Chapter 69: A Mythical Return on Investment

The farmer stands at the edge of what used to be his field, hat clutched to his chest, staring down into the smoking wreckage of two overlapping craters with the particular, wounded solemnity of a man watching his own funeral.

Somewhere behind him, a few stray chickens have already wandered back to peck curiously at the scorched earth, entirely unbothered by the general collapse of local physics.

Lucien stands beside him, hands clasped behind his back, head bowed at exactly the angle he’s found works best for sincere apologies. He’s had a lot of practice with this particular angle.

"I cannot begin to express how sorry I am," he says, voice pitched low and solemn. "Truly. This kind of destruction... to a man’s livelihood, his legacy, the very ground his hands have worked." He pauses meaningfully, letting the silence do some of the heavy lifting. "You’ll be fully reimbursed. Property damage, obviously. But also," he adds, pressing a hand to his own chest, still so solemn, "the emotional toll. That’s not something gold alone can fix, I know. But I intend to try."

The farmer’s chin wobbles. He presses his hat harder against his chest. "I loved that ground, you know." he says, voice cracking perfectly on cue. "Planted my first crop there, thirty years back. Every season since." He gestures, weakly, painfully at the crater, at the turned-up ruin of soil that used to hold, generously, half a row of turnips and a stubborn patch of weeds. "Gone like that... gone."

Behind him, his wife stands with both arms folded tight across her chest, one eyebrow arched so high it nearly vanished into her hairline. "He grew four turnips on that plot last season," she says flatly. "Four. I actually counted."

"It’s the lost potential that truly hurts," Lucien says, nodding along with grimly, practiced sympathy, entirely unbothered by the interruption. "What that field could have become, given time. Given proper investment."

The farmer nods back just as solemnly. "Exactly. It’s the potential. He understands."

His wife rolls her eyes so hard, her head wobbles. But doesn’t argue further, not once Lucien promises them a second, considerably heavier bag of gold for untimely loss of her husband’s property, clearly meant to shut the whole matter down quietly and quickly.

A few minutes later, Lucien and Serenith are walking away together, the farmer still waving after them from the wreckage of his property, a signed contract gripped tightly in his hand, already muttering to his wife about finally putting in that water feature she’s always wanted.

The morning has properly warmed by the time they leave the farm behind, sunlight slanting gold through the trees lining the road, birdsong picking up somewhere overhead like the world’s decided the crisis is officially over and it’s safe to resume business as usual.

Serenith floats a little ahead of him, wings folded loosely, the last of her tears long since dried, though the redness around her eyes hasn’t quite faded.

"So," she says, glancing back over one shoulder, "besides the obvious... what exactly did you manage to accomplish out there? With the Beast Mother?"

Lucien falls into step below her, hands sliding into his pockets, a slow grin spreading. "Learned a lot from her, actually. Picked up a few new feti—" He catches himself a second too late, already halfway into the word. "Fetishes"

She gives him a look.

The kind of look that doesn’t need words attached to it, flat and pointed and entirely unimpressed.

He clears his throat, raising both hands in immediate surrender. "Apologies. Force of habit."

"I made you swear," she says, drifting a little closer, close enough now that he has to tilt his head back to meet her eyes properly. "On your heart. Seven days."

He groans, dragging a hand down his face. "I remember. Vividly. You understand that could genuinely kill me? Not figuratively. I’m actually worried."

"Stop being a baby about it. Builds character." She laughs, bright and unbothered, wholly unsympathetic to his plight.

"I cannot remember," he says, with the weary gravity of a man delivering eulogy, "the last time I went seven consecutive days without sex. Ever. In either life." He shoots her a sideways glare, half-serious. "This counts as cruel and unusual punishment for a person like me. My body isn’t built to survive that. You’re responsible for whatever happens to me."

"You said you’d do anything," she reminds him, sing-songing, clearly enjoying herself now.

He mock-scowls, shakes his head slowly, and picks up his pace, stomping a few dramatic steps ahead of her in exaggerated, wounded protest, arms swinging stiffly at his sides like a sulking child.

"I do like the new body, though," she calls after him, and there’s something warmer underneath the teasing this time, something that makes him slow his stomp without quite meaning to.

He stops immediately, turns on his heel, and squares up, chest out, shoulders back, one hand resting on his hip like he’s posing for a very expensive portrait.

"I love it! I’m actually starting to feel like a demon lord again," he says, entirely too pleased with himself, flexing one arm for good measure. Then, almost as an afterthought, tossed out casually like it isn’t the biggest thing that’s happened all week: "Also... I did manage to secure the trade route. Full deal. Ashlands to tribelands."

Serenith stops dead in the air.

"Y-You’re serious?"

He grins wider. "Signed in blood. Well... bloody handprint, technically. Same spirit." He starts counting off his achievements, proudly. "Ashlands gets access to tribeland routes and resources. Tribelands gets the same coming back the other way, plus a cut of everything that moves through it." And then, delivered with the careful casualness of a man burying the real headline three sentences deep: "And I had to promise the Beast Mother hunting access to Ashland territory."

Serenith’s eyes go enormous. "You did what?"

"It was the dealbreaker. She really wants to hunt on Ashland soil. Apparently it’s been a lifelong dream."

She darts backward through the air, putting distance between them like she needs the extra space just to process it.

"How in the world did you convince a goddess to leave her own territory? That never happens. Ever. It’s practically written into the fundamental laws of how demigods function."

He grins, wide and slow, settling both hands back onto his hips. "Oh, you know..." and then gives a small, deeply unnecessary pelvic thrust as the rest of his explanation, hips pumping once for emphasis.

Serenith stares at him for a long, disbelieving moment. Then she rolls her eyes so hard she nearly loses her halo.

"Of course. Of course you did. You used your dick to convince a goddess to break several thousand years of established divine tradition."

"Well," Lucien adds, entirely smug, entirely proud, "My dick does seem to be rather convincing."

The words are barely out of his mouth before her whole expression sours, halo sparking with a fresh flare of irritation.

His hands shoot up immediately, placating.

"I agreed to no sex for seven days. Not no sex jokes. Those are two entirely separate clauses, and frankly, expecting me to survive without either is asking a man to hold his breath indefinitely."

She growls under her breath, stomps one bare foot against nothing but empty air out of pure reflex, and rockets ahead of him down the road, muttering something under her breath about impossible men and their impossible everything.

He laughs, breaking into an easy jog to catch back up, still grinning.

The village comes into view a while later, and something about it is wrong immediately... too quiet, the kind of quiet that settles over a place mid-crisis rather than early morning.

No haggling drifting up from the market stalls.

No children shrieking over some half-forgotten game.

Even the smoke from the cooking fires seems to be rising slower than it should.

"What’s going on?" Lucien asks, slowing his pace.

"No idea." Serenith shrugs, drifting down beside him, brow furrowed. "I only just got back from the celestial plane myself. Haven’t even laid eyes on Val yet."

They round the last bend into the village square together... and stop.

Most of the population has gathered in a wide, solemn ring around a raised funeral pyre at the square’s center, heads bowed, hands folded, the whole scene draped in the particular hush reserved for genuine grief.

Lucien stares at the pyre. Then at the crowd. Then back at the pyre.

"Who died?"

A beast-kin standing nearest to him, a stocky, antlered deer-folk who hasn’t looked up from the pyre once, answers without turning.

"The madman." he says, shaking his head grimly, "The one who wandered in a few days back, causing all that ruckus about being the Demon Lord." He pauses, heavy with implication. "The Beast Mother claimed him last night. Saw it m’self. Nasty business."

Lucien chuckles, equal parts touched and baffled. "Didn’t realize the town cared so much about him."

"We didn’t." The beast-kin beast chuckles softly. "Bit of a weirdo, honestly, no offense. Kept talking to empty air. It’s the brothel owner who organized all this... her and her girls, practically organized the whole affair over night. Rest of us are just here for the free food after the ceremony." He shrugs, entirely unbothered by his own honesty. "Nobody turns down free food."

Lucien’s face falls, deflating visibly, shoulders sagging.

Serenith, floating just behind him, dissolves into quiet, delighted laughter, one hand pressed over her mouth to muffle it.

He straightens after a moment, lifts two fingers to his lips, and lets out a piercing whistle that cuts clean across the square. Every single head turns at once, a unified ripple of motion, hundreds of eyes locking onto the source in perfect unison.

Near the center of the crowd, Kamiko turns last, squinting toward the sound with mild irritation, and then her eyes go round, jaw dropping open, as she spots the tall, unmistakably alive, freshly rebuilt Lucien standing at the edge of the gathering, sunlight catching on muscle that absolutely was not there a day ago.

Lucien lifts one hand and waves, cheerful as a man greeting old friends at a garden party.

"Seems there’s been a bit of a miscommunication!" he calls out, voice carrying easily across the stunned silence. "I’m not dead. Got the Beast Mother’s blessing, actually." He gestures grandly down at himself, chest out, arms spread wide for full effect. "Came with some perks."

The crowd gasps as one, a single, collective intake of breath loud enough to rustle the nearby banners.

An elderly tortoise-kin woman shoulders her way forward through the parting crowd with surprising speed for someone of her considerable age, plants herself directly in front of him, and, without a single word of warning, drives one fist straight into his abdomen.

He doesn’t even flinch.

Her eyes go wide with something like reverence.

"He’s the real deal," she announces to the crowd.

The square erupts.

The crowd surges forward all at once, closing in around him in a tight, chattering ring, questions flying from every direction.

How did he survive, what did she look like, is it true she has fangs the size of daggers, did she really let him keep both arms, is the muscle real or some kind of illusion.

Someone in the back is already offering to sell tickets to a full retelling at the evening feast.

Lucien soaks in every single second of it, a bit nostalgic of the swarms of press that would follow in public in a previous life.

His chest swelling with ego, grin practically splitting his face, right up until he leans sideways to mutter, just for Serenith, "This would have hit so much harder if they’d actually seen me ride in on the Beast Mother’s back. I had a whole entrance planned. Dramatic lighting and everything."

"A tragedy." Serenith says, completely unsympathetic, though she’s still grinning too.

The crowd parts again as Kamiko finally pushes her way through, moving with the unhurried, deliberate grace of a woman who knows exactly how much of a spectacle her own entrance makes.

She stops directly in front of him, close enough that her perfume reaches him a full second before she does, and looks him over slowly, top to bottom, with open, unbidden want written across every line of her expression.

"I take it," she purrs, "things went well with the Beast Mother."

"Very well," he replies, his signature smirk firmly in place. "Full blessing. Trade route’s confirmed, signed and sealed. And a few other dealings I’d rather not discuss in public."

Her grin widens, sharp and delighted. "You truly are insane. I cannot wait to work with you." Her voice drops, thick and smooth as honey. "Intimately."

She drags a claw slowly down the center of his chest, tracing the line where a healed scratch used to be.

He bites his lip, his smolder building instinctively to meet the moment.

Above him, Serenith clears her throat. Loudly.

Lucien whimpers, catches himself, straightens his spine and clears his own throat properly.

"Unfortunately," he says, with visible, genuine anguish, "divine intervention currently prevents me from mixing business with pleasure. Effective immediately. As much as it pains me to say that out loud."

Kamiko glances around at the empty air beside him, brow furrowing. "Is the divine intervention... with us right now?"

He points straight up.

Kamiko follows the gesture, squinting hard at what looks, to her, like nothing at all... until Serenith flickers into visibility for half a second, a brief, golden shimmer of blonde curls and white robes, and vanishes again just as fast.

Kamiko’s breath catches audibly.

She bows her head toward the empty space with genuine, immediate reverence. "A pity," she murmurs. "But I will, of course, respect the wishes of the divine."

"It’s less a decision," Lucien mutters under his breath, "and more of an extortion, blackmail... technically speaking—"

Serenith’s hand connects with the back of his head, sharp and fast.

Kamiko catches the flinch and bursts out laughing, delighted.

"Whoever’s watching over you," she says, wiping one eye, "must have their hands absolutely full. I’ll pray the gods grant them strength. And patience. A lot of patience."

"I like her." Serenith says.

"Of course you do," Lucien groans, rubbing the back of his skull.

The crowd’s mood shifts abruptly, a ripple of scowls and startled murmurs spreading as someone shoves through from the back.

Snorting, growling low in his throat, elbowing bystanders aside without a shred of apology. Val stops directly in front of Lucien, looks him over once, top to bottom, with all the enthusiasm of a man inspecting spoiled meat, then turns to Kamiko instead, ignoring Lucien entirely.

"Does this mean the feast is cancelled?"

Kamiko blinks, caught off guard. "I... beg your pardon?"

"The feast." Val gestures broadly at the pyre, the gathered crowd, the whole abandoned funeral arrangement. "I shouldn’t have to suffer through disappointment just because he," Val jerks his thumb at Lucien, still not deigning to look at him directly, "couldn’t manage the basic courtesy of staying dead for a full day."

Lucien gasps, hand flying to his chest, fully affronted. "That is deeply hurtful, and I want that on record. Serenith! Did you hear that?"

Kamiko throws her head back and cackles, the sound bright and genuine.

"I would never deny you a feast, Valgereth. Never. In fact," She turns, grinning wide at Lucien now. "Since our friend here decided against dying, and stands to make this entire region considerably richer in the process, I’ll double it. Full spread. Best the kitchens can manage."

Val’s expression cracks into something close to delight.

He claps a heavy hand onto Lucien’s shoulder, hard enough to stagger him. "See, angel, I knew he was good for something."

The crowd erupts at the mention of doubled food, a wave of cheering rolling outward through the square, several villagers already abandoning the pyre entirely to stake out good seats near the kitchens before the rush hits.

Lucien turns to Kamiko, grinning wide, entirely swept up in the momentum of his own returning legend.

"I hope the tribelands are ready," he says, "for exactly what I’m about to bring their way."