Karkov's Demon

"Hey, Cina. you're quite popular, huh?"

"Of course, I'm cute and strong. Everyone wants me, no one can have me." she boasted.

A referee watching them yelled, "contestants, in your places! And... begin!"

She stood, waiting for him to move while he did the same thing.

"Come on, what are you, weak or dumb?" she asked.

"Then why don't you act first?"

"Ugh!" a vein pulsing on her forehead. She cast a few shards of rocks at him but he bent himself through the barrage, dodging it all. He threw his shield at her like a disc, ran behind her, grabbed her arm, and flung her out of the stadium.

"Wait! I wasn't ready! I wasn't ready for that!" she yelled, holding her hand. She thought to herself, 'he touched my hand… it's warm. Wait, what am I thinking!'

The crowd erupted in yells, both in cheers and boos. The people in suits jumped up, mouths agape and glasses slightly tipped forward.

"Zenith wins the round! Next contestant, Puq!"

"Hey! You're that loser in front of the painting," he said, drawing his sword at his face. "Are you ready to lose?"

Within thirty seconds, Puq was held to the ground, his sword thrown to the side and Puq wailing for surrender. Luka was watching from the stands, clapping her hands along with the cheering crowd. His next opponent was a tall, thin woman with long black hair. She used a single massive sword with extendable blades that swung out like backward scissors attached by the blade tips.

Back in Melanis, Rolas was on the floor, a pool of blood expanded and touched her arm, jolting her awake. She immediately scanned her own body and found no injuries other than a single bruise mark on her head that knocked her out. The blood belonged to someone else, and it probably was connected to the mess they made in her lab.

Potions and work material scattered all across her floors and walls. Karkov was missing from his bounds and his hand, clenching onto a batch of hair, was the only part of him left, dangling from the chains that held his wrist, the source of all the blood. Then it all came back to her, how some devil came, demanded to take Karkov and destroyed her base. His power was immense and she couldn't do a single thing to him. In the end, she was knocked out with a single move and didn't know what happened next.

She tried all her spells but without being prepared, she lost all too easily. Her specialty was brewing potions and preparing for battles she knew was coming up, making her a force to be reckoned with in well-informed wars, but the powerful devil caught her thoroughly off guard, she was almost embarrassed to say how easily she lost.

And worst of all, Karkov was taken from under her nose, just before she was ready to kill him. Although she didn't want to admit it, deep down she didn't want to kill him. He was her brightest student and despite all that he has done, she still hoped there was a tiny chance she could teach him the proper morals again.

Hopefully, although even Rolas doubted it, maybe the experience of losing a hand would shock him enough to return to her side. His thirst for knowledge and intellect amazed her and it would've been a great addition.

The devil who took Karkov away was using its magical eye to watch Melanis in case anyone chased them down. The devil had skin like burnt charcoals and he was flying using a fleshy parachute while using magic to blow wind into it. Karkov was holding his bleeding stump of an arm, his face twisted in pain. The bleeding was contained by a magical wall but nothing else was healing him or stopping the pain.

"Karkov, how in the world were you caught?" The devil asked. "I thought you had a magic artifact to grant you ultimate power."

"Shut up. It was a miscalculation. When are you going to kill me?"

"After you tell us what you've done and determine how much of the city we need to destroy."

"I'm not speaking a word then."

"Oh, we know. We have our own ways, contracts aren't our only specialty. In fact, the five kings will judge you themselves, are you happy?"

Karkov was about to return with a snarky remark but a sudden rift was made in front of them. White lines spread through the air and created cracks. Tiny yellow-white creatures came crawling out of the crack. Hell babies leaped out at them, trying to scratch their faces off. The demon punched one in the face and blew off ahead, purple blood splattering his fist.

"What are these things?" the devil shook the blood off.

"Don't ask me."

Another hell baby leaped out, holding a massive eyeball. It charged up and beamed a pink laser at the devil's face. The beam blinded him for a moment and singed his skin but was otherwise useless. Attached to the eye was a rope going from the back into the gate. From the crack, a colorful parrot flew out, containing a multitude of colors. It looked at them from eye to eye and said, "move."

The devil grabbed the parrot to kill it but it simply spread its wings and cut the demon's fingers off. He grabbed his fallen fingers with his other hand, dropping Karkov in the process, placed them back onto the bleeding stubs, and attached it all back. The parrot flew down, caught Karkov, and flew away even faster than the devil could go.

The parrot finally slowed to a halt and pecked at Karkov's wounded arm. Black liquid emerged from the bloody stump, wrapping around like muscle tissues until an arm was made from it. A gross, grey arm and hand that he had full control over.

"Why did you save me?"

The devil thought, 'Because you're easy to control.' but the parrot squawked, "You and I are alike."

Back in the arena, far far away from any of this, Zeeth was onto his fifth opponent. With every battle, the yells were getting increasingly louder and more supportive. People were yelling, "Throw her down!" or "punch him in the guts!" while those in suits and glasses were watching him intently, walking down the stadiums to get closer to the arena and writing things down. All Zeeth was thinking about was how to write all this to fill in thirty pages of a book. All the contestants he was fighting were in the ranks C, this arena was limited to them, but he was far past all of them.

He finished his fifth battle and was tired of fighting anyone else. Everyone he fought so far could've been taken care of with a single punch had he wanted to, even one of his slimes could have taken them out given the right situation.

'How do I leave? Is it counted as losing if I get off the stadium?'

"Ref, I want to leave."

"You're on a five-win streak, if you leave now you will lose it. Are you sure?"

"Yes." he hopped off the stadium.

"Alright. Go to the checkout station. Next fighters, Stake and Fion!"

Zeeth got to the check-out station, a desk where a woman sat, watching the rounds play out. "Hi, I'm checking out."

"Alright, let me see your badge."

"Oh, you're due for an upgrade."

"Upgrade?"

"If you win five fights in a row you get an upgrade, you went from C5 to C4."

"Oh, thanks."

She put the badge inside a metal box with a glass cover and handed him a card. "There are 750 Styrs here. Do you have a card you can transfer this to?"

He remembered that he tossed his card on the table, thinking he didn't need it. "Uuh. no, I don't think so."

"Alright, this card will cost 10 Styrs. Would you like it to be deducted from your total?"

"Could you hold onto the money for now? I have a card, just not on me."

"Sure," she said, taking the card and putting it in a safe.

A red light glowed from the transparent door for five seconds and the badge came out in a cloud of fog. He didn't notice any large difference, the color and size were the same, but it now said C4 on it. As he walked away from the desk, he saw Cina surrounded by people in suits and those in armor. She spoke to them in her usual smiling face but he could tell there was disappointment in her face.

'Black, what is she feeling.'

'Disappointment and hatred toward you. Nothing major, she isn't strong enough to do anything anyways.'

She turned around and locked eyes with him. Her face flushed and she turned quickly around, waving and walking away. The people around her looked to where she was looking and saw Zeeth looking over. Almost simultaneously, everyone in the small huddle paused. Suddenly, they all came charging at him.

"Zenith, how would you like to be supported by the Fighters Company? We can provide benefits to help you in life!" one woman in a suit yelled.

"No, join the Gerard Guild, you'll love the people here! We go on dungeon hunts daily!"

"The Plucky Company would greatly appreciate your business, come to us and we will support you with all our might!"

'No wonder she ran away, these guys are so annoying.'

"Sorry, I'm not interested," Zeeth told them.

"Oh, don't be so quick to leave! The Vane is interested in your talents, how about you join us?" one man said. He was a head taller than the rest, he had a wide smile and tall, spiky hair. His suit was amongst the finest of them all and once he said that, everyone around him quieted down.

"Sorry, not interested," Zeeth said. He knew he was supposed to be something impressive, but he had no clue who the Vane was and he didn't want to be dragged into something he had no clue about.

"What?!" the man said. He was much taller than Zeeth so he walked up and stared down at him. "The Vane's want you to join them. What do you mean no?"

"I mean, I have no idea who you or the Vane's are so I don't want to join you guys."

"Oh, hahaha! You don't know who the Vane's are, that's my bad! I thought everyone would know. Well, allow me to inform you, let's head somewhere private, alright?"

Everyone else who heard the man was already packing it up and leaving. Someone holding a magic orb and a sword out was putting it all back in a bag. Everyone that was asking him to join them was a much lower level than him in all aspects, the man still trying to convince him to join the Vane's had a higher intelligence, but nothing special. It was lower than Page's.

"The Vane family will of course provide a salary, one of the best around, we have the best life insurance around and we even acquired a few magic cars that were spared from the Dragon Apocalypse."

This sparked a memory, he was just a year old, his mom, this must've been his real mom, was cradling him while his father walked out to answer the door.

"You wanna come watch papa?" his mother asked him in a childish voice. She walked over to a wall to watch and he could see his father, a fit and extremely well-toned man, talking to two people, a man, and a woman, wearing sunglasses and earpieces. Behind them, he could see more people getting out of shiny black cars heading to their place

"Hi, how may I help you?" his father asked.

"Hi, is this Bane and Faith?"

"Who's asking?"

"We work for the S.A.I.N.T. Agency and we would like to talk to you about sending your child in for service."

"Sorry, not interested."

"Bane. this isn't a request, it's an order."

"Tell your boss, you should know that we've both retired. None of your propaganda will work here, we've both been through it and will never allow our child to do the same." he slammed the door shut and came back. "Darling, we will never send any of our children to them. They will never have to experience the horrors we had to."

"I know, baby. We will send him to the most prestigious schools and become a world-renowned scientist. He will never have to kill as we did. Also, we should be leaving soon. They won't quit so easily."

He searched his memories and remembered that the woman who showed up at the door was the same woman who saved him during that first mission with his fake family.

He snapped back to reality and remembered that they were talking about cars, one of the few things the two worlds had in common. "Cars? You have those?"

The man was finally glad to have a reaction and quickly said, "yes, we acquired some cars, the only few left in the world! As you should know, all creators of cars suddenly stopped years back so the worth of these cars is nothing to scoff at. Once you get into a high position, which I'm sure you will, you may use one as well."

"May I see them first?"

"I'm sorry, the Vane's don't allow people to see it. But we do have pictures if you would like those."

"Sure, do you have some?"

"Back in my office, if you sign up, we can go see them right away."

"Nah. I don't think I'll sign up."

"... did you not hear what I said? We are the Vane's, I'm sure you are simply not understanding just how big of a deal this is."

"For a deal this good there are definitely strings attached."

'Damn! I was hoping he was dumber!' he thought. He said in the sweetest voice he could muster, "yes, we have various contracts but they aren't strict at all."

"Not interested. Why don't you bother the people in A or B rank arenas?"

The man sighed and basically gave up trying to convince Zeeth. Maybe he could at least have a positive relationship with him so he answered, "The people higher than C rank are usually already taken or will not change their minds of being alone. That's why there are so many of us recruiters here."

"Also, what are dungeons?"

"...what?"

"Dungeons. I heard one of those recruiters saying they went there daily."

"You… don't even know about dungeons? I understand now knowing about the Vane's, they aren't a global thing, but dungeons are known everywhere. How shut off were you? Dungeons are areas, typically underground, where mana collected to a dangerous level. This collection of mana will spontaneously make simple rats into beasts and wolves into monsters so qualified professionals will go in to hunt the dangerous creatures before they break out. They are paid for their services and can even sell the bodies if needed. There is an entire industry surrounding dungeons all around the world and it is a relatively famous yet dangerous profession."

"Oh, they sound interesting. Where can I find one?"