As we exited the underground train station I saw the forest on my right and a shrine brightened with lights on my left. Seeing this brought a worrying thought to me, I won't be able to see much in the forest like this. No lights like back in the alternate Kyoto, this could end up with me being at an even bigger disadvantage.

"Harpy, do you know where the Lamia is?"

"Hm, the Lamia you seek is likely deeper within Tadasu no Mori."

Tch, it would be too convenient for her to be in a more well lit area with fewer blind spots. I don't want to waste too much time so I'll prioritize heading to where she's more likely to find, even if it's more of a hassle.

I glanced down at my COMP, I had somewhat forgotten about the harmonizer this time around. It didn't tell me that it turned on but I had checked and it's still running. I'm guessing that it automatically turns on when I wear it… Or it never turned off and I have to turn it off manually. I'll check later once I don't have to worry about some demon bashing my skull in.

I picked up a stick from the ground and held it up in front of my gauntleted hand, "Agi."

A burst of flames shot out towards the stick and… completely burned the top half away. It's just a stump with a burnt end now. No flames lingered on the stick at all. Either that means the fire's too hot to not incinerate a smaller flammable object near instantly or Agi doesn't work exactly like real fire. Maybe it just does fire-like damage rather than burning damage.

Well either way, the idea of using a torch is now discarded. I'll have to settle for my phone's flashlight.

I tossed away the stick as I pulled out my phone and turned on it's flashlight holding it with my gauntleted hand, "Let's go, hopefully we manage to find something in this forest." That is if we aren't torn apart by the demons hiding within the trees or get lost within the forest as if it was a knock off Lost Woods.

Just the sight of the large lush forest luminated from my light reminded me of it's supposed size. Getting much of any kind of headway within there is going to be a challenge and a huge pain. I can't help but feel that it's already going to be too late for whoever that Lamia had taken to eat, whether it would be Yamato or not. The thought of anyone being dead before I could find them gives me an uncomfortable feeling of anxiety.

I may not really believe in heroics or anything like the inherent good within everyone like some other individuals that delude themselves into thinking they're heroes. But despite that this isn't something I can just leave alone. There is no reason to condemn someone else to die just because I hate the type of person they are. I may be a loner but that doesn't mean I'm apathetic.

For the people who think the type of action to take is obvious, who believe that everything is black and white, and filled with easy to read lines should get their eyes checked out. It's simple to look at things from one single point of view and declare that saving another is unquestionably morally correct.

On one hand, that is the case. On the other hand, that's only through a very narrow lens and only technically correct. What about the Lamia? Will she starve to death with no food to eat? Does she even require sustenance in the first place? I don't know enough about demons in general to confirm or deny. In the end I'm going to kill her to save another, is that morally correct? I'm more inclined to say it's morally dubious than anything.

Not all demons attack humans as evident by some of the conversations I had, but it's true that they seem to have a tendency to attack first and ask questions later. Demons have attempted to kill me but a demon had also saved me. They're diverse in how they act just like humans. When there's a Kobold that tried to eat me there's also a Jack Frost like the one that saved me.

Hunting for humans to eat may be similar to humans hunting for a delicacy to eat. Can you call someone evil for hunting to feed themselves? I can't really do that.

But in the end despite such thoughts of acknowledging the other's point of view, knowing that demons are likely not inherently evil, I can't help but want to kill them anyway.

The rage is now just simmering underneath the surface after using some of it with my encounters with the Kobolds. They talked as if I was nothing, someone with no real value besides being sustenance. My own urge to destroy other demons who are similar was prominent. It's not just the fact that they tried to kill and eat me, but also because it turned my life upside down. Sent me spiraling into a hell that few know of. All I thought I knew of the world is either wrong or seems so much less important than the fuckfest I've landed myself into. And so I hate those demons even more.

It's not like humans are much different, they look down on others, trample upon them, and ruin people's lives if it saves their own hide, to attempt to make themselves feel better. I had always felt a sense of contempt for people like those, including people like Hayama who hide behind a mask in order to maintain the status quo.

In a way that's the complete opposite of the demons I've seen so far who seem to do whatever they want. Attack when annoyed and hunt when hungry. They're very true to themselves in a way that's also annoying in a different way from Hayama, besides the fact that they attacked and tried to eat me.

The Service Club was requested multiple times and even if I initially didn't want anything to do with that club I still fulfilled those requests, sometimes to my own detriment.

For the Kobold to devalue those experiences along with the rest of my life made me infuriated. In the past I may have been pushed around by bullies and emotionally hurt but I was never put in such a situation like that before. Frightened, facing death, and being taunted by something that cares even less then my previous bullies.

So I responded to a threat to my life with a threat to the Kobold's life. I had gotten angrier than I had ever felt in my whole life.

Would that same anger I felt previously resurface as the fight with Lamia persists? Who knows. But I'll make sure to prioritize the safety of Yamato over the anger I feel towards other demons that aren't on my side if it comes down to it.

It's not like that the fury I had felt hasn't been helpful in some ways. It had pushed me further to actually commit to my actions and in turn actually fight back and attempt to help others in danger from a demon of some sort. Whether or not this will lead to my death or not is something only the cruel gods from above could know. Heh, I wonder if those gods I every once in a while refer to are actually entities similar to demons if they even exist.

It's very possible that the rage within me will eventually peter out as time passes. As I kill more demons that anger within could eventually diminish. Or it may become further stoked later on in my life. There's no way to know for sure for something like this.

I used to believe that I was very much aware of my own flaws, and have accepted them for what they are. To change is to give in to the pressures of others and society at large. However such a seemingly significant change has happened without me even realizing it, not because of a desire to fit in or to become a cog in the machine that is known as life, but rather because of a violent and life threatening incident. Have these aspects come about because of the encounter with the demon? Or have they always been with but just buried deep within me without noticing?

One notion that I always said to myself was that to work is to lose, however in this case I can't really say something like that with any sort of conviction because if I were to not do anything, it would cost someone their life. Truthly I haven't truly one hundred percent believed that phrase beforehand despite spouting it out so often. It came about more from my lack of desire to work at all, and I had realized that working keeps aspects of society going without devolving into anarchy. Along with that is the fact that working also provides sustenance for one's self. It's not like I haven't worked either, with the club requests I've done and work required to enter a higher end school like Sobu High.

So I will put in some effort to attempt to resolve the current situation and to kill the Lamia.

Honestly, some part of me is terrified still of all of these demons trying to kill me and others I know about. Another part of me is scared of myself for how much I want to rip demons like that Kobold and Lamia apart.

We walked on along the walkway that had a clear path within the forest. This area may make it less likely I'll get caught off guard by ambushes but as a result I'm more visible to other demons looking for a snack. Then again my phone's flashlight would make me more visible no matter where I am so I suppose that it doesn't matter nearly as much.

So far I haven't seen anything that would really indicate this place to be the demonic alternative to the actual Tadasu no Mori. The closest thing might be the odd placement of the train station. It's not like I can confirm either way, I've never been to this place before.

A rustle from further within the forest to my side.

I jumped back and drew my pistol as I shined my flashlight within the darkness, the demons at my side ready for further action.

A yellow blur jumped at me.

Gunshot.

The small yellow figure was pushed back from it's approach and landed on the ground snarling at me after taking that hit. It looks like a hedgehog of some kind.

More rustling was heard from the greenery and two other yellow hedgehogs jumped out onto the walkway.

"Take them down!"

Jack Frost shot a burst of ice and Harpy used her wings to blow green wind toward the enemy demons.

In that brief time my demons attacked, I analyzed the enemies in front of me.

They're called Chagrin, level 6 and weak to elec but repels force. God damn it, Harpy just sent out a force attack.

The ice from Jack Frost had hit the left Chagrin head on while the right Chagrin just charged right through the Force attack as it seemed to bounce back towards Harpy. Which also bounces off of her… Huh, I hadn't realized that Harpy also repels force attacks. I didn't look too deeply into her status page yet. That was an interesting interaction to see.

The squeal of the middle Chagrin brought my attention back to my own attacker as the needles on it's back started to shift.

What the hell is it doing? Let's not give it too much time now.

I squeezed the trigger on my gun once again as the hedgehog dodged it. How annoying.

Actually this might become more painful than annoying if those needles it just shot out of it's back hit me!

I move to the side in an attempt to dodge the projectiles. Shit! Unfortunately two of the needles I couldn't dodge out of the way of lodged into my shoulder. The stinging pain distracting me.

The little bastard jumped at me while I was still fixating on the injury in an attempt to chew me up. I held up my gauntleted arm to block it and watched as the demon sunk its teeth into the armor. In the process I dropped my phone acting as my flashlight. I felt a slight throb of pain from the bite but it was dulled compared to my earlier injury. Either from adrenaline, the armored plates, or a mixture of both it didn't matter. What matters even more is that it's still trying to chew through my arm.

I held up my gun to it's head and shot once and then almost immediately after, shot a second time for good measure. Can't underestimate the durability of some of these demons.

The body of the Chagrin slid off of my arm and turned into a red mist of particles as the gauntleted COMP absorbed it.

≪The 'Needle Shot' skill has been assimilated.≫

Time to take stock of the situation. Jack Frost seems to be more on equal footing if not winning against the yellow hedgehog. Harpy on the other hand seems to be having a harder time, with her main form of damage being rendered useless because of the other demon's innate resistances, she's having trouble fighting off the Chagrin.

Right when I was about to rush off into another fight, the darkness surrounding us was momentarily illuminated by an orange reddish light. The light seemed to originate from above me so I looked up.

…Oh shit, "We're being ambushed!"

A ball of fire was falling down toward my head and thankfully the need to dodge was mitigated by a ball of ice, most likely courtesy of Jack Frost, impacting against it creating steam and leftover bits of fire that weren't big enough to worry about.

So much for being less likely to get ambushed if we're on the walkway!

Also what's with that flexibility using that fire skill? Make a fireball overhead us so that the enemy doesn't expose themselves instead of directly firing it? I don't have that sort of flexibility. I can only use skills starting from where my gauntleted COMP is. This is rigged! Unbalanced! I demand the video game designers of real life to fix this with a balance patch immediately.

Tch, this new enemy is taking advantage of our skirmish to get rid of us while we're fighting. It's unlikely that it's the Chagrin since it's too busy fighting my other demons. It's possible that it's another demon that wants to try a piece of us, literally, without putting in too much effort. Seeing as it attacked us while fighting others and still hasn't shown itself despite us knowing that we're being ambushed by a third party.

Looking for easy prey to snack on… I might have an idea on who's attacking, although I could be wrong because of how much I don't know about other demons and my rather small pool of possible suspects.

They're likely close by and hiding within the forest, covered by the trees and their leaves. What can I do to flush them out?

I'll focus on getting rid of the more visible threats first so that we can have an easier time focusing on the ambusher afterward. I'll keep thinking of a solution to this problem in the meantime.

"Harpy! Back up!"

She backed up, looking like she's close to her last wind. Before the Chagrin could pursue I intercepted it with two bullets from my handgun. And of course it seems like I missed both shots because of my terrible aim and lack of light.

The hedgehog screeched as yellow electricity started discharging on the surface of its body.

I'm taking that as a sign it's about to shoot lightning at me.

Holy cra-!

And I'm proven right, by me narrowly dodging a bolt of lightning that came right towards my face. The Chagrin looked like it was readying another attack again, only this time it was a Needle Shot judging by its shifting needles.

Turns out I didn't have to do anything to stop the attack since Harpy decided that it didn't want to stay in the sidelines as she flew into its face and clawed it up. Time to take advantage of the opening that was so kindly given to me.

Let's not accidentally shoot Harpy with my terrible aim. So I holstered my pistol and drew my sword with two hands now that my other hand isn't occupied by my phone. It's less likely I'll skewer my own ally considering I have more control over where the pointy end goes compared to bullets.

A thrust of the blade into the hedgehog's body.

Another red light from my side, another ambush using a fire attack. It's closer than the last one too. Too difficult to dodge this one right after committing to a stab. A stroke of inspiration came as I saw the small twitching demon on my sword. The edges of my mouth twisted upward.

The Chagrin was light so I held it up against the flames as it was impaled onto my sword, using it as a shield. Just like roasting a marshmallow over a campfire. If only it was as satisfying as biting into the gooey center of the white candy treat. The demon squealed as it burned to death, the ball of fire gone right when the hedgehog expired into red mist and particles.

Then again the act of seeing it die and obtaining a new skill is a different kind of satisfying that's nice in it's own right.

≪The 'Zio' skill has been assimilated.≫

"Come on, you can do better than that right? We don't even know where you are but you still haven't even managed to burn a single hair on any of us," I shook my head, "This much trouble with an ambush and multiple demons keeping us busy."

"Hsss…" a soft hiss of frustration came from within the trees in the forest.

"Harpy! Zan!" I pointed towards where I heard the sound.

The green force attack ripped up some of the trees as it flew onward. The darkness of the night not allowing us to see if it connected with the ambusher.

"I bet that hit didn't it? Are you even trying? In fact, I bet you're just coasting off of the other demon's work. Too much of a hassle to actually try to kill us yourself."

Hmm, no immediate response. It seems to have wisen up a bit and not respond to my taunts. Now I can't get a rough estimate of its location from their responses.

"Hee Ho! I finished the last Chagrin!"

Good timing, now we can concentrate our efforts on taking down the ambusher.

I stilled as I faintly heard something like stomping from down the walkway. Another demon?

As I looked down through the area I saw a bull shaped figure in the dark getting closer, "It's charging at us! Kill it before it gets here!" Jack Frost, Harpy, and I blasted it with our own respective elemental magic. Ice, Force, and Fire in this case. The attacks hit the demon as it stumbled slightly, but still kept running forward, "Change of plans! Dodge!"

It isn't stopping after getting hit by three different attacks, this thing is freaking tanky. It should just fall down a ditch and die dammit!

The bull demon jumped up briefly in the air, for a brief second I wondered what the hell it's even doing since none of us were close enough to get squished, before landing back onto the ground, sending a wave of energy throughout the ground, cracking the stone beneath it as it rippled forward towards us.

Well that explains why it jumped. To set up an AOE (Area of Effect) attack.

For Harpy, it seemed like it was easy to avoid since it was localized on the ground. Not much of a problem for something that flew.

Unfortunately for me and Jack Frost, we don't have wings.

It was during that absolutely stunning revelation that both Jack Frost and I had our feet knocked underneath. The wave of energy down low on the ground had crashed into us.

The irony of getting hit right after saying dodge. Did not help that I wasn't expecting an attack like that. In fact, out of the previous demons I have dealt with, this is the only one with such a wide ranged skill that basically covered the whole floor. I was thinking it was going to charge at us straight on like a bull with a red blanket with how it was seemingly running full speed ahead.

Oh hey the floor is looking mighty clo- "Argh!"

Fuck, the pain from when I got hit by those needles just flared up. Probably because I smacked down into the ground face first when they're still sticking out of my shoulder. I just ended up stabbing those needles further into my wound.

My legs still seem to be working as I rise up from the ground. There's an ache to them but they aren't broken or anything.

I drew my gun and took several shots at the bull demon that seemed to want to charge again. It flinched back as the bullets hit.

I blinked. It's weak to piercing attacks? Probably considering how it didn't seem much bothered from the previous attacks. Go all in to take advantage of it or retreat to a more favorable position?

"Guys, follow me!"

I ran into the forest and my ally demons trailed after me. And with only a few trees further into the greenery I heard the bull demon break a tree in an attempt to follow us. That's going to be difficult for it though. There's a reason why I chose to retreat into the forest.

There's no light to follow since I dropped my phone, the trees act as obstacles, and it's bulky frame makes it more difficult to maneuver in tighter spaces like this forest. An additional bonus is making it more difficult for the ambusher to find and hit us with their attacks.

Hm, that tree looks to be of a decent size.

"Oi bull, over here!"

The demon grunted and shifted it's position towards my direction. I promptly get out of the way so I don't get skewered by its horns. It should be too dark to see much of anything properly within the dense forest. So as it currently is charging into the pitch black forest, it won't see the thick tree until it's too late to stop.

Ah, just like that. The tree trembled as a bull shaped object impacted against its trunk.

"Finish it off!"

"Hee Ho!"

"You got it."

Magic and gunfire rained down onto the demon until it slumped over and dissipated.

≪The 'Critical Wave' skill has been assimilated.≫

My pistol magazine is empty. Actually I think this is the first time I had to reload the gun out on a battlefield so far. The closest thing was reloading the magazines themselves with bullets.

…And as I expected I'm rather clunky and slow at it.

Once that was done I turned to my other demons to speak, "Let's move further in, we don't want the ambusher to attack us unaware."

So the three of us went in deeper, keeping close so we don't lose each other.

After a short distance I had the group of us stop. I don't want to get too far from our hidden enemy, I still want to find whoever attacked us and pay them back with interest.

They hissed earlier… What kind of demonic animal makes that noise? Well a certain animal is already in my mind.

Snakes.

Could still be some other type of demon but if this plan I'm forming right now works I'm going to find out anyway.

If I recall correctly when I skimmed her entry, Harpy's mythology had certain versions of them having a terrible smell to go in combination with their monstrous looks. While this demon version of Harpy doesn't have those traits, I'm banking on parts of that legend having some influence over her capabilities.

"Harpy, blanket as much space as possible with Stagnant Air," the description of the skill saying that it increases the susceptibility to ailment skills for everyone within the area where it spreads. The real world equivalent of it is the phenomenon where the air doesn't move at all, and so the pollutants become concentrated within the area making it unhealthy to breathe in.

And if my hunch is correct, demons could possibly affect the skills they use because of their history.

Harpy breathed out, and a barely visible fog came out. Despite the lack of light I could barely discern that Stagnant Air had a tinge of green to it.

A few moments later Harpy had stopped using the skill. It was time to wait and see if this pans out.

I grimaced as I smelt the air around me. It seems that my theory is correct regarding the scent.

"Ahg! This smell…" a feminime sounding voice came near us to our left.

Ah, it seems like I'm on a roll. Snakes do tend to have a good sense of smell and their surprise by the terrible smell could have made them yell out, it's seeming more and more likely that it's a snake demon of some sort.

The days of my trauma from years ago of being called Hikifrog shall be turned on its head! Snakes eat frogs but now I can't be the frog if I'm the one hunting the snake. That nickname had caused me to have a brief moment of rebellion against those that are enemies of frogs, so I had done some brief research into things like snakes…

I have mixed feelings over an incident like that helping me in this current situation.

I gestured for my demons to follow, "Let's go."

As we got closer I saw the scaly tail first, followed by the rest of the body. I was not surprised by who it was.

I raised my handgun towards the demon.

It was a Lamia.

A/N

Word Count: 4428

Date Posted: January 11, 2022

It has been once again two months since the last chapter. At this point expect chapters to come out after one or two months after the previous chapter.

This chapter was originally going to encapsulate the whole encounter with the Lamia but I was taking forever and the first section got longer then I thought it would.

Also technically Harpy doesn't have Stagnant Air in any version of her but it fits with the compendium entry. Certain versions smelled terrible and all that.

Over the course of time when I'm writing the chapter, I have ideas of what to write in my author's note. Like explanations and elaborations on certain aspects of a chapter or some other stuff. But I tend to forget what I wanted to write when I actually reach that point. I'm pretty sure I had more to say but I don't remember.