Lord Darius Loch frowned as he took his first step onto the chilly coast of the frozen wastes. It looked like he had beat the ferry, and the former soldier didn’t know quite how to feel about that. On one hand, it was a bit annoying that he’d still arrived first despite spending over an hour haggling other merchants for a short-notice replacement. As usual, other merchants were quick to raise their demands as soon as they suspected he was in a hurry.


    On the other hand, there was no small sense of satisfaction from beating the ferry anyway. Thus, Darius decided he would go ahead and choose both—pride in his own victory and dissatisfaction with the ferry service for not doing better.


    Oh, and there was another minor reason for him to frown. It looked like only three of his students were accounted for. Had the other two died? The Rank A alchemist’s frown deepened. That would be a bit inconvenient.


    Either way, it wouldn’t stop him from enjoying a leisurely stroll across the rock-strewn beach and up towards the town square. If they weren’t dead, they were fine, and if they were dead, there was nothing he could do about it. So there was little point in worrying—at least now that he was already here.


    _____


    There was most definitely something actively drawing the ghouls’ attention. This made Zoe rather pleased, as it made the ghouls rather easy to kill with impunity. She’d racked up quite the kill-streak on her way towards—wherever it was they were all converging. After cutting another of the undead in half with her blood whip, she pulled up the quest she was currently interested in.


    [THE FIRST HARVEST]


    As a newly minted Higher Demon, you now have the power to accelerate your own advancement with the blood of others. Ordinary Humans can actually do that too, but having thrown away your mortal shell first makes it feel significantly more dramatic.


    A humble suggestion—slaughtering 250 monsters of the same core type might be a good start.


    -Rewards-


    1 Elemental Awakening Core (Rank E)


    -Progress-


    68 / 250


    Damn. That was disappointing. Zoe was hoping to make progress on completing the quest and getting another elemental awakening core. Having more options would definitely be useful for when she eventually decided to bind her stats, which was part of how she would advance to the next tier.


    Unfortunately, the wording of the quest pretty obviously meant that she couldn’t just kill 250 monsters—she had to kill 250 monsters of the same core type. It was obvious because the quest said ‘250 monsters of the same core type.’


    The result was that she had killed less than sixty-eight ghouls so far—that number was still from the bunny slaughter just over a day ago. Zoe did make sure to store all of the cores—just in case—and she was pretty excited for when the number would finally tick up to sixty-nine. She had been worried about the quest being difficult to complete just because of having to find that many monsters—but the ghouls here weren’t giving her too much trouble on that end.


    “I’m so proud of you by the way.”


    Zoe didn’t bother to actually give Lilith a scathing look. She was a little too preoccupied for that, what with darting between abandoned buildings and gutting blighted monsters in near total darkness. So instead of giving Lilith said scathing look, Zoe just thought the intent of it really hard.


    “Don’t you dare give me that look!” It seemed like it worked. “I’ll have you know that not all Demons take to violence this quickly. Though they always catch up eventually. That or they die first.”


    Zoe honestly couldn’t tell whether her twin Demon buddy was being completely genuine—or if she was still trying to tease her for some reason. But it didn’t really matter, because she still had at least 182 more ghouls to kill. She didn’t have time to spare for banter.


    “I promise I’m not mocking you—this time—but why are you so focused on this? I don’t mean to complain, but your sudden drive here is… interesting?”


    Ducking into a side alley to rest for a moment and recover some mana, Zoe thought about it for a few seconds. Mostly she was thinking about how to manage the cost of all her different skills though. A lot of them used mostly blood instead of mana. That was pretty sweet when she was massacring a bunch of stuff—except for things like ghouls which didn’t actually have much usable blood. That was currently a bit of a problem.


    Also, it could be a problem for when she wasn’t in the middle of killing things. She’d already experienced one form of that earlier that day. She felt like she’d almost passed out from using so much of her own blood to keep healing everyone else.


    Then there was also the difficulty of recovering mana. She had plenty of other skills that only used mana, and that ran the risk of soul strain. Zoe was unfortunately well-acquainted with that—not even mentioning the incident of self-inflicted soul damage. Ironically though, managing her mana had become less of an issue since escaping the ancient temple turned cultist lair place. She just had to devour a few monster cores from her personal inventory every now and then.


    According to Lilith, it was ‘like a renewable source of mana potions but they don’t make you sick.’ Which—yeah, that sounded pretty good to Zoe.


    Having scarfed down a couple more cores—from the ghouls this time—Zoe darted back out onto the increasingly-crowded main streets. There wasn’t much she could do about the blood issue right now though, so she’d just be sure to keep it in mind.


    Oh wait. Lilith had also asked her a question, hadn’t she. What did she ask? It was something about why Zoe was currently so focused on slaughtering every ghoul she could find. Fortunately, the answer to that was simple. I want my elemental awakening core.


    Zoe swore she could feel Lilith laughing at that. The sensation bugged her a little bit, so she went on to explain herself. So I really don’t want to struggle to complete the quest just because I can’t find 250 of the same thing, right? Well there’s definitely at least that many ghouls packed in here, and so far they haven’t been giving me much trouble.


    A casual activation of rending touch blasted a too-close ghoul apart at the same time as her blood whip decapitated two others—case in point. And the system seemed to agree.


    Blood Whip has reached level 6!


    Rending Touch has reached level 4!


    You have leveled up! You are now level 15.


    +15 stat points.


    +2% core progression.


    A pleasant side-effect of the quest was the massive uptick in leveling up both her skills and her—level. Although—Zoe did suspect it had a lot more to do with whatever it was Lilith had been doing up until her evolution. She was still going to have a talk with Lilith later about that.


    But still, on the upside, surgeon’s eye had also risen from level two to three, and mirage and cloak of scorn had both leveled up twice—bringing them to levels five and four respectively.


    Also, she’d now saved up over one-hundred stat points.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    -Available-


    > 128 stat points


    Taking another pause in a moonless alleyway, Zoe pulled up her stats.


    -Stats and Bindings-


    Power 80


    Perception 100


    Acuity 80


    Durability 80


    Vitality 164


    Vitality was now a little bit high, but there was little point in trying to catch everything else up to it right now. So instead Zoe just added ten to perception and thirty to everything else—excluding vitality of course.


    Power increased to 110!


    Perception increased to 110!


    Acuity increased to 110!


    Durability increased to 110!


    -Available-


    > 28 stat points


    A literal jolt stabbed through Zoe’s body upon confirming the changes. “Oof!” It felt good and bad at the same time, but mostly bad—but in a way that would probably end up feeling mostly good in a few moments. Does that make any sense?


    “Yes, it does,” Lilith confirmed rather helpfully, “and that is exactly why you don’t apply several different large stat increases all at the same time. At least, not when you can avoid it. I’m pretty sure we could have avoided it in this instance.”


    “Shut up.” It took Zoe longer than she’d like to admit to get her bearings. It would have been very easy for a ghoul to get the jump on her in the meantime—so it was a good thing none of them actually did that. Probably because they’re all so focused on getting closer to wherever it is that they’re going. Zoe frowned.


    At first, she’d thought something was just drawing their attention somehow. But this… The way they were all converging with single-minded focus was unnerving. Unnatural, even.


    Popping into existence in her tiny doll form right in front of Zoe’s face, Lilith looked around as well. “I… have to agree. Something is calling to them. Something infernal. Something we can feel too.”


    Wait, what? Creeping forward, Zoe thought about it. Could she feel anything? Well, that was way too vague of a question. Could she feel anything from the direction they were headed? Something other than the icy wind? Cloak of scorn alleviated a lot of that particular sensation—but the way it brushed around her horns still made them tingle in an annoying way.


    “Holy fuck, that’s not the wind, dumbass.”


    Zoe wanted to protest and ask what it could be then, but Lilith didn’t give her a chance to get a single word in. “That’s literally us feeling the magic that’s calling the ghouls. For the last time, they are antennae, not horns. Like holy hell, why did I have to awaken as such an incompetent, foolish, blighted MORON?”


    Zoe—didn’t know what to say to that. The only thing she could think of as she increased her use of mirage and picked up her speed again was—wow.


    It was a good reminder that Lilith wasn’t her friend and didn’t always have her best interests in mind. Zoe thought back to the confusing—and terrifying—experience she went through right after stealing the core and first becoming a Demon. How the thing she’d come to call ‘Lilith’ had tried to reshape her body and take over her mind. The only thing that had prevented it from being successful was Zoe’s outsider title. If Zoe hadn’t gotten that frankly overpowered title from the system right away…


    “I am you and you are me and—all you did was separate us from ourselves.” Lilith tried to settle onto Zoe’s shoulder, only for Zoe to snatch the scheming plushie and toss her back into the air.


    “No, we’re not.” Zoe stopped again. She was stopping in alleyways far too often for her liking these past few minutes. But this was important. “We are not the same. I am a Human from earth. I don’t care that the system calls me a Demon, I don’t care if I have stupid antennae-horns. And you are some sort of Demonic spirit haunting me.”


    The thing floating in front of her vision tried to interrupt her. Zoe didn’t let it.


    Outsider.


    To her slight surprise, lightly drawing upon the title for a short moment worked. It shut Lilith up, and Zoe continued—speaking out loud still. “Let’s not pretend that you wouldn’t immediately switch our places if you could. You’re only helpful to me because you’re stuck with me.” A deep breath. “And you are helpful. So I’m willing to work with that. Hell, I’m even willing to figure out ways to give you more of your own freedom at some point. But I need you to be open with me. And to cut the bullshit.”


    Silence. Zoe expected some kind of response. The lack of one was a bit unnerving, but she wouldn’t allow it to get to her. Then, the imaginary doll nodded. It settled back on her shoulder—and Zoe let it this time. “As you wish.”


    Well—that’s a start, at least. Now, it was time to hurry up and see what all the fuss was about. After all, Zoe couldn’t imagine that Lily also sneaking out of the camp was a simple coincidence with whatever was up with the ghouls.


    Identify revealed that the elemental summoner had an infernal alignment after all.


    So with that taken care of, Zoe broke into a sprint. Having just boosted herself with a total of one-hundred stat points made streaking through the increasingly dense flow of shambling undead rather easy. Zoe didn’t even have to use a single skill to effortlessly weave between them at a speed she probably couldn’t have achieved in a straight line back on earth. Having higher stats is fun.


    Also, the ease of it—along with Zoe’s decision to hurry towards the center of the action and not waste time picking off the monsters on the outskirts—it let her divert some attention to something else. The sky.


    At first, Zoe just thought the near-total darkness was due to a lack of artificial lighting. She was used to cities on earth, after all. But here? The dead coastal town didn’t even have a single lantern.


    But now, Zoe came to a new realization. The darkness wasn’t just due to a lack of artificial light—there was a complete lack of light coming from the sky as well. It probably took her a while to notice the utter lack of stars or a moon for the same reason she didn’t question the darkness—she was used to big cities where light pollution meant you couldn’t see any stars anyway.


    But here, in this dead town with not a single lantern…


    “Lilith—why aren’t there any stars?”


    _____


    Darius couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at both the sorry state of the supposed ‘camp’ and at the panicked demeanor of the three students who were actually present. Well, technically speaking, he very much could help it. He just decided to let some measure of his disappointment slip through on purpose—mostly because the reaction from the three before him was a bit funny.


    The first one he focused on—because the boy was quite large and thus easily noticeable—well that would be none other than Brother Sean. The designated group leader’s name wasn’t actually ‘Brother’—that was just the typical term of address used within the Church. In this instance, the Church was shorthand for The Living Church of the Sixfold Hallows. But no one ever said that, because people in Norvask only ever meant one thing when they referred to the Church.


    That thing being ‘The Living Church of the Sixfold Hallows.’


    Also, using every possible opportunity to address church people as ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’ was one of those things you could use to annoy them without being called out on it.


    “Brother Sean. What’s going on?”


    The paladin-recruit coughed into his fist as he stepped up. “Liliana ran away not too long ago, Sir. Likely to go running around killing things.”


    Ah. That would certainly explain two of the absences. Darius was not surprised that the troublesome young heiress of the Blodmanes had deserted the camp to—as Brother Sean so eloquently framed it—‘go running around killing things.’


    Naturally, this would explain the absence of her minder Andric as well. The heiress’s minder cared for little other than guaranteeing the protection and advancement of his charge. He was also the only one among them who operated at above a baseline standard of competence.


    That being said…


    “And what of the healer you encountered?”


    The former soldier had not forgotten that particular piece of the original message. Encountering a strange healer alone in the middle of the frozen wastes was one thing. Encountering said healer at the same time as infernal cult activity was definitely a second thing, and said healer disappearing at the same time as two Blodmanes of all things pushed it well past a third.


    They did not find a random healer who escaped from a cult ritual. They found a Demon that escaped from a cult ritual.


    It might still be a healer—but a powerful blood affinity was more likely. Either way, Darius did hope the Demon wouldn’t run away before he could find it. Or worse—die. He knew of at least one Rank A lord who was interested in inspecting it while it was still alive.


    Brother Sean was still speaking, of course, and Darius spared at least a little attention to following along. All it really amounted to was that Liliana and the Demon had disappeared at around the same time. Unexpected, but not unsurprising.


    So after the hulking Templar recruit Darius had selected as the squad leader wrapped up, the aging alchemist clapped his hands together and nodded at all three of the students present. “Right then. Let’s go see what our local Von Gershenfeld is up to, and whether it also involves that missing Demon you all picked up from the supply cache.”


    Three mouths dropped open. Darius carefully schooled his expression into a serious neutrality. “So are we going to get moving or what?”