Gossiping About the Demon

The voyage normally would've taken several months at most without a mana motor. Apparently, it's a type of boat with water wheels on either side which are spun by mana to propel the ship faster. Haalfrin actually doesn't know this thing exists, since it was invented during the many years he's been stuck underground.

Regardless of being without a motor, Haalfrin's thousands of mage Wills have their own mana pools, so he can sustain a strong wind behind the ship constantly with their help.

Even better is that with the blaring hot sun and the cloudless skies, the Wills are able to refill their mana quicker, which means he has a constant rotation of some Wills propelling the ship, and some resting.

(Mana is another type of energy. Most mana is replenished by eating, since the calorie energy is the easiest to access. Absorbing heat is the next easiest source to get mana, and kinetic energy is the hardest.)

(Seriously, it would be ridiculous if mages could easily extract mana from kinetic energy. They'd be able to recharge their mana pool by getting punched in the face. They could sap away the damage that would've otherwise broken their nose and stuff it in their mana pool.)

During the whole voyage, Haalfrin thought Dakka's ax would've made a lot of noise; instead, the soul stays silent and unmoving. Having your soul bent and squeezed into a small shape like an ax must've been very hard on him.

Other than a single storm, the rest of the trip is almost completely uneventful.

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Upon finally sighting land and approaching the sandy beach, Taflon and Nella especially have emotional looks on their faces when their feet touch the sand. Talfon gets on all fours and feels the earth, and Nella lands on her knees and stares blankly at the forest in front of them.

Haalfrin, on the other hand, has a deep sense of nostalgia at finally seeing Brancotte again. Still, he has no visible reaction other than being even more silent than usual.

What surprises everyone is that Prella is actually embracing the earth right next to Talfon. "Lady, you've never been here before?" Talfon scoffs next to her.

"What?" Prella protests, "I've been managing the Pit for nearly 1,000 years now. I've never once left my post."

Well, that's not entirely true. The last time she came back to Brancotte was to answer to the Emperor. SOMEONE had to explain before the court why a certain mage named Haalfrin was able to shut down over half of the Pit...

"Yeah, you never left... until your life was in danger," Haalfrin adds irately as he hauls her back on her feet.

Prella gulps nervously, and her good mood vanishes.

Haalfrin turns to the 12 boys from Stanrock Island. "You coming with us?"

They all shrug, and the one in front says, "Well, nowhere else to go. We'll tag along."

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They trek through the woods for several days until they find a road. Knowing there must be a city on either end of the road, they pick a direction and get going.

They hitch a ride along the way with a passing caravan, and upon showing how 4 of them are high-ranking mages, the caravan leader offers to take them all on for free so long as they can fight off any bandits along the road and provide their own meals.

Lady Prella smiles and displays her Vanteri Family Token. "You can take us on for free, right?"

"V-v-v-vanteri!?" the caravan leader stumbles out. "I-I'm sorry for the disrespect!"

Before the merchant can accept Prella's cooercion, Haalfrin slaps her on the back of her head, then shoves her to the side. "Don't listen to her. We'll catch our own food."

"B-but!" the merchant tries protesting…

"AND we'll guard your caravan," Haalfrin interrupts.

"B-"

"That's final."

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If it had been harvest season, where hordes of merchants would flood the roads carrying produce and grain, bandits would've infested the roads, and they'd have had violent encounters at least 2 or 3 times a week.

Instead, most of the bandits are off spending their hard-earned cash in this slow part of the year, and the caravan is mostly left unhindered.

Still, they do get attacked once, though Haalfrin gets it over with in an instant by having his Wills yank the weapons off the bandits' belts, then run them through with their own blades.

After the bandits are killed, the 12 boys tagging along with them are the butt of many jokes when some of the merchant's men hear them refer to the bandits as "demons".

Apparently, in the villages on Stanrock island, there aren't enough thieves to form huge, roaming bands of bandits. Thus, in their mind, any collective group of thieves and murderers must be like the demons who haunted their home some weeks ago.

Haalfrin has a talk with the boys and catches them up on a few things about how things work in the empire before everything is smoothed over.

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That night, everyone is sitting around a fire, eating their meals. Most of the people are idly chatting with each other, though Haalfrin mostly keeps to himself. Maybe it's because he used Death Aura during his fight with the bandits earlier, but it seems to have scared everyone here. So, almost nobody comes to bother the man.

Well, other than the caravan leader. Maybe it's because this man is in charge of this caravan, and because he's invested the most money in this trip.

After all, Haalfrin has proven to be the strongest person here, so it's important to at least know who this person is.

What's especially concerning is that this 'mysterious warrior' talked so hardly to Lady Vanterri. Does this mean he has a background to be feared?

With all of this in mind, the merchant figures that he needs to make a sacrifice and get to know Haalfrin.

So, the middle aged man sits down on the log next to Haalfrin with his steaming hot soup, and they both sit there in silence for a bit.

Just when Haalfrin thinks the man is going to eat his food in peace, the man puts his spoon in his bowl and asks, "So... I never caught your name."

"It's Haalfrin."

"Did your parents name you after the Pit Demon? That's awfully insensitive," the merchant remarks.

'That rules out the possibility of this man being a noble,' the merchant thinks. 'No noble would name their child after a villain.'

Haalfrin frowns and puts his spoon down in his bowl. "Wait, wait... How do you know about the Pit Demon?" As far as Haalfrin knew, this was a thing the local Pit guards called him. Why would this nobody merchant know about him?

"Oh... haven't you heard the stories?" the merchant asks casually. He waits for Haalfrin to reply, but the man is silent. "Y-you really don't know?"

(A/N: It's like talking to someone, and they say that they don't know who Santa Clause is.)

"Hmm... Why don't you tell me the story then?"

"...Ok... I've heard lots of different versions of the story, but the one I grew up with goes like this..."

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They say that there are even souls who are too evil for even the Death gods to claim. Vile men who raped children, who slaughtered millions and plundered all. They say that some souls are so irredeemable and foul that even the Death gods won't pick them up.

So, to prevent angry ghosts from haunting the land, a special ax was created. The spells on it were so strong that the spirit of any criminal who died on its blade would dissipate forever.

After the creation of this wondrous item, all of the foulest criminals in all the land were carted off to the Pit and never seen again.

Hundreds of years passed, and this divine blade never ceased to be wetted with blood. Day and night, the lines were long, and the divine blade was never dry of blood.

They thought this blade could rid them of all this evil in the world… but alas, the empire grew overconfident in their headsman's blade. They didn't realize that spirits can't truly be destroyed.

Yes, all the spirits were slain, but all the evil in their souls remained… and over hundreds of years, the headsman's ax became… cursed!

Day and night, the guards posted at the execution sight felt more and more uneasy. "I can hear voices!" some would say. "What's this chill in the air?" another would notice. Regardless, everyone would go to sleep and see a dreadful demon cloaked in shadow in their nightmares.

One day, the prisoners who were slated for execution that day were lined up to be slain. Yet, when the ax fell… the criminal was still alive! The ax refused to cut his head off!

"Swing it again!" the warden commanded.

*swish!* The ax fell and, once again, bounced harmlessly off the man's head.

"Again!"

Once more, the ax refused to do its job.

The warden was getting angry at this point, you see. She knew she'd get in a lot of trouble if this ax stopped working the way it was supposed to. So this time, she threatened to send the headsman away and imprison him too if he failed to kill the criminal.

And so, the headsman swung it down the 4th time. This time, the ax cut clean through, and the criminal's head bounced off the floor.

Yet… instead of dying, the severed head swiveled his eyes over at the warden and started cackling. "Ahaha! I was growing tired of the taste of blood, but since you all insist, I won't hold back anymore!"

Indeed, all the vile people who died to this ax certainly had their spirits destroyed… but the evil in their hearts and unsettled grudges remained. Over hundreds of years, the powerful demonic energy had finally given birth to a new spirit – a true demon made entirely from the most malevolent emotions dormant in the human heart.

The head then floated In the air, and all the dark evil stored in the ax burst forth all at once. Everyone in the room felt the fury of hell in that moment.

To everyone's horror, a black energy snakes out of the body's stump of a neck, and it connects to its head. Then, a foul energy pulls the head and body back together, and the dead criminal is pulled back onto his feet.

…And that's when the carnage begins.

With the headsman's ax in hand, the undead abomination slaughtered thousands of prisoners and guards alike.

Barely escaping with her life, the Warden of the Pit had to make a hard decision. She knew that nobody could slay this creature, so the only choice she was left with was to seal off the bottom portion of the Pit – trapping the beast forever in the darkest recesses of the earth.

…And to this very day, the lower halls of the Pit are eerie and silent. The blood has long since dried away, and the skeletons remain – untouched by time.

The only sound still heard in this place is the sound of sticky footsteps coming from feet still covered in fresh blood.

Even now, the Demon of the Pit grows hungrier and hungrier for blood, and it longs for the days when it used to be able to eat as much as it wanted.