The rest of that night was excruciating. I couldn’t leave, because I would freeze, but staying was the most boring thing I had ever done. I could hardly even move, because Rafael’s sensitive ears picked up on every noise I made, and he stirred whenever I tried. I read every word on my status window, then read them four more times and when I finished, the only noticeable change in my surroundings was that the fire had gotten dimmer.

  The only bright side was that I did manage to get at least one productive thing done, that being setting up my HUD. Setting up a HUD is one of the first things you learn when learning about the System, so I won’t bother going into the details, but I will include an example just once, as my HUD is different from most everyone else’s.

HUD

Current

Max

[HP]

1500

1500

[MP]

2030

2030

[AP]

1850

1850

Satiety

85

100

  Satiety here represents how full I am on blood. If it hits 0, I die.

  Rafael rose with the sun, though he wasn’t happy about it. He was groggy and slow– well, slower than usual– and hardly knew where he was.

  “Good morning,” he said with a yawn.

  “Good morning,” I replied. “Sleep well?”

  “I guess,” he said, fumbling for his tiny pouch. “Breakfast?”

  “I don’t eat.”

  “Right. Well, let me grab a bite and then we can- Wait.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Aren’t you a vampire?”

  “I am.”

  “But-” he glanced up at the sunrise. “Shouldn’t you be, I dunno, hiding?”

  Having spent half the previous night with nothing to do but think, I had already known that this topic would come up, and prepared the perfect response.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because- Well- Aren’t vampires like-? Can’t they not be out in the sun?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be able to be in the sun?”

  “Uhhhh… I don’t know.” He scratched his head (through his hood, which he still had yet to lower). “I always thought that vampires couldn’t be in the sun. I guess that was just a myth?”

  “I guess so,” I shrugged. “Clearly I’m fine.”

  “Huh.”

  I know I said earlier that I wasn’t good at acting, but this doesn’t really count. Playing dumb isn’t acting, it’s a social skill, especially for people like me. I learned the hard way in college that people don’t like it when you let them know you’re smarter than them, so I had to learn to play dumb to keep from being ostracized more than I already was for my age. It was tough at first, because, as I mentioned, I don’t like pretending to be something I’m not, but in the end, I got it down, and while I still didn’t have many friends since I was so much younger than my classmates, I at least stopped making enemies.

  After that short conversation, Rafael produced a large fillet of salmon from his tiny bag, along with a metal pan, a stand upon which to set it over the fire, a knife, a cutting board, butter, herbs, and a lemon, and set to cooking. I watched the entire time, trying to hide how dumbfounded I was at the whole process. It was like watching a comedy sketch unfold in front of me.

  He proved himself to be a competent cook, which surprised me, given my impression of him as a spoiled runaway. As I had unfortunately experienced myself, rich kids usually didn’t know how to cook. And it couldn’t have been a skill he picked up on the road, because he was still too naive to have been traveling long enough to reach that level of mastery.

  “Want some?” he said, offering me a bite of the finished product with a fork that I hadn’t seen him grab.

  I knew I couldn’t eat it, but it looked so good that I couldn’t help myself.

  “I’ll try a bite.”

  He initially tried to feed my the bite himself, but I put a stop to that and grabbed the fork out of his hand and put the fish into my mouth on my own. Then I spit it out. It tasted like salt and gasoline and the texture felt like sandpaper in my mouth.

  “Nope,” I said, handing the fork back. “Never doing that again.”

  “Was it that bad?” he asked, looking crestfallen.

  “It had nothing to do with your cooking,” I assured him. “My taste buds just work differently than yours. I had never tried before, but that little experiment confirmed that I cannot eat human food.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad.”

  “It really is. It smells good.”

  My mood was a bit sour after that, and he must have noticed me glaring at the salmon as he ate because he offered to let me have some of his blood three times in between bites. I turned him down, because I had already told him I didn’t want his blood, and I’m not a liar, but I will admit I was tempted.

  After he finished, we prepared to leave. Though I had his jacket on, I was still in my dress and shoes, and my legs were bare, so he lent me a set of his clothes to wear. The shirt and jacket were baggy, the pants were only wearable after rolling up the legs five times and tightening a belt to its maximum, and I needed to stuff an extra pair of socks in the boots to keep them from chafing, but in the end, I was fully covered, and looked much less conspicuous than I had in my semi-formal concert attire. I put my former clothes in the bag with everything else after extracting a promise from him that he would return them as they were, which he gladly gave.

  As we walked down the road, both of us made attempts at small talk, but with both of us hiding our backgrounds, the conversations never went anywhere, and we both soon gave up. For lunch he had some kind of red meat– probably the lamb he mentioned before– seasoned with a rosemary-like herb and a jar of some kind of orange sauce that looked just as good as the morning’s salmon. He offered me his blood again, and I declined again, and not long after, we were on our way again.

  The scenery throughout the journey was monotonous. The sameness was broken by the occasional hill, or burnt-out clearing or wild animal but mostly, it was just spruce, spruce, and more spruce. The most interesting things I saw there were the fresh-looking footprints on the ground ahead of us. There were hundreds of them, and hoofprints along the road ruts, and the further we went, the more recent they looked.

  By sunset, we caught up with the source of the tracks. Twenty or so wagons had formed a semicircle around a clearing just off the side of the road, and over a hundred people were within the ring, some sitting around campfires, some setting up tents and bedrolls, and others feeding the horses, which were tied to some of the nearby trees. The most notable thing about this group was the number of people wearing full plate armor. I counted two dozen from afar, and a few more that I hadn’t noticed as we got closer. Two of these armored folk were standing at the edge of the wagon ring looking down the road at us.

  “Let me handle my own story,” I said to Rafael. “Just worry about yourself.”

  “Ok,” he whispered back.

  We approached the group calmly, since we had no specific reason to fear them, and avoiding them would only make us suspicious.

  “Greetings, travelers! Blessings to you!” said one of the two armored lookouts. Now that we were closer, I could see that there was an emblem on their chests shaped like a set of scales.

  “Greetings to the paladins of Order,” said Rafael, bowing.

  I kept my face steady and mimicked his motion, but internally, my mind was running at full speed. ‘Paladins’ was a very scary term. If they were paladins, that meant they served a god, and if they were out in the open, and receiving respectful greetings from random travelers, they could not serve an evil god, which meant that there was a very good chance that their god was directly opposed to the self-proclaimed ‘demon god’ who had sent me there. There was no reason for them to suspect a random traveler on the road, but with how little I knew about the world, it was inevitable that I would give something away. I needed a plan, but really, my options were limited down to one and it was the very same one that I had been forced to choose earlier. Playing dumb.

  “I am Sir Klaus Brune, and this is Sir Arne Ziegler,” said the paladin.

  “My name is Rafael.”

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  “And I am Lucille.”

  The paladins did a slight double take at that. I never learned the full reason why, but I suspect it’s because they thought I was a boy until I spoke, given my short hair and my clothes obscuring my figure.

  “Well met,” said the paladin. “If you would like, you may join us at our camp. We are currently escorting a merchant caravan to Bizet, and protecting two additional travelers would be no trouble at all.”

  “Thank you,” said Rafael. “We would love to.”

  I thought otherwise, but I couldn’t see a way out without looking suspicious, so I went along with it.

  “Then welcome. We will be serving dinner shortly. Sir Otmar makes a good stew.”

  “Oh it’s alright,” I said trying to stop a potential issue before it came up. “We already have our own food.”

  “That’s quite alright as well,” said the paladin. “You are always allowed to change your mind.”

  “Thank you,” said Rafael. “We’ll be going in, then.”

  The paladin nodded. “Have a good night. Blessings to you.”

  “Blessings to you as well.”

  Rafael bowed again, and I followed suit before we headed in. We found a small spot near the road to set up, and he bent down to dig a small pit while I went out in search of firewood. Soon, with the help of a small magical device, we had a fire going, and he began to get out his cooking utensils to prepare his pheasant. The sight and scent soon drew a curious few from the merchants who wanted a better look.

  “Hey there,” said a thin, balding young man. “Name’s Jean. This here’s Arman.” he gestured at an overweight young man with even less hair. “How’s it goin’?”

  “I’m Rafael, and this is Lucille,” said Rafael. “It’s going well for us. How are you?”

  “Aw, we’re doin’ pretty good,” said Jean. “We’re just wonderin’ what you guys’re cookin’, cus it smells really good.”

  “I’m making pheasant. Right now I’m only making enough for myself, but I can make more for you guys if you want?”

  “Really?” said Jean. “I mean, you don’t have to, but if you really want to…”

  “Of course,” said Rafael, beaming. “I have plenty!”

  “Wow, thanks!” said Jean.

  “Yeah, thanks!” said Arman.

  “You’re a really great guy, you know that?” said Jean as he sat down next to the fire. “I never had pheasant before. I always thought it was one of them rich people foods.”

  “Well, it can be hard to get a hold of for some people,” Rafael explained. “But it’s actually pretty cheap if you know where to look. A lot of people actually don’t buy it even when it is available because they think that it’s inferior meat, but that’s just because they don’t make it right. If you prepare pheasant wrong, it can taste really dry and tough, and the flavor gets buried, but if you’re careful, you can make something truly delicious with it.”

  “Aw man, now I’m excited,” said Jean before turning to me. “And you said your name was Lucille, right?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That’s a pretty name. Arman, didn’t you have an aunt named Lucille?”

  “A cousin,” corrected Arman. “She married that baron’s son, remember? Makes me basically nobility, don’tcha think?”

  “Ha. There ain’t anything noble ‘bout you, ‘Man. ‘Cept maybe your gut.”

  The two guffawed at the joke before turning their attention back at me.

  “So, Lucille, where’re you from?” asked Jean. “I never seen eyes like yours before.”

  At that question I froze. At that point, I still had yet to see a reflection of myself, and had no idea that my originally blue eyes were blue no longer.

  “Oh, well…” I said. “I don’t really know. I can’t seem to remember much from my childhood.”

  I had resolved earlier that I would play dumb, which in this case meant playing the amnesia card. I hadn’t expected to play it so early though, or to these people. It turned out better that I did though, because if I had tried doing it with the paladins, things might have gone in a much different direction. I didn’t understand the implications of mental magic at the time, or how odd such a story would seem to anyone with any understanding of mental magic.

  “Aw, really?”

  “Yeah, it’s all foggy,” I said. “I’m trying to find a way to get my memories back right now.”

  “Well, I hope it works out for you,” said Arman with sincerity. “My gramma can’t remember things too good anymore, and I know she ain’t happy about it.”

  “Thanks. Don’t go spreading it around though. I don’t really want all that attention and pity.”

  “Our lips are sealed,” said Jean. “Your secret’s safe with us, miss.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Come to think of it, Rafael, your eyes ain’t too common either,” said Jean.

  “Aw come on, Jean, we know people with yellow eyes,” said Arman. “Remember Francis?”

  “Yeah, but Francis is a half-elf.” Rafael flinched. “Rafael, are you one of them half-elfs too?”

  “...Yeah.”

  “See?” said Arman. “Told you.”

  “Aw, shut up.”

  “So, what about you guys?” I said, trying to steer the conversation away from uncomfortable territory. “Where are you guys from?”

  “Alkan,” said Jean. “Small town up by Fauré. Nobody’s ever heard of it.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t,” I said. “So you guys work for this… merchant group, I guess?”

  “Yeah,” said Arman. “We started around a year ago. Workin’ our way up the ladder. Y’know.”

  “We’re gonna open up a shop one day,” said Jean.

  “What will you sell?”

  “Weapons,” said Jean

  “Clothes,” said Arman at the exact same time.

  “We’re not sellin’ clothes.”

  “Why not? Everyone needs clothes! They’ll sell!”

  “Clothes are borin’ as hell! Weapon’s’ll get the fun folk in the door!”

  “But clothes will get the ladies. Especially if we sell them fancy dresses for balls ‘n’ stuff like that. We can get all the high society ladies!”

  “We need a tailor for that.”

  “I’ll be the tailor.”

  “You?!”

  “Why can’t you sell both?” I asked.

  At this, they both turned to stare at me, then started laughing.

  “Who ever heard of a shop that sells weapons and clothes?” asked Jean.

  “Yeah, that wouldn’t work at all,” said Arman.

  “Why not?”

  It took ten minutes for me to give up on trying to convince them that a shop that specialized in more than one thing was a good idea. I still don’t understand why they couldn’t grasp the concept. They would probably have an aneurism if they saw a Walmart. They just kept laughing it off as a dumb idea without ever explaining why. I was half-tempted to open such a shop just to prove them wrong, but that would have deviated way too far from my goals. I was saved when Rafael announced that the pheasant was done, and our two guests stopped talking to eat.

  “Man, that was good,” said Jean, wiping his mouth and tossing a bare bone into the fire. “Now I understand why them noble folk eat this stuff.”

  “Better than any chicken I’ve had,” said Arman, with his mouth still full.

  “So, how did you guys start traveling with the paladins?” asked Rafael. “They don’t normally do escort jobs like this, do they?”

  “Oh that’s actually a funny story,” said Jean. “We were just comin’ up from Messiaen like usual, and then we ran into ‘em on their way up from Johann. Apparently the Saintess summoned ‘em all for some reason.”

  “It’s the demon kings,” said Arman, wiping his fingers on his shirt.

  “It’s not the demon kings, ‘Man,” said Jean. “We asked ‘em, ‘member?”

  “Yeah, but they were lyin’. Tryin’ to keep us from panickin’, y’know?”

  “Demon Kings?” I asked.

  “Yeah, them scary monsters from the stories,” said Jean. “My ma used to tell me about ‘em when I didn’t wanna go to bed. ‘Better not wake me up in the middle of the night again, Jean,’ she’d say. ‘Or Gluttony is gonna eat ya. Disobedient kids are his favorite snack.’”

  “My ma always said it was Lust that came for disobedient kids,” said Arman.

  “Well your ma was a whore.”

  “Touché.”

  “Did you forget about the Demon Kings too?” asked Jean.

  “Yeah,” I said. “They sound a little familiar, but can you tell me more? I can’t remember any specifics.”

  I was worried, and as I later learned, rightfully so, after hearing them casually throw out terms like ‘Lust’ and ‘Gluttony’. One’s a coincidence, but two of the Seven Deadly sins being mentioned alongside Demon Kings? There was an obvious connection that I didn’t like, given my relationship with the alleged ‘demon god of Pride’.

  “Well, they’re the Demon Kings, y’know?” said Arman. “The Seven Deadly Sins send their monsters to Astraeus every few hundred years to try and take down the church of Order.”

  “They’re just stories,” said Jean. “The church makes ‘em up to keep people in line. I say they’re a load of dung. They’re just stories to scare little kids.”

  “Naw, they’re real,” said Arman. “My grandpa said his grandpa saw one in person once.”

  “Ha!” barked Jean. “And I’ll bet he fought it off too, right? Cuz there’s no way in hell he woulda survived, if them stories are true.”

  “He did though,” said Arman. “He was in the army, and he was on the battlefield when one of ‘em swept through. Said it cast a spell so big a hundred thousand people died at once, but my grandpa’s grandpa was in the reserves, so he wasn’t out in the explosion.”

  “Bull. Shit,” said Jean. “He was probably just a crazy old man tryin’ to justify how he shat himself.”

  “You can go see the place it happened if you want,” said Arman, shrugging. “It’s pretty famous. It’s over in Vivaldi.”

  “I ain’t goin’ to mutt-country.”

  Rafael stiffened and pulled his hood down further.

  “So these demon kings are the reason the paladins are on their way to…?” I trailed off as I realized that I didn’t actually know where they were heading.

  “Claude,” Jean finished for me. “That’s what ‘Man thinks. I dunno the real reason, but they say the Saintess summoned them, so-”

  “The last time that foreign paladins were summoned like this was because of the demon kings,” said Arman.

  “That’s what they say, at least,” added Jean. “There’s definitely somethin’ goin’ on. These ain’t normal paladins. These are the senior paladins. Means they’re all at least level 70. They don’t send those ones out for just anything.”

  “And they definitely don’t send ‘em across borders,” said Arman. “It’s definitely demon kings.”

“Aw, would you stop it with the demon king crap?”

“You’ll be eatin’ your words in a few days when the church makes their announcement,” said Arman.

“If it’s really demon kings, I’ll eat my words, and my shoe.”

“And mine.”

“Aw, hell naw. I ain’t touchin’ those things.”

From there, the conversation turned to less controversial, less dangerous territory, but what we had already talked about left me with plenty to think about. If Arman was right, and the paladins really were being summoned to deal with these so-called ‘demon kings’, I was probably one of them, which meant that avoiding suspicion was even more imperative than I originally thought. I needed to make absolutely certain that these paladins never had any reason to suspect me of anything, and once we parted ways, I would need to do my best to avoid meeting any more under any circumstances.

I considered trying to slip away that night to get away from them, but concluded that would only make things worse. Right now, they probably thought of me as an odd girl with strange eyes and oversized clothes, but that in and of itself was nothing too much. I was also weak and, at the time, helpless, and posed no threat to anyone. Even if I somehow managed to get by what looked to be a rotating night watch, disappearing shortly after learning that the paladins were on their way to be debriefed on demon kings would be a bad look. The best plan was to act natural until I got out of their sight.

That night passed without event. Jean, Arman, and Rafael slept, while I pretended to sleep, and tried to ignore what felt like the gazes of all the paladins on me. When dawn finally came, I stood up and immediately went for a stroll around the camp to stretch my legs and alleviate the restlessness that had built up throughout the night. I couldn’t wait until I could live alone and not have to worry about people noticing that I didn’t sleep.

I walked around the whole camp three times, watching as the rest of the people awoke and started preparing breakfast and breaking down the campsite. However, I never reached my spot again after the third round, because as I passed by the paladins on watch duty, one of them grabbed me arm and pulled me aside.

“Sorry to bother you, miss, but we have a few questions we need to ask you.”