"Yo." A voice called out to Esmond. It was a voice he didn't recognize.
He turned his head to look through the living room door he was just about to pass. A woman, maybe in her early twenties, was sitting in one of the chairs. She had black hair in a ponytail with a pink ribbon supporting the hairstyle. Her pink jacket being undone meant a large amount of her body was revealed since she wasn't wearing any kind of shirt underneath, but at least she had the decency to cover up her chest with something. A piece of black cloth with pink petals on it, to be precise. This wasn't the time for Esmond to take interest in the small details though because right beside the woman was a weapon. Anyone could figure out from the shape that it was a sword in a sheathe. He didn't know if it was real or not, but he had to assume it was.
"Who are you?" Esmond asked cautiously.
The woman grabbed her weapon and stood up. "Oh right, of course you'd be worried. I shouldn't have entered without your permission. I shall refrain from doing something like this again."
She then began walking towards the young man in front of her, but seeing as she had her weapon and he didn't know her objective, he began to step back.
"Hmm?" It was clear to her that Esmond was being cautious. "Sorry, it's the katana, isn't it? I assure you though, you have no need to worry, as I will never bring harm to you. Anyone that would even think about harming you is my enemy."
Esmond was just growing more confused every time the woman spoke. If she was there to do something to Esmond he felt like she would have done so already. Since he was completely fine, he felt like she really wasn't there to do anything bad, so he lowered his guard a little bit.
He looked over at the chair the woman had been sitting in moments ago and spoke. "Well, do you mind putting your weapon down first?"
"If that is what you wish, then I will be happy to do so." She turned and placed her sword on the chair she was sitting on moments ago. To ensure the boy will trust her fully she started taking a few steps away from the sword.
Esmond couldn't help but feel like that was too easy, but he rolled with it. "First things first, who are you and why are you in my house?"
The woman reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a letter. She briefly checked it to make sure it was the correct letter and handed it to Esmond.
"As of today, you are a ghost agent. My name is Riya Amagasaki and I will be serving you from now on, master."
After she had told the young man this, she lowered herself to one knee and raised her right hand to her left shoulder. The young man was now completely confused by all of this, but didn't say anything. Instead, he turned his attention to the letter that was just handed to him, hoping it would explain everything. Sadly, that wasn't the case. It was a basic letter that just outlined minor details.
Divina were daemons like gods, heroes of the past and angels. Apparently they are extremely loyal and protective when it comes to the one they serve. After reading what the other two types of daemons were, Esmond thought it was safe to assume Riya was from the Divina group. They are also said to be the wielders of something called 'light energy'. If something like this was true, then Esmond would love to meet someone like Lancelot someday. A great figure of Arthurian legend, and someone who Esmond had always considered one of the better warriors from history.
The letter also noted a few things about the other groups of daemons, Anima and Phantom. Anima were objects, mostly weapons, that had developed a conscious. They can conjure a human body to carry themselves around and project a personality onto, but the true being is still the object. The letter stated that a lot of Anima daemons come from Japan, and are known as Tsukumogami, an object that, on it's 100th birthday, with gain a conscious. However, if the object is treated well, it's entirely possible that it will gain a conscious before it's 100th birthday.
The final type of daemons written in the letter were Phantoms. They come into existence when a being gains extreme negative feelings about something. Many of them are out for revenge, but anger isn't the only negative emotion. Some could just be sad, or perhaps it's just lonely and after some attention, and negative attention is better than no attention, so they could go around causing pranks on people. They appear to be an opposite to Divina daemons, as they harbour a 'dark energy'. Phantoms can also be beasts, like a Behemoth, or demons. Finally, a Phantom can be a regular human being with supernatural powers. A human with something they shouldn't have could easily be considered a monster, especially if the power isn't too appealing to those that see it.
The final sentence made Esmond wonder if the same could be said for Divina. Although the general public wouldn't have heard anything about it, there could be people working in the background still, acting like heroes. He even thought someone like a ghost agent would eventually be labelled a hero, making them a Divina daemon. Or maybe that wasn't how it worked? He still had plenty of unanswered questions about this whole thing.
That was the contents of the letter and, of course, after he finished reading the letter, he was as surprised as he was confused. He felt like it might take awhile before he fully accepts all of this, but it's happening right in front of him so he has no reason to ignore it. One thing he knew for sure now was that Riya was in no way hostile, nor would she ever be towards him, which served to calm Esmond a lot.
Of course, this could all be a lie someone created for whatever reason, but it would take a lot of effort to pull off a prank like this, so he disregarded the idea.
Also, Esmond was reminded of something he saw earlier that day. "Quick question, would that explain why I've been seeing strange things recently?"
"That depends, what are these 'strange things'?" Riya answered with a question.
Esmond thought about the person he saw on the way to school this morning. "There was this rather odd girl calling out for someone called Kaguya Hime, or something like that. She had white bunny ears and they seemed pretty real."
Riya had stood back up by this point and gave her master an answer. "Oh, her? Lunar Hare. We should probably stay away from her if we ever meet her, she's a Phantom. Nothing good will ever come of being around someone like Lunar Hare."
"You have something against Phantoms?"
"Not Phantoms specifically, but you read the letter, right? They tend to be the amalgamation of negative emotions so from the start she is negative. Add to that the fact that Lunar Hare specifically is a bit unstable and has kidnapped people in the past and you've got yourself someone I don't want to deal with. Also, as much as I don't want to admit it, she's probably stronger than me, so I wouldn't be able to protect you from her if she ever saw you as an enemy."
Esmond took note of that. He was also curious about a few other things, but those would have to wait. He had something else he wanted to ask that was more of a priority in his mind.
"What happens if I don't want to be a ghost agent?"
"I'm sure you're not the first to ask, but honestly I've never heard about anything about it. I think when you are given a job like this is would be easier to just do it." Riya was a little concerned about that question, but she sat back down and answered the question after moving her katana out of the way.
Esmond thought about it before asking one last thing before he went and sorted himself out. "What will you do if I refuse to be a ghost agent?"
"I decided to serve you out of my own free will, so I will hang around here even if you don't become a ghost agent. Being someone that can see and interact with us could be dangerous if you don't have a daemon to protect you, so without me and the label of a ghost agent, you'd be in trouble."
That made sense. It only started recently, but he couldn't figure out a way to unsee all the odd beings that he now knows were daemons. If he were to make a mistake when dealing with one in the future, it could be bad for him.
"Well I don't mind, there are plenty of spare rooms. I'm the only person who lives here after all." Esmond told her.
"You really won't become a ghost agent?" Riya questioned, sounding disappointed. She had gone through all the trouble of hand picking a Master, only for him to turn down the position.
After listening to her ask, and asking himself about it, he came up with his answer. "If it starts to interest me, then I will become one."
"That sounds like a good compromise." Riya said, nodding happily. "You accepted the existence of daemons and the Ghost Guild rather quickly though, master."
She was curious as to how someone just accepts something so out of the ordinary for them. Normally the master will reject it for awhile before experiencing a life or death situation, at which point they have to wise up or risk losing their life with their ignorant attitude.
"It's hard to deny what's right in front of me." Esmond replied. "Don't call me master either. It sounds weird to be called something like that. My name's Esmond."
"Well all right, if that is what you want Esmond." Riya felt weird calling her Master by his name. She had never done so before.
"Now that that's settled, I'll be sorting myself out. We'll need to go to the shop since I only have enough food for me tonight. If you need to do anything before we leave, do it now."
And with that Esmond disappeared upstairs, leaving Riya alone in the living room. She tried her best to wait for him, but she was extremely impatient and kept glancing at a clock mounted on the wall of the room. In the end, to keep herself busy, she began thinking about what was going to happen in the future.
"Well, are you ready?" Esmond was standing in the doorway to the living room again.
Riya jolted and turned her attention to him, apparently lost in thought to the point where she didn't even hear him walking about in this quiet environment. Her master, although he said he was going to sort himself out, had only changed clothes. His blonde hair was still messy.
Esmond continued walking to the front door and began putting a coat on along with his shoes. It was just a few weeks until Christmas so Esmond put on a thick coat. Riya had since gotten up and moved to stand near her master. Seeing him like this was better than seeing him in the image she was given by the Guild when she was deciding who her new master would be. She even briefly thought that Esmond looked a bit like a teddy bear with his oversized coat and wanted to hug him.
"By the way, can you hide your katana? It might look strange to anyone we pass. You know, a real weapon."
Riya began to think the way her master spoke, breaking down sentences that didn't need it, was quite cute. "You may have noticed, but you're called a ghost agent and work for the Ghost Guild. That's because we are often referred to as ghosts. We can easily hide ourselves from normal people, so there's nothing to worry about there. I'll be sure to stay hidden."
Well, that makes sense. Esmond thought while he finished tying his laces.
"Wait, then it will look like I'm talking to myself…" Esmond remarked.
Riya smiled at Esmond. "If that's the case, I can simply conceal my weapon."
Esmond turned away, slightly embarrassed but enjoyed the kind smile. He quickly began thinking of something to change the subject.
"It's cold out, you're going like that? Might want to put some extra layers on or something."
"That may be true, but if I wore something bulky to keep myself warm I would most likely find it difficult to protect you if something were to happen."
Esmond left it at that as he walked out of his house. He had no idea how to respond anyway, so he was fine leaving it like that.
The pair walked along a path with the sun setting behind them. It had been snowing since midday, meaning the snow had piled up everywhere. Because of this, anyone walking about would have their feet completely submerged in snow every time they took a step forward. Luckily the wind wasn't too strong, otherwise Esmond would've refused to come out in what could be considered a light snowstorm.
Before the house was out of sight, Riya took a look back at it. She was too excited to meet Esmond earlier that she had ignored everything else, but now she noticed just how big his house was. It seemed more like a mansion, but Esmond didn't seem rich. The inside was quite modest, nothing special about the place that said he had money to burn.
After about 10 minutes they were close to the local convenience store. However, it was at this point that Riya felt like something was wrong with the current road they were walking along. There was no longer anyone else walking within her view, and not a single car had passed them in awhile. It was far too quiet.
"Esmond, whatever you do, don't leave my side." Riya demanded, grabbing the hilt of her katana with her right hand.
A thick fog slowly descended on the master and daemon, limiting their vision to a ten metre circle around them. Riya's eyes darted around, trying to find where the enemy was going to jump out from. It was either that or the enemy could attack at range, making it even more annoying for Riya to counter as a projectile like an arrow is much smaller than a human sized daemon. She began straining her hearing, desperately searching for whoever created this fog.
"Where are they?" Esmond asked, easily catching on to the fact that there was someone else about.
Something flew towards Esmond but Riya spotted it in time and pulled her katana out, sliced vertically and cut whatever it was in half. The two halves of the object carried on travelling until they crashed into a nearby wall and shattered. Esmond got an answer, but not the way he was expecting to receive it.
"Ice." Riya made a quick observation. The icicle seemed to be about the width and length of a child's arm before it was cut in half.
Several more shards of ice came their way from multiple directions at the same time. Unable to see a way to deflect all of them, Riya grabbed Esmond by his coat and threw him as high as she could. She then stuck her katana in the ground, jumped on the hilt and jumped once more. Some of the icicles flew straight into the hilt of the katana and some missed their mark completely, but none of them hit Riya or Esmond thanks to the daemon's quick thinking.
Unfortunately for Riya, when acting to protect her master she had no way of judging how high he would be sent thanks to her throw. It ended up being too high, a fall from that height would result in a few broken bones at least. Once she had realised this and landed on the ground next to her weapon she stretched her arms out and caught Esmond. His weight took her down to her knees. As she caught him she tried to come up with a cool one-liner, but ultimately ran out of time as another volley of icicles flew towards them.
All of the icicles came from the same direction this time, making it easier for Riya. She yanked her katana out of the ground, crouched a bit more so that there was less to defend, all while supporting her master with her left hand. Six icicles were successfully deflected, one after the other, but the seventh got past her defence. The moment the seventh was an inch past her blade, she threw Esmond off to the side to make sure he wasn't hit. The icicle collided with Riya and cut through her body and lung, eventually coming to a stop after the tip was sticking out the other side of her.
She flinched hard and let out a cry. It had been awhile since her last battle, she felt a little rusty.
Esmond sat up after being thrown aside, only to see his daemon impaled by an icicle. "Riya?!"
"Ha…" She was breathing heavily, a steady stream of blood exiting the side of her mouth after her lung was filled with blood. "...I'll live."
She attempted to stand up, but failed almost instantly. Esmond quickly got up and crouched by her side.
"Is there anything I should do?"
Riya looked at Esmond out of the corner of her eye. He was panicking. "Just… keep an eye out."
Esmond knew that acting the way he was wasn't going to help anyone, but being thrown into this situation and having someone take what any normal person would assume to be a fatal wound for him, he couldn't help but panic. He tried his best to compose himself, doing exactly what Riya said. He began looking around and didn't stop, trying to find something, anything, that would give him a hint to the enemy's location so he could move Riya if need be.
His daemon had long since grown weak, but she had to press on to ensure her master's protection. She put the hilt of her katana in her mouth and grabbed the icicle lodged in her body.
Esmond noticed this. The way she was acting, clearly she wanted to pull the icicle out, but could she? Esmond now had knowledge of Riya's strength after being thrown into the air higher than someone her build could throw someone, but he didn't like this one bit.
Riya bit down hard on the metal hilt and began pulling. All the boy could do was watch as Riya yanked the foreign object out of her body. She almost passed out because of the pain and was constantly moaning, but eventually, after plenty of struggling, the blood-soaked icicle exited her body and immediately left her hands, dropping to the ground along with her weapon. Riya put her hands over the wound, curled up and fell onto her side.
She had told her master she would live, and she didn't appear to be lying. The hole in her body, although it was slow and subtle, began repairing itself. This stopped her from losing too much blood, but she still didn't feel good because she had lost an amount her body can't instantly regenerate.
"Oi, master." Riya limply raised her arm. "Can you give me a hand please?"
Esmond reacted instantly, crouching down to put her arm across his back and use his other arm to support the other side of her.
"What now? I assume we leave."
"No, we can still win." Riya was still having trouble breathing, but this was slowly being fixed via her healing of the wound. "I don't think we can leave anyway."
"But you're injured, so, you know, we really should figure out a way to leave."
Riya just assumed Esmond hadn't noticed yet. "No, we can definitely win now. Just think about it, why weren't we attacked while I was injured? It would have been easy to finish us right then and there, but they didn't. That means they are weak too, probably from using their power too much."
Now that she mentioned it, that was true. Since the thought had been placed into his mind and he had finally calmed down, he realised that the enemy had gradually gotten weaker throughout the fight. They started off using the best they could do, which failed. The first attack had all icicles synchronized and was clearly meant to box the target in and kill them in that one attack, but when it failed the enemy had to quickly muster up the power to keep forming icicles. They must have been recovering too, but the enemy is probably still in a better place than Riya right now.
"Ah."
Esmond noticed his own thoughts. Forming. He had jumped to the conclusion that they were being made in the moment, using something like magic, which he had never experienced before. Even he was surprised at his own acceptance of the supernatural and his ability to include it in his thoughts so easily. It was a good thing though, as his acceptance of this brand new world allowed him to form a theory about the enemy's power.
Riya was happy with her master. "Looks like you've noticed now too. If you always remained calm and paid attention to your surroundings you'd easily win a battle of wits."
"Thanks." Esmond didn't really think he had done much yet, but her words encouraged him. "I really hate to ask this of you, but are you able to fight in your current condition?"
"If that is what my master wishes, it will be done." She said, spitting out the last bit of blood that had built up in her mouth.
Esmond began explaining. "If you're weakened, naturally you'd attack from a blind spot to avoid damage to yourself. In that case, you'd expect the enemy to attack from behind, but I spotted a silhouette earlier, it's a good job you told me to look around. They're right in front of us."
"So you're saying they will attack when we turn our backs because common sense says they are behind us? If that's the case, what do you want me to do?"
"That's essentially what I think they will do, yes. If you could hold out, would you mind at least keeping them distracted over there for a bit?" Esmond asked.
Riya finally felt stable enough so she took her arm off her master. She took a step in the direction of her weapon, kicked her foot into the snow the katana was resting on and kicked up. Because of the healing wound on her right side, she had to grab her weapon with her left hand. Stretching her other arm would be far too painful. Now she was ready, she ran forward to meet the enemy.
Esmond had a rough idea of how to win this, his brain was running wild with ideas about the enemy's power. Clearly they were creating icicles since one does not simply find almost twenty identical icicles lying about. The next thing on his mind was that the enemy seemed to be able to manipulate these icicles while they travelled. After Esmond was thrown into the air earlier, the half a dozen projectiles originally aimed at himself and Riya curved slightly, but they curved in an unnatural way. An icicle wouldn't start travelling upwards for no reason, it had to be the enemy controlling them from a distance. In other parts of the world, the wind could easily push an object back like that, but it was rarely that windy in England.
The young man heard the clashing of objects echo through the place, which would be Riya's metal katana colliding with the icicles made by the enemy. He had to remain focused though as a delay in his plan could end up putting a huge disadvantage on himself and his daemon because of Riya's injury. He could tell when he let her go that she wasn't going to last long on her own.
He turned around to confirm his third theory. Sure enough, the icicle that Riya cut in half and had collided with the wall behind him had vanished. It wasn't just that one though, all the others that should be lying on the ground around him weren't there. They could have simply disintegrated, he'd seen it in a game before, the effects of the spell just disappearing after awhile, but this theory didn't hold up. The one covered in blood that Riya pulled out of her body earlier was still around. The argument could be made that it's only hanging around because it's time to disappear hasn't arrived yet, but because the projectiles that had been launched mere moments before it were gone, it's likely to be something else keeping this one here.
He leant down to pick it up. Just like logic dictates, it was cold. Esmond's gloves were pretty useless, but they weren't normally made to combat this kind of freezing temperature.
"Hopefully this works."
In the next second he called out his daemon's name. She used this to fall back in the direction of Esmond's voice. She eventually got close enough and was able to see him, allowing her to more accurately retreat now. A couple of icicles flew past her as she moved backwards.
Not long after Riya came into view, the enemy did too. After seeing who they were up against, Esmond almost lost his will to fight. The girl couldn't have been older than thirteen, yet here she was, attacking strangers. She was wearing a white, sleeveless shirt with long, white gloves covering the majority of her arms. Below that was a short, light blue skirt covered in what looked like frozen drops of water and the bottom of the skirt had frills all around it. White stockings could be seen beneath her skirt.
Now that she was visible, Esmond could also see how her power worked. She was creating ice shards within range of her hands. They appeared to be floating near her but she never actually came into contact with the frozen water. Floating around her wrists were miniature ice shards, so now Esmond could see that she could create ice at different sizes.
"Shit, so daemons can look like kids." Esmond mumbled. He didn't want to do anything to her now, he just felt sorry for her, she looked so young yet here she was, fighting.
Out of the corner of the enemy's eye, she spotted Esmond look at her. Even Esmond himself hadn't realised, but he was looking at her as if she was just pitiful. This annoyed her quite a bit so she launched a handful of icicles at him.
"Master!"
Riya called out, following the icicles with her eyes, but was unable to act because the enemy was keeping her attention. She just had to hope Esmond could do something about it. As he is now, he can't fight. All he can and should do is run.
Her master, however, had other plans. With the bloody icicle in his hand, he watched the three objects flying towards him as best as he could. He moved one foot in front of the other to stabilize himself and, using the item in his hand, he swung upwards. The bloodied end just caught the tip of one of the projectiles. His aim was to time it so he hit just underneath the object, but since it was the first time he had even considered wielding something like a sword, he missed his mark. He may have missed his original target, but his theory may still play out since he planned to have the blood wipe off on another icicle.
He quickly moved to the side by kicking against the ground with the foot that was further back. The other two icicles completely missed him thanks to this, and the one he actually hit spun off and landed in the snow.
His eyes quickly began monitoring the three projectiles to see what they did and, sure enough, the two that didn't have blood wiped on them slowly disintegrated while the third didn't do anything. Blood apparently cancelled out the enemy's ice powers, even though it was a very such a small amount wiped on the tip of the shard. He had no idea as to why it would cancel out the original effect though.
Riya's master turned his attention back to his daemon who was still locked in combat with the enemy. In this moment a fourth icicle flew past his face, lightly cutting the side of his ear. He didn't even have time to react to, it was just a blurred object passing by. If the enemy was aiming a bit more to her left, Esmond would likely be dead now.
The young girl got too happy at the fact that she had finally landed a hit on her target, even though she didn't do any damage. With this, she made the fatal error of taking her eyes off Riya for not even a second. Riya aimed to pierce her enemy's heart in one quick attack, but Esmond stopped her.
"Riya, don't!" He reached out, despite knowing he was nowhere near her.
A tiny stream of blood cruised down the tip of her blade as it cut into the young girl.
Riya clicked her tongue. "Tch, consider yourself lucky."
She pulled her katana back to her side. Only the tip of her blade had cut into the enemy, it wasn't even close to being a fatal wound, although if Esmond had attempted to stop her any later, this young daemon would have been killed.
Riya also finally felt the backlash of her wound from earlier, collapsing. Esmond ran up to check on her with the young daemon just standing there, shocked by the whole ordeal. She couldn't understand why someone would stop an attack that would off the enemy. Especially since she attacked them first, she deserved to have whatever gruesome fate awaited her, yet she was spared.
"Are you alright?" Esmond asked, crouching down beside Riya.
His daemon gathered the strength to sit up, but she wasn't doing anything other than that. "Us daemons heal much faster than regular humans, as you saw earlier. But honestly, that was just a cover up. I simply healed select parts of the wound to stop enough bleeding so I would last longer. The lost blood with be replenished as slowly as yours would and my lung is still a little beat up."
She tried not to show it, but she was happy that her master was showing her attention. He was clearly very worried about her well-being and it also distracted her from the pain a little bit. Esmond noticed that Riya's cheeks turned a bit red, although he assumed it was due to the cold weather.
Esmond's daemon turned her attention towards the young girl standing not too far away from her and her master, who's tiny cut caused by Riya's blade had already healed.
"Umm…" Her voice trembled as she had no idea what to do.
Riya, perhaps intentionally, sent a glare in the direction of the girl. She ended up running behind Esmond, scared.
"What's wrong?" Esmond asked, although it was pretty easy to figure out why she was scared.
The girl looked over Esmond's shoulder at Riya. "That old woman is scary, but you stopped her. You're nicer than her."
"Wha- old?! I wouldn't be that old if I was a human." Riya became angry at the comment and attempted to get up, but couldn't.
"But you're not a human." The girl retorted.
Riya clenched her teeth. "You're lucky I'm still injured, kid."
Esmond let out a sigh and changed the subject, not wanting another fight to start. "I'm curious, why did you attack us?"
The girl thought about it for a bit before saying anything. Apparently this was her territory and Esmond and Riya entered without her permission. By the sound of it, this child-like daemon had been here for a very long time, waiting for someone. She didn't seem to think her old master would be coming back for her though since she was weaker than a lot of other daemons.
"I take this path all the time, so why now?" Esmond couldn't figure that part of the story out. "Is it because I've only recently been able to see daemons?"
"Good point. Daemons can reveal themselves to humans if they wish, so why now is definitely a fair question. Does these mean you've attacked other people?" Riya chimed in with a comment.
The young girl seemed confused by the question. "I was probably asleep. I can't really remember though."
Amnesia? Maybe she was asleep for some time. She could've simply been shocked if me and Riya were the first people she saw after what could have been a long sleep. Esmond thought to himself.
Riya wanted to praise her master for all he did today, it was completely unexpected. "I must say though, master, you did well back there, remaining calm and doing what you planned to do. Seems like you're smart and observant, master."
She hadn't noticed a single thing that Esmond had until he explained it all to her just before he asked her to keep the enemy busy, like the fact that the ice shards disappeared except the one with blood on it. She was genuinely impressed with her master and thought he would make a fine ghost agent one day.
"So, you're a daemon just like Riya, huh. Why not come along with us? It seems lonely here."
Esmond's comment shocked both of the girls for different reasons. To Riya, not only was this completely out of nowhere, it could also be an indication that he was going to become a ghost agent and seemed to want to help those weaker than himself. To the young girl, this was the first time in a very long time that she had been shown kindness, but she liked it.
Her shock eventually turned into a smile. "Sure!"
"Oh right, what's your name, kid?" Esmond completely forgot that he didn't actually know her name, even though she will now be joining his team alongside Riya.
"Icicle."
He didn't like this at all, it made her sound like an object, not a person. He quickly racked his brain for a new name that wasn't too far off her original name.
"Cele." It certainly sounded better than an object. "How about that? Your new name. It sounds a lot better than Icicle, right?"
Riya couldn't help but be happy with her master. She really did make the right choice in choosing him. She was annoyed at herself that she had struggled to protect him against a simple enemy like Cele, so she would begin training everyday after this to ensure she is strong enough in the future because there was no telling when something could go south.
An even bigger smile grew on the girl's face. "I like it!"
Cele threw her arms around her new master, thanking him for the name. He didn't think much of it, but he would quickly learn how sheltered this young daemon really was.
"Well then, let's go home."
Esmond pat Cele on the head after she let go of him and picked up Riya. As payback for earlier, he held his daemon the way she held him during the fight. The princess carry.
"Master, I can walk!"
"Sorry, but that's not happening. You said it yourself, right? You're still injured. Plus you keep calling me master even though I asked you not to. Oh, and you also held me like this not too long ago."
Riya couldn't help but be embarrassed, resulting in her planting her face into Esmond's coat. Thanks to the thick coat, her face was completely hidden.
"But, well, I might not be here if it wasn't for you, so thanks." His tone changed to reflect the more serious side of him.
"Don't mention it, it's what I'm here for, Esmond." Riya stated, although her voice was slightly muffled because of Esmond's coat.
Riya felt that whoever came up with the idea of carrying someone like this was a cruel person. There was nowhere to put her arms, except around her master. She reminded herself multiple times that the only reason her arms were around her master the way they were was to stop her falling. Esmond seemed to be sturdier than she had thought, as carrying his Daemon didn't seem to phase him at all. To Esmond, Riya was just acting like an embarrassed teenager at this point. Her age clearly wasn't measured the same as humans, Esmond had gathered that much, but he assumed she'd be in her twenties if she really was a human.
Not too far into the walk Esmond looked down to check on Riya since she had been quiet for a few minutes. She was sleeping soundly in his arms. The fight must have really taken her strength away, and it's said that the human body heals quicker while it sleeps. But then again, she was a daemon. Esmond began to get curious as to how daemons actually work. They appear to have human bodies, but are different in almost every other way. They live for what seems like an extremely long time, they heal much faster, they can even have powers like creating and controlling ice. Esmond was interested to see what would come next.
And, as the young master thought about all of this, Cele skipped alongside him, holding on to Riya's weapon.
They eventually arrived at Esmond's house. He got to the front door and realised he couldn't open the door.
"Cele, can you grab the keys out of my coat pocket please?"
Cele looked at him, confused. "Keys?"
Really? There is a limit to how sheltered someone can be. Whatever, it's the only thing in the pocket.
After a bit of explaining, Esmond finally got Cele to open the door. He directed her into the living room and got her to hand him the remote for the TV so she could be entertained while he sorted Riya out. He figured putting a children's show on would work, and it did, like a charm.
He threw the remote onto the nearest chair and carried Riya into one of his guest rooms. Once she was resting on the bed, he finally felt relieved as she was much heavier than he thought she would be.
"I guess that's it then, I'm a ghost agent. I'm sure it'll be fun." He said, even though he knew Riya was unconscious. "Just don't make me worry like that again, all right?"
Esmond sighed. Guess I'll just make me and Cele something with the leftovers tonight and order something tomorrow morning.
It seems like his own body was finally feeling the weight of a fight, despite not doing a lot, it was mentally exhausting. He became sluggish and wanted to move less and less. As he made his way downstairs he slowly began to get rid of the items on his body he didn't need, like his coat and shoes. He remained comfy in his simple long-sleeved shirt and jeans.
He finally reached the entrance to the living room. Cele had been kneeling on the carpet, watching the TV.
"Master, master, what is this?!" He was greeted with an excited young daemon. "Does it use magic, just like me?!"
He instantly knew it would be beyond Cele to understand what a TV was right now. "Well, something like that, yeah."
He slowly made his way to the comfy leather armchair he normally used. It was a good feeling, to rest after what happened earlier.
As soon as he sat down Cele jumped on him. "Master!"
"It's getting late and I'm worn out, so just chill. I'm not going anywhere." Esmond said in a gentle tone.
Cele cuddled up to him, but with her head turned just enough to still be able to watch the TV.
Esmond began thinking, would he soon be able to fight alongside Riya if he trained? Since it was her duty to serve him, surely she would have to listen if he asked to be trained. He didn't know much about what would happen in the future, but he didn't want to be left on the sidelines, always protected. He was also going to do his best to educate Cele as he felt bad for her knowing barely anything.
While thinking this, Esmond slowly drifted off to sleep and, as if sleeping was contagious, Cele followed suit a few minutes later, falling asleep while cuddling up to her master.