Marcus upon hearing the Archdevil's terms was left stunned and his mouth agape.
He had expected it to be a difficult task, whatever this devil needed them to accomplish. But collecting a hundred thousand souls was not anywhere within his predictions.
"And what would you need these hundred thousand souls for?" Marcus asked with a perplexed expression.
"Marcus you cannot be seriously considering this! There is no way we could kill that many people just for this monster!" Mrazivy shouted, not wanting him to even entertain making such a deal.
Seeing their discord, the Archdevil let out a few chuckles and wore a pleased grin while looking directly at Marcus. He felt that he had them in the palm of his hand and was enjoying their struggle.
"To answer your question, I need them to escape this dimension. With that amount I would be able to force my way out of here by absorbing the souls' energy. Nowhere in the contract does it state that I am not allowed to leave this place, if I have the means to. I simply do not wish to stay here any longer than I have to, but I am willing to wait five years for you to collect the necessary number of souls."
"And what of the reward the contract promised you? If you leave you will not get your compensation. The last thousand years you spent here will go to waste."
"Read the contract again. I will receive what I am owed after three thousand years no matter what so long as I am alive. If you accept my deal, it would be worth nearly two thousand years of my time. Of course, you can disregard my offer if you wish. But then your only way out of this place will be through me, and I promise to not make it easy." The devil said as he widened his smile and showed his teeth that were all canines.
Between making a deal with a devil or risking his friends' and family's life, Marcus had a difficult decision to make.
He could feel Mrazivy's glare on his back and the other members of his team certainly were not giving off favorable impressions.
He could understand why they did not want to got through with this. The Archdevil did not seem all that trustworthy and having to kill a hundred thousand people was not something any of them wanted to do.
There was also the problem that allowing this devil to escape the special dungeon would bring him to Mirrion where he could cause all manner of problems.
Still, Marcus did not want to fight if they did not have to.
This Archdevil was oozing a level of confidence that did not fit his current situation.
He was completely surrounded by them, and while he would certainly put up a strong fight, it would be the end of him.
'He must be hiding something. He either thinks he can beat us somehow or believes he can escape. I need to know one more thing before I make my decision.'
After contemplating what to do for nearly a minute, Marcus turned his gaze back towards the devil and asked him another question.
"When you say you need a hundred thousand souls to leave this place, do you mean that they need to be humanoid? Or will monsters or beasts do?"
As Marcus asked this surprise was evident on everyone else's faces.
They had been completely caught up in how vile the Archdevil seemed and never even considered that he would not need the souls of people.
In response the Archdevil signed and leaned back in his chair. Like the fun he had been having had just been spoiled.
"I would like to say that the souls of beasts and monsters will not do, but they will. I would prefer humans, elves, dwarfs, or any intelligent race though. Using their souls feels better. They have so much richer emotions than the mindless beasts and monsters. Surely you must have enemies of whatever nation you come from. You could use your powers in a war with the kingdoms bordering your own, or even simply hire yourselves out as mercenaries. Together all of you killed tens of thousands of monsters just in the last five days, so I am certain that in five years you could easily take out a hundred thousand of your enemies."
The Archdevil almost practically seemed to be begging at this point, his cool facade gone.
It seemed that he desperately wanted them to take the souls of people rather than beasts or monsters.
"Sorry, there is no way we are going to go around simply slaughtering people for you. If you cannot accept beasts or monsters than this discussion is over, and we can resolve this another way." Marcus said as he held out his scythe.
Grumbling, the Archdevil began mumbling to himself. Questioning whether to accept Marcus' terms or simply try to kill them.
"Fine, but in case you fail to get me the souls I need in five years I get to keep all of yours. A fair deal for all of you to get out of this place without any more trouble." The Archdevil eventually said with a slightly disappointed tone.
However, Marcus narrowed his eyes and looked intently at the Archdevil, and said, "I will not risk any of my companions' souls. I will offer mine up on the contract as collateral in case we fail, but not theirs."
Before the devil could answer though, Mrazivy yanked Marcus back and looked him directly in the eyes with fury having overtaken her expression.
"There is no way I am letting you do that. We may have chosen you to be our leader but stop making stupid decisions on your own. We cannot trust this Archdevil and there is simply no way we can make any deal with him. Even if we got out of here and collected the souls it would release him out into our world. Who knows what kind of damage he could do."
Looking at Marcus' face, Marcus could tell how much she really did not want to continue making a deal with this devil. And a quick scan of everyone else showed that they seemed to disapprove as well.
"Mraz trust me. I will do what is best for all of us." Marcus said as he tenderly put his hand on her face.
This calmed her down a bit, and she reached up and squeezed his hand once before letting him go.
"Well now that was touching, but I believe we should get back to business. The Archdevil said with an almost disgusted look on his face. "I am afraid that just having you sign would not be enough. Only those that sign can collect souls for me. And while I think that you might be able to collect all I need on your own, if you fail, the reparations I get will not be adequate. I require at least ten of you to sign so that I may escape this place even if you fail to deliver me the hundred thousand souls I require to escape this place. Surely as long as you hold up the end of your deal there will not be any problems."
Immediately after saying this the demon conjured up a prepared sheet of paper and a pen and held it out to Marcus and his group. Beckoning them to sign.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l