Chapter 165

The soldiers moved without stop, which forced Luke and Zea to keep pace with them. That wasn’t a problem for either of them in terms of time spent jogging, but Zea’s relatively low strength and physically shorter legs made it a bit harder for her to keep up the pace they set. She persevered though, and when Luke asked if she wanted him to carry her for a bit, she turned him down.

A few hours into the run, Luke looked over at Zea and said in Thalian, “System, how far away are we?”

Since no one could see the ghostly blue figure but them, no one would know System was replying. Zea picked up on his plan immediately and replied, “Good idea.”

System spoke at the same time. “Another forty-five miles.”

“You checked to make sure none of them have [Thalian]on their skill lists?” Zea asked.

“Yep. We’re good. One guy does have [Ostari] at rank 1 though, so don’t use that. Okay, System, tell me about these guys and their organization. Not the whole history, just what’s relevant right now.”

“The Jigon-Sai are a branch of the Imperial Law Enforcement division. You might consider them the army of the Empire of the Sun, though there are quite a few differences in how they structure their chain of command and what duties they perform. For example, the Jigon-Sai are one of the most combat-oriented factions of the empire’s military, and their field commanders are required to exceed specific levels in order to hold their positions.”

“That would leave their upper command in shambles,” Zea said. “If this guy is only a captain and he’s closing in on level 40, I can’t image the people in charge have life expectancies beyond the next decade.”

“True. Most of their orders come down from Imperial advisors, and the people at the top of the Jigon-Sai’s ranks act as field commanders. There is a great degree of fanaticism in their ranks as new recruits are drilled with propaganda about spending their lives for the empire and how their sacrifices allow for prosperity and safety for all.”

“Some things are the same everywhere,” Luke muttered. “This isn’t really telling me anything important. Are they known for any particular fighting style? Do they have a lot of members? If we piss them off, can we expect other branches of their military to help them?”

“Various units within the Jigon-Sai have specific builds their members take in predetermined ratios to form efficient teams designed to tackle a variety of problems, but there is no unifying combat style attributed to the organization as a whole,” System explained. “Their numbers are fluctuating right now with many deaths I cannot account for, presumably due to the demons that remain unconnected to the God Machine. And yes, they have enough connections to Imperial Law Enforcement as a whole to be involved with other branches regularly.”

“We could have guessed most of this,” Zea said. “We should be finding out more about Heishin and their presence in that city.”

Before they could continue, one of the soldiers in front said, “Captain, look there!”

The entire group followed the soldier’s pointing finger to look east. “What is he pointing at?” Zea asked.

“Smoke,” Luke said softly. “Lot of smoke for just a campfire. Still low in the sky too. Whatever’s burning just started.”

The captain threw a glance at Luke and Zea, ground his teeth, and snapped out an order. “You three, go investigate it. Two of you can stay to assist if needed, but one comes back to report on your findings.”

“Sir!” the three chosen soldiers said in unison.

The peeled off from the main group, but before they’d gone even twenty feet, Luke said, “Wait. Look there.”

“I don’t see anything,” the captain said.

“Just over the tree line on the right,” Luke told him. “It’s hard to see them against the smoke. They look like little people with wings and tails.”

He’d spotted five of them so far, though with the smoke so far away, it was hard to make out details. Luke thought they had grey or black skin, were only two feet tall, and had wings as long as their bodies with long, rope-like tails. [Analyze] wasn’t returning anything so far, but that might have been the distance. Sometimes he had a hard time tagging a target when it was at the very edge of his perception.

It took the soldiers longer to spot what Luke was talking about, but when one of the winged creatures flew up higher and got out from in front of the smoke, they all started swearing. “Demons,” the captain said in a grim tone. “We’re short-handed and we have a job already.”

“Perhaps I could help,” Luke offered.

Assisting the Jigon-Sai fight off some demons might just build up some good will, and even if it didn’t, Luke couldn’t imagine it would make things worse. Besides, he was curious about these demons. Would [Analyze] work on them? If it didn’t, what would it say instead? This was his first opportunity to find out, but the soldiers were limiting his options. Luke was sure if he tried to go somewhere without them, it would turn into a fight to keep him in place. Plus there was still the matter of getting Zea’s arm fixed up. He wanted to remain on good terms with the Jigon-Sai for as long as possible, especially if it came with perks like that.

“Perhaps,” the captain said grudgingly. “Very well. We will investigate these demons and put an end to whatever destruction they are causing. If it becomes needed, you will fight together with me to suppress the enemy.”

Luke grinned. “Excellent. This’ll be fun.”

The captain gave him a look that Luke decided to ignore. Monster hunting was the best part of living on Aros. It was simple, no complications or moral dilemmas. He just walked out somewhere civilization hadn’t pacified and sooner or later something would show up to try to kill him, only to find out that it had bitten off more than it could chew. Luke never worried about if he was doing the right thing or if the monster had a family, or even about having to run away and hide anymore. There were no misunderstandings thanks to a language barrier, no political undercurrents he failed to pick up on.

Simple. That was how he liked it.

As they approached the source of smoke, Luke spotted a few dozen buildings. The fire had been contained to the west side of the village, but there was a lot of it. He was no fireman, but he was betting those houses were done for. If they weren’t already, they would be soon. The creatures, demons, supposedly, that had attacked the town where doing their best to keep anyone from getting control of the blaze, so much so that it was mostly the result of the wide space between the west and east sides of town that had prevented the whole thing from going up.

Luke counted at least forty of the demons ducking and weaving through the smoke to divebomb villagers armed with pitchforks, shovels, and hoes. Now that he was close enough to pick them out, Luke tried hitting them with [Analyze] again, but he still got nothing back. It was just like using the skill on an inanimate object, where it just failed to activate. That had never happened before. Even when he’d fought Lath back in Sicanti’s harbor, the skill had returned error messages instead of nothing at all. Luke supposed that verified the claims that the demons were disconnected from the system. His SysAdmin bloodline couldn’t pull their status from the God Machine simply because the information didn’t exist.

A woman with a long sword made of some black iron stood in the center of town, shouting orders and directing the villagers into groups to better defend themselves or protect those who were frantically pulling water from the nearby well. [Analyze] tagged her at level 24 with a spread of stats focusing on strength and stamina, and a lot of basic skills devoted to farming tasks all under rank 3. The only thing that stuck out to him was a rank 1 [Leadership] skill that Luke suspected she’d spontaneously developed in the last hour.

Even as the Jigon-Sai sprinted for the village, three of the grey things descended on a villager who’d strayed too far from his fellows and grabbed hold of him. He didn’t even see them coming until they’d already tagged him. They beat their wings in unison and lifted the terrified man off the ground. Luke wasn’t sure exactly what the plan was, whether they were just going to drop him from a height or if they were going to carry him into the fire or what, but either way, the woman with the sword was having none of it.

She might have lacked the full suite of combat skills Luke himself had, but raw stats were a power of their own. She leaped twenty feet into the air and brought the blade down on one of the demons, sheering through a wing and an arm. It screeched in agony and released the villager. Without its help, the other two couldn’t continue their flight and the man found himself falling back to the ground. He landed on flexed legs and stumbled forward a step, then scooped up his pitchfork and spun back to face the remaining demons.

For all the village’s heroics, they were still slightly outnumbered by the flying demons. Worse, now that Luke was closer, he saw a second type on the ground, ones with big, bulging shoulders, rubbery purple skin, and mouths that opened in four directions, like the straw hole in a lid, except they all had anywhere from three to six long green tongues coming out of them.

“That’s gross,” Luke said. The tongue demons were taking up the bulk of the defenders’ attention since each one had been isolated and surrounded by a dozen people who took turns hacking at it. Their attacks weren’t having much of an effect, and the tongues that flailed around were able to gouge thick lines in the ground. Judging by the number of villagers already down, Luke was betting the demons could rip apart people just as easily.

“Gargoyles,” the captain said, and “and lashers. Too many to fight.”

“You think so?” Luke said. Neither type of demon looked all that tough to him. He was betting he could get in there and crush the tongue fuckers quickly, and with them taken care of, the villagers would be able to get the flying ones, gargoyles apparently, under control.

“Do not be fooled by what you see. The lashers are more dangerous dead than alive.”

“How’s that?” Luke asked.

“They seem to carry some sort of plant inside their bodies. When slain, the bulb that the tongues are connected to slides out and seeds itself in the ground. Each of those things will have dozens of tongues popping up out of the ground if the host demon dies.”

It was no wonder the villagers weren’t killing the demons. Their strategy was just to contain them and keep the problem from getting worse, but Luke wondered what the long-term plan was. Something would have to be done about them eventually.

“How do you kill them then?” Luke asked.

The captain gestured towards the burning houses. “They’ll need to be herded in there.”

“Wait, what? The demons didn’t start the fires?”

“No. This village was well-informed. Look, see there.”

Luke followed the captain’s gaze and found a group of villagers slowly herding one of the tongue fuckers between the burning buildings. It was strenuously resisting being forced that way, but the group was relentless in stabbing at it with their makeshift weapons.

“Fire, huh? Would there be an issue if they weren’t burned one at a time?”

“I don’t see why there would be,” the captain said with a frown. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I could pick one of those up and throw it a good hundred feet,” Luke told him. “Want to find out if I’m right?”