Scarlet

Along the way, I can’t help but think about the girl, the councilwoman, and changelings in general.

The creatures are… brutally powerful, to put it in simple terms. The weakest changeling is at least Class III, and there is no way to tell them apart from other humans as their disguise is almost always perfect. In acting I mean. Their shapeshifting is perfect.

Thanks to this very, few changelings are caught until it’s too late, after they’ve already killed who knows how many people and leveled up quite a bit from it.

I knew there was one way to identify a changeling, but until now, I didn’t know what. But if what Tar said is true, then their scent is probably the way people manage to do it.

How does that work though? Because most Guardians have senses far stronger than the average human if what you’ve told me is true.

“Changelings have a special skill that hides their scent from regular senses, making it so most humans – Guardian or not – can’t smell them,” Tar says, sounding kind of like he’s picking his words incredibly carefully with how slowly he’s speaking. “Demons most of the time do not have mundane senses because one of the most common etched skills in the beginning are perception based skills, leading to most demons having magic enhanced senses.”

Interesting. Although why would perception based skills be so often etched?

Tar answers this rather quickly, clearly no longer being careful about his words, “There are a lot of demons on Tartarus, and there are little to no laws beyond the treatment of the royal family and whatever the Demon King says. So if you think Earth is a scary place to live these days, you should try living in Tartarus as a regular demon.”

My eyebrows climb at that.

Really?

“Yes,” he quickly answers. “Far more demons die on Tartarus on a yearly basis than on Earth. Several times as many, in fact.”

Holy shit.

I continue walking through the hall, soon reaching the stairs where I first met the girl and beginning to make my way into the hall leading to where she is.

That’s… brutal. But also, how can there be so many demons? From my understanding, the medication and healthcare on average for Earth has drastically increased thanks to magic, and a lot of the diseases were removed. But at the same time, far more people started dying since the Demonic Assaults due to demons. So if what I remember from class in high school is correct, over eighty million people die per year, with most of them being from Fractures.

Although this is with a birth rate of about ninety or so million people a year, meaning the population is still growing. Although only because the government is requiring non-Guardians to have at least one child each. Whether through artificial birth simply taking the genes from the parents or actually having a child. A rather unfair law, but one that is probably necessary for the human race to not start declining in population again like it did at the start of the Demonic Assaults.

But if several times as many demons die on Tartarus a year, just how…

My thoughts are interrupted when I reach the room where the kid is, only to find her just sitting next to the window staring out of it.

“You’ll probably learn this in class at some point, but Tartarus as a planet is nearly a dozen times larger than Earth, and its population is over a hundred times as large, with even more births per year,” Tar comments as I look at the girl. “Although around sixty or seventy percent of that population is made up of non-sapient demons. Mostly spawn.”

That’s… kind of frightening.

I frown as I look at the girl. She really does seem human if not for her very strange attitude and actions. And the only demon that can shapeshift into a human and hide its identify is a changeling, and apparently – if I’m to take Tar’s hints the way I think they’re meant – she’s not a changeling.

So I guess she’s just a kid with some emotional trauma? Or just some sort of emotional mental disorder?

I could also just be entirely off the mark here and she’s just like me.

After a few seconds, the girl turns to look at me before seemingly brightening up a tiny bit.

“How can you tell?” Tar asks, seemingly confused.

Her face relaxed ever so slightly, and her eyes widened a tiny bit as well.

Tar doesn’t say anything for a few seconds as the girl begins walking over to me before he eventually asks, “You can tell because she makes the same expressions as you, right?”

My eyebrow twitches slightly.

Shut up.

The girl tilts her head a little and frowns slightly as she asks, “Is something wrong?”

This makes the tanuki actually break out into laughter for what must be the first time since I’ve met him as he practically shouts in my head, “And she can read you too! This is perfect! Absolutely perfect!”

And now I can’t tell if I should be mad at him or shocked by this development of an emotional outburst from him.

In the end though I decide on being mad at him.

Shut up.

Which just makes him laugh harder. So I ignore him to answer the girl, “No.” Then I walk further into the room, closing the door behind me and finding a chair to sit in for the moment.

The girl looks between me and the door before walking up to me and… sitting on my lap? Wait, what?

Tar stops laughing as he says, “Looks like she really is still like a kid in some ways.”

“Uh, what are you doing?” I decide to ask out loud, but the girl just stares at me before lying down against me and seemingly trying to fall asleep. “No, no, no, please don’t do that. I can’t exactly fight if you’re like this, and I am going to have to fight whenever demons come around.”

She cracks her eyes – which were lazily closing – open for a second and mutters, “You can hear them from here and wake me up when you do…” Then she closes them again and somehow falls asleep in an instant while sitting on my lap and leaning against me.

What the fuck is going on? And she knows about my hearing too. I know it’s rather common knowledge by now on the internet that I can hear well, seeing as I’ve never really bothered hiding it, but to use that against me just to let her sleep on my lap?

“You’re dealing with a kid that doesn’t apparently give a shit about how you feel. That’s what’s going on.” Tar answers my question rather bluntly. “Just comfort her. You noticed that she relaxed when you came in, so she was probably frightened and just doesn’t show it, or really any emotions well, judging by what we've seen of her so far. Kind of like a certain wolf eared girl I know.”

I narrow my eyes at the air in front of me, hoping that the tanuki is there in the in between place he goes to.

Shut up.

But I put my hand on her back in what I’m hoping is a comforting manner, just rubbing it back and forth as gently as I can.

I hope more demons reach this floor soon so I can wake her up without feeling bad…