Return of the Runebound Professor

The six-foot tall demon, red skin covered in rippling muscles, with long, black-clawed fingers and two huge horns as long as Noah’s arms sprouting from its skull, died when a rock fell on its head.

To be fair to the demon, it was a big rock.

Noah released his grip on Natural Disaster as Lee and Moxie stepped out from the bend of the tunnel to join him. They’d been hunting demons for the better part of three days now, and he had to say that they were getting pretty good at it.

“Nice,” Lee said with an approving grin as she knelt beside the dead demon’s body. “You do a really good lost, terrified idiot impression. Do you have a lot of practice?”

“On some parts of it,” Noah replied, feeling the familiar tingle of energy rising up from the demon. He flicked his hand, severing the monster’s soul with Sunder. Runes swirled up from it and his grimoire wasted absolutely no time in snatching them up.

It managed to get six of the runes down before the final one faded away into the ether. It seemed that absorbing Demon Runes took the grimoire a bit longer than normal ones.

Lee lifted the beachball sized stone he’d yanked out of the ceiling and tossed it out of the way like it was a child’s toy. She sniffed at the body and nodded up to Noah. “This one was Rank 3. Pretty good. Could be a pretty good sacrifice, and you didn’t even completely ruin the body this time.”

“Look, that wasn’t my fault. I wanted to test out Crumbling Space,” Noah said crossly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why does every single demon we’ve run across seem so… stupid? You’re so much smarter than they are.”

Lee beamed at him. “Thank you.”

“That’s not that high of a bar,” Moxie said, laughing as she put a hand on Lee’s head and gave it a small shake. “This thing couldn’t even string two words together. I was under the impression that demons were more intelligent on average.”

“The strong ones are,” Lee said with a nod. “But there are a ton like this. Brutes at Rank 3 and below that are really strong when you can’t fight back, but they can’t do much against someone smart. You’ve also got a big advantage over them. The majority of them can’t project their magic outside of their body, and if they can, it’s really limited at this Rank.”

That’s right. It’s easy to forget that Demons can’t actually use magic in the same way humans can. Under Rank 4, they’ll basically just be physically strong for the most part. It’s kind of funny. Everyone in the mortal world is terrified of demons, but it looks like the majority of them would actually lose to the average mage.

It’s the ones at the peak we have to be worried about. That said, Lee was nowhere near this weak when we first met. What’s up with that massive discrepancy?

“But you’re ridiculously fast,” Noah said. “Why aren’t these ones that fast too?”

“Oh. That’s because this one is stupid,” Lee replied. She stood back up and looked back over to Noah,. “His runes probably overwhelmed his mind, so he was just a brainless monster. Really dangerous if you’re weak, but to us now… not nearly as bad. The competent Rank 3 demons are different. They could be pretty fast.”

Noah nodded thoughtfully. That could pose a problem. Lee had gotten faster in the time he’d known her, so it was a little difficult to remember exactly how fast she’d been before. He was fairly sure he was fast enough now to put up a fight with the former version of Lee, but his body was still just a squishy human’s.

I need a way to deal with something if it rushes at me. Something like a Shield… but not a Shield since those are only as fast as your reaction speed when blocking a physical attack. I’ll have to think about it. Even though I have to repress my domain, maybe I can find a way to use it more defensively in the worst-case scenario.

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“Do you think this is going to be enough of a sacrifice at this point?” Moxie asked. She extended her hand toward the dead demon and vines twisted out of her sleeve, running to wrap around the monster’s legs.

“Well, we’ve got four demons. Two of them are in decent shape, and two are a little bit squished. That’s more than I’ve ever brought before, especially since they’re all Rank 3,” Lee mused. She scratched the side of her nose, then shrugged. “I think that should be enough. It seems like a lot. It’ll definitely get us into the city. Rank 3s aren’t that common.”

“Great,” Noah said. “And quick question. Do cities have actual food in them? I know demons consume emotion or whatever, but killing things to get sustenance is nowhere near as enjoyable as eating.”

“I don’t know,” Lee admitted. “I didn’t have the resources to trade for anything on the very, very rare occasion that I entered a city. They really weren’t safe to wander around in. Don’t think of them the same way as Arbitage.”

“More lawless?” Moxie guessed.

“They’ve got law. It’s just very different. Nobody wants the cities to be complete chaos, so the general rule of thumb is to not bite off more than you can chew and avoid causing too much trouble in a short period of time. If you don’t, you die.”

“So if I’m confident I can kill one bloke, I could?” Noah asked.

Lee nodded. “Yeah. If you’re strong enough. But a lot of demons band together for that reason. It’s easy to take one out, but if they’ve got a group of ten with ties to more, then it gets a bit harder.”

“So how does anyone even fight without bringing the entire city into a huge war?” Moxie asked as they started back out of the tunnel and toward the red desert outside.

“Depends. If there’s a good reason for the fight, then the other demons won’t interfere. So if you go around attacking people randomly, you’re not gonna get backup,” Lee explained. “Also, you can challenge people. If they accept, then it’s just the two of you against each other. There are definitely ways around it. We get bored too easily for any city to stay calm.”

That sounded about right from what he knew of Azel and Lee. They continued out of the cave and emerged into the glowing moonlight of the Damned Plains. Even though they’d been flying around for quite some time, the huge moon had still yet to complete its trek through the sky.

It was only just starting to dip below the horizon. Noah didn’t know what the sun would bring, but he was hopeful that they’d be in an actual city with some lodgings by the time it rose. He really needed to get a bath if he didn’t want to pass off as a stink demon.

Moxie brought their newly claimed demon corpse over to a small pile they had at the entrance. Her vines extended to wrap around all of them, tying the bodies together like the world’s most gruesome bouquet of flowers.

“Okay. We’re ready to go to the city, then?” Noah asked.

“Yeah. I think so,” Lee replied after a second of hesitation. “I think we’ve got everything we need.”

“You don’t sound too confident.”

“It’s been a while and the memories I’ve got of it aren’t the best,” Lee said. “And they’re kinda blurry too. I don’t remember all that much. We should have what we need.”

“Eh. Good enough for me. Can you sniff out the nearest city? Probably not, since we’re still—”

“Yeah. It’s over there right now.” Lee pointed to Noah’s right and he followed her finger to stare into the desert. It looked completely barren.

That’s right. I forgot she mentioned that the cities moved around in the Damned Plains. Guess they’re more like tribes than actual cities. But how does she know where it is at this range?

“How in the world can you tell anything is over there? Your nose can’t possibly be that good. You’d be constantly getting overwhelmed just by existing.”

“Oh, I didn’t actually smell it this time. You can just tell. There are a bunch of demon runes in that direction. A lot of them.”

Noah blinked. “You can… detect demon runes?”

“Not individual ones. But when there are that many? Yeah. It’s just kind of this feeling. It’s way stronger in the Damned Plains for some reason. I don’t know why, but there’s definitely a city over there right now. We should be able to make it in a few hours of travel.” Lee hesitated for a second and looked down at all the corpses they had tied up. The flying sword definitely wasn’t meant to lug that many people around. “Maybe a bit more than a few. But soon.”

Interesting. Demon Runes are really different from mortal ones. I wonder if normal monster runes are equally as varied, or if it’s just demons?

“If it’s just a few hours, I suppose we might as well get on our way. I’m curious to see these cities of yours,” Moxie said.

They all got back onto the flying sword and Noah activated it. It lifted into the air, wavering slightly under all the weight it was under, but he pumped it full of wind magic from Natural Disaster until it was able to lift them and their sacrifices off the ground.

Then they were off, heading in the direction that Lee had indicated, to get their first look at one of the Damned Plain’s walking cities.

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