Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: Two Monsters Under the Sand
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Jade was gripped by the terror of suffocating the instant the hot sand covered the burrow, but cool air soon brushed his face. There was no need to worry about how long he could hold his breath. He was still clutched in the monster's hand, his limbs unfree, but he counted it a blessing just to be able to breathe.
Jade calmly shook his face to dust off the sand and cautiously opened his eyes.
It was a massive cave. A cylindrical space about five paces wide stretched on like a tunnel burrowed by a giant earthworm or mole. It was an underground space that should have been pitch-black, so he wondered why he could vaguely make out his surroundings—then he saw that fist-sized stones embedded in the walls were glowing.
'What are those? I heard ancient civilizations had stones that glowed for 300 days after lighting once, but that's probably not it. Must be some kind of magic.'
Jade was still held in the left hand of the monster with long, rope-like fingers.
Glancing sideways, he saw Franco gripped the same way in its right hand. Franco spat out swallowed sand and cursed.
"The Lord will punish you before the final judgment. You will burn in the fires of hell for eons and drown in flowing molten metal, regretting this moment in agony."
The demon with the rope-like hand looked puzzled.
"Hellfire come out often. But molten metal not flow."
The monster with pointed claws and horns objected.
"You don't know? There is a place where molten metal flows."
"You saw wrong at Horror Hall."
"Huh? Really? Then what I saw wasn't molten metal...?"
The pointed-claw monster muttered uncertainly.
Franco didn't cower and kept shouting.
"The trumpets of angels will sound. The blessings of heaven will scorch you, and the breath of angels will crush you! Oh, ye hundred angels and four archangels. Punish these wretches. In the names of Archangel Gabriel, Archangel Michael, Archangel Raphael, Archangel Uriel, forgive them not!"
"Ugh, so damn noisy! Eat him already?"
The monster holding Franco brought him close to its mouth. The gaping maw was filled with black teeth over a handspan long. Even the roof of its mouth and tongue bristled with teeth.
Franco clamped his mouth shut in horror.
"Hey, no eating."
The pointed-claw monster held it back.
"See? He quiet now."
Franco fell utterly silent.
Jade said nothing either. But that wasn't from fear—he was focused on observing the monsters' actions and forms.
Oddly, their features were clearer here in the dim light than under the sunlight.
What he'd first thought was a mane of hair was actually porcupine-like spines, and what he'd taken for single eyes were clusters of many eyes fused into one.
Both had two legs, but they moved differently. The pointed-claw monster walked like a man, while the rope-hand demon slithered like a snake. Its two legs looked like a pair of snakes traveling side by side.
The two monsters hunched their upper bodies low and proceeded down the tunnel.
At the tunnel's end lay a large, round chamber. Vast to Jade, it seemed cramped to the monsters.
Naturally, there was no furniture or belongings. Instead, holes were dug here and there around the room, each barred with a gate of sharp spines.
The monsters shoved Franco and Jade into separate holes, closed the spine gates, and secured them with forearm-thick bones in place of latches.
'So that's what it was—a prison? Great, thrown in jail again.'
The holes' openings faced away from where the monsters stood, so Jade could no longer see them. The bone bars were too dense to even poke his head through.
He couldn't see them, only heard their voices.
"The horse okay to eat?"
The pointed-claw monster spoke.
"No rule against horse."
This time, the rope-hand monster replied.
"Then we eat."
Next came messy sounds like tidying objects. Jade recognized them as removing the horse's saddle and bridle. Ting! One of the horseshoes bounced past his hole.
Then came the crunch of bones shattering, flesh tearing, and chewing.
Crunch crunch. Slurp slurp.
Horrifying even as sounds alone, Jade backed away from the bone bars.
From the next cell, Franco's weeping prayers echoed. Probably cowed by the earlier threat, he didn't dare raise his voice.
Jade was scared too, but not out of his mind.
'From their chatter, it seems like they're taking orders from someone. Coincidence? Autis seemed that way too.'
Even knowing he had a bow that could kill a lion didn't make the lion less frightening. Even with power to banish demons, overcoming fear against such monsters wasn't easy.
'Hope they're not like Duor in Zerba, who saw priests as fine cuisine.'
So far, Jade had only met demons that took human form or possessed corpses. This was his first time seeing ones so huge and blatantly "I'm a monster" in every fiber of their being—only heard of, never witnessed.
"Franco, you hear me? Franco?"
Jade tapped the wall to call Franco in the adjacent hole.
Franco didn't respond, just kept praying.
"...Franco, lamb and servant and child of the Lord, I pray here in the holy names of Thy angels. Grant this sinner awareness of his sin and courage to wash it away..."
"Franco, Franco."
He hesitated to speak louder, fearing the monsters.
"...Aid me not to lose faith before trials, guide me along the path to Thy will..."
"Franco!"
"Quiet! Heathen bastard! You? These demons, you summoned them?"
"Cut the nonsense—help me get us out."
"What the hell, you!"
"Quiet! They'll hear."
At that warning, Franco lowered his voice obediently.
Jade explained slowly.
"Listen carefully. I have the power to slay demons. But I need to know a few things first. Can't see them from this hole, so look for me from yours."
"You think I'll fall for your lies?"
"Still on about that? If we don't combine strengths, we're both dead."
Jade waited for Franco's reply.
The monsters' feast on the horse continued.
Finally, Franco asked.
"So? What do I need to find out?"
"Demons fall into three main types."
"You dare teach me, who's studied demons and angels lifelong, faith and doctrine? Compared to a dropout like you from theology college, I could be a professor and—"
"Shut up and listen. This classification's nothing like what you know."
Jade cut him off and continued.
"First are darkness-born demons wielding physical might, the dark type. Second are hellfire-born demons casting bizarre spells, the hellfire type. Last are wicked souls twisted into spirits that manipulate other souls, evil spirits."
"Where'd you learn that nonsense?"
Franco argued again, but Jade ignored him.
"I can banish demons. You saw me burn Autis in the underground tomb, right? But it requires conditions. I need to know their type. With Autis, he confessed the jewel was an evil spirit demon, so I knew. But these guys appeared too suddenly, and they don't talk about themselves, so I haven't figured it out."
Franco fell silent.
Jade figured someone steeped in doctrine wouldn't easily accept this, so he used an analogy.
"Think of it like this: I have three poison arrows, each for killing a specific monster. If they don't resist, I could just shoot once each till one hits. But they won't stand there meekly taking three shots. So..."
"No need to explain like I'm a child. So what do you want me to check?"
"Look closely at their bodies for me. Dead flesh?"
"What kind of stupid question is that? Dead things don't move! We're facing living, breathing monsters, and you ask—"
"Think back to Autis, who traveled with you for days. That was a corpse dead for months, moving!"
Franco had no retort.
Jade spoke soothingly, like to a child.
"It's hard to spot. I missed it with Autis too. So look carefully."
"Sometimes they stitch multiple animal corpses together and animate as one. Looks like a dark-type at a glance, but it's really an evil spirit. Human bodies like Autis are tough to peg, but these are monsters we've never seen, so you can tell."
Franco stayed silent. This time, observing.
"Doesn't look like stitched animal corpses. No beast has whip-arms or metal hands like that."
"Good. So probably not evil spirits. When they move, do they float? Or use weird magic eating the horse? Summoning fire, moving objects?"
"When shaking the horse, it dangled it like a toy, but that's just brute strength."
Franco's voice lacked confidence.
Jade had suspected dark-type before asking. But he needed certainty.
Demons sometimes hid their type. Like humans concealing sword or bow in a fight.
"Now the key part. Do they call each other by name?"
"No idea. Haven't heard."
Jade knew they hadn't mentioned names. Just confirming he hadn't missed it.
Demons could be sorted by type: dark, hellfire, evil spirit—or by named or nameless.
Nameless were usually lesser demons. All he'd met so far were nameless.
These might be big but nameless lesser demons. Even if terrifying, the evil spirit in Autis could rank higher.
Named demons complicated things. Old methods wouldn't work.
'Even if they call names, doesn't settle it. Like Duor in Zerba, they might use fakes.'
Franco asked.
"So? What's next? How you handling them?"
"Wait for now."
"You said you could kill them?"
"I can. But neither of us is breaking these bars with our strength. Gotta get out first to do anything..."
"Jade, you lied to me again."
"Once we're out, we can do anything! And 'again'? When did I lie?"
"You lied about the fourth holy war all along, and now about demon banishing. To think I followed a liar like you—my faith must still be weak. Facing demons, abandoning angelic power for devilish sorcery..."
Franco stopped abruptly mid-sentence.
Jade crept toward the bars to see what happened, when the pointed-claw monster's face suddenly appeared before them.
Jade startled and fell on his butt.
"Heard 'Jade' just now?"
The grotesquely twisted-faced monster stared intently at Jade. Dizzying to meet its eye, dozens of pupils fused into one.
"Yoll said a human man named Jade comes to the red desert. So the one we grab is human Jade. Other one unnecessary."
"Then eat the other?"
The rope-hand monster asked for agreement.
"Problem is... which is Jade?"
"The one called him Jade probably is. Which of you said 'Jade'?"
The rope-hand monster peered alternately into their holes. Jade stayed silent, Franco too.
The pointed-claw monster raised its voice.
"Which one! Speak your names before we kill both!"
"I-I'm Jade!"
Franco shouted.
"You're Jade? Really?"
The rope-hand monster asked suspiciously.
"Y-yes. You must spare me."
Jade silently, carefully drew the book from his bosom. And calculated timing inwardly.
'Can't take both at once. If I banish one and the other attacks instantly, I'm defenseless.'
From their swift, powerful moves over the desert, Jade knew he couldn't react.
"You? If not Jade, who?"
The pointed-claw monster asked.
"Doesn't matter who I am."
Jade replied flatly.
"You Jade or not?"
"No!"
The pointed-claw monster bobbed its absurdly small head side to side.
"We heard Jade has brown or blond hair. Short maybe, but not bald. So blond one's Jade. Why does the non-Jade claim he is, and Jade deny it?"
Jade nearly fell for it but glared without showing. Franco, though, groaned softly, confessing the lie. The rope-hand monster didn't grasp its partner's ploy.
"Should've said from start blond is Jade. Simple."
"Didn't know. Only name. Just guessed. He fell for it. The one who said 'Jade' ain't Jade."
The pointed-claw monster said.
Against normal folk, not monsters, Franco's trick wouldn't fool. He'd never dreamed monsters would think.
Franco defended belatedly.
"N-no, I just panicked..."
"Yeah, sure. We know, Jade. Ha ha."
The pointed-claw monster sneered. After that, Jade only heard sounds.
The gate opening, Franco's scream. Scratching the floor, thrashing in resistance...
Jade wanted to cover his ears but stayed still. Before he could ponder saving Franco, it ended.
With a bone-cracking snap, Franco's screams cut off.
Moments later came the sounds from eating the horse.