Chapter 16

  We trudged along the edge of the vast and endless indoor forest of firey pillars, the row of archways peering at us from the other side of the open space littered with demon corpses. I would have been surprised if the dead numbered less than five thousand. Must have been a huge last stand, attempting to stop the tide of the bull-faced beasts chasing and capturing their lord. A last stand to the last man, ending in defeat and landing a demon lord and a minotaur champion right at my crash-site. I still couldn’t get myself to believe it was a coincidence, but what did I know?

  Tarashak didn’t show any emotions looking at the sea of bodies comprised of his fellow demons, and neither did Flamey. I considered asking if they had any feelings about this slaughter – or at least opinions – but in the end I decided to let sleeping demon-feelings lie. It was for the best. Probably. If nothing else, my darling daughter seemed happy enough to be hiking after me; whenever I turned around to make sure she was still there, that smile of hers was as wide as ever. Cute, creepy, and thoroughly unnatural. Well, I supposed I could expect at least this much weirdness from a demon, so I put it out of my mind. If she was happy then I was happy, even without her Princess Charm messing with my worn-down emotional landscape. And so, we marched on, looking for a spot where we could exit this cursed building unnoticed.

  I looked up the new skill I had been offered by The Genius.

  [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?]

  It sounded good, but I needed some clarification, so I asked Button, who gave me the answers I wanted instantly.

  [Psychic Resistance, Demonic: a passive skill that shields the mind against both psychic aura effects and Hell Mana based psychic spells. Protection against Upstairs based psychic effects is minimal and can’t be increased by levelling the skill.]

  [Psychic Resistance, Human: a passive skill that shields the mind against both psychic aura effects and Upstairs Mana based psychic spells. Protection against Hell based psychic effects is minimal and can’t be increased by levelling the skill.]

  [Psychic Resistance, Combined: a passive skill that shields the mind against psychic aura effects and psychic spells of both Hell and Upstairs origins. While the protection offered is diminished by the combined nature of the skill, both aspects can be increased by levelling it.]

  As I was in Hell, but with big plans to eventually pay a visit to the Upstairs world so I could contact Allied Systems personnel, the obvious choice was the combined skill. I had a sinking feeling that levelling it meant I’d have to subject myself to psychic attacks and do my best to fend them off. Perhaps my daughter could help me out with this. Or perhaps I could work something else out. I’d just have to see. Anyway, I told Button I wanted the combined skill.

  [Skill: Psychic Resistance (Combined), has been added to your list of skills.]

  It was an interesting sensation to receive the skill: I suddenly knew things I hadn’t known before. The knowledge was murky, incomplete, probably instinctual rather than intellectual, but it was there now, and it assured me I had indeed come into possession of this skill. With this job done, I turned my attention back to my current situation.

  We had walked at least half a league, according to Tarashak, which showed as one and a half kilometres in my SAC’s mapping function. Just how big was this stupid building of utter confusion?

  I periodically flew my drone through one of the archways to peek outside, but minotaurs were aplenty, and they didn’t seem to be willing to provide the little gap in their lines we were looking for. Not for another half a kilometre. When I flew the drone out again, I couldn’t see a single one of the demonic creatures on the camera feed. I turned to Tarashak and told him the good news.

  ‘Hm, it seems like we’ll have to take this chance,’ he said.

  ‘There is some sort of weird forest out there, down the stairs and a bit away. Some may be hiding in there,’ I commented.

  ‘The Wilds. If the enemy is in there, then they are busy. Just as we will be. And I can sense my soldiers better now. They’re out there. Not close, but out there.’

  ‘Okay.’ I nodded. It sounded like we had a direction now, which was good. ‘But if you’d be so kind as to explain to me why we’ll be busy and what is the Wilds to start with? I’m not from around here, remember?’

  Tarashak sighed with the resignation of the teacher of a particularly dumb student. He looked at me with his menacing, yellow eyes — not at all cute like Flamey’s — and began the arduous task of presenting a lecture I instantly named: Demonic Ecosystems for Dummies.

  ‘The Wilds is the collective name of numerous vast areas where wildlife spawns and thrives amongst the lava-trees. They are animals, for all intents and purposes, some of them deadly, some cunning, some sneaky, some powerful, some all of the above. They are created from the Ring Energy that permeates all of Hell in a never-ending ebb and flow, infusing every creature that lives here, including demons. And you. This is the same energy that we receive from a creature when we kill it, in the form of what someone in the past decided to call EXP. Don’t ask why they called it that, I haven’t the faintest.’

  ‘The raw forms of the energy, EXP or Ring Energy, have their uses. Any creature that receives EXP through a kill, uses it to level up, strengthening itself and its skills. Demons can transfer unused EXP to another, using it as currency. The ruling demon lord has some authority to allocate vast sums of this energy for the defense and development of his ring, a process I am not familiar with as I am not a ruling demon lord. You should have some insight into this.’

  ‘There are several ways to convert raw Ring Energy into Hell Mana. One such way is the soul transforming it so skills and spells could be powered. Spell emplacements, like the ones in this stupidly confusing column-infested place, also convert the Ring Energy that is allocated to them by guess who! The ruling demon lord.’ He finally took a break to catch his breath; all that talking seemed to have fired him up a bit, and he was clearly enjoying lecturing me. He was an academically inclined demon, wasn’t he? ‘Now, as I said, the areas known as the Wilds are teeming with creatures of all sorts. Hunting them provides both food and EXP. Since the creatures tend to be low levelled — unless a dungeon increases the influx of Ring Energy into the realm — it takes a number of hunting trips to gain even a single level. It is, however, the most common way for a demon to gain enough levels to be able to have a decent chance of staying alive and becoming more powerful. We are going to be wading through a place that will have the wildlife attacking us every step of the way. That is why we will be busy. Does this answer your question, Hellfire Lord?’

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Did it answer my question? He had given me so much information I knew I’d be thinking about it for days to come. My jaw would have hit the floor had it not been in the confines of my helmet. Flamey did not have that luxury, and she was just staring at Tarashak wide eyed and with her mouth hung open. This must have been new stuff to her as well. Which I found strange. Hadn’t she been a princess of the realm even before our fated encounter? Surely, even if education was something not universally available in Hell, an heir of the realm should have had access to a few tutors or the demonic equivalents.

  Tarashak noticed I was looking at Flamey’s gobsmacked face as she tried to process all she had just heard.

  ‘The former demon lord was more of the “let’s go kill things” and less of the “let’s learn about how the world works” kind of demon and had been raising his heir accordingly,' he explained.

  Of course.

  ‘Is that … normal around here?’ I inquired.

  ‘Well, the nature of demonic creatures will always contain a generous amount of aggression, selfishness and belligerence. That much is normal. But we are also intelligent creatures, and some of us tend to recognise the value of knowledge, reason and restraint. Unfortunately, often it is the very thing that stands in the way of said individuals gaining levels and personal power, which means it is often the more brutish and stupid ones who end up in high positions.’

  ‘Such as the former demon lord.’ I concluded.

  ‘Such as the former demon lord.’ Tarashak agreed with another sigh of unmistakable resentment.

  ‘Hm. A lonely path. Isn’t that what you’ve said?’

  ‘Indeed. In a society in which the majority craves conflict and wants to take everything by force, those of us choosing to listen to reason are sometimes … hm … sometimes …

  ‘Overlooked? Uncomfortable? Taken advantage of?’ I offered.

  ‘Yes. That.’

  This was eye-opening. Could it be that Tarashak being one of the first demons I had come across upon my unfortunate arrival was … extremely lucky? Had I bumped into someone else, I could imagine the encounter going the exact same way it had with the demon lord; five seconds of cultural exchange resulting in flechettes to his face. The Corian Civil War all over again with a demonic twist — you could not reason with those guys.

  ‘Okay, thanks for that. Now, are you ready to head out into the Wilds?’ I asked.

  ‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’ Tarashak nodded.

  ‘Flamey?’

  ‘Ready,’ she squeaked.

  And with that, we marched across the empty, tiled space and through one of the archways leading out to open Hell under a burning sky.

  ***

  My reccie drone saw no enemies around, and we rushed across the smoothly tiled space between the arches and down the infinitely wide stairway at the other end. We were as fast and quiet as we could be, and after at least a hundred steps leading down, I finally set foot on the natural soil of this ring of hell. It was surprisingly similar to pre-terraformed Gattaca 2 — which I’ve only seen holovids of — an entire planet of charred and cracked ground, baked dry by fire and heat, dead as a clay-covered desert in an overzealous furnace. It kind of complemented the burning sky above.

  Hell seemed to have different ideas as to what constituted life — as well as different resources to create it — and even though anyone in my position would have expected this place to be a barren wasteland, a forest sprawled out before me in every direction. Well, I called it a forest, but the trees looked … unusual from up close. If they were trees at all. The countless, giant, twisting and turning forms jutting out of the dead ground were black as charcoal and had a stone-like feel to them. Occasional red veins were glowing here and there on the branches, weaving across and through each other, forming something like a chaotic, unstructured, infinite lattice, covering the land, the air trembling with heat under and between the … well, I was going to call them trees, so trees. This was the Wilds, huh? The place demonic energy-monsters called home. A truly hellish landscape, no doubt about that. Good stuff.

  ‘I can sense my troops. Fifteen, maybe sixteen leagues into the Wilds in that direction. They can sense me too, they know I’m coming. I communicated to them that the new lord of this ring is small and weird, and they shouldn’t attack when they see you,’ Tarashak said.

  ‘Uh … thanks?’ I said, trying to decide if I should be offended or thankful.

  That aside, did he just say fifteen leagues? In other words: thirty kilometres of marching through the boiling hellscape with wild demon-animals snapping at us every few metres? I couldn’t say I was looking forward to it, but if I could believe Tarashak — and why would a demon lie — I could expect the resident monsters to be low level.

  ‘Flamey,’ I turned to her. ‘Are you going to be okay going through here?’

  ‘I will. I … have been to the Wilds before. To hunt,’ she said.

  ‘Oh? And how do you hunt? Do you have a weapon? Or some other skills to use?’

  She used a bit of Hell Mana, and a deadly looking curved blade appeared in her hand, almost too curved to be called a sword or a combat knife. Whatever it was, it sure held the promise of bleeding wounds and spilled guts.

  ‘You know how to use it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, Daddy. But I haven’t been offered the skill yet.’

  ‘Hm,’ was all I said, and looked at Tarashak, hoping for an explanation. I could have asked Button, but then the demon general might start feeling useless, so he was now my go-to guy. He sighed.

  ‘She is young and low level. The skill associated with her weapon will come with practice. The same can be said about you and your sword. You clearly don’t possess the appropriate skills for the weapon.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, scowling at the guy who couldn’t miss a chance to criticise me in one way or another. Aside from that, what he said was interesting. ‘So, how much of an improvement does receiving a skill mean?’

  ‘Immense improvement. How do you not know this?’

  ‘Just explain, please!’

  ‘Fine. A skill contains pre-determined, innate knowledge of whatever it relates to. Should she receive the Demonic Saerkhan Wielder skill, she will gain an instinctive knowledge of the proper ways and techniques of using the weapon. Diligent practice and the levelling of the skill will allow her to master the weapon, and options to incorporate Hell Mana into her weapon will become available.’

  So, the long, curved dagger-like blade was called a Saerkhan. Hm. Good to know. But Tarashak’s explanation had shed some light on some other things I’d been pondering. It was a subtle thing, but when my Infernal Storm skill had gained its first level, I kind of instantly knew more about the spell itself: how to make it slightly more powerful and a little bit cheaper to cast. Actually, it was the presence of the skill, even without its initial level, that had enabled me to cast it in the first place. Or my healing skills. Or my Psychic Resistance skill, which I assumed I had earned by doggedly resisting Flamey’s Princess Charm while questioning her. It was a passive skill though, so it was always on without any input from me, but even without a level to its name, it had given me a rudimentary understanding of it. Huh! Did this mean if I kept using my sword to dispatch enemy combatants – no matter how badly and laughably – I would eventually gain a skill and some instinctual knowledge along with it? Could I gain a marksmanship skill for my rifle? Or a gunslinger skill for my sidearm? Could I? If so, then I had to find a way to incorporate magical skills into army and marine training programmes and put an end to the reign of ridiculously demanding drill sergeants. If I ever made it back to Allied Systems space. But until then …

  I drew Burning Darkness from his self-made sheath on my SAC. I had no choice but to put up with him for now; conserving precious ammunition was a priority, and if I could gain skills to use weapons other than my rifle, then it was the thing I had to do. And magic. Yes, this scary, chaotic, stony forest of hellish monsters would be the place to learn and hone my skills.

  ‘Right then, if we’re ready, then let’s go before any of those stupid minotaurs show up.’