“No, I said that it cost me greatly,” Vera said. She herself didn’t seem to mind the quiet, but enjoyed answering questions more.

“More than it did Ballad?”

“What Ballad spent can be replenished so long as he takes care of himself, and in the state the King demon was in when I left, he was in no real danger unless he was immensely incompetent. Something I know he is not.

“What I gave up for the Ritual, however, is something that will affect me for the rest of my days. It’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose. Either way, it was not part of my responsibilities to help fend off the horde.”

“And you couldn’t have performed some other Ritual to help save the lives we lost today?”

“Before I arrived on the battlefield, my all was devoted to the Ritual that brought forth the demon horde. It may sound easy to a layman, but filtering out the stronger demons while simultaneously coercing the weaker ones toward a certain location is very difficult.

“They knew the risks associated with what I was doing, and they still chose to have me go through with it. Their losses are on no one’s necks but their own.”

Lokus nodded at that, finding no room to refute what she said. He even found himself agreeing with her; if it was the fortress that had requested this horde, then they held the majority of the blame.

“Then consider the matter dropped,” he told her.

“I already have,” Vera said, sliding past him and toward the barn’s doors. “This will likely be the last time we see each other for a while; after I claim what I’m owed, I will be taking my leave from Saddoton.”

“And go where?” Lokus asked her. There was nothing but rock and demons outside of the fortress.

But the only answer he received was the clack of the stone doors shutting.

He clicked his tongue, putting his mask back on as he cut off the Majesty flowing to the ring. ‘What a strange person.’ Looking down at the ring, he bounced it in his palm a few times before slipping it on, admiring the craftsmanship as he did so.

Each one of the scales was firmly implanted into the metal. They didn’t jiggle or shift no matter how hard he shook his hand, and the ring itself hardly even moved during the action. He wouldn’t have to worry about it flying off with a precarious gesture.

“Welp,” Lokus said to no one in particular. “If she’s claiming what’s hers, I might as well go get what’s mine.”

A fourth of what he had killed. He didn’t remember how many demons he had struck down, but he was sure it was over a hundred, and that was a lowball estimate.

That quest was as good as completed.

………

The man pointed to a particular part of the courtyard, too busy addressing the concerns of the townsfolk clamoring for food to do anything more.

Lokus nodded gratefully and picked his way around the piles and piles of demon corpses to stop at a certain spot, where he found another, more familiar man waiting for him.

“About damn time,” Ballad said, spitting on the stone ground. “I’ve been waiting for… at least three minutes!”

“I never imagined you as the impatient type,” Lokus remarked.

“In my current state, I can be whatever I damn well please,” Ballad sneered, his grip tightening on the cane fashioned out of demon bone that he used to stay straight. “I’m supposed to be resting right now, but I don’t trust these meatheads to handle this.”

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While Vera had looked to be just fine after the Ritual, the same couldn’t be said for Ballad. He seemed to be withering away before Lokus’ very eyes. His grand mustache had lost its luster, his skin hung from his bones like cheap rags tossed onto a rack, and he was noticeably shaky on his feet.

Despite this, his expression was stern and strong, his back was straight, and he looked ready to do battle at any moment. It was honestly impressive how he appeared so threatening in his condition, but Lokus just chalked it up to experience.

“How much of this is mine?” Lokus asked, deftly changing the subject. His Domain examined the piles of corpses heaped up in this section of the courtyard, but it extended so far that his 15-meter range wasn’t enough to fully grasp its size.

“Everything from here to… there.” Ballad pointed his cane at two points, a line of cloud stuff appearing in each place to assist Lokus. “Give or take a corpse or two. Hard to keep track of everything with how hectic it was. I made sure to give you more than they estimated, so don’t try to say I’m cheating you, understand?”

While the piles seemed to go on forever, the lines created by Ballad made Lokus’ share much easier to wrap one's head around. Each line was well within the bounds of his Domain, and after a cursory check, he approximated that there were between thirty to forty demons in his pile.

Which, when their agreement of 1/4th of his kills was taken into account, meant he had killed anywhere from 120 to 160 demons, easily shattering the goal he had set for himself of twenty kills.

‘This should be enough for the quest, right Ibmund?’

Grrrr…

Ballad and everyone else in range tensed slightly at the noise, which according to their senses came from nowhere. “The hell…? Was that your pet demon?”

“Yes, it was,” Lokus confirmed somewhat abashedly, like a pet owner whose dog had been caught taking a dump in someone’s yard.

“Hmph,” Ballad snorted. “It’s all right, everyone! It was just this fool’s demon!”

Those in the courtyard relaxed at that. A leashed beast was much less dangerous than a feral one. So long as Lokus’ grip on it didn’t slip, they had nothing to worry about. Ballad turned back to Lokus.

“Don’t let him do that again, not when he can’t be seen,” Ballad scolded. “You’ll make the others think we’re being attacked.”

“Sorry,” Lokus replied. “So, uh… How do I take all of this?”

“You don’t,” Ballad said bluntly, looking at him like he was a special brand of idiot. “You tell us what you want to do with them. Clothes, food, weapons, whatever. What you don’t want, we’ll pay you for in demon claws.”

That got Lokus thinking, of course. He didn’t know how many he would need to eat to finish the quest. Would he even be allowed to eat them in the courtyard, in view of everyone? He’d have to ask, but if not, then he was in a bit of a pickle, because Ballad had made it clear that they didn’t intend to help him move all of it.

‘Speaking of, I should check the quest. Maybe it says how many I need. Quests.’

[>Endurance Training

Description: Eat enough demon hearts to advance your Endurance stat to King (Minor)]

‘Demon hearts? Not the entire demon? And nothing on the quantity…’

“Can you package the claws and hearts up and send them to the barn I’m sleeping in?” Lokus asked Ballad. “And I’d like some clothes as well. Shoes, a shirt, some new pants. And a pack, to carry my stuff.”

“That still leaves a lot of hides, and all of the meat and bones.”

“Hm. I could use some armor and a new weapon.” The axe he had made for himself was poorly constructed, and after the battle, its edge was blunted to the point of near uselessness. “As for the rest, I’ll take the claws you mentioned for them.”

He considered asking for something for Ibmund, but with the way the demon was naturally intangible, it was too impractical. Taking away the demon’s most powerful ability just for some armor that would block what it could be shifting through was pointless.

Ibmund could hear its master’s reasoning, and thus didn’t complain, although it was slightly unsatisfied. This master of its couldn’t have asked for some meat for it, at least?

“Oh, right,” Lokus exclaimed, seemingly remembering something. “My demon and I will need food for the road. So leave enough meat for two people to live off of for a week, if you can.”

Ballad nodded, having memorized all of Lokus’ requests as they were given. He didn’t appear to care that Lokus had mentioned leaving. “All doable. The armor, do you want it fashioned from leather or bone? And what did you want for a weapon?”

“An axe for the weapon,” Lokus said without much thought. It was the kind of weapon he was most familiar with. Which wasn’t saying much, but it still applied. “As for the armor… what do you suggest?”

“Well, you don’t seem the type to prefer bulky armor, so something light would be best for you. Although leather does little, so we could make a light set with only bracers, greaves, pauldrons, and a cuirass out of bone.”

“That. Let’s do that.”

Ballad nodded again. “The claws and hearts will be at the barn in three hours. Everything else will take a few days, what with the repairs and replacements the smiths have to work on.”

“That’s fine,” Lokus replied. He was in no rush to leave the fortress just yet.

“Then leave, so I can finally take a nap.”