Chapter 4: The Great Labyrinth of Brute

Chapter 4:
The Great Labyrinth of Brute

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

“ARE YOU SURE this is where the ring was pointing, Master?” Night asked, looking up at me as we stood before the entrance to the Great Labyrinth of Brute.

The towering doors had already been repaired after the recent monster invasion, and they were shut tight. The Adventurer’s Guild certainly worked fast.

There was no one else around, so we could get inside quite easily—it was the getting out part I was worried about. There was no guarantee we’d find a convenient teleportation circle at the bottom like in the Great Labyrinth of Kantinen, so going in was a bit of a gamble.

I looked down at the ring on my right hand. The light pointed directly at the doors. “Yup, this is the place, no doubt about it,” I confirmed, opening the doors. Night sighed before enlarging himself, and I hopped up on his back. “Now remember: we’re just gonna bomb right through as fast we can, okay?”

“Leave it to me.”

We’d agreed beforehand that since our goal was to find Amelia as quickly as possible, we would do our best to avoid as many fights as we could. There was no telling how deep into the labyrinth Aurum Tres had taken her, so the plan was to just have Night run through every standard floor between boss arenas. I was sure I was well enough to run alongside him now, but he stubbornly refused, insisting I ride on his back out of an abundance of caution. Sometimes it felt like Night was the master and I was the familiar.

“Actually, hold up a minute,” I said, stopping Night just before he was about to run inside. I had felt something—a presence. I pulled out a throwing knife and threw it into a shadowy corner.

“Eek?!” cried a voice, and the beastfolk girl who’d been spying on us stepped into the light. Her face was covered by a hood, and she was fairly tall for a girl—maybe just slightly shorter than I was. But something struck me as strange; her voice was almost familiar. I scrunched my brows together as I struggled to remember.

“Who goes there?!” Night roared, causing the very air around us to tremble.

Naturally, the girl froze at Night’s voice and was now shaking in her boots.

“Dial the Intimidate down a notch, would ya?” I reprimanded him. “We’re not gonna be able to get much information out of her if you scare her literally speechless.”

“Very well,” Night responded before lowering the intensity of his Intimidate skill enough to let her speak, but not enough to let her escape.

“Um…” said the girl, her voice clear as crystal.

Then it hit me. “Wait a minute… Aren’t you that girl I spoke to outside the Great Labyrinth of Kantinen? The one who was being all angsty about the hero summoning ritual? Something about it requiring a lot of sacrifices or whatever?”

“Hang on. Then you’re… No, now’s not the time. Sorry to spring this on you out of nowhere, but would you mind if I tagged along?!” the hooded girl asked, shaking her head bashfully.

“We don’t know if you can be trusted, and we’re already in a hurry as it is. We don’t have time to babysit you,” said Night, giving voice to my thoughts. Our feline friend was very kind to me and Amelia, but he had no patience for strangers. A relic of his time as a monster, perhaps.

“So you want me to introduce myself, is that it?” the girl asked. She lowered her hood to reveal her husky-like ears and brilliant cobalt-blue eyes, which felt as though they could pierce straight through me. “I’m Lia. Lia Lagoon, princess of the great nation of Uruk.”

Her steadfast gaze reminded me a little bit of Amelia’s.

“Well, well. And what in the world is a princess of Uruk doing in a place like this?”

The girl’s voice shook in the face of Night’s Intimidate skill, and I could tell from her frightened expression that she hadn’t seen much actual combat. Night was only using the skill at a level equivalent to that of low-level monsters on the upper levels of the Great Labyrinth of Kantinen. This told me that, even if we were to let Lia tag along with us, she certainly wouldn’t be taking part in any battles.

“I need to speak with Amelia, Princess of the Elves,” the girl said.

“What business have you with Lady Amelia?!” Night snarled.

Upon hearing this, I was unable to maintain my composure. I hopped down from Night’s back and grabbed Lia by the collar.

“Gghk?!”

“Amelia only got captured because she stayed behind and fought off hundreds of monsters to buy your people enough time to get their slow asses to safety,” I spat, pulling out a throwing knife and holding it up against her throat. “Now tell me: how in the world did you know this is where they’re keeping her prisoner?”

I tightened my grip on the knife, accidentally piercing her skin, and a tiny droplet of blood ran down the girl’s quivering neck.

I whispered in her ear. “I hate to break it to you, but I’ve had some pretty negative run-ins with princesses in the past, Amelia excluded, so you’ll have to forgive me if your title doesn’t command much respect from me. If I don’t like your answer, I’ll have no problem killing you right here and now. Now talk.”

I let up on my own Intimidate skill to give her a chance to explain herself. Man, I really lose my cool when it comes to Amelia, don’t I?

She coughed to clear her throat. “You’re right, I don’t have any fighting capabilities, but I do know how to protect. And I’m not here on behalf of my people, but to give her a warning as a fellow princess.”

Her eyes spoke true. I had plenty of questions I wanted to ask her, but I decided it was probably safe to release my grip on her collar. I didn’t put down my knife, however.

“You didn’t answer my question. How did you know this was the place? I didn’t sense you following us here, so you must have been planning to come here all along,” I said, giving her my most intimidating glare.

“I used my Scent Tracker skill. I followed her scent trail, and it led me right to the entrance of the labyrinth.”

Scent Tracker? I cocked my head and looked up at Night.

“It just means she has a heightened sense of smell, essentially. There are skills for heightened versions of all of the five senses, all of which are more likely to manifest in beastfolk than any other race,” he explained, and I nodded in understanding. I figured it would be a good idea to give the old World Eyes a spin to see if Lia was telling us the truth.

 

LIA LAGOON

RACE: Beastfolk CLASS: Guardian (Lv. 52)

HP: 2500/2500 MP: 2000/2000

ATTACK: 150 DEFENSE: 5000

SKILLS:

Scent Tracker (Lv. 7) Royal Grace (Lv. 2)

Short Swords (Lv. 2)

EXTRA SKILLS:

Spirit Barrier

 

Well, she didn’t seem to be lying about her Scent Tracker ability, and its skill level was fairly high to boot. Maybe she really had tracked down Amelia using scent alone—though that didn’t explain how she’d recognized Amelia’s scent in the first place. Her claims about not having any combat prowess seemed to be true as well. Her stats looked to be on par with some of the casters in my class when they had been at Level 1. I knew beastfolk were supposedly naturally gifted with certain skills regardless of whether they used them or not, but hers seemed to be much too low for that—other than her Defense stat, which was enormous in comparison. Though even more than that, there was something else that caught my eye.

“You’re not a trueborn royal, are you?” I asked.

“Wh-who told you that?!” she gasped.

But I wasn’t in the mood to get into it, so I simply hopped back up on Night’s back. “Climb aboard,” I said, reaching a hand down to help her up.

She just stood there, looking dumbfounded.

“Are you sure about this, Master?” Night asked, looking at me over his shoulder. “Even if she wasn’t lying about her abilities, she could still be lying about her motives. We shouldn’t blindly believe every word that comes out of her mouth.”

“Who said I did? I just wanna get a move on, that’s all. We’re wasting daylight here, and I’m sure our little princess knows what she’s getting herself into. Now, are you coming or not?” I asked without even looking down at her.

With trembling hands, Lia grabbed hold of Night’s fur. “I’m coming. I have to convey this message to Princess Amelia no matter what it takes,” she said confidently.

“Fair enough… Step on it, Night,” I ordered, ignoring the look of protest on his face.

I could feel his fur rustling beneath me for a moment, then his body became bathed in light. It was his trademark Shapeshifter ability. When the light receded, my kitty companion had transformed himself into a giant, black-furred cheetah in the interest of speed.

“Hold on tight. If one of you falls off, I won’t turn around to come back for you unless your name is Master,” Night said, looking back at Lia as his muscles bunched beneath us in preparation for takeoff.

One leap, and we were out of the sunlight and into the darkness of the labyrinth. Another, and we landed right in front of a group of monsters. A third, and we had long since passed them by. Lia clung to me for dear life and shrieked directly in my ear. The only girl whose breasts I wanted pressing up against my back was Amelia, so this was more annoying than titillating, but I did my best to put up with it anyway. Hers were a bit bigger than Amelia’s, but I wasn’t even a boobs guy, so it made no difference to me. Though I won’t say what kind of guy I am either.

“All right, you can tell me your story now,” I yelled, turning carefully around to face Lia while clutching Night’s fur. “Just be careful not to accidentally bite your tongue.”

No longer able to cling to me, Lia scrambled to get a good grip on Night’s fur coat. “W-well, y-you’re right that I wasn’t born into the royal family,” she admitted.

This was something I had surmised based on the order of skills on her stat page. Skills were listed in the order in which you obtained them, as far as I could tell. Amelia’s Royal Grace skill was the very first one listed on her stat page, whereas Lia’s was listed second. This led me to believe that if one were truly of royal blood, the skill would be there from the moment you were born and thus appear in the first slot. The only explanation I could think of to explain the discrepancy was that Lia had gained the skill sometime after birth, and she therefore must have been adopted into the royal family. Judging by her reaction, my theory was correct. I wondered if perhaps they had adopted her for her unique class or her Extra Skill.

“I was the daughter of a fairly ordinary, if slightly upper-class, household,” she began after adjusting to the high velocity we were traveling at. “My family were once very powerful nobles, but they fell from grace several generations ago, leaving them no more respected than the average family by my father’s time.”

Now this I had not predicted. Night made a sharp turn into a different corridor, and Lia hunkered down, holding tight to his fur so as not to fall off.

“A-anyway, I was only adopted into the royal family about five years ago, and before that, I lived in a little village out in the countryside. One day, our village was attacked by a monster, and everyone aside from me was killed, including my mom and dad…or so I thought.” She paused and bit her lip.

I had to admit, I was intrigued.

“What kind of monster was it, if you don’t mind telling me?” I asked.

“A slime,” she replied, intense hatred burning in her eyes. “A stupid, pathetic monster I should’ve been able to take out in a single blow. But this was no ordinary slime. It was a disgusting, pitch-black slime the likes of which I’d never seen before or since, and it swallowed every single villager in its goop.”

I gulped. That sounded an awful lot like the slime I’d found Amelia trapped inside of—the type made by scumbag slavers to kidnap beautiful elven women. I found it hard to believe such a slime could have kidnapped Amelia all the way over on the human continent, but I had never really considered it. If Lia was saying the same slimes were taking victims here in Brute, that was a different story entirely. This revelation certainly poked some holes in my theory that the traffickers we encountered back in the elven domain had been knights working on direct orders from Uruk. At least, I hoped beastfolk wouldn’t attack one of their own villages.

“I’m convinced that slime was made artificially in some way, to serve some sort of purpose,” Lia said, apparently having arrived at the same conclusion as Amelia and I had.

“You mentioned that you only thought the other villagers were dead a minute ago. What was that about?” I asked.

Her expression darkened. “Remember what I told you when we first met? That it takes unfathomable sacrifices to conduct the hero summoning ritual?”

“Hang on a minute. You’re not about to tell me those beastfolk were being kidnapped to be used as sacrifices, are you?”

It was something I’d considered back when she’d spoken to me outside the Great Labyrinth of Kantinen, but I’d quickly pushed it into a corner of my mind and forgotten about it. At the time, I couldn’t imagine why such sacrifices would be necessary, and I didn’t want to think of so many dying to bring me and my classmates to Morrigan.

Unfortunately, my fears were about to be confirmed as the truth.

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Lia said. “See, when I first found out I was a guardian, I cast a protective barrier on every one of my fellow villagers, just in case.

Guardians are different from barrier mages in that they can cast barriers on specific people that stay with them, rather than just casting a big stationary forcefield around a predetermined location.”

Interesting. So it works almost like an elemental buff, then. I was eager to find out where this conversation was going.

“If a person dies while the barrier is still in effect—like, say, from being poisoned or something—then the barrier will automatically be dispelled the moment they die. I can feel my spell breaking when that happens…but guess what? I didn’t notice it at first, probably because I was too shaken up from the attack, but not a single one of my barriers disappeared after the slime swallowed the villagers, which told me they had to still be alive. I searched everywhere to find out where they’d been taken, until one day, all of a sudden, I felt all the barriers vanish almost at once. I’d already been adopted into the royal family by that point, so I used every power at my disposal to launch a full-scale investigation into what happened to them.”

I lowered my gaze. I could guess what had happened next.

“My investigators didn’t turn up anything here in Brute, but they finally found a lead on the human continent. A cursed ritual had taken place at almost the exact same time as the barriers disappeared. The ritual required an enormous amount of mana to create a very special type of summoning circle. It was then that I set out for Kantinen to see what these supposed ‘heroes’ looked like with my own two eyes.”

And that’s when she met me, huh.

Come to think of it, Lia probably didn’t realize I was one of those “heroes” who’d been summoned via that ritual, did she? I hadn’t been marching with the other heroes when I sneaked up behind her outside the labyrinth. Even assuming she’d done a background check on me before she came here to meet Amelia (since I was one of Amelia’s companions), she was more likely to come across rumors about me being a “monsterlord” or my “Silent Assassin” nickname than she was to find out I’d been brought here from another world. I was pretty sure Lingga was the only person on this continent who knew that, and I didn’t find it likely he’d gone out of his way to inform a royal princess of that fact. But perhaps what made me surer of this than anything was that she became immediately hostile any time the subject of heroes came up, yet that hatred was never directed at me.

Maybe it would be a good idea to tell her the truth sooner rather than later.

My main reasoning for letting her tag along was that I wasn’t sure just how powerful the demons would be, and I thought it would be nice to have someone with some defensive abilities on our side. It had always been my intention to do the fighting solo, so Lia backing out now wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Besides, even if I did tell her I was one of those summoned heroes, she was in no position to do anything about it.

“My father was a simple accessories maker, and the royal family was quite fond of his work, so when the village was lost, they were more than happy to adopt me into their care. Though I think the fact that I was a guardian had plenty to do with it too,” Lia finished. Then, upon seeing my perplexed face, she got flustered and went on. “Er, sorry! I kinda got a little carried away and scrambled up the order of events, didn’t I? Anyway, there’s my life story. I know it’s pretty boring, so feel free to forget everything I just said.”

Are you kidding me?! Like hell it’s boring! I wanted to scream, but I held it in. Instead, I decided to ask her the biggest question still weighing on my mind. I’d decide whether to tell her about my hero status depending on her answer.

“Okay, so what is it you need to tell Amelia so badly? I realize I don’t know the whole story here, but it doesn’t seem to me like you two would have that much to talk about.”

Given that Lia had merely been adopted into the royal family, and thus wasn’t in the line of succession, it seemed highly unlikely that the two of them were already acquainted with each other, especially given that relations between the elves and the beastfolk were at an all-time low.

Lia hesitated for a minute before answering. “I came to warn her that we’ve received intel stating the Demon Lord has launched an offensive…for the express purpose of capturing her. He’s after her Resurrection Magic.”

I furrowed my brow. This was all getting so complicated that I wished Lia could write out a bullet-point list; not that it would be very easy to write at the moment, with Night moving at top speed, even if I’d had a pen and paper on hand.

“There it is, Master. The tenth-floor boss arena,” Night said, interrupting for the first time since we’d entered the labyrinth.

I turned to look over my shoulder and saw the massive doors up ahead. “Damn, that was fast. Feels like we’ve only been in here a couple minutes…”

“Just who do you think you’re talking to, Master?” Night huffed, then added, “So, what’s the plan?”

“We’re bustin’ in,” I said, turning to face forward. I closed my eyes and braced for impact.

“Copy that!”

Night burst through the doors without hesitation. Lia shrieked and clung to me once more.

“Shadow Magic… Remote Activation!”

The moment the door broke down, my eyes shot wide open. The already dimly lit arena was bathed in even deeper darkness. A moment later, it disappeared entirely. I smirked at the distinct feeling of power.

“Eek!” Lia squealed, catching sight of the desecrated carcass of what had once been the boss as Night dashed to the staircase leading to the next floor.

Until now, I’d only been able to activate my Shadow Magic using my own shadow and the shadows that overlapped it, but with the remote mana control I’d learned back in the Great Labyrinth of Kantinen, as well as my recent experience learning just how far my Shadow Magic could go, I was now able to make use of shadows completely distinct from my own, as long as they were in my field of view.

“You scared?” I asked over my shoulder. Night had already found the stairs leading down to the twelfth floor. His brisk pace was triggering all sorts of traps, but it didn’t matter, since we were long gone by the time they went off.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t,” Lia replied. “But I was the one who asked you to let me tag along, so I’ve got no room to complain.”

I felt her fists tighten around my clothes. I could tell she was trying to act brave, but deep down she probably wished she were anywhere else; that was just the way people were designed—there was nothing we could do to escape that primal fear.

“Just who are you, anyway?” she asked.

I considered her question for a moment before answering. “Well, I guess you could say I’m Amelia’s boyfriend, but more than that, I’m just a simple assassin who got summoned here against his will… That’s right. I’m one of those heroes you so resent.”

“Huh?!” Lia gasped.

As I gave her a minute to let this sink in, I mulled over what she’d just told me. So it was Amelia the Demon Lord was after, eh? I could have sworn it was me he wanted, but maybe he’d only sent Night to summon me to his castle in order to get Amelia there as well. But why was he after her Resurrection Magic? Was he on his deathbed and hoping it would save him? I had a hard time seeing why anyone would want to live in this messed-up world longer than their already ridiculous lifespan allowed, but maybe that was just me.

“So you were brought here via the hero summoning ritual?” Lia asked.

“Yep, that’s right, and no doubt at the cost of your friends’ and family’s lives. How does that make you feel? Do you despise me now? Would killing me make you feel better?”

I knew it wasn’t fair for her to hold something like that against me when I had no choice in the matter, but I also thought it would be good to at least try and show her some empathy. I certainly wasn’t going to let her kill me, of course, but if she wanted to slap me or something, I was prepared to let her do it.

Yet it seemed I had underestimated the girl.

“No, there’s no blood on your hands. I recognize the hero summoning ritual is unfair for both its victims as well as the people it summons. It’s those villains over in Retice whom I’ll never forgive.”

It felt like I’d been emotionally suplexed. I could feel Night chuckling beneath me.

“Looks like you could learn a thing or two about maturity from her, Master.”

“Oh, shut up, you,” I grumbled, before turning back to face Lia again. This time, she adjusted to holding Night’s fur without issue. “Let me ask you a different question, then: do you want to kill the hero?”

With how much spite I’d felt exuding from her the day we first met, I couldn’t imagine she had zero desire for vengeance. She claimed to bear no ill will toward me, yes, but perhaps my classmate Satou Tsukasa, the hero at the center of it all, was a different story.

And just as I’d suspected, Lia nodded. “I do get that the hero didn’t choose to be summoned either, but…” She faltered, hanging her head. I guess it wasn’t that easy for her to simply let go of those feelings. Personally, I didn’t care much one way or the other whether that stupid hero got himself killed, so I certainly wasn’t offended.

“Well, let’s get back on topic, shall we? You came to warn Amelia, and her scent led you here, where you bumped into us, and now we’re going to save her together,” I summarized, rubbing my chin as I tried to get a handle on the sequence of events thus far.

“Yes, that’s correct… Um, actually, could I ask you a question?” Lia asked hesitantly, and I gave her a little nod without looking up. “Do you know who kidnapped her?”

“We do. It was a demon by the name of Aurum Tres.”

Lia’s eyes grew wide as I bit my lip in anger. The fact that she’d been kidnapped by a demon meant it the Demon Lord himself had likely given the order. And since Aurum Tres was the demons’ third-in-command, that meant it really only could have been the Demon Lord—or his second-in-command—who’d sent him here. I still didn’t know what exactly the Demon Lord wanted Amelia for, but I knew I wouldn’t like it. We had to do whatever it took to rescue Amelia before they had a chance to whisk her off to his castle.

 

POV: AMELIA ROSEQUARTZ

 

MUCH TO MY DISMAY, the first thing I saw upon waking was not the piercing jet-black eyes of my beloved, but a big pair of vibrant emerald eyes instead.

“Oh, hey! You’re awake!”

The sight of a creepy little boy smiling down at me woke me right up. I tried to get away, but try as I might, my body wasn’t moving the way I wanted it to.

“Whoops, sorry! You actually can’t move a muscle right now; I made sure of that. But it’s for your own good! You just came back to life via your Resurrection Magic, so your body’s really weak right now, y’know?”

I strained my neck to at least get a decent look at my surroundings. I wasn’t being restrained by chains or ropes—my body had simply been rendered incapable of moving, perhaps by some sort of magic. I recognized the feeling of the sandy dirt against my cheek. It was a different place, to be sure, but the atmosphere was nearly identical.

“A labyrinth?”

“Got it in one! You’re very observant, Princess.” The boy nodded happily.

I glared at him. I felt like he’d told me his name before he killed me, but I hadn’t exactly been in the mood to memorize it at the time, and I had promptly forgotten. The boy continued grinning like an idiot—my death glare hadn’t fazed him at all.

“Well, jeez, you don’t have to look so ticked off about it. Kind of a waste of such a pretty face, don’tcha think?”

I gritted my teeth at the boy’s obnoxious demeanor. My body still wouldn’t move an inch. All I could feel was the cold, hard ground against my cheek and the aching pain in my back from laying on my side on such a rugged surface.

The little boy trotted closer to me. “What did I just say? You can’t move right now. His Majesty said not to put a scratch on you, so I had to do something to keep you in pristine condition,” he said, waltzing around a bit before shoving his face directly in front of mine. “Y’know, I always wondered what would happen if I used my monster-controlling abilities on an elf, a human, or a beastfolk. And thanks to you, now I finally know!”

He was within arm’s reach of me now, and I couldn’t do a thing about it. It was entirely possible that he was too strong for me to fight on my own anyway. I couldn’t even run and hide. A weakling like me didn’t deserve to be Akira’s partner.

“They didn’t allow me to actually control you, per se, but the fact that I was able to stop you from moving entirely is quite interesting. You elves generally have quite a bit of mana, after all. Second only to us demons, of course.” He smirked before stepping away.

I cared less about his stupid research and more about what Akira might say when he saw me incapacitated like this. If he decided I wasn’t fit to accompany him, I didn’t know how I would go on living… No, now wasn’t the time to get trapped in a negative spiral. I needed to try to squeeze as much intel out of this little boy as possible.

“Why are we in the labyrinth?” I asked, and the boy’s eyes twinkled with delight.

Apparently he’d been hoping I’d strike up a conversation with him. The demon really was just a little boy at heart, even if he was hundreds of years older than me.

“Yeah, so get this! My, um…superior, I guess you could say? He’s the demons’ second-in-command. Anyway, he knows how to use magic circles like nobody’s business, and he made a teleportation circle so we could warp straight into this here labyrinth and sneak into the country. In order to warp back home, we’ve gotta go aaaaall the way back to the bottom of the labyrinth and use that same teleportation circle. Honestly, I dunno why he had to put it all the way down there, y’know? I mean, I guess he’s just being overly cautious, but still.”

Amazingly, the boy didn’t hesitate before divulging a mountain of what probably should have been confidential information, and my jaw dropped—well, not literally, since I couldn’t move, but in spirit. So the second-in-command was a master of magic circles, was he? And he could make them strong enough to teleport all the way from Volcano to Brute. Not quite as unbelievable as the one that had warped us from Kantinen to the Sacred Forest, but still pretty impressive. If he could create them on the spot to warp even short distances, then he could probably teleport right into your blind spot and get you from behind.

As long as the circle was drawn quickly and enough mana was channeled into it, the method could be much faster than casting by incantation. On the flip side, circles used up much more mana, so they weren’t an option for humans or beastfolk. Even elves barely had the mana to pull off the most basic of magic circles, and ones designed for teleportation were most certainly off the table. The demons had invented magic circles; it might have been accurate to say they were the only ones who could have invented them. The other races had long since given up their research efforts due to the enormous mana costs. Though I had heard of one human researcher who supposedly found a way to mitigate the costs several years back, but he had been kidnapped by the demons before he could release his findings. No one knew where he was now, but most assumed he was dead.

“I know! What a pain in the butt, right? I totally agree,” the boy continued. “The final boss monster was kind enough to give me a lift to the surface on my way up, but the moment my Monster Control wore off, he hightailed it outta there! So now we’ve gotta walk all the way back down. We’re just taking a breather right now, though.”

It seemed he’d interpreted my wide-eyed expression as a reaction to our circumstances and not his lack of restraint when it came to confidentiality. That suited me well enough.

“How many floors until the bottom?” I asked weakly.

“Mmm… I don’t remember, honestly, but I wanna say about twenty? Oh, and I’ve been carrying you with the help of a little levitation magic, in case you were worried about that!”

We were probably on the eightieth floor, then. If he rode Night the whole way, Akira might be able to make it in time…assuming they were coming for me at all, of course. If I had to die, I wanted it to be with Akira by my side. While I had no intention of dying just yet, I had to admit things were looking pretty bleak. All I could was try to keep this boy in a good mood and get more information out of him.

God. Some spirit medium I am. If I’m supposed to be able to make the world bend to my will, then how the heck did I get into this mess? I’d never really understood how my divine class was supposed to work, nor why it had chosen me, of all people. Other classes had it easy… Assassins assassinated, and wind mages used wind magic, but no one could even tell me what a spirit medium was supposed to do. There were hardly any records of past spirit mediums anywhere.

All my life, I’d had everything handed to me on a silver platter as the heir apparent, while my sister was laser-focused on pursuing the art of the sword. I was jealous of her, to be honest. What did I have that I could say I was truly good at? It felt like everything I tried, I was only “pretty good” at. I’d never developed an intense passion for anything—maybe that sounded like a privileged, upper-class problem to the common people who were only trying to make ends meet. I couldn’t help but yearn for something more—some greater purpose I could devote my life to. I envied Akira in that regard.

The demon boy, growing annoyed with my silence, began to pout.

“Hey, c’mon! Say something! Tell me about yourself or whatever. Feels like I’m doing all the talking here.” The boy’s face appeared in front of mine again, catching me off guard. His big, round, green eyes looked sullen and downcast. “Let’s see here… You’ve got a little sister, right? The one that set the stage for me to throw that big ol’ monster party all across the elven domain, right? I’ve got a little sister too, y’know! That’s something we have in common. Why don’t you tell me about yours?”

For a moment, I was taken aback by this revelation, but when I calmed down and thought about it, it made sense that demons would have siblings, parents, and loved ones like any other race. The other three races taught their children from birth that the demons were an evil race to be feared. In stories and plays, the demons were always the villains, and they were never painted in a sympathetic light. Of course, plenty of innocent people had died at their hands over the course of history, but the stories were still propaganda designed to brainwash us into thinking of them as villainous beings incapable of love, which probably didn’t seem all that fair from the demons’ point of view. That just went to show how afraid of the demons the other races were. Even I had to admit my mental image of them was of heartless and unapologetic killers, so my brain was having a hard time reconciling that lifelong perception with the knowledge that this little demon boy had a little sister he loved very much.

“My sister’s a very strong woman,” I began. “Though recently I learned she’s actually quite fragile deep down.”

I now knew just how jealous of me she truly was—she resented me to the point of trying to have me killed. But I’d always been just as envious of her. If she hadn’t gone off the deep end, I probably would have done it myself sooner or later.

“When she realized she had a natural affinity for swordsmanship, which is a rarity among us elves, who generally only use long-range weapons, she practiced tirelessly day and night so that she could protect our bow-wielding countrymen.”

Every day, I’d watch her head off to the labyrinth in the morning, and every night, she’d practice her technique against a dummy tree. I never understood what compelled her to work so hard at it. She probably wanted people to treat her as well as they treated me, to recognize her as equally valid. We were sisters born only minutes apart, but to her it must’ve felt like she was a totally different species just because she came out of the womb second.

“She’s a gold-rank adventurer too. In terms of pure combat prowess, not even you demons would have an easy time against her.”

“So how come you just said she’s fragile?” the boy asked.

I sighed, embarrassed with myself. All this time, I’d been harboring the exact same feelings of inadequacy that Kilika had been dealing with. How had I not realized it sooner? “She was jealous of me. Though she did an excellent job of hiding her envy from me and my father,” I said.

Everyone always said our personalities were nothing alike, but I disagreed. Perhaps they would have changed their tune if they’d seen my heart was plagued by feelings of jealousy too.

“But then one day, she lost it, and I realized for the first time that she wasn’t the infallible, self-confident girl I thought I knew. She threw a tantrum like a crying child begging to be acknowledged, deceived our father, and brainwashed our countrymen. All because she was jealous of the attention I’d always gotten.”

Even that, I was a little jealous of. The version of Amelia the elven people wanted to see would never be permitted to do such a thing. All my life, I’d denied myself the right to act or even think in a way the common people might find unbecoming of their princess.

“That’s when I realized just how fragile Kilika truly was.”

What did that say about me? Was Kilika weak simply because she’d lost control of the emotions she’d bottled up for years? If that was the case, then I was even weaker than she was, because I simply held on to those feelings of envy and never mustered up the strength to act on them.

“Gotcha… See, I only remember bumping into you all those years ago in the Sacred Forest, so I was wondering what your little sister might be like. Okay, my turn! Let me tell you about my little sister now.”

The boy’s eager inflection cast a bright light on the darkness that had fallen over my thoughts. I had to admit, I was pretty interested to know what other people’s sibling relationships were like.

“My little sis is really talented! When it comes to controlling monsters, she’s even better than I am! Maybe even the best of all demonkind!” the boy boasted, his eyes glimmering with pride. His emerald eyes lit up the dark and desolate labyrinth like the rays of the sun. “Man, I really love my little sis… Er, not in a weird way or anything! Just as a family member, obviously. But sometimes, it kinda feels like she hates my guts. She’s always ignoring me and stuff.”

The sun went dark; the peaks and valleys of this boy’s emotions came and went like a raging storm. This was a bit much for me, since neither Akira nor I were particularly expressive, and Night was even less so. I’d recently learned how to tell more or less what they were thinking by the look in their eyes.

“And, well, you know me. I figured maybe she found me too obnoxious or something, so a little while ago I decided I’d try to give her some more personal space and see how that went.”

There’d been a period when Kilika and I kept our distance from each other as well—though that might have been more a result of our lives being extremely busy and our schedules never lining up. When we finally saw each other for the first time in almost a year, we both broke down and cried. Those were the days… That was back before Father wiped all memory of Kilika from the minds of the people.

“But get this: then my sister started following me around everywhere all of a sudden!” The boy snickered. He looked nothing like the demon who had relished in murdering me; even I, as an outsider, could tell he loved his sister an awful lot. “And so I was like ‘What gives? I thought you hated me!’ And she was like ‘Huh? When did I ever say that?!’ The look on her face was so priceless! God, Luné’s so cute. Though lately she’s started ignoring me again for whatever reason.”

Oh, so she was just like Crow, then—she put on a tough, prickly facade, but was really a big softie deep down. Akira once said something about this being a popular “character archetype” (whatever that meant) back in his home country, and ever since, I’d been noticing I knew a lot of people who fit that mold.

I was amazed at just how carefree this boy was being, laughing it up with me after ordering his monsters to kill me. He seemed pretty personable and easy to talk to (certainly more so than Akira); I’d always had the impression that demons were emotionless drones, yet this boy was anything but.

“Does every demon laugh as much as you do?” I asked.

The boy laughed yet again. “Oh, Luné doesn’t laugh too much, and His Majesty’s a bit of a stick in the mud too. Cyrus, our fourth-in-command, is always pissed off about something or other. I guess there’s Mahiro. He’s the second-in-command, and he laughs from time to time.”

Why was he smiling and laughing as he divulged all of this valuable information to me? I started to feel a little uneasy. He was supposed to be their third-in-command, right? Surely he wouldn’t reveal so much intel to me unless he was confident I would never have the chance to share it.

“Now then, I think we’d better get a move on. I’m sure your friends will be hot on our tails. I’ve been taking it pretty slow, so it

took me several days just to make it down this far… I think. Don’t you just hate how there’s no sunlight down in these places to tell you how much time has passed?” he said before standing up and placing a faintly glowing hand to my forehead. “Sorry, but I can’t have you struggling, so I’m gonna have to put you to sleep for a bit, m’kay?”

As my consciousness began to fade, all I could see were his emerald eyes shining, as ever, like beacons in the darkness.

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

“W-WAIT, so, um…are you sure this Aurum Tres guy is a demon?”

I almost couldn’t hear Lia’s voice over the sound of the wind rushing past my ears, now that Night had kicked it into high gear. I had almost forgotten she was still sitting behind me, and it gave me a bit of a fright; I had a bad habit of getting lost in thought, though, so that was on me.

“Yeah, there’s no doubt about it. Night told me so, and I felt the residual mana on the scene too. Nothing short of a demon would have been capable of leaving so much.”

The place where Amelia’s blood had been spilled had been overflowing with traces of a mana the likes of which I’d never felt before. If it were just in the blood, that would have been one thing, but I had tasted the mana lingering in the air itself. Such a thing was usually impossible even for me, who had far more mana than even the average elf. It had to have been a demon.

“I see… The Demon Lord really is up to something, then. I dunno if the crown has changed hands, but I know the last time the demons attacked, they sent monsters flooding out from the labyrinths on every continent… It’s very possible the attack was as much an attempt to kidnap Princess Amelia as it was a declaration of war.”

I nodded, then asked Lia what might have sounded like a rhetorical question: “Why does the Demon Lord feel the need to attack the other races?”

Everyone here seemed to accept that the Demon Lord was the evil overlord of the world, and that the demons and monsters went around doing his bidding…but I’d never really sat down to think about why he felt compelled to invade and ravage the other continents. Was it a desire to conquer the world, or did he want to enslave the other races?

“I can’t speak to what actually goes through His Majesty’s head,” Night began, “but I can tell you the first Demon Lord originally only attacked the other races to exact revenge for his people, who had been forcibly exiled to the desolate land of Volcano.”

Right. I did remember Commander Saran mentioning that to me at one point. Something about how the other races didn’t trust the demons due to their ability to control monsters, and so they drove them away to the nigh-uninhabitable continent of Volcano. I didn’t have very fond memories of that particular part of my life in Morrigan, so my memories from then were a little hazy. I hadn’t even lived in this world for a year, yet my friendship with the commander felt as if it had happened an entire lifetime ago. Back then, I never would have dreamed I’d end up riding on the back of a giant monster with a beastfolk princess clinging to my back on our way to rescue an elven princess. What an eclectic cast of characters we’d amassed in such a short time. If you included Aurum Tres, then there was even a representative from each of the four races participating in the current predicament.

“I guess that makes sense. But what about the other Demon Lords throughout history? What were their justifications?” I asked.

Night nodded as he trampled a few monsters on his way to the next staircase. “After the fall of the first Demon Lord, the other races of the world started to hail the first hero as the savior of the world, and they continued to portray the Demon Lord as the root of all evil in the stories and folklore passed down through the generations. Over time, a few misguided nincompoops even saw fit to make a pilgrimage to the Demon Lord’s castle in the hopes they might follow in the first hero’s footsteps. Some of them, either through special presence-concealing skills like yours or sheer brute force, even made it all the way to the royal bedchambers before being caught.”

My eyes widened. Who the hell did the Demon Lord hire to be in charge of his security detail?! What was it with this world and leaving their castles wide open to invaders?! The castle of Retice had been the exact same way!

“And I don’t mean just a handful of times either. While I’m ashamed to admit it, it’s not uncommon for demons to get cocky and grow careless because they feel like the other races could never pose a threat to them.”

Night clarified these events had all occurred long before his lifetime, so he was only relaying what was in the castle records. We slaughtered the twentieth-floor boss while we were having this conversation, and this time, Lia didn’t even bat an eye after all the carnage she’d witnessed thus far. We’d increased our pace significantly after the tenth floor. With any luck, we’d be able to make it to the bottom floor in a matter of hours. Atta boy, Night.

“But then, during the reign of one Demon Lord several generations back, one of these boorish invaders was foolish enough to murder the Demon Lord’s wife,” Night continued, his voice ringing loud and clear over the wind rushing past and the bloodcurdling screams of the monsters trampled underfoot. “This king detested fighting in all its forms, mind you, and had never laid a finger on any human, elf, or beastman. So much did he despise meaningless wars that he even lowered himself in order to propose a peace treaty with the other races. He was a good, kindhearted king who loved his wife, his children, his countrymen, and his monsters. Yet just because he bore the mere title of ‘Demon Lord,’ his wife was assassinated.”

I understood exactly what Night was getting at, and I agreed it was unfair. I’d heard the relatives of murderers back home were often treated with a similar level of hatred by the rest of the world, subconsciously or otherwise, simply on account of being related to the killer.

“So what you’re telling me is some dumbass wanted to play hero and tried to do it in the stupidest way imaginable.” I sighed.

Society at large was generally quite predictable in this regard. People who did good things were heroes, and people who did bad things were villains. No one cared what their respective backgrounds were—all that mattered was whether you were good or evil. Once you’d been branded as one or the other, you’d be either lauded or hated for the rest of your days. But even if there were probably some people who were so diabolically evil that they were beyond redemption, something told me the vast majority of people labeled as villains only did the things they did because they truly felt they had no other choice.

“Correct… And after that, the Demon Lord retracted his peace treaty proposal, declared war against the entire beastfolk race, of which his wife’s murderer was a member, and laid waste to two entire cities on the continent of Brute.”

He’d responded with the fury of a thousand suns, essentially. According to Night, the murderer’s family members were brought out and slowly tortured to death right before the man’s eyes.

“Man, that’s grim. The guy who killed the king’s wife probably thought he was totally in the right to kill her too. Probably thought he’d come home and be hailed as a hero, when he was really sentencing his own family to a cruel and painful death.”

I couldn’t imagine having to watch my mom and Yui get tortured over a mistake I’d made. I’d much sooner be tortured instead.

“The other races of the world have feared the demons ever since, and chances are they’ll never come close to a peace treaty again. So remember, Master: the demons are only ‘evil’ from the non-demons’ perspective. It’s important you understand that.”

I couldn’t see Night’s face from my position, yet there was a sincerity in his voice I’d never heard before. I mulled this over a bit before responding. “Yeah, I dunno about all that. Guess I’ll just have to see for myself.” I shrugged.

I felt Night buck below me, apparently unsatisfied with my noncommittal response. I decided to clarify before he had the chance to get uppity about it.

“Hey, I never said I wouldn’t listen to the Demon Lord’s side of the story. I’m sure the old Demon Lord in your story really was a good, stand-up guy, but to be honest with you, I’ve kinda got a bad first impression of the current one due to the whole ‘sent his cronies on a rampage killing countless beastfolk civilians to kidnap my girlfriend’ thing. Just sayin’.” I wasn’t about to go destroying two entire cities over it, but I did feel like I had every right to pay him back for what he’d done. “If I find out he ordered this invasion, then I don’t care what you say, I’m sorry—I’m not letting him off the hook for that. Are we clear?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” Night responded.

I had a hunch that Night hadn’t really written off the demons as much as he claimed, but that was understandable, given that the Demon Lord was the closest thing to a parent he had. Now that the guy had kidnapped Amelia, though, there would be no mercy for him. The sob story about the old Demon Lord’s wife was sad and all, but this was a different matter. I might reconsider it if Amelia forgave him herself, though.

An awkward silence fell between Night and I before it was broken by Lia. “Wow, I didn’t know that story at all. I wonder if the beastfolk royalty at the time tried to suppress it or something. There are certainly records of the Demon Lord you spoke of, but that peace treaty you mentioned is presented as having been a ruse to get us to lower our guard so they could attack…”

Yeah, no duh they censored that story. Are you kidding me? I could see why they would want to keep that information from getting out, but the thought of them just twiddling their thumbs and hiding the truth from their people to deepen their existing prejudices pissed me off to no end. God, why did it feel like no matter what world you were in, people couldn’t just learn to live in harmony and stop being jerks to one another?

“Look, I don’t really care that much who was in the wrong and who was in the right in that specific instance, all right? Not like the truth really matters all that much in a world where memory-wiping magic exists… If you really want me to believe something, I’m gonna need more than just words. You’ve gotta let me see it with my own eyes.”

Take me, for example. I was going around telling everyone I was an assassin, yet I had yet to kill a single human, elf, or beastfolk. I didn’t have the will or desire to do so either. I was strong enough, sure, and I had plenty of powerful magic at my disposal, but I just didn’t have it in me. I didn’t want to kill or be killed. I knew that likely wouldn’t fly forever. Sooner or later, I was gonna have to make up my mind and pick a side.

I wondered what Kyousuke would do if he were in my shoes.

We didn’t talk much for the next few hours as we made our way all the way down past the seventieth floor. Night seemed to realize I was running a little low on mana after casting Shadow Magic so many times since we’d entered the labyrinth, so he’d been mercilessly crushing boss after boss to pick up my slack. I couldn’t help but feel kind of sorry for the poor little things. At long last, someone had made it to their respective boss arenas and they would get their time to shine…only to be squashed in a matter of seconds. And by a fellow boss monster, no less. If that wasn’t the epitome of cruel irony, I didn’t know what was.

But after we passed the seventieth floor, things got a lot more intense, and I had more important things to worry about than sympathizing with monsters. All of a sudden, the mana in the air started to feel a lot thicker—and a lot more demonic. The mana density was such that the average human likely would have struggled to even breathe down here. How could anyone, even a demon, leave this much residual mana in the air just by passing through? I figured it would be wiser to just focus on recovering Amelia and give up on the idea of exacting my revenge against the demons.

“I’m gonna use Shadow Magic this time, Night,” I said as we approached the next boss arena.

“Very well, Master. I’ll leave it to you,” Night replied reluctantly.

The defense and HP of the boss on the seventieth floor had been higher than we expected, so a single trouncing from Night wasn’t enough to kill it off. This forced him to change course and swivel back around at high speed to deal the finishing blow, which sent Lia flying from his back with the change of momentum. It took quite the sturdy opponent to withstand a full-speed body blow with all of Night’s weight behind it, and if the seventieth-floor boss was strong enough to handle it, I could only assume the eightieth-floor boss would be as well. As soon as we burst through the doors, I began to cast Shadow Magic using the shadows in the arena to prepare an immediate attack.

“Shadow Magic, activate!”

“What in the world?! Master, wait! Don’t do it!” Night yelled, but it was too late. My shadows were well on their way to the boss monster in the center of the arena (which looked like a shark that had grown limbs and a pair of wings for good measure).

“Wha?!”

Just as the shadows were about to pierce the monster’s chest, they vaporized.

“Oh, come on! Don’t tell me this thing’s immune to magic!” I whined.

“Unfortunately, it is.” Night sighed. “Its name is Poseidon, and it is a master of both land and sea. As you suspected, it’s immune to all forms of magic.”

Yikes. You mean to tell me they gave Night a crappy name like “Black Cat,” but this guy gets to be freakin’ Poseidon?! And again, what’s with all the Greek mythology names?! I’m pretty sure the Poseidon from legend wasn’t a weird anthropomorphic shark monster. And if he’s supposed to be a ruler of the seas, what the hell’s he doing so far underground?!

“Man, I can’t stand sharks. They just remind me of that one amusement park ride I got traumatized by as a child.”

It wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if we hadn’t gone at night. At least during the day, you could sort of predict where the shark was gonna come from, but nope, it just sneaked up in the dim light… My mom insisted we go on the ride and offered to buy a stuffed animal Yui was begging for in exchange for us riding it with her. I still remember my dad and Yui playing around with those shark masks they sold at the souvenir shop. That had been our one and only family vacation.

I’d been afraid of both sharks and the ocean ever since. Shallow water I could deal with, but being in any large body of water where I couldn’t see the bottom made me sick to my stomach. I’d been pretty shaken for the whole ship ride from the elven domain to the beastfolk continent, though I’d tried not to let it show. I’d wanted to be brave in front of Amelia, but I had been unable to stop sweating, and I’m sure she noticed my hands shaking.

Without the ability to use Shadow Magic, I’d have to get up close and personal with my trauma and take the monster out with close-quarters combat.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Master. But if we can’t defeat it, we’ll never catch up to Lady Amelia in time. Aurum Tres could reach the bottom any minute now.”

“I know,” I said, chills running down my spine. This is all for Amelia’s sake. I can handle a shark or two for her, no sweat. I drew the two daggers Crow had forged for me from the Yato-no-Kami.

“GRRREEEEEAAAAAAGH!”

Mr. Sharkface let out a disgusting wail before lunging at us. When it opened its gaping mouth, I saw rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth lining its maw—I certainly didn’t want to get caught between those jaws. I gripped my daggers tightly.

“Humph!”

The giant beast reached out with a massive hand to try to grab me. I dodged and ran up its arm. It fired a few blades of water magic at me to try to stop my ascent, but I easily evaded those as well. Then I drove my twin daggers deep into the monster’s hide.

 

POV: LIA LAGOON

 

IT WASN’T AS IF I had no combat experience, but this boy was on a different level. Before becoming a member of the royal family, I’d made a living by going on hunts with the other villagers. While I didn’t have any special skills or adventurer ranks to show for it, I did feel I’d garnered a fair amount of experience. Hence why I’d come to the labyrinth with no backup.

“What in the world…” I muttered in amazement as I beheld the scene playing out before my very eyes.

The boss lay in a heap on the ground with its wings plucked, and one of its legs had been carved off and sent flying off into the wall, where it crumpled into a formless lump of meat. Perhaps most notably of all, the beast’s fearsome shark-like head had been removed from its body, leaving nothing but a bloody stump. I shifted my gaze and found the head rolling around on the ground nearby, wearing a baffled expression.

I couldn’t blame the beast either, as it had happened so fast even I wasn’t sure what I’d just seen. The last thing I was sure of seeing was Akira brandishing his two black daggers, then the beast’s head was severed, and its wings and one of its legs were gone as well. I prided myself on having pretty good vision, but even I hadn’t been able to follow the action.

“Was that really your doing, Akira?” I asked in wonder.

“Uh, yeah? Who else could it have been?” he asked, blood splattered all over his body.

He was right, of course. Rationally, he was the only person who could have done it, since it hadn’t been me or Night. “Right, uh… I guess I’m just having trouble believing those little daggers could slice through a neck as thick as a giant tree trunk in the blink of an eye, that’s all.” It felt a bit like my understanding of what was and wasn’t possible had just shifted, and that was terrifying.

“Master, you need to understand your movements are far too fast for the average person to follow. Why, it even took me a while to grow accustomed,” Night explained on my behalf.

I’d grown a lot less afraid of the feline monster over the past few hours, despite his reputation as the Nightmare of Adorea. I could only assume the rumors about him had been blown out of proportion. He did seem to be every bit as powerful as they claimed, but as far as I could tell, he was less of a city-destroying monster and more Akira’s loyal kitty cat.

“Huh, really?” Akira asked, genuinely surprised by this as he clambered back onto Night’s back. “Well, you’re right to think these little daggers couldn’t take off that big lug’s neck all by themselves, but here’s a little hint for you: just because something’s immune to magic doesn’t mean it’s immune to mana. You with me now?”

Unfortunately, I was still pretty lost. I mean, I’d never heard of anyone using mana by itself before. My understanding was that mana was the fuel that made magic work, just like a fire needed kindling. And similar to how kindling couldn’t burn without a spark, I always assumed mana wasn’t capable of inflicting harm without a spell to ignite it.

“I guess since magic channels mana, I sort of figured anything immune to magic would be immune to mana by default,” I replied.

“Not a bad theory, but magic and mana aren’t one and the same. Magic is a specific phenomenon that’s brought to life by mana, but there’s no mana in the magic itself. So being immune to magic doesn’t say anything about your resistance to mana… At least, that’s how I understand it.”

In other words, I needed to stop thinking of magic as a channeled form of mana—and start thinking of mana as a form of energy expended in order to create magic. In that case, my fire and kindling analogy was still pretty apt.

“Okay, it’s starting to make sense to me now. But where in the world did you learn how to control raw mana?” I asked. Perhaps he was self-taught. I’d heard that the Hero of Legend was supposedly capable of a similar feat, but no one else who ever tried had been able to figure out how he did it.

“I didn’t ‘learn’ it anywhere. I was forced to figure it out for myself.”

“O-oh? You don’t say,” I replied casually after picking my jaw up off the floor.

For the first time in my life, it felt like I was speaking to a bona fide prodigy. He proceeded to go on a rant about how “Amelia forced me to try to take out a white bat without using my Shadow Magic,” but I was hardly listening by then. If he’d just randomly figured out something only the Hero of Legend had ever been known to be capable of, then did that mean he possessed the same level of potential as the strongest person who had ever lived in this world?

“Akira, are you sure you’re really just an assassin?”

I’d heard rumors claiming the current summoned hero was proving to be quite the layabout and hadn’t even left the humans’ castle yet. That was another reason I felt like I could forgive Akira but not the hero—he seemed to feel no remorse nor sense of duty. Even though I recognized it hadn’t been his choice to get summoned here, he was still supposed to be the hero. But apparently my family members had been sacrificed for a lazy oaf who just sat around the castle doing nothing. Akira should have been the hero, if you asked me.

“I’m definitely an assassin. I can assure you of that much…even if I haven’t technically killed anyone yet. And even if I don’t really fight like one,” he replied, his shrewd and discerning eyes peering deep into mine; it felt like he could see straight through me. “Now c’mon, let’s get moving.”

Even after killing the eightieth-floor boss so quickly, his fire was still burning bright. Something told me that nothing in this world was capable of stopping this boy except maybe the demons, and he still seemed to be seeking out ways to attain more power.

“What…what are you really after, Akira? What is it that you seek?”

“A way home.”