Chapter 192: Deal?

Chapter 192: Deal?

While Noah, Moxie, and Lee tried to figure out what they were going to do with the presumably fake Evergreen, the survival exam ground on. Had Noah been paying attention to the screen, he would have seen five Root Fiends descend upon Isabel’s freshly built shelter just moments after it had gone up.

To the students’ retrospect, it certainly seemed more than a little suspicious. It was supposed to be a survival exam, but monsters were coming out of nowhere specifically to attack them in the middle of a budding snowstorm.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any time to ask the Root Fiends questions. The group made it about a dozen paces before it was ripped to shreds by a colorful mixture of magic. Their corpses were then subsequently dragged over to the shelter and used to build a wall that helped block out the wind.

The storm intensified, beating down on their shelter. It held strong. For some reason, monsters continued to show up, even through the thick blanket of snow. All of them fell, and by the time Noah had torn his attention away from Evergreen for long enough to check up on everyone, he found that they’d built a tiny fort from wooden bodies.

In the meantime, Noah had still yet to figure out how to get even a single speck of information from the fake Evergreen. She had stubbornly resisted every single threat and offer he’d made. It was like trying to wring water from a brick.

To the old woman’s great misfortune, however, was that Noah wasn’t in any huge rush. The survival exam was set to go on for several more days, and he didn’t need to make any impulsive decisions right now.

And that was how Evergreen found herself bound to her chair, her mouth covered to keep her from complaining or screaming too loudly and her ears plugged with vines, while Noah, Moxie, and Lee tossed ideas around.

“So eating her is off the table?” Lee asked.

“Not entirely, but probably a last place resort,” Noah suggested diplomatically. “We need to find out what Evergreen was doing sending a fake. I think we can all pretty much agree that, given how much she knows about the Torrin family, this is probably an intentional clone. We obviously can’t let on that we believe that, though.”

“Maybe Evergreen was just lazy?” Lee offered.

“She didn’t have any obligation to come here in the first place.” Moxie frowned and snuck a glance at the bound Evergreen. “It really doesn’t make sense. This seems like a pointless risk. Evergreen could have ignored this exam entirely. She hasn’t shown up to any of the earlier ones.”

“Some sort of political move, maybe?” Noah suggested, tapping a finger on his knee. “I can’t imagine what it would be, though. She brought us to a secluded room after showing herself to the general public for all of a few minutes. That’s hardly going to do anything, is it?”

“I can’t imagine it would,” Moxie agreed. She shrugged helplessly. “I’m resisting the urge to beat it out of the clone. You’re a terrible influence, you know.”

“I have not once suggested beating Evergreen’s secrets out of her.”

“You’ve been thinking it, though.”

“How would you know that?”

“Are you not?”

“No, I totally am,” Noah admitted. “But I didn’t say it out loud. What, can you read minds as well now?”

“It’s just easy to tell what you’re thinking sometimes,” Moxie replied with a smirk. It fell away when she remembered the situation they were stuck in.

Noah snuck a glance at the cube. Eline was currently buried under a large snowdrift. She’d dove into it to avoid the gaze of a large bird with sharp, metallic feathers as it flew overhead and had yet to emerge.

“More than enough to last us through the week.”

“Great. Then I’m going to settle in and relax for a bit. Evergreen isn’t playing ball, so she can stew for the rest of the day. Why don’t we just watch the exam?”

Moxie shook her head, but it was clear that she didn’t have any better suggestions when she flopped back into her chair and craned her neck back to look at the image on the cube.

Time ticked by. Even though it had been Noah’s suggestion, he quickly found himself growing bored. The exam wasn’t exactly the most riveting thing to watch – why Evergreen had wanted to rent out a room to observe it was beyond him.

After the initial monster attacks, little had happened. Eline eventually emerged from her snowdrift and started trudging through the field of white, her hands raised to try to keep the snowstorm from her eyes. Isabel and her group just remained in their mini fort, completely unbothered by the weather.

Noah’s attention quickly drifted off. Without anything to do about Evergreen and with the exam going well for the students, the only problems he had left to focus on for the time being were his own.

He sank into his mindspace, hoping to check on the wrinkle in his soul and possibly find out if the demon had actually been telling the truth about their connection or not. The darkness of his soul swam out, swallowing the room as Noah’s Runes glittered to life all around him.

To his dismay, the wrinkle became immediately apparent. A winding spiral of reddish-black energy burned in the very center of his soul. Tiny flecks of ash swirled above it, occasionally glowing molten.

The ash swirled, gathering into a humanoid form. With a pop, the demon formed, sitting cross-legged upon the spiral with a bored expression on its face.

“Well, hello. You came to visit much faster than I’d expected.”

“What are you doing here?” Noah demanded, his eyes narrow. He warily glanced at his Runes, but they all looked correct. Nothing had changed other than the demon’s presence.

“Did you not hear a single word I said when we were talking?”

“I know you claim to be integrated with my soul, but you were never here before,” Noah pointed out. “And, to be frank, I’d like to keep things that way.”

“I’m sure you would,” the demon said with a wry laugh. “Unfortunately for you, I finally manifested enough power to carve out a little spot for myself. No, I’m afraid you won’t just be forgetting about me so easily. I’m here to stay until something changes.”

“Thrilling,” Noah said, not letting his face show just how concerning the demon’s words were. “You’re just here to annoy me, then?”

“Trust me, if I had literally any other option, I’d take it,” the demon said. It yawned, then rose to its feet. “But, now that we’re here, there’s no point wasting an opportunity. I’m bored, Noah. And, as much as I despise you – I’m fascinated with your story. I’ve only caught flashes of the biggest parts from your memory, but I want more. Entertain me.”

He kind of sounds like Lee, if Lee were a raging asshole.

“And why would I do that?” Noah asked. “I’m here to get rid of you, not make you want to stay.”

“Do you have a way to get rid of me?” the demon raised an eyebrow.

Noah sighed. “No. That doesn’t mean I’m just going to do what you ask, though.”

“Of course not. Nothing in life is free.” A grin stretched across the demon’s face and it held its hands out. “Care to make a deal with the devil, Noah Vines?”