Other than Bronwynn and Tybalt, the demon I met not so long ago, I didn’t know anyone in Glaustro’s official and brand new shiny unit. Mia didn’t count. Obviously.

When he took control of the unit I was originally part of, Glaustro did not have the leisure to choose his own men. He had come in to replace one Wilhelmina, a royal pain in my behind and the rest of my body besides.

Wilhelmina had yoinked her batch of recruits and forced us, along with her demon troop, to march unreasonably hard in a wild attempt to win a ‘bet’ with her sister. Obviously, since these are demons we’re talking about, the bet was a trap. It got Little Miss Nepo Baby temporarily demoted, and her post was given to Glaustro.

This meant that all the demons under him were handpicked by Wilhelmina. Though Glaustro had managed to make things work, it was clear he regretted the arrangement more than once. He used some of the demons as aides or guards, but never the same ones for long. He didn’t seem to trust or rely on them the way his brother did with his own troops.

Now, this was probably due as much to Glaustro’s many, many trust and identity issues as it was to the circumstances under which he became a sergeant. Still, I’m sure he was thrilled to have the chance to assemble his own troop.

I was glad for him, of course. He deserved it. But for me, this meant a brand new group of unfamiliar demonic personalities I would have to learn to navigate.

So, it was with some trepidation that I approached the rendezvous point our brands had given us the day before.

In the grand scheme of things, the rank of sergeant was neither too important nor too unimportant. It was just about in the middle. Digging into Hayden’s memories had taught me the order of demonic army ranks: officer, lieutenant, captain, sergeant, major, colonel, lieutenant general, general.

I had no idea how that translated into my previous world’s military setup, and I didn’t care. What I did care about was that, as leader of a division, Mercutio’s father apparently bore the rank of lieutenant general. For this privilege, he had a compound almost as grand as the general’s, and enjoyed plenty of other benefits, too.

Glaustro obviously didn’t quality for such treatment.

What he did quality for was a small compound on the same street as the general’s, near the plaza I woke up in. Apparently, that plaza was used only by official soldiers of the Legion of Torment, which vanishingly few recruits qualified for. Sergeant Glaustro’s compound included a relatively nice barracks, a large training ground, some individual homes, and a small manor of his own.

He had summoned us to the manor, but now that we were on the threshold of entering the compound, both Mia and I hesitated.

It wasn’t the two guards, who were watching us curiously from the entrance gate. It wasn’t the overall atmosphere of violence and military toughness. No, what stopped us from entering was the fact that there wasn’t a single other mortal around besides us.

As we stood on the threshold, I kept eyeing the various demons who milled around the training field. Most of them were nothing to write home about. In other words, ‘default’ demons, whose disappointing lack of variety could be blamed entirely on their previous mortal status.

Of course, exceptions existed.

There was a demon with split scorpion tails that hung over his shoulders, dripping venom. The drops would splatter on his shoulders or arms occasionally, which I assumed is why he wore no shirt, but he could immediately use them to his advantage. Flicking them about or scooping them up with his daggers gave an instant boost to his threat level on the battlefield.

There was also a demoness who had wings made of living flame. They typically stayed in the shape of wings, and I saw her fly with them, but she could also twist them into various forms. She could even detach them entirely and send them after someone in the shape of a small bird.

Another curiosity was a demoness whose entire body looked to be made of some crystalline material. It only became apparent that the material was ice when I paid more attention to her tracks. She didn’t wear any shoes, so every step left behind webs of frost and creaking ice. She also made for a stunning spectacle when the light struck her just right and sent rainbows cascading over everything.

The final interesting demoness looked a lot like one of Mia’s people, except instead of a cat, she resembled a bear. Her frame was bulky, and her hands and feet looked more like paws. She had a stumpy tail and enormous ears that swiveled constantly, on the lookout for strange sounds. Curiously, even though no one could deny the amount of demonic mana gushing out of her, she didn’t have horns. In fact, the only identifying ‘demon’ markers were the mana and her eyes. They looked red and slitted, lit by an inner glow that refused to falter.

My own enhanced eyes did another sweep of the training ground. Again… no mortals.

It bears repeating. Often.

“Can we help you two? Looking for something?”

A surprisingly kind-looking demon turned from guarding the gates to face us fully. His compatriot, a sour demoness who really just looked like she wanted to get indoors and away from the layer’s relentless torment, sighed and shook her head.

“Um, no,” I stammered. “Actually, we were summoned here. Sergeant Glaustro had us sign on for his unit, so we were, you know, here to report.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The sullen demoness came alive. “Really? I thought neither of the two brothers approved of mortal recruits, though for different reasons. I did hear they were forced to pick some up for one reason or another. You the only ones who survived out of your batch?”

“Something like that. We got lucky, really.” I tried to pretend like I wasn’t ready to jump fifty feet straight up the second someone startled me enough, like something out of a cartoon. “Anyway, seen the sergeant around anywhere?”

“He’s currently out, I’m afraid,” the first demon supplied. “You can wait for him if you like. I promise you won’t have any trouble from us. If you’re here, it means you impressed him somehow.”

“Thanks,” I said, only mostly meaning it as we passed through the gates.

To my regret, Bronwynn wasn’t there to greet us, either. I did earn some brownie points when I asked around about him and learned that Bronwynn was quite popular among the unit. He was seen as something of an aide or advisor to Glaustro, and the big guy actually valued what the lower ranked demon had to say.

As far as I was concerned, this was an amazing idea. Bronwynn had an extremely good head on his shoulders, and with Glaustro’s backing, he could potentially accomplish a lot.

Naturally, the sergeant’s current absence gave all the newcomers time to gauge each other’s levels. This meant that the show of everyone training was less real training and more… show. Demons performed insane physical feats, displayed complicated bits of magic, and even preened with their equipment.

The latter was rare. While everyone had a few pieces of nice equipment, I didn’t see a well and truly kitted out demon among those gathered. They were, for lack of a better word, relatively fresh.

Not as fresh as the demons who had accompanied us mortals in Berlis, of course, since I already knew those posts were used as a test of sorts. Want to prove you have what it takes to be a soldier in the Legion of Torment? Sure! Come show up, and we’ll ship you off to a weak world where you can kill to your heart’s content. Disappoint us with your lack of murderiness, though? Well, in that case, you’re out.

I wasn’t sure how literal ‘you’re out’ might actually be. In fact, of the demons who died on Berlis, Bronwynn was the only one I had seen alive again. Glaustro probably had something to do with this. What had Bronwynn done to get into the sergeant’s good graces? Maybe I would ask him later.

The atmosphere in the training yard, though? Now, that I could both understand and appreciate. These people were going strong despite the adverse conditions of the Torment layer.

Even better, I could spot none of the fragmenting I had seen in Wilhelmina’s troops. The demons in my original unit had immediately collapsed into cliques or ‘solo rogues too cool for normal’. Barely anyone was working together, they were all scrambling for their own souls, and more than a few were openly hostile to each other.

Here, even when someone was defeated during sparring, this was typically met with applause and assurance about improvement, along with a few pointers from the victor. What a concept! Wilhelmina’s troop would have been at each other’s throats several days ago already, and the ass would have encouraged it.

I felt the difference even in my own sense of relative safety. Now that I was pretty sure no one would stab me for my equipment, I was able to enjoy the envious glances the demons were giving me. I even allowed myself to perk up and strut a bit as we made our way towards the manor.

I had to give it to Yules. This armor had turned out even better than my old set.

It wasn’t that the design itself was different. I had asked her to keep the armor looking the same, and the demoness had approved of my request. She was immensely proud of her creativity in putting that first set together, and rightly so.

The only obvious addition was a blood-red headband, the same color as the feathers that made up my belt’s decorations. It was unnaturally light, giving it an odd floating effect as it trailed behind my head whenever I moved.

No, what really made the set stand out was its sheer quality, which was clearly visible even to an untrained eye.

Every bit of the armor was spotless and practically shone. The leather gleamed in a dazzling way, the cloth bits looked like the softest thing you could ever dream of putting your hands on, and the feathers had such a vivacity to them that they looked like they might start dropping blood any second. The metal, too, was extremely impressive. It shone and reflected every source of light in a myriad of interesting ways.

Best of all, the enchantments meant I would not need to worry about damage to the set, and my own cleaning spell would keep it looking spick and span.

Mia’s outfit was similar, and just as superbly crafted. Granted, hers wasn’t as heavily enchanted, but she did have the basics that Yules had promised. She could even add enchantments in the future if she wanted, though Yules warned that her armor would not take to well to many new enchantments. Some of those had to be worked into the armor during its creation.

That had been a shock for me. Berlis had no such enchanting methods, and everything was woven into an item after its creation. When I shared this with Yules, she didn’t have a ton of good things to say about the mages of the world whose knowledge I had stolen.

Still, that didn’t discourage me from my intention to start working on my enchantment skills eventually. The only reason I hadn’t tried some of the basic stuff already was a lack of materials and time.

For materials, I didn’t want to waste any of my souls before I learned about the world we were heading into next and what we could expect there. It would be awkward if I couldn’t purchase some vital equipment to deal with an unknown environmental danger.

For time… I had judged it was better for me to prioritize spending those days off with Mia and Yules, instead of trying to puzzle out my stolen enchantment knowledge. Now that I was allowing myself to enjoy the company of others again, I could freely admit they were just plain fun to be around. Besides, Yules was a font of knowledge I would never be able to access easily out in the field.

No, I didn’t regret that decision one bit. Just like I didn’t regret my decision to train and grow my mana on the side, despite all these distractions.

This latter decision was validated when one of the demons, a younger member of the unit, stepped in our way with a grin.

“Well, hello there,” he purred. I had to blink when I realized that his assessing eyes were not lingering suggestively on only Mia’s features. “Would you two like to join us? I’d be happy to spar. We need to… get to know each other, after all.”

I almost gaped at the blatant flirting, but I could also tell that the offer was genuine. So…

“You know what? I’d love to.”

The demon’s smile lit up with mischief, and he swept an arm out towards a clear patch of the training ground. “After you, then.”

I ignored the way Mia was looking at me as my fingers clenched and unclenched around the handle of my sword.

Maybe it was stupid, accepting a sparring offer like that. But everything I had done, everything I had achieved, was so I could at least create the illusion of keeping up with demons. Without that, I would never be able to claim the souls and other resources I needed. Not until I ascended, at least.

So, when I turned to face the ‘friendly’ demon, it wasn’t just healthy apprehension spooling in my chest.

It was excitement.