“Yes, it is,” Lokus nodded. “I apologize for leaving him here, I didn’t think people would take kindly to a demon slithering amongst them.”

“Ya should’ve told us,” the other man growled. “We nearly killed the damn thing before Vera here stopped us.”

So the hooded woman’s name was Vera. Lokus would be sure to remember that.

“No one cares if ya drag one of them demons around with ya, so long as you keep it out of trouble,” said the first man. “Which, by the looks of it, you’re already doing.”

The two men went to leave, but Lokus stopped them with a “Wait.” They gave him questioning looks, but made no move to resume their departure, so he asked them what he needed to.

“I was wondering about a couple of things. To start with, is there any way I can buy one of these demons off of you?”

“What fer?” the first man said with narrowed eyes.

“My demon needs food to heal his arm. Here.”

Lokus pulled out his bag of demon claws and fished around inside it, eventually extracting five of the seven Lesser Prince claws held inside and offering them to the man.

The man’s narrowed gaze was so intense that, for a moment, Lokus thought he would just continue to stare. That was, until the man snatched the claws out of Lokus’ hand and shoved them in his overall’s pockets.

“Ya can have four of the little ones over there,” the man said, pointing at a particular stall that held dog-sized demons raised only for their meat. “But make sure not to let yer demon eat them in the barn. I don’t want the others getting spooked.”

Lokus nodded. “I’ll be sure to do that.”

“What was the other thing you needed?”

“A place to sleep. I was hoping I could stay in here until I find a way back to the surface.”

“Back to the… Ha!”

Out of nowhere, the man doubled over in laughter, his sides shaking so hard that the little baby fat on his cheeks jiggled and danced. It only stopped when the laughter devolved into coughs, and he straightened hurriedly while slamming his chest with a fist.

“Hooo…” The man gulped, an ear-splitting grin still on his face that was matched by the other man. “A surface-dweller, eh? That explains a lot. Well sorry to burst yer bubble, but if it was possible to get up there, we woulda done it years ago, if only fer the grass up there.”

“Oh.” Lokus grimaced, his expression hidden behind his mask.

He hadn’t thought of that. But now that it was pointed out to him, a whole fortress full of people willingly staying down here in the dark, cut off from everyone and everything else, was something he could only imagine the most zealous doing, and everyone here seemed rather normal. For the Aldark, anyway.

“You can stay here all you want, lad, so long as you do your duty,” the second man told Lokus as he and the first one took their leave. “We’ll bring a mattress in later. Back to the surface, kekeke.”

‘Is it really that far-fetched?’ Lokus thought with no small amount of melancholy. True, he didn’t exactly have a place to call home anymore, but it was easy to tell that the surface had more people, meaning a higher chance for Lokus to find a way back to his world.

“That’s quite some luck you have, to fall into Grimn’s Nerves so soon after being banished,” the hooded woman, Vera, said with a small smirk.

Lokus shrugged, moving to the dog-sized demons he had just bought from the breeders.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

This woman’s knowledge seemed to be infinite, but it was actually quite easy to figure out Lokus’ origins based on the way he appeared to be clueless about the Aldark people’s attitude toward Egomancy.

He knew this as well, which was why he wasn’t particularly surprised that she had put two and two together.

As he wrapped his hands around one of the squirming demons and lifted it with a grunt, Vera affixed him with an amused gaze.

“I’m surprised they took my claws,” Lokus said offhandedly as he waddled toward the barn’s doors with Ibmund in tow. Vera, having her curiosity kindled, joined him outside the stone building as he handed the small demon to Ibmund.

It squealed loudly as Ibmund’s good hand wrapped around it in a chokehold, the mouths on its stomach digging into the meal with relish as panicked screeches left the small demon.

“Why’s that?” Vera asked. Her eyes were completely glued to the eating Ibmund, watching on with a macabre sort of intrigue.

“Everything here is free, so long as you ‘do your duty,’ so what use do they have for claws?”

“They still have personal possessions, and not everything is free. Clothes still need to be purchased, along with weapons and tools if you’re a civilian. And if you want something someone else has, the best way to do that is to barter with claws.”

They walked as they talked, Lokus dragging the other three demons out one by one to feed to his Egone. Each time, Vera watched with rapt attention, hardly taking her eyes off of the sight as she responded to Lokus’ rapidly dwindling number of questions.

“Speaking of duty,” Lokus said, “what is it? What is mine?”

“Here in Saddoton, one’s duty varies from person to person. But I’m sure you’re not interested in the others. You just want to know what you’ve been brought into. Yes?”

“Yes,” Lokus said quickly.

“It’s simple. So long as you reside here, and don’t have any other responsibilities, you must defend Saddoton when it’s attacked.”

“…That’s it?” Lokus found it hard to be relieved at that news. It sounded much too simple for all he had gotten in exchange.

“You’ll likely change your tune when the demon horde arrives,” Vera said with a mysterious smile. “Tomorrow, I recommend going to the armory and trying to procure some arms or armor.”

Lokus fell silent at that, the two watching the demon Ibmund devour the last squealing small demon with its sharp teeth and smacking mouths.

Lokus couldn’t help but dwell on the woman’s choice of words. Not “if” a demon horde arrived…

But “when.”

………

Lokus woke up feeling more rested than he ever had in his life.

Part of it was most likely from the bath he had taken the day before. Even now, he could feel his veins rushing with the energy it had filled him with. It had made going to sleep that much harder, but in the end, he had managed.

The other piece of the puzzle lay in the “mattress” the demon breeders had brought him.

As he shifted on it, rising to a sitting position and scratching his head blearily, he could feel it sink and contort under his weight and the shape of his ass and legs, almost like it could remember his shape and adjust itself accordingly.

It was the closest to a legitimate bed Lokus had experienced in quite some time, which was more than enough to ignore the… undesirable qualities it held.

His nose wrinkled slightly, a whiff of a smell like something had crawled up into something else, and then proceeded to vomit and shit profusely before both things died assaulting his nostrils. It cut through the stink of the barn and affected what Lokus had assumed to be a completely dead nose.

But not even walking around in his own vomit and blood was enough to match up to the horrid stench of this “mattress.”

As for the source of this smell, it was none other than the springy mattress underneath him.

Like everything else in Saddoton, it was made from parts of demons. The thickest slices of fat had been saved from their “livestock” and stuffed into a large skin bag sewn together with tendons, producing a truly disgusting product that was as comfortable as it was macabre.

Getting up from his bed, Lokus stifled a yawn as he looked around the barn’s dimly lit interior, only to blink slowly as he realized something.

‘My mask. Where’s my mask?’

His eyes darted about, searching for the item, before spotting a figure near the back of the barn, shuffling about strangely at the edges of the light like a shadowy blob.

The figure, seemingly sensing his gaze, twisted its neck, revealing a hooded face hidden by none other than the Ibmund mask.

“You’re awake,” the figure said. Lokus’ sleepy mind took a second to recognize the voice as belonging to Vera. “How did you sleep?”

“Why are you wearing my mask?” Lokus asked her pointedly.

“I wanted to see what it was like, wearing the mask of a masked demon,” she replied, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much for me, so you can have it back.”

She took it off and tossed it over to him in one fluid motion, leaving him scrambling to catch it as she turned back to whatever she was doing over there.

Lokus frowned at the mask in his hands. “Did you at least allow the demon’s arm to mend before you took this from me?”

“Of course I did. What do you take me for?”

“I don’t know you well enough to answer that.”

Vera chuckled lightly at that, and said over her shoulder, “The demon should be around here somewhere. I can’t see him in his current state, but I doubt he would stray far from his master.”

“He?”

“Your demon is a male,” Vera said offhandedly. “It’s difficult to tell sometimes, but I’ve been studying demons for a while now.”