Summoning the Demon (6)
Urgh, blergh...
Even though I had already suffered through it once, the nausea was unbearable, churning my stomach into violent knots. I desperately wanted to empty my guts and heave until I was clean, but this stubborn carcass of mine apparently deemed such an act far too vulgar for an archdemon and flatly refused to obey.
Seriously... this is my body, isn't it? If it's my own damn body, why can't I move it the way I want?!
...Anyway, where the hell am I now?
I surveyed my surroundings, only to find a scene depressingly similar to the last one.
The room was in utter shambles, drowned in gloom where barely a sliver of light dared to reach. A wretched stench—a sickening cocktail of damp dust, rotting mold, and filth—assaulted my nostrils without mercy.
Or rather... should I say it smelled surprisingly sweet?
To my absolute horror, my body found the horrific reek deeply soothing. Apparently, a squalid hellhole like this was tailor-made to a demon's refined tastes.
I had lost count of how many times I'd thought it today, but this really was driving me insane.
Now then, let's see who summoned me—
"Ugh... ah..."
...Don't tell me it's this woman?
As pathetic as Matthias had been, he was at least level twenty-four. This woman, on the other hand, looked like an ordinary civilian through and through. No joke, was she level one?
Worse, she wasn't merely low-level; she was on the absolute threshold of death.
Starvation had whittled her down to little more than dry skin stretched taut over brittle bones. Her hair and skin were so parched and withered that they made dry straw look lustrous by comparison.
Above all... her life force was dangerously faint.
Quite literally, it would come as no surprise if she breathed her last this very second.
To top it off, I couldn't sense even a trace of mana from her, which meant she couldn't possibly have performed a summoning ritual herself.
If so, why am I here...? A desperate wish?
According to the lore of Noah, demons would manifest before desperate mortals willing to sell their souls, granting their deepest desires in exchange for their spiritual essence. Even without a summoning circle or forbidden spellcraft, a demon would answer automatically to the sheer resonance of raw, unadulterated yearning.
That had to be it.
This woman had harbored a desire so fierce she was willing to surrender her very soul for it, and my demonic form had involuntarily answered the call.
...Hey, I never asked for any of this!
All I wanted was to scurry off to the Northern Snowy Mountains and lay low while I figured things out...
"You really... you really appeared... You truly came..."
While I was busy lamenting my absurd predicament, the woman, who had been trembling and flinching under my gaze, finally parted her dry lips.
She was convinced she had summoned me... So she really was the one who called me here.
Was she truly desperate enough to offer her soul to a demon?
"Dost thou seek a pact?"
"Y-Yes... Lord Demon, I beg of you..."
Despite her broken, failing body, the woman bowed her head deeply, offering whatever reverent salute she could muster.
...Ugh, this hurts to watch.
No matter how desperate you were, borrowing power from a demon was always a catastrophic mistake.
Seeing how utterly destitute she was, she'd probably ask for coin. Or perhaps, given that she was already knocking on death's door, she would beg for her life to be spared—
"—What dost thou think thou art doing?"
At that moment, the dying woman reached into her threadbare rags, drew something out, and offered it toward me.
My initial curiosity curdled into boiling disgust the moment I realized what she held.
"Wah... wah..."
A gaunt, emaciated infant. Looking at the resonance of its soul, it was unmistakably her own child.
Babies were supposed to have plump, chubby cheeks, but this poor creature had nothing of the sort. It had starved for so long that its faint whimpers lacked even the strength to pierce the silence.
Offering an infant... to a demon?
"...A sacrifice?"
Try as I might, no other explanation came to mind.
She was attempting to strike a bargain with an archdemon, offering not her own soul, but her newborn child as the price.
...Hah. What an idiot I was for pitying her, even for a second.
Still, turning her into a crimson smear like Matthias felt excessive. I should just ignore her and leave—
"Please... take care of Lucia... My soul, you may take all of it—"
Thud.
With trembling, frail arms, the woman gently set the baby down on the floor. Then, like a marionette whose strings had been severed in an instant, all strength deserted her, and she collapsed.
Wait, what...?
"..."
She was dead.
My eyes weren't playing tricks on me. She had truly passed away.
The moment her heart and lungs ceased functioning, her soul detached from her mortal shell, hovering quietly in the air.
I knew her health was precarious, but to drop dead in the blink of an eye like that...? What the hell just happened?
What was even more chilling, however, was her lingering soul.
"...Waiting for me to claim it?"
Normally in Noah, when a living being died, their soul departed the body and dissolved into ash within moments. Yet the woman's soul, though its edges were fraying like burnt paper, refused to dissipate completely.
She was waiting to trade her soul with me, an archdemon, simply so that I would raise her child—Lucia.
...I had it completely backward. Disastrously backward.
As I scooped Lucia into my arms and turned to leave without taking the soul, the woman's spirit visibly panicked.
Common superstition among mortals held that while demons might twist a wish in perverse ways, they always honored the terms of a pact. Seeing me prepare to walk away without sealing the contract, she naturally grew frantic.
Not just me, but even the lingering consciousness of the original Faust sighed at the woman's sheer folly.
...What a fool.
Why would you ever place your faith in a demon?
"I shall grant thy wish."
Her ethereal form trembled with desperate hope.
"Thy soul? Dost thou take me for a wretch in need of such meager sustenance? Thy price shall be... yes, this dilapidated shack. The pact is sealed. Rest now in peace."
The trembling spirit, convinced that a legitimate demonic contract had been struck, dissolved into a state of profound relief.
...In truth, no contract was forged at all.
It was merely a brazen lie I spat out because I had no desire to consume a human soul, yet the woman offered a faint, serene smile of pure contentment before her spirit peacefully faded into the void.
"Awooh..."
"Indeed. Let us depart."
Becoming a demon was bad enough, but now I was saddled with childcare?
Man... everything was moving so ridiculously fast it made my head spin.
I had sounded full of confidence when answering Lucia's mother, but now a glaring problem reared its head.
I didn't have the slightest clue how to raise a child.
Scratch that—this wasn't just a child; this was a tiny infant.
"Oo... awooh..."
"..."
She wasn't even crying.
Staring up at me with sunken, glassy eyes, Lucia was clearly terrified out of her wits, yet not a single tear fell.
Quite literally, she had exhausted every ounce of her strength. Even wailing required energy, so the little thing simply chose to lie motionless in my arms.
To restore her vitality, the first order of business was getting some food into her belly, but...
...What on earth am I supposed to feed her?
Fortunately, she wasn't an unweaned newborn.
Scanning her physical age with a quick diagnostic spell, she appeared to be roughly one year old. At that stage, she could easily digest baby food.
Uh... do I just make a super thin porridge boiled with minced vegetables, grains, and meat? With zero salt, right?
That meant I needed to procure ingredients first, but where was I supposed to find them?
Focusing my senses, I felt numerous human presences bustling in the vicinity; Lucia's hovel was situated somewhere inside a city.
Which meant if I simply opened that door and stepped outside, finding food wouldn't be difficult... The problem was, I didn't have a single copper to my name.
How the hell was I going to buy anything—
"I'll just chuck this in for now. It'll come in handy someday."
Right then, a memory flickered across my mind—not from Faust's time as an archdemon, but from his days as a mortal human.
...Right, of course.
If I had no coin, I could just sell something.
Wub-wub-wuuuung—
Whoa...
Mimicking Faust's residual memories, I swept my clawed hand through empty air, tearing open a portal to a subspace storage dimension. Because the man had possessed the hoarder habit of tossing anything remotely ambiguous inside, it was crammed with clutter, but plenty of it could fetch a handsome sum.
Looking back, if the mortal Faust had possessed enough mastery over spatial magic to conjure pocket dimensions at will, what on earth had been lacking in his life that drove him to summon a demon in the first place?
Let's see... will this do?
Scanning my consciousness through the subspace vault, I spotted an absurd hoard of valuable goods.
Absurdly spherical black gemstones, heaps of Magic Blood Stones used as endgame equipment enhancement materials in Noah, and piles upon piles of jewelry—necklaces and rings enchanted with high-tier sorcery.
Uh... yeah, no. I can't sell these.
I still had no idea where I was, but even an idiot knew that unleashing endgame enchanted relics onto an open market would trigger an apocalyptic disaster.
Right. I'd just take a few mundane gemstones set aside for basic ritual components and pawn those instead. Selling the enchanted jewelry was an express ticket to catastrophe.
I'll have to take Lucia with me.
Leaving a critically malnourished baby alone in a dilapidated slum shack was asking for tragedy. If I came back with groceries only to reenact the ending of A Lucky Day... Ugh, I didn't even want to imagine it.
Bzzzt—
"This appearance... should suffice."
Weaving the magic of Polymorph, I molded my outward appearance as close to a human being as I could manage.
Naturally, anyone inspecting me closely would notice the bizarrely pale, cracked texture of my skin, my unsettling eyes, and the demonic mana leaking out despite my best efforts to suppress it. But wrapped in a voluminous robe enchanted with mana-dampening wards, I should pass muster so long as nobody got right in my face.
"Oo... ah-woong..."
"Thou shalt have food shortly."
Starving, Lucia let out a faint whimper against my chest.
Normally, babies cried when they were hungry... I needed to make sure her belly was full to bursting.
She looked to be about a year old, so soft baby food would do the trick.