Chapter 13

  [You have defeated minotaur soldier, level 20. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated minotaur soldier, level 22. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated minotaur scout, level 20. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated minotaur warrior, level 24. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated minotaur soldier, level 24. You receive EXP.]

  I still hadn’t found a way to determine how much of this raw energy they called EXP around here I was receiving after each kill; I couldn’t find a counter or any other indicator in any of the menus. I felt a little indignant as I stared down at the bodies of the beasts, riddled with holes — I should have been in for another level at least, either for myself or for my bonded item set. I had got eleven of them in total. Eleven! Shouldn’t that have been enough for something? Apparently not. I supposed there must have been a formula for this, too — knowing how The Genius was running this show — so it kind of made sense that it would take into account my combined levels as well as the levels of my victims when calculating rewards. But if I had learned anything from this fight, it was the need to learn and practice swordsmanship as well as magic. Having spent forty-five rifle rounds and a whole mag of seventeen from my sidearm, I was beginning to feel like I should be conserving ammunition going forward, no matter how much safer, easier and faster it was to shoot the enemy.

  I let out a long breath as I turned around to wave at Tarashak and … Flamey? Where was she? The demon archmage was standing where I had left him, looking satisfied with the outcome of the battle, not even the least bit disturbed by the fact that my daughter was nowhere to be seen. I rushed to him and looked right into his smug face.

  ‘Where is Flamey?’ I blurted the question.

  ‘She ran off when the enemy attacked.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I am not sure. Somewhere,’ he said, unshakable disinterest plastered on his blood-red face.

  Damn! I didn’t know Flamey’s level or capabilities, but I knew for certain she couldn’t have survived a battle like this on her own, so running away the moment it had begun was a sensible call on her part. Good girl. Except, running away in this place meant getting hopelessly lost, and possibly starving to death after weeks or months of wandering without ever seeing anything other than burning stone pillars.

  I launched the software for the tracker I had given her, hoping she hadn’t lost it. The panel popped up on my NeuroHUD, searching for a connection for long seconds before it found one. I wasn’t sure if the magic effect of the place could or would interfere with radio signals, but the software couldn’t pinpoint an exact distance and location, just a general area and direction. That was better than nothing, and I switched to the drone’s software, and sent the little all-seeing eye flying in that general direction.

  It took fifteen minutes to locate this runaway daughter of mine; fifteen minutes that Tarashak had spent complaining about wasting time on a weak heir. I had to hold myself back from punching him in the face. This was my daughter we were talking about! And how in the hell had I got so attached to her in less than two days?

  I watched the camera feed as Flamey came into view. She was sitting alone on the stone floor, surrounded by unyielding pillars, her knees pulled up to her chest and she was … crying? Oh, the poor thing! I flew the drone closer and lower until she finally noticed it. She sprung to her feet in a flash, staring at the flying contraption for a second, then she began jumping up and down, waving her arms wildly at the drone, unaware I could already see her. After making the drone do a few hoops it wasn’t made to do, she managed to surmise that she was to follow it. Slowly and carefully, I flew it back to us, making sure Flamey could follow it easily. She burst into a sprint the moment she saw me, then jumped and flew the last few metres before landing on my breastplates. She threw her arms and legs around me and clung to me like a magnetic breaching charge to an airlock of an old pirate frigate. Then she exploded into tears once again, sobbing and squeaking.

  ‘Daddy! I … I thought I’d … I thought you’d leave me. But … but you sent Whirly to get me!’

  ‘Whirly?’ I asked.

  She pointed at the drone hovering in place in the air. Oh. My reccie drone had a name now.

  I carefully peeled her off me and put her on the ground, and I remove my helmet so I could look her in the eyes properly.

  ‘Of course I sent … Whirly to get you. Why wouldn’t I?’ I said to her, the smile growing on her face lifting my mood. ‘Listen, first of all, well done. In the situation we faced, hiding was the right thing to do. If this happens again though, try not to go too far. Just enough distance to be safe, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ she chirped.

  Good. It seemed she got my point. But to be honest, running and hiding each time was only a short-term solution for her. If I had run and hid instead of fighting, I wouldn’t have gained EXP, wouldn’t be able to level up again eventually, and wouldn’t become stronger and more capable. The same was true for her, and whether I liked it or not, here in Hell fighting and killing seemed to be the way one could grow stronger. Hm. I needed to find a way to do so for the both of us. I wondered what level she was, or what she could or couldn’t do. If I knew that, I could devise some sort of training programme for her once we had some security.

  ‘Button, is there a way for me to look into Flamey’s stats?’ I asked my Hell-appointed assistant.

  [As her blood-bonded father as well as the head of her dynasty, you may request that she shares information with you regarding her stats. Once she agrees to grant access, an exchange of 1 HMP will take place, and her stats will be displayed on your NeuroHUD.]

  The satisfactory answer came. I turned back to Flamey.

  ‘Sweetheart, I’d like to take a look at your stats.’

  ‘Okay,’ she agreed instantly, beaming at me as if I had just asked her what she wanted for her birthday. Did demons have birthdays? I somehow doubted it.

  I vaguely felt some Hell Mana moving about, then as promised, Flamey’s information popped up in my field of vision.

  Name: Flamey Elizabeth Hyde

  Race: Demon (Fire Demon, Fourth Ring Native)

  Titles: Hellfire Princess of the Fourth Ring

  Level: 4

  HP (Health Points): 90

  HMP (Hell Mana Points): 620

  Strength: 20

  Constitution: 35

  Willpower: 55

  Soulstrength: 78

  Skills:

  - Dimensional Storage of Unearthly Horrors

  - Wreathed in Flames (Level 2)

  - Princess Charm (Level 5)

  A psychic aura ability to charm a living creature. Affects 1 creature.

  - Lost in the Fog (Level 1)

  A psychic aura ability to sow confusion and a sense of being lost as if in a thick fog. Affects up to 6 creatures.

  - Touch of Hell

  Dynastic traits and derived skills:

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  - Hades Heal

  A skill to perform a healing spell. Inherited from dynasty founder.

  - Demonic Humanity

  A psychic aura ability. Causes humans and other upstairs denizens to look at Flamey more favourably and with less hostility.

  - Upstairs Mana Affinity

  - Upstairs Living

  ***

  Well, Flamey’s stat sheet was a lot shorter than mine, yet there was a lot to unpack there. First of all: her level. Seriously? Level 4? That seemed a bit … low, considering she had been a dynasty heir even before I had come along. As someone whose levels had literally just fallen into his lap, I had no grounds to judge her for her levels, but still!

  Her level aside, I wasn’t surprised by her lower physical stats, but it was a bit of a shock to see she had higher Willpower and Soulstrength than I did. I supposed she was focusing on her Mana related magic skills and abilities rather than becoming a hand-to-hand fighter, and I couldn’t fault her for that choice. And talking about skills and such, I was pleased to see she had inherited some of mine in the form of dynastic traits just as I had inherited some of hers. That was all good as far as I was concerned, but I saw something there that filled me with considerable unease: Princess Charm — a psychic ability to charm a living creature. Hm. I had to think this through. This was Flamey. Whom I found cute, albeit in a creepy, demonic way. She had barely spoken more than a few sentences since we’d met yesterday, yet I adopted her, was worried about her, cared about her, called her Sweetheart, wanted to protect her, and I already felt like I could even go as far as giving her more Crunchymel bars than I had originally promised. Hm. I did feel like I had real, fatherly love for the runt. Was this a natural paternal instinct on my part? Or was it something else?

  ‘Uhm … Tarashak, got a second?’ I called out to the general who was, for some reason, engrossed in studying all the dead minotaurs around us.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, not necessarily annoyed, but not quite happy either.

  ‘You know about … uh, psychic skills, right? Like skills to charm another person and such?’

  ‘I know a little. This whole place is an emplaced psychic spell arrangement to force an effect on anyone who enters its range. Charms are aura effects, and I know less about them. Why do you … oh!’ Tarashak finally saw through me. ‘Does she have charm-related aura skills? Is the Hellfire Lord perhaps charmed already? I’ll have you know, a demon lord with a weak mind is not fit to …’

  ‘No, nothing like that, I was just curious,’ I stopped him, holding up a hand.

  Damn! I was absolutely under her charm, wasn’t I? And Flamey was looking distinctly nervous, fidgeting slightly, trying to avoid looking at my face. Huh!

  ‘Well, if she has skills that are psychic, that means she has started on a rare path,’ Tarashak commented.

  ‘Oh, how so?’ I asked, happy to take the focus off my present state of being charmed.

  ‘Well, she will be considered a mage, if she sees her talents grow, but her skills are going to be focused on projecting auras rather than casting spells. Many mages, even higher-level warriors can project various auras, but none can achieve the devastation or the benefit like a specialised aura mage. And amongst those who embark on this particular path, those who can produce psychic auras are even rarer. Psychic auras are less obvious, more insidious — which is a good thing — and usually require a lot less Hell Mana than spellcasting. Kralsen the Dreamer of Pain is the only aura mage I know personally.’

  ‘I see. Okay, thanks,’ I said to him.

  ‘Anything else you wish to know about charm skills, Hellfire Lord?’ he asked, his grin so wide I thought he could swallow a minotaur. He was enjoying this, wasn’t he?

  ‘No, thank you, you’ve been … most helpful. I need a moment with my daughter. In private.’

  Tarashak just shrugged, still grinning, and got back to studying the numerous minotaur corpses. I grabbed Flamey by her arm, gently, and I pulled her along until we were behind the nearest pillar. I had figured all demons in this ring had a trait for heat resistance, but now I was seeing a demon sweat for the first time; Flamey was more than just nervous, looking around everywhere except at me. Now, how to deal with this?

  ‘Flamey,’ I began.

  ‘Yes, Daddy?’ she said, looking at me finally, trying to look innocent — a lost cause for most demons I’d seen so far. But for her? Child’s play. My heart was already aching that I had to chew out my own daughter. Perhaps it wasn’t necessa … no! She was doubling down on the charms, wasn’t she? I had to be strong.

  ‘Flamey!’ I addressed her again, somewhat firmer than before. She flinched. ‘Listen, sweetheart, tell me the truth. You are using a charm aura skill on me, aren’t you?’ She just nodded, looking up at me, tears forming in her eyes now. ‘Alright, I want you to turn it off. Just stop doing it.’

  Her eyes went wide with horror at my request.

  ‘But … but …’ she protested, half crying already.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But … if I do that, you’ll … hate me and you … you will leave me behind,’ she wailed.

  ‘I won’t do that. Just switch it off already!’

  ‘But you … you’re one of the Blessed, from the surface world. You hate my kind, and if I do it, you’ll leave, and I’ll be alone, and someone will come and then …’

  ‘Flamey Elizabeth Hyde!’ I raised my voice at her, cutting her short. I hated that I had to do this; this was the most I’d ever heard her speak. But I had to be strong. ‘I will not leave you. Alright? It’s a promise. You and I are blood-bonded. You’re my daughter and my heir, no matter what, so I will probably like you even if you stop doing this psychic charm thing. If anything, I will like you even more if you do.’

  ‘You … will?’ she asked, a little bit of hope seeping into her voice.

  ‘I think so.’ I nodded. ‘Listen, think about this: if you’re using that Princess Charm of yours to make me like you, then you can never be sure if I in fact like you or not.’ She thought about it for a moment, her mouth hanging open. I continued. ‘But if you stop using the charm skill, and I still like you, then you will know for sure that I really like you. Am I wrong? And if I still like you, then you’ll never need to be afraid of me leaving you behind, because I wouldn’t do that willingly.’

  Her jaw dropped even lower, as if I had just revealed the innermost secrets of the entire universe to her. Which, in a way, I probably had. I wasn’t sure if this sort of emotional turmoil was normal for demons, or perhaps she had changed more than just her appearance when conforming to my supposed dynastic standards. Perhaps she had received more human traits than was listed on her stat sheet. Or perhaps she was just a kid who didn’t even realise had a need for a somewhat caring parent, a need that had never been met.

  ‘Okay. I’ll stop it. But please don’t leave me!’ she begged, nearly crying again.

  [New skill available: Psychic Resistance. Both human and demonic variants are available to you, or a combination of the two. Would you like to receive this skill?]

  A notification? For a new skill? Huh! Now, this was interesting. But it had to wait.

  ‘I won’t leave you,’ I reassured Flamey

  ‘Okay,’ she said with a shaky voice, finally deciding to put some trust in me.

  She blinked her eyes once, looking at me, then blinked once again. I felt almost dizzy as a veil and a fog I had never even noticed lifted from me. It was frightening. To think I had been under the influence of something like this, to not even know how strange my thoughts and feelings actually had been about her until this very moment. I couldn’t help but blink back at her a few times, as if I had woken from a dream and trying not to fall back asleep. I had never experienced anything of the like in my entire life, and I had experienced a lot. Especially the last couple of days.

  I took a deep breath, Flamey watching me, her increasing fear and unease showing on her face clearly. I exhaled.

  ‘It was a hard thing to do, wasn’t it?’ I asked.

  ‘It … was,’ she said, trembling slightly and looking down at her feet, then glancing up at me, as if appraising if I still liked her or not, or if I was going to pack up now and leave without her.

  The thing was, I didn’t dislike her. Not at all. Hell was a harsh place, and I had no trouble understanding why she had done what she had done. For her, to be liked by me was her ticket to survival. The previously inexplicable intensity of my affection for her had diminished, and if I really wanted to, I felt and knew I’d have the ability now to find excuses to hate her and leave her behind. But I didn’t want to. For better or for worse, she was still my blood-bonded, creepy-cute demon daughter.

  ‘You’ve done well, sweetheart,’ I told her with a smile I didn’t have to force.

  ‘Uhm … are you … are you going to leave now?’ she asked tentatively, probably testing the grounds.

  ‘No. But I want to ask you a question. A couple of questions, actually,’ I said to her. She nodded. ‘You know I killed your father, right?’

  ‘Good,’ Flamey said.

  Not exactly the answer I had expected. In fact, I wasn’t even sure she understood me properly. How could she just say “good”?

  ‘I’m talking about your father. The demon lord of the Fourth Ring. I killed him. How do you feel about that?

  ‘Good,’ she said the same thing again, more firmly than before.

  Hm. There was something wrong with the child-parent bonds in Hell, that was for sure.

  ‘Okay, but then are you even happy for me, a human, to be your dad? You said my kind hated yours, but doesn’t that go the other way, too? Don’t you hate humans?’

  She shook her head, a bit of Hell Mana rushed from her hand, and a very, very old looking book appeared in her hand. She offered it to me in silence, and I took it. I turned it over in my hands, looking at it, the wrinkled and faded cover probably made of some sort of leather. The even more faded title, handwritten in an unfamiliar language, I couldn’t read. I carefully opened the book and turned the first page. To my surprise, most of the page was taken up by a drawing, which must have been in colour originally, and only a few sentences worth of foreign text under it. I turned another page, then another, then another. This … was a children’s book. And not just any children’s book, it was one made for human children. Flowers, furry animals, trees, children playing in a field, and … a princess. With a crown. Or tiara. Or whatever they were called. But definitely a princess, with a retinue of people following her cheerfully. The drawings were faded, their colours lost to time, but there was a sense of warmth and happiness to it only a proper children’s book could convey. And I was willing to bet my army pension that the depicted princess’ long, slightly wavy hair was originally blonde. I looked at Flamey, and I had to wonder whose dynastic standards had she really conformed to. Not that I had a problem with this; if she wanted to be a princess, then she wanted to be a princess. What little girl wouldn’t? Now I understood how the word “princess” had made it into one of her titles and even into the name of that skill of hers; her desires must have played a role in how they had been named. Whether it was a universal thing or The Genius had just made an exception for her, I couldn’t say.

  I handed the book back to her, and she put it back into her storage. How had Flamey even managed to get her hands on something like this, in Hell of all places, I had no idea. But that mystery could wait. She stared at me for long moments with eyes wide, before she asked.

  ‘What … what should I do now?’

  I didn’t have to think hard.

  ‘You should come over here and give your old man a hug.’

  ‘Daddy!’ she squealed, tears flowing from her eyes, a huge smile splitting her face almost in half. Well, at least she was happy, and even without her charm skill bearing down on me, it somehow made me happy. Then, I was once again subjected to the warmest of demonic hugs.