Tale of the Devil Raiser

Chapter 3

Actually, I had never thought that Pham Phuong Chi studied in this school.

And frankly speaking, I had forgotten her for about two years, and if “gentle devil” didn't remind me about this ordinary girl, I would thoroughly obliterate her from my memory.

As a basta…

“You bastard, master! How can you forget your fiancée's name and don't even know that she is a student here, master?”

When Anne and I rushed to the place generating those fighting sounds, we saw Phuong Chi and then Anne rebuked me.

I didn't answer her. There was a thought coming into my mind, that if someone took this girl to the front of me and told me that she was my “fiancée”, I would issue Anne a command to burn that man with her will-o'-the-wisp flame for an hour.

Because I couldn't recognize her anymore.

Due to our magical ability, nobody coming from our community had the physique to keep his or her spouse alive after their marriage. We the devil raisers had lived with devils from generation to generation, our magic was from their despair and our cursed fates were congenital.

We rarely had normal marriages, since our spouses would be cursed also. Whoever, devil raisers, or ordinary people, always passed away soon after the marriage and nothing could compensate for the loss that we had to suffer from then to the end of life.

Therefore, RSA, the agency that we had worked with for centuries, created the Predestined Map. Anyone aged eighteen would be allowed to write their real name on the map, and then the name of the person predicted to love them would appear.

It was always true for centuries, and Pham Phuong Chi was the girl whose name was written next to my name in the Predestined Map four years ago so that Anne and I called her “fiancée”.

The last time I met her was two years ago before I was completely buried beneath innumerable missions. I still remembered her happy expression, and she was clean and neat despite her poverty.

Yeah, my “fiancée” wasn't wealthy at all, but she had never been beaten like this.

Her long black hair was messy. Her oval face was dirty and considerably swelled up as being beaten for a while. She wasn't even able to stand steadily and she had to lean back on the wall behind. And if I didn't see the red star - one distinctive feature of a future spouse - in her forehead, I would think that I was confused.

“I told you the truth.” I heard Phuong Chi saying that, and then she was slapped hard to such an extent that she bent her head aside, “I am not his girlfriend.”

There were five insolent girls altogether surrounding her. Because of standing in the dark on their back, I couldn't see anything except their flashy jewelry that I might have seen somewhere on the street, despite the evening twilight. I just heard “smack” and then one shouted.

“Break up with him, or I will tear you into pieces!”

I knit my eyebrows right after that. Which “him”? Was that guy one of your possessions, you the tawdry school girl? Didn't you know that you were too young and stupid to start chasing someone, and even slapping anyone else? My poor Phuong Chi said that she wasn't “his” girlfriend, didn't you hear that?

“Does she know who she is talking with?” And, well, Anne angrily spoke the most important part.

“Just your bastard master's fiancée, right?” I asked, smiling deeply.

Looking at that Phuong Chi's swelled face, I ordered for Anne, who still pouted angrily:

“Teach those rotten school girls how to be humans, Anne.”

“You are always ordering me.” She whispered and then transformed into the black smoke flying to those bad girls when they seemed to start another fight without the victim's resistance.

From my viewpoint, I could see Anne quietly stopped behind the girl slapping Phuong Chi. The smoke converted into an unclear and bloody woman figure, and she touched the girl freezingly on the arm. And everything finished with a sentence whispered as light as a feather in the dark.

“Do you… wanna dance?”

Anne was cute and a bit annoying sometimes, but those characteristics couldn't make you forget the truth that she was a devil. Her death was a devastating case, and like every devil raiser, my duty was to ease her anger, enmity, and despair. But that was never easy also, because…

She always remembered how she died as unconsciously saying the last words that she heard when being alive.

I could swear, I would be scared out of my mind immediately if I were touched by a devil like her.

devil raisers never went out in daylight because we belonged to the dark. Therefore, you know, I broke into the school at dusk to make sure that nobody would suddenly find me, and then, it was evening twilight, those girls were still concentrating on forcing my poor Phuong Chi to break up with the guy named “him”. Maybe you don't know that the Vietnamese had an idiom, which can be translated into:

“Walking often at midnight, you may meet the ghost.” Even though I had no ghosts there.

“Aaaaa…”

“Ghost! There is a ghost!”

As mentioned previously, dusk was the starting point for our working day, the ordinary people had better go home then. Thus, that tawdry girl jumped out and screamed in a panic when she saw Anne. Her friends were more or less scared, they saw Anne's fearful smile, her clothes smeared with blood and they immediately forgot what they were doing. Those girls started rushing to the school gate as fast as possible and screaming out in terror.

But wasn't it enough?

Absolutely no, because Anne's playful heart started to beat happily, due to their terror.

“Hey, do you wanna dance with me?” She said and followed hard on their heels. “I'm not a ghost, by the way.”

“Oh, it seems that they're making a scene of jealousy.” After Anne and those ordinary people left, a cold and calm voice suddenly rose from silence.

Thanks to growing up with so many devils, I wasn't as scared of them as those girls were. I just slowly turned and saw the black smoke that I was considering when we came across the beating sounds.

“Of course, but unfortunately, the victim is my fiancée,” I answered and started to walk to the place where Phuong Chi was still bewildered.

There were a lot of trees in Le Hong Phong High School for The Gifted for me to go without being watched. I walked in the dark, my feet stepped quietly on the ground and I stopped not too far from her. Stars had appeared in the black sky for a while, nobody forced her to stay here anymore, but she didn't seem to be ready to go home.

What was the problem? The two-year-ago Phuong Chi wouldn't stay here like that.

“Was she stupefied with your devil?” The black smoke asked.

“No, Anne and I were invisible to her.” I said, “The sky will be too dark soon for her to go home alone.”

“Why don't you appear and remind her? You said that she was your fiancée.” In the dark, I heard that question but I didn't know how to reply clearly.

It didn't make any sense if I said that this was the fiancée whom I would never make friends with, right?

While thinking about how to respond, I used magic making myself invisible, and came close to her. Phuong Chi didn't notice my existence. She just sat flat on the ground without a word. I looked at her carefully from top to toe but I saw no serious injuries at all. And to make sure, I used magic once again.

My fingertip burst into flames. Some red flames appeared on my hand, glowed in the dark before flying to Phuong Chi and surrounding her. Since I was acquainted with all the regular incantations about four years ago, I didn't have to speak when using them. Those red flames were the product of the Healing Incantation so that they weren't hot at all. They just eased your pain with their warmth and repaired your wounds wherever they glided over.

When all the wounds were already healed and Phuong Chi's face didn't swell anymore, the red flames evaporated.

“It is safe now. You'd better go home and then sleep, everything will be gone, okay?” I sat down at her front and told her.

Devil raisers used the Predestined Map to avoid getting in touch with their future spouses and it was no exception. While my friends didn't even know their spouses' appearance, I did, owing to my curiosity and Anne's instigation. It was wrong, but if I didn't recognize her, she would… Wait, it seemed that I would help her no matter who she was, didn't it?

Phuong Chi's bewildered eyes rolled and then stared at me as if she could look through my magic.

My heart missed a beat for no reason.

“Devil raiser, be car…” The devil abruptly shouted, but I couldn't hear completely.

My used-to-be-poor Phuong Chi suddenly seized me by the arm. Due to the body reflection, I stepped backward immediately, but she moved as quickly as a flash and then clawed at my face.

“Ouch!”

The sudden pain appeared in the left eye to such an extent that I had to close my eye. Something flowed on my face, I touched the wound and my fingertips were full of blood.

“Hey, it's rude! I have just helped you, fiancée!”

“Grrr…” Err, okay, then you could explain why you were haunted like that.