Kira's Illusions

The demon prince stumbled back in horror. "How... how are you unaffected by this Lord's Forest of Despair?"

"Your illusion is weak," Leon stated simply. "even my friend could do better.

"How dare you?" Zarthus roared, his shadowy form pulsing. "You dare, a lowly mortal, compare your feeble mind to mine in the art of illusion?"

"Is that so?" Leon replied, unimpressed.

"Kira," he thought. "This lizard is very proud of his light show. Can you do better?"

"Hmph!" Kira's voice puffed up with indignation. "Leon! How can you compare me to this ugly lizard? It's an insult! Let me show him what a real nightmare looks like!"

Suddenly, the demon's reality shifted.

"Where am I?"

The crypt was gone. He was in a lavish boudoir, surrounded by beautiful, voluptuous succubi. They laughed and pointed at him.

"Look at the little prince," one cooed.

"He's a prince of shadows, but he has no scepter!" another giggled.

"I hear his cultivation technique requires him to be a eunuch!" a third whispered loudly.

"How pathetic!" a fourth chimed in. "No wonder his father, the great Al-Melios, favored the First Prince. Prince Alerius has conquered entire realms! What has this one done? Hide in a box for a thousand years?"

The whole room erupted in derisive laughter.

This was Zarthus's deepest, most secret fear, laid bare and mocked.

"NO!" he screamed. "IT'S NOT TRUE! I AM A PRINCE!"

He roared, unleashing a wave of necrotic energy. But the illusion held firm. He clawed at his reptilian head, trying to force the images from his mind, but they only grew more vivid.

Panicked, he started looking desperately for a way out. Though he could not see the cave, he caught a glimpse of the real world through the nightmare—the blurry, dark shape of his sarcophagus.

His only refuge. His only escape.

"I will remember this, mortals!."

With a final, soul-wrenching shriek, he gave up. He turned and dove headfirst back into the absolute darkness of his sarcophagus, pulling the heavy lid shut behind him.

The chamber fell silent.

Slowly, the effects of the Mana-Bane and the demon's illusions faded.

The nightmarish forest in Lyra's mind dissolved.

She awoke with a gasp, her head throbbing. Her last memory was of Finn's betrayal, the suffocating black gas, and the terrifying shadow of the demon prince rising from the tomb.

"Leon!" she cried out, scrambling to her feet, her heart pounding with fear for the F-Rank adventurer she had dragged into this nightmare.

However, he scene that greeted her was not one of death and destruction. The demon was gone. The heavy lid of the sarcophagus was closed.

Though Brom was still unconscious on the floor nearby, the person she was most worried about... was sitting calmly on a fallen rock, a small, friendly smile on his face as if he'd just been waiting for them to wake up from a nap.

"Oh, hey, you're up!" Leon said cheerfully. "Good. I was worried how I was going to carry you both out of here."

Lyra stared, her mind struggling to connect the memory of the terrifying demon with the calm boy sitting on the rock.

Her mana was slowly trickling back into her limbs, the chilling effect of the Mana-Bane fading.

"What... what happened?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly. "The demon... Where did it go?"

Leon looked up from his rock. "Oh, that thing? It left."

Just then, Brom let out a great groan and pushed himself into a sitting position. "My head... feels like a troll used it for smithing practice."

He looked around wildly. "The demon! Where is it?"

Lyra pointed a shaky finger at Leon. "He says... it left."

Brom stared at the F-Rank kid. His usual grumpy skepticism was replaced by a deep, primal suspicion. "Left? A demon prince just... left? How?"

Leon stood up and dusted off his trousers.

"It was a nascent demon," he explained, his voice sounding perfectly reasonable. "Freshly summoned. Its form was unstable."

"It seems the big illusion spell it cast took too much energy."

"It couldn't sustain itself and just... fell apart. We got lucky."

Lyra didn't buy it. Not for a second. "Fell apart? Demons don't just 'fall apart', Leon. And that illusion... it felt real."

"And what about Finn?" Brom growled, getting to his feet. "He just dissolved into nothing!"

"Finn was a fanatic," Leon said, shrugging. "He probably didn't know the summoning ritual was flawed. As for the gas, its effects are gone now."

He pointed to the now-closed sarcophagus. "Whatever that thing was, it's gone back to sleep. I don't plan on waking it up again. Do you?"

Lyra and Brom looked at the ominous black tomb, then back at Leon.

His story had holes you could drive a carriage through, but it was the only story they had.

And the alternative... the alternative was that this F--Rank kid had somehow dealt with a demon prince on his own.

That thought was far more terrifying than any illusion.

"We need to get out of here," Lyra said finally, taking charge once more. Her voice was strained.

"Not without the moss," Brom grunted. "We didn't come all this way for nothing. Finn's body is gone. If we go back empty-handed, the Guild will call the mission a failure. We won't see a single copper."

They agreed. They had to salvage something from this disaster.

They began searching the demonic temple, their steps hesitant, their eyes constantly glancing back at the sarcophagus.

In a small side chamber, they found a crumbling spiral staircase, leading up. As they ascended, the oppressive, demonic atmosphere faded, replaced by the familiar damp chill of the Murkwater Crypt.

They emerged into a section of the upper crypt they hadn't explored before.

It was a simple burial chamber, lined with stone caskets.

And in the dark, damp corners, a patch of shimmering, faintly glowing moss was growing.

"Gravebloom Moss," Lyra breathed, a wave of relief washing over her.

They carefully harvested the precious reagent, their movements quick and efficient. Brom, needing to vent his frustration, kicked open one of the caskets.

Inside lay a skeleton adorned with a few tarnished silver goblets and a small, jewel-encrusted dagger.

"Well," Brom grunted, grabbing the loot. "At least we have something to show for our trouble."

They found their way back to the crypt's main entrance and finally stepped out into the afternoon sun.

The light had never felt so good.

The journey back to Iridis was suffocatingly silent. The easy banter from the morning was gone, replaced by a thick, unspoken tension. Finn's betrayal hung heavy in the air, a wound too fresh to touch.

Lyra's hands were clenched into tight fists, her knuckles white with a mixture of grief and rage at having been so thoroughly deceived by someone she had trusted. Brom didn't complain or grumble; his silence was somehow more intimidating, a quiet fury simmering just beneath the surface.

Leon walked a few paces behind them, sensing their turmoil. He knew they needed space to process the betrayal and the terrifying events they had just survived. He gave it to them, his presence a quiet, unnerving shadow at their backs.

"Hey, kid," Brom grunted, finally breaking the long silence as the walls of Iridis came into view. "You really an F-Rank?"

Lyra glanced over, her own curiosity finally outweighing her fear.

"Yup, see this."

Leon simply smiled and tossed his bronze adventurer card to the big warrior.

Brom caught it, looked at the large 'F-' stamped on it, and let out a short, disbelieving laugh. He tossed it back. "Well, I'll be damned. You're the bravest F-Rank I've ever met. Weren't even scared back there."

The tense atmosphere finally broke. The journey back to the Guild was filled with a new kind of talk—not the easy banter of before, but the quiet, respectful tones of comrades who had survived something terrible together.

Back at the Guild, they reported the mission's completion. The receptionist's eyes widened when she saw the B-Rank form and Leon at the party, but she stamped it without comment. The Guild paid them their 20 gold coins for the quest, and another 15 for the quick turnaround and the treasures Brom had found, for a total of 35 gold.

Brom looked at all the gold coins in front of him and shook his head. "Finn's share... the bastard is dead. And we can't have it. You take it, kid. You earned it more than any of us."

"He's right," Lyra agreed, a small smile on her face. "Finn had an equal share of gold from the quest. That's yours." She pushed a pouch containing 12 gold coins into Leon's hand. "Don't argue. You were our lucky charm."

Leon accepted the money with a nod. he did not have a lot of gold himself, and there was no need for any pretense.

"So, where are you headed now, Leon?" Lyra asked.

"I will hang around in the city for a bit longer before heading back home, I guess," Leon said. His initial plan of making a body for Kira did not look feasible for the time being, so he wanted to just enjoy his time out and take it one step at a time.

"Good luck out there," Brom gave a rough, friendly smile, clapping Leon on the shoulder. "Ilet us party again if we meet in the future. We could use a 'warm body' like you."

"Haha, sure. I would love to."

With a final wave, they parted ways, a new and unlikely friendship forged in the darkness of the crypt.

Leon smiled. His journey as an adventurer was just beginning, but he had already found something he hadn't expected: allies.

"Looks like not all people are bad."