"Anything!" Croaked Melalo. "Just state your terms and I'll follow them!"

  Kurt’s glare became even more caustic.

  "Fine then." he said. "Answer every question I pose you sincerely and, in exchange, I won’t kill you at this moment. Deal?"

  The demon didn’t answer immediately, baffled at the lax terms of the contract. It caught up quite quickly though.

  "Deal!" It yelled.

  Status effect "Soul Contract" has been applied.

  "Uh." Murmured the boy. "That was easy."

  "Yes." said the demon, its tone smug once again. "Fooling you was indeed quite easy, you goddamned idiot! Ask your little questions before I get freed from my seal!"

  "Fine." If Kurt was worried about the posibility the creature had just brought up, he didn’t show it.

  "First question:" He started. "Do you know what caused your seal to be damaged?"

  "No." Answered the creature. "Something nature aligned, but I don’t know what."

  "Fine. Second question: That trick from before, the illusions and mind reading, how can I defend myself against that?"

  The creature looked confused at this question. "You have to create a Psychic Ward through your aether. How don’t you know that? Aren’t you a sorcerer? That was common knowledge amongst your kind back when I was sealed."

  "I’m a novice." Handwaved Kurt. "Third and last question: If I break that core of yours, would you die permanently? Or would you pull a ‘That wasn’t my true body and I can come back’ bullshit?"

  The demon snickered. "In normal circumstances? The later. In most cases only damage to the soul can properly kill a demon. But here? Trapped in this seal, and with Primeval magic flowing and ready to swallow my essence before it can return to The Abyss? I would have died. You could have killed me, hadn’t you gone and signed our contract. Now you must sit here and wait until my prison breaks apart, and my plagues swallow this entire population like-!"

  "Enough. Thanks for the info." Kurt walked away from the head and towards his sword, which stood embedded in the ground, and grabbed it with a hand before raising it above his head.

  "Wait!" Shrieked the demon. "What are you doing?! Our contract-!"

  "Our contract," Interrupted Kurt. "Said that I wouldn’t kill you ‘this time’. Now, what do you think I meant by that?"

  "That…" Whimpered the creature, its tone horrified. "That you would let me go with my life? And out this seal?"

  "Well," Snapped back the boy. He was taking his time to deliver the last blow. "If that’s what you came up with on your own, I can’t be held accountable for it, right? By ‘this time’ I meant the minute the contract was made, which has already passed. These things are very literal with their terms. You should have asked."

  The creature’s last eye widened, and its face grotesquely distorted in horror. It had been utterly dupped. The light of hope had dangled right in front of its eyes for a brief moment, only to be snuffed out with great cruelty. There was only one emotion Melalo could muster in the face of this.

  Absolute despair.

  "NOOOO!!! Pleasepleasepleaseforgivemeilldoanythi-!"

  The sword came down, splitting the core in half as if it were a rotten watermelon. Demonic fluid burst from the sphere and boiled away when it came in contact with the blade.

  You have leveled up *7* times . HP, SP and STM restored to 100%!

  LV:9 à16

  All stats up by *7*

  STR:28

  VIT:31

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  DEX:37

  MND:34

  SPT:24

  The demon exploded in a thin mist. Ripples coursed through the seal’s walls, erasing the yellow sparks of demon energy as they reached them. For a moment, the world stood still.

  And then the now pure green walls began cracking and collapsing in a rush of verdant energy. This energy washed all over the chamber and around Kurt’s body without doing any harm. If anything it felt pleasantly warm. This must have been going for a few seconds, thirty at most, before the rush ultimately ran dry and Kurt was left standing in a dome of carved stone about the width the seal had been, if not slightly larger.

  "Kurt!" Called a voice. The boy turned his heard towards it.

  Mila, Conrad and Galton stood at the edge of the cavern and the now dissipated seal, looking at him.

  Mila rushed towards him and gloomped him with all of her strength. Kurt reciprocated absentmindedly. His eyes kept darting around the chamber, as if waiting for a new enemy that just didn’t come.

  After a moment, Mila broke the hug, and looked into the boy’s face. "Kurt?" She asked. "Are you okay?"

  "Yes." He answered, his voice somewhat flat. "Just… tired."

  He heard Galton’s laugh come from somewhere to his left. "No wonder why kid! You just killed a frigging demon! Come on, let's get outta here."

  "Wait." Called Conrad, who had been walking around the chamber while observing the signs of the battle. "There’s something here. Come and check it."

  And they did. The three of them walked up to where Conrad was, and looked at the spot he was pointing at.

  "Welp," said Galton. "that’s not something you see everyday."

  The demon’s remaining claw laid on the floor before them. It had survided the death and purging that the rest of Melalo had experience, but it hadn’t done so unaffected.

  Where the appendage had once been a dark, quitinous hook brimming with bright yellow essence of plague, it now looked like a regular beast’s white bone without any edge to it-it’s tip and inner surface had been smoothened, like a rock polished by a river’s flow- and softly pulsating with an ochre energy.

  Kurt stepped ahead the group.

  "Hey, kid! We shouldn’t be touching that thing without…"

  Ignoring Galton’s words, Kurt grabbed the claw and looked at it until a screen finally appeared.

  Melalo’s Claw (Purified)

  Quality: Rare

  The claw of the plague demon known as Melalo. Once carrying the demon’s terrible power over disease and rot, this claw has been purified by its master’s death and a heavy exposure to Primeval magic, and now carries the power to cure disease and infection instead of causing it.

  "It’s safe." said the boy as he pushed the claw into his inventory. "It’s purified."

  The boy looked at the group. "So?" He asked. "Are you ready to go?"

  The walk back to the surface was an uneventful one. Galton led the march once again, but unlike last time the group’s mood was a gravely one. When any of the three asked Kurt anything about the fight or the demon he answered laconically, in a manner that made it clear that he didn’t want to talk about it. None of them tried to press the issue and, after a small while, the group had fallen silent.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The group of sorcerers was waiting for them at the sewer’s exit.

  Numbering four of them, all carrying staffs with the solomonic seal engraved, the group was led by a raven-haired woman in her early-forties, with a strange golden cube the size of a fist hanging from her hip. Galton’s expression soured when he saw her.

  Sorcerer of the Solomonic Order

  Sarah Morgan

  LV:49

  "Edward." The woman said. "Who are these kids? And why did you take them to the demon’s chamber?"

  "And who are you?" Asked Kurt, scowling at her.

  "Kurt, please!" Exclaimed Galton before looking back at the older sorceress. " They are members of a small order located west of Seattle, The Order of Myra. They came to the city in a quest to retrieve an artifact. They were aiding at the quest to slay the demon that was sealed underground."

  "And how," Asked Morgan. "-were they aiding you?"

  Galton didn’t answer. Cold sweat overtook his factions.

  "Galton." Asked the man. "How did they help you?"

  Kurt walked in between both sorcerers, and glowered at Morgan. "Killed the demon. That’s how. Any problem with that?"

  The sorcerers began murmuring. Morgan scowled even deeper than before.

  "All four of you." she said. "Come with me."

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The four of them ended up following Morgan as her three subordinates flanked them-one behind and one at each side, with Morgan himself in the front-, as if they were prisoners. Maybe they were. After all, Kurt had no idea how seriously this order took unlicensed demon slaying.

  "Kurt, what the heck was that?" Whispered Mila, who was walking by his side.

  "The truth." Answered the boy. "Lying wouldn’t have done us any favors if caught. Plus, I'm sure that hag was already onto us, so either way the truth was the way to go."

  Conrad, who was walking behind Kurt and besides Galton, scoffed at this"And what about that attitude from before? Does that help our cause?"

  "Why don’t you hold your tongue before I rip it off your mouth?"

  "The hell you said to m-?"

  "Kids!" Interrupted Galton. "Enough of that. Don’t worry about a thing. I'll be taking the blame for everything."

  "The blame for what?" Snapped Kurt. "A demon is dead and we are getting punished for it? What kind of idiotic code does your order follow?"

  Galton didn’t snap back, or even show a hint of offense at the boy’s words. He just sighed tiredly. "A very old one. Look, whatever happens, just let me do the talking, okay?

  He was looking at Kurt in the eye as he said this, and kept doing it as he awaited an answer.

  "…Fine." Finally said Kurt. "But no one here is getting punished for any of what happened down there, including you. If any of these guys try, I'm going to step in and that’s final, okay?"

  "I guess it’s gonna have to be." Answered Galton, a smile half-formed on his mouth. "I couldn’t stop you if I tried either way."

  They kept walking for what must have been a couple miles before someone spoke again. This someone being Conrad.

  "Hey, Kurt." He called. "What happened down there? With the demon, I mean."

  "I killed it." Answered Kurt.

  For the second time, Conrad scoffed. "Yeah, no shit. I mean how did the fight go. What the hell happened with that thing that’s got you being so…"

  "Cranky?" Offered Mila, trying to avoid another fight between them.

  "…much of an asshole." Finished Conrad. "This isn’t like you at all. It’s unnerving."

  "Fighting a demon is never a pleasant experience." Added Galton as he turned to Kurt. "It’s normal to be in a foul mood afterwards, but talking about it is always helpful."

  "Yeah!" Interjected Mila. "Whatever it is, you can tell us. We won’t judge you or anything."

  Kurt looked at her as she talked. To his eyes, her smiling semblance seemed almost superposed with that bloodied and tear-stained mask of agony the demon had shown him in his final vision. His face twisted in shame, and he promptly looked straight ahead again.

  "I’m fine." he said. None of the three bought it.

  "Kurt." Called Conrad. "Seriously, you can just tell-"

  "We have arrived." said Morgan. "Don’t worry, he’ll do all the explaining you want in here."

  The four raised their heads to look a their destination: A set of red wooden doors at the side of an unremarkable brick building. Atop the doors rest a sign that read "McClaren’s Pub"

  "Another ‘hide-in-plain-sight’ scenario?" Asked Kurt. "Like the fake sewer?"

  "Yup." Answered Galton.

  And with that, the group of eight stepped into the establishment. It looked, for the most part, like a regular pub: A bar at one side of the room and multiple stalls on the other and some tables scattered around. But it was empty. It was about 18:00 PM of a Friday, and only the bartender, an older gentleman wit a neatly trimmed beard and short white hair, could be found in the establishment.

  Kurt barely took notice to this, instead, his eyes went straight at the bartender, and the screen atop his head.

  Master Demonologist of the Solomonic Order

  Magnus Lindberg

  LV:125