Newly Summoned Demoness - Chapter 33 – Manzitore (Patreon)

The stew wasn’t bad, but the unfortunate reality that she wanted the raw meat hit her after the first bite. It wasn’t bad, although it did lack the salt and spices she was used to. Everyone else took several bowls of the stuff, but she was done after just one.

Roasted Elnat was far more palatable, and she took one for herself.

“Only like meat, eh?” Marcus commented.

Everyone paused and eyed her warily, forcing her to comment. “I think it’s a side-effect of absorbing so many Darkwalkers during the battle with the demon that attacked the village.”

Everyone went back to eating, but the statement didn’t seem to help the monks’ wariness of her. When Joren handed her a cup of some type of sweet-smelling drink, she eyed it warily. “What’s this?”

“Frujuice. This is the last of it we had so enjoy. It is water from here on out,” Marcus said.

Joren poured some for everyone in the group from the same container, so she took a sip. It was sweet and reminded her of some type of berry mix. It was very smooth, too, with no pulp, so it definitely reminded her of something you’d get from the grocery store.

A smile graced her lips. “It’s sweet.”

Taniel gave her a dirty look. “Just because you can stomach something other than raw meat means nothing.”

Elania blinked, then looked at Joren. Had dinner been some type of test? To see if she wasn’t an obligate carnivore or something? Her hunger and enjoyment of the meat evaporated. She set her meal aside found a place to sit a safe distance away. The novices chattered quietly to themselves in the background.

“You said there was a ‘Demon Market’ in Neftasu. I’m not going to end up a slave or something if I go there with you, am I?” Elania asked pointedly.

Taniel, Joren, and Marcus all shared a look before Joren answered. “It’s not likely, but if you don’t have a contract, you won’t be well received. The Guard doesn’t take kindly to unbound demons in the city; it usually only happens when someone’s contractor dies suddenly and then the demon goes berserk killing people.”

That didn’t make her happy, and… was it even true? Was this just them trying to encourage her to sign a contract?

Her eyes flickered to Marcus. “You said the Conclave specializes in killing rogue demons?”

Taniel coughed. “The Conclave has a branch dedicated to that purpose. Joren is well on his way to becoming a member, he just needs to hone his [Holy] skills more and raise his [Karma].”

Elania raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you say [Karma] was useless for telling who was good or not?”

“Some skills still rely on it. Holy magic and the like require positive, while some more gruesome necromancy abilities require negative,” Marcus explained.

Oh, that was just great. She’d be a prime target for some necromancer or bad person wanting to max out their negative karma then. Skip the grind, just munch on one poor Elania.

“I’m sure the meal didn’t provide much sustenance, so how about we sign a contract for our trip to the city?” Marcus asked with a sudden interest.

Elania eyed him, then stood up. “Sorry, but I’m afraid our conversation hasn’t really inspired the greatest trust of all of you.”

Taniel sputtered and nearly spit out his soup. “What! You dare imply we are the untrustworthy ones here?” he hissed.

She skewered him with a glare. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re just carrying some kind of trauma or something and not just some fucking racist…speciesist bastard.”

Taniel’s jaw dropped.

Taking a deep breath, she continued. “Let me spell it out for you: you’ve been actively homicidal to me. Marcus has been looking for some way to exploit the conversation to get a contract and benefit somehow. Joren has been the only one polite to me today, while the little monks piss their pants whenever I look at them. Why the fuck would I trust the lot of you?”

Joren looked uncomfortable and ate his soup. Marcus chuckled unashamedly.

Elania turned to leave.

“Oy, where are you going?” Taniel demanded.

She looked over her shoulder at them. “I’m definitely not staying here tonight. I’ll go find somewhere I feel comfortable.”

Marcus fixed her with a stare. “The Mushrooms paid us to take you out of here. Don’t make us come search for you in the morning, Girlie.”

The Mushroohum cavern felt much less oppressive once she was outside the building. She didn’t really have a set destination, but somewhere faraway from the group was preferable. Her nerves felt shot, and she vibrated with frustration as she headed toward the Elnat and Ralfot caves.

The Bone Demon ruin was still there. The animals gave her a nervously wide berth, and she spotted a few Mushroohum guards that were hidden. None of them approached her, which was nice. She didn’t feel like dealing with any more people today.

Jumping up to the second floor of the ruin was trivial for her now. Perching on the edge allowed her to observe the area from high up, and she watched the animals go about doing their thing. It was oddly peaceful.

When she’d finally calmed down a bit, she pulled out some of the extra fabric she’d kept in her pack and laid it on the stone. Wadding the end into a ball made for a semi-decent pillow. It was the definition of roughing it.

Her dreams were easy and calm. When Elania woke, the impression of being lazily perched on something high off the ground was all that remained.

She shoved her makeshift bedroll into her pack; the Glow-Moss in the animal cave had started to glow slightly brighter, marking the start of the morning. The opportunity to run out into the wilds called to her. It was possibly safer, as ironic as that felt. There was no telling what creatures or monsters she’d find and end up having to fight.

If she did that, though, she wouldn’t get answers to her questions.

And… and it would be a solitary existence. She’d be lonely.

The party of monks and ranger wasn’t her first choice for adventuring companions, but at least they had offered answers to some questions. Which had led to more questions… Grinding out her skill ranks and accumulating more power would make her stronger, but she had no idea if she’d ever find the city if she didn’t take the opportunity to learn where it was.

Picking her way down from the ruins, she found the route that the party would take on the way out.

There was a nice overhang perch that would hide her from view. The wait was longer than expected, and she almost nodded off for more sleep when she heard them approaching.

“We’ll have to hunt it down and kill it before we go. We can’t just leave it to prey on the Mushroohums,” Taniel said.

“Well, that’s still to be seen,” Marcus replied. “Besides, our mission is to get the [Glow-Moss] to the Conclave, not hunt demons.”

“She didn’t show up. What other proof do you need that she ran away?” Taniel hissed.

“Did you even listen to anything I said, Monk?” Marcus asked, annoyance clear in his voice. “I think the Girlie was right, you’re wearing your hate on your sleeve.”

“She didn’t seem hostile,” Joren said.

Elania didn’t have a view of them, but somehow, she was able to visualize Taniel giving the other monk a heated look inside her head.

When the party passed into the animal cavern, she jumped down from her perch and landed in the middle of the group.

The novices screeched and fell on their asses. Marcus whipped around to give her a dark glare. Joren and Taniel both whirled on her, falling into some kind of martial arts stance.

“Morning,” Elania offered casually.

“Trying to start a fight?” Marcus muttered.

Elania shrugged, “Just dropping in to join like ordered.” She didn’t mention that she’d just wanted to test her [Stealth] skill on them. Apparently, it worked pretty well, at least if she was out of sight and concealed.

There was a tense silence as she kept pace behind Marcus, with Taniel and Joren leading the monks behind her. That was probably because they wanted to monitor her as they traveled. That suited her just fine, though, since it gave her access to Marcus and Joren. She had a lot of questions.

“If reading isn’t a common skill, how do people use their [System] stuff?” Elania asked.

“Everyone has their own way of interpreting it. If they can’t read, they might hear a voice, or see something else that makes sense to them,” Joren explained.

Well, that explained why she saw the messages as some sort of game hologram. “When you wanted me to share my [Status]…”

“We would have each seen something different, but understandable. You interested in sharing now?” Marcus asked.

She scoffed and shook her head. “Hardly. Is reading a rare skill?”

They came to a stop at an intersection. Marcus looked at both paths, then picked the one on the right before shaking his head. “Not rare, but uncommon. I can read, but the monks here cannot.”

Elania looked back at Joren. “So you hear voices in your head?”

Joren frowned. “I see magical stones. Taniel has a talking head.”

The other monk shot Joren a heated glance. Elania suppressed a giggle as she pictured a buddha head yelling at the permanently angry monk. No wonder he was so acidic. She’d glare at everything too if there was a talking head floating around her all the time. She managed an uninterested ‘hmmm’ as she followed Marcus.

Joren cleared his throat. “I have a question for you myself.”

Elania smiled and almost tripped on a rock. Marcus looked back and frowned at her, but she could only offer an apologetic wave.

She looked back at Joren. “Sure. You’ve answered a lot of mine. Ask away?”

“What’s the demon world like?” he asked.

The question caught her off guard. “Eh?”

Joren frowned at her. “Your world. Where you come from. What’s it like?”

Where did someone even begin with explaining modern earth?

With a thoughtful look, Elania turned her gaze to the cavern ceiling, imagining that far above there was a sky. She hadn’t really thought about how to explain her world before, but she decided she would give it her best shot.

“My world…it’s probably similar to your ‘Overworld,” she began. “We don’t live underground. Our cities are vast and sprawling, reaching up towards the clouds with towering structures of glass and metal.”

“We don’t have a [System] or anything like that,” she continued. That seemed to surprise even Marcus, who looked back at her pointedly before turning his attention back to their path.

“No levels or skills. Just whatever you know how to do, kinda thing.” Elania expanded on the thought.

“Must be hard to keep track of what you can do,” Joren commented.

She let out a laugh. “Yeah, it’s a bit more fuzzy for sure. Do skills lose ranks here if you don’t practice them?”

Joren looked horrified. “Gods no, how would anyone keep all their ranks up if that were true?”

“I see.” Elania paused for a moment as she tried to think of how to convey some of the contrasts she’d learned about so far. “On one hand, we’ve eliminated many injustices that plague other societies. Slavery doesn’t exist, and everyone has rights regardless of their race or gender.”

Okay, maybe she was glossing over the colossal battle for those things, but she liked to think that there weren’t any slave markets back home. A sudden wave of negativeness started to press at her as she thought about all the bad things; Tipping culture came to mind right away.

Swallowing, she continued. “But it’s not perfect,” she added. “Poverty still exists. Corruption is still an issue in most places. Different nations still war with each other over resources and ideologies.”

She looked back at Joren and tried to offer a small smile. “But despite its flaws, I was happy. Where I’m from, it was mostly peaceful. Well, a crowded, energetic, kind of peaceful. I grew up in a city.”

“Sounds like a nice place,” Joren murmured. “I can see why you’d be interested in going back.”

She wasn’t sure how well she’d done with her explanation, but guessed that it was good enough. “Every place has its pros and cons.”

As they continued, she decided to focus on more positive things that she liked—the hustle and bustle of city life, the taste of good coffee in the morning, and even just lounging around watching videos or playing video games.

Explaining what a tv or computer was turned out to be complicated.

Taniel fixed her with a look. “You either have an incredible imagination, or you’re really an oddball. Demons don’t really remember anything of their old world by the time they become sapients.”

Elania’s eye twitched. “How do you know? Do you deal a lot with demons?”

A frown creased Taniel’s face. “Most demons remember nothing of their old world by the time they become sapients. So, it isn’t common to be able to ask.”

“The Conclave is a holy order that protects the city from the worst the Underworld offers. The Guard handle the more mundane threats and policing the city, while the Conclave focuses on dealing with the most powerful rogue demons or monsters,” Joren explained.

“Rogue Demon?” Elania asked.

“If a demon somehow gets out of its Contract, they usually go on a rampage until dealt with,” Taniel said bitterly.

She didn’t feel the need to express that maybe those demons probably had built up resentment for how they were treated and enslaved? If she was tricked into a contract before becoming sapient, and left at the mercy of whoever had done that…

Yeah, she wouldn’t be happy, either.

“Don’t forget that, Demon. You will be watched. There isn’t anyone who won’t associate those red eyes of yours with carnage,” Taniel said.

She eyed him warily. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Maybe going all the way to the city wasn’t the best idea. Still, she wanted to at least locate it. The caverns were a confusing maze, but with her [Darkwalker] affinity being so high, and a natural ability to mentally map their path, she felt confident that she’d be able to find her way around.

The flow of the conversation died, and she and the monks focused on their feet and following Marcus as the terrain became more rough. Much as she expected, the ranger kept them on a straight line track, with no backtracking or looping. He definitely had a solid picture of where they were going, and they were passing through different biomes at a rapid clip.

The conversation had distracted her so much she realized they were near the edge of where she’d explored on her own. It wasn’t even that far to where she’d ambushed the Ralfot herd. Despite the heavy pace Marcus set, she didn’t really feel tired. Meanwhile, it became obvious the novice monks were starting to be a little winded.

Her [Power] remained fully topped off, neither ticking upward nor downward. She’d wrapped the mana crystal in multiple layers of fabric, and the rate she was draining it almost perfectly matched her natural expenditure from moving and keeping her [Darkvision] active.

She still needed to experiment and see if she could refill the mana shard, but that was something she would have to find some ‘alone’ time to do. Displaying the shard to the party was out of the question. There were also the ramifications of her… transformation ability. She had learned nothing about it yet, other than it reversed when she ran out of [Power].

Asking about it seemed unwise, and she didn’t really want another acidic opinion from Taniel, so she kept quiet.

At the threshold to a new cavern, Marcus raised his hand and brought them all to a sudden halt. Everyone went on alert, and she peered into the gray shades of the new cavern. No glow-moss offered its ambient light, and there was very little bioluminescent fungus. Almost all the light available came from the monks and Marcus’ glow torch.

The ranger turned on them and pointed toward the wall. “Flatten yourselves!”

The order was adamant enough that everyone obeyed immediately. In the distance, she picked up a sound: Hooves. Her ears twitched as the stampede picked up volume. It seemed like thousands of hooves were approaching, and the roar of Ralfots letting out angry ‘Moobaaa!’ filled the air.

They came into sight; the herd was massive. At least a hundred of the beasts were hurling themselves down the tunnel like their lives depended on it. One member tripped and was trampled to death by its peers in the frenzy.

At the intersection, the group split; half continuing down the massive cavern while the rest turned toward her and the party.

“What do we do!” Elania shouted.

“Just stay up against the wall and out of their way!” Marcus replied.

The first beast passed, paying them no attention, and the rest followed suit. The dust and rock billowed up from their passage, but it was the smell that hit her. Blood. It smelled like blood.

They weren’t paying her any attention…if she timed it right, she would be able to jump out and land on the back of one and… and…

A hand fell on her shoulder, and Marcus shook his head with a stern look.

Elania felt her cheeks flush and leaned back against the cavern wall forcefully. She swallowed and stilled herself. The [Darkwalker] affinity she’d gained had some serious downsides, and she’d almost got lost in a lust for hunting.

When the herd finally passed, she realized that the smell hadn’t come from the Ralfots, but was coming from the cavern.

They had been running from it? No, they were probably running from whatever the source of it was.

“I smell blood,” Elania said.

Marcus grunted. “Manzitore.”

“Oh gods, no!” One of the novices exclaimed. Panic ran through them, but Taniel shushed them. One of them had a bloody nose from some debris hitting him in the face, and Joren tended to the injury.

That seemed to comprise applying pressure with a bandage instead of a healing potion or the ‘Holy Magic’ she had expected. Maybe those kinds of things were too expensive to waste on a broken nose, though.

When Marcus spotted the injury, he became livid. “You fool!”

A deafening roar erupted before a massive crash sounded in the cavern. When the beast came into sight, Elania’s heart skipped a beat.

[Mantizore]

It was like a mad scientist had crossed a dragon and a lion. Its scaly flesh dripped with a red liquid, leaving the stone behind it covered in splatter. Small trails of steam rose from it as rock melted from the contact. Acid or heat? She had no idea, but it explained the sudden deluge of blood smell.

It was the size of a building, and it clumsily crashed into the cavern walls and ceiling as its oversized wings flapped heavily. The strong gusts blew her hair, and she had to pull her shawl tighter to secure it.

The monster spotted the dead Ralfot and dived on it, its tail lashing out with a maw of razor-sharp teeth.

The carcass disappeared into the appendage without the monster even having to pause its chaotic rampage.

It flew past them; a brief relief filled Elania as she thought it wouldn’t bother with them, but that died when it suddenly flared and came to a stop. It whirled toward them and glowing yellow eyes skewered the injured novice.

Ah, fuck. Now she understood why Marcus had been pissed at the monk getting hurt.

The ranger pulled his bow off his back and nocked an arrow. Blue symbols began to glow on the weapon and the steel arrowhead began to glow a brilliant blue.

“Taniel! Get the others to the next waystation. Go now!” The ranger ordered.

The monks didn’t need any further prompting and scattered in the direction the Ralfots and [Manzitore] had come from.

Elania realized she’d completely forgotten about her own weapons and drew one of her javelins.

Marcus glared at her. “Mundane weapons aren’t going to hurt that thing. Get going with the others, or you’re going to die!”