Possession, blood augmentation, super strength… He sighed, looking at the same text he’d seen in the last couple of books. None of the things he saw as he flipped through the book had anything to do with what was happening to him at the moment. This had happened more than once already. Before he had tried to do the same with Lidia. He had tried to… make her attached to him in a way that would have only meant a bad end. He had managed to pull himself out of it enough to fall asleep, fortunately.

Everything was back to normal in the morning. That was what he had thought. Assuming it had just been the alcohol making him like that last night, he had thought nothing else of it, but today the erratic behavior had come back again in full swing. He had hoped he’d find it in the ‘possession’ categories, that the demon he had consumed was still in him and he just needed to puke it out or something… There was no such luck.

He had learned about why he’d so readily eaten the demon back then, though. It had been in a certain book called, Demonic Hierarchies. The book talked about a place in this world called the empty lands. A place where mana was at its densest, and therefore allowed for the creation of extremely strong demonic creatures. Because of it, the only half-sentient race that could exist there were purebred demons.

These demons started off strong but only became stronger as they consumed more and more demons. The details about just how much stronger they became for demons were unclear, but it did go on about the powers they’ve witnessed in them. They were able to shapeshift, and magically control others' emotions and actions, some were even able to fly when they became strong enough, able to turn their blood into light but strong wings on their backs.

He was barely able to coat his fingers.

He skimmed through a few more books before eventually shoving them away from him, sighing in defeat. In hindsight, it was a bit silly to think these books would have anything that pertained to the demon’s perspective. Almost none of them had talked about a demon’s lifestyle except for Demonic Hierarchies, which had been mostly about how violent demons tended to be on their own kind. How they obtained this information was beyond him, but it helped him better understand who he was. Or at least, what people would think if they saw his real face.

Truly, this body belonged to a monster.

One of the things that had shocked him the most was that while demons prioritized sentient races, they never gained power from fighting or eating them, this only came from eating other demons and demonic creatures. There was no reason for them to hunt down human beings or other intelligent creatures, especially after the first human they killed, allowing them the ability to speak the language. But they did so anyway, for sport or pleasure the book didn’t say. It was disturbing, seeing a creature besides humans who killed other humans for fun.

Though, he could say the same for human beings.

He shook his head free from those thoughts, and stood from the table, picking up the pile of books he had taken from the shelves. Ever since he came to this world his memory had become somewhat better, at least, good enough to find the places he had found the books and placed them back. It had taken a bit of time, but anything was better than having to talk to that girl Madeline again.

Of course, she just had to walk near him at that moment. She looked just about as surprised as he was, at least, which did make him feel a bit better. "Oh, did you find anything?" The book fell out of his hand when he heard her voice, shocked at her appearance. He went to catch it before it hit the ground not realizing the girl had done the same. “Gah!” he fell back, grabbing his nose. Luckily the girl was short enough that he didn’t headbutt her, but he had smashed his nose in the back of her head in the process.

She still seemed a bit hurt, though, holding the top of her head. “God… damn it all.” He groaned. His nose would heal at some point, and since he controlled the blood before it came and ruined the bandages there really wasn’t any reason to be worried about himself. Instead, he focused on the girl. “Hey, are you ok? Sorry about that, I’m a bit jumpy.” He reached down and grabbed the book, placing it back as the girl looked up at him.

“N-no…I mean, yes but I’m more worried about you… you hit your nose really hard. …really hard.” He grinned, feeling the pain in his nose already turn numb as the nose slowly settled back in place. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a weirdly resilient body. Oh, and I found out a lot about what happened to me, so thank you for showing me these books.” He turned to her and smiled, even though he knew she couldn’t see it. There just weren’t many times he was genuinely thankful. “For you to help someone like me, and to go so far as to warn a stranger about the dangers of demon hunting… You must be a kind person.”

That, or she’s seen people die too many times for her to keep her distance. Her eyes became distant, but the smile on her face told him he hadn’t messed up too bad. At least she didn’t despise him enough to anger from a compliment. “I’m… not sure I deserve that praise. I did that more for myself than any other actual reason.” Hah, excusing kindness for selfishness. How could he not understand that? That was basically what he had been doing his whole life.

Even after his mother died and he’d been forced to grow up with his father, it had been a hard habit to drop. “We all do things because we want to, right? To want to help others still means you help others. Is a demon not evil because he merely wants to eat humans?” Haha. A demon talking about demons. Considering what he read, it wasn’t too far off from how demons actually acted. She found it funny as well, which certainly didn’t set off any red flags in his mind.

“You actually read them. I thought you’d just skim through them. I’m glad someone actually found the books as interesting as I do.” Ah, so she was a book nerd. Honestly, he’d really only read one or two of the books she had given him. The only reason he had read even that much was because the Demon Hierarchies book was the only one that had anything different from the others. It was interesting, too, written as if the person had a strange fascination with demons. Fascination or not, however, they had still filled the book with constant words of spite for the monsters.

“...I know that demons are associated with evil magics but with proper control, they have been known to be useful and even quite docile when domesticated. Really, if it wasn’t for those evil bastards using demons like fodder they wouldn’t have such a bad reputation in this town.” …Huh? Oh, she had been talking while he was reminiscing. Wait a goddam second, what did she say? “D-domesticated demon? As in… the human-looking ones?”

She nodded, “If you manage t get the resources to do so, then I don’t see why not. Though, it’d be much easier to domesticate those with lower intelligence. I’d say goblins would make the easiest source to train since they’re just smart enough to understand human thought while having the proper body for menial labor. There has already been plenty of success with them.”

…Those didn’t count as human-looking? And Menial labor!? Why’d she have to use that term!? Holy hell, that sounded way too much like slavery. Her face seemed way too normal as well, looking to the side with a nervous smile that made this seem more like passionate small talk than any actual inhumane act. He made a mental note to keep her on the list of people he would never tell his secret to. “That sounds… Nice? It would certainly help me if I could get my hand on one of those purebloods.”

While he only said that to keep her from thinking he was put off by the conversation, it did make him wonder if just grabbing one of those bastards and yelling at them until they answered his question would work. He looked at the girl in curiosity, only to find her with a mortified face. “Ah… I-I forgot about… You wouldn’t like seeing demons walking around alongside humans after what they did to you. I apologize for being so insensitive.”

The hell was she talking abou- Ah… “Ah, No! Of course I wouldn’t mind this type of conversation. I find demons quite fascinating, actually. Not many days go by when I meet someone so informed about these things.” He pointed at the non-existent scars on his face, hidden under the black bandages. “Anything you know can get me just a bit closer to fixing me up, you know?” She looked at him surprised, before she looked away, her eyes glistening.

“Thank you for telling me that. I don’t usually meet many adventurers who ask for my assistance… what are you doing?” Oh, so she hadn’t just started crying. He already had his back turned to her, feet set in a way that looked as if he were about to bolt in the opposite direction. Which was absurd, of course, he’d never do that. He stumbled back into a normal standing posture with the grace of a newborn penguin. “...nothing.”

She giggled, finding his non-joke funny for some reason. “Please come talk to me when you need any help. I… Wouldn’t mind the distraction in this lonely library.” Her eyes dilated. She was nervous when she said that, probably because it had sounded suggestive escaping her voice. She looked away, conscious of his eyes. The fact that he hadn’t said anything was making her nervous. She was lonely, not having many people to talk to in this lonely library.

She was alone, yet expressive enough to want his attention. It’d be so easy to-

The burning pit in his stomach settled again, and he hunched forward with a sudden, painful feeling in the back of his head. “Guh…” The nervous gaze in her eyes suddenly turned to one of worry, looking over him as if it had been her fault. She grabbed his shoulder and arm, only to hesitantly pull away for a moment before firmly grabbing with confidence. With a bit too much force. She was nervous, and feeling guilty about using this moment for skinship. Another detriment to how lonely she was, how much she thought herself unique and flawed. His brain burned even more as that thought came to his head. “Are you ok!? What happened?”

Her voice came to him in waves, each word mixed with multiple emotions that were too complex and weird for him to understand completely He could understand them, though… and that was insane. Was this the power he had gotten from the demon? If that was true, then how could he stop it-

The moment he said that, the feeling in his stomach went away. He was no longer feeling the pounding headache, and the girl’s emotions no longer meant anything to him. Well, all except for the obvious ones. She looked worried. Very.

He raised himself from the hunched-over position, gently unraveling his arm from the girl, who seemed more scared about the situation than he was, apparently. He had to think up an excuse, fast. “...would you believe that I just had a brief headache just now?” Her eyes became round before a hint of anger showed up in them. Replace fear with anger, since that emotion was easier to contro-

He forced himself to stay still as the splitting headache came back, and he forced the power to settle down again. For something meant to give him an edge it sure was stupidly painful and useless.

How the hell would this kind of power even be useful to demons?

“...You obviously look like you need help. Please… I can refer you to a proper healer if you want. She only comes here around once a month but she regularly does work in the guild. She might actually help with your problem.” Elliot, in his vulnerable and weak state, had forgotten that his face wasn’t actually scarred to kingdom come and became hopeful. “Really? What’s her name then?”

Madeline smiled, in that proud way that meant she was happy about having such connections. “Her name is Lidia, she’s a C-rank healer with quite the reputation.”

…

…

God damn it.