Chapter 68 - Demon Core... Food Coma

Gin has just taken a shower and changed to the clothes that Fumio left for him to use.

"When do they return though? Do I just leave?" He already realized that none of the people are around, figuring that they went somewhere.

*rumble*

Soon, his stomach is calling for food once again. He has not eaten anything in twenty-four hours. He was not able to have dinner the night before as he fell asleep immediately after seeing how warm and comfortable Fumio's room was. 

He then swallows and goes to the kitchen to look for food.

Unfortunately, he finds none.

"huh… That's strange." All he found is the refrigerator filled with glass bottles filled with viscuous creamy substances. He knows that strong physical type superiori, like Red, Hideki, and Kotone, have very huge appetites, so he finds it strange that there are not food in the fridge or in the cupboards. 

"Well... That sucks." He can only close the refrigerator in disappointment.

While he is hungry, he is not starving enough to try and eat or drink something that he finds suspicious and have no idea what it is.

Remembering the fruit trees and berry shrubs he saw in the gardens when he arrived the day before, he gets hopeful and excitedly goes out to the beautiful garden to pick some fruits he can eat.

He figures that the owner of the place will not mind. After all, there are plenty of trees and hundreds of fruits so he figures that there is no way the owner will notice if one or two fruits suddenly go missing.

Soon, he is now within the herb garden, and he notices something strange.

"Whoah… These are persimmons?"

Because he was quite a distance when he saw the fruits yesterday, he did not notice that the fruits are larger than normal.

The persimmons that are in his reach, for example, are at least 10 cm in diameter.

After picking out one persimmon and one oversized peach, he goes to the find a place to eat them along the wall surrounding the garden. He does not want Red, Fumio or Kotone to find clues that he ate their fruits without permission.

Saliva quickly accumulates in his mouth by simply looking at the plump and perfect looking fruits in his hands. He has not broken their skins, but he already smells the fruity fragrance coming from them.

He rarely eats persimmons so he sets it aside, intending on eating it last.

He then takes a bite off the peach and he feels the juice of the fruit assault his taste buds immediately. His eyes widen in shock in gustatory pleasure.

'This must be the best peach I've ever eaten.'

He takes a break and looks at where he took a bite.

'My word.'

He takes a deep breath seeing the golden color of the peach's flesh.

'Am I still eating peach? Is this what gold tastes like?'

He chuckles as he continues to chew and savor the flavor.

Soon, he realizes something and he stops chewing as a terrible feeling comes over him.

'How much are these when sold?' He realizes that the fruits he just stole are obviously luxury fruits, grown by the best superiori farmers, and are only afforded by wealthy people.

Soon however, '…whatever… I already took a bite. Might as well go all in…' the taste of the peach overpowers his worry and he on gradually devouring and savoring the peach.

A few minutes later, Gin is now reclined with his back against the bamboo wall, dazed.

"Whoah… the peach and the persimmon must have been one and a half kilograms heavy combined. I can't believe I finished them all." He mutters as he strokes his full belly in satisfaction.

"Food coma. It's been a while."

In addition to being full, he also feels very drowsy.

Not long after, he can no longer keep his heavy eyelids open and he falls asleep.

<>

Red and his disciples are now back in the hill.

As soon as their feet touch the ground, Kotone and Fumio both breath sighs of relief. The two cannot believe what they had just witnessed.

A demon.

Red is about to take off once again when, "Boss." Fumio calls out.

"Yeah?"

"That demon… did it say anything before it died?" Fumio asks.

"Nothing really." Red shakes his head.

"Huh… it seemed ready to die. Like it accepted its fate." Fumio looks at him suspiciously.

"It did." Red nods.

"Kichirou-san, why didn't it look as evil as Mr. Morimoto claimed?" Kotone asks.

"I don't know what you might call evil." Red looks at her.

"To me, the demon didn't seem that evil compared to some humans." He smiles.

This confuses the two, and Red notices.

"Demons treat humans like how humans treat animals and oil. Food and energy resources. Humans just happen to be stronger and smarter than animals. That's why we can fight back and discuss things such as the morality of our predators." Red shrugs.

The two are stunned at the analogy.

"I mean, just look at how we treat our food. We smash their flesh to make something like hamburger patties. Demons don't seem to be that sadistic. I mean, the victims of that demon were reported to have not even suffered any physical trauma." Red adds with a chuckle.

"Food…" Fumio nods in understanding, but has a hard time accepting it.

"You're awfully sympathetic to demons after killing one." Kotone looks at Red weirdly.

"Yeah. In fact. I saw you two exchange smiles before you killed it." Fumio is reminded of what he saw.

"Well. I liked how the demon was loyal to its kind. I liked how sentimental it was. But don't get me wrong. They're threats to our kind. I'll still kill one if they're a threat to us." Red shrugs.

"Anyways. Aren't you two sleepy? You pulled an all-nighter." He then asks the two.

"I will." Kotone yawns.

"Boss. Is it normal that I only sleep four hours a night?" Fumio asks suddenly.

"Do you feel fine throughout the day?" Red asks.

"Yeah." Fumio nods.

"Then you're fine. That's a benefit of your elixir." Red shrugs.

"I see." Fumio nods. He asked just to make sure.

"Well… Your elixir is quite potent, boss. Don't you need sleep?" He realizes, and asks out of curiosity.

"Maybe once every few days." Red says.

"I thought you just go back to Nerima to sleep every night, but you don't even sleep?!" Kotone exclaims, receiving a nod of confirmation from Red.

"So that's why you gave me your room here…" She now feels less burdened.

"Damn. That sounds boring. Being awake all the time." Fumio's scoffs.

"Not really. I'm recently making my own anime. It's fun." Red shrugs.

Fumio takes second to process what he just heard, and realizes that indeed, Red can do that with his visual and auditory illusions.

"And., I have a lot of skills to practice. In fact, I'm even dabbling on video game design and programming recently. Maybe I'll make my own video game." Red rubs his chin.

"…You serious, boss?" Fumio is unsure whether it was an unfunny joke, or Red making a video game, something he never imagined Red doing, can really happen.

"Yeah. I mean, all I need to pay for is software and time. I can do the voice acting and animations. If it gets popular, I might buy the neighboring properties here." Red explains.

After accessing more his spirit sense, and learning computer language, he can now control a computer or something digital with just his mind. He even finds it easier to make a game asset with a game engine.

While he finds these useful, he wishes his body is powerful enough to handle his spirit sense covering the world wide web. After all, free access to an information, no matter how secure, is very useful to him.

"Hm?" Red suddenly raises his brows, and suddenly, *whoosh* zooms out of the backyard.

The two disciples are confused, and worried, but soon, they Red return with a floating Gin behind him. After taking a closer look at Gin, they notice that Gin is sweating hard and his sin is flushed.

"What happened to him?" Fumio asks in interest.

"Ate one peach." Red says.

"WHAT?!" Fumio and Kotone exclaim.

"Is he okay?" Kotone asks in worry.

Red does not answer and simply lays Gin on the ground before applying a healing technique to the man.

"I didn't believe you, Kichirou-san when you told us about the fruits… but… damn." Kotone shakes her head in amusement.

"I mean, they are delicious. I can't really blame him." Fumio chuckles.

The two know that the fruits and berries in Red's garden are special. As for how special, they do not know. Red once told them that his fruits should not be consumed by people whose bodies are not as strong as an E-Class Physically Enhanced Superiori's.

After all, all the herbs and trees in Red's garden, including the bamboo trees that comprise the wall, are all pseudo-spirit herbs, except for the ones that Red had for years which are low-mortal herbs.

Gin, despite being an E-Class superioris, still has the body strength of a non-superioris, and cannot handle eating a pseudo-spirit herb.

A few seconds later, Gin stops sweating and his flushing also fades.

"You two take care of this guy." Red then excuses himself.

The two disciples, while curious of what Red is always up to, no longer ask, as Red always come up with silly answers.

Soon, Red is now on top of the hill, sitting on a stone platform in lotus position.

On his hand, is Ag'dramos' demon core.

He tried putting it in his storage ring earlier, but it refused to get stored.

Red figures that the demon core is either alive, has something living in it, or contains energy that is beyond his storage ring's capacity.

He then takes a peek inside the object with his spirit sense, and his brows rise in interest.

"Empty souls…" Red immediately realizes.

He nods, confirming what is in the recorded history of this world. Demons indeed 'ate' souls to power themselves.

He is also relieved because the souls are empty of their essences, and judging from the how the empty souls look, the essences were not destroyed, but were never absorbed in the first place.

After all, a soul essence contains a soul's memories and karmic luck. If it is destroyed, then the soul will no longer have the chance for reincarnation. Meaning, the victims whose souls Ag'dramos' absorbed in his core, will still undergo true reincarnation and will be reborn to wherever the void want them to.

While he is not surprised, he is relieved to make sure that a weak creature like Ag'dramos do not have the ability to destroy a soul essence.

"Ag'dramos you greedy demon." Red shakes his head.

Ag'dramos trapped six souls in its core, but have not made the energy in them, its own, but is simply storing them, slowly absorbing them.

"Now… A natural born True God…or something like it… I'm sure of it."

Red is even surer now that the demon race in this realm, is made by someone. As to why, he does not know, aside from that certain being experimenting on their newfound ability to create life; a common thing he observed not only among natural born True Gods in the infinite realms, but also those who cultivated to True Gods.

Red himself, when he was a True God, played around with his abilities.

"Now… what do I do with you?" Red ponders, feeling a bit tempted.

Empty souls after all, are no longer souls, but simply containers made of any type of energy that can handle a soul essence's karmic luck and memories.

For example, a sovereign's soul essence is encased in very condensed primordial energy, while a mortal's soul, just like the ones inside the demon's core, is made of very condensed spiritual energy.

"Spiritual energy… mixed with something… probably the autochthonous energy of wherever this realm is." Red guesses.

"Well, whatever. It's safe to absorb…" He smirks. 

"But I'll keep it for now.. Maybe take more in the future."