Demon Hunt (Pt. 2)

In response to Jacob's cry of despair, the two demons turned their heads in their direction. Both their bodies were in a state between decay and healing. Some parts were rotting while other parts seemed rather normal. The two types of divergent pieces were stitched together with misfit patches of scarred flesh covered in scabs and sores leaking pus. In terms of physical differences, the one in front was bulkier and had weird dark yellowish crystal formations embedded in most of its body, with crystal sizes varying depending on how rotten the area of the body was.

[Engaging armament mode.]

The blade moved to orient itself by Tau's hand.

[First to strike-]

{-is often first to win.}

Tau agreed, lifting her arm in the direction of the demons. The blade flew as directed, splitting several branches and scattering a wave of leaves in its advance. However, it wasn't fast enough.

The bulkier earth type moved with surprising speed, dodging out of the blade's path before initiating a dash towards Tau's location. The way it moved vaguely reminded her of Father Dawson, as it bounced from tree to tree, approaching her at an alarming rate.

Unfortunately, the water type also had time to react. However, it was not nearly as fast as the earth type. Just managing to avoid its head being split in two, it nevertheless still lost an arm and fell backward with a scream in the process.

{Kill it, Neu!}

Tau brought her hand down as Neu increased the spin of the blade. The scream was cut short with a spatter of blood and a collection of snaps and crunches as bones shattered.

A shadow appeared in the corner of her vision. The earth type had arrived. Its arm was outstretched, reaching for her. Tau jumped backward, but it was only a temporary delay. The greater momentum of the earth type would soon carry it into contact with her.

"Jacob!"

The end of the metal hoe swung up and hooked onto the earth type's neck. With a shout, Jacob threw the demon back, smashing it into a tree with a dull crack.

"Got it," Jacob replied, in the middle of catching his breath.

By this time, Neu had returned the blade to Tau's side and she directed it towards the downed demon. Once, again, it dodged, flipping forward out of the way despite its limp neck and broken back.

The tree behind it was split in half. The earth type landed on all fours and quickly crawled away, heading deeper into the forest.

"Seriously, it could dodge that?" Jacob muttered, examining the head of his farming hoe. In the place where it made contact with the demon, the wood had started to rot and the metal had started to crumble away.

"One more swing and this thing is probably done..." he sighed, "At least with the water type gone, I no longer feel so sick."

Then, seeing how Tau was looking into the forest after the new trail of rot the earth type left behind, he said, "Leave it. We need to head back and take care of the injured."

"You take care of that," Tau replied, jumping onto her blade, "I'll monitor its movements. The official plan required someone to do that anyway. Since the water type is out of the way, I'll take on that task in place of your group."

Jacob had no room to argue. Without waiting for a response, Tau flew off in pursuit. The blade upon which she stood was surprisingly clean for having been through such carnage. In fact, there wasn't even a single spot of blood on it.

[Are you sure this is fine? What about your promise to keep Jacob safe?]

{There were only two demons, as long as I kill this one too, no more harm will come to anyone.}

[That was just an assumption, a well reasoned one, sure, but on the off chance that it isn't correct...]

{That's an unnecessary worry. That assumption was very well reasoned.}

[Well, you say that, but we lack the appropriate knowledge to truly determine whether it was well reasoned or not.]

{Just focus on steering. Maybe put that excess thinking towards figuring out how to find new anchors while free-forming on your own.}

[Whatever. If I'm right, don't say I didn't tell you so.]

The path of rot was taking rather long to follow. Flying low through the woods meant that she couldn't go too fast, but still, the speed of the earth type was impressive. With that slight delay before following during which she conversed with Jacob, the earth type had developed quite a lead. It took a good five minutes of pursuit before the demon appeared within view. Even then, each brief pause during which Tau changed anchors threatened to put it back out of view.

It had somehow righted its bent back and was running on two legs. Judging by their trajectory, the two of them were on course to reach the walled-off village square within the next ten minutes.

{Hurry, Neu!}

Impatient, Tau fired off a series of wind blades at it, tearing apart the surrounding forest, but mostly missing their mark, as the demon's erratic movements made it hard to target. As they got closer and closer, the demon's movements only got more dynamic, so much so that their direction started deviating towards intersecting with the road instead of intersecting with the village square.

[Those changes in movement… is it responding to our chase?]

Testing this theory, Neu changed his approach and successfully steered the demon firmly en route to intersect with the road, just before the gate of the village square.

[It's specifically running away from us!]

{No. Not us. The sword.}

Tau quickly recalled how it had tried to attack her during the initial encounter after she had sent the blade away, and how it only ran after she retrieved it.

[But then. How do we finish it…?]

Tau cut off a branch from a tree ahead and caught it in passing. With a few subsequent wind blades, she shaved the branch down to a wieldy stick with a sharpened tip.

{We'll just have to fool it.}

[Okay, at the road then. Moving the blade is faster in more open spaces.]

They were close, and Tau adjusted her grip on the stick in anticipation.

But then, a strangled scream from the direction of the road threw Tau off her focus. The road came into view just in time for her to see Father Dawson hurtling through the air and kicking a half-rotten corpse off of the screaming man it was attacking.

The scene very briefly registered in Tau's mind: the wall and gate of the village square nearby, the horse-drawn cart, the familiar faces of the farmers riding it which she recognized as being part of Jacob's group which they had left behind to watch the merchant train, the cart nearly tipping as the horse jerked to one side, startled either by the two demons in the vicinity or, more likely, by Father Dawson's explosive entrance. What Tau focused on, and could not believe, was the second earth type which Father Dawson had just kicked off the cart, so much so that she didn't even think to offer a word a warning as the earth type she was chasing leaped up to attack those in the cart.

Whipping around, Father Dawson caught the demon, holding it at bay with a dagger stabbed through both of its forearms.

"Two, huh," He commented, sounding almost intrigued.

A flash of steel later and the demon lost both its arms and fell off the back of the cart like its predecessor. Father Dawson quickly jumped off in pursuit, laying down a hail of throwing knives at both earth types while in the air. The first demon shuffled away to avoid it, but the second one, which had lost its arms, took the brunt of it and was pinned to the ground on its back.

With his landing, Father Dawson brought one of his daggers down into the demon's head before immediately slicing it in two and bringing his blade up to intercept the other earth type, which had rushed forward to take a swipe at him.

Cutting off the demon's outreached arm with one dagger, Father Dawson pressed forward to slash at the demon's neck with the other one. The demon staggered backward, avoiding the slash while also raising its remaining arm to block a series of throwing knives Father Dawson sent flying towards it.

As its attention was diverted, Father Dawson dashed to its side and sliced off one of its feet. Since it was in the middle of stepping back, this caused it to lose balance and fall backward as a result. In a fluid motion, Father Dawson slashed upwards with his other dagger and decapitated the demon midfall.

As the severed head came to a standstill on the ground, he let out a sigh of relief and then turned to face Tau.

"I'm guessing that's a wrap?" He asked, smiling at her.

"Huh? What?"

In her mind, Tau was still preparing for her fight against the earth type. She had trouble processing the fact that Father Dawson killed not just one, but two of them within such a short amount of time.

"Well, if you're chasing down an earth-type and leaving Jacob alone, I'm guessing you already took care of the water type," Father Dawson concluded, oblivious to Tau's shocked state of mind.

"Oh, yeah. I did. I mean… the water type was taken care of," Tau replied, shaking away her shock.

"Good then," Father Dawson then jumped onto the cart and bent over the man the earth type had attacked. The man was clawing furiously at a patch of rot that encompassed most of his forearm, seemingly in a state of panic.

"Don't scratch at it," Father Dawson grabbed his arm to stop him.

The man calmed down a little at Father Dawson's touch.

"It itches like fire," he said.

Father Dawson took out some leaves from a pouch under his cloak, chewed them to a paste, and applied it onto the man's arm, "make do with this for now."

"Thank you."

Meanwhile, the village gate was slowly opening.

"Can you close and open that hand?" Father Dawson asked, pointing to the rotten arm.

The man nodded, closing and opening the hand slowly.

"Okay, that's good," Father Dawson gave him a thumbs up, "The damage isn't deep. You're going to be just fine."

"It doesn't need to be amputated…?" the man asked nervously.

"Probably not. I'll need to operate on it to make sure."

"Father Dawson?" Tau interrupted.

"Wait for me at my clinic. I'll be there soon," Father Dawson finished quickly and stepped off the cart, waving the man away, who nodded and thanked him again. The cart proceeded to enter the village square through the now open gate.

"How can you be so sure it's over? I mean, there were two earth types, so, couldn't there still be more out there? It could still be dangerous!"

Father Dawson let out a heavy sigh, "Yes, you're right, that is certainly a possibility."

"Then-"

"However, there's a limit to what we can do. All the other farming teams are already patrolling the surrounding area, and they've found nothing else so far. The people are tired. Some are injured. Everyone just wants to go back to their normal lives."

"But, the danger… how can we just go back knowing that something like that could be out there…?"

"We just do," Father Dawson shrugged, "People can be strong and rational, or stupid and forgetful. Either way, we deal with it."

"Even then, couldn't something like this happen again? At any time?"

"Of course."

"And yet we're all just supposed to be fine with it?"

Father Dawson let out a cold chuckle.

"Nobody is fine with it, but there isn't much we can do about it. At least, not for now."

"What do you mean?"

"It's our curse, to be plagued by demons. It is the result of the sins of our forefathers. But there may very well be a way of breaking that curse."

"Huh?"

"Remind me to tell you the legend of King Solomon some other time. You can even ask Rebecca about it instead if you'd like. Things are a little busy now."

Then seeing that Tau was still anxious, he clapped her on the back, "Don't worry too much about it. You won't ever be able to enjoy your life that way. You did a good job this time. Go help out with the regrouping and clean up. I need to do my part as well."

With that, Father Dawson hurried away in the direction of his clinic. Tau just continued to stand there, lost in thought and unsure of how to feel about the situation.

Meanwhile, the horse-drawn cart reemerged from the village square, now empty save a driver. As it drove past her down the road, Tau remembered Jacob, very likely still waiting at the merchant caravan.

With nothing better to do, she sat back onto her sword and followed after the cart, with Neu setting it as their anchor so that he wouldn't have to worry too much about actually moving the blade.

[I know it's a bit late now, but remember what I said about the demons?]

{Huh? What about it?}

Tau was still in the middle of picking apart everything Father Dawson said to her.

[I'm going to say it.]

{Say what? Oh, wait-}

Neu feigned a deep breath.

[I told you so!]

There was something deeply irritating about the self-satisfied tone with which he said it.

[You don't get to say it, so I'll say it for you! Get it?]

{Neu… you're not funny.}