Well. This one is far more comedic chapter. Some less mature humor here. Please enjoy everyone.

Chapter 17
"Stinking Letters"

As Lucifugus brought up the box of letters from below his desk the smell of it was now filling in the entire workshop. It was terrible. The stench was overwhelming. Lucifugus seemed to have little reaction, but Healer though...

"BLEGH! FOR ALL THE UNDERWORLD AND LEVELS, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?" She blurted out as soon as he put it down on the desk.

It was pretty strange to hear her curse like that. But to be fair, what could one do in a situation like this? Even Pen seemed to be overwhelmed by the stench, but tried his hardest to not say anything, but his eyes seemed like they were about to explode.

"It's the letters." Lucifugus answered bluntly as he looked at the pile of letters in this filthy box.

"*COUGH* *COUGH*" Healer seemed like she was slowly dying because of this abominable smell and turned away from them "But WHY are they stinking so bad.. GKHH!"

She looked like she was about to vomit her guts out. For Lucifugus it was rather funny to see this rather composed individual in this state. Pen on the other hand looked like he was about to pass out. His whole body was wobbling and his tongue was out. He was definitely about to fall on the desk.

*SLAP*

Lucifugus quickly slapped his small frame with his hand to make him more awake. His body shaked a bit, but he seemed to get better. He just put his thumb up as he stopped, but still looked rather sick. But back to Healer's question.

"If I remember correctly I kept them there for about 2 years I think" At least that was as far as he remembered "Seems like it wasn't good for them."

"But I don't think *cough* letters even start to stink like this!" Healer could barely speak "What *cough* are these... made of?"

"If you talk about my book I'd like to remind you that I'm still one of the higher class so naturally I have access to the best material one could have in Underworld." Lucifugus said as he patted the book's open pages "Now guess what Lower class has to use in order to write letters and then think about that most of those are from lower classes."

Healer didn't speak for a moment. Seems like she got what Lucifugus was saying. Or she tried not to suffocate. But definitely didn't want to guess what these were made of. Finally Lucifugus grabbed pile of letters into his hands and placed them next to the box and then closed box itself and put it where it was before. The stench was still strong from the pile he grabbed, but thankfully it wasn't as bad as it was before. Allowing Healer and Pen to breathe a bit more clearly.

Now you lot read them

"Now read them." Lucifugus commanded

"What?" And Healer was confused

"I tried quite a few times to read them, but as you can see I'm a bit too large and it's hard for me to read and even hold them." He of course didn't want to remind anyone that he can change his size in Underworld, but given how Healer looked at him she didn't need a reminder "It may be easier with you."

Lucifugus said in a very mocking tone. He definitely wanted some revenge on Healer for ridiculing him so much recently. Healer gave him a look that just screamed "I REALLY hate you" and "If I was the right size I would have ripped your horns out and make a fortune out of them!", but she complied with his request and took a random letter from the pile. It had very greenish color and was pretty sticky. Just touching it seemed to make her sick. Pen also didn't seem to be very fond of being so close to it. She slowly opened it to see what was written inside and to no surprise letters were all bloody, what was surprising though was that you could still read the content of the letter. Pen near her was waiting with anticipation on what was written with a hand over his nose and Lucifugus was looking down, waiting for her to read it. And the words were...

"I... Valu shet... mor then yur... lif... by Kulgo"

Not amusing...

"I sometimes really hate this place..." Healer's contempt seemed to rise pretty damn high right now

"Well you gotta start positive." Lucifugus said with little care

"This is positive start My Lord?" Healer asked with genuine concern

"Compared to what's most likely coming next..." He looked to the ceiling with a finger on his chin and then quickly looked down at her with a very painful smile "Yes."

"Lucifero Dammit."

Healer already felt defeated, but she did took another letter from the horrid pile. Actually she took 3, the quicker it will be done the better. They were no better than the last one in terms of how they felt to touch and their looks. The contents though.

"Okay, so we have Yur laws are dumb! " Healer was trying to imitate some Devil's voices, her voice was usually rather nice to listen to so her trying to sound as annoying as possible was pretty entertaining "Get a luif yu big ear frik!"

Okay... That is going to far. Execute whoever wrote this!

"Later..." He answered without thinking

"What?" Healer was dumbfounded

"Uhh... Later what My Lord?" Pen was no better

"NOTHING!" Lucifugus lashed out causing both of them to back away a bit. Lucifugus quickly calmed down "Continue Healer"

Healer just nodded although she looked pretty concerned now, Pen on the other hand seemed to forget about this rather quickly

"Me hop yu dei ya trashy trash trash!" Healer finished the last one... She definitely wasn't very impressed

"Yeah... Sounds about right." Lucifugus just couldn't be mad at this point. It was just part of this miserable course.

"I WILL HURT THOSE!" Pen started to get pretty angry to the point when he started shaking "NO ONE INSULTS OUR LORD!"

Pen quickly took those letters and started tearing them apart while screaming "Take this you monsters!". He probably thought they were the ones insulting him.

"My lord..." Healer now talked with a wore down voice "WHY is no one checking those letters before sending them here?"

A fair question

"Because at the time Creep was the one that brought them and he definitely didn't want to read them." Lucifugus explained "(Not like I can blame him... Like fucking hell)"

Lucifugus was clearly annoyed, but couldn't really get mad over it.

"My lord. Maybe we need some sort of division that checks those letters." Healer suggested as she flew up to his face "One that throws away the trash and keeps actually constructive criticism."

This sounded so naive Lucifugus almost burst out with laughter, but he held himself back.

"You think there is something like this among this pile of trash?" Lucifugus said as he pointed at the pile with his hand

"Yes... I do believe that." Now her voice turned far more serious "I've met enough Devils to believe that there can be good letters here."

"Hmph..." Obviously he didn't believe it "Alright. Try to find me one. If you do I'll make sure to listen to all of your judgements and next time I'll try to find someone else for this."

At those words Healer was definitely far more eager to get through the pile without caring about the smell. She took few letters. 2 seemed weirdly normal, almost clean somehow, like they were made of a similar material his book was. One was a bit heavy and 3 other ones were about the same as the last ones.

"Okay first those filthy ones."

With a heavy heart she started opening the first one

"Hep, my femily starv! Hous token! by Lukiu, 3rd level." Healer while annoyed seemed to be feeling sad for whoever wrote this "... I hope they are alright"

She cares way too much about trash

"You care way too much about trash." Lucifugus pointed out

But the answer he got from Healer was one piercing glare, not of anger now, but just disappointment which for some reason made Lucifugus feel worse. She just put the letter on the ground.

"(Not listening to you ever again)" He answered it in his mind

You will

"Shit on yu and yur bok! no name." Healer quickly threw it away "I hate you with all my heart and soul My Lord. Love from Tars from 3rd level".

"At least that last one was well written." Pen pointed out, trying to look for positives

"Agreed. Strangely enough it was the most polite one." Lucifugus didn't know what to think about that

"*sigh* Still not what we are looking for." She said as she put the letter on the ground with the "cry for help" letter and picked out the biggest letter "What is this heavy one? Let's see-"

*BOOM*

Then as she opened the heavy letter it exploded with a yellow gas and goo all over the area. It made both Pen and Healer yellow from top to bottom and some of it got on Lucifugus's body, but somehow it didn't reach the book itself.

Terrible miracle

"(That I agree with)" Sadly

"BLEGH GHHKH! Some of it... GHAKH... Got into my mouth..." Healer was choking on whatever that was "GHKKH... What is this!?"

Healer looked for an answer in the letter. She managed to start reading it despite choking on this strange filth

"I hate you so much I took my..." Oh boy "MGGH!"

And Healer couldn't hold it back any longer and vomited all over the desk and at the same time tried to tear out her tongue. It was strangely long like that of a snake. Pen was just watching still covered in this filth, most likely not understanding what is this or what just happened. Thankfully he wasn't eating any of it. Then Lucifugus, not amused by this horrid situation reached out into the box of Pen and took a small, Devil from it that looked partially like a fly.

"Clean. Now!" Lucifugus commanded it with a booming voice

The little Devil got very scared and used his special Water magic all over everyone. This fly Devil ironically was the cleanest one of them all, prepared for this kind of situation, sometimes he used him as an eraser for his book. Soon everyone was clean of this filth. Of course he had to make sure to not let any of this to fall onto his Law Book despite how much he wanted to erase all of it. But tons of it got on the pile of letters, making the air a bit clearer as the stench was washed away.

"*Cough* *cough* Thank you my lord..." Healer gave him a small thankful smile

It seemed like she had some blood dripping from her eyes. It was a strange sight. She seemed very sick. Pen was more or less still sitting there. Seems like the filthy nature of this day really got to him.

"Pen! What are you doing!?" Lucifugus asked Pen who was just sitting there for some time now

"I just remembered why we were not doing it anymore my Lord." Pen said before he fall down on his back like he was defeated in a fight.

"Hmm. Healer, what did that letter said." Lucifugus remained composed however.

Healer took a quick glance on the letter that was now on the floor. Some letters were washed away, but some of the contents could still be read.

"And I asked local curser to turn all of it into a bomb. That's for smashing my head so much on the desk and making fun of my poetry, try catching me if you can" But sadly his address and name were washed away.

"Oh for fuck sake. It was that one." Lucifugus slapped his face with his right hand as he remembered that damn Pen "Okay. Let's get to those clean ones now. Maybe they have something good."

Thankfully they seemed to be untouched by this recent washing

"Before that My lord. I believe we need to discuss something." Healer said as she again flew up to his face which was getting annoying to Governor of Underworld

"What now?"

"You should make a law that restricts the content of letters send to you. If any of them are lacking in actual criticism, bring unneeded harm and only waste time there should be a punishment for people that send them." She said as she pointed at his face, then raised one of her fingers in the air "I'll say about 100 Horns should be enough. And of course every single one must have a Name, level and horn shape drawn on the letter if possible."

Healer really seemed to be thinking of everything here. It was quite impressive to Lucifugus.

"You really thought this through didn't you?"

Healer just gave him a smile in return. It made him feel better for some reason. Then she started flying down

"I started thinking about it in the moment I read that first letter." She landed on the desk and shake her hair away that were starting to get in the way. "Now let's get to the clean ones."

Pen quickly gave them to her from the ground he was laying on. It was surprising to see and touch actually clean ones for Healer. They seemed to be made of better material. Maybe some rich Middles or even Highs wrote them. The thing these letters were made of were still questionable and blood was still used as ink, but at least there was no horrid stench, stickiness or bombs. Healer was definitely far more positive about those.

"First one says The law enforcement is getting too eager to lock up every Devil they meet on the street. Sometimes even Honor Duels are disrupted and there are many signs of corruption in their higher ranks. Please help us with them because our Lord makes no move to stop them. Grog from 4th level." Healer while reading it was putting on a bit more serious voice, but she still put one on nonetheless. She probably had fun with it.

"That's your level right?" Lucifugus quickly noticed "You know him?"

Grog... yeah, I think Warmonger once fought him, a rather interesting fight, he uses Corrosive magic if I remember correctly." She seemed to get a bit more cheerful tone as she started talking about him "He is rather honorable person, he even tore out his own horns once he lost to Warmonger which he quickly refused. He also has contacts with one of the Stone Masons so he definitely has accurate information."

"OOH OOH! Can we have adventure with those!? PLEASE MY LORD!"

Pen jumped up to his feet reinvigorated. The promise of adventure really pumped him up.

"No Pen. Not today." But Lucifugus quickly shut it off "And you don't need to have good connections to know about the corruption. In a way I designed it to be like this. I really liked bringing misery in this fashion."

Lucifugus was really blunt with that statement.

"*sigh* I know that My Lord." Healer rubbed her forehead with her right hand "But now we can change something for the better. I mean, even you seem to want to change something."

"..."

There was no answer. Healer's way of looking at Lucifugus was giving away how much she wanted one... But he couldn't give

Was she right? Was she wrong? You said you *liked* it? Don't you do now? What changed? Did anything changed? Is this what you want to know Lucifugus?

"Okay... let's get to that 2nd one" She gave up waiting for Lucifugus's answer, most likely she wants this letter reading to be finally over "Can you do something about the Lech beer."

...

That was confusing question. Even for Healer. Then Pen raised his hand gaining Lucifugus's attention.

"What's a Lech beer?"

He asked Lucifugus who didn't answer for a while. He seemed to try to think about the answer. Get into his memories to remember what that means. Then he finally said something as some parts resurfaced.

"Some shit from 2nd or 3rd level. Don't bother."

Don't think about it

"What?!"

Healer and Pen said in unison

"I said what I said. Just ignore it." Lucifugus was persistent

"My lord... What is this Lech Beer?" Healer also joined in this annoying pestering

"I don't know!" Lucifugus screamed. The answer wasn't satisfying for either of them. Healer tried to reach out to him again

"But you don't want to talk about it so you must-"

"I DON'T know!" Lucifugus got more angry

Then Pen spoke again

"Another story!? PLEASE MY LORD!" He was pretty excited

"NO!" Lucifugus stood up and slammed his hands on the desk "I have no story with this because I don't know what it is!"

Pen was left silent. Healer though was not.

"But you said it's something from 2nd or 3rd level so-"

"Yes... I did." He sat down again, trying to calm down "But that's as far as my memories go for now. All I know is that this "Beer" thing pisses me off and I don't want to talk about it. Just the name itself annoys the Underworld out of me."

"My lord... with all due respect is there ANYTHING that doesn't piss you off in one way or the other?"

Healer asked Lucifugus. There was mostly silence for a minute. Lucifugus tried to go through his mind to think of something, anything, but nothing came up. Just void and that also was pissing him off.

"That's a fair point." Lucifugus admitted "But if I had to say what pisses me off the least..."

Everything has something worthy to be angry about.

Then it hit him...

"My lord?" Healer try to fly up to him, but before she did...

"...You..." Lucifugus said in quiet tone

"Huh!?"

WHAT!?

Healer was stunned for a bit to the point where she fell to the ground. And Pen was smiling like never before.

"I don't hate both of you as much as anything else..." It was interesting, it would seem at first that they were pissing him off more than anything else, but now... "You are not as bad as everything else I remember (aside of maybe the time when Lucifero... No... That will never come back.)"

Lucifugus sinked into his chair a bit as this strange reality hit him... What was going on?

"I...I..." Healer was speechless for a moment "It's a GREAT HONOR MY LORD!"

Healer quickly stood up and bowed her head before Lucifugus. Strangely enough this sort of reverence from her WAS pissing him off. Where was that Devil that looked him straight in the eye with no fear when he was ready to kill her?

"THANK YOU MY LORD!"

But Pen instead jumped high and hugged one of his horns. That... didn't piss him off. That was the Pen he knows and Pen he always saw. But the act of touching him was pissing him off a bit.

"Okay, stop both of you!" Lucifugus tried to make his voice as strict as possible, but it was hard with all those thoughts in his head and Pen stuck to his horns

Pen didn't let go. He seemed content with being a parasite on his horn. Healer also seemed reluctant to look at him and his her face behind her hair again. Still it was strangely adorable.

"Healer..." Lucifugus moved her hair a bit and once she looked up pointed at Pen at his horn "Can you please..."

At this command Healer stopped bowing and flew to the Lucifugus's horn to take Pen away. It took some great effort from her considering how fragile she was, but Pen finally let go of his horn and both of them flew down. But on the way down Healer for the first time looked at inside of Pen's skull. Remains of his brain... It was... not good. But now was not the time. She realized that once both of them reached the desk.

"I'm sorry My lord..." She started playing with her hair again "It's just-"

"I know." Lucifugus stopped her "But if anyone here should thank anyone it's..."

For the first time... his words were stuck in his throat like this. It felt like he was about to choke on them.

Thank them for what? What do you want to thank them for? You are Lucifugus so why are you thanking them?

"It's okay my lord. We understand."

Healer spoke up with a smile before he could finish. She also stopped playing with her hair.

"Right..." Lucifugus scratched the back of his head

"Maybe we should go to write something to fix at least the problem with those letters."

She said while she pointed at still large pile of less stinking letters. He just nodded and took the pile away and put it back into the box to be read on another day. Now it's time to fix some things. But to Healer there was one thing on her mind. The inside of Pen's skull.

TBC in Chapter 18
"Troubles of broken Pens"

Don't mind that Lech beer part. For now I have some plans for it, but I don't exactly know WHAT it will be about because I thought up until now we would have in BC manga Devil Adramelech or some sign of him. Whatever it will be, I promise I'll try to make it funny. But for now it's in the pile of "On Hold' ideas. I have quite a few of those.