Stray Soul

“Ahhh, what a bother.” I thought as I touched the foreign divinity infecting my body.

I had only been a demon for a century, so my control over the divinity that made my body was... pathetic to put it lightly.

Even a fully-fledged demon would have problem fighting against divinity of another in their body, but I couldn’t even fight back against it, so I had at best... 10 minutes in this world.

“...Are you serious?” I muttered, slightly pissed off because this was the first time I had left Tartarus ever since I had become a demon and... I’d just missed how the normal world looked and felt honestly.

Tartarus was... fine. Unlike how my parents thought Death’s domain would look, the Dark Lord had put a lot of thought into how each piece of Tartarus was designed, and it even had layers in it!

So, you could leave the underground and just go feel the sun crafted by the Dark Lord whenever you wanted, and partake in the endless bounties of his paradise, but it all felt... fake.

Beaches of white sand, cities of marble and gold, the plethora of biomes and locations cherry picked and recreated there, from the extensive caverns of the underworld to the intricately designed cities of the dark elves, though all felt fake.

So, I had desired the real world for a long, long time.

But after I had finally come back here? I had to leave in such a short time?

Are you fucking kidding me?

“Urgh... and now I have to deal with him too.” I couldn’t help but mutter as I thought about how David would react to my little vacation... which I hadn’t told him about.

I was thinking that I could remain in the real world for a few weeks using the dragon blood that the goblins had, and whatever punishment he gave me would be worth it.

“Haaah...” I sighed, and then I saw the “deity” I had thrown away in a fit of surprise.

Raising my hand towards the creature, I sent it a half-hearted middle finger, and then just gave up a few seconds after.

“Haaah... my mood is ruined.” I muttered. But there was still a little bit of solace to be found in my situation.

After all, I had 10 more minutes in this world, which was 9 minutes 59 seconds more than what I needed to at least take some vengeance against the creature... actually more like 9 minutes 58 seconds as I’d need to open a portal to Tartarus, and get treated, lest I die for real this time and my soul be cast to the abyss to be reborn.

Though there was a slight problem... I wasn’t sure about how to use divinity as I wasn’t a priest or an acolyte, instead, I was just a human magical scholar.

So, I was more into delving into the arcane and finding new and more efficient ways to use mana and cast spells.

And me being a being of pure divinity, I just didn’t have any mana I could use to cast spells... but I think they thought me how to convert ambient mana to holy mana?

Remembering what the elder demons told me after I finished my demonification process, I separated a small blob of divinity from my body, and just... let it explode.

As the divinity exploded, a dark mist expanded outwards from the palm of my hands, and a few seconds after I created the mist, I recalled it back to the palm of my hand, and the small blob of divinity, the size of a finger, had attached itself to the ambient mana and had turned into a vortex of holy mana the size of my head.

“As I remember they told me to do this process again as the holy mana in my palm right now has too much divinity in it, and diluting it would be more efficient usage of divinity... but what if I didn’t?” I muttered, the inner researcher in me coming out.

But I also didn’t want to waste too much divinity, as doing so would leave my body even more vulnerable to the foreign divinity in my body.

“...Eh, I’ll just use half.” I muttered to myself and separated the vortex of holy mana into 2, and as a test, I aimed one hand towards the “deity” that had poisoned me with the divinity of another and, just let it rip.

As the small vortex of holy mana flew through the air, it turned from a spherical shape to a conical shape, and almost resembled an arrow or a spear.

And the moment it made contact with the “deity” that had just gotten off of the ground, the magical arrow exploded, and blew up the front of the “deity”.

“...Fascinating.” I muttered, as I saw that the soul of the “deity” was still fine... well, mostly fine, as some divinity had clunged onto it, but the “deity” was managing to fight against this pseudo-curse I had inflicted on it.

“Hmph...Lord Of Souls, huh? A title it doesn’t deserve as there can be only one lord of souls, but its impressive nonetheless... this is going to be fun!” I said aloud, and started slowly floating towards it, in hopes of having some fun before I had to retreat, but I was stopped by the little shaman.

“Wait!” It screamed behind me.

“Are you going to leave me here to fend for myself?!” It cried and pointed towards a large congregation of goblins and another body of the “deity” which was contesting against a soul the shaman had implanted in it.

“... You have anymore undead?” I asked the goblin.

“Err... no.” It answered, a bit embarrassed.

Then I took a longing look at the main body of the “deity” and sighed.

“Haaah... I’ll only have a few minutes of fun today it seems.” I muttered and exploded the other vortex of holy mana into a mist, and a few seconds later, I had a ring of holy mana floating around me.

I had lost some control over it, due to the dilution of divinity, but I could still control it like another part of my body all the same.

For a few moments I played with the holy mana which flew through the gaps between my fingers like water.

“...Well, this may be more enjoyable than I thought.” I muttered and got to work.

“FUCK FUCK FUCK—” I screamed inside my mind as I fought off against... whatever the demon had thrown at me.

Whatever it was, it felt like a thick layer of tar that was somehow covering my very soul, and it just wouldn’t come off.

And whenever it touched a new part of my soul, I felt like I lost connection to that part of me, and the first time I felt it I thought for a moment it was actually destroying parts of my soul.

Thankfully, it was not.

But less thankfully, it was not coming off.

No matter how hard I tried to remove it off, and no matter how hard I pulled or pushed at it.

Sure, in half an hour or so I’d be free from this menace, but I wasn’t sure if my turtle body and the goblins would survive for that long.

So, I just had to fight while massively handicapped.

Well, maybe Rifu-san could help me remove whatever this is but there was a slight problem with that plan as... well, the sceptre of the forest was kinda stuck to the front of the temple, and there just happened to be a demon and a shaman there that were... not really doing a lot.

The shaman was just standing there and watching the demon toy with the goblins and sometimes take a shot or two at my turtle body and break through its shell and such.

Though, thankfully, the demon was not able to do whatever it did to my main body to my lesser soul.

It was probably because it didn’t try to, but I am going to hold on to the belief that it couldn’t even if it tried.

...

For a few more seconds I stood there and tried to get the weird tar like thing off of my soul to no success, and after covering my exposed flesh with a small layer of branches and leaves, I wasn’t surprised to see that my mobility had lessened.

Though I could still walk, this body was as good as gone.

Though it seemed like I could run too... at least to some degree, so I should be able to try and run to the sceptre and grab it before the demon and shaman are able to stop me.

Then for a moment I looked at what was going on my turtle body and... not good.

My lesser soul had managed to push out the invading soul, but goblins had some that abandoned the ranks which was fair seeing as they couldn’t deal with the demon.

And the demon was just... continuing to toy with the remaining goblins and Gram was floating next to the Demon, though he was incapacitated, it seemed like he was alive.

...Probably.

“Well... no better time than now.” I muttered to myself and prepared to dash at the sceptre in one last attempt to get it and maybe kill the demon, but as I got up, I heard a sound behind me.

*Psst*

Turning around in confusion I saw the... fucking adventurers?

How did they get through the—oh yeah... guards are not at their posts now, are they?

But no matter, why were they even here? Surely, they have better things than risking their lives fighting demons.

Though I was not sure what their motives were, they were calling me to where they were and... let’s be frank here, I don’t think I am going to defeat the demon right now, and Rifu-san’s divinity isn’t spreading as fast as I’d hoped as it was only done with a single arm.

So, after making sure neither the shaman nor the demon, who was currently busy breaking the turtle’s shell apart, wasn’t looking at me, I moved to where the adventurers were.

Following the elven lady from before, she quickly led me to where rest of her friends were, and turning around, she started talking in a language I was sure was imperial but couldn’t be sure.

Then, using all my knowledge of imperial, I raised a hand to make her stop and said...

“I not eat kingdom.” The parasite spoke after raising a claw up.

“...What?” I could only say after a moment of bewilderment.

Not listening to what I was saying, the parasite, who the spirits ordered us to help, went past me and started drawing something to the ground.

After a few moments I could see a crude drawing of the structure in the middle of the village, the goblin shaman, the demon, and its pet and soldiers.

Then the parasite broke off a twig from its body and put it on top of the structure, and after it was sure that we saw it, it picked the twig up and stabbed the demon with it, and then dropped a few leaves on it for... some reason?

Then it placed the twig to its spot on the structure and backed off.

“...Does it want us to stab the demon with something? If so, I am out.” Lazarus said, and... hopefully it was not asking us to do all the heavy lifting.

“...Urgh! We should’ve left when I told you guys I felt something off! If you had listened to me, we wouldn’t be here now!” Caroline said with a bit of anger.

“And how were we supposed to know your sixth sense was true?” Lazarus then said.

“Oh, I don’t know, by trusting me a fucking bit!”

“Oh, of course we would’ve trusted—”

“Lazarus.” Xavier than cut off Lazarus from talking, and they locked eyes for a few moments.

“Shut up.” He then said, and they continued to stare for a few more moments before Lazarus threw hands and retreated.

“I know everyone is on the edge right now, but we can’t fight right now. Not at a crucial moment like this. You can beef with anyone you want whenever, but not now.”

“Tsch...Fine!” Then he said and just laid his back on a nearby hut and watched from afar, while Heinrich started trying to calm Caroline down.

If not for him hearing the spirits too though, he definitely wouldn’t be this calm.

But if we had really listened to her and left when she sensed something weird, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation as we just could’ve argued against the spirits and convinced them we were too far away to help their little toy.

Though I can only place the blame on myself as I am the reason, we stayed to watch instead of just retreating... after all, it was clear that she had an ability, no matter if she didn’t get it confirmed by the church and got herself “recruited” by them.

I should’ve trusted her intuition.