“I don’t suppose, Lord Seburus, you know anything about demons, would you?” she asked sweetly.
The Lord was annoyed by then and couldn’t quite hide the flinch of his ring-laden fingers as he went to pick up another cup of tea. He recovered from it with a scowl.
“What rubbish is this now, Miss Goldcroft? I have politely ignored it so far, but your constant disrespect of my position as a noble with your comments, and your seemingly unknowing disregard of your position as a commoner,” he stressed with a frown, “Has destroyed what semblance of goodwill I had before this discussion. We should get this foul ordeal over and done with before I continue to listen to such insults.” He beckoned to the butler to bring a contract.
“What insults?” She raised an eyebrow with suspicion. “I’m asking if you have any knowledge of demons, or of demons being in the area. How did I insult you?” She furrowed her brows like she was in deep thought.
The Lord stiffened. “Ahem! Apologies girl, it seems I was overthinking your words. What is this about demons?” He coughed and continued in a hurry to gloss over his mistake and prevent her from thinking deeper.
Lucille gained a malicious glint in her eyes that proved she was not going to let him get away without a bit of suffering.
“Well, I’m asking because I believe I may have detected traces of them in the cave system of the Abyss Monsters. I hope you understand how serious the implications are if that is the case,” she replied.
“What implications? I’m sorry, but as a non-combatant, I don’t tend to do so well on these subjects,” he stated blandly.
Lucy ignored his attempts to refrain from supplying any more information to her. “It's strange that a monster of such strength chose such a, pardon me for saying this, undeveloped area when taking into account the population and mana density of the area. Particularly a greater kin of this kind of strength. If I may?” she asked the butler, gesturing towards the box with the core and head. She pulled it over to let the Lord view the bowling-ball-sized sphere of swirling muddy green and brown. She ignored their reaction to the smell and put it away when he pulled away quickly.
The butler removed the biscuits and other similar foods to lower back down to the kitchen through the dumb waiter. It seemed they had both lost their appetite.
“A core of this size only belongs to upper-level low-ranked monsters or higher,” she announced. “If demonic beings are around here, it means the possibility that they manufactured the scenario of the Abyss Monster’s existence is quite high, and that they are targeting you or something in the area.”
“What rot,” he responded brusquely. He rushed on to explain when he saw Lucy’s narrowed eyes. “I do not mean to dismiss your concerns, Miss Goldcroft. I just find there is no possible reason for demonic beings to target one such as me. I would also hope to know all important matters of my domain, as the Lord of this place, and demons are an extremely improbable occurrence all things considered. What could possibly cause you to think of something this… extreme?”
Which was a very thinly veiled fantasy way of saying ‘You don’t look like you’re out of high school but you’re trying to tell a politician with 50 years of legal experience that they’re doing things wrong.’
She smiled and replied, “I do have experience taking part in a battle to slay a demon baron north of here in Firnshire County, so you don't need to worry about my credentials. The paladins up there are wonderful at teaching others how to identify things of demonic nature.”
Firnshire was also conveniently placed about a month away for a messenger to come back with evidence of her credentials. When she would be hopefully enjoying the profit of her struggles.
“As for the evidence…” She tapped her fingers on the lacquered coffee table before shaking her head. “I admit I don't have anything in the way of physical evidence to give you, but that wasn’t my intention. I have no interest in more demon-slaying after the battle of Firnshire,” she explained. “No, it was just a warning, as I happened to find an adventurer campsite near the lair of the Abyss Monster bearing the marks of some specific demonic inscribing on their skeletons in the style of the Abyssal clan. I did not touch them to bring them back, as I had no way of knowing what ill-begotten magic was still in effect. They should still be there, next to the main cave.”
His expression rapidly darkened and he frowned heavily. Lucille hid her smirk behind another sip of tea. She knew she had him when she mentioned Abyssal demons. Abyssal demons had the worst reputation among all the races and were known for their love of twisted contracts, disastrous curses, and ability to manipulate the mind and senses. Not all of them followed their reputation, but she had no expectations that the one good abyssal demon was hidden in the town. She mentally ran through her next plan when the Lord suddenly got up and headed towards the door.
He looked back briefly. “Please, make yourself comfortable for the night here at my manor. If it is as you said, this matter must be resolved as soon as possible, so I will prepare to observe the campsite with my guards in person tomorrow."
She nodded with solemnity. "Do what you must to protect the town, Lord Seburus."
"We will postpone the bounty issue until tomorrow if that is all,” he said, nodding his head politely as a goodbye. The butler walked swiftly after his Lord.
She waited until he had shut the door before letting her face relax into its normal expressionless look. She leaned back on her seat to watch the roof, counting their steps in her mind patiently. When he had gone for at least 10 minutes, she went to the door of the living room and opened it, looking around before she found a guard outside her door. She smiled at him to get his attention.
“I don’t suppose you could get the butler for me, could you?" she asked politely. "I’m meant to be staying here, but I have no way of knowing where my living arrangements will be," she explained, the guard nodding in understanding. "The Lord was very abrupt with his decision to let me stay, with the demons appearing and all, so perhaps you could alert the butler to my situation?” She gave a disarming smile completely at odds with the mention of demons.
The guard nodded along until he did a double take at her words and paled. “D-demons?”
“Has it not been announced yet?" She blinked in surprise and then hummed in contemplation. "Well, the butler has more details, so it would probably be best for you to ask him when you meet."
“Ah! Certainly milady, I’ll go get him now!”
And he walked off, full of nervous energy, to get the butler from the Lord’s study. She watched the empty hallway for a short minute to make sure nobody would enter the room, before making her way to the dumb waiter used by the butler to bring up the refreshments and squeeze inside. She used the pulley to slowly lower herself until she stopped on a floor that was absent of people. She didn’t lower herself any further due to the kitchen being full of people, which did not favour someone on a stealth mission. The gloomy atmosphere of the stony hallways also perfectly matched the description she had heard others mention containing a secret passageway. In other words, it looked like a generic dungeon.
Finding a strangely ornate lamp holder on the wall, at least compared to the others, she gave it a pull, to see the grey cold brick peeling away, revealing a tight spiral staircase that was enclosed within the walls of the manor. She entered quickly before pulling on another ornate lamp holder, hiding her within the bowels of the earth. She hoped it wasn't forever.
Descending it, she found the real dungeons. She noticed, with some disgust, that the cells all seemed to be rather unused for such a large town. That meant the Lord, or whoever was behind this, did not care about human life and felt it a waste of resources to imprison criminals rather than kill them. Pulling up a jutted stone on one of the cell's floors revealed a handle, which, when pulled, took her down another secret passageway. Typically, finding these in the Tutorial wouldn’t be so easy, but then again, most people couldn’t do it twice. She was special.
This time the stone in the room was practically black. The bolted vault in front of her had locks on them, but she set to work unlocking them with the same keys needed for those locks. The keys she had once again managed to slip off of someone - the butler when he passed her the box for her bloody bag in this situation, with her trusty snatching abilities. You could never know what skills came in handy.
Bolts off, the 3-meter-tall vault opened to reveal ledgers, documents, and boring contracts. People new to the Tutorial usually believed the corruption mentioned in objectives No. 4 and 5 was political corruption, and they would have their beliefs proved true in the form of incriminating dry tree mulch. But that wasn’t all.
What Lucille was looking for happened to be the demonic type of corruption. Evidence of the Lord’s connections with demons, or traces of demonic magic. She found what she wanted in the form of a dull wooden box. She opened it, took out the object within, and made sure to set everything back where it used to be. She hoped it was, considering her memory was better than she thought it would be after her stat loss, but it wasn’t eidetic memory. Yet.
[Objective: Find proof of the Lord’s corruption without dying by the end of the month]
[Completion Rate: +15%]
[New! Completion Rate: 60%]
[Do you wish to exit the Tutorial? Yes/No]
Pressing [No], she collected herself. Objective 5 would begin when she exited the manor.
She focused on the final phase of her plan. Narrowing her eyes in concentration, she pressed minute strands of mana against the back wall of the vault, searching for purchase with the threads. Something eventually absorbed it, and with a click, she was able to find the third secret passageway of the manor. This one, however, she had found on her own last time she was here, instead of from hearsay. She ducked through the newly formed archway, shutting the entrance behind her to find herself in a large open room. She let herself relax slightly when she noticed she was in the place she wanted to be. The whole journey had been slightly stressful.
She didn’t relax for too long, as the butler should’ve noticed her disappearance by now, and started inspecting the new room. It was not inconspicuous at all when it came to hiding its purpose. Many unique tools were decorating the walls, with several metal tables covered in very suspicious-looking dark stains placed in the area. One back wall, however, remained clear of anything. Anything besides the rather obvious red-hued geometric shape covering the entire wall. Or almost.
She frowned slightly when she noticed an elongated vertical shape in the corner of the room, covered in a white sheet. As she came closer, she noticed rather dusty spiderwebs covering the entire thing, accompanied by the disintegrating remains of starved spider husks. She watched it for a while, contemplating what to do.
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It was the first time Lucille had been truly apprehensive since several months before the Tutorial. While she might’ve been slightly nervous dealing with the Abyss Monster, she knew it was only a physiological reaction caused by her young body, as someone with her experience would never be shaken mentally. No, the reason why she was apprehensive was because the object in the corner of the room was an unknown.
The Tutorial never changed. Ever. It was the same for every single person who entered it. The only difference was that the strength of the inhabitants upscaled the stronger the person was before they entered. There would always be the conman, always be the Lord, the butler, the same guards, the same location for the objectives, the same Abyss Monster, and the same skill and spell. Lucille knew for a fact that nobody who made it to the room she was in had found anything other than a giant red demonic pentagram and the torture instruments in the surroundings.
There was only one choice. She threw off the sheet.
It was a mirror. A mirror made dull by the thick layers of dust piled on its surface, but a mirror all the same. One thing Lucy knew about mirrors in unnatural situations was that they were always more than just boring old mirrors. The same held true within the Tower realms.
Firstly, this human-sized mirror had a perfectly preserved silver frame, not a spot of tarnish to be seen. Secondly was the fact that she had never seen this in her last Tutorial. And thirdly was the innocuous System message that popped up after she threw the covers off.
[Objective: Discover the sealed treasure under the town and escape without dying by the end of the month]
[Completion Rate: +12%]
She stared at the message. She glanced at the mirror, and then back at the message again.
That was not meant to be there. The sealed treasure was supposed to be a cursed sword buried under layers of trapped ruins, the one the old man had tried to get her to pick up for him, and the one that would kill her within 24 hours of touching it. That was not a mirror. There was only one conclusion.
She raised her eyes to the roof and tried to will the System to hear her threats of the indiscriminate chaos she could cause with her knowledge once she got out of the Tutorial. It didn’t respond.
She sighed and watched the mirror carefully. The System must've authorised this change. She knew, from the moment she woke up and took even one breath out of schedule, that the butterfly effect was in place, but this was far, far too quickly an effect to come about just because of that.
She was aware that anyone connected to the System had given it access to every memory and thought in their mind, but if that was the case already, the outcome of that would not just be a mirror. She would’ve expected some sort of deep scan, or deal of some kind to restrict her actions, something along those lines. The mirror reeked of third-party involvement, and she had not the slightest idea where to find out more. She hadn’t felt this lost in years.
She decided her first step would be to wipe off the thick dust with the slightly less dusty sheet, just to make sure it was a mirror and not some portal to the eldritch forefathers or something. She didn’t know if eldritch forefathers existed, but she wouldn’t put it past the System to have something along those lines. Once the mirror was clear enough to see her entire body, she took a step back and saw her reflection.
It waved.
She blinked. She had not waved.
I don’t believe that’s how mirrors are supposed to work.
The Lord and butler chose that second to make their presence announced with the stomp of heavy leather boots, and she looked over her shoulder to where the entrance to the room was. She turned back to the mirror where she found a very familiar smirk on the face of her reflection. She felt an eyebrow twitch.
That’s my smirk, you cow. You can’t have it.
No, it was not ironic that she called something that looked and acted like her a cow. The reflection’s face lost its smile and pointed over its shoulder as the sounds of other people came closer. She mirrored its action, where it shook its head, pointed at itself, and then pointed over its shoulder again.
Lucille’s eyes widened slightly when she realised it was asking for her to hide behind the mirror. That was actually a bit smart. Maybe it was her reflection and not some alien entity that wanted to kill her and take her place. She hoped.
Pulling the covers back onto the mirror and herself as she waited behind it, she heard the discussions of the Lord and his butler as they came to inspect the vault. The soundproofing down there clearly lacked a good budget.
“Asmerseburus, that girl is probably more likely to be searching for items on the higher floors where more valuables are kept. She directed the guard in my direction, away from the bedroom chambers where your possessions and the like are kept. We’re wasting time looking down here at the vault,” said the exasperated-sounding butler, who wasn’t behaving like the Lord was a superior now.
“That’s assuming she was just a plain thief,” ‘Asmerseburus’ argued. “And that she wasn’t someone sent by my political rivals who are getting antsy. We can’t have anything upsetting the plan at this late stage." He narrowed his eyes at his 'butler'. "And don't forget, master granted me his name, and not you. Show more respect for my status."
Lucy rolled her eyes before beginning the last phase of her plan. As they argued just outside the closed hidden door to the demonic engraving room, she started to sneak a tiny strand of mana along the wall edge. Their argument reached its conclusion soon afterwards.
“As I said, Asmerseburus, nothing has been touched. Not even that box. She probably stole the monster corpse from another foolhardy adventurer so she could sneak into the manor and steal some riches to fuel her future ‘heroic adventures’. She was obviously a runaway noble of some kind,” Gregfar the butler replied. “If it puts your mind at ease then let’s just try checking the summoning room briefly, before finally seeing how much damage she did to our assets.”
Lucy heard Asmerseburus, or the Lord, let out a sniff. “I’ll make you be the one to report this to Master if you keep up this attitude. Open the door.”
The annoyed butler grumbled but opened the door to the room. The two of them stepped inside and made it to the middle of the room, 3 metres away from where Lucille was behind the mirror.
“Maybe she got kidnapped? She did seem to be a noble. She could be of higher status than we thought,” suggested the butler.
The Lord looked at his butler before bursting out laughing.
“That is the most ridiculous thing you've said all year,” the Lord chuckled. “If a single real noble set even one foot in this backwards dump, I would give up my position to the most penniless peasant I can lay my eyes on.”
She triggered the pentagram. For Asmerseburus and Gregfar, the circle on the wall glowed a darkening, bloody light, and they both rushed to either side of the room to make way for the mirrored pentagram on the floor, this one coalescing red light in the centre. Both people kneeled on the floor as the red-black light slowly morphed into a vaguely humanoid form. Lucy could feel the slow drain of the atmospheric mana surrounding her steadily gravitating towards the figure to keep the connection open.
[Objective: Find the Demon]
[Completion Rate: +17%]
[New! Completion Rate: 89%]
If the ominous summoning circle or red-black glow emanating from its centre wasn’t a clue to its identity, then the grating, whiplash sensation she could feel as the figure’s aura brushed up against hers was a tell-tale sign of the identity of this creature. It was a demon. It was in its partial astral form, but it was still a demon. It must've been a rare occurrence to trigger this in the Tutorial too, because her completion rate, which had steadily been becoming harder to raise the more objectives she completed, jumped up quickly. She listened silently to their discussion.
----------------------------------------
“Master!” exclaimed Asmerseburus. “You’ve contacted us early! Are you here to honour us with your plans, or is there something urgent you must reveal to us?”
The vaguely humanoid hostile cloud tilted back its head(?) slightly in what seemed to be confusion. Asmerseburus and Gregfar winced as the loud sound of its masculine voice reverberated in their heads, a phenomenon that occurred when something of an immaterial realm had not fully attuned to the new realm it was in.
“What fool’s work is this, Asmerseburus? Did I not respond to your summoning?”
“Er…. no?” he replied questioningly. He and Gregfar made eye contact, both wondering what mess they had gotten into now.
The demon looked down and placed a glowing appendage, probably a hand, on his chin, and seemed to think for a moment before carrying on.
“I’ll discuss this with you later. For now, I want an early update on the situation of the town and that monster.”
“There is no need to worry about that monster anymore, my lordship. It has been dealt with just today, in fact,” Gregfar spoke up.
Asmerseburus quickly shot him a glare that could kill, aiming to shut him up, but the butler was unfazed, hoping to boost his reputation by undermining the Lord’s.
“Oh? Do tell,” the demon responded curiously.
So Gregfar launched into a long explanation about the events of that day, describing the story with far more embellishments and exaggerations than even that girl had told the Lord. He had aimed to stall for time, hopefully making the demon lose attention, but the demon listened to the butler patiently the entire time. Gregfar started to turn pale and slightly green as he tried to prevent the demon from asking more about the situation.
“And so? Where is the woman who slayed this monster? She sounds like a worthy vessel.”
Both Asmerseburus and Gregfar had turned white at that point, and the butler gulped as he realised his attempts to gain favour with the demon had failed. Gregfar shakily made eye contact with Asmerseburus once more.
“Th-The thing is mi-milord, is that she… um… may have run away?” Gregfar squeezed out.
Both men grasped at their necks as a choking, overbearing pressure rolled out of the middle of the circle in waves, grinding at and fraying the minds of any who were within its borders.
"Explain yourselves!" the demon growled at them.
The unwilling Gregfar reluctantly revealed how they ended up coming down to the vault to make sure that everything was fine, and that the most important item was still there so that evidence of their affairs with demons wouldn't escape. He made sure to frame Asmerseburus in a bad light, emphasising how his superior lost control of his temper when dealing with the girl and gave away information he shouldn’t have.
The man in question shivered as the form of the demon focused on him, and then the demon turned back to them both. The volume of his voice increased slightly, and gentle amusement could be heard in its tone.
“Well, well, well. You have made quite a mess of this situation," the demon remarked wryly. "You mean to tell me a young girl tricked both of you, my followers, into leaving someone who had enough power to slaughter the upper-level strength Abyss Monster on her own alone in the mansion, causing you to instantly rush down to the point of the highest importance in the mansion while showing everyone who might be watching where we keep our secrets, and, without finding the girl, came into this room where someone activated the pentagram, without your knowledge?”
The Lord and butler gave each other wary looks at felt a bit of confusion at the emphasis the demon placed on the last bit, but otherwise remained silent.
“Well?!” the demon demanded.
Both hurriedly gave nods with Asmerseburus speaking up to respond in a trembling voice.
“Th-that is the gist of it. My lord.”
The demon fell silent for a minute, letting both men wonder if they should’ve said anything at all.
“The gist of it. The gist of it. The gist of it?!?!”
The red-black smog of the demon’s arm solidified to grasp the wheezing man by the throat, pulling the Lord’s face towards his own so he could speak to Asmerseburus.
“I am impatient. Very impatient. I grafted your pitiful astral forms into such fine human vessels, wordlessly sacrificing my own opportunity to gain a form of my own in this realm, gave my own name to a lowborn demonite soldier I thought I saw potential in, and this is the result,” he practically snarled with rough, harsh tones revealing the demon’s violent nature. “I wanted to use this experience to see if I needed subordinates.”
Then the demon suddenly lifted Asmerseburus back from him. The two men could almost see the peaceful smile on his formless face.
“And I’ve made my conclusion. Asmerseburus. No… Seburus,” the demon continued gently, embodying the image of an adult slowly letting down a young, hopeful child. The Lord let out a whimper.
“I don’t need you.”
The man collapsed instantly onto the floor as the demon let go, thin filaments of red aura getting drawn out of the man to enter the vague form of the demon's outstretched hand. The demon turned towards the other demon in human skin. Gregfar was trying, and failing, to scurry backwards on his bottom as quickly as humanly, or demonly, possible. The demon of the pentagram was unfortunately faster. Forcefully picking him up and setting the man in a standing position, almost tenderly brushing off the dust on Gregfar’s suit, the demon placed a ghostly hand on the fearful man’s cheek. The red-black demon chuckled.
“My dear little Gregfar, you always were a follower to Seburus,” he began quietly. “Even when he became a proud captain of his squad in the demon realm, you were only ever second-in-command, overshadowed in every way. I bet my naming of him only served to fuel the sense of unfairness in your lowborn heart. I bet you could do better, Gregfar. I could… give you my name. Would you like my name, Gregfar?” the demon quietened to a whisper.
Gregfar licked his cracked lips and gave a slow nod, an inkling of hope beginning to rekindle.
The demon tilted its head. The other man froze when the demon’s hand fell to his neck.
“Unfortunately,” the demon said, with a voice like ice. “I don’t need you either.”
With an audible crack, the neck of Gregfar collapsed inwards, and the demon tossed the body like a ragdoll, leaking that same red aura away where it slammed against the wall.
“In fact!” the demon proclaimed with intense mania, “I don’t need anyone else either!”
Several hundred streams of thin red aura flowed down through the roof and funnelled into his outstretched hands, the demon’s colour and form becoming denser and more defined by the second. A thick red smoke billowed out of his form, before splitting apart to reveal the true astral form of the demon.
With a crown of two pitch-black horns, circling the back of his head and almost touching together, the demon was just short of 3 metres tall. His skin was a unique pale maroon tone, and his arms ended in black-tipped claws, each an inch thick and twice as long. The demon had a defined and burly musculature with broad shoulders and wild unruly black hair growing out from his head all the way to his waist. While the horns, claws and unique skin tone were important features of a demon, they didn’t show his classification. No, the spiralling black Demonic Script found everywhere on the demon’s body, originating from the centre of his chest, showed he was an Abyssal Demon. His cornea and pupils were black, while his irises were white.
The completed astral form moved towards the motionless body of the Lord. Picking it up, he brushed it off, then stood it up with some sort of animation technique. He placed a hand over its head.
“It was wise to not kill him. This can be a temporary vessel for now,” he mused, before murmuring in an esoteric language with his other hand on his own forehead.
The comatose body in his outstretched hand glowed that ominous red aura, while the demon winced as his astral form became noticeably dimmer and ill-defined. He let go, the red aura emanating from the Lord’s body disappearing, and with a snap the astral form dissolved, the red summoning circle on the ground disappearing as the connection was cut. The formerly comatose body moved, briefly bending its knees to brush off the extravagant clothes he was wearing and straightening everything up.
Then the body looked up at the ceiling and let out a hearty chuckle, only this time it was the Abyssal Demon’s voice coming from it.
“I must seem stark raving mad, talking to myself like this. It is said that talking to oneself is certainly not a sign of a sane mind.”
He abruptly spun around to face the wall with the red pentagram.
“Unless I have an unexpected audience to resolve this dilemma for me? It is hardly proper to make one’s acquaintance without a name, isn't it, young lady?”
Calmly inspecting the circle above her was the slim form of a girl with mid-back length straight black hair, outfitted in a strange, long dark cloak that wrapped around her. The girl relaxedly turned to face the demon, an easy-going smile on her face. She gave a dramatic bow. Then she looked up, narrowed her eyes, and grinned.
“Pardon me for my manners, sir. Lucy Goldcroft, here to make your acquaintance.”