A Reincarnated Demon’s Life of Wonder

Garami's PoV:

We followed the explosion to its source and discovered it had happened right by the floatship belonging to Jumbo and Lily's Guild. And as I expected...things have gone to hell. To a much more ridiculous degree than I had anticipated, even.

To begin, some of the traders had placed water tanks and portable fountains in an attempt to fight the desert heat. Why do I bring this up now? Because almost everyone in the near area has gathered around them, dunking their heads in water as if the whole desert's dryness had been transplanted into their mouths.

Other guys were rolling across the sand with bloody-red eyes, running noses, flowing tears, bloated lips, and let's not forget about the hot-red tongues that the poor fellows have to deal with. I can even see a guy in the distance who has his mouth on fire. Literally. How, I don't know. And even as a spice lover, I don't wanna know.

And as for why I bring up spices, the answer is obvious. At least for me and my expertise when it comes to matters related to the undead. Just to be safe, I ignored the obvious path of destruction, guaranteed to be the way the culprit of this mess took, for the moment to start looking into the remains of the stall that Jumbo's Guild had put up. There, I found one beaten-up Automata, busy counting sheep and eating the dirt.

"B-B-BOSS!?" - Lily

"Is he dead?" asked Iron with concern as I looked over the mecha guy's vitals.

"Nope, he's fine. It's just a case of soul-sapping level of exhaustion." - Garami

"Phew...," relaxed Lily, before retorting with a "hey, that's still horrible!"

"You got that right. Someone has had it with your boss," I replied while looking for the 'evidence' explaining the current situation. Ah, there it is.

"Here we go..." - Garami

"Princess, is that...?" - Iron

What was currently resting in my hand was an old lantern, the type that you place candles inside. The reason why Iron reacted like that is that this is the same lantern I was looking at earlier today. It is slightly scorched by soot, and the lantern's door had been blasted open by some explosives. In any case, it's easy to imagine what happened here, as long as you know the importance of this item.

"Listen, this item here is sort of a home to a special breed of ghosts. The kind that's usually docile, but when you piss them off, they'll go complete berserk." - Garami

"You mean that this single ghost is responsible for this chaos?" - Iron

"Ehm, close enough. You guys, try to help the people here while I go and do some ghost busting." - Garami

The two looked a little confused over my "close enough" comment, but I'm in a hurry here, so I skipped the rest of the explanation, stuffed the lantern into my Storage for now, and followed the path of destruction left behind by our ghostly friend while leaving the two behind. Plus, we're still technically hired to keep Lily safe, so taking her with us to fight a grim ghost? Or even leaving her behind at a crime scene? Yes, neither option sounds good, which is why I left her and Iron there with the mission of helping the victims.

As for why I'm classifying this as a crime, think about it. Does Jumbo look like the kind of guy to open his lanterns using TNT? This has got to be a set-up of some sort for the Automata merchant. Let's squash this threat ASAP and get my reward for all my troubles.

---

After a quick run past a couple of floatships, I found my target. It was a large, ghastly figure made from black and gold smoke, shaped like a certain chili trader we all know and love. If you double his size, add some more hellish traits like devil horns and flaming eyes. The identity of this pile of smoke and mirrors is the undead living in the broken lantern I found. An "Aderyn y Corff". A whooping C-rank ghost-type undead that's on an equal level to Dracoliches and normal Liches.

Despite its threatening nature, the damage to the floatships and traders' stands wasn't that bad. I was wondering why, as I ran past them, but now I understand. Somebody's been keeping the Aderyn Corff company.

"Mira, Noire, jump!" I shouted as the ghostly copy started to slam its giant arms onto the ground, causing a tidal wave of golden smoke to assault my two guildmates. Noire had it the easiest, as she simply flew above the smoke, while Mira had to do some acrobatics to climb the nearest floatship's hull in time.

"Princess!? Fancy seeing you here!" shouted Mira with a face betraying her enjoyment of the situation. This battle maniac... Noire, meanwhile, looked both surprised by my appearance, annoyed over Mira's attitude, and freaked out over the Aderyn y Corff's battle prowess.

With the two out of its reach and my sudden appearance, the Aderyn y Corff's attention turned to me. And oh boy, Jumbo sure has the face worthy of a thug. It's a good thing the real deal is such a nice guy.

The Aderyn y Corff was NOT that nice. It came at me with the intent of tackling me into the next week. I threw a spider thread line onto the mast of one of the floatships and used it to pull myself out of the smoke giant's way. The Aderyn y Corff paused without much difficulty and crunched as if preparing to jump up to the floatship's deck. It never got the chance, as Mira interrupted it by jumping down from her elevated position and had gravity to help her with a straight down slash at the giant's shoulder.

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The silver shine of Airgetlam, Mira's Extra Skill that could enhance her swords with divine light, allowed her to bisect the giant's shoulder and leg completely. Despite the damage, which would have been fatal in almost any other case, the smoke giant only looked annoyed as it turned around on its remaining leg like a ballerina and tried to punch Mira with a heavy right. I immediately repaid the favor Mira had given me by releasing a Zahhak on the smoke giant's back, sending it crashing past Mira and into the hull of the floatship on the opposite side of the "street".

Mira looked at the result with a grin on her face, but it turned upside-down when she saw the smoke giant standing up, no worse for wear, and its lost limbs were even regenerating before our eyes. And this is after having taken the blow of TWO Extra Skills. Even the battle-hungry Dark Knight would turn grim seeing this.

"Garami, what is that thing?" asked Noire, who had flown down to the floatship I was using as a platform. I hope the owners won't sue me for trespassing.

"An Aderyn y Corff. A type of undead." - Garami

"What a name. How do we defeat it then?" - Noire

"Good question," I said as I started to reformulate the plans I had in mind, now that I had access to the help of my two best anti-undead guild members. "Mira! Follow me, and lead that guy along with you!"

"Roger!" shouted Mira in a happy voice as she side-stepped the smoke giant like a bull fighter minus the red mantle.

And like that, I jumped from floatship to floatship with just enough speed that Mira wouldn't lose me as she guided the Aderyn y Corff to come along. Noire assisted by going ahead and warning people to take cover. Sometimes she fired arrows loaded with healing magic at Mira's direction. Even to this day, I'm still a little spooked at the sight of people I know getting shot at with arrows, even if it ends up healing them. Don't tell anyone.

"S-S-SIR! It's the money cow!"

"Excuse me?" - Garami

The moment I jumped onto a new floatship, with the intent of using it as a stepping stone to my planned "anti-Aderyn y Corff" battleground, that weird shout made me doubt my ears for a second. And then I started to question my eyes as well. "So much for having Perception Skills that boost your six senses", were my thoughts, but seeing the crew of this floatship, that stupid idea was shoved away for something far different.

"So you figured everything out, ey?!" shouted some leader-looking dude. As for what type of leader he looks like...think the priest of some dark, heretic, Lovecraft-inspired cult. He's wearing a weird cloak with animal skulls and bones (or, I hope that's the case) as accessories, along with weird amulets that have weird patterns and texts on them. It kinda hurts my head just looking at him, for a LOT of different reasons.

Underneath his coat, however, he's wearing something akin to assassin gear. Quite professional-looking, if I have to say so myself. The guy himself...looks far from professional. Heck, I doubt he's even got his sanity intact. His eyes have those "crazy rings" that mind-controlled or insane people in cartoons and anime sometimes have. Not to mention that he's got heteronomica. Kinda like a bunch of lunatics I met just earlier today. Aaaaand now I'm starting to get what that leader-guy was trying to imply.

"The Chaos Church?" - Garami

"Of course we are! Don't try to act all innocent, you demonic ****!!" - Jerk leader guy

We've found our culprits, ladies and germs. That was too easy. Time to cross out anti-Aderyn plan A and rather aim for plan R. As in "Revenge".

To start this improvised plan R, I started firing [Darkness Bullets] on the smoke giant down below to get its attention. The giant, as well as the duo in front of me, were surprised by my actions for different reasons. In the lunatic leaders' case, it was because I managed to score solid hits on the Aderyn y Corff without even aiming...at least in their eyes. Bless you, 3D-map generating blindfold Nightmare Item.

As anyone would do when showered by bullets made of darkness, the Aderyn y Corff started to create some sort of ball of red dust in its hands. Mira took a step back, partially because she used to play along with my whims, partially because she most likely knows the destructive power of said dust ball the smoke giant is making. An ability it most likely copied from poor Jumbo.

Oh, I didn't mention it before? Aderyn y Corff is a ghost bird. A real "mocking bird" who "mocks" you by knocking you out with a "soul-crushing peck", which also creates a fake form of the pecked target made out of black and golden clouds. The victim gets KO-ed, but there have been no documented fatalities in the history of undead science. So yeah, that stuff down below LOOKS like smoke, but no. It's clouds. It's just easier to imagine a "smoke giant" than a "cloud giant" without starting to think about cyclones and storms and other dangerous weather phenomena that are completely different from the stuff right below me right now. Which reminds me, I better skedaddle.

Right after I jumped over to the next floatship, a loud *POOF* could be heard from behind me. A *POOF* of spice powder. It seems old Jumbo has access to the [Spice Merchant] class. And while it's evolved from [Merchant], it's still a class that allows you to store and "transport" (read here as: throw) large quantities of spices and related products. And if that stuff is from Jumbo's storage..., maybe I should pay him back for that last chilli spice bomb.

Other than that, it's PERFECT for dishing out some sweet-, er, spicy justice to those lunatic Chaos Church followers! The floatship I was just on...is completely covered in red. And flames.

Fun facts! Spicy stuff like chillies and hot peppers doesn't burn your mouth. It only turns your tongue's temperature threshold. In short, your tongue (figuratively) burns from your body temperature after eating spicy stuff. Or so it thinks. It's not like your mouth suddenly caught fire, hehe~.

Fun fact number 2! Spicy stuff on Terra Sol? It does BOTH. Blast those magically-enhanced peppers. Like, blast them before they can blast you. The lunatics screaming in pain on the floatship behind me are such an example!

"Garami, you are such a fiend," said Noire all of a sudden, flying up to me as I started my Tarzan act again now that the Aderyn y Corff had its aggro entirely set on me and ignores Mira.

"That's almost literally my species," I said as I brushed her off and focused on fleeing with enough speed to prevent the undead bird from releasing another chilli bomb while also making sure it didn't lose track of me. It's a cheap price for allowing the undead bird (and by extension, myself too) to get its revenge on the lunatic jerks. All that's left is to reach the final battlefield! And hope this chaos is enough to arouse my hopeful comrade in defeating this crazy bird! If we don't stop it soon, poor Jumbo's going to go bankrupt!