Chapter Eighteen: The Demon

Vaid examined the sword in his hand, using the faint glow from the pirate’s soul and Mia to observe the blade. On the hilt, a name and an emblem were engraved. “Bosor Forge”—likely the name of the swordsmith—and the emblem was a simple iron anvil, like a mark of authenticity.

At first glance, the sword seemed no different from an ordinary double-edged longsword: about one meter thirty in length, its hue dark, the thickness about the width of a palm. Yet its weight far surpassed the straight sword he’d picked up earlier; the materials used were entirely different.

Vaid was no expert in the art of swordsmithing, but the fact that the Viking had gathered so much flame upon the blade and yet, during the heat of battle, it showed no sign of warping or deforming spoke volumes about its quality. The materials must include some rare ore, and its forging had involved extraordinary craftsmanship.

He felt certain this was the work of a master. Along the blade ran a whole row of rune engravings—what their purpose was, he could not guess. Lacking the knowledge to appraise enchanted weapons, he could only surmise that this was a rare treasure, at least of uncommon quality, and thus extremely valuable.

To put it in perspective: a standard iron sword for an ordinary soldier sold for about eight silver coins—the price of a cow. A fine steel sword, as used by knights or nobles, would cost three to four times as much, and if adorned with decorations or gemstones, the price would soar further still.

This enchanted weapon must be worth far more than even a noble’s ceremonial steel sword. As for how much more, Vaid could not say.

He knew little of the supernatural; after all, in life, he had earned his bread by baking it. His trade was that of a baker—a baker had no need to fight monsters beyond the city walls, nor to purchase an expensive sword as a decoration for his home.

From a baker’s humble perspective, if this sword were sold, the wealth gained might well suffice to support an ordinary person for an entire lifetime.

It was, without doubt, a “luxury”—with that thought, Vaid gripped the sword tightly. Such a fine thing should not be let go.

He planned to wait until Mia had finished absorbing the pirate captain’s soul, then climb out of the reservoir with the sword and retrieve his left arm to reattach it.

Afterward, he would leave for the outskirts of the village, putting distance between himself and the villagers whose homes had been destroyed. He had done all he could. Rebuilding and mourning the dead was the villagers’ own affair.

He had come to the village to slay pirates, not in hope of reward or gratitude. Once outside, his first task would be to ascertain exactly where he was.

Tania—the name rang a bell, though he could not recall its exact location. There were dozens of countries on the continent; one could hardly remember them all. But since he understood their language, and they spoke the common human tongue, it seemed Tania was a human-ruled nation, so there was little need to worry about written or spoken communication.

In any case, he was but a skeleton—he neither needed to eat nor feared the cold. Wandering the wilds alone was no trouble.

What puzzled him more was the fate of his own body, left sleeping out on the steppe.

As he pondered, he made plans for the future. After a while, Mia finally finished consuming the crimson soul.

She swam back to Vaid, paused, and her gaze lingered on his broken ribs and the missing left arm.

Suddenly agitated, Mia swam to his side. That soul had been peculiar; while she was absorbing it, she seemed unable to focus on anything else, which was why she hadn’t noticed Vaid’s battle damage before. Now, seeing him, her emotions surged.

To her, a missing arm and fractured ribs must have seemed grave injuries.

Vaid noticed something: a frost had formed around Mia, and under the water, shards of ice were beginning to appear. Was this an abnormality brought on by emotional turmoil? Was the little one worried for him?

I’m fine, he sent the thought to her, but Mia remained unsettled. After a moment’s thought, Vaid set the sword down, reached out, and gently stroked Mia’s forehead.

At his touch, she calmed. The strange magical turbulence faded, and she simply nestled at his side, embracing his bones where they were broken.

Both dead, both spirits, the two huddled together beneath the deep, dark cellar.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be all right,” Vaid communicated to Mia. He thought, if a skeleton could not live among the living, then perhaps he could keep company with a ghost.

He stroked Mia’s head again, bent down, and reached to pick up the sword.

At that moment, something strange happened.

From the Viking’s corpse, bubbles suddenly began to rise—not air bubbles, but the result of heat, forcing dissolved gases from the water. The water around the body was boiling!

Vaid was astonished. Was this some death throe? He’d never heard of a supernatural being capable of such postmortem tricks; crimson eddies appeared on the corpse, from which molten lava began to flow.

Not a metaphor—literal lava emerged.

A small, wiry creature crawled out of the vortex. It was half the size of a man, hunched, its limbs as thin as withered branches, and its skin was dark red, crisscrossed with fissures. Its legs were bowed like arcs, its feet clawed like those of a bird, and its hands were broad, with four fingers ending in black, sharp talons.

Most striking was its tail—long, thin, and sharp, with a tip that still burned with wine-red flames even underwater, the color as vivid as Niderland estate wine.

It was an imp—a Flame Imp, a low-ranking demon.

Vaid had seen illustrations of such fiends in church manuscripts. Legend said Flame Imps lived in volcanoes and magma, their very breath reeking of sulfur, and mere contact would scorch a mortal to charcoal.

This was the first time he had seen a demon in the flesh. The imp’s amber eyes rotated erratically as it surveyed its surroundings, finally settling its gaze on Sweyn’s corpse.

Then, its mouth tore open from ear to ear, and a fireball began to form within. The reservoir’s temperature soared.

A tremendous energy gathered within it; Vaid saw the magic surging, the flames aimed at him and Mia. The blast would be enough to obliterate this place.

All of this transpired in mere seconds—Vaid had no time to respond.

He saw the fireball streak toward him. Had he been alive, he would have reflexively closed his eyes, but as a skeleton, he could not. He saw the fireball stop—not so much stopped as frozen.

Mia had stepped between him and the imp. A surge of magical power greater even than that of the imp burst forth from her; the water began to freeze, and everything around them was locked in ice.

Even the Flame Imp was frozen, ice spreading across its body, snuffing out the fire at its tail. Then, its body cracked apart like shattered ice.

Mia had unleashed unimaginably powerful magic, but her form began to waver, growing faint and transparent.

“Stop!” Vaid commanded Mia. She ceased her magic.

The fireball’s energy, no longer suppressed, detonated with a roar.

Vaid’s vision was filled with blinding white light. He shielded Mia’s soul, but everything was inevitably swept away.

In an instant, he lost all sense of water, fire, and magic.

He awoke, the soul flame igniting within his skull.

All was silent, stifling, and close.

Beside his skull were the scales he had collected.

He sat up—above him was the frame of white bone he had constructed.

He was in the little home he’d dug on the steppe—he had awakened in his house.

Yet something was different from when he’d lain down.

He looked down, at the small soul curled against his ribs.

Unable to help himself, he reached out and stroked the soul’s forehead.

Cold and soft, like the touch of water.

He felt an urgent need to step outside this cramped space, so he pushed away the stone at the entrance and stood upon the steppe.

Looking up, he saw that same unchanging pale moon.

But this time, unlike before, there was another soul standing with him, raising its gaze skyward alongside his.

The usually pale and dim white moon now appeared in his eyes as an eerie crimson.

So, the moon was, after all, blood-red.