Chapter 24 - Confrontation with Strays

After accepting the request Reginleif immediately took a pen and paper and wrote to Odin that Caladwich had resurfaced. She wrote it down along with a rune and tore it to pieces causing the magic to activate burning the letter. Slowly the ashes traveled out of the store floating into the sky toward the recipient.

Tosca watched it go with her blue eyes wide and filled with wonder. Perhaps if weapons weren't her thing she could try using magic?

If Caladwich was around they had to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands. It was simply that powerful! Unlike the Excalibur, it had never been broken to pieces but instead was stolen away and lost to time.

"Selling such a weapon is beyond irresponsible." Reginleif chastises Anna who just shrugs.

"The guy was really adamant about buying it, paid so much I quite literally couldn't refuse!" She responded casually.

"Where are your morals? Do you know what someone could do with such a weapon?" Reginleif questioned in exasperation only to get another shrug in response.

"A weapon is a weapon. A tool to be used. And a convenient way for me to make money since everyone seems to need one these days." While Anna's tone was casual, the way she brushed her hand along a sword resting on one of the shelves spoke of a slight melancholy.

She wasn't stupid.

Just like all of the many supernatural factions leaders and the other powerful people of the world she knew that now that all of Solomon's Rings had appeared and been confirmed turbulent times were all but inevitable.

Indeed a weapon is a weapon. It only has one purpose, and though she profited off of it Anna wasn't by any means a warmonger. She was doing just fine in her revenue just selling magic items before.

As Reginleif was about to speak once again Tosca pinched the back of her senior's sleeve and looked up at her a bit shyly. While Reginleif didn't really pick up on the store owner's solemnity, Tosca, who was far more sensitive to these things, could tell immediately.

Reginleif looking back at her junior thought she was scared so she cleared her throat and gave up on scolding Anna, instead choosing to leave quickly while it was still too early for people to be moving about.

"You two remember to be extremely careful. The Stray Devil Faction lacks many members with extraordinary raw power; however they can be annoyingly tricky." Anna warns the two girls as they leave.

—

Kojika Kushihashi should be having a pretty good start to her day. After an Angel and a Valkyrie stopped by her new little food stand they had bought quite a bit as her very first customers in over a week. They had even paid much more than the food was worth without even asking for extras.

Unfortunately, she still couldn't help the depressed feeling gripping her heart. Nearly a month ago two stray Devils attacked the restaurant she was working at before.

The kind couple that had taken her in and laughed off all the misfortune which befell them with her added presence were killed brutally for reasons unknown.

Kojika could only blame her own rotten luck, it might have been because they realized she was technically an exorcist. While not a direct opponent to Devils, usually eastern exorcists did hunt Stray Devils that were in their territory.

What mediocre spiritual powers she had which she had never even been trained properly in using might have gotten the only friends she had ever made in her life so far killed.

It would be funny if it wasn't her reality.

After the couple's death and the closure of the shop, most of the money she had saved up had been stolen and the rest had to be invested into her cheap little food stand. She didn't even have a proper place to sleep nor enough money to buy much more than tasteless deer crackers.

As she stared at the money her heart was restless.

Why was she even alive? After so much, why hasn't her curse just taken her life? She couldn't even fathom why it was that a misfortune god would wish to torture her so much. Was simply being born that great of a crime?

"Haaa~" She let out a heavy sigh, her tiredness would be evident to even the most dense of people. She was 17 already now and she hadn't made it very far at all since being banished from her clan.

Just as she was contemplating why she even kept trying so hard a dark shadow descended from above scooping the money out of her hand leaving nothing but a black feather.

"Hey!" She screamed towards the black bird as it flew away toward the forest. "Damn it!"

She ran towards the forest leaving her stand and followed the bird for 5 whole minutes before it finally landed on the forest floor near the abandoned factory.

Pushing through the bushes she found the bird with the money on the ground pecking at it, that wasn't the interesting part of the scene however. It was the katana sitting nearby.

It wasn't exactly an amazing sword in looks nor in strength however, it meant a lot to Kojika. It was the only thing her mother had left for her specifically to inherit after she died. Kojika had lost it upon arriving in Kuoh town and in truth had given up on ever finding it again, but there it was just sitting in the grass. It was completely undamaged and looked as good as new.

Ignoring the money and the raven she made her way toward the blade and picked it up in wonder. This was the first time in her life where she could honest to god say she was lucky as the possibility of this happening was astronomical.

Drawing the sword she found the blade was also in tip-top shape, in fact it seemed as though it had been sharpened recently.

Her wonder was broken however as she sensed a few more people approaching forcing her to sheath the sword once again before squatting down in the bushes to avoid the sight of those that were approaching the abandoned factory.

As she watched three Stray Devils went to the door before they stopped.

"W-What are we supposed to say to her?" The Harpy looking one questioned the other two as she hovered above them with her wings. She had a very worried expression on her face.

"Well obviously there's nothing we can do. We can only just tell her outright or hope that she isn't here." A woman with horns on her forehead only with pink hair and horribly pale skin that almost also looked pink. She said her words with a clear trepidation and also hesitated.

"F*CK! Why is it so hard to find one little kid!" The man of the group complained loudly, he was larger than the two women by far standing at over six feet tall and was basically a wall of muscle. He wore very little and was quite hairy making him easy to mistake for a giant bear. "Grrr, wait a second."

The big man growled and sniffed the air like a beast taking big whiffs of the scent in the air. "I smell someone else nearby."

"It's probably a wandering human or something." The pink lady waved it off casually but the Harpy didn't seem so convinced.

"Na, I smell spiritual power, it's definitely an exorcist."

"W-What? I thought we killed that idiot already?" The Harpy said in disbelief. Kojika's grip on her sword strengthened and her teeth were clenched painfully. These were the disgusting monsters which had killed some of the only people in the world who took care of her without ever shunning her.

"That's what I thought too-" The beast man stopped and his head swiveled to Kojika's hiding place after feeling her undisguised bloodlust.

Slowly she stepped out of the bushes with her sword and drew it slowly.

"It's just some f*cking brat." The beast man mumbled to himself, relaxing his muscles.

Kojika gripped the hilt of her sword until her knuckles turned white.

She couldn't die. Not yet. Not until she avenged the people she needed to avenge and saw her younger brother grow up to be the best leader the Kushihashi clan had ever seen.

Pointing her blade towards the three Stray Devils her resolve burned in her eyes.

She would kill them, that was a fact.