COI C209

News spread in alarming rate. The city didn’t know the remnants returned fast than they could expect. In reality, they knew but chose to ignore it. The rumors about the demon from Fuku City, to think to be the rumored coward demon also play the role to lead the demons’ army. Too far from the safe distance to save those people, only thing they can reach where the people who are confident to be rescued are in danger, and with that alone still fail. The personnel are watching inside of the hostages imprisoned by a crystal chamber. Both prison and vessel to feed on the shadowy creatures.

One of the available city adventurers explained to the personnel. “They are the same ones who spread to the city. It makes you wonder how they starting to act smart for once”

“So, it is true the previous commanding demon is not even lead seriously during the siege”

“Rather, they seemed to toy with us. Or maybe this is the fear we need to get us out from this world”

“Are you sure about that?”

They look at the top of the strange phenomenon. The sky hiding from them as if there is a god out there stopping them to see the powers of this world. This suspicion though, it made them remember what the mayor said. Sadly, why they can’t remember it? Especially it is the most important key to use the Foundation.

The dusts blown to the air acting like a desert. Along with the wind where there is a shadow coming by, they are trying to stay away from it. The people who faced it before during the incident are stepping back, it is the memorable experience they had to face it inside of the building. More and more of the victims crystallized and victimized into the chambers. Still trapped and difficult to break free as their bodies still dripping off their mana and leaks off into the crystallized chamber. One of them tried to use the leaking mana flow but stings them as if they are acids.

The personnel are looking at the distance hearing the warning calls from the headquarters. The most dangerous is still ongoing even what the Horsin told them this is the demons’ difficult cycle, another disaster.

“Search all residences who are living in Mihayara district, don’t let any of them to be harmed. Bring them back to the evacuation area before they are becoming live vessels to these monsters . . . cut*”

The city adventurers are contacting anyone who reside in this district and the first transmission they know who live here has answered the call.

“Hey, are you guys alright there? Where are those two with Haw?”

“We are fine, but the apartment complex is under attack”

“We know, it becomes more problematic over here. Is the building still livable over there?”

“On the contrary getting attacked here. Somehow. we are hanging on”

“What?!! There are demons’ army resurfacing and you are fine with that”

“I would give you a video what’s going on here, if you like”

“Shut it! The incident happened an hour ago, how in the hell did that guy clear it out so fast?”

“Then take a look, my friends are already recording it as we speak”

She hangs up and sends the partial video to his personal device. The personnel took it before opened it

“Hey!”

“Sorry, I need to trace where those residence are from. Yup, this is the same contact calling for emergency. There are a lot of people getting abducted over there. We need to go there as soon as we can”

“They said they can handle it”

“That’s good to here, we can’t reach there at this time. Please to anyone of you would love to go there and rescue anyone before they are taken away”

The swarms of the shadow attacked at their position. The adventurers and the personnel bring out their weapon as they are ready fighting into the darkness.

Inside the apartment complex, her body is tired and hurt all around. Bathe in smoke of the shadows and where the parts of its bodies fell into ashes. The empty husk almost been seen by her, almost to be horrified of their demented faces. The young girl suddenly sits up and the horrifying aging subsided and return to her youthful self. Haw saved her, and he picks out a bottle and doused her wounds from the bruise.

Haw said to her “Don’t use any of your offensive magic for the day. They can’t see you if you don’t use it”

“Mister? You’re the one who is taken care of the building. What happen to this place?”

The building inside is dusted and crystallized, while the others are perfectly secured with runes. The residences didn’t know about it except for him. It is what he had expected like what happened to Rune Isles. But he never guessed a demon is still under control of them. Those remnants shouldn’t return until the next few cycles. The young girl is looking at him as she recovers faster with her stats. He says to her what she needs to know

“Remember what we discussed before leaving the evacuation area? This is truly what I expect but not like this”

“Sorry, we thought . . .”

He cuts her off “Don’t be, I thought you people able to face it since you won the siege”

“Well, uh I never would . . . Mister! LOOK OUT!”

Haw turns around grabs the shadowy figure before it attacked him at the back. He grabs what left of its body and torn it apart with his own strength. In its weak state, it frail body quickly fell to the dusts. A trail of light blue dust on Haw’s hand as crystallized it to the ashes pile. It then then sparks and crystallized as it builds up. The girl sees the interaction between the monster and the dusts. Haw shatters it as he grinds off the mana it had left, forcing the soul out and flee into nothing where the light made it invisible.

“Sigh* It is going to take a while”

“Ah, thank you mister. By the way, can you really going to save everyone?”

The look of her face hoping that her brother will be saved. It was not long for her to fell unconscious and she is hoping he can do it. Haw though, he has limited supplies with only infinite amounts of dusts. Already covered and the pain stings by the shards. He can’t fight them in melee. They hear footsteps coming down, the young girl moves to his back and hides behind him. Haw holds her with one hand to her back. She trembles a bit then soon stop.

“Mister! It’s your friend”

The boyfriend comes through the other way, phasing through the floors. His laziness along with a powerful equipment given by him made it through without problems.

“Ah man, we are facing with ghosts here. Hey Haw, what’s with the kid?”

“You already know, the equipment I gave you. You’re using it too soon”

“Laugh* You gave it to me except for the others”

“It was meant for you, and did I mention there is no equipment for women?” “No gender equality huh, I . . . My bad, there’s no need to make jokes now. We need to secure the building”

“Then you go ahead”

“What?!! I’m just got here”

“The girls are hiding in the most secured apartment. We need to get rid of them before they all vanished into the wasteland . . .”

“Stop, fine. I’ll go on ahead. Fill up your supplies, man. I really need your help to get rid of them. Last time, my UI can’t find anything about them”

Haw nods at him and took to the girl away from the dusts. He quickly cleanses the dust in this floor making it a temporary safe floor. Bringing out some papers and other magic materials, he then asks her

“We need your help. Saving your neighbors will be your job, take these magic scrolls and . . .”

Haw stops while those two reacting their notifications in warning signs. Those signs were calling for help from the residences. Someone among them used their powerful spells to send help. The two starts to worry, and

Haw quickly take action “Get that someone who is attracting the puppets”

“What!?”

“There’s no time, the wind shifts too damply”

“SHIT!”

The boyfriend disappears going straight to the person who is sending the notification. He appears with a powerful entry, a bright blinding light that damages the darkness. They were there exactly what Haw said, exposed by his abilities and revealed to its dead husks.

The one who sends the notification unleash his magic able to disperse the shadowy threats. A wide range of holy* fire and burns them as the souls escaped from the person’s magic. The fire hits him and the equipment shields him and starts to absorb into the boyfriend’s mana flow.

“Whoa there! I’m with you. You’re the one who send the notification, right?”

Where the fire clears, the person reveals himself from the flames. Middle aged, a man full of doubts, yet kind do to all the trouble to attract their enemies towards him. He stuttered

“Y-y-yes, my neighbors were in trouble from the next room . . .”

The boyfriend nods and goes to the other room. The next apartment, there he sees the door already breached and quickly opens his spells. Bursting through with heavily physical magic attack to the first one who face his fists. He got in and quickly changes to his weapon after hitting nothing, a generic sword. Where he found the room empty, it is true that the old man attracted them and what he saw are other residences injured from the fight. Clear cuts and slashes on their body treated like wound marks, they can’t seem to heal from it nor stop it. The same he remembered back in the siege, but it looks more severe.

He looks at his UI with the equipment he had from Haw are working together to give a detail about it. There he sees something odd to his UI as if it was self-blocking him from knowing about it. The equipment on his shoulder starts to convert his mana, feeling as if he can sense it by his own flesh and blood. It feels really hot and cold at the same time as if his veins were not flowing properly. Then he sees the details about the dark shadowy wounds.

“Wow! I can read the detail now, but it starts to blur a little. WAIT!”

He took out his device and takes a quick pic. The notification on his UI blurred out and his equipment at the back of his shoulder overheats. “Good, I almost lose sight of it. Now let’s save these guys”

The middle-aged man sees him bringing his friends inside his apartment, the tears of joy to see them ok except for their wounds.

“Are they alright?”

“They’re fine, just treat it like anyone who is hurt. Hide them for now, I need to get going”

“Ok, thank you very much for helping me”

“Yeah, see ya”

The boyfriend goes to the stairs, before getting inside, he looks at the floor signs. His face frowns and looks at his detection.

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“This floor is just a sandwich trap. That old man can’t give me a break. Come on Haw, I save him. Please get here . . . What?”

He looks at his UI and the detection traces the shadows start to move up. The place where at the floor close to where him and that girl meet. They are already going down and remembered

“Yeah, that girl too is helping us. Shit!”

The young girl was terrified at first, but Haw is giving her the best he could to her UI effectively. After being with his girlfriends to see how their mana controls can do, it is kind of sad for Miyusuki, the shield student, can’t able to use this advantage. Now Haw is using it for this girl’s effort. To save her brother as she is learning to use certain RAPs

“Mister, I can’t believe I have this called required action points”

“It is strange for me to see all of you have it”

“You mean there’s a unique skill?”

“Focus! We are going down”

She nods.

The young girl is adjusting in the most delicate sense. Her protections are all gone forcing her to use all agility-based skills, and little to know offensive attacks but mostly evasive ones. They are not here to fight, and her role is to run like mice and used the scrolls they have to pick out the abductees into a safe area. It was short, but she listens very carefully to all leads he had given her. Once that door opens, it is the two of them running away instead of fighting. Haw takes the first swing into the door. Then it starts with the waves of dark smoke.

Haw directly fell two floors below, quickly getting through the darkness. He drops smokes at them and are bathed with it then fell like shards. The young girl walks in and sees where her brother was taken. She uses the RAPs and see the traces of her brother’s mana going down to the lobby. She had no choice to keep going down.

“Remember your goal, that is your primary. Other people who do you think worth saving is second. I know it’s harsh, but your worries are more concerning for us two here” Those words in her head speak through. She can’t lose her family member.

Reaching down further to the floors, her steps cracked the breaking shards that seals some of the puppets shadow form. Freed they quickly attacked her. She barely dodges it. She slipped from one of the crystallized dusts by the wall. She managed to roll over but covered by dusts, she gets exposed and losing her RAPs. She tumbles down to the wall. She keeps going trying to escape. One of them raises their dark scythe unleashing its lights blade, and swoop down on her.

She covered her head and look away. The puppets reached closer as they got exposed by someone’s spell. They got revealed and quickly dispersed before their bodies turned to dusts. The boyfriend appears in the nick of time before anything happened to the young girl.

“I knew Haw just won’t let anyone hiding in the side lines. Hey kid, wanna keep going?”

The young girl was offered a hand pulled her up as more of them are coming. The boyfriend sees his shoulder cools down.

“Alright, go hide. I’ll handle here”

Haw jumps down as it rains down with potions. The boyfriend covers his head from the dripping fluids. “Aw come on, you’re raining in my parade !!!”

He dodges as more of them is bringing out their light blades. The shadows start dodging the potions raining them down. Many strikes coming down to the boyfriend, leaving the young girl to keep going down. Haw distracts them to follow where they are in a certain floor. The boyfriend tries to fight, multiple of them piling him up and still hits him through as they maneuver all around him.

Haw throws some dusts at him, the shadows spread as the boyfriend evades it. The trick works and the boyfriend follows Haw. Some of the puppets are crystallized. The boyfriend goes personal and kicks them into shattered bits. To the nearest floor, the boyfriend barely reaches the door and the rest of the puppets are chasing after them. They are quickly surrounded, and shrouded into the darkness. Haw helps him breaking the shards on his body and his. Together, as the wind scratches them by the shadows and darkness.

Both Haw and the boyfriend are trapped.

Haw said to him “Is there anyone left in your UI?”

“Those guys are focusing us now. Are we that lucky?”

“I don’t know, but it begs more question”

“How about we should get ourselves out of here? We die like this”

The shadows are forming and their body in smoke. They charged at them as the sounds of the souls screeching at them. Into the darkness, loud wailings, and sheer numbers blinded by the forms of smoke. Haw brings out the concoction in sheer force.

Meanwhile, the young girl made her out from the stairs and to the lobby. The shocked of her face when the puppets chased her, and with her new found abilities to get away then baited them back to Haw. Her lying body next to the door as she takes a few deep breaths. She opens her eyes and see what happened to the lobby. Strange magic, hostile, unbearable, and nothing like the shadow appearances she had remembered when it first attacked.

There she sees one of the residences, trapped in the crystallized chambers. She wants to find her brother quickly yet she holds the scroll feeling this is her chance to save everyone. She feels sympathy for them, as they fell unconscious from their captivity. She gives the scroll to the residence and it shatters the chamber with a loud noise. It spoofs her and quickly run and hide. After a few minutes, nothing had come to check it out. A relief on her shaken body and proceed to help the others.

She searches everywhere in the lobby to where her brother is. More chambers fell from the stairs bringing here as their storage. She soon saves them all leaving only one left of Haw’s scroll without noticing. She looks around and still she can’t find her brother, and in her UI shows there are no more residence trapped in the chamber. She felt relief as she almost regretted about it. She then checks her UI once again and found nothing. Her brother wasn’t here nor inside the building. Her last place to check is the outside. She keeps going to the exit and found him.

“. . .” Her brother stands there motionlessly. The young girl starts to reach out then stopped. After coming this far, she moves back a little and her UI starts reacting. She quickly uses her scroll before something touches her. A hand reaches out, by hand and not from that dried shadow husk. The entity almost catches her before it could lay a hand. A disappointing voice erupts from its lips

“Almost got her, sadly”

The brother disappears as it was just an illusion.

The young girl teleported where everyone caught by the crystallized chamber. There she saw her brother lying ono the floor dizzy from the incident. She runs to him then intentionally body slams him. The older brother remained unconscious yet breathing, and the tears of the young girl keeps flowing to see him safe. Others freed see their reunion while more of the residences reunite inside this floor. Where only them using their magic to escape from the invaders. The only group of people who are watching over them are the city guild staff.

The receptionist watches over the security camera. “I thought Haw was being a nuisance for the surveillance, but never once to disagree with him”

The girlfriend nods “Regarding the dangers that happening here. I am more appreciate that he did to us”

“Yeah well, your boyfriend is getting a bit too full of himself”

“I am worried about him, and please don’t say to him anymore”

The girlfriend looks at her shared UI with his boyfriend. The dangers he is in is more than she realized.

Haw is carrying the enormous amounts of dusts to fight against the puppets. The puppets’ full fledge powers returned after draining their captured captives. The drawback is where the dusts retuned from Haw’s hands, giving the two the chance to survive this. The boyfriend is able to breakthrough against the puppets, leaving the souls to escape from his final blows.

“I can’t believe we still continue to fight like this. It never ends”

“Don’t try to speak right now. We are already face our deaths in a single day” “No shit sherlock, I still want to live and leave this shitty world. No offense”

The puppets jumped at them again. Haw spread around the dusts and the boyfriend blows combining together in shard blasts. The boyfriend coordinates with Haw following with every move he did, and both of them attacked before they noticed. The boyfriend casts his light one more time at their enemies’ backs. The shadowy puppets where blinded as they catch the dusts. Crystallized and shattered as their souls were release from their husks. The rest of the puppets keep fighting as if they returned to their senseless fighting.

The boyfriend sees his UI cheating all the way to predict what they are doing. He said Haw “To the side, go for their knees! Throw that thing above me!”

Haw follows his commands in quick succession. The boyfriend brings his sword out from his blunted side, hitting the potions like a baseball. Smacking it without breaking, thrown at their enemies. There the shadowy puppets appeared in fast speed. Hit to the sides, then to their knees, and finally doused them from the top of its head. The last potion exploded into smoke affecting their abilities. Fully enclosed by the dusts, the boyfriend took them out without a problem.

The two are in the advantage, the puppets glow their eyes then go back down the stairs. Haw blocks the door with his potions, they stop then quickly break through the window. Entering the dusty winds from the wasteland, Haw covers the boyfriend before the exposure hits him strongly. The boyfriend took out from Haw’s bag and his inventory to wash them both with water. The large amount of water showered both of them turned muddy than washed it away. Haw pushes him to the other room and escaped from the exposure.

Haw spits out a chunk of the muddy sharded dusts. “Nice try, but you know something out there is entering the building”

“Wait, what about the girls?”

“Heavily runed, especially where we first meet. What happened to the residences?”

“Let take a look at my UI. No?”

“No what!!?”

The boyfriend pretends to act dumb, but it seems the young girl was able to pull off. Haw already sees his pretentious face, and quickly seals the room. The boyfriend felt disappointed.

“Oh, come on, man. Get worried, you’ve been acting too right today” “I appreciate for the cheer, but I was never always right. You! You don’t get the full equipment. Only just by your shoulder that works”

“Pfft! Sorry, I look at my UI. We are all safe. Man, why am I laughing so dark?”

The boyfriend laughs calmly, his selfish grin looks at his shared UI with his girlfriend. The worrying face of hers will always make him feel happy that someone is cared for him. The arrogance he had to do in the face of danger to be brave in front his girlfriend.

Haw seals the door, in the right convenient time. They hear a footstep coming their way. The boyfriend still distracted by his UI, then a disturbance happened in his UI. The buzzed coming along while his shoulder feels like he is on fire. Haw warns him

“Stop using your abilities. That equipment on your shoulder is resisting something”

The boyfriend sends his equipment inside his inventory, then both of them hide inside the room expecting for the door to break open.

It did, the door opened and there’s a human hand at first. Then the rest of the limb turned charred and burnt then turned scaley. The demon enters the room. Haw recognizes that face, and it seems it changes figure. The unimaginable body, but the same recognizable stares. That grin as if it the demon is playing with them. Hiding inside the closet, the two tried to make a plan before the demon finds them, but worries creep into their conversation. The boyfriend feels the demon’s aura harming his mind.

“This is not good, if this demon is here. The others might”

“Calmed down, the demon is here and not caught by the others. The demon might just capture them again anyway”

“Easy for you to say, damn! Why am I staying cool right before this happened?”

“We are friends for a short time, and I am just glad we made it this far”

“No shit! Now we see a demon . . . chick? The demon turns into a chick”

“What do you mean . . .!!! By Archscience’ Madness. Don’t look!”

The demon is changing into a beautiful woman, nude with tattoos on her body. The marks on starts glowing showing a reminiscence of sexual dream. Haw knows this trick. Agatheus City’s most common crime is dream eating, some lesser demons used this power to take over the minds of their victims and become hosts as their souls are binding together. If it is not removed, the demons will not only haunt them subconsciously, but know where they are in all time. The cure is by will alone either forget it or find better what they have desired.

The boyfriend hears the demon’s voice. The humming he hears is more likely is moaning, the soft voice that couldn’t understand have given him ideas what it means. He starts to lose it until a loud voice screaming at his ear. His UI is screaming at him

“YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD IF IT IS NOT PORN HEARING FROM DOWN THERE!”

His girlfriend is screaming at the top of her lungs. The boyfriend breaks the charm as fear protected him from the temptation.

Meanwhile Haw hears the demon’s seductive voice. He has shown no interest, his eyes direct seriously and truthfully disgusted rather charmed by it. The side of his head starts to hurt. The part of his head that never works anymore start to protect him from it. For how long did his head returned to his senses, but that long years of not using that part of his head made him feel the mental shock. He fell down to the floor as the mental shock ruptured and his body couldn’t remember how that part of his brain function to react.

The boyfriend holds him to his arms and keep themselves quiet. He looks outside as the beauty is looking back at him. Eye to eye, the charming face of the demon sparkled at him. He kept silent hoping it didn’t notice. The demon tilts her head and smiles softly, not saying a word and gaze only what she sees the door of the closet. The mana behind her starts to embracing her then through her mouth and nose. A deep breath with a soothing voice. The boyfriend’s ears only hear the rage of his girlfriend. Then the flashes of light start to erupt. He backs away and return looking at the closet door again, and sees the demon is already gone.

The apartment complex building is now empty. All the threats are gone, and the people have come to rescue them. They see the entrance as it is already been clear. They look at their runed devices and found that everyone is here and no traces of them were abducted. No matter what, they proceed to go inside. They found the residence and pulled them back to the evacuation area. They search deep inside the building until they search everything from top to bottom. One of the search groups is the city guild adventurer, she recognized the address and called out to them.

“Hello?”

“Hey! Is this your apartment building, right? Where are you?”

“It’s fine, we hide inside of the building. Didn’t you guys move pass through my floor?”

“Really!? It doesn’t matter, you guys need to get out of here. The district is starting to have the same threat as if the siege was not over yet”

“I said we’re fine. We can make this building a saferoom like those Enders did across the city”

“That’s not what I’m trying . . . What?! . . . You mean it!? . . . Ugh! Fine, you win. The city guild will take in charge in your place after this situation is over”

“Thank you, I won’t let you guys down”

The call is over, and the receptionist is sitting back to the couch. She looks at the surveillance and rewind what they just saw. The girlfriend had seen it all, that incident either the most terrifying or the most humiliating scene in front of their eyes.

Shinji is the only one took it seriously and said “A demon was in the apartment complex. Where did that thing go?”

The receptionist doesn’t know “Not about that, what about those two? Are they fine?”

“It is incredible that both of them weren’t found them yet. Haw gives another job well done”

“Yeah, if it wasn’t for the neighbors. I think this will be an incredible safehouse”

In the demon’s side, the demon sees herself flashes back into Fuku City. The one who is marked and remembered her beauty is the man who is oblige to help her. The man is in his computer screen still busy playing videogames. Ignored the demon’s existence, she has to leave this NEET room and returned to her own journey. As the demon about to left the room with her magic.

The man said to her “Yayoi, you’re not using that woman’s body they gave you”

She ignores him and only the noised the man hears is from the voice call from his PC.

“Hey, dude. I saw your screen. You have a naked woman behind you and disappeared. Was that your magic powers acting up again”

“Don’t worry about her, I just mis-click some app or something”

“Yeah, anyway. I never thought wanting to go outside from my apartment after that nice convention”

“It’s great, especially the adult section”

“It’s strange though, that you have the prototype and you are still inside your apartment. It’s freaky, but it would be nice you have to show it to me”

“Maybe later, the content is too new and there still games that a free now”

“You said it”

The demon returned to Mihayara district with some mana left to traverse to find her friend. After all she had done to get the demons’ army to gather before her. She sees the souls returned empty. Yayoi couldn’t believe what she never expected. The remnant’s magic item had been taken away. The souls give her vision what happened, and never thought there was an Enders. Very ironic for her, she feels a little giggle inside of her because someone has something on their head. Fresh flesh marked inside the Enders head, and sheepishly to tempt to awaken it.

“NO! I must find him. I still need his uses”