For the next several days, he ignored Brant’s calls to train more, instead retreating to the forest to clear ever more of the trees that were encroaching too close to the wall. It took him less than a week to get back to where he had first started, over the tumbled down portion of wall, which was now so perfectly repaired he wouldn’t have known it was the same place if the trees hadn’t been cleared there already.
His progress was helped with the Harvestman Title and its associated skill, although it had limitations that hadn’t applied when harvesting plants. When several trees around the one he was aiming at suddenly lit up with the golden glow, he had thought his task was about to swiftly come to an end as he cut the forest down in one stroke, but the skill only let him cut down three trees at once. Still, it was an improvement over felling them one at a time, although his muscles developed at a slower rate when he was using it. At times he chose to return to cutting down one at a time, becoming more aware by the day at how weak he was in this world compared to others. As he was, Brant could probably beat him in a fight. Ajugor certainly would have no trouble dealing with him.
As the days passed, he was able to carry more and more in his inventory without feeling the physical strain on his body, which just meant that he needed to push himself further to make any difference. Every time he stopped for a break, he pulled a ladder from his inventory and climbed over the wall, called on the skeletons and crafted any piece of woodwork they needed for the castle, and they needed a lot.
The skeletons were unable to keep up with the blistering speed with which the Gargoyles repaired the place. Towers he hadn’t even realised were missing rose from fallen piles of rubble, holes in the walls were filled and all the temporary fixes the skeletons had made were completed in stone. Still, the metal fixtures were missing, and there was only so much they could do without nails. They were also in need of hinges, pipes, chain, and grating, not to mention tools, and simpler things such as pots and pans once the kitchen was up and running again.
As the stonework was completed, more of the Heating and Lighting Systems came online. The rooms were filled with a constant cozy temperature and soft light filled the hallways wherever he walked, even along the outer wall at night.
Tifayn slept away most of the first week she was returned to her old self, recovering from the strain the change had wreaked on her body. Horrible bruises darkened her already dark skin, turning it sickly shades of green and purple. His potions helped to lessen them, but demons were powerful creatures, and that was when he learned that his potions were designed for a human constitution. To make the potions as effective on demons, he would have to make small changes, but until he knew what they were it was easy enough to double up the dose to get basically the same effects.
A week after his return, he was just fineishing the last of the skeletons requests for woodwork, when he saw Tifayn step out of the castle door. She held a wicked looking blade, long and curved with a black leather hilt capped with a highly faceted violet gemstone. The sword almost reminded him of his Azurite blades, but Tifayn’s was white and patterned with angular red designs. The demonette advanced on him with a hungry look. Alix paid her no mind at first, focussed on crafting the correct style of floorboards the skeleton needed, until she raised the sword and began to charge at him.
Half way through crafting the last floorboards, Alix realised Tifayn wasn’t going to stop. He dropped the floorboard to the ground and in one smooth, swift motion, drew Xilian from his inventory and raised it to block Tifayn’s brutal overhead strike with the sword, which the ring identified as Cinnabite.
“What the hell are you doing?” Alix yelled as the sound of the blades striking echoed around the grounds. He almost asked if she was well enough to be out of bed already, but she would probably punch him in the gut for saying so. He was greeted with silence as she withdrew, and then attacked with another lunge. With every swing of Cinnabite, there came a wailing from the blade that chilled his bones and tore at his nerves.
It took Alix a few moments to realise that she was testing him, nipping at his edges, checking his reflexes and speed since the last time they had fought. He was keenly aware of his lack of armour, but what set him to panicking the most was Tifayn’s lack of protection. She wore tight fitting trousers and what looked like one of his baggy new shirts, sleeves rolled up, buttons haphazardly stuck through the first holes she found. They would be cut to shreds if his sword hit her, as would his clothes if she hit him.
“This is madness Tifayn, you need armour,” he exclaimed between deflected blows, but that only seemed to set her off more, the wailing of the blade rising in intensity.
The swings became faster, targeted, forcing him to jump back several times. Alix quickly built up a sweat, the first he had felt in a good while, and still Tifayn refused to speak apart from with the sword, showing off the true skills she had hidden from him before. He knew she was talented, but he hadn’t expected her to wield such a horrifying blade. He should have expected as much from a demon.
Alix deflected her blade again, but this time she twisted the sword in her hand and with a flick Xilian slid harmlessly past her, while her own blade rushed in to score a vicious strike along his upper arm, the wailing becoming a throat tearing scream, then jumped back out of reach with a satisfied grin. His HP dropped by a dozen or so points. It was only a small fraction of his total, but it was the first time he had taken such damage and it hammered home how he wasn’t as immortal as he had thought.
“Bloody hell Tifayn,” he yelled, before realising the wound hurt a lot less than it should have. It was a deep gash, but it felt no worse than a day old bruise. Still, he quickly pulling a healing potion from his inventory and downed it. The wound faded in seconds, along with the mild pain. Then he donned Primal Ruin and went on the attack.
Before he had held back, worried he would strike Tifayn accidently. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her just as she had recovered. Xilian came alive in his hands, flowing like no natural sword could, becoming an extension of his body. He didn’t realise he was hammering at Tifayn keeling in the grass until she began laughing. He quickly stopped his fevered assault and threw Xilian back into his inventory. It almost felt like the sword was beginning to develop a mind of its own, protecting him as fiercely as the ring was supposed to, but doing a better job.
“What’s so funny?” Alix panted, helping her to her feet. “You could have gotten yourself hurt.”
“You are still a long way from being able to hit me, Alix, but Brant has trained you well,” Tifayn said, sheathing her deadly looking blade, then quickly stepping in close to steal a kiss. It was their first such contact in what felt like months but he tried not to show his excitement.
“What do you mean? I only trained with him once before I decided there was no point until I could get him some better armour, and until I could forge myself a weaker weapon. His Claymore won’t stand up to Xilian for much longer.”
“That one day probably taught you weeks’ worth of technique and style. At least the brute is good for something. I have heard he just spends all his time with Ophenia, burning through our food stocks without helping with the reconstruction at all.”
“I was content to give him some time alone with his wife, but I guess he will need to start pulling his weight around here. What was this all about anyway? I didn’t think you were actually going to strike me.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“You can’t just practise with wooden swords for five years. You need to learn to fight for real. If you know I’m not going to hold back, then you will learn how to really fight, instead of just learning how to defend against harmless moves.”
“I understand what you are saying, but you could have warned me.”
“There is nothing courteous about war, Alix, but I see I can lay off for a while. You could probably outmatch Leon already, but you won’t be able to raise a sword against him for a long time yet.”
The last thing Alix wanted to think about was raising his sword against Leon. He almost considered the man a friend, although he doubted they had anything in common back home.
“I want to at least pause any training until I get the forge up and running properly. The repairs to the castle have sped up immensely since the Gargoyles returned, but I need metal now. The skeletons have told me that the forge is good to go, they just need ore, but I have no idea where to look for it. I offered them Steelgrass, but turns out you need ten times as much of it as you would normal steel to make anything.”
“You will have to find a mine I suppose. You can probably have a look in the library for where the previous Darknight’s found their ore. I doubt any of them were able to do business with Galdea so they must have found their ore somewhere. There are some relics that still survive, but I would not want to destroy them for parts unless it was absolutely necessary.”
“I’ll check the library and see if I can find anything. I really need to put aside a few days after this and learn all the skeletons’ names. I’m sure some of them know the answers to all the questions I have but just aren’t able to give them yet.”
“You have plenty of time for that. I would also appreciate some of your time later. I’d like to thank you for everything you have done for me,” Tifayn said, giving him a look that set his heart hammering. Then as quickly as she arrived, she left him standing confused and alone in the grounds.
Alix headed for the library to see what he could find, once Tifayn had finished sashaying out of sight. Astrid immediately offered her help, but Alix declined. He felt bad relying on her so much, and she still had hundreds of volumes left to sort. After a quick perusal of the card catalogue, he knew where to look, but he spent some time browsing the other shelves for a while. Every page he read filled in more information on his map or gave him new ideas for crafting. A book on the races of the lands caught his attention, but he had to stop himself from getting too engrossed in it. After a quick flip through its pages, he found there were a lot more races in Babyl than he had thought, although some hadn’t been seen for centuries. He set it aside to read later, and pulled out a sheaf of maps.
One old map showed the forest a lot further back than it was now, and gave it the name Walach Woods, but he could see on his map how much progress he had already made in returning it to that state. He couldn’t defend himself from what he couldn’t see, but it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t repair the gates. They looked more like the gates you would see in front of a stately home instead of something defensive.
The next map showed the lands beyond the wall. The old Dark Elf village, Valon, was marked close by. Dozens of paths were dotted throughout the woods, most of which had probably long since vanished. Some led to caves on the mountainside, marked by triangular emblems. His map updated with the new finds. One of them was helpfully named Iron Cave.
Alix scanned the rest of the maps for anywhere else that sounded promising, but finding Iron Cave the only obvious lead, he returned the other maps to their designated spot on the shelf and went to find Tifayn. He couldn’t imagine she had spent all these years here and not explored the place at all. Such isolation would have driven him mad, without the comforts of home, although he realised he hadn’t even thought about his tv, console or phone in ages. His phone battery was already on low power after wasting most of it in the first few days taking pictures of the skeletons, and a few subtle photos of Tifayn to prove to himself later that she had been real. He didn’t think the internet would do him much good here anyway, although he wondered if he would be able to craft some of the things from home somehow? He knew how some things were made and that should be as good as any recipe.
“This was the closest place I could find,” Alix said when he found Tifayn in their rooms and showed her the map. She had lit some candles around the room and Alix suddenly realised he had spent more time reading in the library than he had thought. It was so much easier to get lost in books now that each one had the potential to unlock some new hidden skill.
“It sounds promising, but it is pretty far away,” Tifayn replied, putting a damper on his plans to source iron ore before the days end. “The scale on this map isn’t very accurate. Look here, it shows Wailing Cave so close, but I know that’s a six hour walk. We can’t get there and back before nightfall. If you find iron ore in the cave, it will add another day to the trip to harvest the amount that you need.”
“We could leave today and camp out. That would give us all day tomorrow to check out the cave, and if there’s nothing there we can check out some of the other ones nearby as well.” Alix was anxious to get going, now that he could see the end of the restorations in sight.
“We could, but I had other plans,” Tifayn replied, and Alix suddenly realised that she had changed out of the sparring clothes she had been wearing earlier, into one a short black silken robe which revealed her long legs. The robe was embroidered with a floral pattern accented with violet and red to match her eyes and hair.
“What did you have in mind?” Alix asked, all thoughts of the dirty dark cave in the mountains fleeing his mind.
“You saved me from becoming an unbound demon forever. I wanted to thank you properly for that.”
“I couldn’t have just left you like that. After everything you have done for me already, I owed you that much as least.”
“Well, now that the issue with the bond had been sorted I thought we could…”
“Could what?”
“Don’t be such a fool, Alix. When the bond was restored I could sense your feelings for me. Or rather, I was overwhelmed by them. I know you want this just as much as I do,” Tifayn said, suggestively lifting the corner of her robe, brazenly revealing that she wore nothing underneath.
Why is the room getting so hot? Alix thought as he tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. There was a faint spicy hint in the air.
Tifayn untied the robe and let it fall to the ground, baring her voluptuous body. The candlelight flickered over her smoky skin, and reflected the fire in her violet eyes. Her blood red, almost black, hair was longer now than when they had first met, tumbling down her back in thick curls. Her horns curled out and back to follow the flow of her hair. He had seen her body plenty of times before, but this time felt different. Before, she hadn’t cared if he looked. This time, she wanted him to look, but she looked slightly nervous, as if she was worried he wouldn’t like what he saw.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think I’ve never seen anything more incredible in my entire life.” Alix replied truthfully. He absorbed all the maps into his inventory, as Tifayn gave him a brilliant smile.
I really have been a fool, Alix cursed himself. Tifayn had already been a better partner to him than any of his previous girlfriends. Even if none of it was real, he had nothing to lose. His heart raced as the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen in his life stepped over and wrapped her arms around him, pressed her perky breasts against him, and pulled him into a hungry kiss that left him breathless. Before he could catch it, Tifayn began to tear off his clothes, buttons pinging around the room. If her loving is anything like her sword fighting, I’m in for a rough time.
A heady scent of cinnamon filled his senses Tifayn dragged him to bed. Then they crawled under the covers and revelled in the touch of each other’s embrace, the restored bond bringing them both to greater heights of ecstasy.
The next morning Alix was greeted with several new notifications. The first was that he had gained a full three levels overnight. The second was a new title.
Title Unlocked: Demonlover. +2 Def, +1 Luck, Increased Persuasion.
What level would I be at now if I hadn’t wasted all that time? There was no time to beat himself up over lost opportunities though. It was a new day, and he already knew what he had to do.
Alix tried to untangle himself from the mess of bedsheets and hair without stabbing himself on a horn, and in the process felt a tinge of pain across his back. Flashes from the night before returned to him, of Tifayn’s fierce embrace raking across his back. He was lucky that his muscles had grown tenfold since first arriving in Babyl. He might have broken something otherwise.
As he took out a potion from his inventory to heal the scratches, Tifayn woke up.
She stretched like a lioness and when she caught sight of him standing over her naked, a hungry look filled her eyes.
“Ready for more so soon? I guess we do have a lot of fun to catch up on.”
“Maybe another time. It’s already late.”
“We better get going if we want to reach the cave before we run out of daylight then. You really shouldn’t have kept me up so late.”
I don’t think that was really my choice, Alix thought to himself. He forced himself to stop reliving the night before and rushed to get ready for their journey, his motivation renewed. Things were finally feeling like they were going his way.