We continued our journey, but I couldn't stop ruminating.

  — "Hey, Poverty," I called out to the demon dragging along behind us. "Your contracts... how reliable are they? Can they actually be broken?"

  He looked at me with a strange sense of superiority.

  — "If they’re drafted correctly—nearly impossible. To us, your souls are like an open palm. Everything is visible: where it’s empty, where it’s rotten."

  — "Fine. What can you tell me about my soul?"

  — "Stop hiding it first," he snapped. "It’s no fun this way."

  In the distance, a traveler appeared. A lonely figure wrapped in a cloak. We closed the distance until we stood nose-to-nose. The man surveyed our merry band: the Demon of Poverty with "luggage" on his back, Mira, and me.

  — "Oh... hello," he stammered. "And what are your names, travelers?"

  — "Eh... it's not that important," I replied lazily.

  At that moment, one of his eyes flared with a poisonous green light.

  — "Watch out!" the Demon of Poverty hissed.

  I took a step forward, and the man instinctively recoiled. But Mira was faster. She simply appeared next to him, grabbed him by the throat, and hoisted him off the ground, peering intently into his face.

  The stranger’s hands glowed with a magical circle, from which a sword began to materialize. He tried to strike Mira in the side, but my sister broke his wrist with a short, clinical movement and slammed him into the dirt.

  — "An Alchemist?" Mira wiped her hand on her cloak with a look of disgust.

  — "Y-yes..." he coughed, clutching his shattered wrist. "I am an alchemist... Ardil Kilroy. Of the Ironborn school."

  — "What the hell are the Ironborn?" I scratched the back of my head. "Another cult?"

  — "We... we are a splinter of the Steel Brotherhood!" he spat, frantically pulling a syringe from a hidden pocket. "You’re going to die!"

  He drove the needle into his thigh. His body began to mutate: his skin flushed a strange hue, muscles bulged, and bony spikes erupted from his shoulders.

  In the ensuing chaos, the Demon of Poverty seized the moment, yanked the Demon of War’s chains, and literally tore off her arms and legs. Her body surged with power, and her limbs regrew in a second.

  — "Zen, handle the demons," Mira commanded, pulling the hammer from our bundle. "The Alchemist is mine."

  I sighed. More unnecessary body movements.

  They attacked in sync. The demons lunged at me, baring their teeth in anticipation. I simply stomped my foot, raising jagged stone spikes from the earth. War had already learned to dodge—she twisted in mid-air, bypassing the traps—while Poverty just charged straight through.

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  — "Don't kill them!" Mira shouted, swinging the hammer over the mutated Ardil.

  — "FINE!"

  I shifted tactics. With a sharp flick of my hand, I soaked the ground beneath their feet, turning it into a swamp. When they got close...

  BOOM!

  I sent a colossal discharge of electricity through the ground. The demons froze, their bodies jerking in convulsions. War tried to stand, growling in rage, but I simply turned up the voltage. A few minutes later, they were lying on the ground, smoking slightly and smelling like burnt steak.

  I walked over to Poverty and poked him in the ribs. Still breathing. Good.

  Mira, meanwhile, had finished with the Alchemist. She had him pinned to a tree and was methodically breaking his fingers, interrogating him.

  — "WHERE IS THE DEMON YOU CONTRACTED WITH?!" she roared.

  Ardil only screamed.

  — "If I tell you... I’m a dead man! He’ll devour my soul!"

  I walked closer, peering into his face. The green glow in his right eye had grown brighter.

  — "So, that's where it is," I muttered.

  Without a second thought, I shoved my fingers under his eyelid and simply ripped his right eye out.

  The eye in my palm flared green and then went dark, turning into an ordinary, slimy sphere. But for a split second, I felt the direction.

  — "He’s that way," I pointed toward the horizon. "Quite far."

  The alchemist wailed in pain, clutching his palm to the empty socket.

  — "Oh, stop crying," I touched his forehead.

  The green light of my mana enveloped his head. The eye grew back, his wrist bones snapped back into place with a crunch, and his skin smoothed out. The mutation receded. Ardil went silent, blinking his new eye.

  — "Now, speak normally, 'Ironborn'," I sat down next to him. "Can everyone in your Brotherhood grow metal out of thin air?"

  The alchemist sat on the grass, staring into the void with his new eye. The floodgates of his confession opened.

  — "I always wanted power," he spoke in a trembling voice. "The kind of authority where the world bows down. So I turned to him. The price was high. Four hundred and fifty deaths—that’s what he demanded in exchange. In that rage, I couldn't stop. I slaughtered two villages... my nephew was there, his whole family. I finished them all and felt nothing. Only emptiness. They called me the Iron Fiend. Eventually, I just ran, hoping to start a new life where I wasn't known."

  I listened to this torrent of self-loathing, propping my cheek on my hand.

  — "So, this is all very sad and sounds like a tragic backstory for its own separate arc," I interrupted. "But you still haven't answered the question: can everyone in your Brotherhood grow metal out of thin air? Or are you all just 'gifted' like that?"

  Ardil gave a bitter laugh.

  — "No. Only me. The others need circles, ingredients, and a lot of time. I am the only gifted one."

  — "Got it," I sighed. "And why did you dump all this on us? Did you think I’d burst into tears and let you go to atone for your sins?"

  I looked at the two demons lying nearby in a state of "well-done steak." They couldn't walk on their own, and I was too lazy to carry them.

  — "Oh, I have an idea!" I pointed at the alchemist. "Since you’re so strong and 'iron-clad,' you’re going to carry them. Get to work, Fiend."

  Ardil looked at me with unmasked contempt.

  — "I am not your dog. If you’re going to kill me, kill me. I will not be your porter."

  I was about to argue, maybe remind him about the tree-in-the-chest trick or some other delight, but Mira was faster. She stepped up behind him and, with a short, professional punch, shattered his skull.

  CRUNCH.

  The alchemist collapsed face-first into the mud. Deader than dead.

  — "MIRA!" I threw my hands up. "WHY?!"

  — "What?" she calmly wiped her hand on the grass.

  — "Who's going to carry those two now? You? Or me? We had a perfectly good free laborer, and you just...!"

  Mira looked lazily at the bodies of the demons, who were beginning to stir, sensing the scent of fresh death.

  — "Stop whining, little brother. Just feed them his blood. Let them recover faster and walk on their own. Less dead weight."

  I looked at the cooling "Iron Fiend," then at the hungry eyes of the Demon of Poverty.

  — "Well," I muttered. "That logic is ironclad."

  I kicked the alchemist’s carcass closer to the demons.

  — "Hey, roast beef! Dinner is served."