“Nobody move! Don’t even breathe!” I ordered as I spread my arms outwards. Everyone in the room froze, not daring to disobey my commands. My companions all held their breath in; my lieutenant was even covering his mouth with his hands.

Then again, out of the people in this room, only the partially dead man and Satel needed to breathe so the only thing missing was a retort from someone going ‘You don’t even breathe!’

“You guys… are you trying to kill me with stress?” I pointed at the order knight and asked the idiot skeleton quad squad. Lieutenant Thyros was the first one to barrage me with excuses while Gardener filled in the blanks. Their cooperation soon shattered into arguing as they both try to pin the blame on each other.

“What…What should we do, Boss?” Thyros asked.

“We could definitely fight The Abyss…” I scratched my chin as I said the first thing that popped up in my mind.

“What do you mean ‘we could’?!” Satel interjected.

“Ah, my apologies. I could definitely fight her. You all would just be deadweight to me.” I dismissively waved off the angry fake dryad.

Having fought The Abyss a few times, I could say with confidence that I am probably the only non-divine being that could take her on head-on. Even then, I would need ample time to prepare myself such as creating rituals, spells and armies of undead to soak up attacks for me.

The last time I fought The Abyss, she was in her weakened state, so I was able to beat her back just barely. The problem here would be the fact that a lot of my companions would be caught in my battle. As for the musclemen, they could all be turned into interdimensional protein shake by The Abyss for all I care.

Thus I must switch to plan B: Containing The Abyss. For some reason, The Abyss is vulnerable to holy spells. I have yet to understand why, but that doesn’t matter now.

“You two,” I pointed at the two undead knights, “find the priestess girl. The new one. I don’t want the old looney.”

I swear, if I asked her to do a miracle for me, she would start preaching about the Path of Light until I’m forced to find a way to turn into an unundead, which is to say ‘I want to die for real’.

Wait. What if that blue-haired priestess girl knew that I was an undead and she was testing if I could be turned by repeating the holy sermons over and over again without using magic?! By The Abyss…

“Boss! Answer me!” My conspiracy theory was prematurely extinguished when I was brought back to reality by Satel.

“What? Can’t you see I’m on a verge of breakthrough?” I scoffed.

“You found a way to seal the portal?” Satel’s eyes lit up, which was weird since her body was just made out of bark and leaves.

“No. Something else. Never mind that, what do you want?”

“What are you going to do with Inez?”

“Who?”

“Ah, right. I should’ve known you’re bad with names…” Satel massaged her temples for a while before correcting herself, “What are you going to do with the gray-haired priestess girl of the heroes’ party.”

“Hey! Don’t treat me like I’m a dumb kid! I’ll have you know that I have already memorized half of the Angolian alphabets! Heh heh…Don’t give me that shocked face. For an Archlich, this much is nothing to me,” I boasted while rubbing invisible dust off my shoulders.

“I can’t tell if you’re serious or not, but can you just answer my original question, pretty please?”

“The funny thing about anti-magic barriers is that miracles don’t count as magic. They are borrowed powers from nature, usually deities, so I want to exorcist this guy and seal the portal using miracles.”

“Inez isn’t as strong as Leyna…the blue-haired priestess…so how is Inez going to seal this portal? This isn’t some monster portal, you know?”

“Easy. I’ll help her exorcist him.”

“Wait, aren’t you an undead?”

“Yes. Are you blind?”

“You know what? Never mind. I might as well see how this plays out.” Satel slumped back onto the bed, eating any left over ice cream with her dryad body.

Excellent. Now, while my companions find that gray-haired priestess, I better brush up on my holy spells…

*

*

*

Someone is following us…

As I thought that, I looked behind me and scanned the street. After seeing that no one here was suspicious, I decided to continue walking alongside the heroes. They said they wanted to look for magic items such as scrolls or books, so now would be the best time to get them.

While Raymond and Aera were excited to browse through the sorcerers’ shops, Kendra was less receiving towards the sorcerers. In fact, this entire time, she had her face buried in a book called ‘How to pet cats the proper way’.

I wasn’t sure why she was so into cats, but I just hope she would actually spend less time studying cats and more time studying magic. Being a hero is a dangerous role to play in the world, so they should spend more time training and getting hurt!

Not that I want them hurt…

I sighed as I realized that by now, if I was still in the temple, I would have been healing some bruised up sorcerers. Although the pain they receive weren’t much, they still gave me some level of pleasure of torturing them.

I bumped my nose against Raymond’s back as the heroes’ party abruptly stopped on their tracks. Apparently they were being blocked by two figures, obviously foreigners to this land as they wore heavy plate armor.

“We seek the gray-haired priestess of the heroes’ party. Not the old looney,” Both men spoke at the same time, startling me a bit. If I could recall, these two are knights following the teacher of the heroes’ party. Did they want me? What do they mean the ‘old looney’?

“Boss wishes to have you participate in exorcism,” The two knights continued. ‘Boss’ is what the teacher wanted me to call him so it meant that my deduction was correct.

“Me? Exorcism? I’ve never done such sort. I only healed people,” I responded.

“That is enough for Boss,” The two knights replied.

“What about us?” Raymond interjected.

“Only the priestess can come.” With that, the two knights escort me back into the inn we were staying. Normally, the heroes, except for Kendra, were forbidden from entering teacher’s, or Boss’, room. However, the exorcism must be that important to allow me into his room.

As I entered the room, the first thing I saw was a corpse lying on the floor. Boss and his little shadow were casually eating ice cream on their bed while two unfamiliar men played cards on the floor, using the dead body as a table.

“Huh? Oh crap! She’s here, you idiots! Get off the body!” Boss panicked, rolling off the bed and tripping on the floor while the two other men scrambled to toss cards and chips off the corpse.

“W-what’s going on here?” I asked as the two knights pushed me into the room and locking the door behind me.

“As you can see from that lovely gentleman over there,” Boss pointed at the corpse and started to explain, “he’s been corrupted by demonic influences so I’d like you to help me exorcise him.”

I nodded like a puppy but I had to confirm it…

“Um…sorry for being so uninformed…Can we really exorcise the dead?”

“Huh? Oh, no, no, no. He’s not dead. He’s barely alive, but not dead.” Boss shook his hand.

“I see. How would the exorcism be done? Should I start singing some sermons?”

“NO!” Boss screamed as he somehow looked pained through the mask. Coughing to regain his composure, he started to explain, “This demon possession is a very high level one so I would be dealing with the heavy workload. You, on the other hand, have an equally important job.”

“Healing?”

“Yes, exactly. This type of demon possession rots and eats the body of the host as I seal the demon living within him.”

I nodded as he explained the gruesome parts of the exorcism, which I didn’t care much about. All I cared was that the man would go through unimaginable pain and suffering as the ritual is performed.

My hands, though hidden within my long sleeves, were twitching with excitement, unable to contain my urge to start healing now. According to the teacher, no magic can enter the partially dead man’s body, but miracles could still go through. However, miracles are like poison to demonic influences so even healing the man’s body would be almost like trying to kill him.

It was like trying to purge poison with another poison. Lovely. Extremely lovely!

“C-…” I realized my breathing was starting to become faster but I didn’t care. “Can we start now?”

“That would be good. I want to go back to making more flavors of ice cream…I mean, studying muscle magic.”

The first thing Boss did was to cast an anti-sound barrier to keep this exorcism a secret. He said he didn’t want to alert people of a potential demon in the city, but I was sure he was doing it for another purpose which I am looking forward to finding out what. His other companions locked the doors and guarded it, making the room fully secure.

“Let’s begin.” Boss started the exorcism by conjuring a spell without chanting. I was surprised at this but tried to keep a calm face. This might be a proper high level exorcism spell…is the only explanation I could think of.

Soon, the charred and red burn marks in the man’s body started to glow white and his eyes opened. As he was about to get up, he was held down by one of Boss’ men. The man started to scream in defiance, “NO! YOU CANNOT STOP HER! YOU WILL ALL PERISH!”

“Inez, begin healing now,” Boss ordered as I realized that one of the man’s hands was slowly turning into dust. I started with the strongest sermons, memorized in my heart during my studies.

As soon as my hands glowed with a bright white light, I crouched down and placed my palms over the man’s body, casting healing spells into him. I felt that my spell went through a barrier, but it was as easy as going through water to break through the barrier.

His hand started to reform, but since the exorcism was still going on, it was constantly being molded and grinded away. The man’s scream slowly became incoherent as the pain took over his body. Normally, intense shock would kill people, but as I was healing him to prevent that, his mind was slowly being broken into pieces.

I did not know why Boss wanted to exorcise this man since the end result would be an empty husk in a vegetative state. However, I did not complain. I started to praise the Goddess of Light uncontrollably as spell after spell was poured into the man.

“O Lady of Light…Hear my plea…Close the gates of Bahas…” I prayed. By now, I didn’t even know which phrase, which citation, which sermon came out of my mouth. The only thing that registered in my head was the heavenly taste of sadism taking over my body.

Even if I opened my eyes, I doubt I would see anything as the pleasure had already numbed all other senses, including sight. My body moved on its own, minutes of torture passed and soon the screaming started to die down.

When my senses came back to reality, I realized I was slumped over the floor, panting. The man we exorcised was now devoid of a soul. No, it wasn’t even correct to call this a ‘man’. This ‘vegetable’ stared off into the distance, dead in all but its body.

I reached for my chest and felt something I had not felt before.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The screams…That was the first time I heard it. The screams that begged for the sweet release of death.

Most of my previous patients only had minor injuries. Even in the most serious injuries, the victims weren’t crying to be killed. While they fought for their lives, this man fought to reach death as soon as possible.

What was this feeling? I feel hot inside…I cannot control the beating of my heart. My breathing is ragged, and my vision is blurry. My consciousness was slowly escaping me, but…

Such bliss…

…