The demon continues to laugh at Mallory as she tries to explain, until she eventually stops trying. She reaches behind back, patting at her skirt until she finds her blade hidden within the ruffles.

“Are you stupid, child?” It rises from the seat, looming over her in an attempt to threaten her. “Why would I willingly enslave myself to a human? Especially one as pathetic as you?”

“Are you sure you don’t want a Token?”

“Positive. Now unbind me before I—”

Mallory flips her blade pointed-side up, and plunges it into the demon’s neck.

“You-!”

The demon cuts itself off with another rumble from somewhere in its body, the area her blade pierced shining gold. Mallory yanks the blade out, bright pink blood spurting from the wound. That confirms the demon wasn’t using a host, but I can’t help but wonder if Mallory knew that before she decided to stab it.

A visible shiver runs down Mallory’s spine, her arm cocking back for another stab.

“One’s probably enough…” Mallory mumbles, slowly lowering her blade.

The demon falls to the ground, convulsing and gargling as it bleeds out on the floor. It’s a gory sight, but the color of the “blood” somehow makes it less disgusting. Eventually the noises stop, and the demon’s body stiffens.

I finally leave my perch on the desk, coming next to Mallory. I pat her shoulder and grin.

“Well, that didn’t go as bad as I thought it would.”

“I think I shouldn’t have stabbed as a warning…” She wipes her blade clean with her skirt. “Better luck next time, I guess.”

“N-Next time?”

“Well… Yeah. Just cause this time didn’t work, doesn’t mean it won’t work next time.”

“How many times do you want to try this?”

Mallory is quiet for a moment, playing in the blood with her feet.

“It’s kind of… inefficient. You can’t deny that.” I add.

“I just… I just think that we should try a more peaceful option whenever we can.”

“Whenever we can, huh?” I tsk. “You’re so high maintenance.”

“It’s a good thing you love me so much, then.” Mallory looks up at me with the smuggest grin, her hand against her chest.

I scoff and flick her head, “I’ll think about it. Depends on what we run into next.”

“So stubborn~!”

Mallory turns on the ball of her foot, and ever so lightly bounces over to the few supplies we brought.

“You should try participating more next time! Might feel like less of a waste of time.” She says, her tone light.

“I never said it was a waste of time.” I follow after her so we could start cleaning this mess up.

“You thought it though~!”

We fall into light conversation about school, events, and what we might do this weekend, as we clean up the mess we made of our temporary dungeon. As we do this, her blade catches my eye.

It’s silver and shiny, the handle engraved with complex writings in a language we couldn’t recognize. She’s quite particular about it, and barely lets me touch it—let alone use it. It was a gift given to her, by an old friend of hers.

It was probably the only good thing he gave her.

Her blade is special, and probably the only of its kind. While my spear can’t actually kill demons, only injure them, her blade is said to be able to kill anything. I can’t vouch for the “anything” part, but it does a great job of killing every monster we’ve come across so far.

Oddly enough, she herself doesn’t use the blade very much. Though, lately, she’s been using it more often in place of… other techniques that I’d rather not get into.

“So,” Mallory stands up, finally done wrapping the demon’s remains in a series of plastic bags. “Let’s, uh, burn this fucker and find our next gig!”