Two beautiful woman walked down the empty streets, one a bit tipsy while the other one kept looking out for a danger. One of them was me … the sober one to be exact. Hannah had drunken a little bit too much during the play which made it very hard for us to find the way to Tom’s mansion.
But hey, I was with her as well, so I could finally get my compass and map back to work! I was so proud of myself, especially as we finally stood in front of the mansion.
I had honestly thought we would get stranded at some reincarnators house, but that was luckily not the case. Banging against the iron gate with my fists and probably setting off some alarms somewhere, we were quickly led inside by a familiar butler.
“Hannah? I think we’ll stay during the night if that’s alright with you.”
“Surely … hey, you.” She tapped the shoulder of the butler who guided us through the hallways. “Get me somewhere where I can sleep … preferably somewhere where those two aren’t that often.” She mumbled and nearly stumbled over a carpet. After the butler rang a bell, we didn’t have to wait long until another maid came who directly guided Hannah away after being told what to do.
And so, it was only me and the twenty something man. With his brown hairs and tall figure, he honestly looked quite tasty … but I didn’t know if he even knew what his masters were, so I didn’t sink my canines in him and rather followed him while putting up my usual act.
He guided me towards a door which he opened after knocking twice. He didn’t enter though, but rather waited out of Tom’s gaze who sat on a large wooden desk. The whore sat on the edge of the desk far to his right and smiled brightly at me while I walked towards the nearby couch and flung myself onto it.
“As unfriendly as ever.” The whore complained, but I couldn’t care less.
“So, why am I here?”
“Lucinda, correct me if I’m wrong, but new races shouldn’t appear anymore. Right?” They most definitely shouldn’t. The mana density in the air stopped increasing some time ago. That sudden increase was the sole reason new races were born, so we should see the number of races plateauing already.
“Theoretically.” I said and pushed my head deeply into a soft pillow.
“And demonic races only survived their initial phase of expansion either because they were a pair of them right away or they could still reproduce with their base race.” That was broadly speaking correct. There were a few cases in which demonic races apparently reproduced through a completely different way as well, but these could be completely ignored for the sake of the argument.
“Correct.” I said, gripping the pillow tightly and pushing it a little further downwards so it was placed perfectly.
“Therefore, we shouldn’t see a race that has gone extinct ever again.” For real? Which race has been resurrected from the ashes? Please not the beavers …
“There are new werewolves?” I asked a bit surprised. It was still horrifying for me to remember the dead children in their cages, so I really wished it wouldn’t be them.
“We have found a ghoul.” Silence. Nobody moved. Until I grabbed the pillow from underneath me and hurled it towards the next wall. Standing up furiously, I pointed at Tom and glared at him.
“What? You told me there weren’t any other vampires around anymore.” This was a total disaster. If humans stated searching for vampires again, it would definitely threaten my standing in society.
“I searched for a hundred years and found no trace of anyone else. After that, the risks outweighed the benefits …” That was understandable … I didn’t even blame him for not noticing earlier, but it still made me angry.
“Did your blood get lost somewhere? Or … the church?” Did they take my blood while I was asleep? Maybe they started some weird vampire program I didn’t know about? Surely not.
“I cannot imagine the church doing such a thing and I made sure that every drop of my blood secure. Do you have any idea how that could happen if it’s not one from our family?” The demons must have found vampire blood somewhere. But where? Or could it be …
“I have … I have been thinking about the issue for some time already. Do you have any other demon around?” I asked and turned around, not even waiting for one of them to reply.
“The adventurers brought one in yesterday.” The whore mentioned, standing up from the desk and hurried behind me.
“So it’s a goblin. Well, that’s fine.” I said and opened the door right away. “Go ahead.” I said and watched her back as she guided Tom and me into the cellar where she stopped in front of a iron door. After fumbling with different keys for a little while, she finally got it open and lit some magical lamps inside the room. There was a single goblin bound the the wall with iron chains inside.
It was already awake as I stormed into the room and screamed at me loudly, but it wouldn’t be long until he stopped anyway.
As soon as I was close to him, I took out the hidden knife from my skirt and started cutting the goblin open while pressing him against the wall with my other hand. It was quite the loud endeavour at first, but as I laid its heart bare, it was already completely silent.
Stepping a bit back in the puddle of blood, I pushed my hand into the open wound and ripped its heart out in one go.
“What is this?” I asked, holding the glibbery organ high above me.
“A heart?” Correct … that wasn’t too hard to figure out, right?
“A human heart. Smaller, but unmistakably a human one. Here..” I said and threw it over to the whore who dodged it as fast as she could. Next, I grabbed into the wound once more, pressed against its chest with my other hand and broke of a rib of the corpse. “A human rib, as found in a child. Twelve on each side, twenty four in total. It’s colon is similar to a human one as well. The brain structure isn’t that different either, just a lot smaller.”
“That’s because humans are the base for goblins.” That was right as well … or they shared the same predecessor, but I honestly had my doubts about that.
“Precisely. It’s innards are largely human.” I said and dug into the corpse to get his liver out and presented it to them.
“So what? I don’t get it.” The whore said, blowing her nose in disgust.
“Tom?” I asked and let the liver fall onto the ground.
“Me neither.” He said and shook his head. A bit disappointed, I turned back to the goblin and opened its yaw wide.
“None of you? Look at its teeth. Sharpened to bite off a hand. Five fingers with somewhat sturdy nails. Anything else?” I said and dug into his skull with three of my fingers to get his right eye out.
“Green skin, long ears, and weirdly large eyes and a nose that is just slightly ugly.” Tom said a bit confused while I showed them the eyeball which was larger than that of a human, but still looked completely the same.
“You got it.” I said and threw the eyeball right at the whore’s belly.
“He got what?” She said, nearly screamed in disgust as she noticed that I had actually hit her.
“While the organs are largely the same, the outer shell isn’t.” Tom concluded while stepped to the side to let them look at the mutilated corpse.
“And that’s consistent throughout all the demonic races. Additionally, what’s the smallest demon you know of?” I asked and rubbed my hands at the wall to get at least a bit of blood off them.
“A goblin?” The whore asked dumbly.
“A flame hedgehog.” That was an interesting guess .. but no.
“I found a small bird species. And that’s it. No bugs, no insects … nothing.” I said, a bit happy that we were progressing somewhat with this conversation.
“Maybe it’s not possible for them to withstand the transformation?” Tom theorised right away, but shook his head a bit afterwards. “I don’t see a reason why they shouldn’t. They do have souls and that is all they need to mutate.”
“Okay … I still don’t see where you are getting with this.” The whore complained loudly.
“Why is it that we don’t see more grotesque creatures? Why is it that all the creatures we see are beatable by humans? Why doesn’t a demon exist that fused with a tree and grows exponentially?” Or something that lived completely underground? Even the best earth mages would have trouble keeping up with a mole-man.
“I always thought they would die if the mutation was too much.” The whore said while grabbing her chin in thought.
“I’m surprised you got that. It’s correct though. Too much change and the race will inevitably be unfit for life. But what about far less changes? Why don’t we see humans with a … I don’t know? A single horn for example? Where are these little changes?” Why did all the demons either looked exactly like humans did like the werewolves, or completely different like the goblins? Where was the middle ground?
“The werewolves had pretty mild changes to them.” The whore said, still not getting what I was implying.
“They could turn into wolves … I don’t see that as a little change.” Their race was perfect for mingling amongst humans, that was for sure. Just like mine was … but we were still vastly different from them in our behaviour and abilities.
“I see where you are going now … it is indeed striking that all the demonic races have a similar body structure to their base race, but do not share their look for the most part. The only conclusion I can draw from all of this is that all the races are designed by someone…” Tom said exactly what I came up with as well. If humans mutated, we should see a wide variety of changes from small not big changes … but we only saw big ones.
“That’s what I came up with as well. These mutations that happened weren’t random at all. They were steered in a way that resulted in the races we have today.” I concluded. All of the demonic races were designed. Using another species as a basis, someone worked out functioning races that were completely different from the base while still sharing a vast variety of similarities in their organs. Everything bore the handwriting of a lazy god who needed to make the most changes possible with the least amount of effort being put into it.
“You got to be kidding me.” The whore added a bit stunned.
“And we have to face it as well. All of us. We all belong to a demonic race. I have heart that doesn’t bleed, a stomach that devours everything I put into it, but I still have every human organ. And you scubbi are as indistinguishable from humans as vampires … we only feed on different things. There are predefined races on this planet. Some may exist and others not yet.” Everything I found out about demons indicated that vampires and scubbi were demonic races as well. We might have existed before the term demon was even popular, but we were one of them. Surprisingly, even the elves would fall under the term demonic this way, but I refused to call them that because I knew for a fact that they carried the gift of Irminsul inside them … while demon races didn’t. Usually. The werewolves were kind of a weird exception there …
“The only one who would be capable of creating these races and enforcing them are the gods.” The whore said and sadly, I couldn’t agree more. No mortal had the power to steer evolution this way.
“I always thought their goal was to increase the mana density for some reason …” Tom said and frowned slightly. If that’s what he really thought … then he had been fooled.
“If all of my assumptions are true, then they want conflict. As much as possible.” I said. I just couldn’t find any other explanation for all the things the gods did. Increasing the mana density was their decision, along with what new races should exist. And by designing them the way they did, conflict was basically assured.
“What for?” Tom asked, still thinking hard about everything he learned.
“I don’t fucking know. And I won’t ask as well. The only answer I’ll get is a lie.” Aska would lie straight, that was for sure. And Irminsul? She already lied to me by claiming that seeing these reincarnators before their revival would be useful in any way.
“And maybe, someone found a way to create these races through unnatural means. Which is why no race will be extinct for sure.” Tom concluded and closed his eyes in realisation. The stray ghoul wasn’t our fault, it my assumptions were correct. No blood of mine had been leaked in any way, so someone must have found a way to create specific demonic races on their own.
“Including vampires …” Tom muttered quietly. “We are possibly in for a hunt.”
“If the humans got wind of this, they would start searching for us. There was already the rumour that there are demons which can hide amongst humans and this would put even more fuel to the fire. We had to hide it … at all costs.
Two beautiful woman walked down the empty streets, one a bit tipsy while the other one kept looking out for a danger. One of them was me … the sober one to be exact. Hannah had drunken a little bit too much during the play which made it very hard for us to find the way to Tom’s mansion.
But hey, I was with her as well, so I could finally get my compass and map back to work! I was so proud of myself, especially as we finally stood in front of the mansion.
I had honestly thought we would get stranded at some reincarnators house, but that was luckily not the case. Banging against the iron gate with my fists and probably setting off some alarms somewhere, we were quickly led inside by a familiar butler.
“Hannah? I think we’ll stay during the night if that’s alright with you.”
“Surely … hey, you.” She tapped the shoulder of the butler who guided us through the hallways. “Get me somewhere where I can sleep … preferably somewhere where those two aren’t that often.” She mumbled and nearly stumbled over a carpet. After the butler rang a bell, we didn’t have to wait long until another maid came who directly guided Hannah away after being told what to do.
And so, it was only me and the twenty something man. With his brown hairs and tall figure, he honestly looked quite tasty … but I didn’t know if he even knew what his masters were, so I didn’t sink my canines in him and rather followed him while putting up my usual act.
He guided me towards a door which he opened after knocking twice. He didn’t enter though, but rather waited out of Tom’s gaze who sat on a large wooden desk. The whore sat on the edge of the desk far to his right and smiled brightly at me while I walked towards the nearby couch and flung myself onto it.
“As unfriendly as ever.” The whore complained, but I couldn’t care less.
“So, why am I here?”
“Lucinda, correct me if I’m wrong, but new races shouldn’t appear anymore. Right?” They most definitely shouldn’t. The mana density in the air stopped increasing some time ago. That sudden increase was the sole reason new races were born, so we should see the number of races plateauing already.
“Theoretically.” I said and pushed my head deeply into a soft pillow.
“And demonic races only survived their initial phase of expansion either because they were a pair of them right away or they could still reproduce with their base race.” That was broadly speaking correct. There were a few cases in which demonic races apparently reproduced through a completely different way as well, but these could be completely ignored for the sake of the argument.
“Correct.” I said, gripping the pillow tightly and pushing it a little further downwards so it was placed perfectly.
“Therefore, we shouldn’t see a race that has gone extinct ever again.” For real? Which race has been resurrected from the ashes? Please not the beavers …
“There are new werewolves?” I asked a bit surprised. It was still horrifying for me to remember the dead children in their cages, so I really wished it wouldn’t be them.
“We have found a ghoul.” Silence. Nobody moved. Until I grabbed the pillow from underneath me and hurled it towards the next wall. Standing up furiously, I pointed at Tom and glared at him.
“What? You told me there weren’t any other vampires around anymore.” This was a total disaster. If humans stated searching for vampires again, it would definitely threaten my standing in society.
“I searched for a hundred years and found no trace of anyone else. After that, the risks outweighed the benefits …” That was understandable … I didn’t even blame him for not noticing earlier, but it still made me angry.
“Did your blood get lost somewhere? Or … the church?” Did they take my blood while I was asleep? Maybe they started some weird vampire program I didn’t know about? Surely not.
“I cannot imagine the church doing such a thing and I made sure that every drop of my blood secure. Do you have any idea how that could happen if it’s not one from our family?” The demons must have found vampire blood somewhere. But where? Or could it be …
“I have … I have been thinking about the issue for some time already. Do you have any other demon around?” I asked and turned around, not even waiting for one of them to reply.
“The adventurers brought one in yesterday.” The whore mentioned, standing up from the desk and hurried behind me.
“So it’s a goblin. Well, that’s fine.” I said and opened the door right away. “Go ahead.” I said and watched her back as she guided Tom and me into the cellar where she stopped in front of a iron door. After fumbling with different keys for a little while, she finally got it open and lit some magical lamps inside the room. There was a single goblin bound the the wall with iron chains inside.
It was already awake as I stormed into the room and screamed at me loudly, but it wouldn’t be long until he stopped anyway.
As soon as I was close to him, I took out the hidden knife from my skirt and started cutting the goblin open while pressing him against the wall with my other hand. It was quite the loud endeavour at first, but as I laid its heart bare, it was already completely silent.
Stepping a bit back in the puddle of blood, I pushed my hand into the open wound and ripped its heart out in one go.
“What is this?” I asked, holding the glibbery organ high above me.
“A heart?” Correct … that wasn’t too hard to figure out, right?
“A human heart. Smaller, but unmistakably a human one. Here..” I said and threw it over to the whore who dodged it as fast as she could. Next, I grabbed into the wound once more, pressed against its chest with my other hand and broke of a rib of the corpse. “A human rib, as found in a child. Twelve on each side, twenty four in total. It’s colon is similar to a human one as well. The brain structure isn’t that different either, just a lot smaller.”
“That’s because humans are the base for goblins.” That was right as well … or they shared the same predecessor, but I honestly had my doubts about that.
“Precisely. It’s innards are largely human.” I said and dug into the corpse to get his liver out and presented it to them.
“So what? I don’t get it.” The whore said, blowing her nose in disgust.
“Tom?” I asked and let the liver fall onto the ground.
“Me neither.” He said and shook his head. A bit disappointed, I turned back to the goblin and opened its yaw wide.
“None of you? Look at its teeth. Sharpened to bite off a hand. Five fingers with somewhat sturdy nails. Anything else?” I said and dug into his skull with three of my fingers to get his right eye out.
“Green skin, long ears, and weirdly large eyes and a nose that is just slightly ugly.” Tom said a bit confused while I showed them the eyeball which was larger than that of a human, but still looked completely the same.
“You got it.” I said and threw the eyeball right at the whore’s belly.
“He got what?” She said, nearly screamed in disgust as she noticed that I had actually hit her.
“While the organs are largely the same, the outer shell isn’t.” Tom concluded while stepped to the side to let them look at the mutilated corpse.
“And that’s consistent throughout all the demonic races. Additionally, what’s the smallest demon you know of?” I asked and rubbed my hands at the wall to get at least a bit of blood off them.
“A goblin?” The whore asked dumbly.
“A flame hedgehog.” That was an interesting guess .. but no.
“I found a small bird species. And that’s it. No bugs, no insects … nothing.” I said, a bit happy that we were progressing somewhat with this conversation.
“Maybe it’s not possible for them to withstand the transformation?” Tom theorised right away, but shook his head a bit afterwards. “I don’t see a reason why they shouldn’t. They do have souls and that is all they need to mutate.”
“Okay … I still don’t see where you are getting with this.” The whore complained loudly.
“Why is it that we don’t see more grotesque creatures? Why is it that all the creatures we see are beatable by humans? Why doesn’t a demon exist that fused with a tree and grows exponentially?” Or something that lived completely underground? Even the best earth mages would have trouble keeping up with a mole-man.
“I always thought they would die if the mutation was too much.” The whore said while grabbing her chin in thought.
“I’m surprised you got that. It’s correct though. Too much change and the race will inevitably be unfit for life. But what about far less changes? Why don’t we see humans with a … I don’t know? A single horn for example? Where are these little changes?” Why did all the demons either looked exactly like humans did like the werewolves, or completely different like the goblins? Where was the middle ground?
“The werewolves had pretty mild changes to them.” The whore said, still not getting what I was implying.
“They could turn into wolves … I don’t see that as a little change.” Their race was perfect for mingling amongst humans, that was for sure. Just like mine was … but we were still vastly different from them in our behaviour and abilities.
“I see where you are going now … it is indeed striking that all the demonic races have a similar body structure to their base race, but do not share their look for the most part. The only conclusion I can draw from all of this is that all the races are designed by someone…” Tom said exactly what I came up with as well. If humans mutated, we should see a wide variety of changes from small not big changes … but we only saw big ones.
“That’s what I came up with as well. These mutations that happened weren’t random at all. They were steered in a way that resulted in the races we have today.” I concluded. All of the demonic races were designed. Using another species as a basis, someone worked out functioning races that were completely different from the base while still sharing a vast variety of similarities in their organs. Everything bore the handwriting of a lazy god who needed to make the most changes possible with the least amount of effort being put into it.
“You got to be kidding me.” The whore added a bit stunned.
“And we have to face it as well. All of us. We all belong to a demonic race. I have heart that doesn’t bleed, a stomach that devours everything I put into it, but I still have every human organ. And you scubbi are as indistinguishable from humans as vampires … we only feed on different things. There are predefined races on this planet. Some may exist and others not yet.” Everything I found out about demons indicated that vampires and scubbi were demonic races as well. We might have existed before the term demon was even popular, but we were one of them. Surprisingly, even the elves would fall under the term demonic this way, but I refused to call them that because I knew for a fact that they carried the gift of Irminsul inside them … while demon races didn’t. Usually. The werewolves were kind of a weird exception there …
“The only one who would be capable of creating these races and enforcing them are the gods.” The whore said and sadly, I couldn’t agree more. No mortal had the power to steer evolution this way.
“I always thought their goal was to increase the mana density for some reason …” Tom said and frowned slightly. If that’s what he really thought … then he had been fooled.
“If all of my assumptions are true, then they want conflict. As much as possible.” I said. I just couldn’t find any other explanation for all the things the gods did. Increasing the mana density was their decision, along with what new races should exist. And by designing them the way they did, conflict was basically assured.
“What for?” Tom asked, still thinking hard about everything he learned.
“I don’t fucking know. And I won’t ask as well. The only answer I’ll get is a lie.” Aska would lie straight, that was for sure. And Irminsul? She already lied to me by claiming that seeing these reincarnators before their revival would be useful in any way.
“And maybe, someone found a way to create these races through unnatural means. Which is why no race will be extinct for sure.” Tom concluded and closed his eyes in realisation. The stray ghoul wasn’t our fault, it my assumptions were correct. No blood of mine had been leaked in any way, so someone must have found a way to create specific demonic races on their own.
“Including vampires …” Tom muttered quietly. “We are possibly in for a hunt.”
“If the humans got wind of this, they would start searching for us. There was already the rumour that there are demons which can hide amongst humans and this would put even more fuel to the fire. We had to hide it … at all costs.
