Ch. 12
Chapter 12: [Interlude of the Demon King and the Knight]
Thornfall Outpost, Old Timber Street, Barracks No. 3.
A few idle adventurers were scattered across the chairs in the first-floor hall.
A young male swordsman sat drinking tea, staring blankly at the staircase while waiting for his sluggish teammates to come down.
At the door stood a middle-aged man with a long, barbed halberd strapped to his back, holding a snakeskin and two bottles of snake oil.
He peered at the passing carriages, looking for a familiar merchant’s face.
As he stepped out, the pole of his halberd struck the doorframe with a thud, knocking him off balance.
Cursing in a thick Floren Kingdom accent that no one could quite understand, he awkwardly twisted his body, forcing the halberd to fit through the doorway with much clattering and stumbling.
Two young girls sat by the window, both wrapped in mage robes over light, feminine leather armor, each holding a satchel of magical catalysts.
One held a short wooden staff inlaid with a rune stone, while the other’s right hand wore a fingerless glove studded with a rune-stone disc at the palm.
The two leaned close together, whispering in hushed voices:
“...The knight in black armor is definitely more handsome. Slim, graceful in both figure and movement...”
“...You’ve got no taste! The one in bronze armor looks better—narrow waist, broad shoulders—he just gives off that solid, reliable feeling...”
“Shh! Quiet... He’s looking this way!”
Samael turned his head, glancing at the two mage girls who quickly pretended to admire the scenery.
He scratched his helmet awkwardly, then slowly turned back toward Thaleia.
The two stood at the counter of the adventurer barracks’ reception hall, staring blankly at the board listing the room rates.
Behind them, Randall stood on tiptoe, craning his neck between their shoulders to see.
“The... cheapest room for a month—how much?” Thaleia asked stiffly, trying to suppress her embarrassment.
“The cheapest is a twin room shared by two people. Ten gold coins per person per month,” the plump landlady answered from behind the counter.
She wore a checkered apron and a headscarf.
Though she could tell these two knights had seen better days, her tone held no contempt.
“Will the two of you be... living separately? I can arrange one shared with female lodgers and one with male lodgers—will that be all right?”
“No, no, we’ll share one room. A twenty-gold twin will be fine.” Thaleia grabbed Samael’s arm tightly.
“We’re from... a monastery. Gender has no meaning to us. All beings are equal—such mundane divisions are meaningless.”
“Uh... what she said. I’ll just follow her lead.” Samael nearly stumbled as Thaleia’s unnatural strength yanked his shoulder sideways.
“Oh, I see. We’ve had all sorts here—married couples, siblings, parents with children—nothing unusual.” The landlady waved her hand dismissively.
“Let’s start with one month, then. You’ll pay upfront, and if you leave early, I can refund part of it—but at most, half.”
“I’ll pay.” Randall leaned between the two, slipping his hand under Samael’s arm to place a small pile of coins on the counter.
“I don’t know how to thank you enough, Brother Randall.” Samael seized Randall’s hand, shaking it energetically.
The cold of his gauntlet made Randall shiver.
“It’s nothing, really.” Randall managed a smile as he awkwardly pulled his stiffened hand free from Samael’s icy grip.
“So, are you two going to handle your trainee assignment today? Once your trial task is done tomorrow morning, we can team up officially.”
“Sure thing!” Samael replied cheerfully.
“Also, please take these.” Randall unfastened a leather pouch from his belt and pressed it into Samael’s hand.
“A few basic potions—healing, painkillers, and the like. You might need them during your training task.”
“Some bottles might look unfamiliar. They’re brewed by our team’s potion maker—cheaper than market potions, but we’ve tested them ourselves. Most bottles are labeled with their uses, so don’t worry. Use them freely.”
“No... we actually won’t need these...” Samael began honestly, trying to hand the pouch back.
But Randall, with the agility of a third-tier ranger, dodged smoothly and retreated toward the door with a polite smile.
“Keep them anyway. Anything can happen on a quest—you never know when they’ll come in handy. I’m in Barracks No. 2, Room 301, first on the left. If you need anything, just come by.” He smiled and waved at the door.
“See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow, Brother Randall.” Samael waved back, fastening the potion pouch to his waist.
Meanwhile, Thaleia had already taken the room key from the landlady.
She grabbed Samael, who was still waving, and dragged him upstairs, their armor clattering with each step.
She unlocked the door.
Behind it was a simple, dusty room.
Two wooden beds with full bedding stood side by side.
At each bedside sat an empty iron-locked chest with a small key, meant for personal belongings.
The room was dim, lit only by a sliver of light filtering through the narrow crack of a closed window, painting a long, crooked stripe across the ceiling and wall.
A bare table and chair stood by the window, with a candlestick holding a stub of candle—nothing more.
“Finally...! Two whole days without taking off my helmet!” Thaleia exclaimed, tossing her hammer-spear to the ground with a clang.
She clawed at the helmet seams, yanking her steel-gray hair free, then hurled her black-horned helm onto the bed.
With a thump, the helmet hit the mattress, sending up a puff of dust.
“Ah! A bed! I’ve wandered the barren lands for two years like a beast—sleeping in leaf piles and dirt holes, gnawing on other beasts and demonized plants—how long has it been since I’ve slept on a real bed? Cough...” She flopped backward, coughing from the dust as the hard boards creaked beneath her weight.
“That sounds... kind of tragic.” Samael sat on the bed, expression blank.
Beds didn’t mean much to him.
After all, he was armor.
Sitting, lying, or standing—it all felt the same.
He couldn’t tell a bed from a stone floor.
He opened the leather pouch and examined the labels on the bottles.
“Healing potion, painkiller, demonic toxin antidote, venom neutralizer... Randall really gave us some decent stuff.”
Samael pulled out a thin iron chain hung with small glass vials, each with a tiny wooden tag reading Healing Potion.
Each vial was the size of a little finger, filled with murky red liquid.
The corks were fixed to the chain—like a belt of bullets—meant to be torn open single-handedly, even in battle.
“Not that we need any of this. Even the strongest healing potion can’t compare to a demon’s natural regeneration, and we’re immune to psionic toxins—the cursed Nether-Copper armor too.” Thaleia glanced at the bottles with mild disdain.
“Besides, look at how cloudy that is. Low-grade junk—probably brewed from scraps by a trainee potion maker. Might even have side effects.”
“It’s the thought that counts! A rich man’s thousand gold and a poor man’s thousand gold are different. It’s the sincerity that matters. He uses these himself, so even if they look shabby, they’re practical.” Samael muttered.
“What’s this one?”
He picked up a fist-sized spherical bottle.
Inside was a rune-etched stone, a few shriveled, dark-green lumps bound with wire and string, all soaked in pale yellow oil.
“Oh, that dung-pit foreman really splurged, huh? But still not that useful.” Thaleia clicked her tongue.
“That’s a spell—Corrosive Blast, or Toxic Burst. It uses the venom gland of a Foulsoil Roarer as the magical catalyst.”
“It’s Bottled Magic—a branch of human potion alchemy. A single-use spell tool made with glass, rune stones, catalysts, and monster oil. Smash it to activate it—the oil provides fuel. Bottled Magic doesn’t consume psionic energy, so even non-mages can use it.”
“So it’s expensive?” Samael asked.
“Two to three hundred gold coins. Half for materials, half for labor—it’s tricky to make. See that structure inside? Building it’s like making a ship in a bottle. You need long tweezers to assemble it piece by piece through the neck.” Thaleia explained.
“This one looks crude—probably made by a novice potion maker and rookie mage working together. Bottled Magic requires both disciplines. Not many master both.”
“Randall gave this to us?” Samael scratched at his chin guard.
“He’s a good guy—capable, sharp, honest. Don’t you want to join his team? Is it the name? Or are they too weak?”
“They’re too weak.” Thaleia lay back, raising her clawed gauntlet toward the ceiling.
“Samael, we have to hide our identities and our true strength. That means keeping a low profile—no showing off.”
“Our real power’s about that of sixth- or seventh-tier adventurers. If we join a team weaker than that, we’ll stand out too much.”
“Sure, we could pretend at first. But the moment something beyond their ability happens, we’ll have to step in. Do that too often, and sooner or later, we’ll slip up—and that’ll expose us.”
“And besides, their team name...” Thaleia paused.
“Ugly?” Samael asked.
“That’s part of it—but that’s not the main issue.” She clenched her clawed gauntlet.
“The real problem is what the dung-pit foreman said—the name stands out too much.”
“A team with such a distinctive name draws attention—whether as a joke or a legend. And if we stay with them long-term, our unusual power will stand out too. That increases the risk of exposure.”
“So I told them to rename it. Pick something generic—‘Storm,’ ‘Dawn,’ ‘Holy,’ ‘Glory’—anything that doesn’t sound as unique as Scavenger Beasts.”
She glanced sideways at Samael, who was still fiddling with the Bottled Magic.
“Samael, I originally wanted a team of sixth- or seventh-tier adventurers. That way we’d blend in—strong enough to be unnoticed, but not too weak to need saving.” She tugged at the hanging armor plates on his waist.
“What do you think?”
“Don’t pull my butt armor...” Samael grumbled, tugging it back.
“Actually, I think being with higher-tier adventurers is riskier. Easier for them to notice who we really are. I’d rather go with a lower-tier team—like Randall’s. They’re solid, practical, not too sharp, but not too weak either.”
“Why?” Thaleia asked.
“Wouldn’t we stand out less in a stronger team?”
“The danger’s in their perception. Even those two gate guards could identify our professions at a glance.” Samael thought aloud.
“And from what they said, Randall’s a novice—only trained a year under a sixth-tier adventurer named Norman Passat—and yet he’s already a third-tier with that level of awareness.”
“That speaks to his own talent—but it also means that sixth- or seventh-tier adventurers must have far keener senses. Live among them long enough, and they’ll see through us. We can’t risk that.”
“Are they really that sharp?” Thaleia frowned.
“A decade ago in the Londoran Dungeon, there were mountains of sixth- and seventh-tier corpses. You could build walls out of their skulls.”
“That bad?” Samael muttered.
“My father liked to categorize things—even corpses.” Thaleia stretched lazily.
“The Rootrot Spheres in Londoran would run around sorting skulls by the adventurers’ identity tags. I saw a pile of sixth- and seventh-tier skulls high enough to form a wall.”
“In the frozen Londoran mountains hollowed by Earth-Devouring Worms, the skulls were counted and dumped into the abyss beneath the city—to feed the thriving under-ecosystem. From the city wall, looking down, the bones gleamed in the dark—like an endless field of white dandelions... a sea of death born from the greed of adventurers.”
Thaleia snorted.
“Creatures driven by greed rarely have much sense. I’ve always thought adventurers were pretty stupid.”
“Your father must’ve been powerful. Londoran’s mountain cities must’ve been magnificent too.” Samael sighed.
“But those who dared enter it were strong and perceptive as well.”
“Thaleia, your experiences are... unique. You saw waves of greedy adventurers die in the dungeon—it’s natural that you’d look down on lower-ranked ones.”
“But I think even lower-tier adventurers are perceptive and clever in their own ways.”
“Maybe they died simply because the dungeon was too alien—its traps and ecosystems too brutal. That doesn’t make them fools. It just proves how much stronger the demon rulers and their psionic creations were.”
“Randall’s way of thinking is already quite refined. From him alone, you can tell—high-ranking adventurers are anything but simple. We’re safer with a lower-tier team.”
“Hmm... I guess that makes sense. Fine, we’ll do it your way.” Thaleia rolled over on the bed.
“At least if they find out who we are, it’ll be easier to silence them.”
“Wha—no! You can’t just think about killing people! That’s immoral!” Samael crossed his arms, exasperated, his tone like an indignant cartoon cat.
“Randall’s a good man—helped us a lot. I’d rather be friends with someone honest and capable like him. Let’s stay friendly. If things go south, we run—not murder.”
“You sound just like my father when you preach morals like that.” Thaleia’s gaze softened.
“He died for that. Betrayed by a demon he called a friend. Killed by adventurers he trusted.”
Silence.
Silence.
Samael sighed, turning away, silently rolling the potion bottles in his hand.
“We’ll deal with it when the time comes,” Thaleia murmured.
“Let’s just hope your dung-pit friend’s a bit dull—slow enough not to notice anything he shouldn’t. Otherwise...”
“Let’s rest first.” Samael placed the Bottled Magic back into the pouch and hung it on his belt.
Facing away from her, he stared blankly at the wall.
“We still have that trainee task this afternoon—have to deal with that annoying adventurer, Lucwin Rost.”
“We’ll regroup with Randall tomorrow morning. We can plan our next move tonight.”
Thaleia lay quietly on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
“Sorry,” she whispered, glancing at Samael’s back.
“It’s fine,” Samael said softly, still staring at the wall.
“You grew up among demons and went through a lot. Thinking that way is understandable... and not entirely wrong, either.”
His Nether-Copper gauntlet brushed against the potion chain.
“Maybe it’s just me,” he murmured.
“But I still feel the world shouldn’t have to be this way.”