze.

“What was all this about? Seriously, why did you think I was gonna kill you? And why did you think when I said I wouldn’t that I was intentionally lying to you so that…what, I could give you ‘false hope’ and then take it away? Just for the fun of it?”

Astrys hesitantly turned around, taking a moment before speaking. “I…I suppose I see you as a great and powerful warlord, and suspected that my weakness would not be tolerated by someone like yourself.”

“Great and powerful warlord? What are you talking about? I’m just some guy with a special Class—I’m no warlord.”

She chuckled nervously. “Please, sir, there is no need to lie to me. I will not betray you no matter who you are.”

“No, seriously, I’m not lying. What do you mean? What have I ever done to make you think I’m a warlord?”

“You…Ah, I see. Perhaps you do not see things from my perspective.”

“Yeah. Explain.”

“I suppose from a human’s view, you may not realize what Stat demons specialize in. Compared to the other denizens of the Thirteenth Realm, we do not have overwhelming Strength, nor invulnerable Endurance, nor razor-sharp Awareness. Demons typically have, above all our other Stats, an incredibly high Influence score. Our fear auras are made more powerful by the Stat, and are also resisted by the Stat, naturally leading to the demon with the highest Influence in an area becoming the de facto one in charge. Perhaps you do not understand, considering your own Influence Stat is extremely high, but the aura can be absurdly mentally overpowering to those who cannot resist it, so we must—”

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“I don’t have a high Influence Stat,” Zeth said.

She stared at him. “What?”

“I actually don’t have a single point in it.”

“...Then how do you resist my aura?”

“I don’t. I’m under its effects right now.”

Astrys gave Zeth a look consisting of some of the strongest emotion he’d seen in her face so far—a look of obvious unsettled terror. Like she'd just watched a man she stabbed in the heart stand right back up like nothing had happened. She took a deep breath, and slowly her face settled back into its neutral position. “I…I see. Well then, I suppose you understand—or perhaps you still do not—how important it is for a demon to have a high Influence Stat. That all is to say, my Influence easily dwarfs your Poise. As such, I am easily able to read your emotional state most of the time.”

“...Uh huh. And what does that have to do with any of this? I don’t think I’ve really been hiding much from you.”

“Do even you not realize what I am able to pick up from you?” she muttered. “Or, no, perhaps the emotion is so normal to you that you do not recognize it as remarkable.”

“What? What emotion?”

“Sir…in all my living years as a demon, and in all my time interacting with my peers, I have never in my life felt such an intense feeling of hatred coming from another person as I felt coming from you when you attacked that man in the wooden hallway. Despite my Influence—no, likely because of it—that sensation of realizing the state of your mind struck fear into my heart like nothing else has.”

“...Oh,” was all he could say. What else was there to say? ‘No, you’re wrong?’ There wasn’t much room to argue here.

Zeth thought back to his first ever time summoning a demon. That one had said something similar to what Astrys was talking about, when he was about to be unsummoned. Something about how Zeth had made him feel afraid, and when Zeth asked why, the demon disappeared without giving an answer. Was that why? Because he’d been with Zeth when he captured those Wicked thralls?

“Well, okay,” he said, “maybe I get a bit enthusiastic with my antagonism sometimes. But that’s toward my enemies. You may be a demon, but you’re working alongside me. You’re an ally. I’m not about to look at you the same way I look at them.”

She shook her head. “That is not true. I’ve felt it coming from you ever since you summoned me. Perhaps not quite as strong, but you harbor an intense hatred for me. Me, and the rest of my species. I am only now realizing that such an emotion must be the reason you are able to act in spite of my fear aura. If you are telling the truth when you say that—and everything my Influence says is telling me you are—then the only reason I could think you would be able to stand upright and face me the way you do is because you feel another emotion that is even stronger than the fear my Skill instills in you. You hate me more than you are afraid of me. I…I can feel that you are itching to kill me. You cannot wait to do it. A-and I do not hold it against you that you feel that way. I simply ask of you to have mercy for a time longer before my eventual execution. Perhaps it is a selfish request, but I do not yet want to die.”

“...Huh. Um, well, alright,” Zeth said. “I guess you’re a bit right. There’s no sense in lying to you—I don’t like demons. I don’t like working with them, I don’t like talking to them, and I don’t like being in their presence. But I guess, all I can really say is that I value usefulness over my own prejudice. I don’t particularly like demons, but I haven’t seen you personally do anything against me, so I won’t hold what your predecessors have done against you. So don’t worry so much about me wanting to kill you, or whatever. As long as you don’t actively try to hurt me or subvert my orders, I won’t unsummon you. Alright?”

She nodded slowly, seeming to finally relax in her posture. “Thank you, sir. I am truly grateful.”

“No problem. And, you don’t really have to call me ‘sir,’ y’know? You can just call me Zeth.”

“I understand. Thank you, Zeth.”

“Alright. If that conversation’s done, I’m getting tired, so I’m heading to bed,” he said.

“I see. Where should I sleep?”

Zeth blinked, only just then realizing that Astrys would, in fact, need to sleep. He’d only ever summoned demons for lengths of a few hours at a time, never having to deal with logistics like that. “Uh…I guess in the same room as me? I normally just doze off here, so…”

She almost looked taken aback. “In the same room? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, is that a problem? Seems like the right play, if you’re going to serve as protection from any surprise intruders or whatever. I don’t really have a second bed or anything though, so—”

“That is no problem at all,” she interrupted. “I have spent many nights sleeping on stone floors while camping on military excursions.”

“Cool,” he said, still a little put off by her weird reaction. Was she still afraid of him, and didn’t want to be near him at night? He almost felt bad for putting her in an uncomfortable scenario like that, but he was doing the same, sleeping in the aura of a demon. And ultimately, he wasn’t about to forego the protection of such a powerful bodyguard just because she didn’t like being around him.

So, after spending a couple minutes getting ready, he lay down on his little pile of straw, with Astrys laying on the floor in the opposite corner, and dozed off.

The next morning, after going through his usual routine of performing upkeep on his ritual circles, Zeth left his base and headed toward town. He’d asked Astrys to take care of the place while he was gone, so she would handle everything else, like the couple prisoners he still had sitting around.

Especially considering the short confrontation he’d had with Rosalie while escaping from the burning cabal lair the night before, Zeth was curious about what would be going on in town today. If all went well, maybe she’d gone in and killed off a bunch of their forces, and Zeth wouldn’t have to worry at all about their retaliation. Though, of course, there was also the possibility that his actions had pushed them into using more desperate measures which required more frequent human sacrifices from the town’s citizens. He definitely wanted to check on the local news.

So he headed in, set on finding Erza, who he was supposed to meet with for work anyway.

When he entered town, he didn’t see anything particularly alarming about its appearance—certainly no gigantic ritual circles ready to eat up random passers-by, at least—so the worst of his worries were put to rest.

As he wandered, he found himself walking through Turin’s neighborhood. Zeth hadn’t spoken to his old friend from the mining guild since the disaster with the mannitors, when he’d set up that whole healer’s camp to try and patch up peoples’ wounds.

Zeth still felt bad about making his friend spend his money and time helping victims of what was ultimately his mistake. Perhaps he could go and see if Turin was home, then, if just to catch up. And hey, he was making much better money now from Erza, so Zeth might be able to pay his friend back for all the supplies he’d used.

So, he walked up and knocked on Turin’s door. There was no response, so he knocked again. Still no response. He put his hand on the knob, feeling a distinct sense of deja vu when he did. Last time he’d walked into his friend’s house uninvited like this, he’d been shot straight through the hand. Such a thing wouldn’t happen again, though, right?

Slowly, he pushed the door open, being sure to call out before walking in, “Hey, it’s Zeth. You here?”

However, what he found was not a crossbow bolt to the face. Instead, he happened upon an empty house. The door was unlocked, though. Why would Turin leave without locking it?

Zeth looked down at the door and found something peculiar. The door wasn’t unlocked—the lock was broken. The wooden bolt that usually held it in place had been snapped right off, like the door had been kicked in.

He walked in, gazing around as he looked for his friend. Turin had at least put the house back together after barricading the entrances back when he’d first gotten scared of being killed for being a witness to the Blood Mage, but it was still messy.

Slowly, though, Zeth realized that this wasn’t a normal mess. There was a half-eaten breakfast of eggs and bread sitting on the table, and a cup of water that’d been knocked over, spilling its contents out across the floor. Furniture, though back in its original position compared to last time, looked like it’d been knocked out of place, like there’d been some sort of scuffle. And sitting on the floor was a candle, still lit, that’d fallen off of something. Thankfully, it hadn’t landed next to anything flammable, but the situation was clear.

Turin had not left this house in usual circumstances. It didn’t look like he’d left willingly at all. He’d been forced to flee. Or, perhaps, someone had broken in and pulled him out themself.

Zeth backed out of the house, onto the street, and began running, heading to find Erza. It was a stretch, but maybe the man would be able to help him find Turin.

And as he ran, Zeth’s mind automatically went to the worst-case scenario.

If some motherfuckers came in here and killed my friend, after everything else that’s happened, I am going to burn this gods-damned place to the ground.