Out in the hallways of the estate, servants ran out in a frenzy. Maids passed us in a rush and cooks hurried down the hall with trays of food. Serlon led us through the marble-pillared halls, ignoring the hustle of the estate in the early morning.

I watched as a large platter of fruits passed us, being pushed by two male butlers, disappearing into large, arched doors to our side.

“Is there an event today?” I asked, exchanging looks with a cleaner, who glared at the dirt path from our boots.

“The King’s visiting later today. The estate workers will be frantic all day. Your troop will be working security tonight, but you won’t have to worry about formalities since you will be positioned outside.” He slipped past some workers carrying chairs. I followed closely behind him.

Meeting the human king already? It was barely my first day and my decision to come here never looked better. Almost too good, or maybe that was just me.

“Have you met the King before?” I asked. Serlon glanced over with a questioning stare.

“Are you serious?” He raised his eyebrow. Of course, I was serious.

I nodded, my mood improving at the chance for the slightest bit of information that I could get my hands on.

He sighed, resting his hands behind his head, “If you’re not from here it’s understandable. Look, Asta, if you see the King, it’s better to just walk away. He’s known for his explosive temper, and he’s taken it out on workers before. I’ve only met him in meetings, but outside of those. No, I’ve never talked to him personally.”

“Understood.” I nodded, acknowledging his request.

He sounded like my father. I could handle temper tantrums and “taking it out on workers” was my whole upbringing. If that was the case, this wouldn’t be shocking to me. Most kings were like that. At this point, it was expected.

I dropped the subject, opting to use the venture through the hallways to mentally mark down the layout of the estate. We were only on the West wing, which meant the entire building was enormous. A few more days and I was confident that I’d have it fully remembered.

No, I was sure of it.

Serlon turned into an entrance at the end of the hallway. The entrance revealed a small workshop, filled to the brim with odd traces of magic. I peered around at the trinkets covering the shelves of the room, along with the various notes placed next to each one.

A broken-off horn at the end of one of the tables particularly caught my attention, excluding lower levels of demonic energy. I supposed that even demon remnants made their way here.

That also meant that the wars had to be ongoing at the moment, as this piece looked freshly discarded. From the looks of it, I assumed it was from an ogre or goblin. We had plenty of them on the front-lines.

Serlon marched over to the human slumped over the workbench, drool dripping from her sleeping figure. Gloved hands huddled under their head, proving as somewhat of a pillow.

“Wake up. You have work.” He kicked the stool from under the figure, causing them to land on their ass, fumbling at the sudden wake-up call.

The woman glanced around the room frantically, her eyes fluttering open and her arms flailing around. The figure narrowed in on Serlon’s cross expression, jumping to her feet.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“...Uh. Sir Serlon. What brings you here?” The figure questioned, laughing nervously as she straightened the glasses on her face.

Serlon pointed toward me, “You need to fix pretty boy’s necklace, over there.”

“Necklace?” she asked, still half-asleep. The figure adjusted her glasses, squinting her eyes to meet the area where I was standing, “You have something that I need to fix?”

I sighed, pulling out the rock necklace from under my shirt. I walked over, holding it out to the new human, “I need the mana revived to be able to reach a friend.” I informed her, eyeing her, doubtingly.

I met Serlon’s glance questionably, who scoffed, looking to his side. Was this human really able to fix it? I could fix it, but it would be inconvenient to waste mana on it. It didn’t take much mana to fix, but it was enough where I needed to save my cards.

Plus, I still needed to figure out what I was going to do to relieve the transmutation spell. But that was a problem for me after three or four more days.

The new human took the necklace from my hand, twirling the lava rock in her hand, “Lava rock? You don’t see this much in the area. Where did you get it?”

Morningstar’s were known for fire and heat magic, that’s how. Of course, I wouldn’t tell any human that.

“Family friend.” I lied. Though, it wasn’t a complete lie, as I was referring to Dagon. He was a friend to my family, in a sense. A military sense.

She nodded excitably, pulling out a magnifying glass, before pausing to look at Serlon, “You wait outside, I need to ask some questions to your hostage.” The woman smiled over to me.

“He’s not a hostage but I’d rather not say in this dump,” He turned, already heading out to the door, “Asta, I’ll have someone fetch you in a little.” With that final comment, Serlon had booked it out of the workshop, not bothering to wait either.

“That muscle head. It’s not a dump…” The woman sulked, but this only lasted a brief moment.

She redirected her attention to me, “Are you being forced here? You look quite young.”

“No, it’s mutual and I’m sixteen.” I corrected her, watching as she placed the necklace under some sort of mana scanner.

It beeped red.

What did red mean? When did humans have such tools? I didn’t recall them being that advanced from intelligence reports.

She sighed, scratching her head, “It’s reading as having no mana at all. From the results of the scan, it hasn’t been active for quite some time. Are you sure that your friend even powered it?”

Pfft. Did he even power it? Hilarious.

Dagon was the same general that made checklists for his checklists. Seriously, I doubted that he had forgotten to do so.

I shook my head, “There’s no way that my friend forgot. Trust me.”

The woman replied hesitantly, “If you say so…”

She cleared her throat, continuing, “Good news is that I’ll be able to fix this easily. You can look around in the meantime, it should only take a few minutes.”

I nodded, leaving her to repairs, and walking towards a shelf of objects. The items seemed to hold varying levels of mana, nothing too interesting. Mana spanning from those of elvish people to aquatic races filled the array of trinkets. It was novel stuff, just odd ends that were discarded.

It was interesting to me. Apparently, magic research seemed to be popular with humans if they had such a place in imperial facilities. In the midst of seizing human settlements and destroying them; I never realized how informed they had been in terms of magic.

This was new information to me.

Memories of the light magic left a phantom pain on my left side. That mark only proved my incompetence towards that knowledge. Never again would I fail like that.

Once again, I walked over to the discarded horn. Maybe I should try to return this? The horns didn’t grow back. If this sucker was even alive, he’d be off the walls trying to locate it. But if the creature was weak enough to lose his horn, he was useless anyway.

He deserved it.

You could reattach limbs with magic but growing them was too complicated. Not to mention, that the last time a limb was regenerated, it ended up exploding from complications. Yes, exploding.

I reached down, and grabbed the horn in my hands, holding it up against the window for a better look.

A clean slice off. The horn was separated near the base of their head, probably by a sword. Although, I was only judging by the lack of mana trace. There was no telling how long ago this was cut off.

All I knew was that it hadn’t been too long ago.

A gloved hand grabbed the horn out of my hands. Quickly, the woman grabbed my hands, pulling them up to observe them.

Bewildered, her eyes glanced between me, placing the horn back on the shelf. Incoherent mumbles spilled from her mouth.

What?

“...Uh, did I do something wrong?” I asked, my hand still pulled towards her.

She paused, staring at me before dropping my hand. Her eyes narrowed, “...You.”

“Excuse me?”

She leaned in closer.

Abruptly sighing, she dropped the necklace in my hand, “...Are lucky because I just finished.”

Sure. Still, it was better to show no reaction to whatever that was.

I pulled it back over my neck, backing away, “Thanks, I guess.”

She smiled, waving, “Yup! Stop by if it breaks again.’

“...Sure.” I lied. I’d rather not come back here. Ever.

With that, I ran out, as Serlon had done earlier. I understand why now.

It was worth the one-time trip. After all, the most important thing was that I would be able to finally connect with Dagon.

Finally.

>───⇌••⇋───<

The woman held up the horn, glancing at the door that the young boy had wandered out of earlier. An image of the boy’s uninjured hand after manhandling bare amounts of demonic energy plagued her mind.

It was strange, nothing she rationed about the occurrence made sense. After countless shows of exposure to demonic energy, she could only remember the piercing screams and eroded skin of those with lesser knowledge.

Human skin evaporated at contact with pure demonic energy.

So, why didn’t his?