Soul fire burned a deadly blue, reflecting its light from the winter steel alloy she forged with her new job. One of her slots was used for a purpose she disagreed with, and she couldn't even be mad at the boss. Instead, she pictured the faces of the humans they protected. Her hammer slammed down, bending hot iron as she formed the double tree for a wagon.
She glanced at the diagram hanging on the wall, checked the part to ensure it matched, took a string she had used for the other pieces, and carefully checked the measurements.
A boy from the village came and poured more demon steel weapons on her clean floor. Her ears twitched at the sound of screeching metal. She hated that the plan was coming together, thanks to their workers. Humans were still trash even if they could be helpful sometimes.
The boss should have known better than to rely on humans to do even the most basic tasks. She saw them goofing off and letting the meat sit while flies circled several times. Guts were tossed into a hole and buried instead of being used as bait to catch fish. The inefficiency pissed her off.
She opened a box filled with smoked venison and bit into a piece. The venom dripping from her fangs broke the muscle down as she chewed. It was the only way to feed on demon beasts whose flesh was hard as stone. The dried meat the human struggled to bite into was as soft as fat in her mouth.
Eating made her feel better but didn't do much to quench the flames of hatred in her heart. The humans slowed her boss's progress, which couldn't be forgiven. Sure, he used his time wisely to shore up weaknesses.
With a meat shield like Siegfried that wasn't needed. What other use was there for that lumbering oaf?
She rechecked her work and cursed. She needed to heat it again and hammer a side down, or it would scrape against the wagon's floor panels every time they hit a bump.
The long wagon was almost built like a ship, more than a wagon. It had a keel and a curve. That human architect did it to make her job more difficult. Why couldn't they use a more boxy design like Boss's original drawing?
She heated, beat, curved, and cooled the single piece of metal that would be the keel of their wagon. Maybe they could remove the wheels and turn it into a boat. The idiots didn't want to use wood since they had so much metal, and their carpenters weren't high-level. She started blacksmith at T1 level 1 and was already at level 4.
The skills were efficient. She could level them and take perks that should eventually allow her to take materials, smelt them, and increase the number of metal ingots created if her math was correct. Bonus from soul fire made it possible with metals she had a higher than 80% familiarity to increase the amount of material she gained from smelting them by 0.1% for every percent above 80. Her Oni ability unruly allowed her to raise her percentage caps by 50. She had slightly more metal than before each time she smelted the metals.
She pulled out her notebook and recorded the inventory. Her smelting skill also increased the amount of metal returned by 1% every 10 levels until the metal returned reached the amount smelted. Being an Oni ensured that natural energy conservation was no longer applied. Her imp class had given her a unique skill at level 10 called editing. It allowed her to take a few words out of other skills. Not every edit worked, but some did.
Boss didn't know, and no one else did either. She imagined if she made a big deal out of it, the damned Archon would patch the bug. So she pretended not to notice and only smelted when necessary. The result was an ever-growing pile of Winter Steel ingots.
The blue ripples in the metal from her soul fire and the winter mana flowing from the north gave the metal a unique appearance and power.
Boss stepped into her forge like they owned the place. She couldn't help but notice he was more prominent. She slurped her drool back in. His arms were more expansive, and the black halos above his head flowed with demonic power. Over a gambeson coat, she could see the armor she made him sleeveless like he wanted.
The halo above his head winked and flashed back into existence, a sign that his control over demonic power continued to reach new heights. She was excited. She brushed a strand of white hair from her face like she knew he liked to see from the elf. Her black horns were on full display, pointy and slightly curved. She wore a bra strapped to make her breasts look even perkier.
"Did you like the breastplate I made you?"
He glanced to the side to see her squat bench. "I see you've been working on yourself. Do you want to do the coin test?"
"What's the coin test?"
"I'm going to toss a coin and see how far your but can bounce it back." She narrowed her eyes. The smithing could wait. This was serious.
She untied the string to her trousers and lowered her pants, exposing her perky red ass to her boss. The cool air tickled, and she clenched in anticipation. Her tail waved from side to side, the point ready to wrap around the boss and pull him in. She needed him to satisfy her lusts.
If she tried using the worthless humans, she might blind them with her passion, and they would melt. She was more than willing to show her back to her boss, who already held her leash.
"Call my bluff, why don't you? But you shouldn't threaten me with a good time." It wasn't a threat. She waved her ass from side to side to show she meant business. She wanted him to clap her cheeks.
She couldn't make it more obvious if she wore a sign saying insert dick here and tattoo and arrow.
…
Fade to Black or view it on patreon
…
They watched as the humans prepared to flee their fortified position. Wyatt held his riders back and kept his scouts at the edge of the town's surveillance. This was their chance.
"You're a coward. Attack them now and be done with it."
He surveyed the stacks of logs used to limit their paths through the town, guiding them into traps. Shadows hid piercing chains that could snipe a rider off their horses in moments before vanishing in green particles. Spiked traps littered the area around the village, built to pierce through even the hardy hooves of their demon beasts and stab into the soft past bone. Then, the cursed air flows silently, wrapping the town in a curtain of death. Riders went through them and dropped.
Five captains joined, giving them another 200 riders. Ten abyss trolls in heavy armor waited to charge in and shatter the barricade, and the mind flayers would confuse any defenders before they could mount a response.
Still, defenses cost men, and why waste them like arrows when their targets would leave their carefully laid traps and defenses on their own? They knew the roads and where they could set an ambush.
A mind flayer with yellow skin, a lithe body, and a feminine form hovered in the command tent. She conjured a window to see the camp fully, exposing the plan of the inhabitants. "The minds of these humans are fat with hubris. They believe their savior will take them West across our lands, fortifications, and the battle lines. Some believe demons aren't terrible sighting a traitor to our cause."
"Good, willing toys are more interesting to break." A captain said.
A human larger than most left one of the buildings and approached a boulder atop two other stones. He crawled under it and lifted. They watched in bemusement as he lifted it and began to squat the weight.
"I bet his mind is perfectly smooth, like a rock polished by a diamond." The mind flayer's yellow tentacles wrapped around each other, simulating braided hair. "Perhaps I should visit this human and turn him to our side."
"Are you requesting a mission that could have the humans hunker down in their fortification and cost more of my men?"
"Don't be foolish. I don't fail. I was made to drive our enemies to insanity and break their will. They will run from their defensive, and you will easily run them down. Then this little town will be ours."
…
The bag swayed back and forth as Seigfried showed me his fighting stance. Long stitches lined the top of the deerskin bag, double stitched to keep it watertight. Loose gravel and sand were poured in to give it more weight, and then it was filled with water for a little more heft. I listened to the instructions as he directed me like his own shadow. Then I struck the back and felt the impact flow down my arm as the bag swung. My fist withdrew as I reset the blow. It might have been fatal to anyone with a combat job below T2. Siegfried moved, guiding me through hopping stances designed to keep me moving.
After copying Siegfried, every attack seemed a little out of place as I tried to add his teaching to the chimera of lessons I had learned from my teacher and a century of hell.
"I don't get it. Why don't you use a weapon?" The architect asked.
He told me his name, but I wasn't sure if I should learn it. We were about to leave the town's safety into the wilderness, where anything could happen. Our only plan was to head to the borderline.
To his question, I couldn't take it with me. My demon was attached through a hell chain. I was confident in my next incarnation; I could summon her gracefully. Weapons were another story.
Siegfried added his opinion. "Fisticuffs is the foundation of any fighter. Before you draw your blade, you must know how to kill with your hands."
"I was a levy. They just shoved a spear in our hands and told us to stick them with the pointy end."
Siegfried snorted. "Most of you already had four jobs, all production. Even if you were taught, it wouldn't make much difference."
"What do you think? You don't have a combat job, but you're training like you do. Should we have been trained?"
"No," I said and went back to punching the bag.
"Come on, you're the man with the plan and have those chains. There has to be more to your answer than no."
My thoughts were a little too macro. But if he wanted an answer, I would give him one, but not what he asked for. "We should give several men and women the breeder job and set them to multiply as quickly as possible to counter the demon hordes. The largest land empire the world knew was already conquered, and its people were sacrificed to the altar. If we can hold back our best warriors and let slip, cities are breeding nonstop to increase our numbers. The demon lord might hold off on destroying the sun to farm points until his contract with the demon noble or royal nears its end before finishing it. That could buy us a few years to put a hero team together and use the sacrificed towns to the demons to level them to fight the demon lord."
"So I shouldn't learn how to fight."
"You would have asked Siegfried to teach you instead of passively asking if you should."
Siegfried interjected. "Well, my friend, you are good at making wagons that feel like coffins. So perhaps you should find vampires to work for. I'm sure they would appreciate your talents."
The guy looked dejected but nodded to Seigfried's words. "Well, I'll go to bed then."
"So you're going to drive the wagon with me."
"I thought you'd never ask."
I went to work punching the bag as the night dragged on, and my knuckles bled before a health regen potion slowly knitted the flesh back together. 'Must get stronger' continued to drive me toward the future. I had three powers from my time in hell. My third power needed a body capable of handling its strain.
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