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"Are you going to keep standing there until you collapse, or are you going to come sit down?" Bronwynn said.

Refusing to look me in the eye, he left the bathroom and made his way over to a chair placed next to a low desk. Naturally, I followed. For one thing, I did feel like I would pass out if I stayed on my feet. I was also holding out hope that my curiosity would be rewarded.

Then I sat down.

I was on the edge of the bed, not wanting to dirty the sheets, but I still could barely bite back a groan of relief. It felt so damn good to take my weight off my feet. Between that bliss and the salve-induced numbness now easing the pain in my arms, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d even be awake.

Still, if it meant getting more information out of Bronwynn, I was determined to hang on as long as possible.

I cleared my throat.

"So…"

I trailed off, not sure how to move things along. I was never the most socially adept person in the room, even before I died and got stuffed inside the body of a demon-trained child soldier.

Thankfully, Bronwynn spoke.

"Listen, kid. I don’t want you to mention what I did today, okay? I just… just don’t. I’m willing to talk to you now and here, but if you ever bring it up again…"

The demon stopped there, but the implications were clear. I didn’t get the sense he would hurt me. But then again, he was a demon.

I nodded. "Okay. I owe you for everything. I won’t say a thing."

"Good. So, I guess I can tell you that…" Bronwynn paused. Took a deep breath. "I wasn’t always a demon."

I froze, then my eyes rapidly took in the man once more. I always wondered why he was so normal. He looked like a vaguely off-colored human with horns thrown in for fun.

"You were like me? A recruit? But how? Didn’t you say you transferred in?" I asked in rapid succession.

Again, the surge of questions didn’t seem to offend the demon. Bronwynn just smiled and shook his head.

But he looked so tired.

"I did transfer in. What, did you think that every human who joins the Abyss ends up in this one legion? There are plenty of legions out there. There are also layers of the Abyss that don’t take part in war. I joined one of those. Wasn’t even a fighter, just a logistics clerk. It took me a very long time to get enough souls to ascend, but I eventually did it."

There was so much I wanted to ask, but for some reason, only one question came out. "What was that like?"

"Peaceful. The legions are the best places to earn souls, bar none. Especially this one. However, as you’ve definitely learned by now, they’re also the riskiest way of doing it. I wanted the souls. I didn’t want to spend another thousand years just barely making progress towards the next rank."

I could understand that. Very recently, I had also resolved firmly to do whatever it took to climb the ranks within the legion. But that didn’t stop the pang of bitterness rising in my gut. Bronwynn could have chosen peace. He had the freedom to stay safe in his office and take his sweet time. And he’d still decided to come out here and kill people for their souls.

I sighed, trying to swallow down the bitterness.

I wanted to ask more. I wanted to know why he acted just like every other demon, strutting around and looking down on the other humans. But I couldn’t. It felt too insulting. In the end, he did decide to help me. And even before that, he had caved and answered my questions. That was a bigger kindness than anyone else I had met.

I got lucky. If I had picked a demon born and raised in the Abyss, they probably would have skewered me as soon as I approached them.

It was a sobering realization.

"I can see you thinking. Be careful, you might give yourself an aneurysm." Bronwynn chuckled. "Listen, demons who ascend try to distance themselves from their origins. It’s not prevalent in most layers or even legions, but there are demons out there who would target someone just because they’re a mortal or used to be one."

"I understand," I assured him quietly. "I promise I won’t make trouble for you."

Sadness suddenly gripped me. I understood, plain as day, that I might have to limit my interactions with the man going forward.

"Good. Listen, kid, I know you can make it, at least if you start playing things smart. Killing a mage immediately after I told you that you need a way to gather mana isn’t smart. I’m not even going to bother asking how you managed to pull that off, just… be careful, okay? You can lose everything far too easily out there. It might take you five or six invasions, but you’ll get the souls and resources you need."

I nodded numbly, boggling at the sheer scope of what he was saying. Five or six? How long would I have to wait? Decades? It was easy for a demon to give assurances when they didn’t have to worry about pesky things like lifespan.

No, I realized then and there that I would continue taking risks. It was just too attractive. I was hundreds of souls richer than if I had played things safe. Judging by the weary sigh he gave, Bronwynn knew it too.

Bronwynn continued, "Guess I should stop wasting my breath on useless warnings. Anyway, you need to sleep, and I need to go. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me before we call things here?"

My mind swam. I wasn’t exactly in the best condition, and our discussion was just throwing me even further off-kilter. All the recent events swirled in my head, blending together into one collage of misery.

"Why are we worse than the demons?" My voice was a whisper, desperate and forlorn. "The mortals? Why do they act worse than the demons are?"

I didn’t need to explain. I had seen it both in-person and through Hayden’s memories. Demons just looked on in amusement while mortals committed atrocities. Rape, torture, and worse, all done by human hand. Frankly, for the locals, running into a demon was better than running into a mortal recruit.

Bronwynn stared at me, his expression so blank that I didn’t think he’d answer.

But eventually, he said, "Because it’s better for us to let you mortals rampage. Demons, all demons, feed on turbulent emotions. We all have the one emotion we favor and represent with all our being, but we can get something out of all of them." He turned away, his voice quiet. "Recruits are allowed to run wild, to do whatever they want, because it feeds us."

I sucked in a deep breath, caught between disgust and disbelief. Then I pushed on.

"Wouldn’t torturing the locals do just as well? Agony, fear — those emotions are valid too, right? I don’t think I’ve seen a demon really torture someone. And I’ve definitely not seen a demon commit rape."

"They are valid. Still, the emotions of perpetrators feed us better than the emotions of victims. As for rape…" For some reason, the demon seemed amused. "We just have no reason to do something like that. Trust me, no mortal can compare to the incubi and succubi. If you ever experience those urges, I recommend giving them a try."

His voice definitely had a teasing lilt to it by the end, and if the demon aimed to distract me, he had well and truly done it. I could barely get my thoughts in order to say my goodbyes properly while he beat a hasty retreat from the room.

Then I just sat there on the bed, dizzy and barely coherent. I held my arms up to keep them from touching anything. In the back of my head, I knew I needed to shower and then wash my clothes, but that would remove the cream from my injuries.

Ultimately, weariness won out. I flopped over, shimmied until I could dangle my arms over the sides of the bed, and drifted off within seconds.

When I woke up, I did so all at once. One second I was peacefully drifting in a sea of comfort and warmth, and in the next, everything from previous day surged back in and forced my eyes open.

I found myself curled up in the middle of the bed, somehow tangled in the blanket so thoroughly that it took me a while to fight free of it. Once I had finally done that, I froze.

I’d been very careful when lying down to avoid contact between my injured arms and the bed, only to wake up bundled in a blanket-burrito. Yet strangely, I didn’t feel any pain or even discomfort.

Dreading what I’d find, I let my eyes fall on my arms.

My breath came out in a whoosh.

Flawless. My skin was flawless, without any trace of injury. There wasn’t even a mark left from the butchering Bronwynn had done to remove bits of leather and fabric fused to my flesh.

Thinking of the demon’s treatment naturally dragged my mind back to the jar of salve. I let out another whoosh of breath. Anything that produced such results couldn’t have been cheap.

I wasn’t sure what to think or feel. Bronwynn had helped me so much that I’d never be able to repay him. On one hand, I hated the sense of being so deeply in someone’s debt. On the other, he had made it clear the day before that our association was best to be at a distance. He wasn’t expecting the debt to be repaid. Friendship, or even companionship, was off the table.

I sighed, then forced myself to start moving.

The first thing I tackled was the bed. It was absolutely filthy, The salve had mixed with all the dirt from my skin and clothes to produce a truly foul mess. With that in mind, I prayed to whatever unholy deity there was that I could make it out of the inn before the proprietor got his hands on me.

I definitely had to find somewhere else to sleep that night.

I did what I could using the shower and a copious amount of hot water, but I couldn’t clean the sheets and blanket without some serious effort and products that I had no access to. My armor and clothing were in a similar position. At least, thanks to whatever demonic magic produced unlimited hot water, I didn’t have to take a cold shower after all that washing.

When I finally left the room several hours later, I felt like a brand-new man. The bodily consequences of my misadventure were gone. I did need new armor and clothes, but I could still walk around in what I had for the time being.

After all, I was hardly the only soldier sporting ripped or damaged clothing. Some demons even reveled in this type of ’fashion,’ so I wouldn’t stand out.

My chat with the inn’s proprietor was slightly awkward, given the state I was leaving his room in. But since I failed to mention that little detail, the awkwardness was completely one-sided, and he remained blissfully unaware of the devastation awaiting him upstairs. In fact, he told me I was entitled to a free breakfast and even gave me directions to the nearest Absorption Station.

The fare was simple. A small roast, some delicious bread, and a plate of soup. But it was filling, especially since I couldn’t remember the last time I had a proper sit-down meal.

Then I was out of there, successfully escaping the proprietor’s ire!

I could have chosen to do some light shopping, to look for equipment or items that could help me like Bronwynn suggested, but I couldn’t hold back my eagerness. I had risked life and limb to get my hands on a mana accumulation technique that was more effective than the Body Strengthening technique. Nothing was going to stop me from absorbing it as quickly as I could.

Granted, even with my enthusiasm, my steps slowed as I approached the station’s sphere of influence. It looked just as ominous as before, and the sight of recruits walking into it and vanishing was still creepy. A vague memory of unimaginable, fundamental pain stabbed through my soul.

Of course, pain wasn’t enough to hold me back.

Not anymore.

Crossing the threshold, I walked straight up to the torture chair. For the first time since killing the mage, I dared to open my bag (or purse, as Bronwynn called it) and dipped my hand inside.

Finding the right soul was easy. Holding a regular ’basic’ soul was eerie, but it didn’t really awe me in any way. In contrast, even brushing my fingers against the mage’s soul sent tingles up my arm, stabbing into my flesh.

When I finally pulled the soul out, I saw a visible difference. This was truly a ’greater soul.’ Its inner radiance was far more intense, it had many more facets than a basic soul, and the face trapped within it seemed animated, almost desperate to escape its confines.

A jolt of guilt swept through me at that, but it didn’t stop me. This is what I had to do. Taking a deep breath, I asked the space to appraise the soul.

Clarinette Illsent

Known Skills:

Illsent Mana Accumulation (Greater), Mana Bolt (Greater), Mage Shield (Unskilled), Noble Bearing, Mathematics, Runic Engraving, Alchemy, Riding…

Knowledge Base:

Berlis (Superior), Kingdom of Beralion (Superior), Noble Etiquette, Local Commerce, Otherworldly Presence: Demons…

Right there, at the very top of her skill list, was the technique I was so desperate to grasp. It was also clearly unique to the presumably noble house the girl belonged to, so I was hopeful that it would be a cut above what one could normally learn.

With trembling hands, I put the soul into its slot.

Then I fought back an urge to curse.

Skill belongs to a greater rank soul. Required payment: one hundred souls of basic rank.