2 Chapter 2: Slayer Lady and the Demon

"Sir! Sir!" A small voice yelled across the tavern as a petite, young girl came running towards Lin He while he was leaving.

She panted heavily as she tugged on the long sleeves of his blue robes.

"Are you… a Slayer?" She asked as she pointed to the sword in his hand.

Lin He gave a nod as he stared curiously at the little girl.

"Can you… help me?"

Ding… Ding… Ding…

Three rings from the bell sounded in his head immediately.

A prayer has been assigned to him.

=

The young girl led Lin He to a forest near her house, just a short distance away from the small town he was at. She explained to him that there was a Snake Demon in this forest recently, and it had even killed her dog and injured her father who went hunting here a few days ago. She feared that the demon might come out and attack more people so she had been looking for Slayers for help.

"I prayed for a Slayer to appear and help me… and a Slayer really did come by yesterday! But... I haven't seen her since she entered the forest and I got worried she might be in trouble..." She said quietly as her voice trailed off. "Do you think… the demon might have caught her?"

Hearing this, he could only fear that it might have been the case. If a Slayer was not skilled enough to handle the demon, that person might end up as food on its plate - a tragic ending for anyone to experience.

"I'll go and take a look. Please, do not allow anyone to enter this forest until I've returned." He instructed her quickly before he embarked on his journey into the forest.

He quickly jogged into the forest, his grip on his scabbard tightened from his nervousness and excitement at the thought of possibly engaging with a demon this time around. It had been a while since he had encountered one and he could only hope that things would work out smoothly for him.

Well, that was if his skills as a Slayer were still intact.

The sounds of birds chirping filled the air as he progressed deeper into the lush green forest, setting a rather peaceful ambience. It was until when the chirps turned silent and the air felt still when Lin He knew that he was approaching danger.

The sound of leaves rustling alerted him of potential threat and he dove behind a tree nearby. He took a peek in the direction of where he heard the commotion was from and noticed a human figure lying motionlessly on the ground... And a large and long being with yellow eyes and scaly green skin was slithering stealthily towards that person.

Seeing that someone was in danger, he leaped out from his hiding spot almost immediately and drew out his sword.

A demon's weak spots were usually the head and torso regions. Lin He noted how this Snake Demon was relatively smaller in size compared to the ones he had encountered before that were over five hundred years old. Surprisingly, this demon did not appear as a human form - a disguise that almost all demons over five hundred years old would use to lure humans for their meal. So, his friend here was likely a young demon.

"You're just a little fry." He muttered under his breath and smirked as he dashed towards the Snake Demon, a surge of confidence growing in him.

It was a perfect fit for Lin He to warm up his skills to deal with even more demons in the future.

He slashed across the Snake Demon's body, his sharp blades piercing through the rough skin of the Snake Demon and the force of his attack sent it tumbling across the ground. Lin He quickly made his way over to the knocked out mortal on the ground and checked for a pulse. Thankfully, she was alive.

Lin He quickly stuck a protection talisman on her to set up a barrier around her and turned his attention back to his target.

He locked eyes with the Snake Demon that was staring furiously at him as if he had taken his lunch away, hissing as it waited for his next move. A corner of his lips lifted and he tightened his grip around his hilt, taunting the demon to make its move. As expected, the Snake Demon slithered rapidly towards him and spat out shots of acidic venom from its fangs. Lin He quickly jumped and dodged the attack by sliding under the Snake Demon's belly. Taking this opportunity, he plunged his sword deep into its soft belly flesh as he skidded across the ground. The demon hissed in pain as it squirmed on the floor, unable to remove the weapon from its belly. Seeing how it was time for the end, Lin He pressed its neck down and aimed for the head, where he delivered the last blow with a dagger he had kept on him.

A loud hiss, followed by silence.

The demon stopped moving.

Lin He let out a sigh of relief while feeling elated at the same time that his skills were still… not bad. He quietly thanked his master for those years of vigorous training as a Slayer. His skills from years of being a Slayer when he was a mortal had definitely not gone to waste. In fact, it had proven to him his talent in this field as well.

"You!"

Lin He turned around, only to see a young lady, with her face covered in dirt, storming towards him with a fiery gaze.

"Me?" He pointed at himself and asked.

"Yes, you!" She yelled at the top of her lungs before pouncing onto him, causing him to fall back onto the ground along with her.

She grabbed him by the collars while straddling him, her eyes burning through his skull.

"Why. Did. You. Do. That." She questioned him with gritted teeth as she shook him angrily.

"What did I do?" He asked back, utterly confused by this lady's action.

She was definitely the human who was almost gobbled up by the Snake Demon earlier on.

"You killed the demon! The demon that I've painstakingly waited for one goddamn day to appear!"

Then, Lin He recalled how the young girl told him that another Slayer had entered this forest before him. She must be that missing Slayer.

"And…?"

"And? Do you know how much that demon meant to me? You son of a - "

Lin He raised his arm to cover his face when her fists came flying towards him. He wasn't going to fight a lady for no reason, even if she was the one being unreasonable.

He braced for the impact but felt nothing. Peeping through his arms, he saw how she was breathing sharply as her fists froze before him. Lin He noticed how her expression was slowly turning into something… Something he was quite afraid of dealing with…

And then she bursted out crying.

"How am I going to get promoted on time!" She wailed loudly, her tears rolling down her cheeks like a torrent of water. "Father is not going to allow me to be a Slayer and I'll have to marry that merchant's weird son! Wah…" She continued crying with her arm over her eyes.

Lin He felt bad for her. At the same time, it was getting ridiculous and uncomfortable to him how she was crying while sitting on his tummy.

Lin He poked her arm gently to try to get her attention. "Can you… get off me first?"

The lady stopped wailing and sobbed, wiping her tears away before she got off him. She stood at a corner, glaring at him with her tear-stained face and flushed cheeks.

"I'm sorry for… the demon." Lin He said with a small frown.

His words sounded rather weird and awkward in this situation.

Originally, he thought she would be grateful since he saved her from the Snake Demon but there she was, crying because he saved her from the Snake Demon.

The lady continued to stare at him with her watery eyes and snuffled, adding on the guilt he was feeling for making her this sad. Whatever the demon meant for her, he had better try to make things better for her before this episode added on to his guilt.

"Can I… do something to help you?" He offered kindly with a smile, hoping his suggestion would somewhat calm her down.

He despised it when he had to deal with a crying person. He didn't know what he should do and whenever he tried to do something, it would make the situation worse. In the end, he would just freeze in position and stare until the person stopped crying.

"Can you help me?" She said, snuffling and pointing to the dead body of the Snake Demon.

Lin He's gaze followed her hand. "Catch a demon?" He questioned.

She gave a small nod and he couldn't help it but to notice how pitiful yet adorable she looked. His heart softened at her look of helplessness and caved in. He was supposed to be on the way to Prayer City to get more prayers, but now he felt like he had the moral obligation to help her. Especially when it's because of him that she was crying so badly.

The lady took out a piece of paper and wrote down something using the brown blood of the dead demon while sobbing. Lin He looked at her curiously from a distance but he was careful not to disturb her as she did so, wondering what she had written down on the paper. After she was done, she passed the paper over to him.

A contract?

He looked at her and then back to the piece of paper, feeling a little flabbergasted by this situation.

Was she afraid that he wouldn't keep to his words? Did he look like someone who's untrustworthy?

She looked at him with her teary eyes and snuffled, dissipating all his hesitation a second ago. Lin He took a deep breath and signed it with his name after a quick glance of the paper without a second thought. He just felt it was something she would want him to do since, for whatever reason, catching a demon seemed important to her.

But this paper…

Lin He flipped it around to examine it. There was a strange energy in his hands and he could sense it coming from the paper. If he wasn't a trained Slayer, he might not have noticed this weird energy seeping out from the paper.

He took a glance at the lady before him, who was staring at him with her large, round eyes pitifully.

Look at her. Would such a person have bad intentions?

Deciding that he probably got it wrong, he quickly smiled at her and passed over the paper to her.

"Done."

The moment the word of acknowledgement rolled off his tongue, a wave of regret hit him. The lady stopped sobbing almost immediately and her expression changed into one that was oddly calm, as if nothing had ever happened. She wiped off the tears of her sleeves and looked at the contract in her hands, a small smile crept up her face.

Lin He's guts started squeezing at the expression on her face.

Something was not right.

"Alright, now you can't leave without clearing your debt." She announced and smiled before holding the paper before him.

He didn't read through what the paper said earlier but he saw how it said something along the lines of 'catch demons' and just signed it quickly. Clearly, Lin He now realised he had fallen into some kind of trap.

Ah… maybe he should have read through it before signing.

"Was this some kind of trap?" He questioned and she shoved the paper up his face.

"I will help Xuan Yi catch all the demons she needs for her promotion. Failing to do so would result in a monetary compensation of three hundred coins." She read it out proudly and kept the paper quickly before Lin He could snatched it from her.

Wei Yong was surely going to murder him if he knew how he had fallen for suck a trick.

"I'm not agreeing to that. You tricked me!"

"You should have read the paper before signing."

"I'm not going to help you."

"Are you sure about that?" She said, a sly smile was plastered across her face. "This paper has a binding spell."

Binding spell? This sounded familiar…

Then it hit him where he had heard these words before. Wei Yong had told him about how some spells these days were created for mischief and warned him to be careful.

"Especially if someone passes you some paper to write your name on it! Don't sign it. It's a new trick for some evil businessman to get free labour by placing a binding spell onto a contract written by them. If you fail to do what the contract or the caster says, the consequences stated in the contract will be executed on you when the caster says so!" Wei Yong told him as they were strolling down the path.

Lin He didn't take his words to heart, thinking that the odds of him meeting an 'evil businessman' would be low.

Who knew that even this helpless, looking lady would have this trick up her sleeves?

"Can I just compensate you? I have places to go." Lin He said with a sigh as he dug into his sleeves for his coin pouch.

"Sure, then it'll be a thousand coins."

"Dream on."

A thousand coins? Lin He could barely pay her 300 coins, let alone a thousand.

He was getting annoyed with her but seeing how this con-lady had no intentions of letting him off, he doubted his words could get through to that thick skull of hers.

He plucked his sword from the Snake Demon's corpse and walked away from her, ignoring that 'contract' he had signed.

What could the spell do to him? Force him to pay her a thousand coins out of the mere 400 coins he had on him? Ridiculous.

"Hey! Wait up! You signed this contract so you'll have to help me."

He stopped in his tracks and turned around to glare at her. His eyes flickered to the paper that she had pulled out again and back to her.

"Or what?"

He taunted her, attempting to make her use the spell. He was here to get punished and not spend his time getting coerced into someone's… weird obsession with catching demons.

Ding… Ding… Ding…

Three rings from the bell.

"Or I'll make you run around town butt naked on top of monetary compensation using the spell and you'll definitely face the wrath of going against the contract! Also, I'll spread your dirty name and face across the continent and tarnish your reputation as a Slayer! If you don't know, I happen to have a gift for drawing and I've remembered your face clearly! I'll make sure…"

Lin He's expressions froze at the sound in his head and her words were drowned out by an alarming realisation.

He has to help this con-artist?!