Seto woke up slowly the next morning, staring at slanted rafters above, secretly hoping he was vacationing at one of his cabins, but the tiny window with dirty glass right above his head told him otherwise.
Maybe it was too much to hope that he would wake up in a hospital bed?
He rolled over and froze when his nose grazed the sharp point of someone's elbow, and he jerked his head up, his heart racing when he realized Yami was asleep beside him, his chest rising and falling peacefully.
Oh. Okay…cram on the bed with me, Seto thought sourly as he pushed the covers off himself to see that since he was so tiny, there was in fact a lot of room on the bed for Yami to sleep beside him. When he sat up, his chubby legs only reached the center of Yami's stomach.
Is there a spell to give me my adult body back? Seto wondered anxiously as he rested his hand on Yami's shoulder and gave him a shake, waking him up slowly.
"Yami…" Seto said quietly, and he watched Yami's eyelids flutter, giving him a shock when he saw a strange glowing light emanating from underneath his lids.
Wh-What the fuck was that?!
Anytime Yami exhibited inhuman traits, it gave him a fright because Yami looked human.
Yami's eyes slowly opened, and they glowed eerily, lighting up the entire room when a dark shadow inched from underneath the bed to envelope Yami's slender form before it disappeared as quickly as it came.
Seto swallowed nervously, deeply regretting having woken him up. Why did it look like his fucking soul had left his body while he was sleeping? And was the soul supposed to be this menacing, dark shadow?!
"I was meditating," Yami said reassuringly as he sat up and gave Seto's knee a gentle pat. "What do you need?"
"W-What was that?" Seto asked fearfully as he inched away from Yami. "Your soul?"
Yami beamed handsomely and nodded, "Yes. You can see my soul?"
Seto shook his head slowly in disbelief. How he wished he couldn't see Yami's soul?!
"Are you hungry? Let's get you something to eat," Yami said warmly as he climbed out of bed and stretched lightly. "And I've managed to find a solution for your mirror. Let me get started on it."
Seto grit his teeth and nodded, tucking his legs underneath himself formally as he asked, "Is there a spell you can use on me to age me up?"
Yami gave him a funny look and sat down in the middle of the room, shaking his head lightly.
"Why would you want that? Don't be silly."
The mage materialized a piece of wood alongside a shard of glass and hovered his hand over it while Seto watched glumly.
Why didn't Yami want to help age him up? He was useless as a kid.
I'll try again, Seto thought darkly as he watched a large hand mirror appear atop Yami's knees.
"Please give me my adult body back," Seto said quietly, and Yami gave him another confused look.
"Back?" Yami echoed calmly as he held his hand out invitingly and pointed at his palm. "Could you lend me a pinch of your horn's powder please? Your past lives are separate from the one you live now. I'll get you a book on reincarnation."
Don't fucking need to learn about that, Seto raged as he hopped off the bed to stand by his cloak which was hanging off the bedpost, and after some digging around, he found the pouch containing his horns and the glass vials of horn powder, throwing it at Yami with so much force, it zoomed across the room and hit Yami square in the chest.
"Gently please," Yami said patiently, materializing a large book to set it on the ground beside him, and he consulted the pages before carefully emptying the contents of one vial atop the mirror in a small pile.
"Age me up," Seto said coldly as he stood before Yami who was bent over the mirror on the ground, whispering into it like a madman, and his irritation for the spiky-haired mage rose.
There was a smoky flash and the scent of singed hair that made Seto's nose wrinkle, and the hand mirror was offered to him with the gentle smile that was pissing him off so much. If he didn't know any better, it felt like maybe Yami wanted to keep him in baby form, because he had a weird complex about saving babies.
"I don't want to be a fucking baby anymore," Seto added stiffly as he crossed his arms firmly across his tiny chest. "It's annoying, and I want to help out as an adult."
"You can't skip your childhood like that," Yami insisted quietly as he gripped the mirror harder when Seto refused to take it. "You were robbed of your family and your village…. I know you want to grow up fast but this isn't the way to do it!"
"Please! I want to be useful!" Seto raised his voice before he could stop himself and he felt the rafters shake from the volume, and he winced, knowing Mai was going to be storming up to tell him to shut up.
"You're useful now!" Yami cried, his eyes widened with sorrow at the tantrum Seto was throwing about his own age. "Here. Please take a look into this mirror now. It shouldn't explode."
Seto hissed and swiped it from Yami's hand to glare at his own reflection, shocked to see similar orbs floating above his head. Oh. Hey.
It worked.
Wait.
Squinting at his reflection, Seto wondered why the numbers beside his orbs were so tiny, and he glanced up to look at the tips of Yami's spiky hair, counting eight seconds before the glowing spheres appeared.
Beside a yellow sphere above Yami's head was a five-digit number.
80,209
Seto glanced down into the mirror and noticed a 9-digit number beside his yellow sphere, and nearly dropped the mirror.
Um… Was this correct?!
He hadn't seen nine digits in anyone else's stats!
In fact, the more he looked, the more terrifying his own stats appeared. His mind slowly rearranged the characters into Japanese the more he waited, and finally, he could see all the information floating above his head.
[health points] 790,203, 860
[magic points] 730,009,241
[stamina] 720,896,040
Wait… I think this is how much money I died with, Seto thought anxiously, doing some quick mental math and getting to roughly 2.3 billion. Okay, yeah. That sounded about right.
"What's wrong?" Yami asked gently, having seen Seto's face turn ashen and then go through a series of emotional distortions, starting out with confusion and then melting into a wide-eyed horrified look.
Seto lowered the mirror and gazed directly into Yami's angular violent eyes, willing his voice to remain steady as he asked, "how powerful can demons get? Is there a limit? How powerful are you compared to other mages?"
"I'm proficient enough," Yami replied humbly, thinking he was one of the top-ranked magicians in the 5 districts, which was why he had to take on a name other than the one on the assigned scrolls.
Right, he's using a fake name because his real name gets recognized, Seto read Yami's mind fluidly and gazed into Yami's thoughtful face as the mage pulled out another book and fanned through the pages, his eyes darting from left to right as he searched for something.
"Not much is known about your species," Yami answered honestly, not wanting to give the child a wrong answer about his own power, so he read directly from his own grimoire. "No one has been able to come up with a way to measure or appraise the power of a fully-matured demon. What we know can be derived from the spells they perform and what it takes to summon one. We highly advise against—"
Yami stopped reading and turned pink before he clapped the book shut and said hastily, "that's it. The rest is nonsense about demons being violent creatures, which is clearly not true… because look at you! You were hungry and weak, and you didn't attack me."
"I'm a kid, and you were nice to me first." Seto said flatly, rolling his eyes and wondering how stupid Yami had to be, but then he recalled how little fighting his own clan had done when confronted with magical rain, and he couldn't help but wonder why they didn't put up a bigger fight. With these amazing stats, one mere look could've killed one mage… right?
Or is it because we are a peaceful species? Seto realized glumly, understanding that their clan had shown everyone mercy, and allowed themselves to be killed instead of fighting back until it rained blood.
And if we had fought back to win, that would confirm to them that we are wild and dangerous… And then they'd send more armies until they made sure everyone was wiped out, Seto sat down heavily on the hardwood floor, his heart sinking.
It was a lose-lose.
If they had fought back, they'd be misunderstood… and then killed.
If they just took the attacks 'peacefully', they'd be killed… Which was what had happened.
The sobbing woman at the village hacking off their horns had done it to him for 'survival among humans'. Now it was looking like 'survival among other monsters too', because of the insanely powerful stats he had, everyone feared demons first at the sound of their names without even bothering to know who they were as individuals.
Wow, I hate it here! Seto reeled, gripping his own ankles and feeling tears building annoyingly behind his eyes again.
"S-Seto? I'm sorry for reading it out to you…" Yami said frantically, vanishing all the books around them and awkwardly placing the mirror down atop the child's lap again, aware that tears were imminent. "Don't take what the book says—"
"Nobody fought back," Seto growled aggressively, giving Yami a tearful glare while his cheeks burned with fury. "All we did was run and hide, and run again. You want to know my power? The number has nine digits."
There was a cold silence as Yami stared at the child.
N-Nine?! Yami paled and steadily grew numb all over as he tried to fathom what that would even look like. It put their slaughter into a terrible perspective. The humans wanted to wipe them out precisely because of this! Their power was comparable to that of dragons!
"I could only imagine my older brother was ten times more powerful than what I'm seeing in myself now." Seto added ruthlessly, aiming to shock Yami further. "Instead of killing all the hooded mages in front of us in that moment, he chose to push me off the riverbank and into the water. He let them… kill him…"
Shaking with rage, Seto dug his fingers into his knees and stared at the ground, his heart heavy with hatred and sorrow.
Yami leaned forward and pulled the child into a tight embrace, wincing when tears stung his shoulders, but he healed himself quickly and said nothing, listening to the soft patter of footsteps coming up the stairs, and the door behind him burst open cheerfully.
"Yooohoooo! It's soup time! Seto! Yamiiiii!" Mai sang, and then she noticed the dark aura shrouding the two in the middle of the room, so she closed the door with a snap, breaking out into a cold sweat, deciding instead to call out, "Come down soon! Love youuuu!"
"Yikes," she muttered under her breath as she hurried back down the steps. This type of thing happened any time Yami picked up a cracked egg or an abandoned creature.
Seto was no different.
He just outclassed all the other harmless creatures Yami usually picked up.
Yami released Seto from his embrace and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, helping the child to his feet and moving to grab the cloak off the bedpost, draping it lovingly over his tiny shoulders and clasping the button in the middle under his chin.
"Well, thank you for not attacking me, even though the ones you despise are mages. I thought it was humans," Yami said seriously, feeling a pang of fear shoot through him when he realized Seto had shown him restraint upon their first meeting too. Damn.
Seto could've killed him on the spot if he wanted to.
With a nine-digit status sphere, there wasn't anything in the world that Seto couldn't kill. That thought was terrifying, and Yami reminded himself to show even more kindness to the demon child.
Seto nodded and plopped the mage's hat on his head, following Yami out of the room and down the steps, thinking he didn't hate mages more than humans. Both groups were hostile towards him and had directly caused the death of his immediate family.
So I hate them both equally, Seto thought mildly as he realized the irony of this while wearing a mage's cloak.
Well, Yami was different.
Was Yami different?
He is. Seto told himself firmly as he sat down at the tiny stool where Mai had prepared all the spoiled ingredients for him.
Mai approached him from behind and Seto didn't react when she rested a hand down on his shoulder and gave him a squeeze before brushing past him to walk out of the bar.
In that moment, he felt a jolt of compassion and warmth from her that shocked him.
So her words were often cold but her actions were kind.
This was why Yami used her restaurant as a safehouse for his saved creatures.
She really cared…deep down.
He squeezed a dollop of spoiled soy paste and felt Yami peek his head over the edge of the bar, calling down to him, "can you handle yourself here while I spend the afternoon fortifying my house? I'm making it special…for you!"
Seto glanced up and gave Yami a beaming smile, nodding enthusiastically before lowering his head to continue filling the other bowls, missing the way Yami flushed pink.
Yami passed Mai on his way out the door and whispered to her urgently, "be kind to him! His spheres are nine digits!"
"That's not news. Why do you think elves don't mingle with demons?" Mai replied calmly, completely unfazed. "Have fun draining all your MP to protect the demon baby who doesn't even need your help. I told you this one was dangerous and you still wanna keep him. Better hurry up with your house. You're wearing my hospitality thin."
Yami flushed and gave her a defeated grimace before exiting, leaving the door propped open behind him for the small line that was forming out along the side of the building.
He stopped in his tracks to gaze fearfully at the small crowd and decided to ask the nearest mage wearing a dark green cloak.
"What's this line for?" He asked her, and she lowered her hood to give him a confused look.
"Weren't you just in there to drink it?" She replied. "I heard it's an All-Status curing soup! Are you that District 5 mage named Atem…?"
"No. We just bear a strong resemblance," Yami hiked his own hood up to cover his hair and eyes before walking a few paces down the street to teleport home, his heart thundering in his chest at being recognized by a junior mage so suddenly, he had to lean against a nearby tree to gather his bearings.
His house was half-finished, and now he had the funds to build it up to his standards.
Mai and Seto must be working hard because that line was 15 people strong, Yami mused as he got to work levitating slats of lumber to lay them into the foundation of his house, bracing himself to use up all his power today building, but it was for a good cause. Seto needed a safe, quiet place to live, and he couldn't keep the child at Mai's tavern forever.
She was tolerant, but he was pushing their friendship to a limit with Seto's arrival.
Back at the inn, Seto was sweating as he ran out of the bar, balancing four cups of soup on his tray while wearing an apron Mai had made for him. He'd taken off the cloak because the sleeves were so long, he'd almost accidentally drenched it into someone's soup.
The monsters who he served were kind and cooing at him in that annoying sappy way when they talked to babies, and Mai was aware of this, so she made him approach the larger tables where adventurers were sitting in groups.
All he had to do was stand quietly to the side while someone grabbed or levitated the bowls off the tray for him, gushing, "awwww… What a good little helper!" and "A little elf boy! What a cutie! …Hey Mai, is he yours?"
And Mai turned around with a scoff, "are you kidding me? It's that mage's kid!"
The kangaroo man holding the bowl of soup downed it in one gulp and set the empty cup back on his tray, smiling, "ah, that spiky-haired mage from District 5, eh?"
"Mage Atem from District 5? I know he comes here often," Another creature from the table piped up, handing Seto his empty bowl, and Seto dutifully walked over to hold his tray up to take it, listening intently to their tone. Why the surprise?
"Daaamn, seems like all the skilled mages are from District 5," a man with goat ears said wistfully, nursing the cup of soup underneath his chin.
What's so special about District 5? Seto thought sourly as he stood beside the goat-eared man and held the tray up impatiently. To his horror, the man heard him and turned to give him a wide-eyed look.
"What? Aren't you from District 5 if you're his ward?" The man asked lightly, and Mai rushed to block Seto from view as she reached behind her back to grab the child by the wrist, laughing nervously.
"He's 30 and gets things confused all the time!" Mai waved a hand over her nose as her fingers tightened over Seto's wrist. "Kids are so funny, aren't they? Nap time, babe?"
"No." Seto replied staunchly, trying not to wince as her fingers tightened further around his wrist. Ow? Could he ask her about District 5 later then?
"Yes." She answered stiffly, giving him a knowing look and tilting her head at the stairs. "Up. Be a good boy. I'll call you down when everyone's gone. You did great today."
Fine, Seto wrinkled his nose at her and walked back up the steps, eager to get away from the noise anyway.
He could hear the patrons praising him and gushing at him some more when he passed their tables.
"Aw... You got a good kid there, Mai."
"Shut up. That's Yami's problem."
"That's Yami's ward? Lucky kid. He'll make a great mage!"
"A baby mage! Waw! Is he mixed species? Sure looks like it."
"Look at his little apprentice hat. Adorable."
Gugh, Seto rolled his eyes and decided to entertain himself with the books Yami had bought for him. There were tons of books in the room upstairs, he could try to read them all before Yami returned.
He'd just passed the last table when one of the patrons lowered her hand to give him something. It was a glittering green gem that made his eyes water, so he accepted it quickly with a nod and tucked it into his pocket. Many hands began appearing at his height when the patrons all sitting at that table handed him gifts too, and Seto felt oddly put on the spot, feeling Mai watching him as he accepted every single gift and lowered his head in thanks.
Well, crap.
Maybe he shouldn't have taken anything in the first place.
"Aw… You're a great kid," the giraffe-headed woman closest to him gave him a pat on the head and Seto froze when he felt her palm land on one of his horn stubs. O-Oh shit….
"Oop! Sorry!" She cried, withdrawing her hand quickly and giving him a wave. "Go on. Enjoy your hoard. I know little dragons like you love that type of thing!"
Seto tried to give her a smile and hoped it didn't come off as a grimace as he dashed away up the stairs, his pockets weighing down heavily when he bounded up two at a time and threw himself into the safety of his room.
He knelt quickly to empty the gems with a clatter onto the floor, his heart swelling with joy at the sight of multicolored stones littered before him. Should it bother him that half of the people in the pub thought he was an elf while the other half thought he was a dragon, with no one guessing correctly?
Whatever, Seto thought happily as he picked up the emerald and watched it sparkle. It was as large as his fist. Damn. What was this worth?
He sat back and took a deep breath. "Appraise!"
And a white light covered the floor and traveled up the walls before vanishing quickly, and several percentages along with a short description popped up.
[emerald] – SiO2 , yellow-green cyclosilicate.
Mined from: Chatlam's Dungeon.
Rarity: COMMON.
Cut by: Adventure Ibyx (level 63)
Clarity: Flawed.
Seto blinked and sat back, understanding he'd been given a garbage item. A motherfucking flawed emerald cut by an amateur dungeon raider who probably mined a bunch of them, hoping to sell them, but vendors probably saw that it was trash too, so what did that giraffe woman do? Give it as a tip to a kid at the pub as a little freebie, so maybe he shouldn't complain…
Fair. But unfair, Seto growled, moving onto the next few gems, his blood boiling with rage and disappointment.
[ruby] – Al2O3, chromium red, aluminum oxide
Mined from: Moioh's Gorge
Rarity: COMMON
Cut by: Healer Brodrik (level 70)
Clarity: Slight Inclusions
Another trash item, Seto thought coldly as he moved on to the next gem.
[sapphire] - α-Al2O3m, pale yellow, aluminum oxide 61%, titanium 10%, magnesium 5%, chromium 24%
Mined from: Chatlam's Dungeon
Rarity: SUPER RARE
Uncut
Clarity: Very slight
YES! Seto cried, gripping the rough stone in his fist and scanning the other gems frantically, now detesting the fact that the other adventures had cut them and clearly fucked up beyond belief. Leaving them uncut was better. They were wasting their own time and energy cutting them instead of taking it to an alchemist or a gemologist in this world.
He passed his fingers over a small silver nugget and almost dismissed it, thinking it was a hunk of melted silver, but upon closer inspection, it shone brighter than silver, so he stared it until the words floating above it rearranged themselves into Japanese, and he broke out into an excited sweat.
[raw rhodium] Ar, std(Rh) / 103Rh, white metallic silver
Mined from: Chatlam's Dungeon
Rarity: Ultra Rare – encounter ratio 1%
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Seto cried excitedly as he snatched it up with joy, wondering who he had to thank for giving him this silver nugget.
Downstairs, several patrons chuckled when they heard the child screaming telepathically from upstairs, and Mai crossed her arms stiffly, tossing the rag over her shoulder as she wondered if she needed Yami to cast a barrier or if the kid would shut up when asked.
What was he so damn excited about anyway?
The customers had given him trash gems. She'd seen with her own eyes.
Seto clutched the ore in his fist and shut his eyes and tried to remember who had given it to him. The many faces of the patrons flashed through his mind like a movie until he found the memory of a brown-haired guy wearing a rusty blade on his back, grinning cheekily at him and giving him a wink before handing it to him.
Brown-haired, rusty-blade guy! Seto remembered the man's face furiously and set the ore down, gazing at it in awe. This was a super rare item—
He heard footsteps approaching and his door was shoved open as Mai huffed at him.
"Kid. Everyone heard that." She said flatly, eyeing the way Seto had messily thrown everything on the floor in front of him, and she had to wonder if the child was a bit damaged. "What are you doing? I said nap time."
"You didn't pay me for today yet," Seto shot back angrily, having heard her thoughts about how he was 'damaged'.
"Not everyone has paid yet. You'll get your share," she replied just as icily, reaching to swing the door shut. "Now either go to bed or stop yelling. I'll take another cut out of your share if you disturb customers, don't think I won't."
The door clicked shut and Seto made a face at the barrier, turning happily back to his stack of gems and quickly reading the rest before the text faded.
This was great.
Could he find a book on…forging?
Or metalsmithing?
Or…something that would help make these gems into a super cool item?
He leapt to his feet and began browsing Yami's bookshelves, tingling with an excitement he hadn't felt in a long time. It was the euphoria that came with creating something new, and he pulled out several large books after translating the spines.
This was going to be fun.
Downstairs, the tables were slowly emptying, and Mai was helping the last customer when Seto came thundering down the stairs breathlessly, his blue eyes bright with excitement.
The customer paid and left quickly, closing the restaurant door behind them with a heavy thunk! so Mai ran to latch the lock before turning around to give Seto a stern look.
"Did you take a nap? That was fast," she said nervously, crossing her arms. Demon babies were powerful and only napped to replenish their energy. Yami insisting Seto take many nap times might be detrimental to his brain rhythms if he did sleep that much…
Seto jutted up on his toes excitedly and whipped out a shining dagger encrusted with colorful gems, announcing proudly, "I made…this!"
Mai clapped a hand across her mouth so hard, her eyes watered, and Seto wasn't done showing off. The child rushed over to the nearest clean table and began pulling items out of his pockets, arranging them neatly on the surface with an eerie precision.
A simple, thin necklace.
Another long dagger.
A delicate, stone ring.
And a pair of sparkling, violet earrings with gold accents.
"I made these, for you," Seto added, pushing the crappy emerald earrings across the table, seeing the elf's eyes widen with excitement before she frowned suspiciously.
"What gem is that? I've never seen a purple emerald," Mai began, already reaching for the delicate dewdrop earrings Seto had crafted, her wonder rising as she inspected the handiwork. It was incredible, and it rivaled the beauty of earrings made with the skill of someone who had been smithing for 200 years.
"I dyed it with a spell," Seto replied calmly as he watched her nearly salivate at the pretty jewelry. "They match your eyes. Like it?"
Like it?! I love it! Mai reeled as she ached to put them on, but she knew the demon baby was doing this on purpose…to win her over. To her knowledge, demons were known to be great at making jewelry because they had inherent skill for cutting gems with magic.
She let out a sigh and set the earrings back down on the table before reaching down to pick the child up into a crushing hug, feeling him kick his legs and hiss at her, "we're not friends! Put me down! This was a truce—"
"This makes us friends, you little devil!" Mai cackled evilly, hugging Seto tighter to embarrass him further. "I know you're trying your hardest to be nice to me, so I'm going to hug you until you turn red in the face!"
Seto fumed silently and stopped squirming, waiting until she set him down, and he dusted himself off after giving her an affronted look.
Fine. He'd won her affection at last.
Hopefully she would stop calling him "babe" and "hon" so casually from now on. And maybe she'd give Yami a break from all her lecturing about saving babies. Because even he was getting tired of hearing it, he couldn't imagine how fed up with it Yami must be.
"Well, I can't just accept this from you," she said bossily, slipping the earrings onto her pointed ears casually, and they swung merrily from her lobes, only adding to her enchanting aura. "In my culture, we give something back of equal emotional value, so…"
She gave him a pat on the head, avoiding his horns as she crumpled the hat further down onto his head playfully.
"How about a dragon back ride, hm? On the dragon Yami raised from an egg?" Mai asked mischievously, her violet eyes gleaming with excitement.
Seto pulled the hat off his head and fluffed it up irritably, but the moment he heard 'dragon back', the hat slipped from his fingers and landed on the ground, his knees grew weak with joy.
W-What did she just say?!
Like, a real-ass dragon?
"Yeah, like a real-ass dragon. Now watch your mouth around me or I'll tell Yami about it," she said loftily, bending down to pick up his hat and placing it on the nearest table. "You can come with me to pick up herbs from the greenhouse."
FUCK YES! Seto cried silently to himself, grabbing his hat off the table and shoving it carelessly onto his head while his cheeks burned with excitement. Holy shit. Holy shit a real-ass dragon back ride!
Mai smirked to herself as she propped the back door open and placed her hands on her hips, gazing up at the empty sky above her, thinking the demon boy was manageable after all.
He liked the same things elven boys liked.
Dragons.
Swords.
Stories about dragons and swords.
And then possibly wanting to become a city guardian when they grew up so they could ride on a dragon and wield a sword.
Maybe he'll be an okay demon after all, Mai admitted to herself as she listened to the way Seto was scrambling around the back of the bar to follow her. He was cute and earnest.
She could see why Yami liked having him around.
Author's note:
DRAGON BACK RIDE NEXT CHAPTER WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT SETO IM SO JEALOUS OF YOUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuu
Looks like mai finally hates seto a little less now