Exchange

     Inside the castle, Siti and I sat across from each other at a table. She sat with her hands on her knees, trying to act as cute and innocent as she could muster while I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

“Shouldn’t Libero be here while we exchange information?”

“He’s still mad, let him throw his tantrum. I’ll have one of my doubles deliver the info to him. Speaking of mad, you’re not mad, are you~?”

“I’m not mad!”

“You seem kind of mad~”

“But in reality, I’m not!”

“Hmm, but what if you were mad?”

“Then I’d pretend that I wasn’t!”

“So you could be mad?”

“No, because I’m not!”

“But how can I be sure~?”

I slapped the table, “Ahhh, stop teasing me already! Let’s exchange info!”

“Okay, okay~ So, how about you go first?”

     With an ‘ugh’ I began to relay what I’d learned. I told her about why Sero had been missing, that the demons sent to retrieve me didn’t even know that it’d be a human they were retrieving, which king that Sero served, and that they were ordered to capture Siti, not kill her.

“Hmm, and Sero said why they wanted to capture you, but why do they want me?”

“Wouldn’t it be for the same reason?”

“Maybe, but my world already has a demon portal that they can go through. It’s closed most of the time, but just waiting would be far less of a hassle than doing all this.”

“Maybe we can figure it out with your info. Did you learn anything, or were you gambling the whole time?”

“I was doing both! I can multitask, unlike you cup boy!”

“Cup boy!?”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice! But, well, it’s good that you got some practice in. You did help during that fight with Sero. No, maybe you did more than Sero or I. Once he manifested his territory, there wasn’t anything I could do but annoy him.”

“Manifested? What does that mean? Is that when he got all hot and the air got all electrified and stuff?”

“Mhm. Libero told me that all demons Lord rank and above can do that. It gives them a surge of power as their territory is brought into reality, rather than sitting back and hidden. But it also puts them at risk as you can now attack their territory directly.”

“And what exactly did Libero do? He turned all feathery, but turned back to being all scaly and spiky once the fight was over.”

“I think that was Libero’s manifestation. It looked like he condensed his territory and then used it to sever the connection between Sero’s body and his territory. I’m not really sure what that does, but it seemed to weaken Sero a lot.”

“Well we won in the end, so that’s what really matters. Anyway, your info?”

“Right. Beyond what you already said, I’ve gotten a list of some of the Lords that also serve King Caedes. It’s not all of them, but we’ll definitely want to deal with them before Caedes.”

“Right, wouldn’t want any reinforcements.”

Siti looked off to the side, “He wouldn’t need reinforcements. The difference between a Demon King and a Lord is like the difference between Sero and any of those wild demons outside the wall.”

“What!? But, we only barely won against Sero! If Libero didn’t catch him by surprise at the end, I don’t know what would have happened!”

“Exactly. We would be annihilated the moment he turned hostile.”

“What...what do we do then?”

Siti looked down, twiddling her thumbs on her lap, “We’ll need help. And to get stronger. I think we’ll need to take down all of his Lords first and, if they refuse to help us, either give their bodies to you, or give their territories to Libero.”

     How long would that take? I’m stronger now, so maybe we wouldn’t struggle so much in the actual fight, but how many days of travel? How long just to find each Lord? How many would we have to absorb just to bridge that gap? How much longer would I have to stay here in the Demon Realm?

Siti looked up at me, no doubt reading my thoughts and feeling my anxiety building, so she continued, “I’ve also learned that you aren’t the first attempt to bring something over. They’ve had successes before, but apparently no humans up to now.”

“Then...what did they bring?”

“From the sounds of it, mostly just rocks or water, but sometimes an animal. Apparently they’ve even pulled in a divinity.”

“A divinity?”

“You know, one of those holy beings that people make churches for and worship and stuff. Do all kinds of weird rituals and pray to?”

“A...a god?”

“Mmm, yeah, I guess they get called that too.”

     I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess since I’ve learned that demons exist, that it shouldn’t be too surprising that gods exist. Wait. Gods? ‘A divinity?’ More than one?

“I’m actually curious about your reaction. You know about gods? I thought your world didn’t have the Flow, demons, or gods.”

“Well, we don’t have, uh, ‘the Flow’ and I guess we don’t have demons running around like they do here, but there are a bunch of religions in my world that believe in gods and demons and heaven and hell and stuff.”

“Believe in them? Even though you don’t see them or hear them?”

“Uh, well, some people would claim that they do, but as far I know, there hasn’t been any solid proof of them or anything.”

“Huh. How weird. Do you believe in anything like that?”

“I’m...not really sure. I want to believe there’s some higher being, or, I guess, wanted to. I definitely wanted to believe there was something after death, not just turning into dirt.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, there was plenty of divinities in my world and they all preach of some kind of afterlife. I don’t know much about the Divine Realm as it never really interested me.”

“Hah, I guess I do like knowing that, but I’m kind of already here in Hell, so if I died, I’m pretty sure my soul would just stay here.”

“Then just don’t die here! All the more motivation! You’re not allowed to die until you make it back to Earth! With me, of course~”

“Haha, of course.”

“Ah, speaking of motivation, there’s one more piece of info I’ve got. One of the things they brought in was a huuuuuuuuuge piece of land. Don’t know where it came from, I don’t recognize it, but my roots have found it.”

“Uh, okay. What are we going to do with that?”

Siti grinned and leaned over the table, “It means I’ve got some real nutrients to work with. Vitamins and minerals that are real, not just weird demon corpse mush!”

I leaned in too, “Wait, so you mean real food? No more weird meal berries??”

“Hey I tried my best with what I had! But yes! Real food and water!”

I threw my hands in the air, “YES! REAL FRUITS AND VEGGIES!”

Siti pumped her fists in the air as well, “And meat!”

“AND MEAT! Huh? And meat?”

“What, you think someone as amazing as me can’t grow meat?”

“Grow...meat?”

“You wanna see? Let’s put a kitchen together and I’ll show ya~!”

     I practically sprinted out of the room with Siti in tow. We went to one of the rooms originally used for imitating art and I set up.

      Stove! No fire? I can make an induction stove! Heating up a coil with electricity is no problem!

     Frying pan! No problem!

     Oil or butter! I turned to Siti, but she was on top of it, squirting some kind of oil onto the pan from the tip of her finger! I’M NOT GONNA QUESTION IT!

     Ingredients! Up along the wall, Siti was already growing all kinds of absurd plants. I don’t know what most spices look like unprocessed, but I know for sure one of those leaves looked like a steak. I took two and tossed them into the pan! A bustling team of Sitis were already picking, chopping, and crushing up the other ingredients. I recognized these smells! Pepper! Garlic! Onions! I don’t know how she grew salt but my mouth was watering already!

     Wooden table! No way we’re scratching tungsten plates! Copper utensils! Gold goblets with fresh, clean water!

     Plate the food and serve it up!

     I sat at the table and clasped my hands together in prayer, “Blessed be this food and give thanks to the best plant for gracing us with this meal!”

“Amen!”