Chapter 108: A Demon’s Oath

"Aaaaah..."

Freya let out a breath, slumped across the table, then pushed herself up and dropped her head into her hands again.

"Now that I think about it, I still have to deal with naming the four generals of my faction..."

"I can take care of that, if you like," said the four-winged demon.

Oooh! That would be nice, actually!

She knew she could bring someone with her into the subspace, and given the notifications everyone had just received, she was a little embarrassed about showing herself in front of all of them as an absolute sovereign.

But she also knew it was impossible.

Some Dungeon Overlord could leak her involvement with a four-winged demon and raise suspicions in far too many people. Especially in young Paydragon, who must never find out that she had been behind the demon’s summoning.

Or at the very least, must never be certain of it, since it was entirely possible he already had a few small doubts. But those would stay unfounded, and therefore harmless.

"No, it’s fine, thank you. I’ll manage. I just need to come up with something to tell them without mentioning that I took Evangel from the shadows, to soften the fact that my information got out."

He nodded, saying no more than was necessary, and finished his tea.

You know, it’s actually quite pleasant complaining to him! I like him after all!

"Speaking of which, now that I think about it. What’s your name?"

"A demon like me doesn’t carry one. But I’m known by the title of duke of hell, madam."

She lifted her head out of her arms and looked him over, from top to bottom.

So, a duke of hell, is it? A nice pompous title, just like the Calamity of Winter!

But she understood part of that title. After all, this monster was the very peak of rank S.

A monster she had chosen herself in Nymeria, with Kaguya’s help and that of the other dragon kings.

The same monster who, like Freya’s future economy, ran on a positive loop of his own.

A loop that rested on three major skills.

[ Passive Blood Regeneration ]

[ Summoning ]

[ Feast of the High Hells ]

Skills that amounted to summoning an abomination using his own blood, which in turn regenerated passively and through that last unique skill.

Unique which, incidentally, among monsters belonged to a species rather than to an individual. The skill [ Feast of the High Hells ], for instance, wasn’t unique to him but to every duke of hell, even if she had no idea whether any others actually existed.

Anyway, that’s beside the point!

Thanks to that last skill, he could literally feed on the abominations he had summoned himself in order to regenerate.

Which meant he possessed limitless stamina on top of his strength. If he had taken the fight in Evangel seriously, he would have levelled the city with ease, even with Paydragon becoming a true hero.

There I go again!

All of this thinking was to pick him a name, after all. He would still be useful to her in the future, for roles to come, and she wasn’t going to call him "duke of hell" or "hey, you there" indefinitely.

So, a blood skill. A bit like Dracula, when you think about it?

She kept thinking, watching him over her folded arms.

But too generic. What about Dracule?

She repeated the word a few times in her head, then shook it from side to side, deciding it wasn’t right.

That an animal’s name was usually two syllables so you could call it easily, and here she was going for the same thing to keep matters simple.

She ran a long list through her head. Drake, Dracu, Cula, Cule, and so on.

Finding nothing she liked that way, she simply dove into the database that her head had become, looking for something, and landed on an old Slavic term for a vampire that met her first criterion.

"That settles it! From now on, your name is Upyr!"

All eight of his eyes went still at the same time.

He set his cup down without looking at it, and it was the first time since the start of that meeting that one of his movements had been anything less than precise.

"Are you certain, madam?"

"It’s only a name, why are you making such a fuss about it?" Freya said, waving a hand in the air to show him it was nothing.

The demon rose.

He came around the table without hurrying, his four wings trailing behind him, and stopped in front of her.

What on earth is he doing?

Then he lowered a knee to the floor.

He did it slowly, without bracing against anything, until his head came level with hers despite his size. One hand came to rest flat against his own chest, fingers spread, and his four wings unfolded behind him before descending and touching the ground on either side.

He bowed his head.

Then he held out his other hand toward her, palm up.

Am I supposed to take it?

She hesitated, looked at the hand, then at his lowered head, then at the hand again.

Well. Why not, I suppose.

She laid hers in it.

The demon’s fingers closed gently around it, and they stayed like that for several seconds without anything happening at all.

Right. And now what?

Then he spoke.

"I will serve you body and soul, mistress. Command me and I will act, ask me and I will answer, desire me and I will give myself."

"Huh?"

Upyr raised his eyes toward her without lifting his head, and all eight of them fixed on her face at once.

Freya, meanwhile, was no longer seeing him at all.

Isn’t that exactly what Aria said to me when I summoned her?

Word for word. Not a single term different. Those lines had stayed with her the day Aria spoke them, given the weight of what they committed her to, and she had kept them somewhere ever since.

She pulled herself out of it and turned her attention back to him.

"Is that an oath, or something of the demonic world?"

"Yes."

He kept his hand out, hers still resting in it.

"We demons of the purgatory are not creations like the others. We are born without parents and without names. We are not beings, madam, we are phenomena. Concepts this world allowed to take shape and to which it never granted anything more."

His fingers closed a little tighter around Freya’s hand.

"As long as nobody names us, we are no one. We exist without ever being someone."

He finally raised his head.

"So whoever gives us a name gives us what the world withheld. They make an individual of us. And in exchange for that, we swear them this oath, forever."

Freya nodded slowly.

But in that case, if the oath is tied to the person who named the demon, why did Aria recite it to me when I summoned her?

She hadn’t named Aria. Aria had introduced herself with her own name that day, as though she already had one.

She filed the question away with the others, in the drawer that was starting to overflow.

"I see. Thank you. I accept your oath, Upyr."

He still didn’t rise.

He stayed there, one knee on the floor, head inclined, all eight eyes turned up at her and shining with an excitement that showed no sign of dimming.

Uncomfortable, Freya looked around for something.

Anything.

Then her eyes landed on the trail of tea drying down the tapestry and the pieces of porcelain scattered at the foot of the wall, where Kaguya had thrown her cup.

"Here. Could you clean that up over there, please?" she said, gesturing at the mess.

"Of course, madam."

He rose, bowed once more, and went off to carry out his task as well.

Which left Freya and her replica alone with their shared thoughts, thoughts that therefore ran twice as fast through their reasoning.

She thought back to Mei calling her the first, before cutting herself off mid-word, as though it were something she wasn’t allowed to say.

And Aria?

That added yet another question about her.

What did she know? What didn’t she know? What was hidden behind that oath? Why did she devote that endless love and devotion to her? Was there something underneath all of it?

Bzzz~

A single wingbeat inside the teacup.

A small spasm from a body that had drowned a long time ago, and it pulled her straight out of her thoughts.

Freya looked at the cup.

Then she brought a finger down and pushed the fly back under the surface, gently, and held it there a while before letting go.

It didn’t come back up.

It pulled her back out of her own head, and realising she was drifting yet again, she took a breath and refocused on her own tasks.

After all, every one of those questions would be settled when she talked it through with Aria directly, the next time the two of them had some time to themselves.

So now, it was time.

Soon the whole world would come pouring down on her, to seize her heart or to destroy it.

So it was time to see to her dungeon, so that it could hold against the wave that was coming.