Chương 134: Chapter 130

Leon's main questions were how Wade had met Medy and Bael, and how he'd ended up in some realm where mana was dense enough to precipitate into liquid. The former was easy enough to explain, the later would require a lot more time. And Wade also wanted to know what Leon was up to on his end. So they'd settled it like men; They played rock paper scissors in order to determine who told their story first. Leon won, and gave Wade the rundown on the other side of the mithril sea.

"We appearing right on boat, feet on ground. Was, ah, interesting reception." And by interesting he meant the two poor demons who'd been having a smoke session at the time had promptly freaked out, and started second-guessing how much kick they'd put into their sticks that day. At first, the arriving trio had also been freaked out, knowing Wade was on the other side of the mithril sea when he didn't resurface.

They'd learned right after from the demons they shouldn't be seeing Wade anywhere at all - they were several miles away from the last time they'd been there. The pair had tried to stick around for as long as they could following their agreed contract. After which, several unfortunate waves hit them, and despite shuffling around the mountain like a game of musical chair to moor against the waves each time, their ropes were growing frayed and required repairs.

About seven hours prior to the start of the round, the pair of demons were forced to tuck tail and turn back as one final wave began approaching on the horizon. They'd been out at sea for a while now so they were running into hard limits. So they'd been forced to travel back to Zakka. But before all that, the trio had to first convince the demons they weren't hallucinating, everyone here was very much real, and nobody had been hiding away for the past half a day now. It was just very, very complicated.

And involved the Nathir.

"Is like magic switch." Leon said.

"I mention Nathir city, and pair seem to relax right away. As if that explaining everything."

"No one understands the depth of Nathir abilities." Bael grunted from his sitting position on the carpet, right by the mattress. It had been the only place in the room he could comfortably sit down, other than the mattress but he preferred the ground.

"All anyone knows is that they were the height of mana manipulation. The instruments of war they made were deadly enough all the other ancients and even the old pantheon of Gods they fought halted their war to eradicate the Nathir all together. And still, some of their war golem remain functional on the mortal realm. Far more than one unnatural and unexplainable disaster comes from them."

If Eri were here listening in, he might have enthusiastically clapped his hands at that, knowing the rest of the world hated the Nathir as much as he did. But he was currently having some time off, enjoying Earth. Specifically, with Medy. She'd been unable to sit still and listen to Leon discuss things that she was already familiar with and compared to… well, Earth, it was a tad bit difficult for her to remain in one place.

Wade considered it cruel and unusual torture to hold her hostage here, instead of letting her rip the house apart. So he'd asked Eri to keep an eye on her so she didn't actually rip the house apart, to which the skeleton was more than happy to be a tour guide. Following his own original footsteps in ripping the house apart. At least he could trust Eri would keep them both away from Ann's loft in the room, he didn't want her stuff messed with. But the rest of the house was free game and more than enough for Medy.

He could tell because the shower was currently being turned on and off. As was the sink, and lights in the bathroom. If they hadn't closed the bedroom door, Leon wouldn't have been able to properly talk given the amount of words coming from Medy's direction as she ran amok. It was going to be a shitshow the moment the sun rose and she got sight of the outdoors. Fortunately he now had Leon and Eri to help out, if it had been just him and Medy she might have leapt out the window like a suicidal cat. …

She actually would have, demons don't die they only break apart into essence that reformed in roughly the same place they died. Wade decided he needed to warn team earth first that this particular demon might hyper-focus on things to the exclusion of common sense and decency. He had no idea how Illy would react to Medy, but he decided he'd just leave that to Leon and let the Russian roll for charisma instead.

Wade knew where his character stat points were allocated, quite literally now, and the only points he had in charisma were the minimum required for surviving retail. Bael on the other hand had been far more dignified, as if he knew there would be time to explore and discover soon, but old age and patience whispered handling the affairs with the mortals was more pressing. He was the definition of delayed gratification, grace and clear headed thinking.

That and the ear flicks he was occasionally doing in Leon's direction clued Wade in that Bael wanted to remain in the same room, just in case Leon turned out to be evil. While the demon hadn't hashed out a full contract to be an employee, Bael knew the spirit of the contract here was to keep Wade safe at bare minimum, thus he felt duty-bound to complete at least the basics of that. Simply agreeing to be ferried into a brand new world, free of hell, was already something that required repayment.

Leon was the only one sitting in this room on a proper chair, because the mattress was Wade's and Bael would have probably broken the chair. Poor thing was a temporary creigslist find that Wade had bought a while back and intended to eventually replace once Ann and himself got things more together. Same with his missing bedframe. A mattress would still work without one, and he'd get it as soon as it was in the budget again. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen.

Please report the violation. It was a shame temporary solutions usually had a bad habit of turning into permanent ones. And this simple wooden chair had seen the world with Wade. It would be sad to see it crushed by an oversized Satyr demon. Also it would be a loss of twenty three dollars, which was an excellent price for a fully functioning chair that only required some love, a heavy brush and some cleaning alcohol.

He would have used bleach, but Ann had done her due diligence and 'politely' informed her older brother he was going to ruin twenty three dollars of chair if he tried cleaning the grime off with his usual tactics. So there might be some memories also attached there.

"Da, it became easy answer to everything. Too difficult to explain? Nathir did it." Leon laughed, "But we couldn't getting them to turn back where you would be floating, they running both late and worried for ropes."

"Fishermen would mean they're expected to bring back food to the city." Bael said.

"Important work. Losing a boat out here would also be a great setback. Wood isn't an easy material to source in Hell. Almost everything is difficult to source." Leon waved a finger at him.

"Funny you mentioning that, is exactly what they say themselves. Maybe they take long breaks and smoke during trip, but still responsible folk. They not allowed to smoke in city, but out on sea? Is free real estate. We also getting first few quests, help them survive coming wave and fish more to make up for bad fishing by base of mountain."

The difficult quest had been surviving the waves, of which two were coming back to back and could potentially have scuttled the ship without some careful moving around and proper ropework. The three had learned from the fishermen how to captain a ship, what signs to look out for on the mithril sea, and how to properly brace a boat against the shorelines of a mountain.

Despite a wave hitting the other end of the mountain, mithril sand got everywhere over deck and the sharp particles would wear down the ropes even as shielded as they were with the mountain to break the wave. Knowing when to turn back for a dock over being greedy was a critical skillset captains out here had to know. That and how to properly seal the ship up so that the sand wouldn't get everywhere - and especially into the food storage bins where fish were being kept.

"Is very interesting to me, food safety. Many cultures have creative ways to preserve food, but none have access to mana." Leon mentioned, "Is toxic element that kills bacteria and all life when exposed, but when it fades, perfectly safe."

"I find it hard to believe your world failed to discover more advanced techniques to store food." Bael scoffed, looking over to the lights that were on without a trace of mana. Or Wade's smartphone and all the power behind it.

"Would your metal tablet not already be able to?"

"Phones don't do great with water or food generally." Wade shrugged.

"Drop one of these things into water, and you need to be real lucky for it to not break completely." Bael considered the phone to be eldritch technology, capable of doing just about anything. Photos, videos, music, an entire library of the world's collective information, instant connection to anyone anywhere - and yet it would break on being dropped into water? And not be able to do anything with food or basic healing?

He couldn't understand why something that could do everything didn't do some of the most basic and simple tasks. Wade just saw a market opening here where Azdrial had advantages that Earth would clearly pay for the convenience. According to Leon, the last breakthrough in food conservation was nearly a century ago. Odd to consider in the day and age with smartphones and video games. The ship-stranded trio eventually made it to Zakka, and they'd gotten a quest to rescue Wade.

Picking him up from under the mithril sea would have given them six storefront coins each, so it was a rather difficult quest. They'd decided to prepare next round to save him, and use this round to get everything together.

"When we arriving at Zakka, caused a bit of a stir." Leon continued, diving into the real issues they had that round.

"Mortals not very usual down here, but every now and then from other cities is okey. And first thing on docks, big group of armored guards show up. With one carrying a scroll of rules to sign."

"Standard practice." Bael said with banality.

"The rules very simple. Barely two dozen lines. Davoshka and I thinking it was just basic quick agreement, and larger rules were in town hall. But no, those were it. All the rules of the city. All fitting in a single scroll."

"The city was mostly lawless?" Wade asked, wondering if this was more like a pirate stop point or something.

"Not in the least," Bael corrected.

"Mortal law and order is complicated because you mortals complicate it." Wade couldn't really argue with that. Bureaucracy existed for a reason.

"What kind of rules should we expect out of demon cities? Do they have some alien rules that don't make sense or something?"

"No, no, is opposite. Mostly common sense." He held a hand out and started counting on his fingers.

"Things like no killing, no stealing, no damaging public property, follow guard orders, accept judgements. Some early proto-civilizations have simpler rules like this on Earth. Reputation and shame used as social currency, but it inevitably breaking down as society grow larger. Not quite so with demon culture." Wade frowned.

"So that just… works? How?" How did Demons of all races have more law and order going than humanity?

"Contracts." Bael said. And everything clicked into Wade's mind at that. Leon nodded enthusiastically.

"Fisherman demons talk about this too. Is very strange culture, immortal beings incapable of breaking contracts, very different society."

"Not completely impossible." Bael's ears twitched.

"We can break contracts. In the same way you could jump from a window with no armor and no catalyst for any spell. Easily done if the building is on fire and you are desperate. Difficult to draw out the willpower for it otherwise. Demonic law is focused on the Greyline, the spirit of the law is obviously followed."

"Is still a tiny bit lawless." Leon pinched his fingers together.

"Tiny bit."

"How lawless are we talking about in a culture of demons that can't break their word?" Wade asked.

"I sign up in underground illegal fighting tournament." Leon grinned.

"Have quest for it. Making it into round two right now. Am planning on winning. Of course." Wade stared. Then slowly turned back to Bael. The Satyr shrugged.

"Far easier to jump out that window at a ground level into fresh snow. A guard accepting a bribe if the crime isn't causing great harm. Fishermen getting drunk off in the sea so long as they don't overly threaten their boat. A tournament to settle scores so long as no one dies, and the city is left unaware otherwise. This is the Greyline. Signing any contract that fully restricts all freedom causes extreme reactions on our kind, some leeway had to exist." The shower turned off in the bathroom.

Medy's delighted laughter echoed through the door as she discovered something else fascinating about Wade's world. He equally heard rapid jaw clicking, looks like the two of them were becoming fast friends. Leon slowly started grinning, the kind of shit-eating smile Wade had learned meant trouble.

"She going to love your coffee maker when she finding it."

"You wouldn't dare." Wade hissed back.

"Oh I would." Leon said, eyes looking over to something not quite there to anyone else.

"Because System gave fleeting quest for it right now. Called 'Causing Mayhem.' It saying I have to bait our Medy here into drinking full cup of anything having caffeine in next hour. Negligible leveling experience, nothing more, but…" He looked up then shrugged.

"Am sorry my friend, experience is experience. Udachi." New Fleeting Quest: Prevent Mayhem - Convince or stop a rival player from introducing caffeine to Xan'Phane'Malrano'Yettith'Medea'Vee within one hour. Rewards: Negligible Leveling experience.

"Uh huh." Wade felt a quick spike of fear, looking over the quest as he quickly tried to act both calm and collected while problem solving under pressure.

"We've got some issues right now."

"Oh ho, attempting to stop me? Bold."

"I'm spotting something more in all this." Wade shook his head, looking more deeply at the lighthearted quest and more importantly - the message hidden behind it.

"I'm getting a better feel for how it gives hints. This is one of them. It's sneaking us information."

"What information?" Wade looked up to Leon, serious this time.

"That other players out there can and will get quests that'll conflict with each other. This is a warning."