The devil screamed. She dropped her bow as Ashtoreth leapt the distance between them, raising her hands in futile attempt to stop the [Mighty Blow]. Her armor and body seemed to crumble around the sword as it sheared her in half and beat both halves into the ground.

{You receive 1 [Diabolic Soldier Core]; Tier 1}

"Think we should go back yet?" Dazel asked, sounding a bit bored.

There was only one more Devil nearby, and Ashtoreth fell to her knees and braced herself before launching her sword through his back, sending him sprawling face-first into the dirt.

{You receive 1 [Diabolic Soldier Core]; Tier 1}

"This is a good farm,"she protested. "Even if we divvy these up evenly, I've probably got more levels stored up than what we got from the boss."

"We're getting pretty far from the tower," he said. "You sure you don't want to head back?"

"One second," she said. She planted her sword, then launched herself off it and into the air as high as she could, scanning the terrain below her.

"What do you know," she said, "I think I can see their base."

From above, it was clear that the routed infernals were fleeing toward a ravine in the ground a kilometer away, one that glowed with inner light like an angry wound amidst the bloodleaf trees. She flared her wings and slowed her fall with her racial flight, considering this.

"All right," she said at last. "Let's go get the others."

"Great," said Dazel as she landed, then threw herself into the air again—back toward the tower. "Also, don't get upset, but I wanted to ask something."

"That's an inauspicious preface," Ashtoreth said warily. "But okay. Ask."

"And you won't get upset?"

"Ask."

"Fine," he said. "It's just—you realize that Hunter was actually right, right?"

"Uh. What?" She didn't expect to hear that from Dazel….

"Look. When shirtless Kirito wanted to go off into the woods and farm instead of looking for more humans, he had the right idea. If you want to save people, the way to do it is to save Earth, not wander around the tutorial falling behind looking for rescues."

Ashtoreth frowned. She wanted to argue with him, but…

"Sorry," she began. "'shirtless Kirito'? How do you know who Kirito is?"

"Cultural osmosis," Dazel said, sounding suspiciously defensive. "Obviously. But really, why are you dragging these humans around behind you?"

"Because it's the right thing to do."

Dazel gagged. "Look, you can be honest with me about this, at least."

"I am being honest!"

"Ashtoreth. Come on."

"I am!"

"Look," he said. "You're the fiend, I'm the demon. You're the boss, I'm the minion. You're hiding things, I'm completely honest—it's the way of the world. But we don't have to trust each other because we understand each other. We know how it is. So why not just tell me what you need a squad of loyal humans for?"

"Because they don't deserve to die to Hell!" Ashtoreth said. "Because nobody does! It's not complicated, Dazel."

"Tch."

"Hey!" she said. "I'm telling the truth."

It was, of course, only part of the truth. Once she'd beaten the tutorial and then tampered with it so that it functioned as a higher-level, year-long training simulator, she could level the humans so that they were super-effective combatants, especially when compared to the low-level demons who would be invading the Earth when they returned.

She'd show up at the start of the invasion with a set of what were now the most powerful humans in the world, humans who'd had almost a year to learn to trust her and fight with her.

With a versatile group of humans, Earth would be hers within days, especially if one of them was strong enough to manage long-range teleportation.

Hence, she needed the humans.

"You know that every one of these fights is something you didn't need them for," Dazel continued. "You can do this much faster without any of them. They're going to slow you down even more once you start flying. And none of that's considering the fact that you keep just… just giving them cores. For free."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Ashtoreth's voice grew cold. "It's not a handicap I can't handle, Dazel. We're keeping the humans."

"Fine. Whatever. But are you sure they're going to keep you?"

"We're dropping this."

He sighed. "Yes, boss."

"Say, Dazel."

"Yeah?"

"Were you always a demon, or did you get converted?"

She felt him stiffen where he clung to her back.

"You don't have to tell me," she said. "I was just wondering."

He paused a moment, then suddenly asked, "Who asks something like that? You've got to be the weirdest archfiend that there is."

"I'll take it as a compliment that I differ from the baseline. Especially from you."

Soon enough the tower came into view. She couldn't see Frost or Hunter, and she hoped that meant they were inside, meeting its occupants.

"They're not outside," she said. "You think that means they found the necromancers?"

"Yeah, maybe. Or they're dead."

"Hey! Be positive!"

"Uh… no?"

"That's not positive!"

"...Yes, it's not?"

"Well you're halfway there, I suppose."

Dazel groaned. "Say, can we stop and grab a bite before we go up?"

She frowned. "What?"

"I'm getting hungry," he said. "Aren't you? And we should probably not eat in front of the humans."

"My [Consume Heart] sates my appetite, thank you very much. You can eat later. I don't want one of them to walk in on you slurping up cheek-meat or something."

"Excuse me. I don't slurp. Look, there's a body right here—one of the good ones."

She crossed her arms regarded the body. It was one of the shiverhulks that had been destroyed either by Hunter or the undead. She'd landed beside it so that she could take its heart instead of having to dip into her own supply.

She considered his request. She didn't feel like Hunter and Frost were in any real danger, given that the necromancers' minions hadn't targeted humans, all the infernals around them were dead, and they were both at least a little capable.

And it would only take a few moments….

"Okay, get a snack. But I want to get back to that tower."

Dazel walked forward and prodded the body of the shiverhulk. "Uh, wanna help me out, here? You've got the blades, and I'm tiny. I don't want to just gnaw on somebody's face."

She looked down at him with a wry expression. It was, at the very least, a chance to get closer to her mysterious familiar. And she still wanted to find out why he'd been paired with her.

She shrugged. "Well, I suppose as my familiar you should at least eat well."

With a great, heaving effort, she rolled the corpse over, formed a claw, then began to cut away the furry skin covering the lower ribs. She peeled this back and sliced away some thick strip of choice meat, then passed one to Dazel, who began eating eagerly.

"You know," Dazel said, chewing. "Maybe there is a benefit to having an infernal master instead of a human one. I mean sure, you think Michelangelo is a ninja turtle, but this is at least one area where you can be said to have good taste."

Ashtoreth snorted, then took a strip of meat for herself and fed the whole thing into her gullet, swallowing it with one thick gulp. "Say," she said, cutting herself another one. "For how comparatively unworthy it is, this flesh ain't bad!"

"I thought you were full."

"Satiated," she said. "I still have the appetite and tastebuds of a fiend." She gulped down a second strip of flesh and made a noise of appreciation.

"See what I mean?" Dazel said. "Worth the short break." He paused to pick away more meat, then added, "But you're always going to have to hide stuff like this from those humans, you know. They're not going to 'get' cannibalism."

She pelted him with a wad of flesh.

"Hey!"

"Was that what this was about?" she asked. "You just wanted to alienate me from the humans? Stop—"

She froze. Standing almost fifty feet away from them in the middle of the battlefield was a woman wearing a black robe with its hood up. She seemed human, perhaps the same age as Ashtoreth, with pale skin and dark hair.

Her eyes, however, glowed an icy blue.

Ashtoreth realized that she was an undead: one of the humans who had been placed in the hardest tutorial because death had granted them a powerful undead augment. And she had a smokey, translucent quality to her, so that Ashtoreth could see the landscape through her.

At first, Ashtoreth thought the woman was a shade. Then she realized that she'd seen exactly that sort of translucent quality before as part of Hunter's abilities. It wasn't incorporeality. It was invisibility.

The woman was most likely a lich.

She'd been slowly moving toward them, but she froze when Ashtoreth caught sight of her, eying her warily.

"Oh," Ashtoreth said. "Uh, hello!" Frantically, she reached up and wiped some blood from around her mouth. "Hi! I, uh…."

Realizing that she needed to explain what this potentially dazed and traumatized human was seeing, she gave the first explanation that popped into her head.

"I eat flesh," she explained. "I mean, it's a racial thing. I mean—look, I'm a good guy! I'm on your side. I love humans and I'm going to save Earth. I'm Ashtoreth, by the way. This is my familiar, Dazel."

She looked down to see that Dazel was still gnawing on his strip of meat. "Dazel!" she hissed.

"Mm?" he said, raising his head.

The woman just stared at them.

"There's some other humans with us," Ashtoreth said. "They're very nice and trustworthy. One of them is a police officer!"

The woman cocked her head.

"Look, I know what this looks like," Ashtoreth said. "And I don't want to make you feel unsafe—"

"You don't," the woman said in a curt, rasping voice.

Then she attacked.

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