It was well past mid-noon by the time Mammon was able to dislodge himself from the curious Wren. The boy’s nerves had improved dramatically after having a good meal in him, which was unfortunate for Mammon because he started to ask a lot of annoying questions. The demon was able to lie his way through all of them and was even able to add in some fables and tales that had dubious moral implications. The boy ate those stories up, no surprise for someone so deprived of, well, everything. It had taken him almost 4 hours to finally get some peace and quiet.

Mammon had taken residence in a small corner of the dingy basement. Wren had told him that they could stay here for another three days after scrounging and saving enough funds to rent this place from a local butcher. That also explained the awful smell of preserved meat and rot. Of course, Mammon had no plans to live in such a hovel for long - how long had it been since he’d experienced anything other than absolute luxury? - but current needs necessitate sacrifices of creature comforts.

Yet Mammon supposed that he’d have to live in squalor for a while longer before he could go about acquiring more immediate funds. It felt odd for the CEO of Hell to be so… poor. It was an uncomfortable notion, but a welcome one after his conquest of Earth. Even a small task like this would prove to be a challenge given his lack of information on this world, and more importantly, the constraints that was a result of his diminished state. Mammon took the last bite of his wrap and started to examine his body in more detail.

First and foremost, Mammon once again confirmed that his connection to Hell, although not completely gone, was practically nonexistent. When he could once call upon a torrent of Hell’s energies for his personal use, he could scarcely even feel that connection now, let alone control it. Thankfully his physical body was still largely intact, he could manipulate his form and had ample strength even if he was never like one of those idiotic wrath demons that only cared about brute power. Mammon always liked resorting to trickery and infernal magic to solve his problems; why physically rob a bank when you can control it outright?

In other words, he was fine among the weak citizens of this nameless town, but even Wren’s limited knowledge of the world told the demon that much larger powers were at play. And that’s not even counting that thing that took away his victim’s soul. This world was dangerous, and he had to accumulate wealth and power if he wanted to conquer it.

That led to the crux of his problem: power. With his connection to Hell essentially gone, Mammon could only rely on that strange new sensation he experienced when he first signed the Contract with Wren. The demon took a deep breath and focused his mind, delving deeper into the essence of his being to see exactly what this new strange source of energy was.

He saw the swirling chaos that was his own body as if he was a silent observer in his own mind, and as he navigated deeper and deeper into the core of himself, past the memories of past triumphs, of defeats, of Contracts completed and failed, he finally saw what that object was. And Mammon almost couldn’t believe it.

Where the empty void where the soul would be, there was a tiny, almost invisible speck floating in its space. That should have been impossible! The whole reason Lucifer and the rest of the angels rebelled was because they didn’t have souls. That was a gift solely reserved for the squabbling humans!

Angels and demons didn’t have true free will like the hairless monkeys, it was why Mammon himself was so fixated on Greed and all that it entailed. He didn’t have a choice, not a real one in any case. In fact, Mammon only had the level of autonomy that he did because of his rise in status, the lesser fiends and imps were little more than fleshy robots. It was the source of so much misery among the denizens of Hell.

Yet impossibly, here was the beginnings of a soul. Sure, it was weak, almost insignificant, like a tiny spore that had drifted into this desolate land, yet it was real. Mammon peered at it, as if looking away for just a moment would cause it to disappear. He was almost hesitant to do even that in case he somehow damaged it, yet regardless of his fears, and almost in spite of them, Mammon saw that the tiny soul was still growing. It was doing so very, very slowly, but it was growing nonetheless, and the demon saw that Wren was the one feeding its growth.

That boy might be more important than he initially thought.

Mammon continued to look at the tiny growing soul, knowing in the back of his mind that it that such a thing should be impossible, but a strange feeling of trepidation welled in his body as the reality of the situation set it. It was a soul, and it was his! The implications of that was… well, Mammon didn’t know, because no one, not even the Ruler of Hell himself, had experienced this opportunity.

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Stanger yet, Mammon instinctively knew that he would experience some kind of qualitative change, an evolution if you will, as the Soul-Seed matured. What change that would bring, Mammon had no clue, but he welcomed any change.

The CEO of Hell smiled as he had a bigger goal in mind. Where once he thought of this little venture as just another way of alleviating his boredom, it was now a golden opportunity for him to become something more than just a Greed demon. With a soul of his own, his options were limitless, and that filled the demon with a sense of joy that he had never experienced before.

Yes, the CEO of Hell smiled, truly smiled, for the first time in his long existence, and it was all thanks to that boy called Wren. Mammon would make that boy into the greatest existence this world has ever known, and he looked forward to that process even as he sat down to rest. It would be glorious.

* * *

Mammon woke up sometime after the sun had set, if the tiny window was any indication, and frowned. He had… slept? Yes, he slept! Demons didn’t need sleep, or more accurately, they couldn’t. That was another change that Mammon needed to get used to, albeit an inconvenient one. In fact, it wasn’t just sleep that Mammon experienced for the first time, but he had also dreamed… although he couldn’t quite remember what he had dreamt about.

Mammon laughed at the absurdity of it all. Here was the CEO of Hell, one of the most dreaded Demons of all, worried about a dream. Oh, how things have changed.

“Mona?” Wren grumbled as he stirred from his ersatz bedding. “Is something wrong?”

Mammon smiled at the child, at this venerable goldmine of potential. “It’s nothing, little lordling. I’m just enjoying the world after being stuck in the Spirit Realm for so long is all.” The demon pointed at one of the leftover wraps. “You know, Wren, we didn’t even have food like that where I came from.”

The boy widened his eyes. “You didn’t? What did you eat there?”

“A whole lot of nothing,” Mammon answered, which was true enough for the most part, “I didn’t have a physical body, remember?”

A blush formed on the boy’s dirt-stained cheeks as he clenched his book tight. “Sorry, I should have known that.”

Mammon chuckled; it’ll take some doing to bleed the meek attitude out of Wren, a proper god-king needs to act the part, after all. “No need to apologize, you’re only human, and you’ll make mistakes along the way. Now enough talk, get some more food in your system. The first thing we need to do is to bulk you up, you can’t get your revenge and a better life for yourself if you’re dying of starvation.”

Mammon threw one of the leftover baggies at the boy, who clumsily caught it before it could hit the floor. Wren looked at it with trepidation.

“But… this is all the food we have left, and you don’t have much money either. Shouldn’t we save it?”

The demon almost burst into laughter at the thought of saving. Saving! That went against every creed he knew of, saving and careful planning was the antithesis of Greed, and he couldn’t afford such a bad habit to form in his charge.

“That’s a terrible way of thinking!” Mammon said with a calculated shake of his head. “But if that’s the way you’ve been living so far, then it explains the current circumstances.”

The boy looked at him with confusion.

“Think of it this way,” Mammon started, “Even if we assume, which we shouldn’t, that the food won’t be stolen or go bad in the future, saving it now could mean that you won’t have the energy in the future to find more food. What if there was an opportunity to find a great job? Say, suppose the local masons wanted to hire an apprentice, but you couldn’t get to it because you were too weak to pass inspections, what would you do then?”

“But… they’d never want to pick me even if I ate well,” Wren muttered.

Another shake of the head from the demon. “And that’s why you’re in the situation you’re in now. See, if you always think that things won’t turn out the way you want them to, then you’ve already given up! The world is a harsh place, Wren, I won’t tell you otherwise, but you should know that the people who succeed are the ones who take action and use every resource they have immediately. That way, they’ll be stronger in the future, and with strength comes opportunities, and with opportunities, comes wealth and power.”

The boy pondered the demon’s words for a moment without saying a word. Was he too stupid to understand the concepts Mammon presented, even after dumbing it down to such a drastic degree? But the demon needn’t have worried, because the boy started to nod his head slowly before seeing the logic behind what Mammon’s words. Good, he was still willing to learn, to change.

“Yeah…” the boy said and took a bite out of the cold food. “You’re right, Mona. I’ve… I’ve already given up before I met you. B-but I can still change, right? I want to become strong like the heroes in the stories you told me yesterday.”

A genuine smile appeared on the CEO of Hell’s face. “And you will be, Wren, I promise you that. I’ll guide you every step of the way. But first, eat your fill and savour that taste, because I’ll ensure that you never go hungry again. I’ll ensure that you have everything that you’ve ever wanted, and so much more.”