by Sarah Lin
She'd considered building a second floor on top of the secondary building she'd soulcrafted in Myufuru, but Nauda wasn't sure that it was a strong enough foundation to build upwards. For the moment, she'd added shelves to make it into a larder and storage room, moving her chest and sublime food into it. No doubt instructors would have told her to get rid of it, or attach it to her main soulhome before she built her entire second floor.
Instead, Nauda had built two rooms in her second tier, directly on top of half her first floor. It gave her soulhome a lopsided look, but it was good to establish a basis she could expand once she had the time. She did have some more Deuxan stone bricks, the start of a third room she worked on when she had nothing better to do, but she doubted it would be finished any time soon.
Meanwhile, she focused fully on her two Archcrafter rooms. Whenever he was talking about soulcrafting, Theo always went on about designations that she didn't necessarily agree with, particularly a strong dichotomy between chambers dedicated to enacting techniques and chambers that focused power within the self. In her experience, every chamber was a piece of the soul that did some of both... but in this case, his way of looking at things was useful.
Nauda stood on her roof, looking through the doors to her two upper chambers.
The left was a proper "Tatian" room that anyone in Myufuru would have envied: a plush rug of sublime fibers she'd purchased in the city, a wooden pedestal she'd carved herself, and the nullstone enshrined on top. It was one of her most prized possessions, since the nullstone neutralized cantae around it. Absorbing it earlier in her life had nearly killed her, and she had only now gained the capacity to build it into her soulhome.
On the right... that room would not have been accepted in the same communities. One of her sublime materials had been the blood of a powerful sublime beast, which she had used to paint all the interior walls bright red. Before, the blood had eaten into the stone, but as an Archcrafter, her soulhome could absorb it and grow stronger. At the center, she placed the skull of the same beast, though she needed to find an appropriate altar to make better use of it.
Finishing the blood-painted room made her feel immediately stronger, her cantae flowing with an animal strength. During a simple job clearing land, she'd tested her strength and been surprised that she could pull out a tree by the roots. Whenever it came to a physical fight, she'd be much more capable.
Unfortunately, making full use of the nullstone had proved much more difficult. Within her soulhome, it didn't nullify her own cantae, but drawing that nullifying property into herself was difficult. The nullstone might actually be a bit beyond Archcrafter, so she could utilize it in her soulhome, just struggled to use it in a technique.
When she had time to concentrate, she could eliminate a bit of cantae from around her. When Theo threw exaggeratedly slow bolts in her direction, she was able to cancel them out, though it cost her much more cantae than simply dodging or slapping it aside. Against an assault like Fiyu's lightstorm, the nullification was essentially worthless.
So, despite having finally found a place for almost all her Archcrafter materials, her goal still drifted beyond her reach. Nauda frowned over her soulhome, considering alternate paths or improvements. It looked like both of those would just take a significant amount of work, no clever way around it.
On top of that, she still hadn't been able to replace her old staff, reducing her to working with an ordinary staff and the broken fork of her old weapon. Eventually, she would need to renovate the room that contained the technique, and she had plans to incorporate one of her second floor rooms, it just all required more time and sublime materials.
Abruptly an idea occurred to her: it didn't solve any of her problems, but it was something worth doing. Nauda dropped down to her first floor and picked up her telescope carefully, carrying it up her ladder to the second floor. It didn't fit in either room, but she set it out in an empty corner of the roof, as if it was an intentional balcony.
When she attempted to use her viewing technique, she was surprised at how swiftly and crisply she saw the other's soulhomes. Theo was soulcrafting up a storm, as usual, and Fiyu waved cheerfully at her. Neither were bothered by her observation... so suspicious in some ways, yet trusting in others.
Just setting the telescope on the corner felt a little too simple, though. Nauda went back to retrieve some of her unused bricks of Deuxan stone, placing them together in a little corner that partially shielded the telescope. Once it peeked out from over the simple wall, she felt that her design was far more unified. Yes, this could become the soulhome she needed.
Back when she had acquired those Archcrafter materials, she had expected that she would need to fight her way to ascension alone within communities she couldn't trust. Instead, she was soulcrafting in the wilderness with two people from other worlds. Her life had gone completely off track, and she wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing.
Chapter 18
Against his better judgment, Theo found himself headed out to fight a second stage demon. Though the species varied, conventional wisdom held that a second stage demon could kill any first tier soulcrafter, and even an Archcrafter wasn't guaranteed victory. With some species, going against it was suicide, but he accepted Nauda's logic that such a dangerous demon would have been taken care of by the local court.
"They're up ahead." Nauda pointed her staff at a cluster of trees, their natural silver growing dull with the season. "The villagers will be able to give us a general area where to find the demon, based on where it's attacking people, but after that, we're on our own."
It seemed they were indeed met by a few Deuxan peasants, an older couple who might be elders and a few soulcrafters. A glance at their soulhomes showed they were rather small, but not due to incompetence or laziness: they'd never been given the sublime resources to build anything more. Those carefully managed and reinforced rooms seemed a bit sad, now that he contemplated them.
"You came." An old man hobbled toward them, relief obvious in his eyes. Such an overt display of emotion would have made him a laughingstock in a court, but the city was no longer even on the horizon. "We're grateful, but be careful. The demon has already killed two soulcrafters and maimed another."
"We don't know if we can help you, but we'll do our best." Nauda touched the elders warmly as she passed, which seemed to communicate even though it was a strange gesture on Deuxan. "Where has it been sighted?"
The peasants directed them past the carefully managed fields to a region with scraggly wilderness trees, their leaves a dull iron. As they walked closer, Theo reflected on just how much space was devoted to farmland. Based on his research, that was actually to be expected given the size of Anguedan, but he was struck by the fact that he'd never noticed the fields before while in Deuxan. They must have existed, yet within the courts there was never the slightest thought as to how they were fed.
As soon as they left the fields, Fiyu wrapped them all in her technique and they began hunting. It took a frustrating amount of time to find any sign of the demon at all, but eventually they discovered one of its victims. The dead animal appeared to be a less regal relative of the rainhorn, torn open and then left to rot, since demons killed without eating.
None of them had any senses specifically designed to locate demons, but there weren't that many sources of cantae in the region, so eventually they honed in on a powerful source. The demon sat beside a tree, its lithe body curled. Yet it wasn't sleeping - as far as he knew demons didn't sleep - it just waited. Fortunately, it gave no sign that it had noticed them.
Fighting demons was always a risk because there was no obvious indication of their strength, only a void where they should have had a soul. It looked more like a black lion than the wolf-like or bear-like demons he'd seen, but it would probably have been as tall as him even on all fours. One of the few consistent indicators of demon stage was size, and it was too small to be a third stage.
Then again, the demon that had killed his
friends had been much smaller than a titan...
"Can we ambush it?" Fiyu asked softly. Nauda held her staff carefully, eyes narrow.
"Based on the body, I'm afraid it's going to be fast," Nauda said. "Theo, can you try to completely eliminate that advantage?"
"I'll try, but demons tend to be slippery against cantae." As he spoke, Theo flexed his fingers and raised them carefully, just to be prepared.
"I think we should spread out, then attack its flanks whenever it tries to target one of us. Fiyu, you find a guarded pos-"
In the middle of her sentence, the demon sprang from its seated position, racing directly toward them. Theo realized coldly that there hadn't been a mistake, it must have sensed them indirectly and chosen a precise moment to strike. He'd seen soulcrafters die assuming that demons were just animals, but they all possessed a malicious intelligence that shouldn't be underestimated.
He tried to hit it with gravitational fields... and the demon barely stumbled, charging onward. Fiyu unleashed a hail of bolts, but it darted to the side with unreal speed, then dashed toward them.
If not for Nauda, it would have torn directly into him. He'd lost track of the demon's movements when it was suddenly in front of him, struck on the head by her staff. She actually smashed it into the ground with physical strength alone, then attempted to bind it in place.
Moments later, the demon twisted oddly, rolling out of her binding technique and lashing claws at her leg. Surprisingly, Nauda not only dodged, her foot came back hard, kicking the demon in the head. Yet it barely stumbled, on its feet right next to them...
This time Theo reversed its gravity, sending the demon up into the air. It twisted as it rose... but then it began to descend, its nature eating away at his gravitational fields. Demons didn't really counter techniques, as far as he'd seen, they just pressed through, as if anything made of cantae struggled to get a grip on them. Exactly why he hadn't wanted to fight this one.
Before it reached the ground, Fiyu unloaded, an extended storm of light searing into the demon. Though her bolts couldn't tear through the demon's body, it twisted in pain, slowly overwhelmed by the onslaught. Theo put everything he had into keeping it in the air, letting her fire on it longer, but he knew that it couldn't last...
The instant it touched the ground, the demon was gone, flashing to the side in a dark blur. It arrived beside Fiyu, claws reaching out to gut her, but Nauda struck it again with her staff. This time it only stumbled once, then darted around behind her.
Theo desperately cast another gravitational field underneath it, trying to neutralize its gravity. Though he didn't manage to send it into the air, the demon's claws hit the ground too lightly and it skidded to the side instead of clawing Nauda in the back. All three of them recovered and turned to face the demon, catching their breath and drawing in more cantae.
Instead of attacking, the demon leapt into one of the nearby trees and vanished into the shadows.
With such monstrous speed, he was sure that it could explode from hiding at any point. Unfortunately, their current position gave it several different angles to attack from, and though they could retreat from the grove, the demon wouldn't be stupid enough to let them get away unharmed.
"It's hunting us." Nauda spoke quietly, without emotion, and scanned the area around them. "Be careful."
"I..." Fiyu looked more uncertain than he'd expected and he wondered if her sensory technique was failing to locate the demon.
"At any moment, it could come charging out, so-"
"I have a better idea." Theo cast a gravitational field beneath the three of them and sent them high into the air. They lurched at the top as he switched gravity, and his control wasn't precise enough to make them hover smoothly, but they oscillated far overhead, out of reach of even the demon's leaps.
"Not bad." Nauda smiled at him, then glanced to Fiyu. "Why don't you clear out its cover?"
Fiyu promptly lowered her hands below them and unleashed another hail of light. From so high up, the bolts scattered widely, tearing through a large part of the trees. Only a few seconds later the demon darted from out of hiding, glaring up at them in uncomprehending hatred. This time Fiyu didn't attempt to target her blast at all, just kept blanketing the area.
Snarling, the demon began dodging the bolts and running toward one of the standing trees. It raced up the side and Theo realized that it intended to leap directly up at them. He began to send them higher on instinct, since he didn't want to underestimate its jumping ability, but Nauda lifted her staff and made a downward gesture.
Since he could only trust her, Theo sent Nauda plummeting under normal gravity again. The demon had leapt from the tree, claws extending as it rocketed up toward them. Theo could only watch, wishing that he could give Nauda more mass before she hit.
Nauda's staff collided with it first, hitting the demon's neck with such force that she overcame its momentum. They slammed down into the ground with terrible force, but Theo didn't dare try to slow their fall. He dropped himself and Fiyu more carefully, looking for the outcome amid the dust.
Finally he saw it: the demon lay motionless with its neck twisted, while Nauda staggered nearby. It had slashed her across the leg, leaving a nasty claw mark, and the impact seemed to have taken something out of her, but the demon was dead.
"We..." Nauda looked at them blankly, then shook herself. "We should take the body to show them. So they won't be afraid anymore."
Or so that they would believe them and give a reward, but it amounted to the same thing. While Fiyu helped bind Nauda's injury, Theo walked over to the demon and carefully removed its gravity to levitate in the air. Now that it was dead, it didn't resist his cantae at all, though there was something unnatural about its body. Not a sublime material, yet similar enough to be used.
It took them much longer to get back due to Nauda's injury, but when they returned to the villagers, it set off a surprisingly raucous celebration. Theo had been part of soirees and ballroom dances in Deuxan, all of them highly refined affairs, and the cheering villagers shocked him. Not a Tatian celebration, certainly, and the villagers immediately broke out casks of wine, but it was still something he hadn't seen before.
"The demon..." The elder looked at the floating body and slowly shook her head. "I am glad to see it dead, but the body shouldn't remain here. It could bring bad luck, or more demons. Or, if the court accuses us of something..."
"We'll dispose of it completely." Nauda gave the old woman's shoulder a reassuring rub while she glanced at Theo.
As soon as he could take the body out of sight, he absorbed the demon's remains into his soulhome. It wasn't useful for anything there, but he threw the corpse into his singularity. Using demonic matter could have negative effects on some soulhomes, or clash with their spirit, but his absorbed it easily.
Though they couldn't stay for the full celebration, the villagers insisted on repaying them beyond the very modest reward. A few of their local healers went to work on Nauda's leg, and though they weren't very talented, Theo appreciated the gesture. If not for their help, getting Nauda healed might have entirely wiped out their earnings from the job.
"We'd like you to have this." A younger man appeared beside him, presenting a bolt of what appeared to be silk. "It's called fairysilk, and it's an extremely rare sublime material. Perhaps you could use it?"
Theo was skeptical about how rare it actually was, but when he ran the material through his fingers, it did seem reasonably strong. The cantae embedded within was durable and he suspected that it could be made into good clothing, not that they had anyone with the necessary skills. "That's an item of some value. Are you sure?"
"If you don't take it, some other soulcrafter will." With that, the man shoved it into his hands and went to join the others.
After some thought, Theo began tearing the silk into strips. It proved more difficult than he expected, but the fairysilk slowly made its way into his spirit, whole and stronger on the other side. He had no idea how it w
ould fit into his soulhome design, but sublime fabrics could be rare, so he would figure out something. When he experimented with it, the fabric proved surprisingly elastic, perhaps enough that he could use it in some gravity or pressure room.
For the moment, he left it behind in his soulhome and focused on the real world. What they'd done wasn't in any way heroic, just basic security that the Anguedan court should have provided. Yet they had ignored the demon for so long, forsaking the unwritten agreement between the court and its vassals.
Nothing could be done about it, of course, since the peasants were powerless to strike against the court. What struck him in that moment was that this wasn't a statement of the court's strength, but its uselessness. It sat in the city like an enormous leech, playing its political games and draining everything around it.
Not that there was anything he could do about it. Perhaps one day, if he managed to stop Vistgil... but that thought was his last, as it so often was. With so much unknown, there was no point thinking further.
Chapter 19
Theo tapped his fingers along the top of his tiles, pretending to look over them. In actuality, his combination was worthless, which he'd known from the beginning, and his only goal was to bluff through the round. Around the table, the young nobles whose names he couldn't remember watched him, uncertain how the match will go.
"I'll take the odds." He didn't put any confidence into his voice that could have sounded like bluster, it was just a simple statement. Theo reached out and dropped more Silver Crowns into the pile, then watched his opponent without any expression.
Across the table, the noble of the Evigne family tried to look confident, but his facade was obvious. Theo bided his time by wondering if he had been that obvious when he was young. Most likely he had - on the few occasions when he'd gambled for sublime materials, he'd been fixated on having unbeatable combinations, which made for dramatic finishes, but it was a mathematically unwise strategy overall. Not that bluffing and failing would be good for him, in a Deuxan court.
