“So… you wanted to talk to me?”

It wasn’t the best opener in the world, but I couldn’t be blamed for a little awkwardness.

I had just finished stammering out a convoluted explanation that might translate into things going very, very badly for my side of a war. Then I had to watch my direct superior officer stomp around his quarters like a caged animal.

There was only so long I could put up with the pacing and the tension before it all lost a bit of its shine and I started getting bored.

Boredom did not make me a better conversationalist.

Glaustro paused mid-stride, then took a deep breath to center himself. With obvious reluctance, he mechanically strolled over to the sofa he was originally sitting on, then collapsed. “Yes, I did need to see you. The lieutenant general was impressed by my report, and I was impressed by your help in the battle against that golem. What I wanted to say is that I’m offering you a reward.”

I perked up at that, sitting a little straighter. The last time I got a reward from Glaustro, he basically set me up with all the mana crystals I would ever need as a mortal.

“I see that’s got you listening.” He was mocking me, but I didn’t care. As long as he had rewards for me, he could mock all he wanted. “However,” he went on, “I’m afraid I don’t know exactly what you need. Don’t look at me like that. I’m a demon, not omniscient. So, tell me: what would help you most at this point in your development?”

I considered the question seriously. My first impulse was to ask for more souls, considering how much trouble I had collecting them in the past, but I swatted that idea down quickly. Lagyel was perhaps the best world for me to secure my earnings pre-ascension, seeing as demons were so disadvantaged here.

On the other hand, I was about to hit a hard limit on what I could do as a mage.

The leap from Grand Mage to Archmage was massive. For example: before Archmage, every mage was vulnerable and pitifully human. Each advancement boosted a mage’s lifespan, but even a Grand Mage was still mortal at the end of the day. An Archmage, on the other hand, could theoretically live forever.

That didn’t matter so much to me, but it demonstrated the huge threshold I would have to cross. And I had no idea how. I didn’t even know half the spells a Grand Mage was expected to master.

My weakness was time. Time to grow, to accumulate knowledge, to experiment. Save for precious snatches of peace, which I mostly spent on recovery in order to avoid burning out like a comet, I was constantly getting jerked around by the demands of invasions.

That made my choice much easier.

“I need help with growing as a mage. Spells, guidance, something. I couldn’t steal the relevant knowledge from Berlis, and there’s no guarantee I’ll find it here. I don’t even know how to become an Archmage. If you could at least get me information on that, I’d be more than grateful.”

I spoke honestly and kept my eyes fixed on Glaustro’s. When I saw the gleam in his eyes, I knew he liked the suggestion.

I had suspected he might. He was the one who had set me on the path of magecraft in the first place, with his gift of mana crystals. In a way, I was validating his investment and showing I had followed his advice.

“I can do that.” The demon looked much more like himself than the worry-wrecked officer of a moment before. “I would warn you that advancing to the level of an Archmage is not easy, but the path you’ve chosen is difficult in general. Didn’t think you and your… friend… would hold up well with your ascension strategy, but look at you now!”

I flushed a little at his continued prodding about my relationship with Mia, who was definitely just a very good friend, but I gave him a grateful nod anyway. “I have you to thank for that, at least in part. Those mana crystal really helped.”

It wasn’t a lie to stroke my boss’s ego. Those crystals had done a lot to keep me alive in Berlis, and they were still paying off now. Still, I didn’t mind the smug look that appeared on the sergeant’s face.

“It is my job to look after the soldiers I was entrusted with. Now, these are just the broad strokes, but know that advancing to Archmage does not depend entirely on you alone. There is a ritual, but…” Glaustro trailed off, then thrust his hand forward. “Give me your hand.”

I was confused, but complied instantly. If he wanted to hurt me, Glaustro could have done so far too many times over.

He focused. I could feel his mana sweeping through me, investigating. My own magical essence rose up to try and stop him, but I squashed the instinctive reaction.

When he finished and leaned back, Glaustro gave me an odd look.

“You are doing far better than I expected. Your soul is somewhere in the upper superior range. For a human, this is exceptional. By the time you finish building up your mana core, you’ll be at the peak of what that rank can offer, I reckon. Then there’s all the physical changes you’ve gone through…”

Once more my commander trailed off, but I couldn’t figure out what he was feeling as he stared at me. It was all I could do to keep from squirming.

“If you manage to see all your preparation through, you are going to become an exceptional demon,” Glaustro finally declared. A smile stretched across his features. “I guarantee that much.”

Was that pride radiating off him? I flushed, looking away.

“Thank you, commander. I will do my best, you can trust that.”

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“I do. There is a reason you and that girl are the only mortals in my unit. Now…”

Before he could get his next words out, the door to the penthouse office burst open, and Graighast emerged. He looked pale and somewhat shaken, but he nodded when his brother turned to look at him.

“I had to call in several favors and step on more than a few toes. There are a lot of people who want to see the lieutenant general before a major engagement like this one, and we’ve already had several meetings with him. Still, I managed. He’ll see us in two hours.”

Glaustro looked equal parts relieved and terrified. I could only imagine the nerves he must be suffering, going to deliver such an important message to one of the few people in the legion with almost as much power as the general himself.

I sincerely wished him luck.

“That’s some amazing work, brother,” Glaustro finally allowed, running a hand over his face. Then he pointed at me. “But are you sure we can present him to the lieutenant general looking like that? This doesn’t give us much time to prepare him. I expected it would take at least a day for us to secure an audience.”

Wait, what?

“Wait, what?”

I didn’t care that my mind had fully synchronized with my body. What I cared about was the fact that I was apparently expected to attend a meeting with high command.

Detecting the absolute eruption of dread and a whole host of other feelings in me, Glaustro grinned mercilessly. “You drop that shit on me, and then you expect to walk away? You’re coming along, soldier. Neither of us two have a fancy soul blade to show off your discovery to the lieutenant general.”

I got a rare glimpse of the person Glaustro really was, brash and foul-mouthed and completely irreverent. His new sergeant persona had cracked, and if I was in a better state, maybe I could have enjoyed it.

Instead, I was moments away from gibbering in panic.

—

Looking like days-old roadkill after a major fight in a desert, followed immediately by mana training and sacrifices to the Abyss, was not the acceptable way to meet the general’s second-in-command. Apparently.

I found that kind of insulting. After all, I had been presented to the general himself in little more than a scrap of clothing to preserve my modesty, and no one seemed to care then!

Crewe must have liked a bit more pageantry, because the first thing the brothers did was drag me off to a seamstress.

After far too many souls changed hands and the demoness cursed me out quietly several times about the stressful rush job, I was the proud owner of a new suit.

The whole ensemble was blue and white. The color of my jacket, pants, and most of the accessories was just a touch darker than my new skin. To ‘make it pop’, however that logic worked out. The dashes of white came mostly from the dress shirt, as well as the pair of fancy shoes.

I felt overdressed. I felt underdressed. I felt like I was going to start panicking again.

There was nothing I could do but follow the two demons.

At least all three of us were dressed to the nines as we strolled down a remarkably plain corridor to the lieutenant general’s theater room. Both Glaustro and his brother were in full body armor. It gleamed in the slightest exposure to any nearby light source, all dark and red with an abundance of jagged edges.

They looked resplendent, but I had to work very hard not to refer to them as edgelords, even within the relative safety of my thoughts.

The armor also exuded an immense weight of mana. The red coloring was mostly the result of the enchantments glowing across the armor’s surface. I couldn’t tell what the enchantments did exactly, but they had to be powerful.

This did leave me with one question, though, and I couldn’t resist whispering it to Glaustro.

“Why have I never seen you wear that armor? Just the way it feels is…”

I trailed off, but the question was obvious. If he had something like that, he wouldn’t have suffered nearly as much in the fight with the golem, or even just while traveling through the sandstorms.

To my surprise, his answer was a dismissive snort. “Please. I’d give it to you in a heartbeat if didn’t cost so damn much. I also need it for all the posturing we have to do, like right now. It looks impressive, sure, but that’s its whole job. These enchantments? They’re encrypted so no one can tell what they do, because ‘what they do’ is just make the armor look imposing.”

I was briefly distracted even from my anxiety. My eyes widened as I gazed at the equipment. “Are you telling me someone put this much effort into enchanting armor just to… what, make it look cooler?”

He chuckled, but it was a pained sound. “Yes, and I had to purchase it just to fit in with the other officers. Fun, right? Maybe I could help you get the title. Make sure to prepare at least a hundred thousand souls beforehand, though.”

I blanched at the number and shut up. At least that explained why they refused to let me appear in my armor. If a hundred thousand souls was the minimum acceptable standard, my ensemble might be considered downright insulting. The suit was just fine, after all, even if it made me feel terribly exposed.

I tried telling myself that anyone in the room we were about to enter could flatten me just as easily with or without my armor, but that didn’t make me feel better.

Finally, it was time.

After a brief, hushed conversation between Graighast and two guards, a set of double doors was thrown open, and we were ushered into the private sanctum of the lieutenant general.

The room was massive, but it had to be in order to contain what Crewe kept inside it. In the center of the almost spherical space, a massive globe hovered. Most of it was completely covered in swirling sands, but patches of it were clear and showed off cities and settlements with unnerving accuracy.

I spotted the city we were currently in. It was hard to miss. The tall, impressive demon standing next to the globe had his hand placed gently right next to the perfect miniature recreation of our settlement.

I stared. I couldn’t help it.

Most of the demons I met looked fairly humanoid. Sure, they were a bit odd, and they had features that would never be seen on a boilerplate human, but the resemblance was clear.

Crewe was an exception to that.

His skin wasn’t black. It was abyssal, a mass of writhing shadows that occasionally parted to expose gleaming fangs or blinking eyes. Two arms sprouted from his right shoulder, three from the left. Six pairs of tentacle-like wings fluttered in the air behind him. His hair was a stream of darkness that billowed around his head, writhing like an angry beehive.

He turned to look at as we entered, and I realized I could see neither nose nor mouth on his face. Ears were entirely absent also. Instead, and in contrast to his arrangement of arms, three angry slashes of red blinked at us from the right side of his face, and two on the left.

All of that was stuffed into a set of armor that was both excessive and covered far too little of his body.

He barely had a chest plate. A single piece of thin metal covered the front of his chest, mirrored on his back and secured by the fewest amount of straps possible. On his lower body, he wore what resembled a seamless steel skirt that went all the way down to the floor. It scraped discordantly when he moved, producing an eerie symphony for the lieutenant general to enjoy.

Leaning against a wall behind him was a battle axe bigger than I was. It was mostly made of some pitch-black metal, while the edge of its blade gleamed scarlet and released a continuous cloud of red smoke. The vapor hovered around the weapon, clinging to everything it touched. I could swear I heard a soft sizzling sound from that direction.

Every gesture the lieutenant general made radiated a carefully constrained violence. I even noticed his body twitching as he looked at us, making me strongly suspect that he had to stop himself constantly from tearing us apart.

This… no matter how alien he looked, this was a demon dressed and ready for war.

“Ah, yes, Major Graighast. Back for another meeting with Sergeant Glaustro, I see.” I very pointedly did not shudder when a mouth ripped itself open on the demon’s face. “Tell me, why did you insist on speaking to me again so soon?”