"How much do you know?" Aefia asked. She wasn't afraid or with a stern expression but she was a bit irritated to know that they may have eavesdropped into their conversation. Although, she was afraid that they might suspect her of unwanted reasons. If she wanted, she could prove that she was innocent in any case, but to prove oneself innocent would only cast more suspision on themselves.
"I am a demoness, so I know about the rituals. The rituals were supposed to provide protection from the demon king." The demonic creature explained. "Why are you so eager to take it of? It is not like it will do you any harm. It is to offer you help from the demon king."
"Did I ever say I needed help?" Aefia replied with a straight forward manner. "The demon king knowing about what time danger arrives, obviously means that he is keeping an eye through these weapons. What if we really want to discuss a confidential matter where he is actually allied to that matter? Would you take the risk then to face a much stronger army than expected?"
The demoness shoke her head from left to right. Aefia spoke again after a short moment of silence. "If you are going to use that brain of yours the way you are currently using them, you are soon to lose your siblings to the demon in that world. You should be worried about what they are currently doing now that you are under the custody of a human." She pointed to the demoness's head.
"Did you even think about where you wanted to stay or where you would keep your siblings in safety in the meantime that I was gone? What were you busy doing? Do I need to conduct a thorough search in your communication activities? I am pretty sure you were chatting with the demon king. What? Did you really think I was going to fall into your trap and work for that filthy creature?" Aefia asked with much anger in her voice.
"What did you expect me to do?! I was just trying to survive in this universe with my siblings! And you don't know how hard it is to constantly suffer a life that you never really chose to have! Have you ever fought off your enemies just so you can protect your siblings? I guess you humans truely are soulless!" The demoness spoke with both, sadness and anger in her voice. Although the veil was blocking her face, Aefia could already understand what she was thinking.
"You never know how much a human goes through until you step onto their shoes. I may have not been an orphan, but I did try to protect my brother from the threats I have faced, multiple times in my life since the age of eight. You won't know it because that is far into the past. I would have to deal with frauds and shoot people in the heads, all also while I tried to survive with my brother. You didn't have abusive parents, did you? But I had to deal with big rivalling corporations, a school bully and abusive family members. Do you think that life isn't hard?" Aefia asked with a calmer tone.
Luckily, they were both far away from the others as they were all busy carving out the rituals too. "Anyway, whether the demon king wants to protect us or not, I don't want just anyone of you to get involved with the ritual, not even when I am not around. I don't just summon rules out of nothing, remember that." She added before turning to walk away. "By the way, you will have to turn back into a human sooner than you expect. I am not willing to walk around with a demon who is completely against humans."
The demoness stood in her position as Aefia walked away. She arrived to where the others were sitting and asked. "Are we finished with this work?" When the others nodded in silence, Aefia spoke again. "Then I believe it is safe to say that we can move onto the next mission. Oh right. Before that, I will need to know everyone's special skill, the one they all most favour and which is the most powerful." She said while counting them in her finger.
"What about the demoness?" Helio asked.
"She is just the protective barrier who will directly be summoned to the final boss room. The rest of us will have to fight in two groups. Each group must have a healer since the battle field we are getting summoned to, will be more like a circus with different rooms of different difficulties. I am pretty sure that one of them will be the mirror rooms."
"So are you going to decide who will be in which group?" Her lady asked.
"Don't worry, I already know you are willing to team up with your son, so feel free to do so."
"But there are six in total, where will the chimera be?" Helio asked again.
"The chimera will be summoned at the very end alongside the demoness. So the chimera will be in the custody of the demoness." By then, the demoness had arrived at their location. "In the time that we are getting the main rooms emptied, you will be in charge of studying the room in full detail. Like where are the crucial points. I don't think I need to explain what crucial points. Do I?" Aefia told her.
"Yes, I understand." The demoness replied while nodding her head. "Although, time isn't frozen there, is it not? Time moves the way time moves in any other dimensions. Also, I heard that only if the main player wishes to summon the remaining stand-by participants, then only we will be summoned."
"Yes, it is true, but that is also if the host chooses to summon them too. This game is going to be a very difficult one for starters like us, that is why I really wanted to have you all prepared."
"We understand, but as long as we each have a healer, I think it s completely safe to say that the main battalion will be able to carry the whole team on." Her lady explained.
"Yes, but the main point of this mission is to prepare you for the upcoming missions. The first mission was hard enough for me to lose an eye, the second mission is said to be double the trouble and the third will be three quarters worth of difficulty compared to actually taking down the entire demon king's nation."
"So who is the final boss?" Her lady's son asked after a very long time.
"Hmm...the last time I checked, we are supposed to take out a Phase five Winter Mage. The mage is said to be the initial owner of the Polar Bear element and still carries more than seventy percent of the actual power stored in a separate stone. We need to get that stone, which is stuck onto his walking stick. Once we get hold of the stone, we are expected to destroy it, which will summon another main boss." Aefia explained while slight concern in her face.
"Well, I think it is a huge burden to deal with but time is extremely short until tomorrow so we can't try and get our powers high enough. So I guess I will let all of you lay of and have the demoness and the chimera come along."
"No, then how are you supposed to regain your strength? You don't have a healer with you after that." Helio interrupted. "It is better to go along with you since it seems promising when you say that we are supposed to level up on power during the battle."
"I believe I should go too. It's been some time since I was of any use to our species. I guess you can say that I am taking revenge for my people by joining you on your mission. And I am helping you defeat one of our most common enemies, but promise me that you won't exclude us secretly from the game, then the game won't be any fun, can it?" Her lady spoke while smiling.
"And are you willing to do?" Aefia asked the demoness nicely. "I won't force you if you don't want to go. It's totally fine to go and get your siblings in the meantime. At least like that, you will have one of your huge tasks down from the list."
"No, I will go." The demoness spoke. "I will also take this as an opportunity to get revenge for our populations too. If I may ask, will killing the mage do any harm to us? Like will the mage put a curse on us during the battle? So far, I have heard that mages always cast a few spells to slowly kill its victim the way the victim had killed the mage, and the spell is said to last even after the mage dies."
"The shortcut, is to simply not believe in the magic being casted at you. Magic doesn't work if you fully forget about it, so if you completely divert your attention to something else, I believe it will not allow the magic to take place. You will see that the same thing will happen to you if you forget about your own power." Aefia explained with a questioned face. "I thought the demon king had already explained it to you a long time ago?"
"No, he didn't tell me, I just forgot." The demoness spoke. "So, who will you assign the last spear to?" She said while pointing at the golden spear laying on the white piece of cloth the weapons were initially laid upon.
"I was thinking about her lady handling it. You do need to have a sharp weapon so you can ward off any sort of harm that was meant to be placed on you. You don't expect the other person to defend you even after they are struggling to stay alive, would you?"
Aefia got hold of the gold spear and wiped the gemstone set on it. This alerted the chimera dragon and it sat up, ready to see where the threat was coming from. "There is no threat, stay sitted until her lady gives you further commands." She said while pointing the tip of the spear at the dragon. By hearing it, the dragon instantly went back to sleep.
"Did you catch all that? Remember the steps throughly for later because I won't be there to remind you when you have reached the boss room. And once one party reaches the final stage, any one of the two stand-bys will go insane and it is up to that party to ward of their insanity."
She handed the spear to her lady while holding it with light force to ensure her lady will be able to handle it, given that she hadn't actually been to any since two hundred years ago. Slowly, Aefia let go of the spear, but not too slow to alert her lady and make her feel bad for her years in hiding. In fact, thanks to the years she had spend studying all aspects of science, it now came to good use and was an advantage to any time one of the teammates got poisoned.
"It is pretty heavy but I will manage it." Her lady spoke. "And did it already have the rituals removed?" She asked with slight hints of panic lingering in her voice.
"No. Because any sort of ritual written on a weapon that is used to control a very powerful creature, a curse is set onto the ritual caster from the creature of the species. So as far as I have known the demon king and investigated him, he has no levels of confidence to face the curse that would be set on him due to his doings." She assured her lady.
"Alright, so can I say that we are all ready to leave for the mission now?" Aefia asked finally. "I don't feel like anything has been left behind, so I was just asking."
"Yes, we are all ready to leave." Her lady spoke, followed by her son, the demoness and then Helio. Aefia nodded and faced back to notice a door appear and from its gaps came a very bright glow. "I guess this is our 'ride'. Good luck, meet you at the other side." Her lady and her son stepped in first. As soon as they entered, the door slammed shut and the light turned dark.
A few minutes later, it flashed again. Aefia looked at the demoness. "You know what to do, take care of the dragon until the door appears again. Don't worry about fitting the dragon inside that small door, the guardians will take care of it. And may I ask? Will you be feel a bit lonely when you notice no one is around?" She asked with a careful face.
"No, like you said, I will plan about getting my siblings in the meantime. And I won't feel lonely, demons are trained to be alone." The demoness replied.
"Alright. We will get going. Take care." Aefia waved while walking towards the door. Helio entered first, then Aefia hesitated but entered anyway.
Upon entering, she was thrown into a dark empty room which had a door at the other end of it. She noticed Helio already at the center of the room, taking in even the smallest detail of the room. Suddenly, she felt an immense change in the room.
She rushed towards Helio while taking out her knife, and it extended into a sword.
Slash! Crimson blood spewed across the dungeon floor as the sword slammed into the body.