"What is that?" The boy gaped at the unearthly sight before him.

A wispy white form fluttered along the night breeze. It looked to be the size of half a man and seemed to be completely made of light, and had an indescribable quality to it, like he couldn't exactly retain any of its features. The most he could make out were several flared appendages overflowing in about every direction, and three steeled faces looked indifferent.

The winged appendages overlapped on each other, forming a robe-like silhouette, as two slender hands clasped onto each other above its chest. Frankly, it looked like an otherworldly creature that tried its best to look human, but missing the essence of humanity entirely.

It was staring directly at him, unblinkingly and without so much as a twitch in its expression.

He was unnerved, yet something in his soul told him that nothing was wrong. It was like, he was familiar with its nature, it was just like that time when he met Metatron.

"U-uh... hello?" Days of survival coupled with possibly an indefinite amount of time in purgatory had effectively crippled his social skills.

"So, an angel? I've seen your kind before-" The angel looked at him silently, as if contemplating his words, before it flitted its way towards him.

Slowly, and somewhat menacingly. The boy could only gaze in silent anticipation, for he didn't have it in him to fear the angels. His posture was taut but his grip slackened, the spear rested pointed low to the ground. After what seemed like an eternity, the unconcerned being grabbed at him with its arms, holding onto his right shoulder and arm. The angel who looked a bit small even in comparison to him looked like it was using his arm as a handle as it was being blown away by the wind.

Its hands, —which if not for the fact that they were ablaze with brilliant light— were practically the same shade of pale white as his and completely indistinguishable from him and the bright moon.

However, he suddenly felt a weird sensation.

A crawling sensation, from behind him.

One, two, three...

Three pairs of hands were holding onto him...

"Wah!... Oh, there's just more of you." Indeed, he was quite surprised to see that there were multiple angels holding onto him. Honestly, if not for their vacant expressions, he would've thought it was endearing.

"Woah! What's up?" The angels hanging onto his arms suddenly jerked him towards the right, before urgently pulling him with all its might.

"Okay! Okay! I can walk, trust me!" He tried to placate them, but their grip did not slacken as his did.

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Just like this, he was carried along away from the riverbank and far from the moonlight's reach. Luckily, the angels lit the way with their very presence. The boy did not seem to know what to expect, but his expression was tense either way.

- - - - -

"No! No no no no... Please! Please!" A shrill voice screamed in desperation, vocal cords tearing.

It was supposed to have been an easy mission, Charles mused, completely and utterly broken. Take the request, scout out the land, maybe find a monster or something scaring all the animals away, and then report it to the Guild.

Simple. Easy. Safe.

Charles looked to his side erratically, still physically recoiling from even trying to look at it. Beside him, just a few steps away, was a myriad of corpses. Many of them were enemies, but one corpse wasn't, hers.

It was disemboweled, entrails slithering along the ground as the still screaming face of a young woman wailed silently, capturing her visage for the very last time in one macabre display.

Marge, the party's aspiring support mage.

Tears stung his eyes as he desperately looked away from the corpse, trembling. The blood pooling beneath his fallen form felt absolutely disgusting, and he wailed as blood practically formed a second skin onto his beaten form, and it was all because of-

"Y-you!! heuuhk!" He tried to scream, to rage, yet blood and tears rushed into his gaping mouth the moment he tried speaking. His raging fury forcefully shoved back down his throat.

Charles, just like Marge, could only look on in silent fear.

That wretched... wretched thing!

The hollow eyes, the spindly form, what could have been human, but there was everything to prove otherwise. Towering over his feeble form, it merely looked on with unnatural glee, a wide smile split the creature's face. Its skin was slathered with ash and grime, and its hands were torn and skinless, like it had beat someone to death with them and refused to stop.

He didn't trust his eyes, it may have looked human, and at some point, it may have been a soldier worn from war just eager to find solace one way or another, but it wasn't. Not anymore.

Charles whimpered.

"Tap... tap... tap"

And suddenly the screaming started again.

"N-no... NO! Get away from me! Please! Get away from me! Ge-" Out came a desperate gargle of raspy screaming, spittle and blood flying as he wailed and shrieked.

Until it stopped.

A revolting thing it was, the skinless hand of the thing... touching him. The cold touch of the fleshy hand sent shocks through his system, yet he had no more tears left to shed.

The pain didn't even register for him, all he could see was the hollow eyes that contorted and warped as it smiled at him endearingly, amused. That was, until he felt a sharp white-hot searing pain where his abdomen was and broke eye contact as he flailed wildly.

He flailed on the forest floor as he bled out in dirt and mud, he didn't even notice that in his frantic movements, his own entrails were getting caught and tangled as he squirmed, at some point immobilizing him completely. In the end, he died slowly, desperately yet without reprieve.

Time was slowly winding to a finish, his life was up, beckoned by the afterlife.

'At the very least, they'll be safe. They must have gotten away by now...' The others, the three, he hoped they were safe. If not for them, for him. The very thought, it was the last vestige of light he had left.

Yet, like he was heard.

"..." The creature was silent, but you could practically feel the thing preening.

With a few spindly cracks, the last thing Charles ever saw, was the re-animated corpses of the dead pounding it towards the direction they had left.

"..."

"Heh." In the end, all of his suffering, hers, All of it!

All for a giggle...

An apathetic, cruel, inhuman monster.

A Demon was in their midst.