Chapter 6: 1.06A

Her dagger sank into the flesh of his back, glancing off his spine. The demon roared and staggered forward, flailing blindly with his club. Aseri had half expected the obliviousness to be a ruse—demons were supposed to be some of the fastest, keenest, strongest monsters in existence—but instead, not only had he let himself be stabbed in the back, the wild flailing as he staggered away spoke of an amateur.

Aseri didn’t pause—she was in a fight, and decidedly not an amateur—but as she fell into her battle instincts, somewhere in the back of her mind, she did wonder, why is this man acting like he’s never fought before? Avatars generally remembered little to none of their previous lives, much less than most monsters, but their instincts would still be strong. They didn’t …

Well, they didn’t flail about like a beginner.

A glancing blow scraped her dagger against the man’s ribs, and Aseri danced back into the shadows. He swung at where she’d been a second prior, missing by an embarrassing amount.

Shit. This guy’s terrible. What the hell? Her previously gleaming future prospects dimmed a bit. Though personal strength wasn’t the most important factor of a dungeon core’s Avatar, it was still important.

I’m not going to win, am I? Surely not.

Aseri circled around with the panicked demon, landing blows where she could.

Then his club seared past where Aseri’s head had been a tenth of a second prior, and Aseri suddenly realized how stupid she was being.

Shit, she thought. That would’ve taken me out. A single hit, easily. He might be acting like a beginner, but the strength in those blows were decidedly not as bad as his form, and his reactions.

All it would take was one slip-up.

Time to stop playing. It was in her nature to toy with fire, but risking death—and a demotion to grunt status—simply because she’d wanted to play with her new boss, test him out and prove herself, was … well, as idiotic as she accused her typical Avatar of being. 

Oops. I’m being a hypocrite.

“Alright, alright,” Aseri said, dancing back and raising her hands up. Her weapon clattered to the floor. “I surrender. We’re good. We’re good. Easy there. We’re good. I’m unarmed.” The repetition was necessary. It could be hard to break a person out of fight-mentality, especially the kind she’d dropped onto the demon, where she’d appeared from nowhere and forced him into what he probably expected to be a fight to the death. Aseri repeated the placating phrases until the demon had lowered his weapon and shaken the battle haze from his eyes.

He stared warily at her, weapon still half raised, and gripped tightly. Blood leaked from his shoulder, and his ribs, and a few other places. She’d gotten a few good licks in. 

“You can talk,” the demon said.

Which was quite the opener. You can talk? 

“Not quite as stupid as I look, fortunately,” Aseri said dryly. “I’m glad I set a good first impression.” Seriously. You can talk? Fuck you, buddy.

“I—what do you want?”

Want?

“Huh?”

“Why did you attack me?”

Aseri was confused why so much wariness remained. The fight was over. His better senses should be returning. He should know what was going on. It was hardly a novel event.

“Testing you out, big guy,” Aseri said. “You’ve got a mean swing. Your reactions, not so much. Should work on those.”

He still stared at her. His guard hadn’t lowered. What is up with this guy?

“Why aren’t you healing yourself?” Aseri asked. “You’re bleeding everywhere.”

“Heal myself?”

Aseri stared at him. “What, your core is empty? You a fucking idiot, or something? Why would you go into a pocket space if your core is empty?”

“I can—I can do that?”

Oh no, Aseri thought. He’s an idiot, just as I feared.

And terrible at fighting.

She could never catch a break, could she?

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“Yes,” Aseri said slowly, “Avatars can heal themselves. You should do it before you bleed out.”

“How?”

“How? How would I know? Draw on your mana!”

A second pause—the demon’s brow furrowed in concentration—then his wounds started to patch.

Pink mana, Aseri thought. Huh. Never seen pink mana. Or probably not never, but not in her recent iterations, and it didn’t ring a bell. Personal details were washed away a lot easier than the facts of life; Aseri might not remember the names of her comrades three iterations back, but race names, how dungeons, classes, and skills functioned, and so on—those never left. A million lives had burned them into her soul.

“That’s useful,” the demon said, his wounds having healed.

Aseri bit her tongue on a mocking reply. This was her new boss, after all, and her snippish responses hadn’t done her any favors. All she had going for her was that she’d beaten him up. Any monster worth their salt, demon or otherwise, would respect that.

“So,” she said. “How long since you woke? How much have you got done? And why haven’t you sent the request?”

“The request?”

“The—” Aseri breathed in and moderated her tone. “The binding request. I’m assuming you’re claiming me?”

“Binding request,” the demon echoed. “The skill?”

Aseri stared at him. “Are you … is everything working fine, up there?” She pointed at her skull.

“No,” he said. “This isn’t my body, and this isn’t my world. I don’t know anything that’s going on.”

The statement sat in the air for a bit.

Oh gods, Aseri thought, he’s gone spawn-crazy. I’m working for an Avatar who’s gone spawn-crazy. Insanity wasn’t a common affliction among monsters, but it happened, and it followed through spawns, oftentimes getting worse before it got better. Time would sand it away eventually—time sanded everything away—but ‘eventually’ could be many, many lives.

“Right,” Aseri said. “Well, I don’t have an influx of options, so if you don’t mind?” She waved in a ‘come on’ gesture.

“Why would I bind you?” he asked. “You tried to kill me.”

Aseri wiped her hand down her face. Grant me patience, Hooded One. Not a deity one often prayed to for patience, but Aseri didn’t hold to any besides the Knife. There was a reason her class varied so little between lives. She was, as some monsters called it, ‘well-settled’.

“Because you need me?” Aseri suggested. “Because testing out my boss is hardly a strange event? If I’d won, you wouldn’t have deserved to be an Avatar. You wouldn’t have survived the first incursion.” 

“Incursion?”

He doesn’t even know basic terminology. Well, he had claimed to be ‘from another world’. “When another dungeon tunnels into yours, and war breaks out.”

“War?”

“You don’t know what war is?”

“No—I just—” He shook his head. “This is a lot.”

“Bind me,” Aseri said. “We have work to do.”

He looked at her for a second, as if considering whether he should. Aseri fought away her irritation.

The request came. Aseri accepted.

Time to make of this what I can, she thought. No world-conquering dungeon, but maybe I can eke out enough to not get demoted.

Next life would be better.

That’s what you always tell yourself.

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