I heard the crash of thunder and felt the rain pelt my face as someone called out to me. I sensed the cold wood beneath my shivering body sway back and forth as it was buffeted by the waves. And still, I heard someone calling for me.

Who is it?

Opening my eyes I see the canvas of a tent above me, figures moving hurriedly past where I lay. I try to sit up, but the slightest motion sends jolts of intense pain through my legs. I collapse back on the cot and wait for the pain to pass.

Once it does I turn my head to the side, trying to get an idea of where I am. It seems to be a medical pavilion, the figures moving past me carrying bandages and other supplies to cots with bloody occupants. I listen, but can't hear anybody that seems to be calling for me.

A dream, huh? No, it felt too vivid, too real for that. A memory then? But I've never been to sea before, so how could that be? Was that Arnstein's memory?

My own memories return to me, and I think of the beastling sorcerer who had nearly killed me. I place my hand over my abdomen where I had been stabbed through, and feel only smooth skin under the hole in my shirt.

Healing magic sure is handy. I think I should try to ask Nika to teach me some of it if I get the chance.

Just as I'm thinking of her, I see Nika walking through the pavilion, helping Gen's medics where she can. I wave to her, catching her eye, and she comes over to see me, a relieved smile on her face.

"Stein! Albatos had said you might be injured, but we couldn't see anything wrong beyond the mended stab wound. Does it hurt anywhere?"

"I think both of my legs are broken or fractured," I say with a sheepish grin.

She frowns, "How exactly did you manage that?"

"I, uh… fell off a cliff," I admit.

She eyes me, "If I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to stand out. I don't think I've ever had to heal anybody who's fallen off a cliff in a battle that took place in a clearing. In a forest. With no cliffs in sight." She punctuates each statement with a poke to my leg.

Wincing from the pain of being poked on my fractured leg, I respond, "Okay well, in my defense I was pulled off the cliff. It's not like…" I trail off as I see her warm smile.

She pats my head, "I'm glad you came back. I always get worried, you know? It's not usually so bad, Zeph and Albatos are pretty good at making sure everybody is where they need to be to make it back safely. And I don't have to worry so much with people like Arim and Annora around, but I can't help but grow anxious when it's your first time out."

She took a deep breath, "Sorry, I'm blabbing a bit, aren't I? Let me fix these legs up, yeah? New and old, inverse and reverse. Let what is be as it once was." She placed both her hands on one of my legs and I saw a soft golden glow around it, accompanied by an odd sense of my bone being forcibly put back together.

Huh. The incantation is different than Zak's was. And I think that golden glow isn't as bright either.

"You said you were technically a wandering cleric, right Nika?"

"Yes, that's right, why?"

"I was just wondering, I saw a priest perform healing magic somewhat recently, and yours seems a little different than his did. Is there a reason why?"

"If he received complete training then I expect his was different, yes. The underlying principle for healing magic is usually dependent on whether the caster was trained by the church or taught by some other method. Either way, the healing magic is always based on how much the caster knows about healing itself, and anatomy. The church has many resources dedicated to teaching their disciples proper anatomy as a primary focus, and healing as a secondary focus. Their magic is based on understanding and then replicating bodies with mana. In truth, it's more like bodily creation magic than healing magic. They consider that path to be more in line with the teachings of Bymos, and like to say that the golden glow that's signature to their brand of healing is yet more evidence of its superiority. The other style of healing magic relies far more on conventional medical techniques. Say I wanted to close a stab wound or cut, I would use magic to bind the opening together, like I was stitching it closed."

"I see. So since your magic has a bit of that golden glow, I'm assuming you practice a fusion of sorts?"

"Exactly. I was no good when it came to studying for hours on end, so I wasn't a very good student. After I learned the basics I gave up and decided I could wing the rest of it. And its been working so far."

"How exactly does winging it work when it comes to establishing concepts?"

"Mine is a two stage spell. The first simply puts things back the way they were before they were broken, reversing them so to speak. The second is mending the body so it stays how it should be. I've done a bunch of little experiments over the years to make sure I can remedy most of the injuries you'd come across out here."

"Experiments? That may be the most frightening thing you've said so far."

She laughed, "Nothing gross, I promise. These bones, for example. I broke sticks, imagining them as bones, then figured out how to reverse the break and mend them together."

Okay, the fact that you had to imagine breaking bones and who knows what else yourself is still a little scary. Healing magic seems too damn complicated to me. I think the best I could do would be magical stitches.

She finishes up healing both my legs. I swing my legs over the cot, finding that they still feel a bit fragile. I guess healing magic only does so much, maybe depending on the skill of the caster. If that's the case, I'd very much like to thank whoever healed the hole in my side, because it doesn't feel uncomfortable in the slightest. Unfortunately, it seems like all of the medics are still quite busy, so I don't imagine I'll get the chance today.

"Do you know how many of ours made it back?" I ask Nika, who's looking a little drained.

Nika shakes her head, "I didn't get a good head count. I was just about to go look, I think I've nearly run out of mana. What about you? You came in alone, so does that mean Skeb and Miki are..?"

I grimly nod my head. She puts her hands together and offers a small prayer. Standing up, I lead the way out of the pavilion.

The atmosphere in Gen's encampment is radically different than it was when we arrived. A bleak air hangs over every soldier and warrior. I figure I can't have been out for terribly long, without a sun in the sky it's a bit hard to tell, but I think it's early evening, so I figure it's only been a few hours since the battle.

As we enter Zeph's area Nika splits off to go ask some of the veterans how things went. I head over to the mess area to see if there's any food. Maybe as a side effect of having a hole in my stomach, I'm extremely hungry.

There's nobody cooking, but there's always leftovers. I grab some of those and take a seat next to Redina, who's slumped over on the table playing with her cup, more than halfway through a bottle of mead.

"Anybody know you nicked that?" I ask.

"Buzz off. I bought it, fair and square." Her words have a slight slur to them.

"Yeah, and I'm king of England."

"Dunno where that is, but you sure ain't like no king I've ever met."

"Something tells me you've as likely seen an actual king as you did buy that brew."

"Heh."

"That's what I thought. Who'd you nick it from anyway?"

"Dunno, some dead guy's stuff."

"Well pass some of it over this way then." She passed the bottle, and I got a cup of my own to pour some in. It was fruity and sweet, though I couldn't identify the kind of fruit that was used.

Redina looked at me, "Huh, didn't take you for a drinker. You so young I thought you'd be coughing it back up."

"Looks can be deceiving. So, how'd it go? You were in artillery, right?"

"Yeah. Boring for the most part, honestly. Dig up a stone pillar with magic. Throw it at the enemy with magic. Rinse, repeat. So dull. It got interesting near the end, though. The enemy actually got close to us so I was able to get some real excitement in before it ended. And you? Have any fun moments?"

"I fell off a cliff."

"...What?"

Vurt walked over, standing on the opposite side of the table, looking like he was in a foul mood. "Have either of you seen Holeria?"

Redina grimaced and looked to the side at me and said under her breath, "Uh-oh. Looks like little miss 'I can do it' couldn't do it after all." Or, at least she tried to say it under her breath. When you're several cups in it isn't so easy to be subtle. Even as the words came out of her mouth I saw Vurt's expression get dark with rage.

Taking the initiative to defuse the situation, I ram my elbow into Redina's side. "Not cool, Redina."

"Urp. Oh, uh, yeah sorry. Excuse me." She runs out beyond the outer tent border of camp before throwing up into a bush.

Doing my best to ignore my drinking buddy, I ask, "Weren't you two together? When'd you last see her?"

He took a seat, "We were. Holeria wanted a position in the infantry, so Zeph let her have it."

"So she was doing her best to prove me wrong, huh? So what happened? I heard the front lines collapsed."

"Honestly, I lost sight of her even before that. We were holding our own against the enemy, and I guess I got swept up in the momentum of the fight. When I looked back to check on her I couldn't find her."

"You do realize what that probably means, right."

"I didn't come here for your damn pessimism. As I asked, have you seen her?"

"I haven't. I just woke up not too long ago in the med tent, so I haven't seen much of anything."

He gives an exasperated sigh and stands up, "Damn it. Nobody knows a damn thing. Everybody just jumps to their damn assumptions." He kicks the stool he had been sitting on.

Redina comes back, "Where are we at here? We figure out if miss hopeful ever came back?"

"No. Seems nobody's seen her. What'll you do now, Vurt?"

He's silent for a moment, then says, "I'll just have to go look for her myself."

Redina burps, then says, "I think I heard the corpse cleaners are going out soon. You could probably join them."

"Yeah, I'll go do that. See ya."

"Wait." He stops as I call out to him. I down the rest of my drink before standing up, "I'll go with. You'll have better luck looking with an extra pair of eyes."

He looks at me suspiciously, "And why would you do that?"

"You're smart, right? Figure it out." This'll be a good opportunity for you to learn not to judge a book by its cover. Just because I didn't believe in her doesn't mean I didn't care. "You coming, Redina?"

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Mmm. You know, something tells me the smell of blood wouldn't be very good for my stomach, so I think I'll stay here."

We leave Redina to her own devices and walk through the camp, looking for the corpse cleaners. A soldier with a fresh bandage over an eye tells us they left close to an hour ago, so we decide to head toward the site of the battle alone.

'Should be leaving soon' my ass. How long has that girl been drinking?

The walk to the field is incredibly awkward. Thinking back on it I haven't had a single interaction with this guy that was remotely positive.

"So what exactly did you do to be so favored?" Vurt asks out of nowhere.

"What do you mean?"

"You're clearly Zeph's favorite. First, he makes Arim train you, despite the fact he's supposed to help train everyone. You're one of the few that got to go on our dungeon expedition. And then he goes against Albatos to put you in the relative safety of a scouting squad. I want to know what's up."

"Beats me."

"Fine then, keep it to yourself."

I mean, you're not wrong. But I really don't know why.

The field is livelier than I expected. I see the corpse cleaners of both armies moving among the dead, marking off clipboards and loading bodies on wagons. There's a third group moving among the dead, a small party of four following a tall man draped in extravagant robes. All along the clearing there are figures among the trees, some merely looking on, others with hands clasped in prayer.

Spotting Black, I turn to Vurt and say, "Give me a moment, I'm gonna go see why there's so many people around."

He gives a stiff nod, "I'll go talk to the cleaners, see if they've… found anything."

Walking over to Black, I ask, "May I ask what the occasion is?"

She sighs, looking like she can't decide whether to bother responding or not. Then she says, "My kin are paying our respects to the Demon Lord." Looking at the crowd that had gathered I see they all have varying degrees of demonic features.

Trying to put aside all the connotations to every piece of fantasy media I've ever seen, I ask, "Uh, Demon Lord? Isn't that one of the ascendants? You're saying he's here?"

She points to the small group led by the tall man I had seen walking among the dead. Looking closer at him, I see he seems to be visiting little swirls of deep crimson hanging in the air, like wisps. I watch as he takes one of them in his hands, holds it close to his chest, then releases it. The color of it had changed from that dark crimson to a lightish blue. One of his followers, a retainer if I had to guess, walked forward and collected it, placing it carefully inside what looked to be a briefcase.

"What's he doing?"

"He is purifying our newborns."

I pause for a moment, failing to process those words, "Uh, what?"

"You don't know anything, do you?"

"You'll have to forgive me for simply being ignorant."

"If you should know nothing else about us demons, know this. Above all else, we are creatures of emotion. We are born from it, and that emotion can define our entire existence."

"Born from emotion?"

"Yes. We are born from the emotions of others. Not just any emotions, of course. But intense, passionate emotions, ones that can be said to move the soul… Well, sometimes they do. You've heard that mana is, in essence, fractured pieces of souls? If conditions are right, those intense emotions can affect the mana surrounding that person, condensing it into a soul once again."

"And that's how demons are born? Those wisps out there, they're just free floating souls?"

She nods, "Over time our physical bodies develop as the soul draws in more of the surrounding mana. But even before that can happen there's a problem. We're born from emotions, but emotions can be volatile. Especially so those emotions intense enough to affect the soul. The emotion that leads to the creation of a demon becomes a defining part of their personality. Unfortunately, it's a simple fact of life that intense negative emotions are disproportionately far more common than positive emotions. They exist, to be sure, but it's far more common to feel grief from a loved one's passing, heartbreak after a bad breakup, or the intense fear that comes before death." She finishes that statement with a wave over the field of the dead.

"So they need to be purified?"

"If a demon born from such a negative emotion is left unattended, they live to reap chaos and sorrow. It is where the name demon came from, in the long distant past. I believe in the past there were groups of demons who traveled, purifying newborns and putting down those they could not reach in time. But they realized it was far too inefficient, and those they saved were outweighed by those they could not. I can only imagine the pain of taking on that burden, coupled with the despair of knowing you could never do enough."

"There's a burden involved?"

"The art of purification is the art of taking on those intense feelings of others unto oneself. I can but imagine how the strain of those feelings and desires would affect somebody. It's also a dangerous art to have in the hands of many, as it also involves a transfer of power between the two. There were those who sought to abuse the art, and willingly took on that burden to further their own strength, leaving the remaining soul to fend for itself, abandoning them to death before they ever got a chance to live."

"In the end, the rampant destruction of those who could not be purified combined with the suspicion and hate accumulated by those who misused the art of purification brought the wrath of others onto our people. The elders of that age realized that if they continued as is, they would become a dying people, the only remaining members of their race being tyrants and mindless beasts."

"So they chose to invest all their hopes into one. It's said on that day both the mighty and wise bowed their heads to one who was pure of heart, and pleaded them to carry the hopes of the people. That was the first Demon Lord."

"The first? I kind of thought with the Demon Lord being an 'ascendant,' they would have lived for a while."

"Ascendant is just a term applied to sorcerers who are considered to be creatures of unparalleled strength. Nothing escapes the Wheel. We demons and the elves live longer than most, to be sure. But I've never heard of a person from either living past 250 years."

"So what happens with the newborns, then? I see they're taking them somewhere."

"It's a tradition that the Demon Lord will offer the person responsible for creating the demon the chance to raise them themselves. In a way, a demon is their child, after all. If they refuse, which is usually the case, the Demon Lord takes them back with him to our home nation of Esma. Of course, in cases like this, there's nobody left to ask."

"He sure does a lot on his own. He's called Lord as well, how does he have time to rule a country if he has to zip around the world all the time?"

"Though he's considered the absolute highest authority, he usually leaves the matters of running the country to others. Most of us don't see him as a ruler at all, really. To our people he's a hero, or maybe a savior."

"I can see why you would gather to get the chance to see him then."

"My people do, yes."

"Not you?"

"Mmm. I guess I was looking for someone to blame." She's silent for a moment as I try to figure out how to respond to that. Before I can say anything, she says, "But I don't see him here," and turns around and leaves.

I watch her disappear into the trees, then look back to the Demon Lord. At this point, he's collected all of the newborn demons across the field. He turns to his helpers, who all take a knee before him and offer the cases they're carrying. He gives them all a slight bow of the head before taking the cases in his arms.

Turning away, the Demon Lord looks to the southwest. Then, in a motion so absurdly fast I can't even perceive it, he disappears, leaving only a gust of wind and a cloud of dust in his wake.

The demons who had been kneeling stand, then walk to their brethren at the edges of the clearing, excitedly speaking.

I guess they weren't retainers, but volunteers. To think a guy named the Demon Lord would be so revered. Guess I really can't rely on ideas from my old world to guide me.

Getting back to my original purpose, I go over to where Vurt is looking among the dead.

"The corpse cleaners hadn't seen her?" I ask as I approach him.

He looks up, "No."

"That's a good start then."

"They haven't made it to where the fronts collided yet. I think we were fighting around here, but I'm not sure. It could also have been over there, can you look?"

"Sure," I say, before heading to the cluster of bodies he pointed out.

Before I start rummaging through dead people, a thought occurs to me that what I'm about to do is very likely going to give me a horrible disease. I focus, bringing to mind a hazmat suit, then cast a spell to try and fabricate one out of invisible mana around myself. Honestly, it's pretty shit as far as execution goes. Bits of blood and gore still occasionally manage to find their way onto me as I dig through the dead, but it's better than nothing.

I wasn't here for the battle, but it's easy to imagine the chaos as I dig through blood covered armor, broken equipment, and severed limbs. Above it all is the stench of death and the cries of carrion eaters.

When the sky starts to dim I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn and see one of the corpse cleaners. He shakes his head at me and I get the message. 'There's nothing left for you out here.'

A little ways away another one of the corpse cleaners is struggling with Vurt. The forced calm he had displayed earlier had been stripped away at some point, leaving him panicked and irritable.

I walked over to him and called out, "Vurt!"

He turned to me, "Stein, tell this asshole to butt out. He doesn't know what he's talking about!" His face is a mixture of rage and sorrow, the face of a man in denial.

I grab him by the collar of his tunic and shake him, "Chill the fuck out, man. Look at the sky, what are you planning on doing alone in the dark?"

"I can make a light. I can keep looking."

"For what? Vurt you're tearing yourself apart. Come on, let's go back to camp, maybe she's returned, who knows?"

He stares off into the distance, "Yeah, yeah. Maybe she has. Have to go check. Come on, Stein. We have to go check." He meanders off in the direction of camp.

Turning to the corpse cleaner whom Vurt had been arguing with I say, "Sorry about that."

As I turn to go back to camp myself I hear, "You know how it is, right? Those who do not return are usually gone forever. And if they do eventually appear they are not the same."

"...I know."

***

Albatos was finishing the necessary post-battle tasks that needed doing. Not everybody was currently accounted for, but their losses weren't awful, all things considered. At most, they had only lost five. The recruits had a higher survival rate than he had expected, and now that they had experienced real combat for themselves, they would only grow tougher.

Still, it stung that they had lost Miki. Albatos found it hard to believe a second tier veteran like him had fallen so easily.

Guess that's just how war is. Even the most talented can be ended in an instant by something as simple as a stray bullet or arrow. Still, there's something I can't rationally explain, something I need the answer for. Trust is the currency we live and die by, and I feel like mine has been betrayed.

He knocked on the wagon that Zeph's tent was set up next to, going in when he heard, "Enter."

When Zeph saw it was Albatos he started, "Hey, I'm just finishing up this requisition form, I'll…"

Albatos cut him off by casting a spell to block the sound coming from outside the tent. "We need to talk."

Zeph gave him a hard stare, then set down his quill. "Alright, what do you want to talk about so urgently?"

"You know what. The boy. What is he?"

Zeph sighed, "We had this conversation already."

"Even if I hate the boy, I can stomach going along with your favoritism to an extent. Hell, I could even understand it considering the amount of mana he's capable of holding. But I saw something today I don't understand. So I'm asking you, one last time, what is he?"

To Albatos' surprise, Zeph looked slightly confused. "I think he's a piece I could use, maybe the best piece on the board. But something tells me that's not what you're asking. Hell, I didn't even know he's got a higher mana capacity than most. So let me turn the question to you. What did you see today that prompted this?"

Albatos could see in Zeph's eyes that he was telling the truth, and it gave him an immense amount of relief. Zeph was someone Albatos would follow beyond death if necessary, so the idea that Zeph had been lying to him about something so serious was… terrifying.

He pulled out a chair and put it at the other end of the table across Zeph before taking a seat. He knew he needed to before he told his story, "You asked me to go save the boy, and I did. Miki's scout squad caught the attention of someone I assume to have been a first tier sorcerer. By the position of Miki and Skeb's bodies, I assume they died instantly."

"Miki is a heavy loss."

"I know. I found Stein fending off the sorcerer completely alone, at a severe disadvantage."

Zeph leaned back and crossed his arms, "Let me guess, you sat back and watched."

"Ignoring that, I watched Stein take a significant wound and continue fighting, even pushing the opponent to near defeat."

"That's really impressive. It was a good choice to dedicate Arim's time to him. Then what?"

"As I went to retrieve Stein at the bottom of the cliff…"

"Wait, he fell off a cliff?" He paused, "You let him fall off a cliff?"

Albatos waved his comments away, "I watched a hole in that boy's stomach disappear as though it had never been there to begin with."

Zeph was silent for a moment, "Details. Now."

"It was a stab wound, clean through front and back of the abdomen. Even as I brought out what few medical supplies I had on hand I saw it glow a brilliant gold, and it was gone."

"You're saying he knows healing magic to that extent?"

"I'm saying he was unconscious. Zeph, what does that?"

Zeph put a hand to his temple and fell into a silence of deep thought. Albatos knew better than to disturb him when he was like this and waited.

When Zeph looked back up at him he said, "As I said, the best piece on the board."

Albatos gulped. He had seen his fair share of horror in his career, but never had he seen a feat so shockingly inhuman. "As much as I hate to admit it, I would have to agree. I think we need to ask the question of how to control something like that. What's to stop it from just wandering off whenever it felt like it?"

Zeph pulled out a leather letter carrier. Albatos recognized it as the place he kept all his contracts. Zeph pulled one out and put it on the table between them, "This is how. Also, Stein isn't an it. He's still a person, a person I'd wager has no idea what even happened."

Albatos grunted before looking over the contract placed before him. When he finished it, he couldn't help but sneer, "This is barbaric, Zeph. Don't tell me you've been going around having people sign these."

"Special circumstances. Trust me, even I haven't fallen so far as to feel good about making that boy sign that."

Albatos slid the parchment back across the table, "Alright then. How do we proceed?"

"We watch, we guard, and we wait. The time is not yet right to make a move. Having the best piece still doesn't afford us the luxury of a stupid play."