A Reincarnated Demon’s Life of Wonder

"Hup! Hey! Whop!" - Garami

Jumping away from the ghost bird's, the Averyn y Corff's, massive cloud-smoke-fists, I discreetly lured it away from the floatship bazaar and into the desert area right next to the entrance to the Stone Highway. Lowering its stats with my Evil Eyes made the task easier than it should have been, but we're still not in the clear yet.

My previous stunt of having the Aveyrn y Corff dealing some sweet justice to the lunatics from the Chaos Church before has made it focus all of its aggro onto me, not giving Mira a chance to direct it back to herself again after that. She tried, but for some weird reason, the ghost bird decided that I'm its family's eternal nemesis or something. I don't even know you, so stop being so ox-seeing-red about me, you expired Thanksgiving dinner!

Personal annoyances aside, we did manage to get the undead away from the traders without much pain. The only victims were the people who were doused by the spice cloud generated from the ghost bird's initial appearance, plus the guys from the Church of Chaos. Nobody's going to sue us for any potential damage at this point. And out here, we can go as wild as we can.

"Zahhak!" - Garami

In place of the starting gong, I released my trusty Darkness Dragon attack towards the ghost bird's giant cloud body. The sudden appearance of the massive attack caught the ghost bird off guard, scoring me a clean hit on the high-ranking undead. My joy was short-lived because, out of the flying desert sand, a small, skull-colored object came flying out, looking no worse for wear.

"Wait, THAT is the undead bird's true identity?!" - Noire

"So tiny!" - Mira

The girls, long accustomed to my Zahhaks, were instead flabbergasted over the Aderyn y Corff's true form. It's a small bird without wings or feathers, resembling a corpse more than a living creature. And in its defense, that's to be expected. It is an undead after all.

After a few moments in the air, the ghost bird straightened itself up and covered its naked body with the black-gold clouds from before, giving it a massive set of wings and a beautiful coat of "feathers". Noire finally snapped out of her daze after seeing this and released a magical arrow at the flying undead. To her ire, the ghost bird swiftly evaded the arrow and flew to the ground.

Looking as if she had realized something horrifying, Mira dashed forward, ignoring the difficulties the desert sand had for her legs, and slashed with her greatsword at the diving bird. The Aderyn y Corff straightened up, but couldn't escape getting nicked by the sword's tip. I think that's one of Mira's Combat Arts. What was its name again? "Dark Knight's Pursuit"? She mentioned it was good against enemies who were fleeing. I guess you could say the ghost bird was trying to "flee" so it could rebuild its position.

And by "position", I mean the giant cloud-smoke body of its.

Despite being flung across the desert like a baseball after a home run hit, the Aderyn y Corff managed to get back up and started to create its cloud copy of Jumbo again. Talk about durability, worthy of an undead of its rank. Though its LUC stat doesn't seem to be of the same tier, cause you just stepped on my trap card, I mean, on my trap!

What, you thought I was enjoying the show all the time? Don't look down on my well-trained [Trap Creation] skill. Just the slight distraction that Mira created for me was enough to let me set up a trap web underneath the Aderyn y Corff's feet.

The cloud-smoke giant thing might be made of...you know, clouds and smoke, not to mention it's one of the trickier kinds of ghosts. A normal web would be useless, but you're facing a web user/Necromancer/Alchemist, Mr. Corff. I've got my methods~.

Specifically, I used threads drenched in a special tonic of mine. Simply put, it's "holy water" without the "holy" part. I was originally planning on synthesising an elixir that could keep Filyn at bay if she ever turned on us. That girl's proudly calling herself the boss of an "evil" organization. It wouldn't surprise me if she ever tried to make my life sour, just because she thought it would be funny. Hence why I wanted something to fall back on, but the tonic didn't work out as I had planned. Instead of an anti-demon drink, I got some anti-undead soup!

In short, the Aderyn y Corff is caught. But not for long. Even my threads aren't unbreakable. Hence, I started spawning Deadflesh Golems to give me a hand. And by that, I mean they're to grab the long line attached to the web and take the old bird in the net to a swing-off on this dusty dance floor!

The raw power of the Deadflesh Golems was more than enough to send the lightweight (or should I say cloud-weight~) ghost bird spinning in the air. It would be funny to cause it to become too nauseous to keep fighting by continuing this wild tivoli ride, but I'm not sure if the undead can become dizzy in the first place. I should consult Iron about that later. For now, I ordered the Deadflesh Golems to throw the Aderyn y Corff in the direction I had planned to send it in the first place.

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And there it goes~. The bird flew so far away that it went outside the range of the blindfold's 3D map. Still, I'm confident in my inner compass. Heck, I should be. I even have the freaking [Sense of Cardinal Direction] skill. Being wrong here would be too embarrassing, enough to make me want to dig a hole in the desert sand and jump into it.

Though there's no time to be digging holes now. I shifted my gear into [Genocide Drive: Speed] and rushed after the flying undead, reaching my goal before the flying parcel. Not bad, not bad at all. Though having risked HP, MP, and SP all at once with that trick makes it not suitable for most situations. I also left Mira and Noire behind. Oops.

Still, this "White Desert's Guardian" guy is quite something. Yeah, that's where I threw the Aderyn y Corff. Directly aimed at this big bloke, snoring the daylight away. How envious.

From what I could gather from hearsay and the Kigal-Note while we were walking with Lily before, this guy's named "Gwendler", and like what we were told before, he makes a living by eating pollution of any kind in the desert, leaving behind clean sand that no evil creatures would find comfortable. He looks kinda like an overgrown pillbug, just cuter and flabbier. The dark-purple skin color is quite to my tastes as well. Now I feel bad for sending the ghost bird this guy's way.

*Boing!*

Ouch. That sounded...not as bad as I feared. The extra flop must be working as a sort of soft armor. It seems to have worked a little too good, though. That clash didn't even make the giant ball of flub flinch. He's just sleeping there with his goofy face. Wake up already! There's an undead here! Go munch on him already!

Argh, fiiiine. I'll deal with this ****ing bird myself. While the giant piece of clouds was getting its bearings together (even an undead can become a little out of touch after turning into a shooting star like that), I went around it before jumping onto its back and wrapped some new threads around its neck. No, I'm not going to suffocate it; that would be ridiculous. Undead, remember? No, I'm going for the rodeo option.

To start the wild ride, I touched the (freaky to touch) cloud body with [Aura of Darkness] and [Darkness Drain]. I could add some extra juice by also using the [Death Touch] skill, which I obtained as a reward for the [Skeleton Genocider] title, but as I've learned the hard way, trying to use a Death attribute skill without much affinity for the attribute can be quite...fatal. I almost saw my life flashing before my eyes there. It was NOT fun having to relive the memories of the Water-Knot! But I digress. Back to the rodeo.

The Double-Dark-Touch combo worked its wonders to agitate the Aderyn y Corff into high heaven! Or should I say "hell" since it's all wrathful and stuff? Whatever the case, the rodeo has started! The gigantic, monstrous form of Jumbo wasn't the best ride, but I've experienced worse. Like when we tried teaching Revi how to drive the Marauder, *brr*.

As an undead, the Aderyn y Corff doesn't have any stamina to expire unless it's through skill effects, but the constant damage from the Double-Dark-Touch combo, plus the Evil Eyes I've been running for most of the time now, is doing its work. The cloud giant's movements are far less aggressive compared to the beginning. I think I can win this. On my own. Hah! Who needs a sleepy giant desert cleaner? Not me! Even if I believed so at the beginning...

And it seems the past me was waaaay smarter than the present me. Why? Because the Aderyn y Corff decided to "cancel" the cloud giant and flee from my webby grip. And dropping me to the ground. Had that been anyone else than me, they'd land on and hurt their butt. Or necks! I am so glad I've practiced [Acrobatics].

Now that the undead bird was ready mano-o-birdo with me, I retrieved my scythe from the [Spatial Storage], turned it into its dagger form (as a big scythe against a tiny bird is just too much of a mismatch), and started to prepare summoning some Smoke Ghosts with my free left hand. The best way to hit such a tiny creature is to go AoE, something... that I'm not especially good at, unless you count the 3D map-enhanced Evil Eyes. I'm a more "to-the-point" kinda girl. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have left the girls. Especially Mira and her large shockwave-inducing sword slashes.

My doubts were unfounded, as the Aderyn y Corff didn't stick to the "too small to be hit" strategy. Instead, it started recreating the cloud giant now that it was free from my reins. Tough luck, pal. You can't beat me if you stick to Jumbo's appearance. I eat chilli for breakfast! Or, I would have, but that stuff is stinking difficult to come across in the middle of the stinking desert! And the stuff that the Damavand produces is too bland!

Alas, my desire for spicy yumyums was denied once again. Instead of turning into Jumbo, the ghost bird decided to transform into...me. Do I look that scary to other people? I do NOT have crown-shaped horns, nor do I have four additional arms! They would be useful, though.

Maybe my assaults have traumatized the bird a little too much. That would explain why it perceives me as something way scarier than what I am. I think. Not that it's going to stop me from defeating this guy. This will just be another round of shadow boxing for me. Let's start with some slide-n-dice action with an [Assassination Arts]...

*Chomp!*

...What the ****? The Desert Guardian! That lazybone decided to wake up NOW after all that rodeo action! And it didn't hesitate to chomp onto the ghost bird without delay! Am I THAT tasty-looking to the big guy? That's kinda...disturbing...

Just to be safe, I hid behind some dunes while making sure my stealth-type skills were active and everything else off, just in case they could tip off my hiding place. After a short round of munching, the Desert Guardian spat out the ghost bird, not too unlike how some people do with chewing gum. Yuck, poor birdie. Let's just forget that I planned to enact exactly this event. This giant desert cleaner never eats living beings, just the "pollution" they might be covered with. Then it spits them out, as demonstrated here.

Probably happy with its light snack, the White Desert's Guardian started to swim through the sand with its chubby little legs and headed to the open sea-er, I mean the open sands-er, the open desert? Something like that. Its power nap must have been enough to recover from the rumored wounds it had, because it looks far from being in pain as it swims to the horizon. Good for him.

What is not good is the Aderyn y Corff. The poor guy is just lying in the sand, barely twitching. Sure, it's an undead, as good as a corpse any time of the day, but even so, I think he's been weakened enough for my little scheme. Now, where did I put the Kigal-Note again~?