I entered the room. It was nearly empty, with no windows. The only things in the room were a table and some chairs.
"Come sit down."
I did as I was asked.
The dwarf also took a seat, but on the opposite side of the table. I glared at him.
"How are the humans?"
The dwarf sighed and graved a piece of paper from the side of the table.
"lets say that those people are this piece of paper."
The paper made a soft crisping sound as he crumbled it.
"This is how they are now. crumbled up, barely recognisable as paper."
Slowly he started to unfold the crumbled up paper.
"We can unfold the paper, but as you see. Cracks will always remain in the paper no matter what you do."
I sighed ("So, they will heal, but they will never fully recover.")
Suddenly the sound of the dwarfs voice rang out yet again.
"But that is not the only reason why you are here, is it?"
I shook my head.
"I will tell you an unbelievable story."
I told him everything, form the moment when the village was attacked to where I am now, the dwarf didn't interrupt me even once. It felt great to finally tell my story to someone. However, I was still scared. I didn't know the dwarf that well. Who knew what he was going to do with the information.
When I finished he sat back and nodded.
"A strange story indeed."
"Why do you even believe me if it is such a strange story?"
He scratched the back of his head and gave a faint chuckle. "I have my reasons for that. Now, do you mind if I take a look at that mark? I have quite some knowledge when it comes to magic formations. I even helped with creating the fake komainu at the entrance of the tunnel."
His voice sounded so proud, like a kid showing of a drawing. This made it had to believe that this dwarf was actually that old.
"Fine"
The dwarf kept talking while inspecting the circle that was so painfully engraved on my chest.
"You said that you didn't remember anything after the castle collapsed?"
"Well not exactly. I do remember the few seconds before being summoned."
He nodded. "You're sure you didn't remember a landscape with a lot of fire?"
I didn't know how this could relate to the mark, but I decided to answer all his questions.
"No… why?"
He didn't respond.
"Do you know what happened to that silvery demon you described earlier?"
"n… no, for all I know it was also crushed."
The dwarf sat back down. "I think I know what could have happened. But, don't take it to serious, it's just an hypothesis."
I nodded. The tip of my tail was slightly wagging from left to right out of nervousness.
Then the dwarf spoke again.
"As you should probably know by now, the body of a demon is a lot more durable than that of a human. But, they can still be effected by physical damage. And if, for example the head got crushed they would be forced to leave this world. But, what is really often the most troublesome part of fighting against demons, is that they most of the time don't really die. They only go back to hell, inferno, Gehenna, abyss or whatever you want to call it.
Now back to your case. That mark is designed to attract energy, that of demons in particular. It was probably made as an experiment to expand that demons army's with stronger cannon fodder. Just imagine a soldier that grows stronger every time you feed some of your energy to it."
I growled at the dwarf. "Just say what you are hinting at!"
He gave a deep sigh in disappointment. "You're not so patient after all... Fine. What I'm saying is that, that mark on your chest probably absorbed the energy of that demon when it died. Of course turning you into one took up most of that energy, that's why you are quite weak compared to other demons at the moment. But you are still young and have a lot of potential to grow.
The overload of that demonic energy probably caused you to tun into one right before or right at the moment you died. But, judging from what you said earlier, you haven't been in hell yet. So, I have no idea where they summoned you from.
Another thing that is bugging me is that something like this shouldn't even be possible. That demon couldn't have had the knowledge to create such an advanced and complex magic formation. Something else must have helped it. But then, what could possibly possess such knowledge? What could have known techniques to completely alter the nature of something? It takes the magic of at least five dragons to turn a human into an half elf. And humans and elves are even so closely related that the hybrids are fertile. And you turned into a demon. Not even a cambion, but an actual demon."
I narrowed my eyes and glared at the dwarf who kept murmuring about who or what could have helped that demon and how this all shouldn't be possible.
"I don't care who helped it, or how the mark works. I just want to know if it can be reversed!"
The dwarf stopped mumbling and seemed to think for a moment. Then he stared me deep in the eyes.
"The real question is. Do you even still want it to be reversed? You do realise what a big advantage you current for gives you. Not only in physical strength, it also greatly enhances your magic and you can even fly! You will be a great help to the stone city"
Again I growled at the dwarf.
"Do you really think that I would come here and risk getting an arrow or an holy sword or… whatever piercing my skull, if I wasn't certain that I wanted to become human again?! besides the stone city seems to be doing just fine without me! Why would you even make such an offer?!"
The dwarf closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Here I really hoped that you would accept."
"and why is that?!" I shouted, filled with anger from listening to the dwarfs proposal.
"because it would be easier for you to live with it if you believed that it was your choice."