Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

It spoke. The demon actually fucking spoke. It worked!

Riza felt herself freeze up in elation, staring at the blank face of Dave in front of her.

“Er… Hello,” Lefie said, breaking Riza out of her stupor. Dave’s face turned to look at Lefie, the mechanical movement eerie.

“Okay, Dave, don’t attack Lefie; she’s a friend.”

“Friend.”

“Yes, friend. I am Riza and you are Dave. Understand?” Riza identified themselves.

“Understand,” Dave said. His voice was deep and masculine, his body lanky and tall, even when sitting down.

“Good? Okay… I guess, what we should do first is simple commands. See what you know. Stand up.”

Obediently, Dave did as instructed getting to his feet and towering over the pair of them.

“Next, uhm… walk to the door.” Again, Dave did as Riza said.

She performed a few tests, one of which included a command sent through [Message], which happily worked. Interestingly, she lost the ability to commandeer Dave’s senses, meaning she’d need [Animate Critter] or [Reanimate] if they encountered any more fog in order to see again.

“This is unreal,” Lefie commented once Dave came back into the room. “He’s like a dog. You’ve got an actual demon pet. I can’t believe this,” She muttered to herself.

“You’re telling me. He was dead a few hours ago.”

“What are we going to do with him?”

“Well, I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask him,” Riza replied, now turning to Dave. “Do you remember when you were a demon?”

“Demon?”

“Before I raised you from the dead.”

“Yes.” The answer startled Riza slightly, expecting nothing.

“Okay, okay…” Her mind was racing to think and organise questions to ask.

“Are you human?” Lefie jumped in to ask, the question obviously burning on her mind.

“Demon,” He succinctly replied. Simple responses. I suppose an hour is too short to develop anything near native fluency.

“Do you remember being human?” Riza continued. The answer was a clear no.

So, they just hijack the bodies, then. Whatever human he used to be is long dead. Wait. I can get specifics.

“Are demons parasites?” No response, so Riza prompted Lefie to model the parasites they found in water. “What are these?” She asked.

The answer was expected; they were incubated and grown in those fleshy hives the pair had found. Once big enough, they’d be implanted into scavenged bodies and take over the host, transforming them into demons.

“What’s the difference between the types of demons? Beast, greater and humanoid ones?” No response, the question probably too complicated or unclear.

“How does the original body affect the demon? Why are humanoid demons stronger?” Riza tried again from a different direction.

Beast demons were mindless. They lacked intelligence and so needed a humanoid demon to command them and order them. It’s why the demons underground always hunted in packs and even sometimes displayed tactics, such as utilising the spiders to scout ahead to see where fresh bodies could be found.

The demons that attacked the village were nothing like this--a mindless horde of beasts.

Rather surprisingly was that greater demons were actually the same as beast demons; parasites implanted in animals or monsters. The only difference was time; greater demons had been alive longer and so had grown to a greater strength.

Beast demons were easily replenishable. Greater and humanoid ones, not so much.

Why were humanoid demons commanders? They were based on humans and so hijacked the intelligence of the human brain.

This, of course, led to the next question: why didn’t the first humanoid demon they encountered attack them right away?

Dave didn’t know the answer but he provided interesting insight that even he wasn’t sure the pair of them weren’t humanoid demons when they first met.

As it turns out, being humanoid and full of essence makes it hard for demons to discern friend from foe.

As for why Dave himself had attacked them, he did have an answer:

“It was an order.”

Lefie loudly gasped at that, Riza remaining stoic as her mind whirred away.

An order? Someone orders humanoid demons?

“Who gave you the order?” No response. “Do you know who gave you the order?”

“No.”

“How do you know to obey orders without knowing who sends them?”

“I obey orders. It is what I do,” He said simply.

It was a dead-end of conversation; he had no information to give up. Even why he obeyed orders was unknown, and any further probing into the complexities and priorities was met with silence, Dave’s indication that he was unable to adequately answer a question. He seemed incapable of professing a lack of knowledge unless directly asked if he lacked knowledge.

“Where do the orders come from?” A slightly different question.

“From below,” Dave answered.

“A demon nest?” No response. “Have you ever been there?”

“No.”

“Have you ever left the bunker?” No response. “Have you left this metallic building?” No again.

In fact, Dave wasn’t that old. He had no concept of time and, frankly, Riza had lost track of how long they had been underground, but he had obtained this body from the first time the giant worm had attacked, they’d figured.

“The worm’s real? It’s a demon.” That it was. “What kind of demon?”

“Old. Powerful.”

“Does it give you orders?”

“No.”

“How do you receive orders anyway?” It’s not like they have a postal service down here.

“Through the eye demon,” Dave replied, using the name Riza had used. Such demons were anomalous; Dave had no idea how they were made but it wasn’t through the same method as beast and humanoid demons.

And the worm demon, now Riza was thinking about it. It had probably started out as a beast demon or even lesser, like a spider demon, but had lived long enough to grow beyond the strength of even a humanoid demon.

“How does the eye demon communicate with you?”

“When I’m near, I can hear them.”

“And your role was to order beast demons about? How did that work?”

The eye demons were like a nexus of communication; they communicated with every demon that was near. The spiders, beasts, and greater demons all lacked the intelligence needed for communication so the eye demons read their minds, Riza had gathered, and informed the stationed humanoid demon on what they had all experienced.

The inner workings of this demon army was starting to crystallize in Riza’s mind.

You had the spiders, which were essentially scouts. They’d find bodies, either dead or alive, and return to the eye demon to report such information.

From there, the humanoid demon would command a combination of beast and greater demons to follow the spiders to bodies and kill them, retrieving the bodies which would then be sent to a farm like the pair had encountered, ready for parasites to be implanted and new demons to be born.

It sounded incredibly organised but sparked another question in Riza.

“You said you were ordered to attack us. Did the first humanoid demon have the same order?” No response, and no response when asked about the third humanoid demon--the one that ran away.

Three different responses.

“Can the eye demons communicate with each other?” The answer was yes. “So you knew we existed before we killed you?” Yes again.

The big picture was coming together.

The first humanoid demon did not know who they were and so didn’t attack. Why it didn’t was still unclear but they killed it anyway.

This hive mind or whatever it was learnt of a pair of humans who had killed a humanoid demon so an order was given to kill a pair of humans if encountered. Cue Dave, who did just that.

However, he was struck down as well. So, a different order this time; run away. Presumably, whatever higher intelligence was in control had deemed a single humanoid demon too weak or too valuable to engage the pair of them alone and so should retreat.

That lead to the 10 greater demon hunting party that followed.

One thing was clear; things would continue to escalate. The jump from one or two greater demons to ten was large. Riza was secretly expecting a similar jump from one humanoid demon to five, more than enough to kill them.

Fuck. Things were bleak. They couldn’t just amble through the bunker any longer, killing things when they crossed paths.

“We need to get stronger. A lot stronger,” Riza informed Lefie, who nodded along.

“All farms, the ones with parasites, do they have humanoid demons stationed there?” Dave confirmed so.

“And do you know where they are?” Another confirmation.

“It’s time for the hunted to become the hunter.”

“We’re going after the farms?” Lefie asked.

“We have to. Hopefully, there’d be a humanoid demon that’s level 25 so we can increase our level caps and it’d be the fastest way to level up. We’re stronger now; we can handle one humanoid demon.”

“So, we just run in and kill them, one-by-one?”

“No. We need to be smarter than that. If we alert the enemy to our goal, they’d reinforce the farms most likely. Multiple humanoid demons or a retinue of greater demons that don’t leave the humanoid this time.

“We need to be discrete. Lure them out somehow and then kill them, but maybe that’s too obvious? It’d be clear we’re systematically killing humanoid demons.”

“Should we kill other stuff then? Hide what we’re doing?” Lefie posited.

“Why do humanoid demons die, Dave? What kills them?”

“Nothing,” Except for you, was the implication.

Any death of a humanoid demon will be because of us. There’s no getting around that. Wait.

“We don’t want deaths to be communicated so we just cut off the communication? Kill the eye demons before the humanoid demons so no one would know what we’ve done,” Riza suddenly realised. The crux of an army is communication.

“Wait. Wouldn’t that be suspicious? We’ve been leaving eye demons alive so far,” Lefie stated.

“That’s only if they find out the eye demon is dead. How do they do that if there’s no eye demon to report?”

“The worm demon shifted not long after we killed an eye demon the first time, remember?” Lefie argued.

“Yes. You’re right.” Shit. I forgot about that. That means they found out the eye demon had died five or ten minutes afterwards. How did that happen?

Think, Riza. How would I find out a summon had died without being there? I’d see the result in my essence. What about if they didn’t drain essence?

I’d try sending a [Message]. If the [Message] didn’t go through, they’re either out of range or dead. Eye demons don’t move so let’s say they’re definitely in range. A lack of communication from them would mean they’re dead.

Like humanoid demons, nothing kills them. Nothing except us. Fuck.

“Fuck. It feels like they’re going to find out anyway. Do we just attack as many as possible and get stronger before they realise?”

“What about being discrete like you said?” Lefie asked. “Luring them away and killing them where the eye demon doesn’t find them?”

“No; that wouldn’t work because when the humanoid doesn’t return, it’d be obvious we’d kill them.”

“So, send Dave in it’s place then. Or, use [Raise Dead] on it and send it back,” Lefie said confidently and with a hint of smugness on her face.

“That-fuck, that might actually work,” Riza replied, slightly amazed.

“What do the eye demons read from your mind?” She quickly asked Dave. Could they figure out they’re my summon?

“What I have heard and sensed.”

That sounds like what I can sense through zombies. So, Dave’s already compromised; an eye demon would be able to tell he’s met with us and didn’t kill us.

Riza shot up and practically ran out of the room, telling the pair to stay put.

A few corners later, she was face to face with the disgusting eye demon they had left alive. It was close enough to be a liability and, as an additional positive, was experience waiting to be taken.

[Leech]sapped away it’s health quickly enough, eating the energy away until it was just a deflated bag of flesh with eyes, alive no longer.

I could [Raise Dead] it. Would that help with the plan?

She returned promptly to Lefie and Dave, both looking at her awkwardly at her sudden intrusion.

“Sorry. I killed the eye demon. It gave me an idea; I could raise it as well. Get it to send what we want to be sent.”

Lefie’s mouth opened in realisation.

“Like telling other demons that the humanoid demon is still alive?” She theorised.

Riza nodded, a grin forming on her face.

“You wouldn’t have to raise another humanoid demon, then!” However, Lefie’ face immediately settled into a frown. “Wouldn’t it need skills to work?”

“Only [Message] to send the information,” Riza said, immediately realising something. “That’s an assumption. It might not be using [Message].” Her woes with the skill came rushing to her.

“There’s also the range limitation. Other eye demons might not be able to [Message] it since I’ve raised it as well, and this is assuming it’s actually [Message]. Know what, forget that plan; too many assumptions. It’d have the same effect as just killing the eye demon,” Riza said, a bit deflated.

“But raising a humanoid demon can still work, right? Nothing kills them. Does anything attack them, Dave?”

“No.”

“So you could make them weak as well! The eye demons only know what the humanoid sees and hears so they don’t have to be strong. They don’t even need any skills!”

No skills? I wouldn’t need to use [Raise Dead], then; I could use [Reanimate] instead.

[Reanimate] (5/10) -Learned

Raise a corpse into a level 0 zombie

Casting Time: 1 min

Cost: 1 es/sec

Requirements: [Animate Critter] (5/10)

I’d need Dave to tell me where the farms are and he’s over-levelled for that currently. Only needs three skill points for communication so that’s 3 essence per second there.

Leave 1 essence per second for my own regeneration and that’s 3.73 I can spend on resurrecting humanoid demons to pretend everything’s alright.

That’s at least three already, and I could stretch it to four. I’d likely level up as well, which means even more humanoid demons to maintain the verisimilitude of peace.

That could actually work. There’d only be one problem: make sure neither Lefie or I are seen by the resurrected demon.

Shit. That’s a major problem.

“When does your memory begin Dave? Since I raised you, that is?”

As it turns out, it’s hard to corroborate precise timings of a memory but, with Riza [Raise Dead]ing a spider, some intricacies of the skill were worked out.

Once the spell had gone through and Riza could redirect her mind to [Meditate] rather than [Raise Dead], there were a precious few seconds as the essence inside the corpse rearranged itself, forming new structures and pathways, before the resurrected consciousness came into being.

Just to be safe, Riza would [Raise Dead] instead of [Reanimate]. For one, she didn’t know if the eye demon could tell a difference between zombies and simple undead and, two, if something unexpected happened, it’d be a lot better for the humanoid demon to adapt to the situation rather than relying on additional instruction by Riza.

Thusa, the sequence became clear; lure a humanoid demon away from an eye demon, kill it, use [Raise Dead] on it and run away before it’s conscious, have Dave command it to return to the eye demon and act natural, and then repeat.

The biggest problem was, of course, a matter of essence. Namely, how much Riza regenerated.

It was time to put everything into action.

Dave was very helpful with navigation. As it turned out, he knew the bunker inside-out and led them down a direct path to the nearest stairwell. It was a different one to the one they had taken before but this too led up and up.

The fog filled the stairwell as they ascended, Dave quickly being enveloped followed by Lefie and finally Riza, who had raised a small spider she had taken with her, providing her sight once more.

Out of curiosity, she checked Dave’s stats, eager to see if the fog resulted in any detectable changes.

Name Dave Level 5 Health 220/220 Stamina 180/180 Essence

180/180 Power 10 (11) Constitution 1 (1) Endurance 9 (9) Vim 1 (1) Essence

9 (9) Spirit

1 (1) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

100/day Essence Regeneration

100/day Stat Points 0

Curious. Could be a direct increase to stats--which I can’t see because the fucking system truncates them--or merely a boost to his pools. Why him and not any of the zombies?

Does this mean zombies don’t technically count as demons? Definitely don’t use them to fool the eye demon, then.

Their first target quickly showed itself, holed up in a room not far from the stairwell.

The trio made sure to be cautious, walking slowly and carefully and whispering whenever they needed to talk. Perhaps an unnecessary level of care but better safe than sorry.

Once they were close enough, and somewhat hidden, Dave detached from the group and proceeded to walk up to the room containing the farm and humanoid demon.

The eye demon’s abilities worked on sight, they had confirmed, which meant as long as Dave remained outside it’s line of sight, they were safe.

So, off he went, waltzing up to the door and making contact with the humanoid demon. He was out of sight by now but Riza concentrated on her non-visual senses, trying her best to conjure up a mental image.

It was, unfortunately, far harder than it used to be, Riza now in a temporary party with Lefie to make sure they both benefited from the encounter.

“Remember; [Seeker Mastery] at full strength and compress it to as far as you can see. Use [Maximise Mastery] as well,” Riza said, taking what little time they had to make sure they were in tip top shape.

Thankfully, Riza didn’t have to wait very long, her essence only able to maintain Dave for around half an hour, before he began to return, an additional humanoid demon in tow.

It was go time.

The plan was simple; take the demon by surprise.

As it turned the corner, it was immediately met with an arcing bolt of lightning, striking it in the chest and coursing through it’s body.

It nearly stumbled into Dave, recoiling from the blast. The summoned thrall of Riza’s quickly made some distance as another blast of lightning quickly followed, shaking Lefie’s body to the core.

The small girl was taking sudden steps back, trying to control the exaggerated arm movements the sheer power of the blasts were causing.

Three, four, and eventually eight blasts total, the humanoid demon collapsed to the ground, dead.

[Level up]

You have gained 10 stat points and 1 skill point

Quickly, Riza left the party, suddenly feeling lighter and more bountiful in energy as her essence began to tick back up quite happily.

“Yes!” Lefie whispered ebulliently.

Riza, however, promptly got to her knees and focused on [Raise Dead], feeling the essence flow out of her and into the body.

The seconds felt excruciatingly slow as the pressure of the situation weighed on her. She needed this humanoid demon up and running soon lest they raised some suspicion. Without knowing what exactly Dave had said to convince it to leave it’s farm, she had no idea how long she had.

Eventually, the spell finished and Riza scampered away, joining where Lefie was hiding.

Since, without skills, the demon wouldn’t understand Riza, she had Dave give it the commands.

She focused inwardly, close enough she could mentally see the humanoid demon get to it’s feet, showing some degree of confusion. Dave didn’t wait, instantly ordering it to return and that everything was fine, as they had discussed earlier.

Obediently, the humanoid demon, previously stationary, began to move, returning to it’s farm where it stayed for the next few minutes, doing whatever humanoid demons do. Dave had promptly returned to the pair, finished with his task.

Riza let out a large sigh, feeling slightly optimistic with how well that went.

“Riza! I’m so strong!” Lefie said excitedly, practically vibrating with energy.

“You levelled up?”

“Yes but that’s not what I mean. Eight shots! It used to take, like, forty!” Lefie said, calming down towards the end now that she could get it out of her system.

While exciting, it wasn’t much of a surprise for Riza. They had done some tests, she had ran some numbers, so she already knew Lefie's new and improved damage output.

[Range Compression] worked quite simply: the ratio between default range and compressed range was the intensity multiplier. Each level up only changed the cost of the skill rather than it’s effectiveness.

With everything maxed out, Lefie did some damage. [Lightning Bolt] did a base damage of 120. [Maximise Mastery] multiplied it by 4 to 480. [Seeker Mastery] would increase the range to 60 metres but Lefie could only see 10 metres in the fog so compressing it to that range would be an additional 6 times multiplier, increasing the damage to 2880. [Double Cast]ing meant 5760 damage per second, with [Conductivity] increasing it even further.

Compared to [Leech]’s measly 770 damage a second when maximised, Riza felt confident in her decision to not focus on dealing damage.

She placed her newly acquired stat points into spirit, savouring the high numbers she could only achieve when outside a stifling party.

Name Riza Level 20 Health 100/100 Stamina 74/100 Essence

8000/8000 Power 5 (5) Constitution 5 (5) Endurance 5 (5) Vim 6 (6) Essence

5 (400) Spirit

125 (1890) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

120/day Essence Regeneration

551/minute

Now that she had two humanoids running around, that set her essence regeneration down to about 5 per second, which was still a respectable amount.

Currently, she restored Lefie’s essence pool about halfway needing half an hour to regenerate enough to fill up the other half.

To do so, they had descended downstairs to create a bit of distance and security while they waited.

Taking an overall report of the situation, [Raise Dead] was now level 2 and no other skills had levelled. As for Lefie, [Seeker Mastery] was now level 10 and [Range Compression] increased to level 4, so a thoroughly profitable expedition in all.

And, thanks to how quick the fight had proceeded, none of them felt all that tired and Lefie was eager to move on, hoping for more levels.

So, that’s exactly what they did.

A different stairwell and a bit more walking later, they were once again faced with another humanoid demon.

Same situation as before; a humanoid demon was holed up with an eye demon and a plethora of parasites growing within the fleshy hive. However, this time, they had found a strategy meeting taking place.

It wasn’t much--just a small group of beast demons and a small gathering of spiders--but it did add a complication to the plan somewhat.

The group waited in silence whilst Riza kept focusing on what she could sense. The demons didn’t stay for very long, quickly getting whatever orders they needed, and began to leave, the spiders first and then the beast demons in a different direction.

They waited a few extra minutes for safety before deciding to continue on with their plan, confident the unknown element wouldn’t be involved.

It went much like before; Dave lured the humanoid demon away and then Lefie ambushed it, killing it quickly.

As soon as the body dropped to the ground, Riza pounced on it like a wolf, hands gliding over it as the essence flowed from her and into it, filling out it’s muscles, coursing through it’s corpse, and creating [False Life].

Dave got to informing this new humanoid demon (which Riza referred to as Bravo) his duties after Riza had escaped.

Thus, their second encounter was over and done with. Lefie’s level cap had increased to 23, just like Riza’s but no level ups were had, unfortunately.

The day had been pretty hectic and both were feeling the fatigue set in. It seemed as good a time as any to give in to the night and rest.

They headed back the way they came from, descending the stairs and walking all the way back to the empty dorms where comfy beds awaited.

Riza had commanded Dave to stand guard over night, not reporting any disturbances except the ones that were nearby and needed Riza’s attention.

She had hoped that with Lefie sleeping in a different room, only her sleep would need to be impeded if anything happened. Unfortunately, such a hope was quickly dashed when the teenager refused to sleep in a bed other than Rizas.

So, with the fluorescent lights switched off and the only sound being the quiet footsteps of Dave outside, Riza stared at the ceiling as Lefie laid beside her.

Her body was tired but her mind was awash with anxieties, just like every night previous.

And then, from the silence of the night, Lefie yawned and then spoke:

“You’re amazing, you know,” She whispered, as if afraid to disrupt the peaceful tranquility.

Riza grunted non-committedly, not sure how to respond.

“You may not think so but no one else can do what you do. What you’ve done. So, thank you… for everything.” Lefie accompanied her heartfelt [Message] by reaching up and giving a gentle kiss on the cheek to Riza before snuggling back in to her side, drifting off to sleep.