Someone tapped on Tafel’s shoulder, causing the demon to turn her head to the left.

“Do you think Feathered Serpent would be interested in finding out which weapon suits him the best?” Melody asked, the pink-haired woman glancing down at the spider Tafel was sitting on.

“Vur’s not particularly fond of using weapons, but we can ask him,” Tafel said and glanced behind herself at the bulbous bottom of the spider. “Vur, do you want to keep sleeping or test different weapons?”

There was no response.

Melody scratched her head. “Shouldn’t you wake him up to ask him?”

“It’s alright,” Tafel said and shook her head. “He can learn in his sleep. I’m sure he can hear my question too. If he keeps sleeping, then he’s not interested in training with a weapon.”

“Is there … someone inside your spider?” Jackal asked. His root bracelet flashed with an amber light, and he lowered his head to glance at it. “We can pick up the weapons for magic users at the Virtuous Hand marketplace. Shall we go together, or would you like me to bring them to you?”

“You can bring them to us,” Lindyss said. “We don’t have much money right now, so window-shopping will only make me want to seize things.”

“Oh,” Jackal said. He nodded with a blank expression. “Yes, of course. I’ll be right back.” He turned around and headed towards the nearest wooden tablet. When his back was turned to the group, a deep furrow appeared on his forehead. So, the dragon’s companions were a bunch of scoundrels. It was a shame they weren’t naïve, bleeding hearts who could be galvanized into action with a sob story, but at least they were people who were moved by money, a group that was easy enough to manipulate. They couldn’t be used as a main force of the Virtuous Hand like Mary, but they could be treated as a trump card in desperate moments that required burning the treasury.

Jackal chuckled to himself, his face relaxing as he entered a tunnel, one where he could access a wooden tablet to retrieve the weapons he had had his subordinates gather from the thirtieth floor. A well-dressed man walked past him, but instead of continuing on, the well-dressed man’s footsteps faltered before coming to a complete halt. Jackal raised an eyebrow before turning his head. With his cloak and hood, no one should’ve been able to see his non-human features, so why was this well-dressed man staring right at him?

“You,” the well-dressed man said and held out a piece of paper. “I think you dropped this.”

Jackal furrowed his brow and glanced down at the man’s hand. The piece of paper looked like the corner of a card. The pattern on the card wasn’t one he recognized, but judging by the shape of it, it must’ve been a Geimeo Card—perhaps one of the special editions. Wasn’t this a classic scam? “That isn’t mine.”

The well-dressed man blinked. “Huh,” he said and shrugged before ripping up the card. A woman with white hair and white eyes appeared, floating in the center of the tunnel.

Before Jackal could even react, a blinding light radiated out of the woman and flooded his vision. The necklace he wore underneath his shirt crackled as one of its gems lit up with a gray light. A barrier formed over his skin, which had turned red and was blistering. Jackal gritted his teeth and squinted his eyes as his root bracelet flashed with an amber light. A scroll appeared in his hand, one that would teleport him out of his predicament. Unfortunately, it was disintegrated by the light in an instant. The barrier, which should’ve been translucent, filled with all sorts of colors as if it were a soap bubble. Then, it shattered, the white light burning and scorching until Jackal’s vision went dark.

In—what felt like—a few minutes later, a white light with a speck at the center appeared. Jackal focused on it, and the white light expanded. The speck became clearer and clearer, and a certain elf’s face came into view. Jackal’s eyes widened, and he jerked upwards. However, his body didn’t come with him…. It remained on the ground in its burnt, puddle-like state. Jackal glanced down before letting out a scream at the sight of his own body.

A shadowy hand reached up out of the ground and smacked Jackal’s ghostly face, causing the poor man to fall silent. “Calm down,” the cursed elf said. “You died, so I temporarily brought you back as a ghost to find out what happened to you.”

“Died?” Jackal asked. Images of the white-haired woman appeared in his mind, and a shiver ran down his spine, which was weird because he didn’t have a spine anymore. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he had a body. There was just bundle of sensations around the areas he focused on, mainly around where his limbs should’ve been. “I’m a ghost?”

“Yeah,” Lindyss said. “You told us you’d be right back, but you were gone longer than it takes a dragon to poop, so I decided to come check on you. You’re lucky I found your body when I did, or your ghost would be a whole lot more incomplete.”

“Me?” Jackal asked and glanced down. His whole existence sank towards his corpse. He hovered all around it with his ghostly body, his movements becoming slower and slower as the realization kicked in. “I died? No. Why? There are still so many things I need to do, so many wrongs that have to be righted.”

Lindyss shrugged. “You must’ve annoyed someone enough for them to take action against you. Things like this happen when you touch the stuff of people more powerful than you.”

“You turned me into a ghost?” Jackal asked. “And you said it was temporary? Is there a way to make it permanent?”

“Well, by turning you into a ghost, I technically took control of your soul,” Lindyss said and spun her finger around in a circle, causing Jackal’s vision to spin as if he were rolling down a hill in a barrel. “I can maintain your ghostly body for as long as you’d like—for a price, of course. If you want to disappear and end your existence, I’ll let you go anytime you want. How is it? Want to pay for a continued existence?”

Jackal gritted his teeth, his voice coming out as a growl. “As long as you let me complete my goals, I’ll pay any price you want.”