“…Gah!” A small grunt of pain escaped Mican’s throat as he felt a surge of pain in his shoulder, startling him from his thoughts.

Swiveling his head to the left, the young man came face to face with the smiling eyes of a large head.

Despite being brutally decapitated, Rose had rolled his head over from its position on the ground, pushing its front teeth down into Mican with all of the little strength it could assert.

“I nearly forgot that you could do that.” Muttering under his breath, Mican lifted his good arm, grabbing the head off of his shoulder.

Holding it up into the air, the young man inspected it closely. Despite being just a head lacking a body and a chin, the freak was grinning from ear-to-ear.

“How should I deal with you...” Looking down at the demon’s head, Mican mocked with a rhetorical question.

He sneered at it as he looked at it, greeting the head’s smile with one of his own.

“You… can’t… hehehehe!” The head spoke out in eident glee, bursting out into laughter afterwards.

The sentence spoken by the head was gargled and broken as it was missing a chin, but the mere fact that it could speak showed how different it was from a human.

“Are you gonna revive again? What if I keep you here forever, huh?” The young man glared at it, shaking the head around several times.

“You… I… will… soon die…” Clearly angered, the head forced the words out as it shook helplessly in the air. “I will… haunt you… after death…!”

“Will you really?” An innocent voice, bubbly and full of life, sounded out in the night, breaking the stare-down between the two.

Turning his body to look behind him, Mican’s eyes met with the innocent pair of Melinda’s. The young woman was near the entrance of the clearing, a fair distance away from him.

He felt that he should have been feeling relief, but instead a chill ran down his spine as he realized that he had not heard a single sound from her. She was simply standing there, but he would never have known for how long.

“Melinda?”

“Mican!”

“What are you doing here?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“I’m here to help you, silly.” She gave him a short and concise reply, smiling at him.

Walking up to him, the caravan leader bent down. She sat with her legs on the ground, shifting Mican’s body around before laying his head to rest on her lap. He grimaced slightly as a dull pain shot through his shoulder and torso, but the gentle warmth and softness of her legs shooed away the ache.

As he shifted, Melinda took the cambion’s head from him, holding it up with both of her dainty hands.

“Grrr~” In her gentle grip, a playful growl sounded out from the demon as it smiled with its eyes. “Why hello… there…”

“My dear Mican, please allow me to remove this annoyance for you. Permanently.” Completely ignoring the cambion, Melinda directly addressed the man in her lap as she inspected the head. “It is your spoil of war though, so the end decision is yours.”

“…” The young man stayed silent, looking up towards the caravan leader’s eyes.

He didn’t doubt in her capability to get rid of it, but what would that bring her? It was obvious to him that she was merely asking if he needed her help but doing it in a roundabout way since she knew that he wanted to owe her no favours.

“Fine, please do so.” He was no ingrate, though. “I owe you one.”

Meeting his eyes, the young woman smiled at him again.

Raising her head, Melinda held the cambion’s head up high as she began muttering to herself. He couldn’t hear her completely, but from the bits he heard, it was of a language that he couldn’t understand in the slightest.

“…!” As she continued speaking, Rose’s sockets widened and stretched, indicating his shock.

The cambion’s head began floating up into the air as she whispered, rising several meters up into the sky.

“Who… are you?!” Still gurgling, the demon rambled as it spoke, frantically spitting out its words. “You… bitch!”

It was clear to Mican that it was extremely panicked, and its words had been spat out so hastily he even had trouble translating fully.

As it continued slowly rising, a pitch-black inkiness slowly opened up behind it. The inkiness was deep, and pitch black. It reminded the young man of the endless void he had travelled across. It opened like a gaping maw, slowly surrounding the head in the air as if to swallow it.

“You foolish demons believe that you are invincible with your immortality, untouchable.” Melinda’s bubbly voice sounded out as she smiled, grinning at the head floating in the air. “In turn, I’ll punish you. You won’t be seeing the light of the sun for the next three hundred years, so I hope you enjoy your sealing!”

The grin that Melinda gave the cambion was innocent, like a child pulling a prank on their friends. It was a smile full of mischief, but her nose was slightly upturned, seemingly in distaste. Her feelings seemed genuine.

“MICAN!!! YOU… PLAYED ME FOR A FOOL!” Screaming out with all of its heart, the demon roared at Mican. “In this little… region of Million…!”

“I…” At a loss for words, Mican merely stared at the demon in shock.

“I can’t… three hundred…” Intense rage ran across the demon’s face as it stared at the darkness around it in, before its gaze shot towards Mican. “I won’t let you get away with this… I have already informed the Archbishop of your location…”

“If I can’t have you… nobody can…!” Blood splattered out from the creature’s jaw as it spoke. “You will die a screaming death… even if I won’t be there to see it…!”

The demon’s screams slowly became more and more muffled, until they were shut out entirely as the darkness swallowed it.

With its disappearance came a gentle silence that washed over the clearing.