"Sorry I have doubted you, dear telekinesis." Frei Galgani found out that the ability that was too weak to squash enemies to death was pretty handy for picking up drops of blood and other organic material, turning his duty of burying the dead man into an entertaining experience.
Of course only if he forgot the fact that he was handling a corpse. The floor in the hut was just dirt, making it simple to dig out a portion with his precious ability and put the remains of the unfortunate Karnak in there.
"Hurry up, we need to . . Oh, you are done already. Well, of course you are, demon." Raghask entered and his eyes bulged, when he saw all the mess was gone.
"Put this on, your skin is too suspicious." He threw him a similar attire to his cultist-like robe.
"Yes master, I will put the bathrobe on right away." Frei said and watched Raghask's face distort when he heard the term bathrobe.
"Just put the robe on, we need to go." He urged, saying the word robe with a particular diction that made it clear what he thought about Frei's term.
"Of course, it will be just a second, the bathrobe feels like it has been tailored just for me!" Frei nodded enthusiastically and Raghask began to tap his foot, apparently not sure if he should pursue the matter.
"Whatever, follow me!" He said in the end and Frei grinned under his hood, silently celebrating his small victory.
They left the hut that stood at the edge of a forest, with a town in sight. Nature around them looked similar to what Frei would expect, but he had not much time to look around the forest as they quickly entered the farmlands. There were blue flowers blooming on the fields with long stems, reminding Frei of waves on the sea when wind made them flutter. It looked too peaceful to be real, well, he might simply not see the whole picture, there could be throngs of peasants labouring on the fields from dawn to dusk beyond the horizon, he could see some of them and he might have been close to the truth based on their expressions.
"Still, flowers are flowers, they don't give a shit." Frei mumbled staring at the fields.
"I beg your pardon?" Raghask seemed to have caught a few words of his, reacting with suspicious levels of politeness.
"I was saying that the flowers look good." Frei said aloud.
"Ah." His master just nodded and they continued to walk in silence until the road branched and they took turn to head in the direction of a large residence encircled by a wooden palisade, even before they reached the town itself.
They walked in and his master headed in the direction of a circular short tower made of stone that had a wide gate. It looked more like a large circular barn made of stone than anything akin of a mage tower or something fancy like that. There were no guards at the entrance of the palisade wall, but there were two near the fancy barn.
"Yor-Jagdon." His master said and threw some coins to people that seemed to guard the barn, not sparing another glance at them.
After entering the barn, Frei saw an elaborate glowing pattern on the floor. It had been drawn there by some blue substance, but when he tried to scrape it off a bit by his shoe, he found out that some sort of glass had been placed over it, probably to protect it from what he was doing. They continued to the center of the pattern an then, they just disappeared into thin air after his master repeated their destination.
Frei was not surprised at all, he would have to be an idiot to not figure out ages ago that it was a teleporter. He was glad that he was further away from the three of his kin, they were bound to make a ruckus. They were not cautious enough for this type of missions and they were not aware of Broad Shoulders that had to be around somewhere.
"Master, we should hide, someone will notice that I have a different soul affinity." He whispered to his master, when they appeared in a much bigger space that seemed to be nothing short of a mage tower.
"You have what? Just shut up and hurry, no one will notice your skin like this." Annoyed, his master answered with his eyes darting at numerous people passing by, oblivious to what was the problem.
Frei thought about it and hoped that the ability to sense souls was unique to demons and similar sensory abilities were rare in this universe. His master should have at least some skill given the fact that he had summoned him, right?
To his relief, no one seemed to notice and they were able to exit the tower and dive into the bustling city. Frei wanted to look around, but did not dare to lift his hood much. Keeping his head down, he stared at his feet and the only thing he could admire were all kinds of shoes, boots, sandals and other footwear of the townsfolk. He had not seen so many kinds in his life.
He heard Raghask's sigh when they finally found themselves in a dark passage and entered a building a minute later.
"Wait here, I need to address some duties." He trotted off and Frei could finally lift his hood and look around properly.
It made no difference, because he could see just a plain corridor with clothes and boots hanging around. It looked awfully ordinary given the owner had just summoned a creature from another universe and the way he did it was clearly illegal to say it mildly. Frei observed the wall and [Merge] came to mind, but why would he try to escape, when there was a man who would be actively trying to hide him? Enjoying the ride was the motto of the day!
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Coincidentally, it was even in line with the mission objective and he could pack some unfortunate souls along the way as well. Everything went well, spectacular even.
Until that moment.
"Hey, do not just stand there and clean the place, we will have visitors shortly." Frei heard a voice and made a sour face.
"He wants me to be his maid or something? The hell?!" He stood there stupefied.
Fortunately, he had [Telekinesis]. It was the best ability in the world! He might have ridiculed it in the past, but how wrong he was! Everything flew around nicely, the dust to one side, the coats and bathrobes to the other. He felt like a magician when using it.
"Oh, good work." His master peeked from around a corner and was impressed by Frei's talents.
"Everything is sparkly clean master, even the bathrobes." Frei smiled in response and his master disappeared again swiftly.
It was the first time he saw the man properly, He had short-cut black hair with blue eyes, the women on Earth would surely want him, but he had obviously other motivations. He called him to sit at his side and went to welcome the visitors. In half an hour, there were several men sitting around a table, all of them staring at Frei.
"Is it the summon? Can you really control it?"
"That is incredible!"
"What can it do?" There was excited murmur of the people that had clearly similar hobby to Raghask. However, Frei did not like that he was being talked about like he was some sort of an inanimate object. They should display some level of respect!
"What can it do?" Frei repeated after one of the guests and emphasized "it" in his sentence, a malicious smile appearing on his face. He used [Merge] to melt into the floor and listened with pleasure to the shouts that followed.
"It vanished!."
"What is it doing?!" Some of the men stood up abruptly, ready to escape the room.
"Call him off! CALL HIM OFF!" The one who said the earlier sentence seemed to realize his mistake and shrieked out.
"Shut up! Demon, stand down!" Raghask commanded and all the people went silent when Frei obediently appeared on his seat again.
It took him a lot of effort to suppress laughter when he saw the aura of importance that radiated from Raghask. It was incredible that he still believed that he controlled him just by his words alone and the fact that he was the summoner. Frei thought about it and guessed it was true, the greatest manipulative schemes made people believe in what they wished to be true. It took strong will to mark as false something you wished for, many people chose to live in an illusion instead.
"We need to summon more! Raghask, give me the item!" After a long pause, one of the visitors broke the silence.
"Why you? You have been just a baggage to drag along the whole time!" The tallest visitor retorted.
"A baggage? At least I have some talent, you on the other hand have just your filthy money!" The original speaker could not let it slide.
"Gentlemen, before you arrive at a conclusion, I will bring something to drink." Raghask smiled and walked to the door, but when he was in the door, he added something that froze the blood of everyone present.
"Kill them all." He gave a command and slammed the door shut.
"Yes master." Frei smiled and all hell broke loose.
Frei did not know what battle prowess the fellow cultists had, so he decided to not hold back from the start. To [Supernatural Physique] [Hardened Skin] and [Steel Bark] that were active at all times, he added [Demonic Transformation]. This way, he was sure even a bullet was unable to penetrate his skin. Still, he preferred to take out people quickly and targeted two of the cultists with [Rock Spike] and [Black Bullet at the same time. The spike was successful, reducing the number of visitors to five, as the other one conjured some sort of a blue shield around himself that was able to stop the attack. Before their counterattack, Frei's fist made contact with a skull of one of the visitors and nearly made it explode.
"Two down, four to go." Frei watched two incoming attacks. One of them was a cone of blue flames, the second was a longsword that seemed to had been conjured out of thin air.
He responded by using [Merge] with [Stealth] and the attacks just destroyed the furniture, turning the table into a huge blue torch. He gave them only a few seconds before he emerged out of the ceiling and dropped at one of them. Given his weight in demon form and all the boosts to his skin, the man was unable to fight anymore.
Frei repeated his ranged combo, using [Rock Spike] on the man with the blue shield and this time, the shield was unable to stop the weight behind the attack. With this move, another three of them were down, leaving only a single cultist standing.
"P-Please, do not . . " He was too scared to do anything and his plea had been stopped by Frei's fist. It was apparent that they had not much experience with actual combat, most of their time had been probably invested into study of magic, not into its quick use.
"Done." He growled, not sure whether he should he pleased with himself, he had not yet known that all his compassion would disappear a moment later.
"Perfect, go outside to pick up the slave of this wealthy one. " Raghask smirked, giving a look to the tallest corpse. "Oh, and clean the mess as always."
"Yes, master." Frei left the house and saw that it was already dark outside. He noticed someone was waiting in front of the house.
No, waiting was not the right term, the person had been chained to a lamp post. He could see her cap. ..
"Those are ears, not a cap!" Frei was left standing there in a shock when he realized something and his suspicion had been only verified when he used [Soul Sight].
"White soul, that is a Fluffy Tail!" The reality hit him and he came to understand the whole situation. This was the place to where the catfolk from his universe kept being exported as slaves, probably because of their good looks.
"What should I do now?" He had a feeling that the [Adventurers' Guild] could not just summon an angel to save the day into another universe. What was the hell even doing? Weren't they supposed to prevent souls from being taken away from the system? Were they stupid, lazy, overworked, or was there simply something bigger at play?
"Hey, hurry up. I could use some warmth after all the work." He heard his master shouting from the inside.
"Yes, master." Frei whispered and gripped the chain, staring at his reflection in the polished metal lamp post.