A Reincarnated Demon’s Life of Wonder

"Are you two alright?" I asked my two companions after the magic chains-thingies disappeared alongside the consciousness of the last member of the "lunatic group". I'd never guess a mob of merchants could be that scary. And by that, I mean when there's no Sols in the picture.

"No problem," replied Iron with his usual stoic air. Lily isn't saying anything, so I'm starting to get worried. If our client got hurt while we were supposed to keep a watch over her...!!

"That...was...SO COOL!!" - Lily

Ehm..., she seems alright?

"Princess, no, Big Boss Lady! You crushed those cultist creeps without even lifting a finger! Was that an AoE debuff field? Not even the high-ranking Solomar city guards have access to that! And how you summoned those smoke clouds to help the traders was so cool! You looked like a real Devil from Hell! A monster lady! A destroyer of worlds!" - Lily

"......Is she complimenting me?" I asked Iron quietly, not wishing to cause another reaction from this volatile little lady.

"Beats me," was the only answer I got. Figures...

"Excuse me," came a voice from behind us. It belonged to one of the traders who were part of the big ball of violence from before.

"Yes, what is it?" - Garami

"Sorry for asking, but do any of you people have a connection with the Church?"

"No?" - Garami

"We do not even know about them." - Iron

"The Big Boss Lady's group isn't even from Solomar! They are Velantians! Oh, but I have! Only rumors though..." - Lily

It sounds like the lunatics are common in the city of demons. Figures. The trader then looked at Iron and me, more specifically, at our faces. No, is he trying to get eye contact? Good luck doing that. One of us is hiding her eyes while the other... Does Iron have eyes? Or not? You can never be too sure when you're dealing with ghosts.

"Ok then... Just be careful. The latest 'trends' for these madmen are treasures and Evil Eyes. Now, goodbye."

After having said his part, the trader returned to the group watching over the lunatics. Evil Eyes, hmm...

"Princess, does this-?" - Iron

"Shh." - Garami

"Hmm?" - Lily

I shut off Iron before he could tell the whole world about my "Eyes". Lily doesn't seem to catch on, lucky for me. There is just one more thing I wanna confirm.

"Lily, did you say you know those people? The ones that attacked us." - Garami

"Ehm...sort of? The Church of Chaos is something like a cult honoring the Ultimate God, Chaos, but they have tons of bad rumors about them." - Lily

"Such as?" - Garami

"Weeeell..., stuff like kidnapping people...and..." - Lily

"Go on." - Garami

"...They do...bad stuff to them." - Lily

"Organ trafficking and stuff?" - Garami

"...Such rumors...exist. And people...becoming insane after having disappeared for a few days...torturing and killing their family..." - Lily

"...Princess." - Iron

"Yeah, right. Sorry, Lily. You don't have to talk about it anymore." - Garami

The little Chimera girl nodded weakly, her face still pale from having to recall rumors she most definitely didn't want to remember. Let's buy her some ice or something similar on the way back.

And sheesh. The guys who worship Chaos sure have a bad reputation. Speaking of which, ain't negative Karma Value sort of a number showing your affinity for Chaos? Don't tell me they're trying to inflate those numbers by doing all those bad deeds? Sure, Lily's only heard rumors, but if the merchants are that out for the Chaos Church's blood, there's got to be some degree of truth there.

Anyway, that almost confirms my fears. Those lunatics, their goal might have been me from the beginning...perhaps. I took another glance at the guys lying in chains, and indeed. Some of them have mismatched eyes. And I'm not talking about something as cute as color contacts either. Those guys have implanted honest-to-goodness Evil Eyes into their skulls. Freaks...

Also...I'm a big idiot. That "instant attack" the lunatics used to trap Lily and Iron was the effect of an Evil Eye skill, or at least a Magic Eye one. Here I'm using the very same type of attack to help the merchants defeat the lunatics, and I completely fail to recognize the similarities. Yaaay, woo, give me the prize for being the biggest dork in the desert. No wonder those guys saw me as an easy target...

The only reason why I'm not 100% sure of this theory is that I've been wearing my blindfold this whole time since we arrived at this impromptu bazaar. Unless they have some "Detect Evil Eyes" skill or item with a similar effect on hand, they shouldn't know about my eyes. And believe me, I've been looking into that skill myself. It would be nice to have some words of advice from potential seniors. Alas, both the skill and any senior Evil Eye practitioners were not to be found in Velantas...

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Anyway, let's move. There's nothing here for us to do." - Garami

"Indeed. Come now, Miss Lily." - Iron

"R-right..." - Lily

"Just to change the subject, do you know any decent food merchants here? I could go for some cold, delicious-." - Garami

*BAAAANG!!*

AND WHAT NOW?! I looked at the weird dust cloud in the distance that seemed to be the source of the loud noise just now. And there I could see a...strange, reddish cloud. It seems to be something like a dust cloud rather than something made out of smoke or steam. Is it rust? No, the color's too red to be rust. And hold the phone, is that purple flame bursting out of that cloud!? Purple flames...uh-oh.

"Isn't that in the direction of..." - Lily

"Princess. You have a face that says you know what is going on." - Iron

"...Semi-guilty of charge. I've only got a goooood, or rather, a bad idea of what's happening." - Garami

"And that is?" - Iron

"Some idiots have messed with stuff they don't have the faintest knowledge about." - Garami

---

A few minutes ago, Mira's PoV:

"Yi-haa! This is what I call a bargain!" - Mira

Bags in hand, I couldn't stop myself from humming a happy tune as I walked back to the Marauder. This is going to please both the Princess and the little Witch Princess~. Ehm, on second thought, maybe Revi would dislike that nickname. Past scars and stuff. Yeah, let's shove that name into the mental garbage bin.

"Why, I am surprised," said Noire behind me, she carrying way less stuff than I. "Since we're talking about you, I expected you would have killed your wallet before the third weapon's merchant."

"Puhleaaase. Do I look like that big of a doofus?" - Mira

"Do you want me to answer?" - Noire

Tch. Why can't this girl be nice? What a waste of potential. Like how she's hiding her real face even after all this time. ...Or so the Princess says. I've never found out how she found out. It must be some Assassin stuff or demonic secret moves—anything I couldn't do.

"Whatever~. And besides, do you think this temporary open stand bazaar would be the right market for people to take out their most prized wares?" - Mira

"Aha. So you're planning to suck up to the GM with all those fancy materials then." - Noire

"Correcto~" I replied before adding a "but don't tell her that part." Despite what I said, the traders had a lot of rare gems, sand, and even flowers for sale. This kind of stuff ain't too useful for a common crafter, but a magical one, such as an Alchemist or a Witch Apprentice, would have a different reaction~.

"Hmm, but I still feel like they lack a little oomph." - Mira

"Considering you're just giving gifts related to her class rather than something she likes on a personal level, I'd say the GM will agree with you there." - Noire

"Figures. What does the Princess REALLY like..." - Mira

While starting to get lost in silly thoughts, like alcohol (which would spell the doom for us all had I given that to her), a strange smell found its way to my nose. It smells... spicy?

Aha! Spices! The Princess loooves spicy food, almost as much as she loves sweets. While the latter would be a better choice, I doubt desert-traveling traders have anything that can defeat the candies that the Damavand can produce. That stuff even won over a dragon to our side. So spices it is.

The source of the smell came from a food stand in front of a GINORMOUS floatship. Okay, it's not that big, but the Marauder looks like a teeny, whiny shrimp compared to it! I'm feeling offended! And are my eyes failing me, or is that one of those Machinerz guys working for that jerk, the Black Baron? Time to do some raiding!

"Now that's rare. An Automata traveling through the desert." - Noire

A-what-now? Oh, wait, those guys! Yeah, I've heard about them. Never seen one before..., well, now. Phew, that was a close one. I still need to find a way to get my hands on those spices. Some of that stuff can be more valuable than gold! Or so I've heard. I don't entirely believe such a weird rumor, but you can never be too sure... Let's just use some charms and hope it works on tincans as much as it does with the knuckleheads back in Velantas.

"Excuse me~," I shouted out to the Automata, who looked like the chief of the food stall. I could hear an "Aha. Spices," from behind me, along with some footsteps, meaning Noire caught on to what I was planning. It's not that difficult to imagine. Our Princess loves her spices. To a little disturbing degree, if I am to be honest. But today, we're encouraging those disturbing tastebuds~.

"Hmm?" mumbled the Automata as he turned his attention from some...old relic and over to us.

"Is that an antique?" I asked loudly, surprised by the object that was so weird to have at a spicy food stand. It looks like an old lantern. The kind a gravekeeper would bring with him when making the rounds. Old, rusty, yet strangely, still in good shape.

"Hmm? Is this yours?" asked the Automata as he showed us the old lantern. Whoops, guess I confused him. At least this means this isn't an antique "shop" as I started to fear for a second.

"No, we were attracted by the smell of spices." - Mira

"Is there something wrong?" asked Noire from behind me. She must have been struck curious about this out-of-place object as well.

"Not really. Or, we don't know. This lantern here was, all of a sudden, lying on our desk, as if it had always been there. We thought some customers might have forgotten it." - Automata

"Okay, that's weird." - Mira

"Where exactly did you find it?" - Noire

"Well, right here!" replied the Automata, spreading his arms across the table that was acting as the stand's front desk and what separated us from the Automata and his young assistants..., who I can't figure out what species they belong to. Beastkin? Therions? Lizardman sub-species? They look like everything of that combined, yet not. Weird.

The curious younglings aside, there's nothing weird about the table. At least on top of it. Below, we have...sand, sand, paper, sand... Paper?

"There's something dropped here," I told the Automata, who hurriedly ducked under the table to pick up the scrap of paper I had found. It seems to have been a letter.

"Now, let's see... Oh?" said the Automata as he read the letter, strucken surprised by its contents.

"Did you discover who the lamp's owner is?" - Noire

"It seems to be...me! At least from now on," said the Automata as he showed the paper to us. True, it says it's a gift to some "Jumbo Jingerigo", who I can only guess is the tincan in front of us from a "secret admirer".

"That's a pretty nice gesture." - Mira

"So true. And thanks again, my ladies, for helping us figure out this little mystery, ehm...?" - Jumbo Jingerigo

"Mira, and this is Noire. We wished to see if you were selling any of the spicy-smelling stuff here...for a reasonable price." - Mira

"We have anything for any wallet, my lady. Rose, please take care of our customers," said the Automata named Jumbo as he took his new lantern with him to the back of the stand, probably wishing to see what it could do.

Turns out this place is a food stand selling various spicy dishes. The young assistant named Rose suggested something called "curry bread", since they were easy to take back to the Marauder, so I got a bag of them with me. Not exactly what I was planning for, but that Princess loves fried food, so it should work out in the end. I got some extra, partly for my portion and some to give to Revi in case she wanted that, though Noire didn't seem too keen on the dish. Less pain for my wallet, so who's complaining~?

*BAAAANG!!*

And right after I had paid for my fried bread, the back of the stall exploded in a red dust cloud?! Are the spices here so volatile that they can act as bombs?! Probably not. For right now, instead of the smell of spices, I smell only adventure and opportunities! ...Actually, scratch that. There's a HUGE stench of spices here now! Enough to burn my nostrils! Youch!!!