Sophia’s POV

I found myself rather impressed. Not by the quality of Leo’s work, as it was all rather primitive, but with the unwavering focus and discipline with which he worked. It was as though the only thing that existed was the task before him, and no matter what it took, he would take his time and make sure it turned out right. There wasn’t so much as a hint of impatience on his face, and even when he did take a break to restore his mana, he clearly spent that time still focused on what he needed to do. I found the sand spell to be rather intriguing, as while it was rather simple in its design, that in no way detracted from its functionality. When he recast his Hopeful Flame, I once more felt hope and security worming its way into my mind.

And finally there were his twin spells to both boil and cool down the water he had gathered. These had quite thoroughly intrigued me. I had never seen anyone manipulate the temperature of water directly, instead, people normally summon flames or ice to heat up and cool down water indirectly. I gazed upon his triumphant grin, clearly proud of his accomplishments.

“Indeed. A full day of work has borne fruit in the form of a sip of water. I am confused as to why you didn’t simply conjure water using magic though.”

“Because the way I understand it, one of the qualities of pure water is that it sticks together. If you drink pure water all it does is pull the water that’s already inside of your body out of it, and dehydrate you in the process. If you want water for drinking you need some amount of extra minerals and crap in it so that it won’t dehydrate you.”

“Then why use the concept of pure water, and not just the general concept of water? Clearly since you changed the nature of your flames through your imagination you can also change the quality of your water to serve the purpose you require?”

I watched as his proud expression became shrouded in confusion, then slowly fell into embarrassment.

“You didn’t even consider the possibility did you?”

He shook his head. “No. No I did not.”

Leo’s POV

Well fuck. All that work, all that effort, and it was all fucking useless. All I have to show for it is an ugly ass bowl, and a little bit better mana control. Shit, I was so focused on using magic to make water I found drinkable, that I completely neglected the possibility of changing my magic to make drinkable water. I imagined a kitchen tap running and made my mana flow out of my hands, and lo and behold: Drinkable water. I looked between the small stream of water from my hands and the small bowl of water I had painstakingly collected. With a sigh, I kicked the ugly ass wooden bowl and made my way to the other piece of log I had gathered. I needed a distraction, so I may as well make a bow and spear.

Now that I unfortunately was very familiar with using my magic for woodworking, it only took two hours to carve/sand the log down into a long thin stick. I then took the rough rock to scrape off bits of wood as I bent my bow, ensuring an even bend throughout it. I then took the various strips of bark, beat them with a rock (this part was rather cathartic) in order to separate all the fibers, then twisted them for an hour into a usable bowstring, which I then connected to my bow. A day and two nights of nonstop work, and all I have are an ugly ass bowl, and a bow with no arrows. Fuck me.

It didn’t help that I could hear Sophia alternating between giggling her ass off, and providing consolations. I kept silent so that I wouldn’t accidentally take my anger out on her. It’s not like it’s her fault that I’m a moron. I spent the next two hours distracting myself with making arrows. Using magic and rocks to carve sticks into points, and creating a notch that would fit to the bowstring. Even if I were to chip rocks into arrowheads, I wouldn’t have any way to attach them to my arrows, and fletching would have to wait until I could kill a bird or something. So now it was an ugly ass bowl, a bow, and about 50 pointy sticks you couldn’t even really call arrows.

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“Fuck it, this’ll have to be good enough for now. Now all I’ve got to do is find something to hunt. Preferably a bird so I can use its feathers, but anything will do.”

I waited for a while for my magic to refill, then took two of my arrows, kept them separate, then bundled up the rest in my tree bark twine I had used to make my bowstring. I then walked downstream, keeping an eye out for animals making their way to the river for a drink. While walking, I asked Sophia about what Hell’s actually like.

“First off, huge. Way bigger than you can possibly imagine. This world you’re currently on for example, is closer to the size of the sun of your old world, and it’s still tiny in comparison to Hell. As a result, even though demons are functionally immortal, each one of us only really knows about whatever small piece of it we come from. There’s no real way to do widespread communication either, as that would take far more magic for each individual message than even the strongest of us possesses. So for all I know there may actually be a whole kingdom of humans living in Hell that I will never meet. However, I can tell you that the part of Hell that I’m from is very in line with your old legends. A vast lake of fire that seeks to consume the very light itself. Although the whole torture deal? Yeah that’s not really a thing. There’s no one even here to torture as far as I know, just the other demons that I’ve known for millenia.”

My ears perked up at that. “Hold up, millenia? How old are you?”

A coquettish giggle filled my mind as Sophia filled her voice with a playful severity. “Have you not heard, Leo? It is unbecoming to ask a lady her age. Though to tell the truth, I do not even know. The first time I was ever summoned to the world you were from, I had already lived for a few millennia, and it was by a group of people calling themselves something called the Romani. I know not how they managed to summon me, but I spent some time with some of them and answered their questions about me and my home. Apparently, the passing of time managed to distort my words and the image of Hell became infused with your afterlife, and my name was spread as some sort of Goddess of Wisdom.”

My eyes grew wide at the implications of what I had just heard. “So you mean you helped found the basis of christianity? That’s fucking nuts! It also means you’re something like 5000 years old, which…. Holy shit. Wait, what was their request?”

“I suppose so. As for their request, that I will keep to myself. Demon/summoner confidentiality and all that.”

I nodded, as that’s honestly pretty reasonable. I’d probably be pretty pissed off if Sophia started going around telling people about my deepest desires. Or my dumbassery.

I fell silent as I saw it. A deer walking up to the river to take a drink. At least, it was… almost a deer. Rather than two antlers jutting out of the sides of its head, it had one horn right on top of its forehead, curving forward and surprisingly narrow. More like a blade than any horn I had ever seen. The perfect spearhead, though it would turn my spear into more of a war scythe, but I digress. I could also clean and dry out the tendons and use those to attach both my spearhead and my arrowheads/fletchings once I find feathers. I lifted my bow, nocked an arrow, then drew a straight line between me and the bladeish deer with mana. This time I tried to infuse two concepts into the spell: flight stability and momentum. Without fletching my arrows wouldn’t be able to achieve the first on their own, so I had to try to supplement with magic. And I was hoping that adding the second concept would put some extra punch into the attack.

I took a deep breath in, aimed, then gently breathed out, gently relaxing my fingers until…

Swish… The string slipped off of my fingertips, and the arrow flew straight into the throat of the deer, causing it to jump and thrash in a panic, an odd indigo color spraying everywhere, seeping into the ground. It then bolted off into the forest, and I relaxedly jogged after it, following the trail of purple liquid. As I followed after it, I noticed the sheer destruction it caused, trees toppled over, bushes ran straight through, the ground torn up beneath its hooves as it passed by in a frenzy. After about a minute of jogging, I stopped seeing signs of the deer, and immediately afterwards, found it. It was staring at me, madness in its eyes, an arrow still running through its neck. The only reason it hasn’t completely bled out yet is that the arrow is still inside stemming the blood from escaping. It won’t last too much longer though, which means this charge is most likely the last thing it’ll ever do. I calmly nocked my second arrow, and met its gaze. It ran forward, stumbling slightly. I dove to the left and shot to the right, just barely nicking it in the leg. But that was enough. It crashed to the ground heavily, and tried to get back on its feet. Unfortunately for it, when it crashed into the ground, it snagged the arrow, snapping it in half, crushing and twisting everything in the deer’s throat simultaneously, and finally getting wrenched free. It was dead within seconds.

I walked towards my quarry, removed the other half of the arrow that was still entangled in the deer’s neck, then grabbed it by the back leg I hadn’t shot, lifting it up, then holding it there with magic for a few seconds while I tied the leg to a tree branch, allowing the strange indigo blood to drain faster.