How to kill a demon

"Completely erase my mind, huh." I thought out loud, furrowing my brows.

Then, continuing, I asked.

"How sure are you of this happening?"

Thinking it over for a bit, she then replied.

"Out of the five people that I've seen attempt it over the last one hundred years, the same thing happened to all of them. Their bodies just became... hollow, soulless husks."

Hearing her talking about her knowledge of this 'method', a thought struck me and I began to clear my mind to try and recall a very specific feeling.

One that I felt all the time before coming here.

And sure enough, there it was.

I could still feel my soul.

And not only that, I could feel the soul of the woman in front of me too.

Although I wasn't yet sure how, I knew that this ability could become useful in the future.

For now though, since I could feel my soul, I could mostly likely also protect it against the effects of whatever sh-

"Hey, what are you spacing out for?"

Snapping me out of my thoughts was the voice of the woman in front of me, with an annoyed expression on her face.

"Actually, tell me more about it, I want to try it."

Clearly having expected this, she sighed.

"Fine, I'll tell you. But not until you help me out."

I could sense that she wasn't being completely honest, but decided to ignore it for now.

Tossing me a simple leather shirt and shorts, she turned around.

"Put those on, I don't wanna have to look at your nude ass."

After putting on the clothes, I asked for her name, to which she replied:

"Scarlet. And yours?"

"Seren."

Motioning for me to follow her, we started walking towards what I assumed to be the hideout of Scarlet's gang.

Walking through the endless expanse of ashen houses under the everlasting crimson sky, we barely exchanged any words along the way as she didn't want to disclose any more information until I had proven myself useful.

One thing she did tell me though is that my hand would regenerate within a day. As she explained it, Hell worked this way so that pain could be inflicted repeatedly on a body part even if it is lost.

A truly cruel design, but I wasn't complaining since it worked in my favor.

Finally, after a few hours, we entered a house which looked like any of the others in the area, but in the floor was a hatch hidden so well that unless one knew exactly where to look, they'd never find it.

Following Scarlet into the tunnel, we walked for another half an hour before reaching a great opening underground, with lots of tunnels branching out everywhere. I could hear faint screaming from one of the tunnels on the right, but decided to ignore it for now, since she was leading me in the other direction.

Surprisingly enough, the hideout looked very clean, with polished, black walls and many well equipped areas, like the blacksmithing or research areas we passed by.

'They must've had a long time to build all this' I thought.

Everywhere we went, people stopped whatever they were doing to greet Scarlet. There seemed to be a great deal of both respect and fear in their eyes when they looked at her.

Navigating through the complicated system of underground rooms and tunnels like it's nothing, we soon arrived in what seemed to be Scarlet's 'office' room, from where she would lead her gang.

The room itself wasn't too fancy, at least not by Earthly standards. There was a large white desk in the middle, on which were visible stacks of yellow-ish paper - presumably made from human skin. Behind the desk lay a simple stone chair.

The wall behind the desk was lined with a few different weapons, most of which were daggers or shortswords.

What caught my attention the most, however, was the shelf in the corner of the room, on which lay about ten clearly aged books.

Sitting down on her chair and motioning for me to sit down as well, Scarlet organized the documents on her desk, revealing a small panel with two buttons. Pressing the left one, a subtle clicking sound rang out, and after a while, an older lady appeared inside the door.

"How may I be of service." she asked.

"Bring us something to eat and drink." Scarlet replied.

"Right away."

Saying that, the 'maid' soon brought us two plates with a piece of meat on top, and a cup of crimson red liquid.

Remembering the screams from that one room earlier, I realized that that place must be sort of a 'farm', which takes advantage of the regeneration of human bodies in Hell.

'Cruel, but efficient', I thought.

From what I found out, although you didn't need to eat, drink or sleep in Hell, you could still feel hunger and such.

"I hope you don't mind a little cannibalism. After all, it's the only food you'll get in Hell, unless you're a demon."

Stifling a laugh, I said:

"Oh no not at all. I'm way past the point where I'd care about that stuff."

"Thought so. Now, while we eat, let's get into business."

Adopting a more serious gaze and handing me a piece of paper, she spoke:

"On this you can see a plan to collect some resources."

Scanning the paper, I saw the plan of a house, and, although a bit fancier than all the ashen houses I've seen so far, it was still fairly unimpressive.

As I was looking through the plan, Scarlet continued speaking.

"We've been observing this demon's house for a few weeks now, and have decided to target it for resources. Anything we'd normally be unable to get our hands on. Although it may not look like it, even low ranked demons like this one have quite the amount of resources we can use. Books, rare metals, weapons, alcohol, food. And, if we're lucky, there might even be some magical items there."

"So, where do I come in?" I asked.

"You're quick to catch on." Scarlet said.

"We've carefully observed the demon's schedule and have found that he leaves his house at the same time, every day, for eight hours straight. That's how much time we've got."

Then, her gaze grew even more serious as she continued speaking.

"There have been times before when the demon unexpectedly came back when they weren't supposed to at all. And when that happens, we're lucky if there are survivors. So we've decided to prepare a countermeasure for that. And that's where you come in."

Tapping the button on her desk again, she told the maid to bring 'it' in.

The item she brought in looked like a smaller rocket launcher, although of a much rougher design. On it were engraved a few purple letters which I couldn't seem to decipher, despite knowing the majority of languages back on Earth. Next to it lay a thin, yellow-white spike, which seemed to be the ammunition for the weapon.

"This is a product of our latest research. The weapon you see is a magical artifact we found a few years ago, modified to serve as a launcher for the projectile next to it. It has the ability to greatly amplify explosive effects contained within it."

Picking up the spike, she then continued.

"This is made from a material which has the combination of being extremely light but tough as well - the bone of a demon. It's also the only projectile we have for this weapon right now."

Putting the spike down, she looked at me.

"As you may have figured out by now, this weapon has the theoretical power to be able to kill a demon. But we need someone who can actually keep up with a demon's movements."

"And that's what you need me for."

"Exactly."

"So, when are we heading out?" I asked.

"Since the demon's house is pretty far, in about thirty minutes. Oh, and don't worry about your arm, it should be healed by the time we're there."

With that, we headed out of the room to prepare for the raid ahead of us.