image [https://imgur.com/Y7YvrXF.jpg]

My friends were just as excited as I was once they heard my declaration of victory. Everything was back to normal in the world.

I ran to them and hugged each and everyone, especially giving Yamin the biggest hug of all. It’d been so long since we’d seen her nice and safe.

“You’re okay…” I cried. “Thank God. I was so worried when I heard the demons took you away.”

Yamin accepted my embrace, even kneeling down to accommodate my short height. As both her arms wrapped around me, one of her hands held a book that pressed close to my back.

“I have no idea what you guys had to go through, sweetheart, but thank you so much. Because of you, those awful demons are gone.”

She clenched me in her clutches just a bit tighter. I could really feel the book on my back now.

I pulled away slightly, then turned to the book, which prompted her to hold it in front of me. It had a golden rim on its edges, and a very decorative pentagram on the cover. Depending on the way the light hit it, new details would reveal within the odd star shape.

This had to have been the book Belphegor was talking about. The one he claimed would explain the power within her.

“Yamin, where did you get this?” I asked.

“Uh…” she turned and looked at it with a confused gaze. “I…I don’t remember… I think… Uh…”

She was really trying to recall, but I could practically see smoke coming out of her ears with how hard her brain was cooking.

“It was definitely in a dream… Some handsome guy with blue eyes gave it to me, but he kinda…” she brushed the back of her head. “He looked really tired.”

It might have been Belphegor, but he only used those blue eyes when he was tricking me during that trial. I could only assume he was trying to do the same for her.

Regardless, this book was said to hold answers within its pages, many that would shed light on the dark and hidden corners of Yamin’s soul. Seeing those would help us reveal a path to saving her, and maybe the rest of the world.

She complied and opened the book for me, but when I stretched my hand to grab it, she jerked it away and refused to let me hold it. Her reaction even surprised her a bit.

An even more stunning revelation ensued as I gazed upon blank pages. Hundreds and hundreds of blank pages!

“Did Belphegor lie?” I mumbled. “He said this book was going to tell us why you're so important to the demons.”

“Who’s Belphegor?” Yamin asked. Upon her words, a strange dark energy swirled into an orb near the book. The orb fell to the ground and burst like a bubble of sludge.

Where it burst sat a chibi looking creature that looked identical to Belphegor. I almost thought this little version of him was cute.

“That’s him!” I pointed.

“Oh Hell no!” Indena jumped in and tried to stomp on him, but he raised up his tiny shields and deflected her feet. She toppled over onto her butt. “Ouch!” she shouted.

“I thought you said you took care of him, no?” Marek asked.

“Well, I did. Kinda…” I wasn’t going to lie and say he was finished for good, because I had a feeling he’d come back. Not exactly like this though.

Mella raised a paw in the air to get our attention. “At the very least, his domain is gone. He has no power over the world without that.”

“How does that work?” Indena asked.

“A god is only as powerful as his domain is large. And that domain is only possible by people who worship them.”

“Nobody was worshiping Belphegor though, so why did this even happen?” Yamin asked, Belphegor pointed to her like she was onto something. His reactions prompted me to give him a funny look.

“All a being needs to create a domain is mana through worship or theft. Belphegor chose to steal the spirits of humans to gain power. Not to mention that this cathedral sits on a large mana stream. Once that domain is established, they have the power to do whatever they want within its boundaries.”

I’m glad she knows a lot about this stuff. I sure didn't have a clue.

“Heh, so if nobody worshiped the gods, they’d be useless.” Indena laughed. “Oh wait, they already are!”

“Watch your tongue, fire mage!” Mella said with a hiss. “Continue to challenge the gods and become a martyr of fools.”

Maybe Indena should heed that warning already. She kept saying things as if nobody's listening, but what if they were?

Before anyone else could interact with the chibi demon lord, he turned to Yamin and did a big jump, landing on the surface of her book and splashing into a blank page like it were some sort of swimming pool. The paper rippled until finally taking a solid shape again. Yamin almost dropped it in the process, but fought really hard to hold it steady.

When it was finished, we all took a look as ink began to spread across the page. It almost looked like words.

“Can you read it?” Indena asked Yamin.

“No. I can’t read Demon… Or whatever this is.”

I scanned the words to see if it matched anything in my database, but nothing was coming up. This language must have been something lost with time, or had never been part of our world to begin with.

The longer we looked, the more the ink really set in. Eventually, it looked like the image of a night hag had appeared on the page.

“Weird…” Indena commented.

Yamin turned to the next page. Flakes of paper curled up from the surface and fell to the ground. Ink rushed in from the spine of the book and pushed the flakes of paper away. A new image began to form, one that resembled a dire hag. Then another page was made depicting the Bowalker.

And on the page after that revealed what seemed to be a certain demon lord…

“Belphegor!”

That image was of the demon lord for sure. He was sitting on a seat with a wheel on it, tiredly holding his hand to his chin like he was thinking.

We tried to theorize what this book was all about. The only thing we could agree upon was that it was some sort of compendium, or maybe a grimoire.

“I don’t know if I want to hold onto this thing…” Yamin said, but clenched it even tighter despite her concern.

“Let me take a look at it,” Uncle said, reaching out his hand.

Just as he was about to touch it, the book's surface erupted with a black flame. He instinctually darted back and kept from touching it. Unlike him, it didn’t seem like those black flames were willing to touch Yamin. Instead they surrounded where her hands pressed closely.

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“Ayo!” Indena moved forward to inspect the fire closely. As it dimmed, she resuscitated it by hovering her hand over the surface of the book. “Damn…” she uttered. “Yamin, dump this thing right now.”

“Huh?!” Yamin’s face lit up with panic. “W-why?”

“See this black fire? We call em’ dark fires, or cursed flames. It’s forbidden stuff for us fire mages to work with.”

Anxiety climbed in my chest as I remembered being hit by those dark fires. It was when Belphegor’s shield reflected the elemental fire magic I sent at him.

“Hypothetically, let’s say you were hit by some of that…” I started in a shaky tone, “...what would happen?”

“If you survive touching it at all, which it's usually an instant death, your body is cursed with a permanent burn that’ll never go away. It’s nasty stuff.”

Now I was very scared. My battle dress got messed up by one of those flames, so I think it was done for. But worse than that, I got hit too. It actually managed to do damage to my armour skin.

Uncle saw me panicking and kneeled down, putting a hand on my shoulder for comfort.

“You’ve seen this before, Yalda?” he asked.

“Yeah…” I pointed to where my dress got hit. “When Belphegore’s shields sent back my fire attack, it turned into black flames and touched me.”

Indena’s eyes went wide in shock. She was baffled that I survived, very relieved too. But she was sure to clarify that if I survived the hit and was still acting normal, the effects must not have been the same for me.

“Her body is resistant to curse aligned attacks,” Uncle said. I actually confirmed that by looking in my systems too. “Part of that comes from her stardust affinity. It’ll only get more potent as she gets older.”

So even though the instant death attack touched me, I survived it without any major damage to boot. Granted, my armour skin did take a hit, but it would heal if I gave it some time.

“By the way,” Uncle said, “what happened to The Actor?”

“The Actor?” Emily’s head tilted as she put a finger to her chin. “Oh, that guy who can turn into people?”

Marek’s brow furrowed as she mentioned that. “How did she know about that?” he mumbled under his breath.

The others who were fighting him claimed that when reality started changing back to normal, he just kinda disappeared. Nobody was sure where he went. As for the nephilim girl that Uncle was fighting, she also just kinda vanished.

“Well, that’s such a lovely book, but if that’s all done for now…” Emily clapped her hands and began stepping toward the entrance to the plaza. “It seems like my job is done here as well, so I’ll just take my leave. Ba-bye!”

“Bye Miss Emily!” I waved as she scooted off in an abrupt hurry. “Thanks for the help!”

"She got a hot date or something?" Indena questioned. "Freaky."

After she was gone, our attention turned back to the book.

“If this really is a grimoire,” Indena started, “what’s it for?”

These sorts of books were really common in video games, especially for magic casters and summoners.

"Do you think this is like a book of summoning?" I suggested. “It looks like it's filling out with all the demons we’ve fought, or some of them, anyways…”

There wasn’t any mention of the nephilim. Everything else was pretty much here. Even that chicken had it's own entry.

"Oh boy..." Yamin looked very displeased. "Now I really don’t want to hold onto this thing if it does that.”

"For now, we don't have much choice," Uncle said. "Until I can get it contained in The Hive, keep it safe."

Not like Yamin was going to let it go, because she seemed really passionate about holding onto it, but this book might be a threat if someone else got a hold of it. I could just feel that in my bones.

“Alright, guys…” Emily came back. “I just got in touch with the Imperial Security Force. They’ll be sending some people to clean things up here.”

I appreciated her doing that and getting someone to help sort through this mess, but didn’t she just leave?

“Uh… Thanks.” I replied. “I thought you were leaving though?”

She didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. She claimed she’d been standing outside of the plaza on the phone this whole time.

“Now that I think about it,” Marek started, “you did follow us in after you said you were going to make a phone call, no?”

She was absolutely dead certain that she hadn’t followed us in. She actually had to break into a building to borrow a phone, which apparently took her a few minutes.

“Not only that, but you were never told about how The Actor can shapeshift, right?”

“What…?”

That’s right! Emily never saw that The Actor could shapeshift at all. The only time we told her about it was in the car on our way to Verrenville.

“Then who was…” Suddenly, I realized how we’d just been super duped again. “Dang it!” I stomped. “I bet that was that dumb Actor guy!”

It made sense, seeing as he could turn into just about anyone he wanted. And who would have suspected him at a time like this?

There wasn’t much more we could do about him now, since he probably already hightailed it out of the town. But if I ever saw that guy again, I’ll break that mask of his in half!

“Anyways, this was one hell of a night.” Miss Emily kneeled down and kissed my forehead. “I should actually head home and cry myself to sleep.”

For someone who was about to cry herself to sleep, she seemed pretty chipper about it.

“Okay, Miss Emily. Thank you so much for all your help.” She really went above and beyond the call to service. All we needed was her to take us to the town, but she managed to help out a lot more. Her skills are incredible, to say the least. I wonder if all these private contractors are like this.

“You're welcome." She turned to Uncle after that with a silly looking smirk. "Hey, Handsome…” she winked. “You want a goodbye kiss too?”

“I’ll pass,” he said in a dry tone.

“Aww, no fun.”

~☆☆☆~

The recovery team from the Imperial Security Force showed up about half an hour after Miss Emily called them. They were a bunch of guys dressed in something cool that looked like a cross between a suit and military uniform. More importantly, they also had resources like food and clean water, as well as healing items.

Surprisingly, they were a bit more in the know than any of us expected. I'm sure all the info Emily gave helped them coordinate the operation properly. We rescued a lot of souls with their help, especially those that had been transformed back from being demons, but not everyone was that lucky. Some people's bodies never changed and they couldn't handle the cold... And others were taken out by the demons. It hurt a lot to know people died here, and it reminded me of Urnan, but I had to stay strong and remember that nobody else could have helped them but us.

Marek was in charge of speaking with the press, making sure that the public was informed on the situation. Not fully though, because some details were better left out for now. At least, that's what Uncle told me.

A few people in the military were court martialed for sleeping on the job and supposedly falsely reporting back to command what was going on in Verrenvill. It wasn't totally their fault, so I really felt bad. But the local military was getting a shake up because of this. Not sure how, but that's the rumor going around.

On a lighter note, the country actually started taking this demon threat very seriously. Not just the military, but the people too. Church attendance was at its highest it's ever been and it wasn't even the weekend yet. People were literally just flooding into those buildings.

Queen Amanda Elkhearts also took a spotlight and made an effort to coordinate the government to respond accordingly. She was holding a meeting in the capital city of Congerlin, and she wanted me to be there. It was happening tomorrow, so we had to prepare to leave soon by train. We had a few hours to kill, and Uncle said we were waiting for someone anyways.

“We did it!” I fell backwards into a pile of snow, exhausted from helping all the recovering humans around the town. “Yay! The towns saved…”

A few snow angels later and I was getting sleepy. Uncle picked me up and carried me.

“Monsieur Mel,” Marek spoke up, “for all the help you and Yalda have provided, I believe it should be easy to convince the Royal Council to aid us in reaching Yalda’s father.”

“Yay…” I cheered with what little enthusiasm I had left. “I need a nap…”

“They better help us!” Indena shouted. “If they don’t, I’ll torch those damn geriatrics! I hate politics.”

“Easy, now…” Yamin said, stuffing that grimoire into a backpack for temporary safekeeping. “Saying stuff like that could get you arrested.”

There were a lot of ISF guys around, and they were already pretty suspicious of Indena. Apparently they were aware that she was part of the Family of Sai, but had orders not to engage her. Miss Emily must have explained all that to them.

“Whatever… I’m just pissy and tired.”

“As always…” Mella mumbled.

I wish she hadn’t said that, because she set a fire in Indena just then…

“What you say, stupid cat witch!?”

“Foolish fire mage!”

Both primed their own magic, preparing for battle. One burning along with the weakening sunlight of the evening, and the other oozing an aura of tainted poison.

When I thought we had a few hours to kill, this isn't what I meant...

Fortunately, somehow Yamin managed to convince them to move their conflict into a sporting field just behind the town. At least there, the collateral damage would be minimized…

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