Epilogue

After a long and tiring battle with the demonic forces of a demon lord, we'd finally managed to free Verrenvill from the sleepy clutches of evil. I wouldn’t call this a sweep or anything, but this was a peaceful end to the conflict. Don't worry though, I made sure none of those minions would survive to see the light of day.

As promised, Belphegor returned the city back to the way it once was. At the wave of his hand a big bubble popping sound happened, then reality began to reform to its former ways.

I was standing in the middle of the church, moonlight piercing through the stained glass windows. It was very early in the morning, so the sun was just beginning to turn the sky a little brighter. The faint fragrant smell of candles and incense danced through the air. A very pleasing return, I think.

“So, what about everyone that was frozen, or possessed?”

“If they were still under my influence, they’ll be put back as they were before I arrived.”

According to him, those people would probably be back in bed as if it were any other morning. But there were likely to be a few people who we'd ‘saved’ that needed to be rescued again, since the stardust energy we’d used to exercise them broke the demons influence. That was something we’d have to keep in mind.

Regardless, they’d be safe in no time.

I couldn’t believe I was able to actually strike a compromise with a powerful demon like Belphegor. I don’t know if it was icky or a relief. These were my natrual enemy, so it just didn't sit right with me that I couldn't beat him with my own power. One thing’s for sure, I’m glad it's all over.

But it really wasn’t over. There were still going to be more demons going after Yamin, the Family of Sai, and I had to find dad at some point soon too. Things were about to get very busy. I'm already tired just thinking about all the work we had cut out for us.

~☆☆☆~

I stepped out of the church and down the stairs leading to the central plaza. It was quiet and I was alone.

“Samael, you think everything's all back to normal?” I asked my snake.

“Ss,” he hissed.

It really was looking okay around here, but just to be sure I kept my eyes open.

My map was telling me that the others were just outside the plaza. I rushed around the big water fountain, meeting them just a few meters before the plaza entrance.

“Guys!” I jumped up and hugged Uncle.

They all looked completely back to normal. All but Melpomene that is, who was still a cat.

“What happened to The Actor?” I asked.

“He eff'd off with his band of merry demons,” Indena answered. “Glad we held them off for you.”

Everyone but Yamin seemed in a good mood. She was shyly clinging to that dark book, grudgingly looking at the ground. I guess they must have gotten it back from The Actor.

“What’s the status of Belphegor?” Uncle asked.

“Er…”

They weren’t going to like this…

I’d had my fist balled up since I left the church and there’s a good reason why. I was hiding something. Now that he was asking about it, the cat had to get out of the bag, and I’m not talking about Mella.

I opened up my fist. In my palm was a chibi demon Belphegor sleeping.

As I revealed him he slowly woke up and stood to his feet with a moody look and proud pose.

My original plan was to digitize him and let him sleep in my inventory, like I did with Anima last year, but that didn’t seem to work. So then he turned into this pudgy little thing and went to sleep in my hand.

“Ayo?!” Indena tried to swat at him, but he blocked her attack with his shields. The shockwave pushed her hand backwards. “The hell is this?”

“We came to an agreement. He gave up as long as we carry him around.”

I wasn’t going to be able to beat him as I am now. He's just way too powerful. I could come close in that dream realm, but even then it was just barely a stalemate. The only option left was to keep him like this.

“You do realize the objective was to terminate him, yes?” Uncle questioned. “He is a demon, our natural enemy.”

“I…I know…” I looked to the ground all sad. They were making me feel bad. "But I don’t think I would have been able to beat him completely. Not yet, anyways." We just kept getting stronger and stronger and I wasn’t able to stop him.

We might have gone on fighting forever at that rate, but he was the first to call it quits. My point was a little harder to get across then I thought since the whole battle was weird. Belphegor was nodding along, quietly supporting my claims though.

Mella raised a paw in the air to get our attention. “At the very least, his domain is gone. He has no power without that.”

“How does that work?” Indena asked.

“A god is only as powerful as his domain is large. And that domain is only possible by people who worship them.”

“Nobody was worshiping Belphegor though, so why did this even happen?” Yamin asked, Belphegor pointed to her like she was onto something. His reactions prompted me to give him a funny look.

“All a god needs is mana through worship or theft to become strong. Belphegor chose to steal the spirits of humans to gain power.”

I’m glad she knows a lot about this stuff. I sure didn't have a clue.

“Heh, so if nobody worshiped the gods, they’d be useless.” Indena laughed. “Oh wait, they already are!”

“Watch your tongue, fire mage!” Mella said with a hiss. “Continue to challenge the gods and become a martyr of fools.”

Maybe Indena should heed that warning already. She keeps saying things as if nobodies listening, but what if they are? I think God won’t be mean to her since Indena’s a nice person deep down, but she needs to dial it back a bit and show that.

While we were talking, Belphegor let out a really big yawn and jumped out of my hands flying right into the evil book with a splash. It rippled until finally taking a solid shape again. Yamin almost dropped it in the process.

We all gathered around as Yamin pulled open the cover. Words in a strange language appeared on the first few pages.

“Can you read it?” Indena asked Yamin.

“No. I can’t read demon, or whatever this is.”

I scanned the words to see if it matched anything in my database, but nothing was coming up. This language must have been something lost with time, or had never been part of our world to begin with.

Yamin turned to the next page. Flakes of paper curled up from the surface and fell to the ground. Each new bit revealed an image and description like a compendium.

It was hard to tell what was on that first page since the flakes were still falling out, so Yamin flipped to the next one. The same thing happened, only this time I instantly recognized who was in the picture.

“Belphegor!”

That image was of the demon lord. He was sitting on a seat with a wheel on it, tiredly holding his hand to his chin like he was thinking.

There were exactly nine letters above the image, and Belphegor had nine letters in his name. If my theory is correct, I may have just found a Rosetta stone! Kinda…

“So, this thing is like a grimoire.” Indena suggested.

“What’s that?” Yamin asked.

“It’s like a book of magic and shit. That sorta’ stuff. Not usually a thing for churchgoers.”

These sorts of books were really common in video games, especially for magic casters and summoners.

"Do you think this is like a book of summoning?" I suggested.

"Oh boy..." Yamin looked very displeased. "I hope not..."

"Everyone! I have good news!" That was Emily's voice. She was entering the plaza. "Alright. So I got in touch with some authorities from the Imperial Security Force. They’ll be sending people here to clean things up right away.”

“Who are those guys?” I asked, turning to Uncle.

“They’re this country's security police,” he answered.

Come to think of it, Yamin mentioned her mother working for them. Something about Research Group 9. Dad was part of that research group, leading it I guess.

“Uncle, does dad work with them?”

Uncle was about to answer, but Emily did instead.

“He sure did.” She kneeled down and kissed my forehead. “Anyways, this was one hell of a night. I should head home and cry myself to sleep.”

“Okay, Miss Emily. Thank you so much for all your help.” She really went above and beyond the call to service. All we needed was her to take us to the town, but she managed to help out a lot more. Her skills are incredible, to say the least. I wonder if all these private contractors are like this.

“You're welcome." She turned to Uncle after that with a silly looking smirk. "Hey, Handsome…” she winked. “You want a goodbye kiss too?”

“I’ll pass.” He said in a dry tone.

“Aww, no fun.”

She turned to Marek next, who seemed to be holding his head proudly like he was a hero or something. Clearly he was hoping for a smooch too. Yucky.

“Eh, what the heck…” she kissed him on the cheek. Her lips then traveled a bit close to his ears to whisper something. “Someone’s looking for you, and she had one message to give…”

SMACK!

She slapped him across the face!

“What was that for?” Marek rubbed his cheek.

“Oh, sorry. That wasn’t the message. She said that you need to get to the capital. You’re maid just finished the laundry.”

He had a goofy face for a second while dealing with the sting of being slapped, but then his expression turned very serious.

“I understand.” He nodded.

That had to be some secret code. I wonder who was calling for him.

Emily started leaving after that, but she made sure to give Mella a message too.

“Goodbye, spy cat. Maybe I'll see you around,” she winked.

“Indeed,” Mella awkwardly responded.

~☆☆☆~

The sun started to break through the morning clouds, turning the sky a bright blue. The fresh air of reality never smelled so good.

“We did it!” I fell backwards into a pile of snow. “Yay! The towns saved…”

A few snow angels later and I was getting sleepy. Uncle picked me up and carried me.

“Monsieur Mel, can we take a trip to the capital city?" Marek asked. "I believe I might be able to get transportation to Yalda’s father if you're willing to help me with something.”

“We were already heading there, remember?" Uncle replied. "But we do have an issue we have to sort out first.” Uncle turned to Yamin. “Until I can figure out a way to secure that book, we'll need to protect you. So stay close to us.”

Right now we were the safest people around for her. And I doubt we'd be able to make a trip to The Hive with how things have been with the portal networks.

“Yes sir.” She said politely. “I hope I won’t be any trouble to you…although, with this book…” she gave it a glance.

“Any trouble that book causes isn’t from you.” Uncle said. “Just keep it close in a backpack. Until we learn more, nobody’s going to touch it.”

“Wait, monsieur…” Marek spoke up, “Is it safe to have her hold it? It makes her act strange.”

“It’s cursed, remember?” Indena said. “She’s the only one who can touch it without the damn thing burning up.”

Uncle and I were curse resistant, but carrying around a flaming book wouldn’t do us much good in the public. Yamin was the only one who could carry it without the thing spitting black fire everywhere.

~☆☆☆~

The recovery team from the ISF showed up about half an hour after Miss Emily called them. Surprisingly, they were a bit more in the know than any of us expected. I'm sure all the info she gave them helped coordinate the operation properly.

Marek was in charge of speaking with the press, making sure that the public was informed on the situation. Not fully though, because some details were better left out. At least, that's what Uncles told me. 

A few people in the military were court martialed for supposedly falsely reporting back to command what was going on in Verrenvill. It wasn't totally their faults, so I really felt bad. But the chain of command was getting a shake up because of this. Not sure how, but that's the rumor going around.

On a lighter note, the country actually started taking this demon threat very seriously. Not just the military, but the people too. Church attendance was at its highest it's ever been and it wasn't even a weekend.

Queen Amanda Elkhearts also made an effort to coordinate the government to respond accordingly. She was holding a meeting in the capital city of Congerlin and wanted me to be there too. It was happening tomorrow, so we had to prepare to leave soon.

Yamin let us stay at her house. It was cozy compared to The Hive, but I really liked that feeling. What feeling I didn't like though was Indena and Mella were both out in a field behind her house shouting at each other.

“Stupid cat witch!”

“Foolish fire mage!”

Both had their magics primed, one burning along with the weakening sunlight of the evening, and the other oozing an aura of tainted poison.

Their fight began when Indena jumped into the air and spun, sending fire balls down on Mella.

Mella responded by evading the explosions and breathing out a toxic gas toward Indena.

Indena was at her best in close quarters, but Mella's poison breath wouldn't allow her to get close enough to swing a fist. She had a counter to this.

Indena held her breath, her fire aura grew a fraction bigger. She ran in and struck the surprised cat witch with a few good hits.

“What is this?” Mella uttered. “How did you do all that with your breath held?”

“Hah! I stumped the witch,” Indena laughed. “You know how fire needs oxygen to burn? I can take that oxygen from my flame and use it to breathe.”

That was oddly scientific of her. I was impressed!

Their fight seemed more tame then the last time they duked it out, but both were going for the others' throat. Not that it couldn't escalate at any second. Uncle was keeping an eye on them in case something got out of hand.

Yamin was one of the onlookers of their battle. She wore a downcast look at the raging battle in her honour. 

The evil book forced on her was in an old lead lined backpack that was originally used for film. It was the only thing we could find to keep it from public eye, and possibly prevent anything from detecting it.

“Mel, is there really no way to get rid of this book right now? I hate having to carry it around.”

“You'll only have it for a little while longer until I can properly quarantine it,” Uncle said.

He'd have to get it back to The Hive for that, then we could store it away in a maximum security container.

“So, what about when demons show up again for me?”

It wasn’t the first time she'd asked that today.

“That's why we're here,” I said, summarizing what Uncle had already told her. “We saved you once, we can do it again.”

My chipper spirit didn’t seem to resonate with her. She still looked sad about the whole thing.

“I wanna say I'm happy, but I'd rather not need to be saved.” She patted me on the head as a show of gratitude.

There was a silver lining here, literally. Yamin has stardust powers like me, so that made her a lot harder to detect by demons according to Mella. Her backpack wasn't just lined with lead either, it also had stardust in it too. So as long as we kept her a secret, we'd have very little issue taking her around. Plus the ISF was giving us privileges to help conceal her identity a little more with a fake crystal ID card.

Oh! I also got one of those crystal ID cards too! Mine was green. Depending on the colour you had, it would mean you had a different job.

Red was for civilians and politicians, Blue was for mages and green was for military. I managed to digitize the card and store it in my ‘INVENTORY’ tab. Seeing as I was considered an Arch-angel, that gave me one of the highest ranks ever. They let mine have some pretty sparkles in it too, and I put a little heart sticker on the back.

BOOM!

Indena and Mella’s battle continued to rage on. It was so weird watching Indena battle a cat, but it probably wasn’t the weirdest thing she'd ever had to deal with.

“Uncle, when are we leaving for the city? I thought the meeting was tomorrow.”

“We’re waiting for someone to show up, then we can leave on the next train to the capital.”

Ohh! We get to take the train again! 

But who were we waiting for? Marek was taking a nap at Yamin's house after about five straight hours of talking to the press, so we just need to wake him up when we were leaving. And Emily wasn't coming with. So who else were we waiting for?

A small crowd had gathered around to watch the exciting battle between a fire mage and a cat. To outsiders it looked like this was some sort of destructive magical performance. Among them I heard a voice that seemed a bit odd.

“...too slow…sloppy movement…clearly needs some work…where did she learn that?…”

It was barely a whisper, almost like they were breathing their thoughts out. I was hardly even able to catch it.

I snuck away from Uncle and Yamin and took a peek at everyone. Most of the people just had question marks above their heads, but one woman had a name tag filled out…

“Nice Lady?” That’s what her virtual nametag read. Did I know her? Her bio scans didn’t pick up anything strange. Just an average human with an interesting mana signature.

I gave a tug to her long skirt to get her attention. She turned around and kneeled down to my level.

“Oh dear, is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

“Is your name Nice Lady?”

She snickered, then put a finger to her lip with a cute smile.

“If it were, who would like to know?”

“My name is Yalda. Have I ever met you before?”

The woman's smile faded for a brief moment, but then returned. “I don’t think we have met before. But…” she reached into her purse, feeling around it until grabbing a little photo. “Is this you?”

A baby in a cradle?

Wahh…whaahh…wait a minute! That baby was me! I recognized my own crystal heart.

“Why do you have a baby photo of me?” I don’t know if I was creeped out or just plain confused.

She snickered, then put the photo very precisely back between two little slips of paper in her purse.

“My name is Lauri Samual. You’re father and I worked closely together for a few years.”

Lauri Samual? That was Yamin’s adoptive mother’s name.

Holy cow! This was Yamin’s mom!

“Yamin!” I shouted. “It's you’re mommy!”

Mrs. Samuel was a little stunned that I took the initiative to get Yamin’s attention, but they both greeted each other with a warm hug.

“What are you doing here?” Yamin asked. “I thought you were going to Esma for work.”

“When I heard my precious little darling was in danger, I had to rush back and check on her.” Yamin’s mom really seemed the type to get silly-dramatic easily. Her quirky vibes made me think she was the fun kind of parent.

“I guess this was a crisis, wasn’t it…” Yamin mentioned.

Although a lot of the people here knew what went on, they didn’t seem too bothered by it. I mean, they did just kinda’ wake up as if nothing had happened. So as far as they were concerned, they just got a good week of sleep. I hope none of them lose their jobs over it…

“Lauri, it’s good to see you again.” Uncle smiled and shook her hand.

“Mel, always a pleasure.” She held his hand tightly and did a cute little bow. “You’re brother must be up to something again, I take it? Any idea where he is?”

“We have an idea, but no way to get to him yet.”

“A pity. That man was always hard to find.”

Was it just me, or were they talking really weird?

“Now that you're here, let’s get those girls to stop fighting. We’ll need to get on the road soon so we don’t miss that meeting.”

Stopping Indena and Mella from fighting was like trying to tear a bear away from a lion. It’s best to just stay away and not try it.

“So, she’s coming with us?” I asked.

I never would have thought in a million years we’d be inviting Yamin’s mom to join the party.

“Yeah, wait a minute…why's mom coming with?” Yamin asked.

Uncle had that blank face he usually had when he didn’t want to tell me something, but a smile quickly turned it over.

“After the incident here, she requested to join us. Given her skills in geography and geology, I figured she’d be able to help us locate your father a bit easier.”

Oh. I guess that checks out. Well, she was welcome to join our group if she’d like.

I’m really hoping that now this demon lord situation is taken care of, we can focus our full force on finding dad. That confrontation was coming up soon, I could feel it. After all these years I can’t wait to see him again.