For starters, I can’t exit the city. Not without getting caught up in the crossfire between the knights and the demons. Heck, that crow headed demon killed me once! Maybe if I wait a couple of days….
Then I found out that the knights are the royal brigade tasked with exterminating the demons that live on the outside. Apparently they are so scared of demons that there are patrols inside the city day and night. I am sure if I were to accidentally reveal that I am technically a hornless demon then I would be tied to a steak and burned on the spot.
Speaking of being burned on the spot, guess what kind of a bizarre situation I am in right now. Two days passed since I saw the dragon. I completely forgot about this event. I was more preoccupied with not ending up inside Dragon’s belly.
The burning of the witch, which was the event that followed. This time, instead of watching from far away, I sat very close to the place where the onlookers were cheering on the executioner to burn the witch.
She didn’t look old, in fact she looked young, I dare say somewhat younger than me! What the heck people, now you are burning little girls? But sadly none seemed to think this was absurd in any way.
In a few seconds she would be burned, and up in flames she would go, just like my chances of exiting this messed up city alive. Up in flames the witch goes…
Wait a minute! That book about contracts, it stated that the contracts can be established between witches and demons. The contract would allow a demon to be physically invulnerable to non-magical damage. It was a clear way to get out of this hellhole. She is a witch and I am a demon. It was a perfect chance.
Of course the way I tried to have her make contract with me was completely off.
I climbed on to the stage where she was tied to a stake and asked her while everyone looked in shock.
“Will you make a contract with me?” I asked.
She looked surprised and both eyes wide open in disbelief. “Eh?”
“He is with the witch!”
“Get him!!!”
“Tie and burn him with her!” they ended up tying me to the stake next to her.
It is safe to say, it didn’t go well, at all. Not only did I fail to have her make a contract with me, but I also ended up making the total number of casualties of the witch burning rise by one with my own senseless idiotism.
“I am very sorry about this; I forgot that everyone was watching.” I awkwardly mumbled as I saw her look at me with eyes full of pity. I wasn’t sure whether she was sad about the current situation or how I messed it up even further.
What followed was, in one word, inferno.
First clothes ended up melting away, along with my skin. The toxic fumes caused my eyes to close as my reality seemed to spin further and further away….
I opened my eyes, and I saw I was back inside the city, with the familiar hooded back in front of me, few paces ahead. This was the moment I realized the dragon was jay walking inside the city. Last time I ignored her, but this time, this time I need her help.
Asking humans for help was out of question. One- they wouldn’t believe me and would rather throw me off the bridge. Two- I would be burned on the stake, again. In the best case scenario, I would be thrown into a prison, which I have to admit doesn’t sound too bad right now.
I will leave going to prison as my last resort.
For now, I need to get the help from this dragon.
“Aida.” I came from behind her and touched her shoulder.
“EEK!!!” she shivered all over and turned around with awkward expression. “Nur Finnerman, is that you?”
“Who else, you lovey-dovey dragon.”
“What kind of a nickname is that? How did you find me… better yet, how didn’t I see you coming?”
“Doesn’t matter. I need your help.”
I told her about my intention to leave the city, how the knights fighting against demons had made it impossible for me to exit this place. I also told her that I wanted to find the witch within this city as soon as possible. I omitted the fact that the witch would be executed within two days or the fact that I came back here in time after dying.
“Eh? You seem to be hiding something.” She leaned in closer to me, with her orange slitted eyes looking at me intently.
“What could I possibly be hiding…and please don’t eat me!” I ended up blurting out.
“You are….” I gulped, does she know my situation? “Scared of dragons aren’t you?”
What? A question just popped into my head. I was trying to hide that I was sent back in time two days, but what she said wasn’t wrong, not entirely. I can still see the dragon’s stomach every time I close my eyes. It is safe to say I am mentally scarred for life after seeing the inside of the dragon’s throat, stomach and the digestive system.
“Yes I am. I am very sorry for saying this to you but….”
“Then in that case….” She pinched my cheek. “I will help you find the witch, but only at one condition.”
“Condition?” What could she want? A sacrifice? A snack? A person to chew on?
She grabbed my arm and wrapped her arm around it. She was in her humanoid form, so for outsiders it looked like a couple linking arms.
“You will have to walk like this with me until we reach that place!”
My expression turned sour. What the hell is this dragon thinking?
To my horror I realized that to everyone else who didn’t know any better this looked like a couple walking together while leaning upon one another. I can only imagine their expressions if they knew that this was a bonafide dragon I am walking around with.
Tugging my arm, she led me towards a pastry shop.
“Let’s eat here first!” She was gesturing at the place called Fluffy Waffle. “It smells so sweet.”
“But you said you would help me find her first, didn’t you?” I tried to protest, and then I heard an audible gurgling of her stomach.
“None can function on empty stomach.” She looked at me in the eyes. “I repeat, none. Not even dragons!”
“Ok, ok, I understand. No need to lean so close, ok.”
This girl, the only thing I can describe her as is a complete glutton.
After devouring five people’s worth of food, she proceeded to go to the meat shop. Considering the fact that if they discovered her wings under her hood and she ended up being recognized as a dragon, she would be killed just like in the last loop. And if that happens, Dragon papa will surely come here. For my own sake and for the survival of this city, I need to pay for this girl’s meals!
“How long ago was the last time you ate?”
“Three months ago, why?” she said while chewing on meat with her razor sharp fangs.
“That explains a lot. But how did you survive that long without food?”
“Dragons can store food in our stomachs; we use it in long term situations.”
“Right, you guys have what three stomachs, right?” I remember being swallowed by a dragon, that scary place has never left my mind, the long walls of the intestines, the acidic liquid that dissolved my flesh….I am not fond of the things I see every time I take a short nap.
“Actually we have average of five, but some do have three. Hey, how come you didn’t assume I had a single stomach like the rest of the living beings?”
“Well, special circumstances led me to finding out about that. Don’t press the matter, it’s irrelevant.” I said while she was looking at me suspiciously. “Now for your end of the bargain…”
“If you want the witch, just look to your right.” With a small gesture of her index finger she pointed at the large building right across us. The building looked huge and it had about three levels. The material it was made of, dark white rocks, and metal bars around it made it obvious this place was some kind of a prison.
“Look below it.”
I now saw what she was pointing at, the small bars on door level on the first floor. It seems like there is an underground prison chamber, while on the outside it looked just like a semi-circular opening covered in metal bars.
“The scent of Supremacy is coming from there. The one you are looking for is most likely right there.”
“I see.” I just nodded.
“Well, you found the witch you o so desperately were searching for. Aren’t you gonna break in there and rescue her now?” She looked at me with strange expression, her orange slitted eyes squinting at me. I guess she was suspicious.
“Of course not.” I averted my gaze as some knights walked by.
“Guess we are not going to be called Dragon Slayers then.” One knight muttered.
“It seems so.” The other knight said somewhat sadly.
“Dragon slayers?” Aida looked at me with wide open mouth.
“Do you see now why I am not going to do anything right now, while everyone is watching?” I said with a smug grin.
“No way…if you haven’t found me there…would they have…” she ended up stuttering the last part. “K-kk-killed me?”
“Most likely, and then they would bring your meaty body back to the city dragged by ropes. Then everyone in the city would cut off a piece of your body for food and supplies, and by the end of it not even the bones would remain. At least that would be the case if the knights have their way.”
“I will destroy them before they can do that!” She stood up, but before she could do anything stupid I grabbed her hand. I knew she was far more powerful than me; this was more of a gesture to calm down, if she wanted to she could have easily shook my hand off, but surprisingly she didn’t.
“Calm down there, remember, right now you are not a red dragon, you are just another human being eating beef briskets.”
She looked in my eyes; angry look in her orange eyes met mine. I calmly stood my ground. Gradually, the anger in her eyes faded away and she sat down again.
“I see, your eyes are telling the truth. So that is why you are not doing anything, in order to not attract unwanted attention.”
“Exactly, if knights find out what I am trying to do, then I am pretty sure I will be publically executed on the next day. By the way…” I scratched my cheek. “You mentioned eyes telling the truth, what’s up with that?”
“You don’t know?” her head tilted resembling somewhat like a question mark.
“Please do enlighten me, oh Great Lady Aida.” I said sarcastically.
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“He he he, ok, if you insist, my loyal follower.” She giggled slightly before beginning her explanation. “Dragons possess an ability called Piercing Eye; it is a power to look into a person’s psyche and soul by making eye contact.”
“Just by eye contact?”
“Eyes are the window to the soul, making us dragons able to invade our soul into the consciousness of another. I am not a very proficient user of this ability; I have a very long way to go. The most I can do is tell whether someone tells me truth or lie, sometimes I can see bits and pieces of memories, but that’s about it. Expert users like my father can look into everything about the individual, the nature of the soul, the memories, and anything relevant with just a single glance. My version is far cry from that.”
“I see, can you tell me what you see by looking at me?”
“To be honest with you I can’t tell much about you even if I do keep eye contact for extended amount of time, it feels like there is nothing yet something there, I can’t really see the soul but I can feel it, almost like looking at leftover embers from fire, the light is very dull. Sorry.” She said little sadly.
“Don’t worry; I think it is an awesome ability to have.”
“Of course! It even has offensive purpose as well!”
“What? I thought it was just memory reading, wasn’t it?”
“Oh no, it is far more than that, it’s soul reading, not memory reading, by the way. And when I said eyes are windows to the soul, I didn’t mean it metaphorically. Dragons can invade into someone else’s soul, and devour the soul of the individual with this ability, leaving the body catatonic, isn’t that cool?”
Then she saw me look at her with terrified expression, with both of my arms wrapped around my body, with my head pointing downwards.
“It’s ok, it’s ok! I haven’t mastered that yet, so you don’t have to worry about it!”
“I don’t believe you” I muttered.
“I promise I will not use that ability on you ever again, is that fine?”
“That is acceptable” I muttered. I avoided having my soul eaten by a dragon. If this is an ability of a dragon in general, then I must feel happy to only have my body eaten last time rather than my soul, yet I couldn’t feel any sense of relief whatsoever.
After we exited the meat shop, we hid nearby the prison building until the night set. When everything turned pitch dark and there was none left there but us, we proceeded to go towards the metal barred window of the underground chamber of the prison.
I tried to pull on the bars with my hands but they wouldn’t budge.
“Allow me.” Aida said and without a warning she blew a stream of fire at the window bars. Immediately they started melting.
“How the heck am I supposed to sneak in there with metal on the window melting like this?” I looked at her while she looked with somewhat stupid expression.
“Oh, you wanted to sneak in?”
“Why else would I come here?”
“Then there is no problem, then” she proceeded to blow again at the bars, but now the temperature dropped down considerably, enough for me to start shivering. The melting metal now froze in place, covered in frost.
In response to my questioning look she responded “My mother is a White Ice Dragon”
Ok, now I am not sure at all how the dragon ancestry works but this was not the time to ask. Right now was the time to sneak in to the prison and get the witch to make a contract with me. I now reconsidered my choices. The gate that I entered into the city was just a border separating the kingdom from the rest of the continent. I already knew that outside of the gate was a death zone, so why not go further into the kingdom. If I keep going into the kingdom, then I can leave this stupid city behind, now would that not be a dream. But what I needed right now was an insurance that I would survive. Going through looping backwards again and again…. I have to admit I feel a little loopy. But seriously, it has to stop; otherwise I will lose my sanity very soon. That is where the witch comes in. If I can make a contract with her, then my body will become invulnerable to any non-magical damage, meaning unless we are battling magic users I don’t have to worry about looping back! This is a marvelous idea!
I proceed to jump into the underground room through the window. I have to say I did not have the best landing. I ended up flipping forwards through the air before landing on my butt and then falling on my back from pain.
“Yep, perfect landing.” I muttered before sighing and dropping my head down.
“Are you ok?” A girl’s voice, a young girl.
“I am fine, just need to check if I broke any of my butt bones, if there any left after this fall….” I rubbed by hind in pain, before I saw the person I was talking to. The room light was lit by torches hanging on the walls.
Unlike the time I saw her in my last loops, she was not wearing the black dress that I thought all witches apparently wear. Instead she was wearing old rags. Her legs were chained to the wall.
The last time I saw her, her hair reflected the flames that were lit around her body, so I thought she was blonde, but with a closer look I realized her hair color was silver white. Her hair was long; reaching around her waist. When I saw her in my last loop her hair was much shorter; at shoulder length, they must have cut it before the execution. Her eyes were unusual, the pupils were colored differently. One was clearly purple, while the other was yellow.
“Are you by any chance my executioner?” she said, looking somewhat nervous.
“Hopefully not, depending on your answer to my offer you might not need to have an executioner after all.” I said with a smile.
“Offer?” She meekly asked.
“Enter a covenant with me.” I extended my hand, waiting for her reply.
Her expression changed from meek to surprised, to downright horrified.
She started to scream. “Help, somebody help! A weirdo wants me to marry him…” I ended up putting my hand on her mouth, lest she ended up alerting anyone outside.
“Look, none said anything about….”
“I am only fourteen, I am too young to marry….”
“Like I said this has nothing to do with…”
“Wow, Nur. You just met her and you already are hitting on her, guess I just found out something interesting about you.” Aida said while only having her head stick from window while her body was outside. “Do you flirt with every girl you meet, or are you…”
“Do I really look like Mister Flirty to you?” I asked her with irritated voice.
“Yes, you do.” She replied with a smile.
“Anyways…” Aida now also entered the prison chamber, but unlike me she made a perfect landing on her feet. “By covenant I meant a contract, not marriage. Ok, so when I move my hand, do not shout, ok?”
She nodded, I removed my hand.
“A contract? But why? You are aware that witches can only make contracts with demons, right?”
“And?” I asked.
“But you are a human.”
“Think again.” I smiled.
“No way, are you…” she gulped for breath, she backed off from me towards the wall, chains on her feet clacking. “A demon?”
“Well, more or less, yeah. I am demon.” I didn’t mention being a half, it would only create more confusion here.
“Wait, you are not human? I thought you were joking when you told me you weren’t one, you weren’t kidding, were you?” Aida looked at me with astonishment.
“I told you, not a human.” I said with a sigh. Then I turned back to the little witch who seemed to be shivering in terror. “Little lady, how about this, I remove those chains first, then we can talk…”
“Don’t remove them!” She shouted out.
“Why not?”
“Those are mana binding chains, if they are removed, my Supremacy will go out of control and disaster will befall upon you!”
“Supremacy? Aida, you mentioned that before, what exactly is that?”
“You know about contracts yet know not of Supremacies? How skewed are your priorities?” I just shrugged.
“Well, Supremacy is the opposite of what the powers granted by Deities, the blessings, because they are some things that are given by nature itself. They latch on to hosts and go away when the host dies, a symbiotic relationship, each one has a different power, and there can be only one true for each one, but weaker versions can still be used. Those who have Supremacy are I should say, are quiet fortunate!”
“There is nothing fortunate about a curse that will not go away no matter what you do, that causes disaster everywhere I go. Everyone calls me a witch, everyone I meet is scared of me…This is nothing but a curse!” for a moment I felt some kind of pressure in the air, but then it vanished as if there was nothing.
“I see, Supremacy is not really a good thing huh, but I still do need to make a contract with you.”
“Why should I?” She looked at me in the eyes. After the encounter with the clerk I combed my hair in such a way that my red left eye was concealed, she only saw my brown right eye.
“Well, for starters, you are going to be executed in a day after tomorrow, burned at the stake, while everyone will be cheering for your demise. I do hope you wish to avoid that.”
Her eyes betrayed her fear, those wide open eyes that reminded him of a scared little animal, but this wasn’t the time to console, it was time to negotiate.
She nodded.
“Make a contract with me and I will bust you out of this prison, what you are going to do next is none of my business.”
“Are you sure about this? A contract between Supremacy user and a demon will create a link between the two. While it will allow you some benefits it does have its own downsides.”
“I am well aware of the downsides and I accept them, the question is however, do you accept?”
She closed her eyes as if in deep thought.
Then she finally responded.
“Alright, I will make a contract with you. But on two conditions. First, I will keep the brace on my leg” she pointed at the chain on her leg. “I need to be in contact with the material the chain is made of to not have my Supremacy go out of control.”
“You know, does it have to be on your leg?” Aida curiously asked.
“It has to be in contact with my body.”
“Then what if I melt it and sculpt a bracelet out of it? Wouldn’t that be ok?”
“You can do that? Uhm, I suppose that would be fine…”
She looked back at me now with completely serious expression.
“As for my second condition-Take me with you.”
“What?” Aida and I simultaneously asked.
“I have no relatives or family to return to, nowhere I can go without being imprisoned or worse executed. I don’t have anywhere else left to go, so if you are going to free me then you must allow me to go with you!” she emphasized her point strongly.
“Hm, I suppose that is fine. But don’t expect me to slow down just because you are coming with me.”
“Yes, of course.” She nodded and bowed. “I will be in your care, uhm…”
“It’s Nur, Nur Finnerman. And you are…”
“Mister Finnerman. My name is Sariu, Sariu Lixus. Very nice to meet you.”
Just like that, I ended up with a witch for a companion. I asked Aida to melt the chains that were on Sariu’s legs. With a fire breath the chains ended up melting away. Aida controlled how she did it in order to avoid burning Sariu. She has tremendous control over her flames, just how much is demonstrated by making steel melt like paste without even touching the skin of the person wearing the chains.
Then Aida took the molten metal in her hands and proceeded to make a bracelet out of it. With a breath of ice cold air the glowing metal bracelet solidified.
Then she offered the bracelet to the now chain free Sariu who was looking at Aida with open mouthed expression.
“What is it? Something on my face?” Aida asked.
“I am sorry, this might be rude to ask, but what exactly are you? Mr. Finnerman is a demon, so are you…?”
“Nope, don’t think too much about it, you will hurt you tiny silver head.” Aida said with a mischievous smile. Her cloak moved a little and Sariu caught a glimpse of the red wings.
“Wow” Sariu muttered and gulped.
“Alright, I will not think about it.” Then Sariu faced me and said “For the contract to be made there needs to be demon blood…”
“How much blood?” I asked.
“Couple of drops is sufficient.”
I proceeded to bite my thumb on my left hand and felt some blood coming from it. “I hope this is good.”
“It is more than sufficient.” Then she took my left hand in both of hers. She started chanting some kind of words while her eyes now seemed to be shining in darkness with their unique purple and yellow lights.
The blood from my thumb spread across my palm and began shaping itself into letters. The letters now started to burn into my skin. It felt rather painful but I endured the pain for the sake of the contract.
After a few minutes, she was done, but she was panting for breath. Apparently making a contract was not easy.
I looked at my palm, there the letters were gone, but instead what remained on my palm was a circle with a pentagram inside of it.
“The contract is now established between us. Now you are my familiar.” Sariu declared while trying to catch her breath.
Like we agreed, we proceeded to get her out of the underground prison through the same melted and frozen window we came through.
We couldn’t risk getting caught, so we walked quiet a distance before we climbed on top of a building to sleep there.
Aida and I were not tired, but Sariu quickly fell asleep. Considering we did just bust her out of prison on a death row, it is understandable she was too terrified to sleep there. Now the mental toll kicked in, resulting in her falling asleep.
Now Aida and I had a little chat.
“Nur Finnerman, why did you make a contract with her? You do realize it binds you to her don’t you?”
“It was necessary. I need to be sure I am not going to get killed, and this is one way of ensuring that. Wait what do you mean bind me to her?”
“Your lives are now linked. If she dies, you die as well” Aida said with a sad tone.
“Crap! What the hell was I thinking? I just wanted to go further into the kingdom, away from this messed up city safely, but it seems like I miscalculated!”
“If you wanted to travel safely you could have just asked me, I could have flown you anywhere on my back. I doubt anyone would attack me while I am up in the sky.”
I looked at her, now realizing my foolishness. I could have just asked her to take me away from this place. The entire nuisance about making a contract with the witch, I did it for nothing! I felt like a complete idiot.
“I see, uhm, Aida, do you have a knife by any chance?”
“Hmm, no, but I can easily make one.” She put her hands together and energy gathered in one location, then the energy took on a shape of a knife.
“Here you go.” She passed me the knife.
I knew I could travel back if I die here, so if I kill myself here and now then I can go back and just ask Aida for help instead of going through the entire ordeal of jail break.
“Wait, what are you…?” I proceeded to stab myself in the gut with the knife.
“A re?” I looked on my body, no blood came gushing out of the stabbed place. I didn’t feel pain. My body, the knife, everything seemed to be making contact, but no pain was there to remind me of the fatality of my action.
“What the…?” I looked at my body, when I removed the knife, the stabbed place just ended up disappearing. My body seemed to be made of dust. When I stabbed myself in the gut, my body became dust, when I removed it, my body just returned to normal.
I tried to slice my arm, same thing happened. My arm turned to dust the moment the knife touched it, and then returned to normal.
“What the heck are you thinking?” Aida grabbed the knife and proceeded to throw it away.
“A ha ha ha ha hah aha hahah….” I ended up laughing, not from humor, but from the fact that I just eliminated a way for me to fix my mistakes by making an enormous mistake. The phenomenon that sent me back in time only works when I die, meaning if I can’t die, then I can’t fix any mistakes I make.
I ended up falling on my knee, clutching my head as I realized the magnitude of my mistake. I was so concerned for my survival that I eliminated my single chance at resetting things. I realized at this moment-I am such a fool.
Next thing I know, I am laughing hard on the ground, trying to cry myself back to sleep, but no tears would come out, just a feverish jiggle.
In the distance, watching from the sky high was a shadow. A shadow that o the close inspection resembled a gigantic bird. Of course, this was actually an angel concealing his presence while watching his target. He made himself invisible but while his body was up high near the clouds, under the light of the moon, he still cast a shadow. Luckily none was watching.
“Well, well, well. Isn’t this curious? You have found a way to partially negate Mistress’s curse…But what are you going to do next? For everything to work just as planned, I need to have Chronos distracted by him.” Mrakus turned to his head with a smug smile. “Soon, Chronos, soon you will get what you deserve. And you, servant of Shinigami, shall play the key role in doing so.” Now it was the time to play a highly convoluted game of chess. His advantages-he controls what Chronos knows and she doesn’t suspect anything from him. Her advantage-she is a primary deity; she can easily destroy him any second if she wanted to. In order to get his plan to succeed, Mrakus knew he had to play his cards just right.