The Spear Devil - 010 (Patreon)

[A/N: Currently working out the plot for The Phoenix, which takes up a lot of my time, as I have to do a lot of research for it. I will probably upload another chapter or two tonight, when I am a bit further along with the plans for the plot.

This chapter is for the wait! Enjoy!]

Chapter 010 – Liam

[April – 2008]

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. I was just undecided.", I answered simply, "Though I have made up my mind now. Do you have time right now, or do I have to make an appointment?"

Giving me a quick once over, the guy replied in an easy-going manner: “Business is pretty slow today, so I've got some time. Come on in.”

Following him into the shop, I reminded calmly: “You might wanna take out your magical equipment though, as I am only part-human.”

I knew that he must have smelled that I wasn't completely human, so this was more of a test to see his reaction.

Stopping for a moment, the guy's purple gaze bore into me, which didn't faze me. Intimidation didn't work on me thanks to my Soul Fortress skill, and if worst came to worst, I could just use the nuclear solution and use my dragon fire while using Power Multiplication.

It was a move that would utterly drain me, but I doubted that even an Ultimate-Class Devil could escape unscathed as my fire was just that destructive. So destructive in fact that even I couldn't stop it once it latched onto something with my current power, thankfully I was immune to it.

After a few moments of silence, he turned around again, as he remarked: “Don't bring trouble to my shop, the rest is none of my business.”

Going behind his counter and turning towards me, he asked: “Any idea for your motif, or do you wanna have a look at some of the binders? Also, you can call me Liam.”

“Akira.”, I introduced myself, “And I already have a motif in mind.”

“Well then, let's hear it.”

“I want three small bird silhouettes surrounding a black pawn piece on the back of my right hand.”, I explained, while roughly pointing at the area I wanted the tattoo to occupy.

“Hmm, that's easy enough. Do you want it in color?”, Liam inquired.

“No, all black.”

Using his pen he took some rough measurements of my hand, before transferring them to a blank piece of paper.

"Well, that's nothing too complicated. Take a seat, I will just draw up a sketch and then you can tell me if you want something changed.", he stated.

“Alright.”, I agreed readily and sat down in one of the leather armchairs near the counter.

As announced, he finished only a few minutes later and the sketch was great. I didn't have anything that I wanted to be changed.

"Well, if you don't want anything changed then I will just redraw the contours on some transfer paper and we can start. Just take a seat in that chair over there, I will be there in a minute."

Doing as he asked, I sat in the leather lounger and waited for him to finish up. It didn't take long and after spraying some disinfectant and cleaning the back of my hand he used the transfer paper, which caused the lines to be visible on my hand.

"So just that you know, this motif is simple and wouldn't cost more than 25k Yen normally. But magical ink isn't cheap at all, so you will have to pay triple.", Liam stated as he readied his needle.

I had no problem with the price, as this body's parents transferred a sizeable amount of money every month, much more than one would need for living expenses. Thankfully the 'former' Akira was a frugal spender and had saved up around two million Yen over the years.

“That's alright. Though out of curiosity, what kind of ink is that?”, I replied.

Giving me a crafty smirk, he answered: "That's the stuff human magicians use for drawing rune circles. It's a natural conductor of any kind of magical energy, so it won't be expelled by your body during the healing process. They make it using alchemy with the main ingredient being the blood of magical creatures, and I am not just talking about animals."

“Kinda to be expected when talking about human magicians.”, I stated, knowing that the human faction was probably one of the most brutal and ruthless.

The whole thing didn't take more than half an hour, which passed mostly in silence.

And even though the position at the back of my hand was rather painful normally due to the hand bones and thin skin, it felt only slightly uncomfortable for me, which I guessed was because of my enhanced Physique, which made me more resistant to pain.

Once finished, Liam taped a piece of foil over the tattoo.

"You can take that off when it's healed, which shouldn't take to long considering you aren't human. There are some skincare products for tattoos, but they are equally useless to those like us. The magical ink also won't fade, so you won't have to come by for a brush-up.", he explained, while I paid him.

"Alright and thanks, it looks great. I will probably come by again soon when I have some more time.", I said, having seemingly awakened a taste for this body art.

“Do that, but remember to leave your problems outside of my shop.”

"I will.", I assured him before leaving the shop and making my way back home, so that I could go back to my training.

…

For the next two days, I trained in the spear excessively and with the help of two golden tears, I managed to advance my Spearmanship to the next level.

[Your Spearmanship Proficiency has advanced to the Master rank. You are rewarded with 7 Free Attribute Points for your efforts.]

[Your Physique has increased by 1.2 points through training, reaching 5.3 points.]

I knew that from now on further improvements would be more time-consuming, as I had largely caught up with my last life's skill in Spearmanship.

I also had only the afternoon left to get stuff done, as tomorrow was my first day at the Academy. On that note, I needed to buy another white shirt I could wear, because the one from the uniform didn't fit me anymore, and even the pants were rather tight.

It seemed I would have to just generally buy some new clothes and then tomorrow see if I could get another uniform my size at school.

So that's exactly what I did after taking a quick shower and borrowing some of my father's clothes again, which were also not a perfect fit, to be honest.

Taking the bus to the downtown area, I didn't hesitate as I chose a nearby mall as my target.