The forest floor was a cushion of damp leaves and loam, which made walking easier than the treacherous cliff path. It didn't, however, make me any less exhausted. Every muscle ached. My brain felt like it had been replaced with cotton wool. I stumbled along, my sneakers sinking into the soft earth, following the broad, bare back of my unwilling protector. He moved with an unnerving silence and grace, while I sounded like a clumsy, wheezing bear stomping through the undergrowth.
The darkness deepened as the sun disappeared behind the mountains. The forest came alive with the chirping of crickets and the hoot of some unseen owl. It would have been almost peaceful, if not for the imminent threat of being eaten, or murdered by my travel companion.
"I need to rest," I finally gasped, leaning against a tree to catch my breath. "I'm going to die if I don't."
The demon king stopped. He turned, his face illuminated by the faint moonlight filtering through the canopy. His expression was a perfect mask of contempt. "Your fragility is an endless source of fascination. You fainted from a simple demonstration of power. You nearly perished from a minor fall. And now you require rest from a brief walk."
"It wasn't a 'brief walk', it was a forced march through a monster-infested forest," I shot back, sliding down the trunk of the tree to sit on the ground. "And for the record, I'm not the one who used up all the 'magic' or whatever to explode a giant shadow thing. And a giant boar thing."
A muscle in his jaw twitched. He strode toward me, and I flinched, pressing myself against the rough bark of the tree. He stopped directly in front of me, blocking out the moonlight. He was just a silhouette against the night sky, a towering figure of menace and muscle.
"The fault is not mine," he said, his voice a low growl. "The fault is yours. Your magic is a stagnant pool. A trickle. To draw even a fraction of the power I require leaves you empty and pathetic."
"So it's my fault you're a power hog?" I retorted, then immediately regretted it.
He crouched, bringing himself to my eye level. His purple eyes gleamed in the darkness. "Power hog?" he repeated, the words slow and deliberate, as if tasting them. "You speak of power as if it were a resource to be hoarded and measured. Power simply is. It is the right of the strong. And you, with your pitiful reserve, are forcing me to sip from a thimble."
"I didn't ask for this," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "I didn't ask for you. Or the magic. Or any of it."
"Do you expect pity? From me?" He reached out, not to strike me, but to press two fingers against my chest, right over my heart. The contact was a jolt of cold. "There is a spark in you. A flicker. You are too witless to even feel it."
[MAGIC LESSON TIME! 📖] Angus's text box appeared, a chibi version of him wearing a tiny graduation cap. [In this world, everyone has a magic core! It's like a muscle! The more you use it, the stronger it gets! You just need to exercise it*! 💪]
Why.
Why is there an asterisk there? Nothing good ever comes after an asterisk.
A tiny footnote appeared at the bottom of the text box.
[*Disclaimer: over-exertion can lead to magical exhaustion, mana depletion, and in rare cases, spontaneous combustion. Do not attempt to power up using physical magic transfers! It's very dangerous, and also I don't wanna see it! 🤢]
Physical...what...?
Before I could even try to figure out what that meant, the Demon King arrested my attention with...a zap. Nothing painful, but like a static shock that went through my entire body, leaving the skin where he touched feeling tingly and numb. He pulled back his fingers.
"Useless," he said. "A dead ember."
I rubbed my chest, right over my heart. The spot where he'd touched me felt...different. Not sore, just...aware. A small, warm knot in the center of my chest that I hadn't noticed before. "What did you just do?"
"I attempted to stir your pitiful spark. It is fainter than I anticipated." He sighed as he stood. "I've never seen even an animal with such a pathetic spark. You're broken."
He walked away, leaving me to my thoughts and the new, weird warmth in my chest. "Hey, that's rude," I called after him. "Maybe you're just bad at it." I was going to say something else, but another text box from Angus popped up.
[PRO-TIP FROM ANGUS! (●'◡'●)] The text was accompanied by a cute, chibi-angel holding a sign that read 'You can do it!'. [S-Rank summons have a unique ability called 'Magic Resonance'! They can help their summoner grow their magic core by, you know, sharing some of their power! But it's another super, duper dangerous technique! Like, 'one wrong move and you both go poof' dangerous! 💥]
I stared at the text box. Then I stared at the demon king, who was now standing a few feet away, examining a nearby mushroom with a look of profound disgust.
"Sharing some of their power?" I muttered to myself. "He zapped me and called me a dead ember. That's not sharing, that's just being a jerk."
"He can hear you, you know," the demon king said, without turning around. "Your 'murmurs' are as loud as your footfalls. And if you insist on speaking to your imaginary friend, do it quietly. You're disturbing the local fauna."
The 'local fauna', which had been a symphony of chirps and hoots a moment ago, was now conspicuously silent. Even the crickets had stopped.
Which...
I really hope didn't mean yet another monster was around.
Maybe the fauna just realized there was already a monster present in the form of this demon king. The warmth in my chest pulsed, a tiny, steady beat. It wasn't unpleasant. It was just... there. A reminder of his touch.
"Right. Sorry. Won't disturb the precious ambiance of the 'you're-about-to-get-eaten' forest," I said, pushing myself to my feet. My legs still felt shaky, but the knot of warmth in my chest seemed to lend me a bit of strength.
"Oh, are you no longer about to die?" He turned his head slightly, just enough for me to see the corner of his mouth twitch into a smirk. "My, what a remarkable recovery. Shall we proceed with our forced march, or do you require another five minutes to contemplate something insipid, like the inherent meaning of tree bark?"
"I don't like you."