Chapter 62

 

Night of Day 12 since entering the gnome’s warren;

The Demon Realm

We still huffing and breathing hard from all the hard work we’re doing. By now a ton of imps have died, but I can’t really take any of the credit. To their credit they didn’t seem to even flinch when their brethren were killed. Were all their kind like that?

How can they charge in so recklessly?

It’s basically all the work of Fox Girl and Sunghee to have brought us forward this far. My kills are still less than a tenth of both of theirs. I’m actually like proud that I could even survive so many imps.

Yeah, surviving is good by itself. Survive now to become stronger later. Bit by bit I was climbing the ladder. I felt also deeply grateful to having Sunghee and Fox Girl here.

She still won’t tell me her name.

“What are you chuckling about?” Fox asks me suspiciously, yanking me from my inner thoughts.

“Huh? Oh nothing. Just glad we’re alive,” I said.

Big deal I’m not a big ass imp killer. But I didn’t lose my face to their razor sharp claws. That’s good too right? Is not getting maimed also progress as part of survival, I wonder?

We managed to flee from the beach area but there are still dangers. I feel the regret as we leave. It’s really a beautiful beach. I feel a longing to play with Sunghee and Fox here.

Some of the imps tried to follow us but Fox Girl was able to shoot them down with some kind of energy pulse from her weapon. Still she shoots them down every now and then when she spots them.

We keep traveling for a long time, going near the shore line but trying to not be out in the open. Bit by bit, we start to lose the imps, thanks to the destructive power of my two companions. If it weren’t for them we’d have been swarmed for sure. Eventually the terrain changes and gets more woody and green.

We find ourselves in what looks like a hill meadow of some kind. There is tall grass here and all kinds of interesting flowers and trees. It doesn’t look like a deadly killing zone, which it really is. But at least the imps aren’t bothering us.

“Wait a sec, something’s not right here,” Fox warns me. Of course she has the best senses of all of us.

But then we’re surprised some more when a dark cloudy mist starts to form in the middle of the meadow. It continues to gather energy. Sparks and what looks like a mini vortex of a black tornado the size of a man appear in the middle of it. But I can’t help but feel the belt mode of the demon box also pulsing with the tornado. Sometimes even the stealth mode belt showers sparks along with it.

The vortex keeps growing and sucking in energy and air from around us. It creates a small wind that’s hitting it. But the wind is picking up as the energy grows. The others also notice the belt form on me pulsing with the energy.

“What is this?” I asked Fox. She’s the supernatural among us so I expect she’d have a guess at least.

“That can’t be good,” Fox says, narrowing her eyes. She is hunched over in an attack stance.

“The box is summoning a boss?” Sunghee guesses. She looks at Fox Girl, who shrugs.

“It seems so. But this is new to me too. I haven’t seen this before. But then the previous owner of the demon item box wasn’t good at unchaining prisoners. He’d never done it before.”

“If so, did the box also summon the imps too?” I wondered.

After a brief few seconds to think about it, Fox frowns, “probably not. I’m not a hundred percent certain, but I think we just stumbled on them. A place like this is natural to have a lot of monsters after all.”

I seem satisfied with the answer. But part of that was wanting to make sure Fox listened to me and wasn’t biased. She did give it a chance to think about, after all.

That wasn’t good about the box summoning a boss though. It meant there would be a limit to how much Fox could coach me today. But then again, we had no idea what it was pulling out.

Suddenly the black vortex stops circling and gathering black energy. It dissipates and instead some kind of weird black shadow creature is there. It looks like a horned human but entirely made of shadows with no face to speak of, no eyes, and not even clothes. It’s like we’re looking at a cutout of black shifting energy.

Oh shit...that thing looks strong AND dangerous!

“Uh oh, I don’t like how that looks. That’s the look of evil if I ever saw it before,” Sunghee says.

“More evil than an orc general?” Fox wondered.

Sunghee didn’t say anything but scowled at her. Oops, she’d hit a nerve.

“Uh, let’s focus on the matter in front of us,” I said.

“It’s here to kill us, what do you expect?” Fox Girl spits out, annoyed at us both. She had a pretty good evil eye imitation herself actually.

“Like hell I’ll let kill me!” I cry out. “Let’s finish this. I refuse to be afraid.” My knees still want to shake though, but it’s partly working. I’m facing it with as much courage as I can.

“So what do you plan to do?” Fox Girl asks, watching us.

“You can help us right? Please,” I asked again.

It’s weird like before the slave collar makes her head twitch again like before. She finally relents. “I guess I could help out again.”

But is there a limit to how many times per day I can ask Fox Girl to help out? It does seem that her high intelligence and willpower are fighting the box. Could she eventually fight her way to break free? Would she kill me if she did?

I decide if I get out of this I need to wean off help from Fox, and use Sunghee as a resource more to avoid pushing her limits.

The shadow creature doesn’t move very fast, but it’s strong and vaguely man sized it seems. But other than that at this point we can’t see much of it’s form except for the overshadowing inky blackness covering its form.

Is it...yes, I think it is…

The reason its not moving much yet, is because it’s cunningly studying us, even while we study it!

“Look out! Incoming!” I called out.

Sunghee jumps at it and tries to cut off its arms but it blocks her, even while changing its shape and characteristics. I was surprised when the dwarven war hammer I lent her hit his arm; somehow he started to copy it and …transform? It sounds impossible but I’m seeing it. His shadow flesh is very quickly shifting to look like ours, specifically Sungee’s. After blocking the blow with his wrist somehow he’d changed his arm into Sunghee’s arm with a weapon in his hand exactly just like hers in every detail. She kept trying to block, and jump to the side to try for a sneak attack but it would turn and face her every time. Then it used the other arm to block her.

Now instead of a weirdly shaped incorporeal shadow man with horns we had a shadow man with horns with a left and right arm that looked like Sunghee’s, each arm was equipped with the flawlessly copied and perfectly made dwarven war hammers clones in each hand! It somehow even blocked heavily. I could see the ricochet effect when Sunghee’s weapon rebounded back of its own.

“That’s not good,” I heard Fox Girl muttering.

“Weird,” I found myself muttering.

“What the hell?! It can clone equipment too?” Sunghee exclaims.

“Ah, so it summoned a doppelganger! This thing is freaking dangerous! I didn’t recognize it at first because I thought they were only a myth. It’s probably a high ranking one at that, if it can duplicate people’s gear too,” Fox Girl nods. She’s already moving and trying to look for a good position to attack from. But she’s more cautious and leads some fakes and lures first as she tries to see how it’ll react.

“So? Don’t just stand there! It wants to kill us!” I exclaim.

“Man, this is such a bother. It’s like I haven’t slept in a week and you still want me to work. You are a tough owner,” Fox Girl gripes.

“S-sorry. When we find a safe place I’ll try to let you rest and treat you better,” I exclaimed. Fox Girl smiles at me innocently. It’s the first time I’ve seen her in non-griping mode. Actually I think it’s the first smile I’ve seen her use.

“Both Sunghee and Fox Girl circle the beast while I’m looking for openings,” I said. I also pick up rocks to throw at it since I don’t have a real range weapon. I can try to go for distractions too, to create openings. I’m weaker than both of them, and since I’ve got a bad condition I don’t risk getting in melee range.

“I’m just glad it duplicated your weapon and not mine,” Fox Girl says, still luring it and trying to trick it. Sometimes it’d wavered, not being sure which to chase, but stayed after Sunghee more often than not.

“What would’ve happened if it’d copied your weapon?” I asked.

“Then we’d die, terribly and quickly,” Fox said.

“Oh hell, that is lucky,” Sunghee realizes what would have happened if Fox Girl had attacked first.

Sunghee attacks again, but has to retreat when the shadow creature is tougher and faster than she is. Fox Girl and I then hit it with rocks, which creates an opening. Sunghee then circles back and hits it in the back when it turned to face and block the rocks.

“Wow it’s smart, but it can still be tricked. We might just live through this,” Fox says. She doesn’t sound entirely convinced or happy.

When it turns its back towards us to strike back and drive Sunghee back then Fox girl jumps again at it swiping her death scythe at it. She scores a hit on its leg but instead of making it bleed and as it falls its legs change shape from shadow material into looking like Fox Girl’s legs.

“Holy shit! That is so weird!” Sunghee is amazed at it. She almost forgets to dodge when it strikes back.

“Isn’t it supposed to bleed and get cut up?” I asked.

“Never fought one, not sure. But I’m guessing it’s letting you hit it so it can copy you,” Fox said.

“Dang.”

It somehow stops momentarily to look at its legs. I think it kind of likes them somehow because right after that it let Fox Girl strike the other shadow leg. Now both of them look like human legs right up to the top of its thighs. The melding of flesh with the eerie black inky shadow is weird though.

We distinctly hear a ‘ke ke ke’ weird laugh kind of like a twisted echo. That was followed by an “ek eke k,” sounds together.

This fucker is laughing at us?!

“Is it laughing at us? No way!” Sunghee exclaims.

We then heard it’s voice again, “!yaw oN? su ta gnihgaul ti iS.” I have no idea what it just said. But the sounds are unmistakable.

“Weird, I think it tried to echo what you said, but got it backwards,” Fox guessed.

“That’s freaking weird,” I responded.

“driew gnikaerf s’tahT,” it mirrors my voice with the strange off key echoing again.

“Is it trying diplomacy or negotiation?” Sunghee wonders.

“I’ll teach it to laugh at us. Keep your guard up. You just wait,” Fox says.

Then we hear an echo from the creature in the same voice as Sunghee, “Is it laughing at us? No way!” it exclaims in the exact same voice.

It keeps mocking us, “Is it laughing at us? No way!” keeps getting smaller in volume but is still spilling out of its mouth.

It keeps changing blows with Sunghee while Fox girl keeps trying to maneuver behind it. I’m throwing rocks at it and going in and out of its striking reach. Because I know I’m weaker than both of them I have to be more careful. I also notice that no matter what the danger is from the other two girls, when I get close the shadow creature instinctively wants to go after me.

It knows I’ve got the box, and so its hate is centered on me. They have to keep luring it off me for several minutes.

“Is it laughing at us? No way!”

“Is it laughing at us? No way!”

“Is it laughing at us? No way!”

“Shut up!” Fox Girl yells.

“Shun, don’t get close to it,” Sunghee warns.

Fox girl notices this, and tells me to stay away from it at all costs too.

“Maybe we can bait it,” Sunghee says.

It echoes her like a parrot again with the same exact voice, “Maybe we can bait it.” Then it keeps echoing it.

“Shut up!” Sunghee is getting mad at its taunts. Sunghee gets mad and keeps trying to wail blows at it, but it’s good at defense. It blocks a lot of stuff as she goes in offense mode. Fortunately she’s good enough at her attack speed that it’s forced to hold off attacking her back.

“Shut up!”

“Shut up!”

“Shut up!”

“Hey that’s the same kind of defensive parry you taught me,” I say to Fox Girl, noticing it.

“Wow it can copy skills too? Wait a minute. That’s really bad, if it can copy skills too. Uh, you guys better distract it for awhile so I can analyze how to deal with this,” Fox hangs back studying it. She’d been about to rush it when that happened.

“That…doesn’t sound fun. Do we have too?” Sunghee is very reluctant. She can tell from looking at it, how formidable it is.

“Sunghee we need you to keep it busy while I get a plan going,” Fox orders.

Sunghee blinks in surprise even while she’s trying to press an advantage. She almost got a hit in, but at the last second the shadow side stepped and then parried, but then turned back towards her. The fight keeps going like this for some time.

After a few minutes Fox Girl is alarmed. “I think it’s getting stronger,” she says awkwardly. Even as we study it, for the first time Sunghee is forced to adapt and use some defensive movements.

“I think it’s getting stronger,” it parrots after her.

I manage to hit it in the face with a large thrown rock. It’s momentarily stunned. Because my arm wasn’t connected to the blow it doesn’t change shape to look like me. Maybe that’s a good thing though since I think both Sunghee and Fox Girl look better than I do. Plus my face on its body would look seriously like some weird shit.

They manage to wound it though. By both of them timing their strikes from both sides of it at the same time they manage to cut its waist with Fox girl’s death scythe. It cries out in pain and bleeds shadow particles that seem to make a shadowy fog trail in the air. It lashes back at them but can’t fight both sides at once.

Sunghee somehow kicks it in the side of the knee. It falters for only two seconds and then is back on its feet.

“Dang, this thing won’t stop. It’s like a robot,” she huffs.

Both of them continue moving as a team, noticing how effective the strategy was. If they keep this up, we might just live.

But we’re baffled when it suddenly laughs when the wound closes up and instead its hip turns into what Fox Girl’s hip would look like. It’s weird seeing it like this, with no clothes either, but still only dark void like shadow matter for its chest and head; the other parts melt into the rest of it and are looking like a woman’s.

“What the frick is this?” Sunghee asks. She scores a hit on its upper back. It helps in pain. But somehow it’d used a lot of energy so its upper chest doesn’t change yet.

“It morphed into Shun’s defensive abilities and added them to what it had for Sunghee, I think. That’s why it’s good at defensive moves but not at attacking,” Fox says. Both her and Sunghee are blocked again.

They keep trying to circle it and duplicate the move from before. But the shadow creature has somehow learned from them. Then it does something else unexpected.

“I’m just glad it didn’t copy Fox Girl’s power and moves,” I said slowly.

But we’re thwarted again when suddenly it moons us. It also has a very tiny amount of red hair covering certain areas that look just like Fox Girl’s color of hair. The two tails are also sticking straight up to distract us by showing more.

“I-it just mooned us!” Sunghee gasps. She was about to laugh but then Fox is super crazy mad.

“What?! Don’t look at my…it’s…things! Stop! Don’t look! You can’t! I don’t want my stuff exposed! Shun don’t look! I order you not to look at my cloned parts!” Fox Girl is really embarrassed since the private parts below the waist are giving us an eye full while the shadow creature cackles at us. Fox girl tried to jump in front of me so I couldn’t see it but it’s too late. Her cheeks are bright red too.

“If it grew tails then the hip, is obviously copied from Fox. That’s your ‘cookie’ we just saw girl,” Sunghee smirks. She stops to wink at me.

“Sh-shut up fool!” Fox bites her lip angrily.

Sunghee then attacks and the creature is forced to get serious. It does a wail of blows on Sunghee so strong and forceful that she’s forced to retreat. It’s cackling with some kind of weird creepy laugh even while Fox Girl chases it from the other side. It’s also getting faster and adapting more.

Finally I hit it in the face with a bigger rock that’s thrown at it after several misses. It’s a stunning blow and Fox Girl has an attack of opportunity with her death scythe. She sweeps a lateral blow so fast that the creatures head is cut off in one blow.

But weirdly enough as the head rolls to the ground it changes shape into the shape and dimensions of Fox Girl’s. Then the rest of it falls to the ground dead. Apparently it was too much damage for the shadow skill morphing to absorb. A mortal blow is still a mortal blow even if it is a boss creature.

But we’re still afraid to approach it. After all it’s something very weird that we’ve just seen.

“It could be a trick,” Sunghee says distrustfully. She won’t approach it.

Fox Girl decides to hack at the legs and arms with her scythe to be sure.

As she does so the body dissolves into little sparkly particles.

“That was totally weird as hell,” I said.

Sunghee agrees.

But suddenly there’s a blue screen popup in front of me. I’m surprised because I haven’t seen one in a long time on anyone let alone myself.

“Damn hieroglyphics,” I exclaim. “Wish we could read these.”

Fox girl’s ears twitch a bit and she looks at it curiously.

Sunghee comes over to see what it says too. I can’t help but notice she’s leaning against my arm. It’s very tempting to me since her shirt is open and she’s positioned my arm between her valleys.

“Uh, that’s really too much for me to handle,” I said. I’m trying to concentrate so my thing won’t stand up. It’s not working. The other two are blushing.

“But don’t you want me to read you what it says?” Sunghee asks with bright intense eyes. She really has no idea how seductive she is being or how hard it is to resist.

Even if I want to give in, how will Fox react? Will it damage my relationship with Fox if I pursue Sunghee right in front of her eyes?

“EH?! You can read it?” I exclaimed.

Somehow Fox Girl looks really mad. I don’t know if she’s mad because of her stealing the attention or because of her reading me the screens though.

“Yes I can,” Sunghee informs me positively.

Damn.

If she can read the blue screens…then…that has been a problem I’ve been wanting to solve this whole freaking entire time. I can’t let this chance slip through my fingers, even if a desperate, sexy almost naked Sunghee is in front of me…

Sigh*

Sunghee carefully roves her finger over the screen. It seems she has to go slowly and sight read. It’s like how an elementary school kid might read but given how hard the characters are to read I’m just glad to have any help at all.

“Congratulations! You…have…beaten the first…challenge…or is it duel? Reward obtained; Grimoire magic…opened. No wait, unlocked. Sorry I have a hard time with some words. So it says. Grimoire spell system unlocked. Summon special type magic spell scroll obtained. Open grimoire type magic scroll to unlock grimoire reward spell.”

“Wait, grimoire spell, gimoire spell system? What is that?” I asked.

Fox Girl looks at me enviously. “It basically means you have access to magic that goes beyond jobs and classes unlike other people. Grimoire magic is like all of it together.”

“Eh? So it’s higher level?” I asked.

Fox Girl snorts, “Not higher level so much as it’s like you aren’t bound by limits to certain types anymore. You could learn any types of magic now. It’s like the potential to be bad ass of the bad ass.”

“Really? I want one too,” Sunghee pouted.

Fox shook her head, “you aren’t compatible. I doubt I am too. In fact I’ve been trying my whole life to be compatible with grimoire type magic.”

“But is there a trade off?” I asked.

“Yeah of course there is. This type of magic is much closer to the demon realm. So you have to be careful how you use it. Also demon magic has been known to affect people differently. But it’s no big deal, we’ll figure it out like everything else,” Fox says like it’s no big deal.

But Sunghee raised an eyebrow on that. It worries both of us.

“Like how do you mean affect people differently?” I asked.

“It’s not a big deal, like I said, but some of them it can mess with their bodies and over time implant demon DNA into them. But that’s such a low percentage, there’s no way that could ever happen,” she shrugs.

Despite her saying that...it must have some appeal for her to be interested in it.

“So there’s no other catch to this deal?” I asked.

There’s a moment of silence while they thought about it.

At some point Fox caves in from the pressure of the silence.

“Well…there’s just this one more small detail. If people find out you are a grimoire magic based user other hunters may try to hunt you down to try to farm it for themselves,” She shrugs again tiredly.

Seriously she’s so annoying. There are so many things she should’ve told me already. That should’ve been the first thing she said. Being hunted seriously sucked I’m sure. I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen at all costs. It would mean no sleeping in a home and being on the run all the time.

“Ah, but why?” I asked.

“One of the conditions for triggering grimoire based magic usage is that there’s a chance of it being activated or triggered in someone by killing someone else who has it. But it’s not a guarantee that they will obtain it, only just a really small chance. Just for a really small chance people do stupid stuff though; so that’s why people who have this type of magic don’t tell people about it. So you will have to be pretty secretive about your abilities from now on,” she finishes.

“But he still has to have enough mana for using it right? It can’t just be for free?” Sunghee asks. She’s looking at me funny. I’m not sure I like it. I feel like a piece of meat now.

“You still have to build up your mana pool and mana regeneration, but if both those two things are taken care off then you can basically learn anything you want. It’s annoying as hell that you get this. I’ve wanted it for years, and worked my ass off and you suddenly just have everything handed to you when you’ve only been in this world like two weeks,” Fox Girl’s glare looks very resentful. If jealousy could be manifested into an effect, she’d be shooting burning lasers from her eyes into mine.

I realize she’s been trying to learn this for years. She acts like I stole something I wanted with her defensive posture and the veins on her forehead and the way she’s folded her arms.

Crap. This is not good. This could end up actually turning her against me right?

“Sorry,” I said.

Fox Girl flips me off. She walks a short ways away and rests against a boulder. But weirdly enough she seems lost in thought or meditating or something?

But Sunghee is jumping up and down excitedly. She also is hugging my arm more and more. With her shirt totally open and being half naked it’s so distracting. I feel like I might faint. Then she plasters her lips onto mine and gives me a big wet French kiss.

I guess she’s still addicted to this sort of thing…

But she is also cute in her wanting to become my follower from rescuing her. In some ways this is very pure in her cute emotions of gratitude.

She pushes up against me and she’s trying to wrap her legs around me and rub up against me. It’s too good to reject it, when she’s pushing her chest up against mine. Greedily I try to eat her face back as much as she’s eating mine. She continues to try to suck on my tongue for a few minutes until Fox Girl starts coughing to signal us that we’re being annoying.

It’s also embarrassing to make out in front of other people though when I remember Fox Girl is near us.

But there’s something else I’m even more worried about, even more than the shadow boss…

“What are you doing? Calm down,” I barely managed to say. My willpower just barely won. If it was a vote it was barely a victory at 51 to 49 percent. Half of me wanted to embrace her back.

“So I’m confused here. How do we get back to the gnome cave?” I asked.

“Gnome cave?” Sunghee is totally lost with a heavy lidded look in her eyes.

“He means the place he was at before, where he was sleeping before the box spit us out on this side,” Fox explains.

“Ah, I hadn’t thought about that. Actually that is kind of weird isn’t it? Does that mean he still has a body asleep in the gnome cave?” Sunghee asks.

“That’s a good question,” I wondered.

My head hurts thinking about all the weird physics I’ve encountered so far. I’m not even sure how to figure that out…

Fortunately Fox Girl seems to know already. She shakes her head no, “when the box decided to spit us out, it connected to this part of the demon realm. But this part of the demon realm is so closely connected to the real world that it ‘displaced’ you.”

She looks at me watching my reaction, “sorry.”

“But the others are counting on me?! How do I get back?” I asked.

The other two are stumped. “I haven’t seen the previous owner in this situation before, though I did spy on him often. So I’m not sure exactly. But there must be a way because he seemed to always be around his real world fortress despite trips similar to this in other dungeon ‘tendrils’. It’ll work out somehow,” she adds, somehow unconcerned.

But Sunghee and I are still concerned.

“Let’s take a break to rest,” Fox Girl says. “Since I was in that box so long I haven’t gotten a good rest in a long time.” She yawns loudly and stretches out.

“You know getting through a boss fight like that, and without anyone getting hurt or injured. We really got lucky,” I said.

“You…think so?” Fox asked.

“All thanks to you. Thanks Fox!” I said.

She ignored me.

It can’t be helped. She’s afraid of what will happen if I’m too nice to her.

So does this mean the demon box will ease off for a few days before it tries to retaliate again? But even though we got through this problem, I’m wondering about what to do next.

Is that cloned doppelganger thing something I can capture and use?

Also if I can figure out in the near future how to use those soul crystals, what if I can only use one at a time? If that’s so what will happen if I only have one open up but have to choose between safeguarding and protecting Asakura or Rina for that one slot?

There are a mountain of things to think about still.