As if glitching through the fabric of reality The giant Rafi appeared in front of me. “I noticed you killed another demon, are you here to report?”
I stared at her for a moment. It was starting to feel like everything was serving to remind me how tiny I was… I was looking forward to seeing little Rafi… But no dice there either, instead just another reminder of me being tiny… I sighed. “Yeah… This one was really creepy, it was like a giant worm with big antennae, I found it in the sewer.”
Her face suddenly twisted. “O-oh…”
“Is something wrong?”
She squatted down resting her hands on her knees to look at me more closely. “You killed it right? And… It didn’t touch you did it?”
‘She’s like a concerned mother… What’s with this sudden change?’ “Uh… No, it was pretty big, so easy enough to hit… The reason I came here though was this.” I threw the manna crystal up to her and it replayed the demon's last moments. “See, it’s like it’s leaping in and out of the abyss at will… But a demon that’s not even powerful enough to talk shouldn’t be able to do that right? Uhm… I don’t know how to ask this but… Are you ok? Is the rift weakening or something?”
She sighed. “It’s not like I’m getting weaker… But the demons are getting stronger. Every passing day more people fall into darkness, inevitably increasing the number of demons over the past thousands of years, whereas I am just me… Although, now we have you. Ideally, we kill a demon in charge of the regional area, and then the lower-ranked demons will kill each other in order to determine who takes its place, and in the end, the population will decrease again. The rift acts as a gateway between worlds, the abyss is overflowing, and so demons are spilling out. It was bound to happen.” She paused, tilting her head and letting her hair fall to the ground as it shifted past her. “I agree that something else is happening here though. This demon that you just killed should be extinct… And there’s no way that it wasn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing good…” She furrowed her brow slowly poking my stomach. “You sure it didn’t touch you? Those things are really nasty…”
“Uh… Yeah, I killed this one before it even got close, I didn’t even get any blood on me.”
She let out a small sigh of relief. “Good… If you run into any more of them let me take care of it ok…”
I growled. “If they are that dangerous then why didn’t you take care of this one… I thought that was why Little Rafi was always watching over me and made my sister her vessel.”
She slowly looked to the side. “That’s… Those demons are a bit of a… A sensitive topic for her… That’s why I will be the one that kills them.”
‘Her different personalities can act independently? I guess that’s useful.’ “I thought you were like the admin though, and she was the fighter.”
“I’ll be fine… They aren’t so much dangerous as… Traumatic. The reason I’m speaking to you now is because the little one is still having a bit of a panic attack after seeing one again. And now I know what caused it.”
‘That girl? Panicking?’ “What the heck did I kill…”
“Do I have to talk about it…”
I suddenly got chills. ‘Suddenly I’m not so sure I want an answer?’
She finally let out another sigh. “I guess you were wearing armor, and when they are that big they typically just try to eat you instead of taking you as host anyway. I’m probably overreacting.”
“Ok… So you mean that thing was a parasite? Like tapeworm or something?”
“Yeah, but instead of living in your intestines they live in the urinary tract, the things you called antennae are actually–”
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“STOP!... That’s enough, thank you… Ever since I became part dragon… Thinking about the inside of my body makes it start twisting… And thinking about something else being there is so much worse…”
“Right… Well anyway. The reason they went extinct was that during the great war, we saw one of them… Uhm… Attack, one of the knights. Little Rafi couldn’t rest until she killed every last one of them, tracking their soul waves through the entire abyss. And then she still had nightmares about it… She likes acting tough in front of you, so she might be unavailable for a while… She has that set of memories, but it was impactful enough of an event that I still know what happened.”
“Ok… So they are usually small then right?” ‘Hm… Even the fat one was fast if it was tiny could I burn the air around my whole body?’ “When these things are smaller, is there anything else I need to know about fighting them? Or just in general…”
She tilted her head until the point on her hat dropped to the side. “Let’s see, the bigger ones will try to eat your kidneys, that’s why it attacked you the way it did. As for the smaller ones, well just don’t get infected I guess?”
“Right so just wear a helmet? Or… keep my mouth closed? I mean how small do these things get? They aren’t found in food are they?”
“They’re never that small but they can tear through anything that isn’t metal. Just wear your iron girdle and you’ll be fine.”
“My what…”
“Oh, you probably call it something different now. It was invented back in my day when women first started adventuring. Men were worried about what monsters might do to them if they got captured so they created what is essentially just steal underwear that fits together with a locking mechanism and can only be taken off with a key. Eventually, people realized monsters couldn’t even differentiate between men and women and felt stupid, but… It ended up being useful against bandits, so people still used them in the end.”
‘Wait, what are we talking about again?’ “What an… interesting history lesson… But I’ve literally never even heard of something like–” My eyes widened as my body tensed, my knees buckling together. “You’re not saying…”
“There’s a lot of gore in a war with demons… When I say something disturbed the little ones so much she made them go extinct before sleeping again, what did you think they did? I mean, objectively it wasn’t that bad considering the knight survived. Sure, being attacked by one is a pretty horrible way to die if you are a man, and the knight she witnessed being attacked wasn’t, and survived… Which all things considered probably made it more traumatic… Honestly, it affected her way more than said the knight.
“I’m gonna puke…”
“I’d advise against that. If you vomit it will make you start trying to reflexively breathe fire to ease your throat. It’s a dragon reflex. Only you would melt your insides instead.”
“I wanna go home…”
“How about instead I teach you one of my soul arts? Your control over your soul and powers is growing rather quickly, so you are ready to learn the next level after the savage strike.”
‘How can she move on so quickly…’ “Anything to keep my mind off parasites… I’ll never be able to wear a skirt again…”
She grinned uncomfortably before standing up straight again and waving her hand until a glowing white staff appeared out of thin air like a twisting tree branch. “Ok, now then. Do you remember when you were able to combine your soul art with magic?”
“Not really…”
She groaned. “It’s fine… Just, try to summon your soul energy around your entire body, and while you are forcing it out into your sword try casting magic at the same time, you like ice, so, if we do that something like this should happen.” Black markings appeared all along her pale skin until swirls of black ice erupted out from everywhere like jagged thorns.
“Ok… I mean it looks cool… But why is that better than using normal magic?”
“Because it looks cool. Ice magic is best when it’s cool.”
I stared at her blankly for a moment. “Uhm…”
She sighed. “Or more accurately, it’s because when you cast spells like this, when your soul energy returns to your body, it brings the manna back with it.” The coler slowly faded from the ice crystals until they shattered and fell to flecks of white light.
“Now that’s cool.” I started summoning my power and tried to perform the same spell she did but as the ice burst out it felt like my manna circuits all ruptured and I nearly blacked out, although I did manage to cast it.
“I should mention it will probably hurt quite a bit the first few times you do it. Oh, and relative to your manna your soul will always be much smaller, so you won’t be able to cast any big spells with this technique, but just training it should improve both fairly rapidly until you become more adept.”
“Now you tell me…” I nearly blacked out but the pain quickly vanished, even trying to just feel manna made my whole body sore though, and manipulating my soul energy made me dizzy.
I sat down to catch my bearings.
“How are things going with the others?”
‘The others…’ “Oh, turns out we were right. They are a huge help. With classes and everything I wouldn’t be able to do this on my own so telling them and asking for assistance was the right call. You were right too though in that they want to help more, but I won’t let them learn dark magic. It still bothers me a bit that they wern’t surprised at all when I told them I wanted help hunting demons… Then again, I think my brother spread rumers about how I killed a ghoule before even coming to the academy… So taking that into consideration it wouldn’t be unrealistic for me to have conections with demon hunters and all that other gibberish I told them.”
She nodded slowly. “Be sure not to change your mind. Dark magic isn’t something to be taught. Even a dragon or two has been corrupted in the past, so you shouldn’t let your guard down either. Keep that in mind. I’m going to send you back so you can rest now.” She squatted down again, slowly tipping me over with one finger, and as I hit the ground my soul was yanked back to my body. Although instead of peacefully sitting still I was lying in bed under my blankets.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. We should get ready for our next class.” Isy said cheerfully. “When we got back you were curled up on the floor shaking.”
‘I guess my body reacts to how I feel even when I’m not in it… Huh…’ “I’m already in bed…” I whined, “Can’t I just skip class?”
“But then who would the professor flirt with?”
I slowly pulled the blanket off me and swung my legs over, taking a moment to regain my bearing before I stood up. “Now I really don’t want to go…”
I looked to the side to see Isy tying her boots and Mo putting up her hair again. I didn’t care about stuff like that though. I was still wearing my school uniform too, so as far as I was concerned I was ready for class. Although… I did quickly put my armored pants on under the uniform skirt.
“Uh, Siya… You know this is the theoretical class, right? The practical class was yesterday.”
“Skirts were made by the devil… I’m wearing pants.” ‘They must have been right? So that demons would have it easier.’ I growled.
They both stared at me in silence, but when I didn’t explain they dropped it and pretended like everything was normal. With that, we headed to class… After Isy straightened out my shirt and fixed my hair…