Underworldly Dealings VIII

"That's fair," Kies agreed with Arc's decision. He knew it himself as well that if Arc taught him how to cast the spells, he would end up trying to use them when he wasn't strong enough to and end up dying to magic deficiency. On the bright side, now he had somewhat of a reason to get stronger. Though he didn't know when the occasion would arise for him to have to use those three spells, it was probably nice to have them in his arsenal when he did need it.

Speaking of which, that reminded Kies of the wind spirit he met. "I have a question."

"Go ahead and ask. That is what I am designed to do after all," Arc reminded Kies what its purpose is. What good was having a bunch of information stored somewhere if none of it was going to be used or shared?

"I met- Actually, how were you created?" Kies asked instead of the original question he had. He could ask about the wind spirit after. What he wanted to know more right now was how Arc was made. From the looks of things, he probably wasn't born from two parents, but Kies could be mistaken. There were a lot of things that he didn't know about the world.

"I was made from empty cores of your kind and a wind spirit. In other words, I was once a wind spirit and after I was placed into a core, I became what I am now."

"It doesn't sound very simple." Though Arc didn't go into detail about the process, Kies guessed that it must have been complicated.

"Yes, it took them roughly sixty attempts to get it right," Arc estimated. That was no small number. Just how many people were sacrificed for the experiment? That, he didn't want to know, but it was definitely not a small number either.

What Arc said brought Kies back to the original question he wanted to ask. "I met a wind spirit a few days ago. It said that I was still too weak to be its master. How strong do I have to be to have one follow me?" The wind spirit told him that if he was just a bit stronger, it would have considered serving him, but he had the feeling that it wasn't as easy as it said it was.

"It depends on the wind spirit. Just like everything else, wind spirits have their own preferences and standards." So they were just like humans and other living things. That was good to know. "You are already at the level where you can have one serve you. That wind spirit you talked with is likely a somewhat powerful one."

"Really?"

"Yes. The reason why there are none following you right now is that you have to find and tame them. Wind spirits are wild and like to be free. If you want to be their master, you have to show them that you are capable of leading them," Arc explained. They weren't going to flock to him just because he was strong. Kies actually needed to go and find them. It kind of sounded like he was going to try to tame wild animals or something. But to be fair, wind spirits could be considered as wild animals with how fierce and unruly they were.

"Oh, and before you ask any more questions, I sense a group of people approaching this place right now. Might they be allies?"

"A group of people?" Did the demons go outside or something? No, they were still here. Kies could hear Falte's snoring from within the house beneath him. "How many are there?"

"At least eight."

"Eight!?" They were definitely not the demons. Did the soldiers from before come back with more people this time to investigate?

"It does not sound like you recognize them. Well, I will take my leave for now while you think of a way to deal with them," Arc said before leaving just like that.

Kies wanted to ask how much time he had until they arrived but Arc was already gone. He had no time to waste sitting around any longer and got up and slid down from the roof. He used the wind to break his fall and opened the door loudly, waking Falte up with a startle. "Huh!? What's going on?"

The demon was still half-asleep and was looking all over the place trying to find Kies when he was right in front of him. It took him a few seconds but Falte eventually located Kies and looked at him with a face like he was crazy. "What are you doing?"

"People are coming here. At least eight of them," he hastily explained their predicament to him before running to the other house and doing the same. Kies knocked on the door where the other three demons were and shouted, "We have company!"

In the amount of time that it took Falte to wake up and get a sense of his bearings, Ammine burst out of the door with messy hair and bags under her eyes. "Where are they?" she crankily demanded from Kies. She really looked like a serial killer and her mood probably matched her appearance as well. One glance at her face would frighten anybody away.

Behind her, Jasyeu and Messa were both up as well but they were just like Falte and were still coming to their senses. "They're coming," Kies told them.

"From?"

"I don't know. I just know that there's at least eight of them." Hm... Maybe Kies should call Arc back to have it tell him where they were coming from and how far away they were. Arc didn't give them much information to work with. "I'll go and find them," Kies suggested. It was a good idea to find where they were coming from first so that they could prepare an ambush or hide elsewhere ahead of time.

Ammine yawned and looked like she was considering his idea. Kies waited for what she had to say. "I don't think you need to do that," she told him after she finished yawning.

"What do you mean?"

"They're already here. I can hear them."

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