Chapter 38 - Shadow

That night, the Imp made three big mistakes, that would greatly impact the flow of the night toward the negative.

While holding his hand over his face, the Imp pressed his mask further onto his skin, simply out of reflex in response to this overwhelming feeling. Slowly, the Imp stood up and looked out of the window, peeking inbetween his fingers directly onto the street. That was his first mistake.

To his surprise, what he found was extraordinarily... unordinary. At least from what the Imp could tell out of instinct, this situation was completely fake, fabricated, and utterly abnormal.

Numerous forms, dressed in bright colors, most of them similar to red, pink or purple, were walking around on the streets while people were making lots of noise with different tools. Some were pulling on random threads on a box, others were blowing into a metal horn, and then others were just hitting a box.

For the first time, the Imp also saw that the 'expensive' shops were being walked into, and quite a lot at that. And whenever someone left one of the shop, they came back out with numerous things all at once.

Some of the people that were walking around were recognizable to the Imp, because he saw them in the shops or they just caught his eye while they were on the street, but most of them were in uncomfortable situations.

Mostly, they were completely undressed, some of the colorful forms were throwing fruit at them while others were walking them as if on a leash. But they all had one thing in common. They were absolutely enjoying what they were doing, at the very least they were smiling brightly in pleasure and happiness all the time.

And then, the Imp heard a noise behind him.

"Hmm..? Mister, what's that noise..?" Rudy asked quietly as he woke up and sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes as he was doing so. And at around the same time, the other children were also waking up, while the babies were waking up and screaming around as well.

"I don't know... Stay in here." The Imp told them as he hurried over toward the door with a frown on his face and unlocked it, slowly taking a peak outside as he was doing so.

That was the Imp's second mistake.

At first, the Imp wasn't able to see anything at all, and his sight became dark, the few spots that he could see being very burred. After all, that's what happens when someone pressed their eye directly again the eye-hole of your mask from the outside.

The moment that the Imp noticed the pressure on his face, it was already too late, and his body was being thrown through the room, before he hit his head at the rough wooden wall.

[Critical Attack! -221 Health]

[You feel dizzy and out of control of your body]

Confused, the Imp tried to look forward, but he couldn't really see all that much. His sight was just completely blurred, and his mask was slowly drooping down over his eyes. The Imp wanted to adjust it, but he couldn't move his hands no matter what he tried to do.

But at least, he could still hear everything like normal, and he saw the outlines of everyone. There were the children in the room, confused, startled and scared at the pitch-black, unproportional figure that just entered the room.

The first that the figure approached was Rudy, and it pressed its face directly toward the child's, with just a few finger's with inbetween them, before the figure started to speak in a voice that sounded as if it was reverberating from everywhere around the Imp so that he could hear it loud and clear, while also sounding muffled as if he spoke through thick cloth.

"Envy." The Figure said, and pressed its finger against Rudy's forehead, before the round young boy's figure simply disappeared into nothingness.

The Imp wasn't sure what just happened, but he knew that the other children were like paralyzed, although Leon and the 'Holy Priestess' were crying just as loudly as before, as if penetrating the Imp's skull.

And while nobody knew what to do, the pitch black figure approached the next child, Clementie. Just like with Rudy, it held its face directly in front of her's, and then placed its finger on her forehead. "Gluttony."

Just like that, another child's figure disappeared into nothingness. And then, a different child could be heard starting to cry. It was Sammy's, who was slowly being approached by the figure in black.

She tried to move her head away from it out of fear, but that didn't mean much to the figure. While its feet stood directly where they were, the figure's upper body moved closer toward Sammy, as if its body was stretching itself longer. And then, it repeated the same as before. "Pride." It said, and slowly pushed its finger against Sammy's forehead, before she disappeared like the other two.

All the whilst this was happening, the Imp was obviously trying to get up, trying to make his body move. But no matter what he did, it felt like his whole body wasn't his own, and he weighed a hundred times his normal weight. Slowly his vision got better, but his body stayed the same, while the Figure approached Arc.

Even if the boy was highly resistant to things like fear, the Imp noticed that even he was sobbing in response to seeing the figure in front of him after what it just did to his friends. But before he knew it, the Figure made its choice.

"L.u.s.t." And so, the next child disappeared.

Just like that, the figure made its way over toward the babies, while the Imp could feel his body slowly returning to his control, due to a single emotion he was feeling. Pure and utter anger.

But it seemed like the figure cared little about that, as it simply approached Leon, curving its body over the side of the bed to hold its face in front of his, before touching the baby's forehead. "Sloth."

And then, when one of the crying voices disappeared, the Imp's anger overcame whatever was just happening to him. Although at that point, the figure had already approached the last one in this room beside the Imp and itself. The 'Holy Priestess'. For some reason, it seemed hesitant to do the same thing to her, and some of the black on its body seemed to be moving away from it the closer its face got to her, but it still followed through, holdings its finger toward her as it was doing so. "Greed."

Immediately when the Figure touched the child's forehead, the baby disappeared like the others, but the Figure's hand was also seemingly slowly starting to fall apart, taking damage from the girl's existence.

At that moment, the Imp remembered something. She was supposed to be the 'Holy Priestess', and the holy energy she gave off damaged Demons... The Imp somehow learned the 'Holy Energy Resistance' skill, so he was protected for now, but if this other being was also a Demon, it wouldn't have that.

It didn't matter though, because the child was now gone anyway. And the Imp's anger got so much stronger.

With the Dagger he had in his hand, the Imp ran forward toward the figure and tried to stab it right into its body. And to his luck, he managed to do so! At least that's what the Imp thought at first, but when he took a closer look, the Imp noticed that a large hole opened up in the figure's body where the Imp was supposed to have stabbed it, letting the dagger completely miss him.

But luckily, the figure's hole soon closed up, although unluckily, right around the Imp's hand. He managed to pull it away, but as he was doing so, the Dagger got stuck inside of the Figure's stomach, alhough it didn't really seem to mind that fact.

Due to the rash movement, the Imp lost his balance and ended up falling backward onto the ground, right next to the basket where the baby was usually laying in. And the figure was now approaching the Imp, so he had to defend himself somehow.

With those thoughts, he quickly grabbed the basket's handle and just threw it toward the figure's head. And then, that part of the figure's body disappeared in a large hole, although it regenerated itself just as quickly as it appeared.

While the Imp thought that this was it now, something else happened. The piece of cloth that the baby was usually wrapped in dropped out of the basket while the Imp threw it, and slowly dropped to the ground right in front of the figure.

And without noticing, the figure stepped on that piece of cloth, although it didn't do so for long. The foot that touched it immediately disappeared and was 'pushed away' by the cloth, and the Figure started screaming in pain. Of course, due to the peculiarities of its voice, that in itself hurt the Imp an incredible amount, but he was able to just fight through that.

Obviously the Imp noticed that the cloth for some reason damaged the figure, maybe because the baby was always laying on it and it became holy through that, or some other reason the Imp didn't know about. But either way, this was a good enough weapon for him for now.

Quickly he picked the cloth up and wrapped it around his fist, trying to tie it around it so that it wouldn't drop off, and then immediately threw his fist toward the figure.

And while the Imp did, the figure turned toward him, stopping to scream for just a split moment to say a single word while staring at the Imp. "Wrath."

But this time, the Imp's attack connected. Although just for a second, because the area that the Imp touched even just slightly just splattered outward out the back of the figure.

[Demonic Shadow -134 Damage]

[You attacked using the Opponent's Bane. Damage increased by 100]

[Total Damage: 13400]

Confused, the Imp looked at the notification while the Figure, the 'Demonic Shadow' continued to scream in pain. And that chance was of course used by the Imp.

[Demonic Shadow -161 Damage]

[You attacked using the Opponent's Bane. Damage increased by 100]

[Total Damage: 16100]

[Demonic Shadow -117 Damage]

[You attacked using the Opponent's Bane. Damage increased by 100]

[Total Damage: 11700]

[Demonic Shadow -159 Damage]

[You attacked using the Opponent's Bane. Damage increased by 100]

[Total Damage: 15900]

[You killed the Demonic Shadow!]

[You leveled Up!]

[You leveled Up!]

...

[You Leveled Up!]

[You have 7 Unused Stat Points]

After staring at the figure as it slowly disappeared into nothingness as if just seeping away, the Imp quickly picked up his dagger and got rid of the notifications. He read through all of them, of course, but the Imp had to take care of something else.

And that started with opening his status.

[Name – None][Race – Scholar Imp][Level – 8]

[Health – 1200][Mana – 2350]

[Strength – 20][Constitution - 20][Resistance – 20]

[Agility - 32][Evasion – 20][Dexterity - 22]

[Intelligence - 64][Wisdom – 31]

[Perception – 43][Willpower – 20][Charisma – 3]

[7 Stat Points Available]

[Skills]

-[Apprentice Common Language Comprehension][Level – 90]

-[Apprentice Stealth][Level – 57]

-[Beginner Dagger Mastery][Level – 21]

-[Beginner Concentration][Level – 43]

-[Beginner Overeating][Level – 18]

-[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance][Level – 56]

-[Beginner Sickness Resistance][Level – 6]

-[Beginner Cooking][Level – 13]

-[Beginner Butchering][Level – 19]

-[Beginner Water Magic][Level – 11]

-[Beginner Air Magic][Level – 3]

-[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance][Level – 96]

[Blessings]

-[Blessing of the Lonely Naiad]