"Good morning, fam squad." Helena greeted as she joined the rest of her party at breakfast the next day.
"Your words get more cryptic by the day." Kaguya chuckled as she munched on a leafy green salad.
"Where's Roko?" Helena asked as she sat down and began buttering her toast.
"Off doing the Roko special." Momo smiled.
"God bless him because I don't think I'd be able to read half as much as he does." Helena laughed.
"On an unrelated note, how are your grades?" Kaguya smirked.
"Perfectly fine, thanks for asking." Helena smirked back.
"Hey so on the likely chance that Roko is busy for the entire day..." Momo said as she slurped up her basic miso soup ramen, "Who's making dinner?"
Helena and Kaguya glanced at each other before asking,
"Corissa still moping?"
"Yep."
"Damn, that's five days now. Should we just apologize?"
"And ruin my photobook?!"
"Seriously, Helena?"
"I have very particular clients I have promised to finish this photobook to!"
"Are they the king and queen of a certain country perhaps?"
"Maybe."
Momo and Kaguya sighed.
"What if you make dinner, Momo?" Helena suggested.
"Sure." Momo scoffed, "You want cake for dinner?"
"Ehhh…"
A short silence followed before Helena moved on to the next possibility.
"Kaguya?"
"Sure." Kaguya said, "You like gruel?"
"Gruel? Really?"
"It'll be flavored." Kaguya shrugged, "Just with whatever's lying around I guess."
"..."
"How about you, Helena?" Momo suggested.
"I've never had much patience for cooking." Helena said cradling her head in her hand.
"You made cookies before didn't you?"
"Yeah but it was mostly a way to get closer to Roko."
"And she replaced chocolate with dark chocolate." Momo added, "Then tried to hide it by putting in more sugar."
"I thought it'd be okay."
"In what world?" Momo said her voice dripping with experienced indignation.
An even longer silence followed the ladies' dinner discussion.
"We could go to a restaurant." Kaguya finally suggested.
"Yeah, we haven't been able to really taste the local cuisine anyway." Helena added encouragingly, "It'll be a nice change."
"Right." Momo nodded, "So what are we getting?"
Another long silence.
"Man, I hope Roko's having an easier time than us at least." Helena sighed.
It was obvious. It was so obvious. The more Roko poured over these books, the more blindingly obvious it was. So blindingly obvious that there was no possible way that Olivia or the rest of the demons could not have noticed. If he wanted to get them on his side...he'll need to discover something that Olivia or her company has not yet discovered yet. A shockingly difficult task given that he still didn't actually know what exactly Olivia or the demons had discovered already. The information he was coming across was easily accessible. Public. If the demons had even a single person that was remotely competent, they'd have discovered this already. So he needed some unique kind of information. Something...that would require some ...hands-on investigation.
…
Until then, there was yet more that he needed to learn.
Reading consumed Roko's time until lunch came and Roko realized he'd need to make some preparations. So once he finished his garlic baguette, Roko went on to plan out his equipment, gather information on his site of on-hands research, scope out the joint, then go back to some light reading until night fell. And in a quiet church in a corner of the town began a quiet assembly where the people of Seawood all gathered together to...pray in unspeakable tongues. Words of no meaning to anybody on this earth flowed out from the halls, the mere words giving the location a sort of...presence. A being who was not quite there by normal senses. Yet it's intentions were there even if incomprehensible. Or...was it the intentions of the cult that Roko was hearing? Regardless, he entered and followed the plan he had made.
Climbing around empty halls and stairs, Roko made his way to the rafters. A familiar tactic that he's employed before to stealthily skip the mob and position himself over the leader. And this time was no different. The members were too busy in their chants, their tribute to some unknown god as the priest stood in front of them, absorbing them presumably metaphorically but with these monsters, who knows, it could be literal too. And in the middle of it all was a young girl praying in...abject gibberish. Not in the twisted insanity that her peers seemed to be so united in. A young innocent adopted so early into the insanity but not yet part of it. At least until now.
The priest made one silencing gesture and everyone seemed to shut up at once, leaving the girl's fake prayers to peter off rather quickly.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Seawood County!" The priest bellowed in a ceremonial voice, "Tonight, we welcome a young sheep to our flock! A new child in our family! Let us first applaud this brave and wise woman for her inspiring determination!"
A loud and boisterous applause erupted around said young sheep who looked more uncomfortable by the attention, looking around for a familiar face that she could not find among the crowd.
"Come now young one. Join me on stage. Once we finish your baptism, you shall be one of us, wholly and completely."
The young girl walked up to the stage where the priest threw off the cover to a basin filled with water. Normal looking...presumably holy water. The girl was led to the edge of the basin where she was practically hyperventilating in confusion and fear but herd mentality kept her in place as she slowly started letting go of her individual values and prepared to join the cult. But before that began, Roko figured he'd make sure the water was properly sanctified.
Pulling out a small vial from a belt he had prepared, he popped open the cork and dropped a single drop of water from within. The drop fell several meters in seconds before dropping right into the baptism basin. And immediately a screeching began as the water became murky, then into solid flesh as it writhed inside the bowl. The girl cried out in horror and stumbled back as the mass of flesh trashed about before it seemingly died. The priest ran up to the bowl with widened eyes but just as he realized what happened, Roko dropped the rest of the vial over his head, smashing the glass and splashing the priest with the water inside. The priest cried out in pain and began stumbling and flailing about. His screams became multitudinous as a coat of flesh materialized around him, this eldritch parasite shrinking and shriveling until the priest collapsed onto the floor, dead.
The girl stood there in horror until Roko rappelled down from the rafters to stand in front of her and the masses.
"Hey there." Roko greeted the traumatized girl jovially, "I'd get out of here if I were you."
"You! You killed him!"
The accusation came from the crowd, the anger on everyone's faces making it difficult to determine the individual who had made the accusation.
"That's right." Roko replied nonchalantly, "I don't expect I have to explain to you why though."
As he spoke, he pulled out another vial from his belt and uncorked it, throwing the water out to the people in the crowd now. The water landed on many of these cultists and just like the priest they began to scream in pain until the flesh coats revealed themselves over these people as well.
"You see?" Roko asked, addressing the innocent girl without even turning to her, "They're all monsters. If I were you, I'd get out and make better choices."
The girl could only nod and began to run away until Roko spoke up one more time.
"Oh and one more thing." he added, "Don't go making any deals with any demons okay?"
The girl nodded one more time, still confused but ran off to find an exit.
Now alone, Roko moved his shoulder bag to the back where it adhered to the back of his belt and Roko reached in to pull out his sword.
"Now them." Roko sighed, "Time to clean up I guess."
In response, the masses began to show their true colors. Flesh coats appeared across the entire crowd. These former humans now roaring and screeching like animals as some of them lost any human consistency to them. Eyes lost their focus and began pointing in opposite directions, jaws hung open and drool dribbled out. One of them even began to grow huge and pull an entire pew out of the ground.
"...Well shit." Roko blinked.
In an enraged roar, the cultist threw the pew at Roko, causing him to duck as the rest of the crowd began to charge at him. Roko slashed at the first person to come close to him, cutting him down pretty easily before he had another enemy to deal with. A part of his mind dismayed to be slashing down genuine humans, committing something that resembled murder. But it was clear there was no saving these humans and thus there were no humans to save here. Only corpses puppeted by the mounds of flesh on them.
Surprisingly strong corpses though as one of them attacked Roko from behind, hooking their arms up from under Roko's to hold him in a simple grapple as their allies began to try to swarm him. Deftly, Roko removed two vials from the belt on his chest and flicked one at the nearest monster trying to assault him, crippling him in searing pain to stall the rest of their allies. And the other Roko flicked right into the face of the man holding him, smashing into his face directly and causing him enough pain to release him before dying on the ground. Roko's preparations proved quite helpful, allowing him to cut down the entire crowd with ease until he was the only one left. And what rest he had left after his assault was short lived as the door burst open and armed police flooded into the building. Without even being given a chance to speak, the first policeman pointed at him and shouted,
"Murderer!"
"Man..." Roko muttered as he pulled out a large glass bottle from his bag as the police charged at him.
Throwing this bottle at the police now, he struck the man who had screamed at him right in the face, revealing the flesh coat on him and the police around him before collapsing on the ground dead as well.
"Knew it." Roko sighed as he picked up his sword again.
And in response, the police raised their hands and summoned balls of fire in their hands.
"Oh sh-"
In the quiet of the night, a lone church in the middle of town exploded. Pieces of stone blown off one after another until the entire building collapsed in on itself. And from the rubble, Roko pushed himself out from under a table, standing triumphant over the police that had crushed themselves. For only a moment as more police showed up around him.
"MAN..." Roko grimaced as these new policemen summoned fire to attack him with.
Before they could fire though, a wave of water washed over them, flinging them to the side as a lone demon floated down from above.
"What are you doing here?" Roko frowned.
"You were late." Olivia replied.
"No I'm not. There's still 20 minutes until we were supposed to meet back up at the inn." Roko retorted.
"How do you know?! You didn't even take out your phone!"
"Clock tower."
"Alright, smart guy then why don't you explain what you're doing here?" Olivia scowled.
"Gathering information."
"You call THIS gathering information?!" Olivia waved out at the police that had surrounded them.
"Yeah. I needed to get some tidbit of info that you all could not possibly have gotten before so that you could trust me."
"Trust..." Olivia covered her face with a hand, "Roko, I...it's not like I don't trust you, I just...I just don't want you involved okay?!"
"Too bad."
"What do you mean too bad?!"
"I can't back down knowing what I know now."
"I..." Olivia rubbed her face with her hands, "Why did you have to show up? You of all people?"
"I know right?" Roko sighed, "Why do I have to deal with this over and over again?"
"...You really won't leave will you?" Olivia looked at him with pleading eyes.
"Nope. Now do you want me on your side or not?"
"...Tell me what you know." Olivia said, her voice and demeanor hardening.
"As you can see, the town has been overrun with monsters."
"I can see that." Olivia snarled as she turned to the policemen she had washed away with water standing back up, "What's up with that? I thought they were weak to water."
"It's not any normal water." Roko said as he pulled the last of his vials off his belt and threw it into the face of another officer, killing the parasite controlling him, "It's salt water."
"Damn, you figured that out too?" Olivia scowled, "How?"
"It's blindingly obvious." Roko scoffed, "Every book in this town has any pages referring to salt ripped out of it. And that's only with the surviving books. You demons wouldn't have cared. The only ones who would've cared are the monsters controlling these people to rip out any mention of their weakness. These monsters understand to limit knowledge of their own weakness but not the fact that such a specific crusade would only draw attention to what is clearly missing. A mistake that could only be made by the eldritch."
"God you sound so smug when you explain shit." Olivia growled.
"I think I sound perfectly normal." Roko replied.
"Okay but how did you know something was wrong to begin with?" Olivia asked, "As you can see, these monsters hide themselves so there should be no sign that something was wrong with this town to begin with."
"That's where it all began." Roko pointed at Olivia knowingly, "'Town'. A small settlement. A place this small has no right to be holding as many people as it is. It's not just you demons and a bunch of monsterized citizens either. The eldritch aren't going to understand borders and citizenship, they go after any humans and bring them back here to use this place as a hub. There are too many people that look like they belong somewhere else. If this place was a popular place for tourism that'd be one thing but it clearly isn't."
"Ugh." Olivia grimaced, "How are you getting information it took us months to get just by walking in and doing a day of research?"
"I didn't know demons believed in due diligence." Roko smirked, "Congrats."
"Whatever." Olivia scowled as she zapped a few police officers preparing to attack them with a wave of her hand, "What were you even testing here then if you knew all this?"
"I knew salt was their weakness but I needed to know what the ratio between salt and water needed to be to kill." Roko replied, "So I filled various vials up with different concentration ratios of salt and came here to run some tests."
"And what were the results?"
"Saltwater is between 31 to 38 grams of salt per kilogram meaning the usual ratio is 3.1-3.8% of salt. Salt poisoning only requires a concentration of 0.5-1 gram of salt per kilogram of your body weight. Since it varies, I had to-"
"SHORT. VERSION. PLEASE." Olivia said, her voice seething between her teeth.
"The human host doesn't matter." Roko shrugged, "All you need to do is have enough salt to kill the parasite, the exact number is unclear at the moment since I don't have any samples to really test with in a clean experiment...but about 2.7 grams of salt seems to do the trick. That implies the parasite has a weight of 1.3-2.7 kilograms. Which makes since since they're kinda small and stretch themselves out to about the size of a coat."
"..."
"This means nothing to you, does it?" Roko snickered.
"I just kill them, man." Olivia sighed, "But I guess this should be enough work to let you in with the other demons."
"Wait, really?" Roko smirked, "I haven't even gotten to the piece of information that I was going to use to make sure you guys accepted me."
"Seriously?" Olivia frowned, "What more could you possibly know?"
"I could tell you...but I'd have to charge."
"Driving a hard bargain now?" Olivia scowled, "I already said I'd let you in with the demons, what more could you want?!"
"I want a contract." Roko replied.
"Eh?" Olivia looked stunned.
"Demon Olivia. Make a contract with me." Roko repeated.