Passing through the summoning circle's field feels... strange. I think 'osmosis' gives the gist. When I tried it before, the field exerted insurmountable pressure, but now that I shed the demonic essence I had, it cannot stop me. It was a gamble - last time it happened I fell into coma. But my every instinct cried that reforming... no, reformatting in hell would be bad, and so I ignore the darkness spreading from edges of my vision and push on.

"No turning into dust? Yes fanservice? I have no idea how you did it, but great job Ais~!"

Celica has picked up word 'fanservice' from me. Oh, and yes, I'm naked. It turns out clothes aren't really meant to take temperatures like... -100C°, -200C°? I don't know, so let's go with 'cold as hell'. Even my armor fell off, since its straps shattered, and I think the metal would have been fragile regardless. Only thing to survive the onslaught unscathed was the blade of my swordstaff, which I had the presence of mind to pick up.

And so I face the druid high council clad in nothing but the mist generated by the lingering coldness, and armed only thanks to the protecting power of a drool enchantment. As I'm about to begin my full frontal assault, Celica cheers from within her circle.

"Go Ais~! Punch druids~!"

"I think I'll stick to stabbing, thank you."

Despite my sudden freedom, the five druids only increase the tempo of their chant. The fact that they are still continuing means they either can't stop without a backlash, or whatever they are cooking up is their best attack against me. Meanwhile the two remaining druids have shaken off their confusion, and begin to approach me.

I, however, have no intention to fight any armored, sickle-armed druids just yet. Not when there are squishy wizards to bully too. Besides, freeing the battle beast that is Celica will dramatically increase my chances of survival.

I take wing and slip around the druids right when one of them tries to restrain me by summoning a root through the cave floor and the other launches a ball of fire from the nearby torch. I've vaguely noted it before, but druid magic seems to be often reliant on the environment; instead of conjuring something from nothingness they use existing elements near them. This makes them have even harder time landing a hit at me as I flap around the dark, stalactite ridden cave ceiling like a drunken bat, and they are unable to stop me from getting to the wizards.

The wizard responsible for keeping Celica circled is busy maintaining his spell, while the one who summoned me is still staring at his supposedly impregnable magic circle, which I just walked through like nothing. He's not at all ready for my super-sonic swooping sweep attack, still wearing dumb-founded expression as my falx-blade cleanly cuts his head off. I almost feel bad for him, but as long as there are summoners around they could potentially trap me again.

"By the Blightmoon, you won't-- Grrrrhhh!"

The remaining wizard snarls a curse and chooses to abandon his spell in favor of defending himself, but it's too little, too late - keeping my momentum I rush at him and pierce his throat before he can get a single spell ready.

With that the summoning circle quickly fades, freeing Celica, who, joins in while cracking her fists theatrically.

"Ding ding~, Celica joins the battle~!"

The frustrated druid duo, who couldn't quite keep up with me is now forced respond to her, leaving me free to ruin the chanting quintet's day.

However, I find out just why the two free druids saw no reason to cover their comrades. I'm just about to reach them with my sword-blade, when they finish their chant with a joint shout.

Immediately a bright, coldly white light surrounds me, seemingly resonating with the standing stones themselves, and growing more intense for it. I don't have time to dodge, shout or react at all as its pure energy hits me, a power that cleanses all that is demonic. The last thing I see before the flash of light is Celica shouting and recoiling from the spell's effect.

"AIIIIS~!"

...

.....

After the light fades and everyone blinks their blinded eyes, the druids sigh in elation. But that is premature. I'm still standing.

"Whaaa?!"

A long bearded druid lets his jaw drop, voicing everyone's thoughts very elegantly. So... their long and difficult chant had zero effect on me? I take a look at my hands and body. ...I think I got a tan from it.

"Was it a dud?"

"Nope. Owww~..."

Celica answers my question. She was barely standing at the fringes of the attack, yet smoke is rising from all over her, and part of her hair is on fire.

Ah. I just spent all my cumulated demonic essence earlier. Which would mean... I don't count as demon(ic enough) for their spells right now?

"She survived the blessing?"

"What new devilry is this?! It was supposed to leave only a pile of ash behind!"

Blessing? The same blessing offered to the victors of the Hunt? Haah, it would have been ironic to be killed by our reward for winning, certainly. But I'm fine. Well, apart from the pulsating darkness covering more and more of my field of vision, and the faded whispers I'm hearing, but that's likely all because I exerted myself to stay conscious with depleted essence.

The moment of confusion where everyone processed what just happened ends soon. And with that comes the mutual realization that it’s just us two against the whole druid high council.

Their attacks were haphazard earlier, since only two of them were free to do so, and I had moved too fast and sudden. But now they need only nod at each other and chant buffing spells on themselves. Fighting them now is a whole different story. The plan was to assassinate them, aka sucker punch & flee, and not to actually fight them fairly.

"I think it's time we left."

"Owwww~, this sucks~! ... You're right though."

We both fly zikzak though the air as multitude of druid spells flash and bash and slash at us with tempo that dwarfs any of my earlier confrontations with magic users. Yeah, retreat was the right call here.

For the short while our dash lasted, the air was covered in magical blasts like anti-air flak, but none managed to hit me. Was this effect of the blessing? Or just dumb luck? I don't know, but the important thing is both of us reached the elevator shaft and disappear from their line of sight. Celica had taken a glancing hit at her backside, but nothing important was lost.

While the old druids wheeze and gasp to catch us up, I stop to cut the chains holding the elevator. It doesn't crash down since it was already at the lowest level, but that might make their leaving much harder for a while. Assuming this is the only exit.

We exit the druid caves much faster than we entered them, only to be confronted by few baffled guards. I guess no-one told them to watch out for demons leaving the druids' holy cave.

"Wha... Naked? Demon?! I-I will not let youUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuu..."

Renegade interrupt! I toss the guard to the shaft. If only he had said 'this is madness!', then this would have been perfect. Well, maybe that was unnecessarily violent of me, since few guards can't hold a candle for us demons...

"Me too~!"

"NooooOOOOooooooooooo..."

Celica tosses the other one. Uhhh, I taught her bad habits, didn't I? Well, never mind that. There's still one more optional objective to fulfill.

"Hey Celica, can you block the shaft well and good before we leave?"

If my estimation of high druids' skill is accurate, that won't stop them. Not permanently, at least. But it's the thought that counts.

As she begins rolling boulders into the lift shaft, the adrenaline that kept me going disperses and my vision goes dark. Right, this again. My last thought before losing consciousness is that if I lose my memories again, I'll... probably fail to remember to be angry about it. Haah. Even my imagination is apathetic.

***

Laaaa. I didn't forget anything. At least I think so. I MUST PURGE ALL THE DARKNESS. Yes, I open the curtains of the room.

Hmmm, come to think of it, I never had a chance to ask about that personality affecting thingie that druids may or may not have put in me. I actually forgot that after I had concluded it can't affect me. Not that they would have been too helpful, not unless we'd beaten to inch of their lives first. What happened afterwards anyway...

Right. The druids were bottled into their hole, and Celica presumably carried me to this... random inn room? Just as I'm about to become curious where this here is, she steps in.

"Morning~ sleepyhead! Or mid-afternooning~!"

She's annoyingly chipper, as usual. I ignore her beaming face and look out of the window at the landscape over which the sun beams brightly. I can see a narrow dirt road dividing thick birch forest, which already has patches of bright yellow leaves during this late summer. In the distance there's a cliff that only very generous people would call a mountain. Notable for its shape, which is similar to a crab's pincer, the landmark is called Pincer Hill. Which means I'm located pretty much exactly halfway back to the empire then.

...

Then it hits me. I've never seen the Pincer Hill before. I've never heard of it either - not during this incarnation, that is.

I recall what I experienced during my slumber. After I fell unconscious because of my lack of demonic essence, I dreamed again. While the previous time it came to me as just sense of apathy and darkness, this time I saw more... What I thought was darkness was actually a multitude of memories: so many of them that I couldn't see a single memory, as they blotted each other.

Maybe I just gained enough clues to begin remembering it all now, or maybe there was some other trigger, but now that I know what I have, I can begin inspecting my newfound memories. But it's certainly not an indexed dictionary, nor is there a search engine for this mess. It's like a large pile of puzzle pieces, and not just from one puzzle, but from an unknown number of them. I'm also pretty sure many of the pieces are missing.

Celica waits patiently as I remember random bits and pieces.

...So that's why elves go crazy about me! One of my incarnations was convinced she was divine - on hindsight concept of 'demon' was very similar to that of a god to her... or to me - and so I acted like a love goddess when the early elven civilization happened to summon me. I wonder if the pyramid I had them build for me is still standing? I'll curse them if the stuff I left there has been looted!

And then there was this one incarnation who was obsessed with punching bears. ...There never was any tragic tale behind that. He... yes, the original owner of that personality was a he, just didn't like them. That's all. Seriously, fuck bears.

Before I start to leave for my daily bear-punching time, I forcibly stop myself. One could get lost in this... this abyss of memories. But really... I made a big deal of it when I lost my memories, but it turns out I was missing a vast majority of them long before that happened.

Well, at least one thing is certain now...

"So... I've lost my memories every time I reformed in hell, and each time came back with a different personality."

I state my revelation, to which Celica just nods.

"Yep~."

Hey... It wasn't supposed to be obvious to you! ...She knew then. But why didn't she tell me? Nah, I know already why. If I asked she'd just answer 'you gotta~ find these things out by yourself~, tehe~' when she actually just wanted to entertain herself by watching me flail around finding it out.

"At least try to act surprised..."

"Fine fine~. Ohhhh!!! Your wings...? They are gone~! Oh nooo~!"

"That's not what I-- Eh!?"

Half disbelieving I fumble to touch my once splendid wings. Now there are but skeletal husks left, with tatters of wing membrane hanging from them.

What the hell is it NOW!?