I'm never going to sleep again. NEVER. The problem with that was so obvious I should have realized it long before I woke up to find myself being pulled into a summoning. ...Is this why the demon lord has so damn long name? What was it again... Atama-- Antamanta-- Anta-blahblah-whatever; it's so hard to remember it's certain to reduce the number of people trying to summon him directly. ... Aaand I'm regretting my three letter name right now.

The summoning finishes teleporting me from my comfy bed onto the cold hard floor of a certain cottage I've been to before. I give my summoner an icy, annoyed glare.

"... Was this a bad time?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry..."

Luckily this wasn't an ambush by angry druids, but rather a desperate plea by a teen-aged witch. I met her during my travels, I think her name was Athala or something like that. She brews nice tea and can cast curses - and apparently summon a demon. Anyway, as for the reason why she summoned me...

"Demonkin, I'm in trouble."

"What kind?"

She points at the window.

"MOooooOOOOAAaaaaannn... *slam slam slam*"

...The hell? The outside of window is filled by very ripe dead bodies, moaning and trying to break in. The window glass flashes with light but doesn't break, though without a doubt the tireless undead will eventually exhaust her magical shield.

"False life walkers."

False life walkers? Just call them zombies like everyone else! Whatever you choose to name them, I can hear a whole lot right outside.

"Please help me... I'll do anything...!"

The girl is growing more anxious as the walking corpses increase their - ironically very lively - attempts to break in. Her situation is indeed dire and she doesn't have the luxury to negotiate the terms for this deal with a demon. I eye her up and down. I really could ask anything of this girl.

But who do you think I am, a demon? ...Don't answer.

"Just open the circle."

"Then...?"

"I'll just deal with it."

"... Really? Thank you!"

She releases the summoning circle, and I step out. Now, there are few problems. Killing the zombies without being torn to pieces myself is one. Doing so without letting any in the cottage is another. Also, I didn't really have the time to prepare for zombie slaying...

"If you had added a message to the summoning, I could have gotten a weapon. Or clothes."

"I'm sorry... I didn't know how to do that..."

Funny. The last time I met her I was naked too. ...Yes, I sleep naked. I didn't see the point in buying nightwear, since I'm technically an evil spirit and can't catch a cold. Besides, a lust demon should get a free pass for nudity.

As for weapons, I see a small sickle hanging from her wall, for gathering herbs I assume. It seems sharp enough, but I don't really relish the idea of being within sickle's length of ravenous dead.

"Bit too druidic for my taste, but I need the blade. Athala, can you fasten it to the broom shaft?"

"On it!"

"Also, the roof will need repair..."

I break through the decrepit cottage roof while Athala quickly ties the sickle on the shaft. I arm myself with the makeshift weapon and survey the situation while hovering above the cottage. In the full moon's cold light I can clearly see every shambling corpse - they form a sphere around the cottage, each trying to get as near the juicy meal hidden within as they possibly can. It sort of reminds me of those mushrooms that grow in a ring like pattern because the spores puffed out all around the original.

"What'd you do to attract so many of them?"

"There was a necromancer in the woods... and then this happened!"

Athala shouts me an answer. The necromancer probably found an old battlefield, as there are at least hundred of them, all wearing remnants of armors. I'm not jumping into that mass of bodies; I wouldn't want to do that even with normal humans, never mind rotting zombies.

Instead I use the sicklestaff's reach to cut off their heads one by one. The zombies can only grasp at me in vain, they aren't bright enough to throw or shoot anything. And now there are... headless zombies? The dozen of them I decapitated just carry on like nothing.

"Athala! How do I... re-kill them?"

"Fire. Or anything else that destroys the bodies. Otherwise they'll keep moving."

"This'll be a long night..."

I decide to cut their limbs off instead - the first priority is neutralizing their movement. They are quite ripe and juicy, so their flesh doesn't resist my supernatural strength too much. I feel weaker than in my previous battles though. Is this result of my essence being low, or is there just so many of them even I tire?

After hacking at them for several hours, starting with one's closest to Athala's cottage, I'm finally done. The area is littered by quadruple amputated zombies who twitch on the ground while moaning furiously. What is it you say? ''Tis but a fleshwound'?

Athala steps out to witness the gory field. She covers her nose and mouth with a cloth and approaches me, hopping around the rotting mutilated corpses that fill her yard now.

"Thank you! You have done so much! I can... handle the bodies myself later."

"Let's never do this again."

"Agreed. ... I'll ready a bath...?"

That's half statement, half question. I nod. I'm covered in zombie juice, and bath would be nice indeed. It's just a basin, but gets the job done. Waking up to suddenly find myself in the middle of night of the living dead... I take this chance to relax after this ordeal.

... Wait... Why didn't I just fly her away and call it done? Ngghhh.

"Are you okay? What was that slamming noise?"

"Never mind."

After I emerge wearing set of borrowed clothes, Athala has her herb tea ready. For a hermit and a witch she's surprisingly domestic girl.

"Are you really... alright?"

She noticed? I do feel more tired than I should. I'm quite certain now that exerting myself while low on the essence of malevolence - the power that sustains me as a demon - is the reason.

"Let's just say I'm currently low on power."

She lowers her head. I did this for free, but she knows demons usually ask for evil deeds as a price for a reason.

"I can do... something evil. As a price of the contract. I mean, if that helps...?"

She asks this while fidgeting uncertainly. I don't deny her outright. I have never before tried setting that kind of price for contract, I always wanted a concrete reward in form of items. Well, there was this one time I made an elf bunny hop around naked, but that had rather bad consequences... But anyway, I don't want to force her to stay indebted to me. And since she herself asked it like this, who am I to patronize her?

But what should I ask her to do?

"... Can you turn a certain person into a pig?"

"I can research it--"

"No need, I'll think of something else. ... You do curses, right? Can you curse someone to..."

To what? I don't have enough interest in people to actually want to curse them or anything, so this is all new to me.

"...to never find the pair for their socks?"

"Ais... Are you really of the demonkin?"

What? And here I thought that was darn tootin' devious! ... To be serious, I actually do have a plan in mind.

"How many people could you curse at the same time?"

"I need to have something of theirs, like a hair. I could use a family member's as well, to curse all the blood relatives, but only for minor curses."

Blood relatives? It's too much of a bother to gather. Except, right outside...

"Very good. I want you to cast the sock curse... by using the body parts from zombies as the focus."

"Zombies? Do you mean the false life walkers? That means... all their descendants would be hit by it!"

Instead of committing one considerably evil thing, do countless indiscernibly small ones. Quantity over quality. I don't know if it really works cumulatively like that, but it's worth a try. The essence collected is sorely needed, and replenishing it could even return the memories I presume I lost, assuming the deprivation of it is the cause for their loss.

We collect samples from the still helplessly moaning zombies, which Athala then throws in her cauldron...

"Do you cook with that too?"

"Not anymore."

She performs a complicated ritual - this is fairly specific curse after all. I think a sock was part of it. Once the casting is completed, I feel... not much at all.

"Did it help you?"

"Not much. Did you feel like a cackling evil witch while doing it?"

"...Not really."

"I suppose that's part of the reason then."

She looks dejected. But it's not over yet.

"It could take time. When all those countless people feel the annoyance of losing their socks, I could get minute amounts of power from it each time."

"I hope so. ...I mean, I hope this will help you, not that those people have too bad a time..."

Before leaving, I told Athala to keep couple dozes of zombie-mix ready just in case. If this actually works, I have few more malevolence-gathering ideas. Prepare yourselves, unknown people, your breads will soon never fail to fall butter-side down. Muahahah.