5.4
In what seemed to be the section that the library stored the older texts, John had his fingers across the spines of multiple hardcover books, busy browsing for the one that he needed.
It was filled with all sorts of books that taught fighting, magic, and joke titles such as How to Not Burn Your House Down: A pyromancer’s guide to cooking with magic. But John let out a long sigh as he flipped through the pages of yet another heavy book.
The reason for his dissatisfied sigh was simple, the book in his hands was also filled with the same regurgitated information on demons.
It rambled on how they are agents of evil and robbed happiness from everything they touch, about how one should always ask for help in the presence of one, about how to defeat lowly demons—strike them before they are allowed to attack.
Yet, none of them told him of what classifies something as one, or even the reason for their existence, their goals, alike.
These books only spoke of their evil deeds, and why their existence were prohibited within the human realm. Everything they do are equivalent sins being committed.
But why?
If he entertained the idea of himself being a demon, does it mean saving someone he loved with what is known as demon magic made him evil? If a demon used healing magic on the innocent for the sake of helping them, would such an act make it a sin?
He wanted answers to questions like these from those books, not for the same content to be repeated to him because they are deemed to be by the majority. He genuinely wanted to understand this label that he was branded with.
And maybe undo himself, if such a thing was possible.
He had been browsing for material on demons in the library for over an hour and if his head wasn’t already throbbing hard from the last fight he spectated in the arena, it certainly was now.
The five person fights right after the hooded girl won was surprisingly mild, no fatal injuries occurred throughout the other matches. Each of the rounds that he spectated following the first had at least someone surrendered the second the battle started—usually the fifth person who had no pair—the remaining contestants then fought in pairs until one won, all of them took the safe route and did not attempt any betrayal and moved on to the one on one fights.
It appears that the bloodshed from the first match had them fearing for their own life. Once the battles became one on one, he lost his interest, unlike the five person battles, they involved two parties poking at each other with their abilities until one of them gave up, it became tedious to him at one point and he decided to visit the library instead.
John sat on a nearby table and leaned his body lazily against it.
He kept flipping through the book on demons, now it was past the time that dinner would be served in the Harvest household—around 6:30p.m.—but he kept on navigating the thick pages in hopes of finding something useful that he could use to work with.
The reason for postponing his meal time was because there would be a welcoming party for East Wing residents fifteen minutes from now, located in the pub. According to Kaldor, the party served as a meet and greet session, it was the deciding event where people met friends who they could trust their lives with. Or so it was in Kaldor’s case.
John snorted. He was not exactly that eager to make friends or acquaintances who are responsible for his life.
Not when they could simply denounce everything in an instant and leave you to rot.
His eyes then skimmed the texts on the page that he randomly flipped to, it read:
“Demons are solely known as the dark side to all living things. To which all life possess both a light side and light side, they reside in the depth of one’s selfish desires. They are the embodiment of evil….”
He slammed the book shut in annoyance.
“It’s all the same thing! Yeah, I know they are bad. But why won’t you tell me what classifies as one?” he spoke to the book, unable to stomach another ambiguous line. “What does it mean to be one? Heck, there isn’t even something that one can identify a demon with. All it tells me, or simply insinuates is that ‘If a demon shows itself, you would know its presence.’ What? That is absolutely not telling me anything to identify with!”
Forceful air came from his nostrils as he slumped his shoulders backwards to the chair.
John was speechless, his head was spun at the lack of understanding that he gained from these so called ancient texts—granted, they were merely books written by authors who read the actual ancient texts before they were were lost, stolen, burnt or all of the above—as these are nothing but watered down repetitive opinions.
“I really am an idiot for not learning this earlier…” he complained to himself, unable to let go of that mistake that cost him the ties that he had with the elves. A few moments passed with him sitting in that lackluster position watching the hands on a clock tick.
Grooowwwl.
As though it agreed with him on the farce that was labeled as ‘ancient texts’, his stomach let out a long winded growl.
“Ahhh! Fine, I get it, I get it. Anything is better than suffering here.”
He got up and returned the book and decide to not waste his time in the library anymore. He headed to East Wing while assuring himself that there was more to learn about demons, that he only had bad luck in picking the ones that gave him equivocal answers.
If the academy had detailed books on other topics regarding various beasts, plant, and monsters, why would the ones on demons be lacking concrete information?
It must have been his luck to stumble across the bad ones on his first attempt with the vast library. Just because the first ten books he tried reading was not what he wanted, it did not mean that the rest of the books on topic of demons will be inconclusive.
He would do a much more through research on demons later on, it was still his first day here after all, the books themselves wouldn’t disappear overnight.
With that, he reached East Wing then followed the cedarwood stairs that led him to the second floor of the 2 story building and entered the pub.
Once inside, he took a seat by the counter and ordered a small burger, enjoyed the alcoholic scent in the air as his eyes ran along the few heads that entered the room right after him.
His light meal was brought to him not long after, and without a care in the world he chomped down the steak burger with large bites. He took one bite after another, ravished at the combined taste of lettuce, tomato, onions and egg. Before he knew it, the whole burger disappeared from his sights
Light music played in the background from a band, wine glasses were up for display, this dimly lit pub was the perfect place to fill stomachs and make acquaintances besides the main cafeteria. The nice food here served as conversation topics, the alcohol to ease the nervous, and the low lighting easily hid the faces of those who were nervous. It was something John could get used to.
Just when he thought to himself about bringing the Harvests to visit this place, someone tapped his shoulders.
“Is that tasty? You seem to enjoyed it a lot.”
A female face came to his view when turned behind, her face was that of someone on the ‘mature’ side when it came to life experiences. If it were not for her voice, he might have mistook her for someone in her late twenties.
“Hmm? Oh, I haven’t had anything since morning. I forgot to eat, so…”
“Ah-hahaha, forgot to eat?” she slapped his arm lightly. “Is that how you pick up girls? By telling something like that?” she blushed and tucked strands of wine red hair behind her ear.
“Okay…?”
“I’m Prishine, a succubus. Please to meet you.”
“Call me John— A succubus?”
Wait, wait, wait….
He instinctively leaned back at her announcement. Succubus were a race that unrelentingly feast on souls for their vitality in exchange for temporary pleasure. Those who do not have the will power to resist their temptation were often tempted by their offers and end up having their whole soul consumed by the succubus they meet.
Succubus originated from the underworld as a way to perish souls that committed crimes against the many Laws of Consignation.
There was only one reason that a succubus like Prishine was in the mortal realm. Her lineage was banished from the underworld for devouring innocent souls that were supposed to move on to the afterlife in their momentary greed for vitality.
Sensing John’s withdrawal, Prishine continued, “Ah, there is no need to be afraid. I am not as nasty as the rumors. In fact I am a fourth generation, my ancestors were the ones who were banished for their lack of control. Since my family was brought up in the human world, none of us fed on anyone’s vitality in our lives.”
“Is that so…” John still doubtful at her words muttered. “How do you fix that craving of yours then? I heard that your race doesn’t ever really get satisfied unless you obtain vitality from others.”
At his words, a tail behind Prishine went upwards, it was hard to tell if she was surprised by his perceptiveness but it took her a few moments before she replied.
“In many, many, unconventional ways~” she gave him a wink.
Sensing her attempts to change the conversation topic, John became serious and had his mental guard up, “Answer me seriously. What do you do to get your dose of vitality in living things if you don’t eat souls? Do you take them from animals? Or from intelligent beings?”
Unfazed by his shift in gaze, the red haired female leaned close to him, put a hair’s breadth between their cheeks and looked to his eye. “Do you really want to know, John?” put a finger to his collarbone and began tracing to his chin “Perhaps. I. Can. Get. Satisfied. With. You?”
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John kept his face straight as Prishine seduced him in a way which no sane man could have resisted.
If he said yes this moment, he was sure that she would bring him into a private room and be rushed by a wave of pleasure before his vitality was consumed by her.
Prishine was nothing short on her feminine wiles, she had lush lips, well proportioned hips, a great bosom, highlighted cleavage dangling in front of his very eyes, even her breath smelled of roses.
The onlookers to this situation he found himself in looked in his direction with great envy. No doubt, they were getting frustrated over this busty female coming up to him. To them, having such a sensual female to lust and beg for their undivided attention was something that they would give up their life for, if their vitality was needed to experience great pleasure from someone like her, it was worth it.
But unlike them, John felt nothing.
In fact, to think that she was suggesting to use him as a mere pleasure toy cause him to put his guard up.
The fact that her breath blew on his face irritated him more than it charmed him. The fact that she was trying to get him concede from his original conversation topic using her sexuality was nothing but shallow.
He grabbed her shoulders firmly and pushed her inching body away from him.
“If you aren’t going to tell me, that’s fine.” He made no attempts to hide his growing scowl towards Prishine, “But I don’t appreciate it when someone I’ve just met get in my face. It’s revolting, to be honest.”
“Aww, come on, you didn’t feel anything at all?” Prishine pouted. She drooped her eyes and placed her two hands in front of her chest, like how a domestic dog begged for treats. “Am I not cute to you at all?” she titled her head innocently.
Such an act made the onlookers to John’s direction to blush and faint, but he was unfazed, much less swayed by it.
“Don’t change the subject, out with the truth, or don’t. I am used to tricks like these, it won’t work.”
On of the reasons that made him liked the Elven Princess was because unlike Prishine here who used her looks to get people to like her, Raina as beautiful as she was, valued conversations and spoke to him in earnest despite their differences in opinions, she would listen to—
Not that it mattered to him now…
“Fineeee. I’ll tell you. Please don’t show that angry face to me, I am not a bad giiirrrlll,” she frowned and then quickly returned to her normal face when it was not having an effect on him.“One of the ways on how we obtain vitality without directly feasting on others was what I did just there. The tension I created around the room earlier although subtle, it was enough to create excess harmless vitality from people around.”
“So you’ve just harvested vitality from those people who are looking at us now?” he signaled his eyes to the group of onlookers by the side.
“Exactly, you have just helped me with my meal. Though I am very satisfied from absorbing their vitality with my skin, I still look forward to the day when you give me yours~”
He rolled his eyes at her, “What about the other methods?”
“Activities that people find themselves enjoying, such as parties like this, we succubus tend to get a good dose of vitality. It works especially well because the vitality that we collect from events like this are the excessive vitality that a living being would produce. In other words, it harms no one.”
“You could have gone with ‘I like having fun’ instead of trying to pull that seduction crap on me. Or better yet, ‘I promise I won’t suck your soul of its vitality’… Actually, that last one sounds suspicious, forget I say that”
“Would still be this cold to me if I said something like you suggested?”
“Hmm… Yeah, no. You would still come up to me to create tension in the room just because you wanted to feed on excess vitality.”
“You are no fun,”she touched her fingers together and pouted.
“I got that a lot from people who know me on the surface.”
“But then again,” she straightened her back and regained her confident self. “You are very interesting. Manly, if I might say so. I will be keeping watch over you, John. I hope you do that for me too.”
“That is a weird way to say you want to be friends.” he raised his eyebrows at her.
“Let’s leave it at that for our meeting for now. It won’t be fair to the others if you keep me all to yourself,” she winked at him suggestively. Right before she leave, she got extremely close to his ear and whispered, “I will be capturing that ice cold heart of yours someday.”
Prishine left with her thin succubus tail swaying in mid air to the opposite side of the room.
What a weird person. I am sure she meant well or that was how succubus greet new people, but man, I can’t help but feel uneasy. She could have left being a succubus out, that’s not what you tell people on first meeting.
While he made the little comment in his head, people around him began cheering at a person’s entrance.
He had a chiseled chin, a well defined physique, and a sharp unassuming glint, all the cheering and salutes could only mean that it was the hero.
Right behind him was the four people that had been following him since morning. The group of five that consisted of three males and two females then confidently walked inside the pub.
“The hero of our generation, Scywell Shatterstep! In the flesh!” a guy who was walking beside the hero announced.
“I told you to not introduce me, Randy. Don’t blame me when people are too afraid to talk to you because you are associated with me.”
“Nonsense. I, Randolph Roller will make sure people love you. If they cannot appreciate you, there is no point in you putting your life in danger for them.”
“Sure, because life means food in that head of yours. And all you want is the people to give you food wherever we go.” Scywell replied sarcastically.
“Exactly! As they say, no food, no life!” the sarcasm was lost on the person named Randolph, he had a light blush on his face, indicating that he was drunk on the atmosphere.
The group of five moved all the way from the entrance and to the counter where John was to get food for their loud party member.
I hope people like him aren’t too many around the academy. John thought to himself before he observed the other three behind the hero.
However, Randolph being the livewire that he was, walked too quickly and tripped on thin air, he ended up planting his face right in front of John’s feet.
“That hurt…” he grumbled, and all of a sudden, he affixed his eyes on John. “Hey, you, why did you trip me?”
John had a puzzled look on his face when Randolph threw the question at him while he stood up.
“Me? What are you talking about?”
“You purposely put your feet in front of me didn’t you!?”
“Wait a second, I did no such thing. What would I get from tripping you?” John reasoned with the accusing Randolph.
“I saw you, you have been eyeing us the moment we entered the pub! You must be jealous of the hero from the way you look at us! If not, you wouldn’t use wind magic to trip my legs!”
“I don’t use wind magic, can you stop blaming me because you fell to the ground?” John lowered his brows.
What is this guy’s problem?
“Stop lying, I felt a blow to my legs when I took a step just now!”
“...I keep telling you I don’t use wind magic,” John reasoned one more time, his patience wore thin with each sentence from this Randolph. Hero’s companion or not, it is ridiculous to blame the first person he saw as the perpetrator of his self acclaimed misstep. “Stop—”
When he was about to tell Randolph to stop being a pain in the ass, the hero, Scywell, cleared his throat loud enough both John and Randolph to look over.
“Ahem! Randy, check your own shoe laces.”
Right under Randolph’s shoes were laces that were untied, when Randolph saw it with his own two eyes, he stuttered “I-I…this is not right… I certainly felt something on my leg earlier,” he hurriedly bent downwards and began to tie them in earnest.
“Who would have thought?” John said with needles in his voice, making his foul mood known to the hero’s party. “Guess it was not my fault at all.”
With that, he turned his back from them and ordered a fizzy drink from the counter, intending to take his mind of by enjoying the pub’s calming atmosphere on his own.
Another guy who had the largest build out of the hero’s party saw this and went beside John, threw his right large arm around him, spun John’s chair to have him face their party.
“Don’t mind Randolph there, he has a quick temper. He already has huge problems with the ladies because of it, I hope you won’t hold anything against him. We are all friends here, aren’t we?”
John did not have to look at the huge guy to know that this was blandishment, to smooth over their discord in order to maintain a certain image of the hero.
“Sure, no problem. As long you get your heavy arm off me.”
“Hahaha! I like your style. I am Gobbert Barcus, you can call me Gob.” he retracted the 10 kilogram arm and extended an arm to John.
“John Sarvod. Nice to meet you and your muscular arms, now if you don’t mind…” he said in the most uninterested tone.
“Come on Randy,” Scywell gave a light kick at the person who screamed at John for his own mistakes, “Gobbert made an opening for you, apologize now.”
“Fine, fine.” Randolph patted himself and gave a deep bow. “I am sorry for embarrassing you in public, John!”
“Right, I get it, I get it. You don’t have to shout, it happens,” John had his two hands in front of him, hoping that it was enough to calm Randolph who was drawing the attention from everyone in the pub to him.
“John, was it? Allow me to apologize for my friend’s behalf and to introduce ourselves. I am Scywell, the hero in training. You know Gobbert already, and of course Randolph. The two ladies are Helen and Angeline.”
“Hi… I am Helen Crestus” a girl with a lighter voice introduced herself while standing behind Scywell, obviously weary of John. She too had disinterested gleam in her eyes, like the hero who she stood solemnly behind.
“Angeline Grist, if you need buffs, healing or anything support related, I am your person,” the girl in glasses announced and nod at John.
“Oh nice, I am a healer myself too.” He followed up after Angeline’s introduction, since the opportunity presented itself, he intended to use it to the best of his ability. This was the ‘hero’ that Kaldor had been talking about since their first meeting and his party. Who knows, they might know a thing or two about demons, given their duty requires them to fight monsters. “Though, it is the only magic I can use.”
“Oh? Do show us, John,” Gobbert spoke up. “If he is good enough, we might replace him with you, Angeline.”
“Shut up or you won’t be getting medicine from me, you know I don’t specialize in healing magic. They are rare and…”
“[Heal],” John extended his hand a blue glow began to flow to his palms. He then directed his aura at Randolph who had light bruises on his face and bathe him in a warm glow, healing him instantly.
“Woah, woah, woah! This is amazing, Scy! I feel great already, and…” Randolph began lifting and arm and bent it towards his back in a forceful motion. “Holy shit! This dude is the real deal! Even my back injury from the ogre skirmish is gone!” his eyes began to sparkle with childlike awe.
As though he was a new person, Randolph quickly move towards John and clasped his hand that was not quite finish with his healing magic. “H-hey, wait I am not done healing you—”
“I am so sorry for being an ass to you. I know I have said it, but I let me tell you again. I didn’t know you are gifted! You don’t know how much I have suffered because of that useless ogre who cobbled me with that club!”
“Pfft, I remember him crying like a baby whenever he tried to shoot an arrow. He kept asking me for pain relievers, and at one point, said that he would kill himself because he was useless,” Angeline placed a hand to her mouth, almost breaking into laughter remembering that incident. After calming herself she said to John, “I must say, this is quite the talent you have. A tier 4 spell? No, I think [Heal] is more than that. Tier 5? You are almost as good as Scywell in terms of raw power.”
John blinked at her words about spells classified into tier lists. He came across it back in A’vetheas but it never mattered to him or the elves because as far as he knew, magic was based on the amount of mana poured into a spell. Classifying them into tiers meant they treated their own magic as a circuit that is only activated when the required mana is used to cast the spell.
If one would visualize it, the tiered spells are used like a loaded crossbow, loading the projectile and priming it to fire would be the spell itself and the mana supplied will be the action of pulling the trigger.
Users of tiered magic could cast spells quickly without worrying about the output, achieving quick, accurate, stable output—or so it says—of said spells remembered. It was also simpler than directly applying the right amount of mana into one’s spells.
The only downside was that it limited the user’s in depth understanding of using magic. It prioritized efficiency over functionality with the expense where it made the user of tiered magic to be unable to manually control their amount of mana poured into their spells.
“Is that good? I am not really familiar with this tiered magic stuff.”
“Hahaha! John, you aren’t from around here are you? That black hair, dark eyes, about average height, you must have some eastern continent blood in you.” Gobbert commented happily, took a big gulp from the tankard that was handed to him. “Listen, us humans, on average, at best can handle up to tier 2 spells. If you are considered to have proficiency in that area of magic, you can cast up to tier 3 spells. Even that is rare. Only heroes who are chosen by the angels themselves could handle tier 5 and tier 6 spells.”
“Gee… I don’t know what to feel about that. It has it’s drawbacks, my healing ability, other than [Heal], I can’t use any magic…”
“Is that so,” Scywell, the hero who had been watching their conversation muttered. “Maybe you are a late bloomer.”
John did not know what to say. As far as he knew, one person’s ability to utilize mana one possessed was determined from their point of birth. Even in rare cases where people obtain their proficiency in magic later on in life, they were limited to basic spells.
“Bah, who cares about you being able to cast other types of magic! You ability is already amazing! Maybe even beyond what the medics in the academy can achieve!” Randolph carrying two big jars of liquor from the edge of the counter walked towards John and pushed one onto him. “Drink my brother! For your ability deserves praise!”
“To John!” Gobbert lifted his tankard to the air with might.
And the hero’s party gave their toast to him, with Randolph lifting one of John’s free arm, Gobbert laughing merrily at their newfound friend, Angeline adjusting her glasses, Scywell and Helen who smiled at him from the sides.
“And to everyone here!” Randolph shouted once more, sharing his excitable energy to the people who began to approach them after witnessing the warm welcome that the hero’s party extended to John.
I guess that settles my dispute with them.