Chương 56: Chapter 49 - S-Rank demon lawyer

Darkness spat me onto a raised platform in the middle of what could only be described as a cargo bay that had given up on its dreams. Crates stacked to the ceiling, held down by netting. Conduits running along every wall like varicose veins. Lighting flickered in the specific rhythm of a maintenance request ignored for a decade. A viewport took up half of the far wall. Beyond it floated rocks.

Thousands of them, tumbling in a slow, silent ballet, stretching out into the black until they became dust and the dust became stars. An asteroid belt. Between the nearest rocks drifted skeletal rigs, chewing into the stone with lights and drills, hauling glowing ore along tether lines. I was on a spaceship.

"Oy!" a voice barked.

"Platform's active! Platform's active, get the manifest!" So much for a quiet arrival. Three locals stood between the crates, staring at me. Two wore heavy work suits with magnetic boots and the facial expressions of men paid by the hour. The third was a short, round woman with a data slate, an impressive collection of pens holstered on her chest, and the aura of middle management. She marched up to the platform.

"Name?"

"Damian."

"Origin floor?"

"Six." She squinted at me. The Cloak of the Wanderer did its thing, selling me as a native of the tower, just not of this particular flying scrapheap. She scribbled on the slate.

"Quite the climber, then. Where's the rest of your party?" An excellent question. I didn't see anyone around. Liu, Henrik, and Aurelio ran out of their timers, so they had to return to Earth. But the system let me through, so I should have had two other climbers with me. Looking at the empty platform, that didn't happen.

"No idea," I admitted.

"One." She wrote it like it was a diagnosis.

"Welcome aboard the Persistent Margin, ore hauler and refinery, currently working the Belt on a standard eleven-cycle circuit. House rules: no fighting, no theft, no venting anything or anyone into space without a permit."

"You can get a permit for that?"

"Forms are at the purser's office." Not a hint of a smile.

"Air's metered. Your climber status covers the basic breathing allowance. Heavy exertion, open flames, and excessive talking are surcharged." I snorted. She didn't.

"The tally's automatic." She tapped the slate.

"Anything else runs on chits. Meals, bunks, water above ration. The tower drops your kind here often enough for us to have proper procedures to handle you. Also, yes, there's a trial to go up. It's not on this ship. It's out there." She jabbed a pen at the viewport, at the endless field of tumbling rock.

"The trial manager is on deck C, door 84."

"Thanks." I smiled. Given my plans for tonight, I wasn't in a rush.

"I need a bunk, as private as possible." She scribbled again, tore off a chit, and held it out. Her eyes slid to the Sarah's sword I had sheathed by my belt.

"Cabin 9, crew deck. One gold." I handed over a gold coin. She inspected it, bit it, which I hadn't seen anyone do outside of old movies, and nodded like the coin had passed a job interview.

"Deck's up the lift, third door. Mess is open until the shift bell." She turned to the workers, already done with me.

"Back to work! The ore doesn't throw itself into the smelter!" I took the lift. The crew deck was a corridor of doors, each with a number stenciled on and half of them re-stenciled over older numbers. Cabin 9 turned out to be a room the size of a generous closet. A bunk, a fold-out desk, a sink, and, mercifully, its own little viewport the size of a dinner plate. Through it, the Belt drifted by, rock after rock after rock, lit from underneath by the ship's floodlights.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The place had its claustrophobic charm to it. I locked the door, tossed the cloak over the chair, put Sarah's sword on top of the cloak, and took off my boots. I sat on the bunk and focused. My consciousness sank inwards, and I got up in my soul chamber. With a concentrated thought, I checked my mana. I spent a touch over two million mana today, so I had one hundred and one and a half million mana.

Actually, shields cost a ton of mana when getting hit by something strong. I didn't spend all that much mana on the summons, but I needed to absorb all incoming damage due to having no health, and then face-tanking a boss strike was costly. Time to get my first S-rank demon. I created a new room in the soil chamber, a blank one, walked in, and focused on Yushi. She appeared in a puff of mist.

"Ku ku ku… Damian-sama comes to Yushi at night, alone, with intent burning in his eyes. Yushi has read enough manga to know where this is going." I pulled on the lantern of eternal suffering. It appeared in my hand, shining like a miniature teal sun.

"We're summoning Siegfried."

"Ooooh…" Yushi flew into the lantern, reaching for the souls. I let her. She grabbed most of them and bolted away. I held a mana tendril to her so that I could pull her back, hopefully with the prize. For a second, I thought whether I didn't get scammed. If she brought the souls elsewhere, and then broke off the contract, I could do much other than file a complaint at Elsha. Actually, that was enough of a threat when demons were involved. She didn't fly to Hell, though, as far as I understood the directions.

She flew the other way and stopped much closer. The tendril tucked. I pulled on it. The energy returned in a current. It blew into the room, and at its center, it formed Siegfried. He stood at almost seven feet tall, wearing a black suit, shirt, and shoes, with massive horns on his head and a greatsword strapped to his back. He had the handsome face of a man in his early thirties, piercing amber eyes, and brown hair. Even under the suit, it was clear how much muscle he packed, especially on his back.

He bowed slightly.

"I am Siegfried." What a suspiciously modern outfit. I narrowed my eyes.

"I am Damian." He straightened.

"It is a pleasure to meet you. Why have you summoned me?"

"Yushi told me you would be willing to serve as my summon in exchange for a certain degree of freedom on Earth."

"That is accurate." He smiled.

"We are searching for a VIP who has gotten lost on Earth. Freedom to seek it at opportune moments would suffice for the exchange for my services."

"What about after you find it?"

"Then I will serve out the rest of our contract. Your human life is but a blip on our lifespan." He came well prepared. Suspiciously so.

"Don't you have a goddess to serve? Every demon serves a demon princess, as far as I am aware."

"Indeed. But the goddess has sanctioned this mission. It is with her blessing and approval that I am offering my services." He lied. Something in his tone betrayed him. I couldn't tell which part, but something from what he said wasn't true. Still, even if it was a lie, would I pass on this? Well, most likely not. He needed time to find the VIP, and I was in the tower, so he wasn't even looking for anyone until I returned to Earth, which I wasn't planning to do anytime soon.

"In terms of combat ability, what can you actually do?"

"As the right hand of Kallisto, I am strong even for a demon. My every physical attribute is beyond almost all non-divine beings. I also have powerful regeneration, over four hundred years of experience with swordsmanship, and a body harder than steel. Nevertheless, I am fundamentally a direct combat type." That sounded true. Gave me a benchmark.

"Who's the VIP? Perhaps I know them."

"That you indeed might, although it is unlikely. I am, however, not at liberty to disclose the information. The goddess wills it to remain discreet." I nodded. Half-truth, purely by my gut feeling.

"Will that VIP come to any harm?"

"No. Our mission is fundamentally a rescue mission." That sounded true.

"I suppose you'll need a statue."

"Yes. The base should be at least a hundred broken swords. The statue can be made of any metal, preferably steel."

"Why broken swords?"

"I am also known as the Swordbreaker. It belongs to my mythos." Right. A five hundred-year-old demon knight, the right hand of a demon princess, had a mythos of his own. I sat down, summoning the contract.

"This is the contract." As he sat down, I focused, created the page that specified the terms of his freedom to search for his VIP, and attached it to the contract. He picked it up.

"This appears appropriate."

"If you have any questions, I will be happy to elaborate." He read the first page and flipped over.

"That is unlikely to be necessary. This is competently written." Well, thanks. It did make me smile. He calmly read it to the end.

"Very well. All terms seem to be in place." He reached for the sword, pricked his finger on a spike at the top of the pommel, and used the blood to sign himself on the contract. I reached for the binding. Energy burned at my chest. It seared a tattoo of a greatsword that ran down from the base of my throat all the way to my stomach. All right. This hopefully didn't look too bad. He nodded.

"Very well. I shall be ready to be summoned once the statue is completed."

"Perfect. Do you have any unspoken requirements about the swords?"

"No. It is the symbolism that matters." Well, now I had to find a way to get to floor twenty-five to collect all the broken weapons the battle created. Or I had to come up with a creative solution. Something yanked on me. From outside. I frowned.

"I need to go. See you around." Upon a focused thought, I returned to reality. My eyes opened to the cabin ceiling. The ship thrummed beneath the bunk. Beyond the little viewport, the Belt tumbled on, floodlit rocks drifting past in silence. The cabin was dark except for a single small flame of an incense stick. None of that mattered, though, because Cassandra stood by the window.