Aris simply couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A Lesser Demon, this far south? While she had never encountered one herself (other than now) the stories said that they really only prowled in the more northern reaches of the continent; deep in dark forests, they would use the cold to their advantage to hunt a weakened opponent.

She really couldn’t see why they bothered, seeing as the one that was currently chasing her seemed to be perfectly fine punching through what remained of a stone wall as it gave chase. Also, the stories had never mentioned someone turning themselves into one.

“Get to the fucking horses!” One of the humans screamed, Alan. She agreed wholeheartedly, for once.

While the demon was faster than all of them, the device that Alan had thrown at it had managed to allow them to put distance between them and the beast, so much so that they were able to mount the horses and set off. It seemed less than pleased at their efforts, however.

It roared in displeasure, then dropped to all fours and began bounding after them. As the trio galloped out of the gate, the compound behind them shook and rumbled, evidence of its imminent implosion. Sadly, the demon was able to clear the gate as well before it collapsed in on itself.

Aris turned forwards and controlled her breathing. She dug her heels into the horses sides, remembering the lessons that Makian had ordered her to take before she went on this gods-forsaken journey across the sea. Nearly twenty men had been sent on the leaky barge that was barely classified as a ship to sail the ocean blue, and ten managed to not die from starvation. When they made landfall off the coast of a jungle, two more died from a snake with venom that made their eyes melt in their sockets. A shout brought her back to reality.

“Aris! Hit it with that staff! It’s faster than us!” Alan shouted at her. She looked at the staff in her hands. Oh right.

She wasn’t a magic user, at all. She possessed a small amount of magical affinity like all beastkin, but it was too weak to use effectively even with a common catalyst.

An elven catalyst, though, was a different story.

They were renowned for their ability to turn a population of regular people into potential spell casters, ready to die in the service of their lord. That is, when someone was able to get that many. Few had the wealth required to buy elven catalysts in bulk. Due to the fact that the elves effectively controlled the market of good quality catalysts, the price of catalysts didn’t scale evenly with the amount bought. The more you bought, the higher the multiplier of the price.

If a king wanted to buy five hundred catalysts, and the standard price for one catalyst was one gold mark, then the price for five hundred wouldn’t be five hundred gold, it would be higher. That’s how Makian explained it to her, at least.

The demon snarled behind her, seemingly closer than before. She gripped the staff and the catalyst, and awkwardly turned around.

The deer skull of the demon gazed at her with empty eye sockets, yet seeing perfectly fine. Its rotting tongue flapped wildly in the wind, eager to get a taste of her flesh. Aris wrinkled her nose. And the smell was horrible, even by her standards.

She prepared to utter one of the only two spells that she knew.

“Sviła!” She yelled, thrusting the staff forward and focusing on the tingling sensation that the catalyst gave her.

The demon’s head flipped backwards with a SNAP, its neck breaking as it was stressed beyond what even a lesser demon could handle. Its body was flung back, flying a great deal back before landing in the sand, throwing up huge amounts of debris.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Fuck yeah!” Ryan yelled, raising his middle finger at the beast's fallen form. “And that’s the waaayyyy the news goes! Fucking demonic looking rotter!”

Aris gave an involuntary face spasm. “It’s not dead, you fuck. Lesser demons regenerate that shit like it's nothing. Best we can do now is speed up and hope we made it out of sight before it comes back.”

Alan grinned at her. “Still, USA one, forces of hell zero.” With that, he turned his back on her and whipped the horse. “Race ya!”

Both Ryan and Alan sped off. She sighed before following suit.

. . .

It took us hours to get back to the NRA fortress. When we did, the guards on top of the gates shouted at us, but my ring was out of battery. When I told them both to, ‘get their money up and not their funny up,’ as my dad used to say, they looked at each other and shrugged before opening up the gate. Standing there to greet us was none other than General Helmet-loser, or whatever his name was.

He exclaimed loudly in some foreign language, before freezing and looking at Aris, for some reason. His eyes flicked between Aris and me before he swallowed and gestured for us to follow. I looked at Ryan, who had also noticed. He shrugged, and we followed the general inside.

He led us to a squat building in the center of the fort-town place. The guards at the front stepped aside to let us in.

We descended a flight of stairs to reach a tight room lit by flickering torches. He turned back towards me and spoke more, and frowned at my blank expression. I gestured at my ring, and he rolled his eyes and held a new one out for me. I took it, then sat in one of the chairs at a long, wooden table. So did the others.

“So,” He began, leaning over the table at me, trying to be intimidating. “I’m assuming the job is done, otherwise you wouldn’t dare show your faces back here?”

I internally sighed. “Yeah, we dropped the bombs. Now, can we please get the fuck out of this desert already?”

I don’t think he heard me, because he immediately dropped to his knees and began sobbing. “Oh, thank the North! I knew that all that praying would be worth it! I thank the Gods of the North for this success, and nobody else at all!” He continued his oddly specific rant about the north or whatever for a few minutes before standing back up and clearing his throat.

“Yes, your transportation is ready. For your service to the Noxonorean Reclamation Army, you have earned it.” He waved us off.

I wasn’t finished though. “One more thing.”

He met my eyes. “Yes?”

“I want a fuckton of those translator rings.”

. . .

I sat comfortably in the seat of the carriage that had been provided to us. It was the type of rot that you would see in those old 3D flickers, Game of Thrones or Bridgerton. My dad always made me watch the shit he would watch when he was younger.

It had an inside section, but it didn’t have any seats, and was made to store luggage. The inhabitants were meant to sit on top, which I personally thought was a major design flaw, but it was swimming.

The two horses snorted and continued on, the crude vehicle trundling along the somehow-still-intact road. Who was maintaining the roads of a fallen empire, I couldn’t guess. Maybe it was more of that magic rot or whatever.

Magic. That’s crazy to think about, right? Harry Potter shit, wild stuff. One moment I had been on patrol, and the next I was in some fucking medieval rotting world. Got transported again, this time off to a barren desert where two warlord states duked it out over the scraps left behind by their ancestors.

People used to think that was how our world would end up. Then the superpowers sliced it up over some rotting African village, and the concept of conventional warfare between the big boys returned.

The thought of nuclear war had loomed over my parent’s generation’s heads, and their fear peaked during the Russian military coup. At that point, everybody thought the nukes would start slicing at any point. We were all surprised, even those of us not involved in politics.

Ryan and Aris sat silently beside each other, one staring stonily ahead while the other sucked in their cheeks and tried their best to look like they had a chiseled jaw. He didn’t succeed.

I sighed, then looked back up at the night sky. Man, these clouds just rot the night view up, huh-

Then the clouds cleared.

My eyes widened as I saw a maelstrom of colors, an endless kaleidoscope of brushes of glittering sparkles. A never ending sea of stars.

Los Angeles, the City of Angels.

Also the first city in the US to have its citizens wear a gas mask during day hours, required by law. The air quality was so bad that a constant layer of smog hung over the city. A mixture of ash raining down from the failed 2028 Carbon Net project in the atmosphere and carbon monoxide from the endless cars and generators that powered the megascrapers caused a cloud of smoke to constantly hover over the city, no matter which way the wind was blowing.

Add that, plus the insane amount of light pollution from the nearly thirty million people living their lives, and not a single star was visible from the ground. The only people that had the privilege to see a somewhat clear night sky were the rotting millionaires and billionaires. Their megascrapers managed to extend above the smog layer, so they were able to treat their children and families to the best sights Los Angeles had to offer.

Throughout my whole life, I had learned to really just go with the flow. It was easier to not think, to turn off your brain and not think about how the bills are being paid, and just try to enjoy the little things you have.

Man, the sky was beautiful.