Chapter 24: Outside the Kitchen Door
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: PlumSauce
It was nearing noon, but Coraci and John had yet to be seen. When Carolyn and Liz found Wu Jiu, he was guarding Coraci’s phone, sitting in the shadows beside the house, murmuring a string of unintelligible words. No one but Coraci could understand what he was saying; only those bound by contracts with specters could communicate with them.
Liz took Wu Jiu back to the Association and had him write down what he had seen. Unfortunately, no one could decipher his handwriting either.
“Coraci might be in trouble,” Liz said, carrying a laptop and a stack of books as she exited the Association library. “Carolyn, find a few hunters to search. I want to analyze the meaning of Sidov’s family sigil.”
“You don’t understand it after looking at it?”
“I’m going home for a bit. My grandfather might know. It’s a compound spell — like a product assembled from different components. I can grasp snippets of it, but I don’t understand its true purpose.”
Carolyn thought for a moment. “Hey, do you think that demon Sidov could be behind this?”
“He should’ve been sent back to the Abyss…”
“Hard to say. What if he pulled some sort of trick?”
Liz shook her head. “If that’s true, where did he learn magic none of us know about?”
At that, Liz suddenly stopped. Carolyn was staring straight at her — clearly thinking the same thing.
“The Arcane Covenant!”
“Sidov lived alongside those wizards for a long time. Yeah, that complicates things.” Liz pushed the books in her arms higher and quickened her pace out of the building. “How did I not think of this sooner? Spending so long in the Association makes me habitually see those guys as victims needing help…”
“I don’t see them as victims,” Carolyn said. “Then, you study the spell. I want to try finding Sidov — if he really escaped.”
“How will you search?”
“I’m a free hunter — the most mobile of us all. You go do your thing.”
Carolyn returned to the Association’s offices and pulled out a large cache of weapons from her locker. Hidden beneath her jacket sleeves were wrist blades; inside her wide belt were leaf-shaped hand daggers, and the belt buckle itself was silver — good for striking opponents. It was daytime, so she couldn’t bring a hunting rifle or long sword, but her crossbody bag held a pistol and a single-handed crossbow. Inside her jacket were silver bullets, bolts, and a curved dagger. One boot held a straight-edged knife.
“All set — ready for a date,” she said, tying back her golden hair and humming as she approached the isolation room.
Mitchel was leaning on the bed, reading a magazine, and jumped when Carolyn appeared. She greeted him cheerfully and grabbed his arm, pulling him out of the room.
“What are you doing?” Mitchel asked nervously.
“Going on a date,” Carolyn said firmly, forcing him to stand straight and linking her arm through his like any normal young woman. “You broke up with your violent ex and have nowhere to go, right? I’m taking you shopping for some clothes.”
“But I don’t have money… Will the Association pay?” Mitchel asked cautiously.
“No, I have Liz’s backup card.”
Carolyn made a few calls, reporting her whereabouts to Instructor Jere and asking Smith which shopping mall had sales.
They went down to the garage, where Carolyn pushed Mitchel into the back seat of a Land Rover and jumped into the driver’s seat herself.
“So…where exactly are we going?” Mitchel asked, still uneasy.
“We’re going cruising first.”
“Cruising?”
“Buckle up. Don’t worry — I’ll protect you.”
…
Every door led in a random direction. Even if Coraci tried to backtrack, he couldn’t return to the previous room. He had wandered through a storage room, a master suite, a bathroom, a utility closet… and now he found himself inside an ordinary guest room.
He had already encountered a small imp with bat wings and a low-level demon with a chest wound. The imp had been sent flying by his metal rod, but he couldn’t overpower the demon with sheer strength and had barely escaped.
It was injured… Coraci recalled the shape of the wound. It looked like a deep tear from claws, reaching beneath the muscles. A human would have bled out long ago.
John…I hope you’re okay, Coraci thought, remembering Sidov’s words. The demon had said, “Vampires are fun,” but that didn’t sound like a compliment.
Coraci opened the closet door and stared into the narrow, dim space. After taking several deep breaths, he stepped inside — and then appeared in a kitchen. He silently thanked whatever magic had spared him from it being a real closet.
Surprisingly, the kitchen wasn’t abandoned. Several stoves showed signs of regular use, and a full array of knives hung neatly. Inside a glass-door refrigerator were frozen limbs and organs, some from unknown creatures, some clearly human. Coraci decided not to look inside the larger freezer — it was probably worse.
The kitchen also contained some ordinary human items — like seasonings and mothballs. In a demon’s kitchen, those things sat side by side.
As he approached the kitchen door, Coraci faintly heard the sound of something collapsing outside — boxes clattering, wings flapping, unknown creatures screeching… footsteps and the crashing of shelves.
“John?” Coraci pressed close to the door.
The sounds of fighting continued. Coraci yanked the door open but didn’t step through. Through the black mist, he saw John using the wall to leap onto a huge black bird. John threw himself onto it, driving his arm around its neck from the side, toppling the beast.
At that moment, the bird’s blood sprayed far, even reaching the kitchen doorway. But the blood didn’t stain Coraci’s shoes — it vanished the instant it crossed the threshold.
This place was disjointed too. Though Coraci could see John, once he stepped through the door he would end up in another room. John couldn’t directly walk into the kitchen either.
John pulled his arm free from the giant bird’s corpse and tentatively licked the black blood. He immediately turned away and knelt, dry heaving.
Then he saw Coraci and ran over, joy lighting his face. Coraci stopped him quickly.
“Stop! Don’t come closer.”
“Sorry… I shouldn’t let you see me like this…” John knew he looked terrifying — bloodshot eyes, fangs bared, long steel-like claws on his hands, and his body covered with blood of various colors.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Coraci said, pointing at the doorframe. “You’ve probably noticed many of these doors lead elsewhere. This one is no different. You can see me now, but if you step inside, you’ll end up in a different room. Don’t come closer. Listen first.”
John nodded and took a few cautious steps back, standing outside the door.
“These random doors don’t follow much of a pattern, and this is an abandoned hotel with too many rooms. It’s even harder to find a pattern here,” Coraci explained. “We can pick a meeting place. You’ll have to keep moving through doors until you find the kitchen.”
“All right. Wait for me,” John sighed. “I’ll start with the kitchen door right in front of me. Is that okay?”
“No. Try another door,” Coraci said. “Facing the kitchen door will only take you further away — I learned that the hard way. John, what’s wrong? You look awful.”
John pointed at the huge corpse on the floor. “That thing’s blood was disgusting — like vomit. It seemed poisonous. Good thing I didn’t drink any.”
“I thought you knew — low-level demon blood is unusable. Only demons like Sidov or Mitchel have usable blood.”
“Yeah, I’ve even drunk succubus blood before,” John said with a dry laugh, looking down at his stained body. “If I could, I really wouldn’t want you to see me like this.”
“John,” Coraci said gently, “don’t forget I have Eyes of Truth. I can accept you no matter what form you take.”
John opened his mouth but lowered his head, embarrassed. Coraci standing there behind the door reminded him of their first meeting — back then, they had also been separated by a door, with Coraci smiling warmly at him.
John retreated into the thick black mist and gradually disappeared from Coraci’s sight. Coraci could still see him for a moment longer. John quickly found a staircase, climbed two steps, and vanished.
Coraci returned to the kitchen and tried to avoid any doors or passages, staying in the open space. He took out a marker and some kitchen knives, inscribing the Sharp Edge spell onto them. Then he cut his finger with an ordinary knife, let the blood drip into a bottle of pepper, and added a pinch of rosemary powder.
He placed the bottle on a cabinet and stood still against the wall.
He had brewed a crude demon bewitching charm, something like catnip. Low-level demons, once close enough, would be drawn to its scent and sniff it endlessly, unwilling to leave, even forgetting their original intent.
If he’d had better ingredients, Coraci could have made a more powerful bewitching charm. Unfortunately, materials were limited.
As Sidov had said, this place was full of wonders. Many monsters and low-level demons roamed freely. Maybe Sidov had barred some from certain rooms — like the one Coraci had started in — but they could move around elsewhere. Coraci hoped no other creatures would stumble in before John found the kitchen.
After an unknown length of time, footsteps echoed behind a row of shelves.
A limp mud-demon slithered in. It looked like a drowned human — pale and bloated — with eyes on top of its head, it needed to lower its head to see the path. This thing was a sewer rat of the Abyss, low-level and filthy.
It spotted Coraci and opened its mouth full of jagged teeth, moving toward him. Suddenly, it broke off, drawn to the bewitching charm on the cabinet. It rested its head on the cabinet, its body slowly writhing, its head constantly shifting position, intoxicated by the scent.
Coraci held a Spanish ham slicing knife, debating whether to strike. Attacking with a knife wasn’t his specialty, but he worried the simple bewitching charm wouldn’t last, and the creature’s attention might turn back to him.
Just then, the kitchen’s double doors were flung open. A giant bipedal gecko strode in.
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