A Demon's Core

William returns the next day, just as promised. He let us know ahead of time when he was on his way so no one was alarmed when a vehicle pulled up. The imps reported that a few humans were moving some boxes and some equipment from the car into the building.

The first human to enter my perception is William as he climbs the stairs alone up to the fourth floor.

Welcome back.

"Well hey, thanks for having me," He replies cheerfully. "I brought the guy to do the welding and had him start on the first floor before I made my way up. Though with how long it takes me to get up here, he might already be done. So if you could send down Igneous or Marble to help carry the gear, that'd be good."

Igneous is not here right now, but I will have Marble head down. I am sure some imps will also be willing to help if they can.

"Great. Also, I don't suppose you've made any progress with making a meeting room somewhere a bit lower like we discussed previously, have you? I'd really like to not have to keep coming all the way up here," William complains.

It is on my list of things to do, but I have had more pressing concerns as of late.

"Fair enough," he accepts with a drawn out sigh. "Well, I'll head back down and wait for whoever is coming to help carry things."

As he makes his way back to the stairs, it occurs to me that it would not actually be necessary for him to come all the way to the fourth floor just for little chats like that. It is true that on the stairs, my mana field only reaches up to about waist height on most humans, which does not allow me to communicate with them. Telepathy does not work through their legs apparently, but if he tried sitting on one of the steps, I would probably be able to reach him.

Realising that, it becomes a little amusing watching him wind his way back and forth down the stairs. If the amusement wears off before he figures it out for himself, maybe I will take pity and suggest it to him.

I ask Marble to come down to help the humans, explaining what is needed and how she will have to wait on each floor while they work before moving on to the next. I get a sense of irritation from her at the request, but she acquiesces. I also suggest to Violet that she should see if there is anything she can do to help as well and she agrees without any reluctance or hesitation, even bringing several others along with her.

Marble makes it down to the ground floor first, passing William on the stairs, while Violet and the other imp choose to follow behind him instead. Once they are all there, it is not long before they start making their way back up again.

Violet and the imps are first, moving together in a tight group as they carry something between them. It looks like some kind of box, but I am not able to get a good look at it before they step out onto the second floor. Marble follows them dragging a MIG welder behind her. While the machine and accompanying gas cylinder are attached to a trolley to facilitate easier movement and repositioning, it does not appear to be a setup that was designed for moving up stairs. It is probably quite a hassle for her, so when this is all done, I should think of some kind of reward for Marble to thank her for her effort.

Lagging well behind them are William and another human, who have no choice but to follow the winding path I created on the stairs.When they reach the second floor, I gain some mana from the two of them as they leave my perception.

It occurs to me that that is going to happen on every floor up to the fifth, which will undoubtedly be quite draining. I do not know how many times a human can go through that before it becomes dangerous, but I am sure they must have explained it to the welder before they hired him, so he knew what he was getting into. I hope he is getting paid enough for this job to make it worth it.

I warn Violet not to look at the light while the humans are welding, trying my best to impress upon her the potential harm it could cause, especially with extended exposure, and ask her to pass that warning onto the others.

The group spends quite a while on the second floor before I see them return to the stairwell and they make their way up to the third floor in the same formation as before. They do not spend quite as much time on the third floor as they did the second before they are heading up again, repeating the same pattern on their way to the fourth and eventually the fifth floor.

When the imps reach the fifth floor, I can finally get a good look at what they are carrying, instead of only the brief glances I had before as they passed through my domain while climbing the stairs. It is a large black box that looks similar to the mana powered generator that William brought us previously, though this one is quite a bit larger.

I do not know if it is really big enough to necessitate six imps working together to carry it, since Violet was able to carry the smaller one by herself and this one only looks to be a bit more than twice the size, but imps often like to help each other, even if it is not strictly necessary.

William and his companion move to set up the equipment as soon as they arrive, not wasting any time. The welder is carrying a tool bag in one hand and a welding mask in the other and the speed with which he is able to get everything set up and ready to go shows he is clearly well practiced at his trade.

As he puts on the mask and starts welding, all of the imps look away, some even going as far as to cover their eyes with their hands. It is good that they are taking my warning seriously, though I wonder if any of them tried looking into the light and found it unpleasant first. A little would probably not cause any lasting harm, but it is not a behaviour that should be encouraged.

"Magentam, you here?" William calls out as he steps away from the welder.

Yes, do you need something?

"I just wanted to say thanks for having Marble and the imps carry this stuff up. It would've been way too much hassle if we had to do it ourselves. I don't think we could pay this guy enough for the job if that were the case," he remarked.

That was part of the agreement.

"I suppose that's true, still appreciated though," he insists.

Cassandra did not come today?

"Not today, she had to go back to the main office, presumably for something work related. She did ask me to deliver some voice recorders that she talked about before, you know, to get some recordings of those other imp languages that aren't Balkret. They're downstairs with the other stuff we brought, I'll teach you how to use them later," William explains.

What else did you bring?

"Some more clothes, including some for the little one this time, a few more back packs, some more snacks and something special for Igneous and Marble," he revealed.

What do you mean by 'something special'?

"If I told you now, that would spoil the surprise," William retorted.

I am not sure why it needs to be a surprise, but I will not push the issue for now.

What snacks did you bring then?

While William is explaining what he brought, the welder finishes sealing the elevator door and lets him know that he is ready to move on.

"Does the winding pathway still only go up to this floor?" William asks.

Yes. The next two floors are clear.

"Great. That'll speed things up. We'll talk a bit more once we're done. The extra stuff is down in the lobby so you'll have to send someone down to get it," he says

Violet and the imps she has with her are happy to keep carrying the generator up the stairs, but Marble refuses to go any further, arguing that since the humans do not face any obstacles for the last two floors, there is no need for her to keep helping the rest of the way. I explain that to William and he volunteers to carry the equipment from there on. Despite not wanting to go up any further, I do at least convince Marble to wait here on the fifth floor so she can help the humans go back down when they are done.

As the humans continue up the stairs, I examine the elevator doors. The weld runs in a straight line down the center from top to bottom without deviation or wavering. I do not know a lot about welding, but from what I can tell, it looks well done. At the very least, it should make opening the doors difficult enough to not be worth the effort.

With nothing to impede them on the stairs, the last two floors should not take them as long to finish. So while I wait, I round up some imps who are not currently busy, which is basically any that are not currently on watch, and send them to bring up the boxes. There are three cardboard boxes in total, which the imps deposit in the hallway. They want to open the boxes immediately, but I ask them to wait until everyone is here so we can be sure that they all get a fair share of the edible items.

When the humans are finally done with their work and return to the fifth floor, William and the other man hang around while Violet and her group continue going down with the generator and Marble once again takes the welding equipment.

William said he wanted to talk some more but the welder probably just needs someone to guide him down the stairs, so I offer to have one of the imps guide him. William relays the offer but it seems he would rather wait instead of relying on an imp to lead him. It is not unreasonable for him to be wary I suppose. It is his first time meeting us, so he cannot be expected to just trust us so easily, even if William vouches for us.

It makes little difference in the end, but it does give me an opportunity to express my gratitude for his effort.

Thank you for doing this. It is appreciated.

The man is flustered and looks around for the source of the voice he suddenly hears and William chuckles.

"It's a bit weird at first, not being able to see who's speaking to you, but you get used to it," William assures him.

"...Right, I'm not sure that's something I want to get used to, but you're welcome, I guess," the man replies hesitantly.

I hope it was not too difficult for you.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Well, they agreed to pay a pretty hefty upcharge compared to my normal rates, so I won't complain."

"That's the spirit," William cheers. "Anyway, now that the work's done, we can go over the stuff we brought; in particular, I should explain how the voice recorders work. Will Rose be joining us? She's the boss of the imps, right? I figured she might want to be present."

Rose is also not here right now. We will wait for Violet though.

Despite not having to follow the dungeon path, Violet and her band of helpers still have to climb down four flights of stairs while carrying an important piece of equipment that they need to be careful with, so it takes them a while to reach the ground floor. When they do, they quickly leave the generator down there and race back up to the fifth floor.

William picks up one of the boxes and shakes it a little before placing back down and picking up another. Satisfied, he opened the box and the imps present gathered around to see what was inside.

"The other two boxes have the food, this one has everything else," he explained.

The first thing visible in the box are more backpacks, one black and one blue. He takes them out and sets them aside, only for them to be immediately snatched up by curious imps who want to inspect them closer.

Beneath them are more of the customised pants in a variety of styles and colours. He digs through them until he pulls out a smaller box which contains three small rectangular devices.

"These are the voice recorders. They're pretty simple to use," he remarks, then proceeds to explain in detail how to operate them. Not that there is much to explain, they are rather simple, as he said.

The explanation ends with a practical demonstration.

"Testing," he says into its microphone. He presses the playback button and the imps' eyes go wide in surprise when they hear his voice repeated from the device.

William holds it out towards Violet and encourages her to try speaking into it.

"Hello," she says and giggles when it says 'hello' back to her in her own voice.

"I have?" Violet asks, holding out a hand towards William.

"I suppose you can have this one," he replies and hands her the voice recorder.

She takes it and starts speaking into it so fast her words are almost incoherent. What she is saying does not even seem to be anything important, but more like senseless rambling, simply saying whatever pops into her head, just so she can hear her voice parroted back to her. She is not selfish with it though and she holds it out to record other imps' voices as well. They all find it hysterical to hear their own voices played back.

"Well, they seem to be enjoying it, but the intention was to record languages other than Balkret, so try not to let them waste too much of the battery. Though the batteries should last long enough for at least a few hours of audio recording. The instructions I was told to pass on were that real dialog between two or more imps would be ideal for language analysis, but in the end, anything is fine as long as they are speaking actual words," William imparts.

I will make sure the intended imps actually get to use them.

"Great, will Marble be back soon? Like I said before, I've got something for her too."

After getting downstairs, Marble actually returned to her spot on the roof from the outside rather than coming back up the stairs. I let her know that William brought something for her and ask if she wants to come back down, but she responds with disinterest and does not move.

She is resting now and does not feel like coming back.

"Oh, and Igneous ain't here either, that's a shame. I was hoping to give it to at least one of them in person and get some on the spot feedback," William laments. "Oh well, you'll just have to give it to them later and let me know what they think."

Give them what exactly?

"Earmuffs," he declares triumphantly, holding up a large pair of earmuffs that he fishes out of the box. "These ones are a bit crude, but they're basically just a prototype made mostly with a 3D printer, so we can probably make some better ones later if needed."

I see. Why would they need something like that?

"When I was teaching them to shoot, I noticed they flinched every time they fired. Seeing how big their ears are, I figured maybe they have sensitive hearing. Even humans usually wear hearing protection when training with firearms, so I thought they might appreciate something like this," he remarks.

I had not thought of that, but it does sound like a good idea. Thank you.

"You gonna be much longer?" The welder asks gruffly.

"I guess I've gone over most of the important stuff, so we could probably get going now. Like I said before, there's more pants for the imps and a couple of sets of clothes for the kid as well, so have her try them on and let us know how they fit," William concedes. "Oh, there's also the sign for the stairs that you wanted."

Let me give you something in return before you go.

Even if they have not yet given us everything we asked for, I cannot deny that William has done a lot for us. I have asked for quite a lot and so far and have given very little in return. It could be argued that we deserve compensation for the losses we have suffered at the hands of humans, but one-sidedly making demands like we have without giving anything back is not earning us any friends, which is something we might need if we are going to have to deal with the vak soon.

I am not going to forget that there are still humans out there who mean us harm, but we should be able to deal with that problem soon as well.

Gathering and condensing the necessary mana, which immediately draws William's attention, I create a mana stone on the floor in the middle of the hallway.

Take that.

"Are you sure?" William asks as he crouches down to pick it up.

Yes, consider it payment for what we have received so far. I hope we can continue to expect more going forwards.

"I'm sure that won't be a problem."

General Brixal leaned back on his couch and stretched his arms up above his head, hearing a few cracks and pops from his joints as he did so. Even in the comfort of his own home, he still had more work yet to do. He lamented his lack of free time as looked down at the paperwork laid out on the small table before him; reports of troop deployments and enemy positions as well as requisition requests deemed important enough to make it to his desk, some he had the authority to approve or reject on his own, but a few would require that he confer with other similarly ranked officials.

But that's what he agreed to when he accepted the promotion. His position came with a lot of perks, such as the luxurious home he now resided in, but it also had a lot of responsibilities and sometimes that necessitated taking some of his work home with him for the night. Large-scale military campaigns didn't often allow people like him much time to relax and the scale didn't get much larger than conquering a whole new world.

As he got back onto reading over another report, he was interrupted by the sound of his doorbell ringing through the house. He put down the paper he was reading and looked in the general direction of the front of the house with narrowed eyes. There weren't many reasons for anyone to visit at this time of night unless there was something that required his immediate attention.

Opening the front door, he was met with a younger man in a military uniform, the insignias on his shoulders indicating a low ranked officer. He was flanked by two other soldiers without any rank insignias.

"You realise this is my private residence? I assume this must be important," General Brixal said.

"It is, Sir," the younger man said, handing him a tablet with a video already loaded, Brixal just had to hit the play.

The video appeared to be drone footage. It started just flying over a dilapidated suburban area until a trio of black furred, quadrupedal animals came into view on the edge of its vision. The drone stopped and focused its camera on the creatures while moving closer to them. At first, General Brixal thought they were just a small vahxa pack, until it got close and the camera zoomed in on the largest of the three creatures and he could clearly see the literal fire where its eyes should be. He paused the video and glared down at the tablet.

"Is that what I think it is?" He asked.

"Kavahxan. We believe so," the younger man confirmed.

"How is that possible?" Brixal questioned.

"We're not entirely sure, sir. We're guessing they happened to stumble upon a rift and went through it by coincidence, though that's only speculation. But there's more," the other man prompts, gesturing to the tablet.

Resuming the video, the camera soon panned over bringing a small group of imps into frame. Brixal's grip on the sides of the tablet tightened and he scowled.

"How the HELL did those things get here? Those pests were supposed to be left behind," he roared.

"We don't know, Sir."

"Well, maybe if we're lucky, those three are the only ones," Brixal said, letting out a frustrated sigh. "If they manage to get a foothold in this world, we'll never be rid of them."

The camera's vision is momentarily obscured by flames until the drone flew higher to get out of range of the kavahxans' attack before retreating.

"Why would the kavahxan attack the drone but ignore the imps? Aren't they supposedly hostile towards everything outside their own pack?" Brixal pondered.

"That's the generally held consensus. It's unclear why they didn't attack the imps," the other man replied.

There was a sudden cut in the footage and the drone was then flying over a different part of the city. The drone came to halt and hovered in place as it observed a flying demonoid creature with an enormous wingspan that seemed to be observing the drone right back. Brixal paused the video again and stared at the screen.

"What am I looking at here?" He demanded.

"We're not entirely sure, but it destroyed the drone shortly after that. However, we suspect it's the same creature that was spotted near Draxon around a month ago," the other man answered.

He held a hand for the tablet and Brixal handed it back to him. He pulled up a screen shot from the drone footage next to a slightly blurry picture of a similar looking creature and showed it to the general.

"I see. Where was this footage taken?" Brixal inquired.

The younger man opened a map on the tablet and pointed to a marker indicating the presence of a mid-sized human base.

"This is where the drone was scouting," he said, then dragged his finger across the screen to move the map until a different marker appeared, indicating one of their own settlements. "And this is where the flying creature was spotted previously.

That settlement, labeled 'Draxon', was a military base that had only been established in the last few years, if Brixal recalled correctly. Other than some smaller offshoots, it seemed to be the closest base they had to the area where the imps and kavahxan were spotted.

"Have the other generals been made aware?" Brixal asked.

"They're being informed as we speak."

General Brixal rubbed his temples, just below his horns and sighed in resignation.

"I was hoping for an early night tonight."

Elsewhere…

A junior researcher sat at her desk, looking over research notes on a portable computer. She occasionally glanced up to peer through the large window behind the desk into the sterile white room beyond. Inside lay a large number of imps, unconscious and unmoving.

Eventually one of the imps stirred and others soon followed suit as they began to wake. The researcher stopped what she was doing and reached for a phone that was on the desk, dialing the extension for Dr. Netriil, the project manager.

"What is it?" Answered an irritated male voice.

"They're waking up," she said.

"Excellent. I'll be there soon."

By the time he reached the observation room, most of the imps were awake. Some were attempting to rouse those who were still unconscious while the others explored the confines of the room they were in. A few attempted to climb the walls, but their claws could find no purchase. The entire room was made of a polished, smooth, non-porous material that left nothing for the imps' claws to dig into.

"How many are there?" Dr. Netriil asked.

"Twenty-four," replied the junior researcher.

"Sounds like they got the whole pack, or at least pretty close to it. They use that new sedative we developed to catch them?" He inquired.

"They did. It kept them out for more than half a day."

"Pretty impressive, given their constitution," Dr Netriil applauded. "Is the latest formula ready?"

"Canisters are loaded, just waiting for your order."

"Perfect. Begin the test."