A Devil sat at a desk in a damp, dark room.
This room, though, was different. Its walls were made of wood—a strange substance that didn’t exist in the Underworld—and it was absurdly cluttered and messy compared to the standards of his old home. But, really, the Devil didn’t mind the mess. If it were cleaner, it might remind him too much of that place.
His summoner, Aliss, had given him a few more allowances since his initial summoning. Specifically, she’d removed the restriction keeping him from moving, but added quite a few caveats to that movement policy. Her thoroughness and redundancy in her commands did remind him of Demon paperwork, unfortunately. But his body followed the commands without him even needing to think about it, so it wasn’t actually that bad.
Effectively, it just came down to “you can move freely, but you can’t leave this room, you can’t try to hurt anyone, and you can’t try to break anything.” Only, it took her about three hours of work to draft up and about fifteen continuous minutes to say aloud, with how long it was. Lots of “you may move your body no closer than one finger-width away from this object,” and “you may not read the words in this book,” and “you may raise your voice no louder than this volume,” and such. And every one of those commands had their own caveats that’d allow him to ignore them in emergencies.
He still wasn’t used to this place, his new Level 1 self, or the fact that he was under control of a Human. It’d been about ten hours since he’d been summoned, he thought? He could barely tell.
He’d been left alone for the past while, as his summoner had left to run errands. During his time alone, he occupied himself with reading. While there were many books he had been forbidden from touching—mostly ones relating to Demon summoning—there were still plenty he was allowed to open and look through. He tried a random ‘fiction’ book that was on one of the shelves, one called “The Traveling Tavern” or something—he couldn’t quite remember the name—but he simply couldn’t push past a few paragraphs. Why would you read something knowing it was fake? Perhaps he still had a lot more to learn about Humanity, after all.
Instead, he skimmed through some of the history books, which seemed much more useful. Though, he still noticed some dramatization in those books, as well. It was as though Humans couldn’t help but turn even history into an exciting story to pass down.
Crucially, in one of the books, he found a passage about Demons that his summoner must have forgotten to forbid him from reading. It wasn’t long, but still extremely enlightening.
“Using a force of 150 summoned Demons, the Evenfort regiment managed to overcome Anglishmet’s ambush, sustaining losses of an estimated 80 Human soldiers—only 12% of that regiment’s numbers.
“However, due to the unexpected battle and the summoned Demons’ heavy involvement in it, two of the Demons reached a Level which allowed them to break their summoners’ commands. The following night, they killed the other Demons’ summoners in their sleep, leading to a massacre of the entire force and a major international incident wherein adventurers were dispatched to exterminate the freed Demons. It is suspected that this incident was what caused Evenfort’s eventual discontinuation of their usage of Demon forces in their military.”A couple sentences in that section were extremely important. If the Devil reached a high enough Level, or if his summoner died, he would no longer have to follow her commands. He’d been forced all the way back down to Level 1 as a consequence of the summoning, but if he could build himself back up…
The basement door opened, and he quickly turned the page to conceal the passage he’d been reading. His summoner walked through, carrying several large boxes, and set them on the floor.
“What’s in those?” he asked, subtly pushing the book away from himself while she was distracted.
“Some supplies to keep you comfortable,” she responded. “There’s a sleeping bag in here, which won’t be as good as a bed, but I couldn’t fit anything big down the ladder, as well as some other basic amenities. I’ll try to bring you meals regularly, but I’ve also brought in some food to store here in case something happens and I’m not able to bring any to you. I don’t want you starving since you can’t leave for now.”
He frowned. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t need to sleep or eat.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, grabbing a tome from a shelf and flipping through it.
This was one of the books he’d been forbidden from reading, so even if he glanced at the pages, it was like his mind refused to process the language. Jumbled squiggles and symbols filled the pages that he knew he should have been able to interpret, but it was instead impossible.
She tapped on a paragraph, glancing through it. “Yes, here. ‘Demons are sometimes confused by their sudden need to eat and sleep at a similar rate that Humans do, as the summoning process removes that property from certain species.’ Are you one of the species that still won’t need to after being summoned?”
“I don’t know,” he said, answering the question automatically, as he was forced to follow her every word. He shook his head, trying to understand what was going on. “Um, that is, I don’t think enough time has passed for me to recognize the sensation.”
“Hm. I’ll leave these here just in case, then. What have you been doing?”
“Reading,” he said automatically once again, and then immediately cursed his answer. He was a Devil; he knew contracts, he knew how to work within the letter of the law. He could’ve answered with “exploring the room,” or “sitting here,” or even just “not much.” Giving her the information that he’d been reading was a terrible idea, but because of the commands, he answered without even thinking. And now, she’d probably ask…
“What have you been reading?”
“This book,” the Devil said, grabbing and showing her the history book he’d been trying to hide this whole time. He bit his tongue the moment he got control of it back, but it was too late.
“What did you learn?”
He almost exposed everything he’d managed to glean about possibly being able to break her commands in the future, but seemingly through sheer force of will, the Devil managed to redirect his automatic thinking into another answer that was correct in a different way. “The histories of a few different wars. It was very interesting to read about the ways in which Humans go about resolving large-scale conflicts with one another.”
“Oh, do Demons do that sort of thing differently?”
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“Yes. Our wars last much longer, typically. The only times I remember the fighting between my circle and another circle ending has been when the two formed an alliance to fight against a mutual enemy, after which the war between us resumed. Though, I wasn’t high enough rank to really know much about the details.”
“Hm,” she said with a nod, as though mentally noting his answer. “What was your rank?”
That was a question he wasn’t forced to answer automatically, since he didn’t technically have an answer. “Status doesn’t work for us like it does for Humans. There isn’t a clean chain of command, or anything. You have a job description, but the easiest way to tell how important a Demon is would be by asking it its name.”
“You said you didn’t have a name, right?”
“I did say that. I used to have one, though.”
“Then, what was it? And what would you like to be called now?”
“My name used to be Xhag’duulinithar’obaba’iidook’naisantipoduun’torobaroxhixhonxhaxintep. And now, I’m not sure what it would be.”
She nodded slowly. “I…don’t think I would be able to remember that right now. But with some practice, I’m sure I could. Do you want me to call you that?”
“No. I don’t think I like that name.”
“Then, what about a shortened version of it?”
Once upon a time, a suggestion like that would have offended him to the highest order. But now…he didn’t really care about names that much. Call him whatever. He’d be the same person. “Sure, if that works with you.”
“So then…Xhag’duul?”
“Go ahead.”
“Great. It’s certainly nice to finally have something to refer to you as in my head, instead of just thinking about ‘the Demon’ all the time.”
He nodded, glad to have fully moved away from that dangerous conversation about books. But he did have something he’d been wanting to ask ever since she got back. “Did you hear anything about Arlan Nota while you were out?”
Her expression changed. “…No. No, not really.”
He examined her face. She was definitely hiding something. She almost certainly had heard something about him when she left. But unlike her, he had no way of forcing his conversational partner to tell the truth. “Do you mind telling me what you know about him already, then? I’m not sure how long it’s been since I was free and had access to information about him, so hearing anything that happened recently would be nice.”
She frowned. “Why do you want to know so badly?”
“I don’t know,” he answered automatically.
“Hm. I hoped you would’ve figured out while I was gone. Please elaborate.”
“I used to work closely on the operation to kill him.”
“So you want to hunt him down still?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
Her frown deepened. “Then what do you want to do to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“I don’t know.”
She paused, taking a moment to think. “If you don’t wish for him to be dead, why is that? Why did you work on this operation to kill him in the first place?”
“I had to.”
“That’s not a good enough answer. Even when you were being forced to work on this operation, you always wanted to keep him alive?”
“No.”
“So it’s not just because you had to, then. Did your opinion on him change at some point?”
“Yes.” He spoke automatically, as always, but this time was slightly surprised by his own answer. After a moment of thought, he realized that maybe, yes, his opinion did change over time.
“When did it change?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did it change to?”
“I don’t know.”
She sighed. “Are all Demons this indecisive?”
“No.”
“So I just got unlucky, then?”
“No.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Your summoning me was not up to luck.”
“…Why?”
“I was the only one able to be summoned.”
She leaned forward suddenly. “You know about summoning mechanics? Really?!”
“Yes. A little bit.”
“You can tell me about them? Like why it’s been so long since people have been able to summon Demons?”
“Yes,” he answered automatically once again, then got control of his words back. “But, if I do, can you do me a favor?”
His summoner raised her eyebrows for a moment. “It depends on the favor, I suppose.”
He took a breath, hoping. He’d been as cooperative as possible this whole time in an attempt to build up a friendly relationship, and this would be his first test. Her personality seemed conducive to this sort of manipulation, at least. “If possible, I’d like to see outside of this room. Or outside the building, even.”
“You know that’s not possible. It endangers both you and me. And I can’t lose the first summoned Demon in hundreds of years on a whim.”
He leaned forward. First, a practical approach. She at least liked to think of herself as a researcher—an academic. “Demons need enrichment just as much as Humans do. Yes, I have to follow your orders, but if my mental state begins to deteriorate due to unhappiness, I may not be capable of following them. Depression causes memory loss, and I can personally attest to the fact that a poor living and working environment can interrupt my state of mind and cause me to be unable to recall things. If your goal is to learn about Demons and Demon society, then keeping me in a healthy state is to your interest.”
“Keeping you alive is also to my interest. You’ll be killed if you’re seen. If you start showing real signs of distress, then I will consider it. But for now, I don’t believe taking unnecessary risks like that is a good idea.”
He took a breath. Open up to her slightly. “I was summoned in the middle of my execution, in the Underworld. I wasn’t a good enough worker for them. And before I was being executed, I was imprisoned for a very, very long time. Time moves differently in the Underworld; when you see one day pass, we experience more like ten. I haven’t been allowed freedom in so long, and now, it’s this close to me. Please, I need to be let out of this cramped room.”
She pursed her lips. No immediate denial like she’d done before—he’d gotten to her. Even if she said no now, the foundation would be laid.
“…Let me think about it,” she eventually said. “There’s something I want you to help me with, anyway, and you’d need to leave this room to do it, so…maybe it would be good to get you used to the Overworld.”
He raised his eyebrows, not having expected that part. “You need me to do something? What?”
“You’re currently in the basement of an orphanage, you see. Oh, if you don’t know what an orphanage is, it’s where one adult stays and takes care of kids who don’t have parents. Or, that’s what it normally is. The person here who used to take care of the children…she was killed. I’ve been trying to take her place in the meantime, alongside a man you haven’t met named Boy, but it’s not going well, since we have to spend all our time working for money to keep the place standing.”
Orphanage, huh? He thought he’d heard of the concept before in passing, but at the time he’d just brushed it off as typical Human garbage. “So, what’s the favor you need from me? Want me to help you with money so you can spend more time here, or something? In the Underworld, we don’t have a concept of money, so it probably won’t go well.”
“Oh, no, that’d be much too dangerous. It’s the opposite, rather. I want you to take care of the children here full-time.”
He blinked. What?
“So, perhaps it would be best if we somehow got you out of here to gain more experience in the normal world? I do want you to raise them well, after all.”