And yet, as good as it felt, as confident as he was in his ability to control it, he didn’t wish to use it beyond simple exercise. Were he so inclined he could work as a beast-slayer or take part in spectacle combat for money without issue, but he was content to just help Makhus run this store.

Part of it was certainly out of a feeling of debt, for all those months hiding in the Exclusion Zone during which Makhus had taken care of him and sacrificed his own wellbeing to alleviate his seizures.

A much bigger part of it was that, frankly, he didn’t feel like trudging through mud for days at a time to go beat some sad remnant of the war into mulch - especially when he could make the same kind of money selling basic alchemy to laborers.

In short, Sigmund just wasn’t one to seek out violent means when a path of less resistance presented itself to him on a brass platter.

He was, after all, a historian first and foremost.

It was through the pressure of the war that he’d joined the army, and through the pressure of the war that he’d ended up in a supply convoy squad near the border.

It was, therefore, through the pressures of the war that he had been placed in the situation that resulted in him becoming a Victory Demon. So it was, and so he would carry on - enacting violence only if his situation pressured him into it.

Even then… He wasn’t so sure he would get to go on without donning the demon in self-defense for long. Sigmund couldn’t truthfully tell himself that the war was over - he knew that wasn’t how this worked. He knew that wars didn’t really end when the treaties were signed. Sigmund knew that his very existence as a former Ikesian soldier made him a marked man, that he might have to defend his life whenever and wherever, whether it would be in another official war or in some faux-random attack.

Willowdale was contentious even before the war - nay, even before the unification. It had always been a free city-state among free city-states, a radical place that refused to take sides yet somehow managed to muster some of the most impressive defenses when it needed to.

Certain well-reputed but disputed texts even claimed Willowdale to be the birthplace of modern Ikesian culture, stating that the people of this city were the first to overthrow their feudal lords. Even during the War of Fog, Willowdale had remained legally neutral - despite the number of battles waged over the city, despite the fact most of its fighting-age inhabitants had willingly left to join the army to never return. Through all that, the city-state maintained its neutrality.

What did it have to show for it? Half-abandoned streets, a destroyed and rebuilt city hall, and walls with holes blown into them by one terrorist group or another. And yet, this was the ideal outcome. Had Willowdale officially joined the war, it wouldn’t be here now. It would’ve been wiped clean, just as several similar but much smaller cities had been in the second half of the mess.

So strange, to think that this ancient, yet relatively small city-state had been such a point of contention for so long. There were few if any recorded reasons, but Sigmund had spent uncounted nights arguing with fellow academics about the topic.

He tended to use a well-worn argument - Willowdale had turned the feudal system on its head, and a state whose citizenry has both political power and a view of politicians as nothing more than servants for the public would be an existential threat for any authoritarian.

To bolster his argument, he would usually bring up the availability of armaments for civilians and the lack of regulation surrounding lethal martial arts. Back then he’d viewed it as ridiculous and unsafe, but having lived here for only a few days he’d come to realize something. Brigands and muggers are rarer than an honest Pateirian in a place where most folks carry a gun or two.

The doorbell rang, tearing Sigmund from his introspection. A customer - a regular, at that. An older lady.

She was wrinkled to all hell, wore a curly snow-white hairstyle, and dressed in what would’ve been considered high fashion half a century ago - elaborate frilly dresses and all. And yet, she moved and spoke more energetically than people three decades her junior. It hadn’t made sense at first, even after she bought a six-bottle case of Liquid Vigor and went out of her way to ask about “yellow nose candy”. Even if people of her age used all alchemic measures available, they always maintained some form of elderly gait.

Even her attitude was unfitting. Not a mote of exhaustion could be seen behind her ultramarine eyes, and a weirdly knowing smile always spread itself ‘cross her face when she talked about the “good old times”.

This time, as she’d done before, she purchased a six-bottle case of Liquid Vigor - for the third day in a row.

Curious, Sigmund just had to ask, “...I don’t wish to pry, but what’re you doin’ with all this elixir? Buying it for family?”

“Ohoho, I don’t mind at all!” bubbled the old woman. “I’ve had a Viriditas habit for quite a while, and the great fuckup forced me to rely upon my considerable reserves for some time. I am simply attempting to rebuild them.”

“If you bring a larger vessel we’ll fill it up for a better per-liter price,” he offered as he picked bottles off the shelf and packed them into the six-bottle crate that she’d brought.

“No, no such thing,” she huffed and puffed with faux exaggerated annoyance. “You’re already undercharging as is, I couldn’t buy for an even lower price with a clean conscience.”

“Well, to help soothe your conscience, I’ll let y’know that we’ve got a better profit margin even at our prices. Upside of making it ourselves instead of importing.”