Inside the restaurant, multiple demons sat at tables—some drinking, some eating, others waiting in silence. Laid sat alone, staring blankly at the surface before him. Around him, two patrons discussed rumors of a killer lurking in the outskirts.
A man burst through the doors, swinging them open with such force they nearly tore from their hinges. He raised a large, crimson orb above his head—a demon bomb pulsing with malevolent energy.
"If any of you move," he bellowed, "I will blow this entire restaurant to pieces!"
Terror rippled through the crowd. Some patrons gasped, others froze mid-breath. No one dared twitch a muscle. The air grew thick with fear.
Laid, however, remained unmoved. He didn't care about these people or their panic. Slowly, deliberately, he stood.
"Who do you think you are?" the man snarled. "I said don't move!"
He tossed the bomb into the air and caught it with a theatrical flourish, trying to emphasize his threat.
Laid's expression remained cold and emotionless. "Don't you know who I am?" he asked quietly.
"I do not care," the man growled, his voice shaking slightly despite his bravado.
"Then you should." Laid walked forward, each step measured and deliberate. "I'm simply here to reach my goal. Now move."
The man didn't budge. His knuckles whitened around the bomb.
"I said move."
Without warning, Laid shoved the man hard into the wall. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs, and the bomb tumbled from his grasp.
Time seemed to slow.
The orb hit the ground.
BOOM.
A blinding flash of light consumed the entire restaurant. When the brilliance subsided, fire raged everywhere—licking up walls, spreading across the floor, devouring everything in its path. Those who had survived the initial explosion caught fire and died screaming. The air filled with the acrid stench of burning flesh and wood.
Then, inexplicably, the fire stopped. Not gradually—it simply ceased, as if someone had flipped a switch. The flames vanished instantly.
Everything returned to normal. The dead were alive again. The man stood there once more, holding the bomb. And Laid found himself back in his seat, as though nothing had happened.
"Don't move!" the man yelled again. "I'll blow this entire restaurant up!"
*What is this? Time rewind?* Laid thought, his mind racing despite his impassive exterior.
He stood up once more. "I have goals to reach. Move."
"I said don't move!" the man shouted, his voice cracking with desperation.
"Move," Laid repeated flatly.
"Don't you know who I am?" the man growled, trying to sound threatening.
Laid pushed him into the wall again. The same events unfolded—the bomb fell, the explosion erupted, fire consumed everything, and then time rewound. Laid found himself back in his chair, but this time something was different.
He remembered. He remembered both loops clearly, every detail etched into his consciousness.
Looking around, he noticed the other patrons standing confused. They didn't remember anything. Their faces showed only bewilderment at the sudden tension in the air.
But someone else remembered.
At the far end of a nearby table sat a young girl, no more than thirteen or fourteen years old. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her eyes looked tired, strained. She had pitch-black hair, a pale face like every other demon, but her eyes—her eyes were green, not the typical crimson. That anomaly alone made her stand out.
She stood up slowly, her gaze fixed on Laid while ignoring everyone else, including the man with the bomb.
"Please," she said, her voice cutting through the chaos.
The man bellowed something, though his words seemed to fade into background noise. "Didn't I say not to move? Do you want to die, young girl? I'll blow this entire place to smithereens if I have to! Sit back down!"
The girl ignored him completely and walked toward Laid. Her steps were purposeful despite her obvious exhaustion.
Laid stared at her with his cold, emotionless expression. "What do you want?"
"I'm giving you multiple chances here," she said, her voice steady despite her fatigue. "To save this restaurant. I have a power called Rewind. I can turn back time and choose who keeps their memories and who loses them, acting like nothing ever happened."
"Why are you telling me this?" Laid asked, genuinely curious.
"You seem like an interesting person. At first, you ignored the guy and pushed him anyway. I wanted to see if knowing the outcome could change the situation." Her green eyes studied him intently.
"How did you not die from the explosion?" Laid asked.
"Well, I did," she said calmly, as though discussing the weather.
Laid's brow furrowed slightly—the first crack in his emotionless facade. If she died during the explosion, how could she have rewound time afterward?
She saw the question in his eyes and smiled faintly. "It's simple, really. My body regenerates at a super-fast pace, fast enough to rewind time before I'm truly gone."
"Fast enough?" Laid repeated. "What do you mean by 'fast enough'?"
She sighed, a weary sound that made her seem far older than her appearance suggested. "If I don't rewind within a ten-second window, I'm unable to use my power again unless a one-hour cooldown ends. And I can only rewind time so far. The farthest I've ever gone back was one day, and I nearly put myself into a coma by doing it."
She spoke with such calm detachment, as if the prospect of falling into a coma meant nothing to her.
"Why are you so calm?" Laid asked, genuinely intrigued now.
"I could ask you the same thing," she said. "You've had that cold, emotionless expression since you walked into this restaurant. You interest me. What's your name?"
"Laid."
He wondered how such a young girl could possess this much intelligence. Most teenagers her age wouldn't have this level of knowledge or speak with such precision. She seemed more like an adult trapped in a child's body.
"How old are you?" Laid asked.
"Well, I'd guess around twenty-five, maybe twenty-six."
Laid's eyes widened slightly—another rare break in his composure. She looked barely into her early teenage years, yet claimed to be in her mid-twenties. He hid his shock quickly and stood up.
"Thanks for that information, by the way," Laid said. "That's useful. Do you mind becoming my ally?"
The woman's eyes widened for a second. "Your ally? I mean... sure, I don't mind."
*Good,* Laid thought. *I could use you in multiple battles. You won't be useless like some other pawns. You'll always have a purpose. Being able to rewind time is invaluable. I'll use you, and when you somehow become non-useful or scarred, I'll discard you like every other dog.*
The woman stood. The man still held the bomb, preparing to throw it, but Laid caught it mid-air with lightning reflexes. He walked outside and hurled it toward a nearby forest.
The bomb arced through the air and exploded, destroying multiple trees and acres of land. A forest fire erupted instantly, flames spreading with terrifying speed—but then the fire died out.
The woman had rewound time.
Laid found himself back in the restaurant, holding the bomb once more. This time, instead of throwing it toward the forest, he hurled it toward a nearby abandoned building.
The bomb flew through the air and detonated. Thankfully, the building's reinforced material withstood the impact of the massive explosion. No one was hurt in the process.
"There," Laid said flatly.
"What were you thinking?" the woman shouted, her voice shaking with emotion. "What if that building wasn't secured enough? People could have died in there!"
Her concern for life—demon life, in this case—was palpable. She genuinely cared, and that realization struck Laid as both foreign and foolish.
"What a shame," Laid said bluntly. "Who cares? It's not really affecting me, now is it?"
His bluntness and coldness stunned the woman. She had known he wore a cold expression, but she hadn't realized he was actually this cold-blooded, this devoid of empathy.
"What's your name?" Laid asked.
"Lila," the woman said, still staring at him with a mixture of shock and disappointment.
"Well, you're going to be extremely useful, aren't you?" he mumbled, though she couldn't quite hear.
Lila sighed, trying to find some silver lining. "Well, at least no one was hurt."
The man who had held the bomb in the first place bolted from the restaurant, sprinting down the red-stained streets. His plan had failed spectacularly, which meant people would remember his face. He couldn't allow that. Panic fueled his legs as he ran as fast as he could, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
He finally stopped, chest heaving, and looked up.
A man stood before him, blocking his path. The figure held a black blade in one hand, its edge gleaming with an unnatural sharpness. He wore mostly black armor with red streaks running through it like veins of blood. His hair was fully black, and his presence radiated authority and danger.
Oman stared down at the trembling man with cold indifference. "The fact that you tried to burn down an entire restaurant didn't sit right with me," he said, his voice low and measured. "I came down here instead of having Demon Lord Griffin deal with it himself. I didn't want to waste his time on such a low-level demon like you."
The man stared in abject fear. "Please, forgive me!" he begged, as if speaking to the Demon Lord himself.
But this was just a general. Even so, Oman was terrifying in his own right—perhaps even more so because his cruelty was personal, not distant.
"Now, I'm going to ask you to confiscate all your weapons," Oman said, his cold, indifferent voice making the man shiver uncontrollably. "If you have any on you, hand them over. If you don't, I'll have to take you down to the cells where people like you belong."
Quietly, desperately, the man dropped all his weapons—knives, more bombs, swords, even chains. They clattered to the ground in a pitiful heap.
"Please, please don't hurt me," the man whimpered, his voice breaking. "I just... I needed money, you know? It's hard for a guy to get money out here in the demon city."
"Clearly not," Oman replied, his tone dripping with disdain. "The Demon Lord provides plenty of demon stones, even demon cores if you're lucky. You just have to find them. And even then, you can borrow from other people. So I don't see why you had to resort to such drastic measures just to get some demon cores."
The man had no answer. He simply trembled, awaiting his fate.
"For committing terrorism, you will be sentenced to thirty years in the cellar," Oman said. He grabbed the man and quickly walked toward an excluded area within the city.
The man's heart raced. Thirty years in the cellar—he couldn't accept that fate. He had one more trump card up his sleeve, and he had to use it now.
"I have to do it," he mumbled under his breath.
"You have to do what?" Oman asked, his grip tightening.
The man didn't answer. His body began to bulge grotesquely. His legs grew hairy and thick, muscles rippling beneath splitting skin. His arms elongated, claws bursting from his fingertips. His eyes turned a feral yellow, glowing with primal rage.
He became a werewolf.
With a savage roar that echoed through the empty streets, the creature lunged at Oman, claws extended and fangs bared.
But Oman didn't flinch.
His black blade gleamed in the crimson light as he raised it slowly, a dark smile spreading across his face.
"Finally," Oman whispered, "something interesting."
The werewolf's claws came down—
And everything went black.