Thump! Thump! Thump!

“There. That’s all of it,” scowled the guardsman. “Can’t believe those assholes didn’t let me use the wagon.”

The man stomped off out of the barn, slamming the door behind him.

Lokus shook his head and turned to the demon-leather bags the man had dropped off, opening one and peeking inside.

‘That’s a lot of claws,’ he thought with wide eyes.

The bag went up to his chest and bulged out at the sides as if overstuffed, which it was. There had to be at over two thousand claws in the bag, and if his math was correct, less than half of that had come directly from the demon corpses. Which meant the rest was payment for what he had sold off to the fortress.

A brief examination with his Domain confirmed that none of the claws were above the Prince rank, but that hardly mattered as of right now. He still had yet to fully grasp the exchange rate between this new form of currency and the coin he was used to, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that this was a lot of money.

But the problem was obvious.

‘I can’t carry all of this around,’ he thought. And there were still two more bags left to look at! ‘Maybe I can exchange them for claws of a higher rank?’

He wouldn’t do so for all of them, of course. Having smaller forms of currency on hand was rarely a bad idea. So he’d keep around a hundred of these ones, and attempt to exchange the rest.

‘But that’s still a lot to carry, without even considering everything else.’

The claws ranged in size depending on the demon they were harvested from, but they were generally around the length of his pinky finger. And over a hundred of objects of that size would take up a fair amount of space in the pack he had asked for.

A growl interrupted his thoughts. Lokus gave Ibmund a look halfway between curiosity and irritation at being disturbed. “What? Hungry? Well, it can wait, can’t it?”

The demon growled again, bristling at his master’s treatment, and levied a clawed finger at the bag tied to Lokus’ thigh.

Lokus’ brows furrowed. “You can’t eat those. I need them. Plus, I don’t think even you can enjoy demon claws as a snack.”

The demon growled a third time, shaking its head roughly as it moved its pointing finger forward for emphasis.

“I wish you spoke Talzen,” Lokus sighed. “I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

Ibmund flipped its hand over so its palm faced up, bending its fingers in a beckoning motion as its many mouths scowled.

“All right, here.” Lokus untied the bag from his thigh and tossed it over to the demon, who caught it the moment it shifted and promptly tugged the drawstring open.

It scooped up a handful of demon claws out of the larger bag and dumped them into the smaller one, completely bewildering Lokus.

“The hell are you…?”

His eyes widened as the claws finished their descent. Other than the ones that missed their mark, all of the demon claws had disappeared within the leather bag, and yet said bag didn’t even seem to expand outward from the added burden.

“How did… How do you know how to do that?” Lokus asked the demon. He didn’t even know the bag could do that!

The demon’s free hand moved up to its toothy face, pressing against where an eye would be on a person.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“…Vera? Vera told you?”

Ibmund nodded.

“Huh.” Lokus scratched his neck. ‘It must have happened when she had taken my mask while I was sleeping. And I assume she didn’t say anything because she thought I knew.’

With this new knowledge revealed, a question came to mind: just how much could this bag hold?

There was only one way to find out.

………

A few minutes later, Lokus held the small bag in his palm, squeezing it slightly to test how full it felt. Surprisingly, it hardly seemed to change, even after he had stuffed every single one of the over two thousand demon claws into it.

‘How much is this thing worth?’ he wondered. And why had that woman given it to him so casually? Such an item seemed immensely valuable to Lokus, who had never seen anything like this before.

When would he have ever seen something like this? While he was stuck in that dead-end store in the city, constantly cleaning and sweeping and slaving away? While he was trapped in that village full of hateful, spiteful people who viewed something as harmless as eye color as cursed?

Lokus sighed lightly, setting the bag on the floor nearby. There was no point tying it back onto his leg yet, considering he’d soon be ditching what remained of his current pants. ‘Let’s check the other bags.’

Opening the second of the three bags, he pulled out the axe, armor, clothes, and pack he had asked for, looking all of it over for any signs of tears or dents. The guard had dropped the bag rather roughly, after all.

Finding none, he slipped out of his current pants and put the new ones on, followed by the shirt and the shoes, and did some light stretches. They didn’t restrict his movements very much, which was good, and they felt surprisingly comfortable.

Maybe demon leather wasn’t all bad.

The axe had only a single, crescent-shaped blade that curved downward from the top of the pole. All of it was made of bone, but the hilt had been wrapped in leather for added comfort.

Following that, he put the armor on piece by piece: A pair of greaves to protect his lower legs; a cuirass of bone, with leather straps connecting the front and back pieces and allowing him to adjust the fit, along with pauldrons to protect his shoulders; and leather gloves and bracers backed by bone.

Finally, he took his bag of demon claws and stuffed it in one of his new pants’ pockets.

The lack of a helmet didn’t upset Lokus. With his mask, wearing one would be uncomfortable, if not downright impossible depending on the design.

Giving his brand-new axe a few test swings, he nodded in satisfaction at the weight of the weapon before slipping it into a loop on the belt of his pants, an unasked-for addition that he was happy had been included.

‘Claws, armor, axe, clothes,’ Lokus mused. ‘Meaning the last bag is the meat…’

And the hearts.

Upon opening the bag, Lokus was immediately hit by an overwhelming stench of blood.

If he hadn’t previously walked around covered in his own blood and vomit, it might have caused him to keel over and evacuate the contents of his stomach, but as it was, he just sniffed in displeasure before plunging a hand in.

He grabbed the first heart he felt, pulling it out and squeezing it lightly in his hand. The valves had closed up in a way similar to Ibmund’s arm after Lokus had nearly severed it.

The layers of flesh covering these valves were thinner than what had staunched Ibmund’s blood flow before, however, so after Lokus applied a bit more pressure, the barriers ruptured and the blood came flowing out, falling from his hand like rain.

‘And I have to eat over thirty of these,’ Lokus thought with a grimace.

Ibmund growled yet again, hooking a clawed thumb at itself before pointing to the bag of hearts and meat.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ll get your share of meat later, when we’re on the road,” Lokus said with a dismissive wave of his free hand. “Until then, you can wait.”

The demon’s many mouths opened wide in a toothy snarl, a wave of frustration at its inability to properly communicate with its master overcoming it as the tip of its serpentine tail slammed into one of the barn’s stone support beams with a loud THUMP!

“What? What are you trying to say?” Lokus asked the demon, realizing it didn’t just want meat.

Unfortunately, while talking TO Ibmund was extremely easy thanks to the demon being able to hear Lokus’ thoughts and understand Talzen, the reverse couldn’t be said to be true.

Lokus couldn’t hear any of the demon’s thoughts, and while it clearly understood his language, it obviously had trouble utilizing it for itself, or else it would have long since used it.

So it was stuck trying to pantomime to its master its intent, which it eventually succeeded at by pointing from the bag, to the mouth on its head, and then to its chest, right where its heart is.

“You want… the hearts?”

A nod.

“Hm. Do these do for you what they’ll do for me?”

Another nod.

‘This could be good news. And here I thought the thing would become useless after a while, but it seems that so long as I take care of it, it’ll be helpful for the foreseeable future.’

Grrrrrr…

Yet again, its master was treating Ibmund like a tool. The demon loathed being treated like this, but due to Lokus’ position as its Ego, it was powerless to rebel. Its life, and death, were entirely in the hands of this ignorant human.

“I want to complete this quest first. If there’s any left after that, it’s all yours.”

Lokus didn’t give the demon time to respond before he took off his mask, sinking his teeth into the heart before his brain could muster a reaction of disgust.