Theory Lesson

After everyone ate their delicious food, Nobuyuki and Takashi gathered all the plates and bowls and took them downstairs to wash them. Sayaka went to Masami's office to watch Nyoka sleeping, while Ryosuke run behind her telling to finish her yuba. Back to the table was left Ryota with Masami.

"Phew, that was so delicious, ramen it's so good too bad i can't eat every time or else i will be a fatty in no time, i hope you enjoyed the food too Ryota dearie?"

"Yes, that was truly delicious" he answered politely

"Marvellous, now back to our work" Masami got a serious expression and look at him deeply into his eyes

"The practice is a very valuable tool for fights, but we mustn't forget that so is knowledge, so let me tell you what you're dealing with..." 

Ryota look at her serious like a student looking his teacher

"First of all demons are not just evil spirits, they can also be described as monsters, creatures darkness and human-eaters"

"Human-eaters?" Ryota asked

"That's mostly a traditional metaphor which means that demons eat people through bad emotions they cause to themselves like: Greed, Hate, Jealousy, Sloth, Lust, Pride and many more, but through my personal experience i have see a lot of demons eating people"

"That's so scary, they do that to survive?"

"Not at all, they just view humans as their prey. They can perfectly survive without eating any human, but some demons have a sadistic joy of eating people. You see, demon nature it's a very complex thing to be understood by human mindset. They can't understand human emotions except from those they are causing in the first place. For example, demons can't feel malice."

"What do you mean can't feel malice? In your previous story of Kyoto you said that demons tried to destroy Kyoto, and hurt and eat people, how's that not malicious?" Ryota asked confused as he looked Masami from across the table

"You misunderstood, I'm not saying that their actions aren't malicious on our eyes, I'm saying that they can't feel malice because for them their actions aren't malicious"

"Now you completely lost me"

"Let me put it this way, humans kills cockroaches right"

"Ehm, yes we do but "killing" it's a bit heavy word for cockroaches"

"Exactly, we don't count killing a cockroach as an actual murder, we don't kill cockroaches to eat them, or in order survive. We just do it like it's a perfectly normal thing to do without feeling any kind of malice against the cockroaches. For demons we are nothing but mere cockroaches."

"Yeah, but we mostly just kill cockroaches we found in our own houses we don't hunt them all over the world."

"Demons also look at us the same way, if it weren't us, demons would have ruled the whole world for centuries."

"Why are you saying me all these?"

"Because in your fights, you may feel sometimes not willing to kill them, to feel sorry for them or to pity them. So I must inform that they will never do the same thing for you and the answer for this it's very simple. They're not human so you must never treat them humanly, the day you do such a thing is the day you will die."

Ryota felt a shiver in his spine hearing those words. He keeps getting caught out of guard with all these new information

"Well, thank you for telling me all these but I don't think I will ever pity monsters like those"

"Never said no, the demons are masters of trickster and mischievously, they will do anything to fool you around, that's why you must never forget the first rule for demons. Never under no circumstances speak to a demon."

"Demons can speak any language in any accent or tone they want, that's not a problem for them. The problem is they don't use human language to communicate?"

"Oh why's that?"

"To them words are a means to deceive humanity. They don't speak to communicate but only to deceive, like a corrupt ambassador who learns the language of a foreign nation only to deceive the leaders of it."

"And what if they speak to me first?"

"You mustn't pay attention to any of their words. They won't just try to deceive you but also cloud your judgement by all means causing you rage, distress or even sadness. That's another thing you must also know about demons, demons know us better than ourselves."

"Isn't that a little too big of a statement?" Ryota asks a bit unsure

"Not at all, after demons cast the Apókrypsis to humanity they spent centuries watching and studying us, as the time passed they discovered that humans were very weak to corrupt based on their emotions. Based on the life of each human they could understand every human's deepest desires, so they learned to use this to break them, to lure them with fake promises and possess them completely. So many demons will try to make you lose your coolness by mention your career, your parents, your friends your deepest desires or even a better future you could have."

"It's just crazy how they will know any of this for me, i can't even understand how they got so intelligent. Demons are truly powerful."

Masami leaned closer to him, and flick his forehead with her middle finder.

"Ouch, what was that for?!" he said with an almost bewildered face as he held his forehead where she just flicked him

"I'm not saying all these to make you lose your coolness from the very beginning but to be ready for what you will encounter." Masami scolded him

"I know, i know but it's hard to even fandom of fighting such supernatural beings"

"Now now, you mustn't give demons more credit than they deserve it. They are not so high and mighty as you think, demons have also a lot of weaknesses."

"Like Holy water and Crosses?"

"You watch too many movies no of course not, like demons can't stand light, pure naturally light of the sun. Something that we Sorcerers can produce very easily with a simple spell. They also can't read our minds, so they can't know what we are thinking."

"So what about it? We can't read minds either."

"Hehe, don't be so sure about that, a demon can only predict your actions if you fall for his obvious tricks, but apart from that they can't possibly imagine how we'll react. In time you'll see that humans, like us in SAEA we get to know each other in a level that is easy to know what each one of us will do on multiple situation. That's how a good team works and we're using it in our advantage

Masami and Ryota continued talking to each other as the time passed with Ryota continue asking her various things about demons and Masami answered to him with details.