Home Stretch

David was carted off to a lower deck, where a very pretty elven girl worked around the clock healing him. She had pale, blue-ish white hair, green eyes, and a slim build. In the village, she was the unmatched expert when it came to healing. The damage to his internal organs from the battle had been tremendous; he was close to death. Sara, his little companion, glared at her from the other end of the room. She had grown attached to him, and despised other women giving him attention. It was a small miracle that he wasn’t conscious for this awkward situation.

Above deck, Montgomery had assumed command of the ship, and had taken over propulsion. Carrying on at a decidedly slower pace, the ship bypassed the mountain range, coming to a vast forest. Small, rural villages could be seen in the distance. As it passed them by, farmers and workers peered up at it in amazement. A few, uneventful hours passed. The sun was setting.

The dense forest made way to a gloomy, foggy expanse of scrub brush and creepy, dead trees. Montgomery’s eyebrows furled. He recognizes this landscape, but can’t put his finger on why. Far off in the distance, a series of tiny dots come into view. He can’t make them out, but they’re floating in the air, directly in our path.

The ship careens to a halt, the gyro crew once again beset by anxiety. The guy responsible for holding the boat aloft is sweating and freaking out.

Those tiny dots were people. More than people, they were demons. Standing menacingly in the air, a ridiculously strong-looking male demon is glaring down at our ship. He’s flanked on either side by harpies, very attractive girls with feathered wings and claws for feet. A little girl with horns jutting out of her head floats beside one of them, and a purple, clouded figure is beside the other.

The leader floats down and lands on the bridge. The gyro crew are moments away from fainting. They’d never seen demons before. Montgomery slowly taps his way over to them, sizing them up.

“What business have you with us?”, he asks.

The demon eyes him up and down.

“You’ve intruded on our territory. Despite that, you’ve done it in a novel way, and it brings me great joy to see you elves using such an unusual method of travel.”, he says, with a tinge of disparagement.

Montgomery squints in disapproval. The demon continues.

“Who built this vessel? What is your purpose in trespassing upon my nation?”, he booms.

“We were rescued by a human who possesses incredible magic ability. Ios, the Slime Lord, had imprisoned us one thousand, five hundred years ago for the crime of resisting her schemes. This human saved us, built this ship, and fought bravely to battle a mage who tracked us down.”

He bursts out in laughter.

“Very interesting! I love stories like this. Where is this human?”

“Do you promise not to harm him?”, Monty asks, with a very acerbic tone.

“Why, of course. Demons never lie. I wish to meet this exceptional hero.” He’s smiling, creepily.

Given the circumstances, Montgomery is forced to walk the demon down into the lower hold of the ship. The elven villagers are aghast when they catch sight of him. The two of them stand eerily over David’s body, with his healer watching them, ready in an instant to protect him.

The demon leans over David’s pale, bruised self. He holds out his hand. A black beam fires out, piercing David’s chest, causing both Sara and the healer girl to shout in fearful disapproval. He quickly waves them off.

“I won’t hurt him. Calm yourselves.”

A few moments go by. David’s breathing picks up in intensity. He’s siphoning his memories, analyzing them, and healing him simultaneously. At some point, David becomes conscious again, but hides it. He silently turns the tables on this demon. He analyzes his memories, instead.

The demon falters, stumbling for a moment, sweating profusely. David’s probing his mind, aggressively. His childhood memories, his lust for power, his rite of accession to become a general within the Demon King’s army. His wife. His marriage. His girlfriend. All secrets are laid bare, and a sickening feeling of anxiety pervades him. Struggling for answers, the demon decides to investigate David’s mana. How could he possibly be powerful enough to probe him, in this state?

What he senses makes him immediately sick to his stomach. A vast, terrifying, swirling emptiness. Mana beyond power – that of a god. Greater than his, greater than anything he’d ever seen. For a split second, he peers into its emptiness, feeling his very being torn from him and consumed, awestruck and afraid.

The beam cuts in an instant, and the demon collapses to the floor, on his back. David sits up. He glares over at Montgomery and the freakish, horned intruder on his ship. A terrifying silence fills the air. Sara’s eyes lit up, but she was apprehensive. The healer girl was speechless.

David stands up.

“Who is this?”, he asks Monty.

“We’ve sailed into their country, sir. A welcoming party, I believe.”

He looks pityingly onto this demon, who has been reduced to a shivering wreck upon the floor.

“Where are the rest of them?”

“Above deck, sir.”

In a flash, David teleports himself and the demon leader up top. His compatriots gasp as they see his crumpled, sweaty body, sprawled out on the deck.

“You dare interrupt my voyage?”, David yells, giving his best impression of a terrifying sea captain.

They look among themselves. Their leader was the strongest; he’d bested every one of them in battle, assuring their allegiance. To see him laid out on the ground, an abject expression of terror on his face, rattled them to their very core. They floated his body up into the air and studied him.

“We… uh… We meant you no harm, sir.”, the little girl croaks.

One of the harpies speaks up.

“Was it you that defeated the Grand Council?”

David nods.

The demons glance at eachother, and kneel, mid-air.

“We owe you our gratitude. As silly as it sounds, the Slimes were not kind to us, either. We lost most of our territory in the war. I’m not sure what Remus did to you, but we apologize for his indiscretion.”

‘Remus, huh?’, he thinks to himself.

With an assuredly awkward farewell, the ship continues on. David feels well enough to take over propulsion again. He’s set upon by questions from Sara, the healer, Montgomery, and the gyro crew, who had just been relieved from duty.

Yes, somehow, the demon healed me quicker than expected. No, Sara, the healer is not trying to be my girlfriend. No, I don’t know why the demon lost his composure while trying to scan me. Yes, I defeated the Grand Council of 12 Slimes. No, you all were not in any real danger.

It becomes tiresome for him, and he passes control of the ship over to Montgomery, who had been listening intently. With a tremendous sigh, he flops onto his makeshift mattress below deck, Sara clinging to his arm. She looks up at him, with her frazzled green hair and doleful eyes.

“Are you okay?”, she asks, sweetly.

He leans back, staring at the ceiling.

“Yes, I’m alright.”

“That demon was scared of you.”, she croaks.

He thinks back to his days, hunched over his keyboard, drinking away his life in his darkly lit room. All he wanted was power. Real, concrete power, power that could change the world. Power that he never could attain, no matter how hard he applied himself.

“He was right to be scared.”, David says, quietly.

“Guys like that live their entire lives without being humbled. I gave him a taste of his own medicine.”

Sara eyes him with a mixture of fear and admiration. The ship clears the barren, wasteland forest, and enters familiar territory. They’d crossed the border into Laios. Vast, agrarian fields come into view, and finally, the awe-striking urban sprawl of the capital city. Ahead of them, a wide, perfectly straight canal slices through the ground. Montgomery decides to set the ship down in it, to give the crew a rest. With a tremendous splash, it settles down into the water, and begins slowly motoring forwards.