Coming back from the hallway, he moved to exit the dormitory. In case Connie's accusations were true, he didn’t really feel comfortable sleeping in his room. He also didn’t want to disturb Patrick as he could hear his snoring from across the room.

  Opening the doors to exit, two guards remained perched beside the doors. Each held a large glaive with a slightly worn dark brown leather-padded long-sleeve shirt. On their heads, they wore red oni masks covering their mouths with a black tactical helmet. Judging from the clothes, he could assume they wore more underneath the shirt.

  Noticing him, one of the guards turned and asked, “Recruit, what’s your reason for leaving at such a time?”

  ‘Recruit? Guess we’ve improved our standing with the guards.’

  Leo respectfully requested, “Could you please bring me to the Lieutenant?”

  The guards looked at one another in confusion.

  Raising a brow, Leo asked, “Um, is that a problem…?”

  The guard that first spoke to him shook his head. “Ah, no. It’s just…” He scratched his chin. “Which Lieutenant, exactly…?”

  …

  …

  Was he an idiot?

  After that embarrassing display, the guard awkwardly escorted Leo to where Teddy’s quarters were. They walked deeper into the walls where more soldiers were located, some drinking away while others stood their watch as they glanced at the two walking by them. They all wore similar uniforms to the guard escorting him.

  But there was an issue…

  ‘This…This silence…’

  Not a word was spoken between the two for the past 10 minutes. It was unbearable. Especially after what just happened beforehand. Leo felt that he had to say something.

  Looking closer at the guard, he saw the guard was also in the same predicament as him! How did this happen?! The guard nervously gripped the hilt of his glaive. It was clear he wasn’t too used to small talk.

  Leo coughed before asking, “So, uh, nice weather we’re having isn’t it?”

  “Huh?”

  ‘Kill me.’

  That was worse than before! There aren’t even windows where they were!

  The guard stopped, obviously unable to bear it anymore.

  With a sigh, the guard said with a small chuckle, “Please stop. Really, I know you’re nervous, but please relax…For the both of us.”

  “Sorry…”

  The guard continued moving with Leo following behind, his head lowered in shame. Surprisingly, the guard continued the conversation. “But I guess it’s been nice so far. The climate outside is the best when the season first enters the Winter. My kid always likes to play in the snow when he can. One thing I can say is that it’s the most peaceful here during this time.”

  “What do you mean by peaceful?”

  The guard shook his head, a sigh escaping his mouth. “The North isn’t exactly the safest place in Hellsgrog. If anything, it’s surprisingly peaceful considering our origins. But in the past, gang wars and random bursts of violence would just happen across the region. Especially when the other colonies sent demon contractors to us.”

  That’s exactly what he wanted to hear!

  “Um, what exactly is a demon contractor?”

  The guard momentarily looked at Leo in shock before looking back forward. “I’m surprised ya haven’t walked into any out there. Demon contractors are just humans who made some pact with a demon.”

  “That’s insane! How could anyone even make a pact with those animals?”

  The guard laughed as he shrugged. “Well, depending on the contract, the human host will get more and more of the demon’s strength and abilities. Unfortunately, most of these humans just get their souls consumed. At that point, they just turn into mindless drones for the demon.”

  So this is what Anthony’s fallen into…? In his state, Leo could see how Anthony could fall into such a contract. But is there really no way out of it? There’s no way he was just doomed now. The guard did say there were conditions that had to be violated for the soul to be lost, but there wasn’t a guarantee a loophole couldn’t be made by the demon. He just couldn’t be sure of it anymore, but he did know he had to get his friend out of this mess.

  Leo asked, “How would one get out of such a contract exactly?”

  The guard raised an eyebrow. “What? Ya get contracted or something?”

  He slightly panicked and waved his hands. “No no no. I’m just curious. Better now than never, right?”

  The guard lazily waved his hand in dismissal. “Don’t sweat it, it was just a joke.” He scratched his head as he began explaining. “Well, from what I heard, it’s not impossible to get outta a contract like this as long as ya haven’t been in it for too long.” He chuckled a little bit to himself. “No idea how to get out myself, though!”

  ‘Shit. I guess that’s as good as I can get it. I’ll ask for more from Teddy later.’

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  The guard stopped and excitedly turned as if a thought had just occurred. “Now that I think about it, there are some odd circumstances that have occurred in the past! Sometimes, the demon fails to dominate the human host and gets the contract reversed where the human will slowly assimilate the demon into themselves. Of course, they get corrupted as a mortal but they get that demonic strength and ability for free!”

  Leo’s eyes beamed hearing the occurrence. This was a gamechanger! But that’s not something he could help Anthony with at all, especially with the fact that it was a rare situation. But it meant that it wasn’t impossible for him to help, so it filled him with some hope.

  Leo was truly grateful to this guard. He had only asked some basic questions but this guard expanded it by tenfold! He patted the guard on the shoulder and said, “Thanks, dude.”

  The guard tilted his head. “I’m not sure how to feel about being called ‘dude’ but no problem!”

  With that said, they continued on the long walk through the soldiers barracks. A thought suddenly popped into Leo’s mind. “Say, how did so many people become soldiers here, anyway? I’ve been going through these trials and I don’t see how so many could have survived the trials.”

  The guard shrugged. “Well, the trial’s only for immigrants coming from the outside. Majority of people here were shipped from other colonies over to this disgusting place.”

  Leo chuckled. “Kinda harsh to say it's disgusting isn’t it?”

  The guard sighed. “If only that were true. Say, you know what this place was originally supposed to be, right?”

  He shook his head, slightly worried where this was going.

  “This is a penal colony.”

  Leo tilted his head, his eyes squinting in confusion. “Pen-all colony? What’s that?”

  His escort facepalmed himself. “I’m sorry. What I mean is this colony was meant as a giant trash heap for criminals and scum from the other regions." He pounded his chest with the hilt of his glaive. “Just like me. We’re scum of the earth that nobody wants, so they sent us here!”

  This was a…giant prison colony? Why? What was the point of that? Why not just make an actual prison?

  “And wait, I just realized, you said I’d see contractors walking around too? We just accept them here?”

  The guard smiled. “That’s the crazy thing isn’t it? Some contractors are brought in, allowed to work here as long as they don’t cause damages. But they don’t last very long once the demon takes over since they are technically almost always breaching their contract. But those that do somehow stay are usually pretty chill so don’t worry about them.”

  They finally arrived into an open room to what looked like their barracks, filled with soldiers all around.

  Looking around, he noticed the soldiers didn’t really fit the soldier look with some looking as though they hadn’t shaved or cut their hair in months. Their discipline was obnoxious with only a handful actually doing their jobs while the others lazed about, drinking or gambling away. Those in charge of these soldiers were nowhere to be seen, providing no supervision of these people.

  Not only that, their equipment was basically falling apart with their melee weapons and rifles beginning to rust. Many of the people here wore no armor, but he assumed that was just because they didn’t want to wear it. As he passed, one of the female guards had one of her cheeks completely gone, with her teeth completely visible. Seeing him staring, she sent him a kiss, laughing away as they moved on.

  But what stood out the most were the scars they had. Some had faint scars across their cheek, but others had scars so bad it looked as though they were maimed. One person he passed by looked to be covered in third degree burns, with his skin looking more like wrinkled plastic, with unnatural folds occurring here and there. In some places, the skin was discolored—patches of red, purple, and white formed a white mosaic. What stood out was that there was no hair nor pores. It was smooth, unnaturally smooth. Only scar tissue remained, giving it an alien appearance.

  But the concerning part was that not a single person wasn’t wearing some scar.

  Though not all displayed their marks so openly. He saw one person with a metal prosthetic arm, but it didn’t move as he walked by them, so Leo assumed it was just there for show. Many others didn’t have something so fancy with clothing or masks hiding their disfigured appearances.

  Leo quietly whispered to his escort, “Um, if I may ask. Those scars, were those…”

  “Exactly what you think. Punishment. Lashings, maiming, burning, all in between. Anything that brands the criminal depending on what they did.” He turned to Leo. “Of course, the punishment is done before they get here. We’ve got nothing to do with that.”

  The guard took off his oni mask. Leo struggled not to vomit upon the horrible sight.

  Beneath the mask was a mangled lower jaw stripped of skin. He could see the bone and his left canine ripped out. Aware of Leo’s disgust, the guard quickly put back the oni mask and made what he could most closely resemble a smile. “Don’t think too poorly of me. I just said one bad thing about a noble in Central.”

  Leo weakly nodded. He couldn’t help but pity the people here, of course not everybody though. They were criminals after all. But a punishment to this extent? Why not just kill them?

  ‘Wait…’

  Now that he thought of it. Thane had such maiming similar to this guard’s. Could he…?

  “Um, do you know anybody named Thane, perchance? A large muscular man with long hair, blind?”

  The guard tilted his head. “No, I can't recall a fella by that name. I’m sure Lieutenant Eicholtz will know though if you wanna ask. But I will say, a blind soldier does sound interesting, why’re you asking?”

  Figures. He knew he couldn’t keep moping about Thane, but he had the strange urge to keep digging into it. He felt there was something further into his past that could help him in the future.

  “I just had to fight him in the last trial, he almost killed me too. I just want to know more about him, that’s all. But I doubt anybody will know much.”

  The guard thought for a moment. “Hm. Well, everybody in that trial was a deserter, if that helps. So I’m sure one of the officers in the frontier forces would know.”

  He assumed the frontier forces meant the Demonic Frontier. He sighed. That just meant he could only look into Thane after he passed these tests, if he survived long enough at least.

  The guard continued on. “I wouldn’t pry too much on anybody here though. Some people don’t take too kindly to those getting into their business, as you can see with my trophy here.” He pointed at his jaw. “Ah, on a brighter note, we’re here!”

  Standing beside the guard was a more grand door compared to the surroundings. Leo could finally fill in the answers he couldn’t get from this guard.

  “Now that I think about it, what is your name?”

  Briefly looking at Leo’s eyes. The guard bowed his head and replied. “My name is Cain, your humble dormitory guard.“ He tapped the long glaive against the floor. “Master of the glaive, watcher of Northern wall! Pleased to meet your acquaintance, trialist Leo!”

  Leo tilted his head, wondering if all the guards were like this. Hopefully they were. And he hoped the Lieutenant would be as relaxed as Cain for their discussion.

  All he could do was hold his breath as he prepared himself to meet the Lieutenant.