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“Finally you’re up!” she said, climbing off of him and hopping back down to the floor. Then her smiling face shifted to a pout. “You didn’t come back last night.”

“Uh, yeah, sorry.” Zeth groggily rubbed his eyes. “Busy looking for work, you know. I hope I didn’t worry you.”

Her pout shifted right back into a proud smile. “Mom got worried, but I didn’t. I knew you’d come back.”

He chuckled as he sat up. “Glad you had faith in me, kiddo.”

“You shouldn’t leave so much. It’s boring to be here alone.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Just busy, you know? There’s a lot of stuff going on.”

“If you get a new job, can you buy me a new book? One of the ones about magic! The last one you got me was awesome!”

He smiled. “I’m working on it. You liked it that much, huh?”

“Yeah! I wanna learn more about those Classes.”

“Well, how about for the next one, I’ll look for one about the more legal side of magic Classes?”

“No! I want one that’s more about those ones.”

“What? Sophie, you won’t be allowed to get any of those. Seems like a bit of a waste to—“

“But they’re cool.”

He chuckled, half nervous about her getting herself into trouble, half proud that she was undeterred by the promise of adversity. “I’ll see what I can do. But if you’re going to look more into that side of things, the forbidden Classes…Listen, all I can say is you’re gonna need a much better reason to get one of them than ‘it’s cool.’ If you get a legal one, you’ll be able to practice as much as you want, without having to worry about getting caught. With an illegal Class, everything will be harder, and there’ll be far less information to go off of. That means fewer books, and less time you get to spend with it.”

She nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

“I don’t know if you actually want one or if you’re just interested, but I don’t expect you to tell me. And that’s okay. You’re allowed to have secrets. But just remember that. If you want one of the ones you read about, it needs to be for a good reason. If that’s not the case, you’ll be left facing a whole lot of problems with nothing having been gained for it.”

She was silent for a moment, staring at the floor looking deep in thought. Eventually, she looked up. “…Can you help me find something out about one of them?”

His heart sped up. Was she seriously considering taking one of those things? Once again, conflicted feelings filled his chest. “...Of course, kiddo. What’s up?”

“Well, I just want to know if one of the Classes would be able to do something. Um, let me go get the book to show you.”

She stood and began walking over to exit the room so she could get the book he’d given her, but before she left, their mom’s voice called from the front of the house. “Sophie, honey, is Zeth awake?”

She froze, then called back, “Y-yep!”

“Will you bring him over here?”

“Sure! Just one second!”

Zeth looked at her as she stood, still frozen in the doorway. He adjusted his seat on the bed. “…Are you still gonna go get—“

“Um, it’s nothing,” she said in a quiet voice. “Nevermind.”

Before Zeth could respond, she dashed out of his room and in the direction of hers. He considered going after her to ask what was up, but his mom called once again, “Zeth, are you coming? I need to talk to you!”

I’ll talk to her later, I guess, He thought as he got up and left the room.

Arriving in the kitchen, Zeth found his mom sitting in one of the kitchen table chairs putting on her work boots, getting ready to leave the house. She looked over. “Oh, Zeth, honey, there you are.”

He rubbed his eyes once again, trying to ease his continued exhaustion. “Hey, what’s up?”

She stood, looking relieved to see his face. “I’m glad you’re okay. You heard there was a jailbreak last night, while you were in town?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s what kept me so late, you know—the alarm bells started ringing, and everything got so chaotic, I just found a place to hide until it calmed down. I’m sorry if I made you worry.”

With a shake of her head, she smiled, her eyes beginning to water. “I’m just relieved to hear you took your own safety into account, sweetie. I know you’ve been a little shaken up since you got lost, and it made you reckless, but with everything going on with this Blood Mage stuff and that Wicked thrall woman on our land, you just need to make sure you have as little to do with it all as you can.”

“...Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do my best to stay safe. You do that, too. You and Sophie. And, hey, I ended up getting a meeting with a traveling merchant scheduled for today. No promises or anything, but it might be possible for me to get a job working with her for as long as she stays in town. And merchants are normally pretty rich, so if I can land a job, I bet it’ll pay pretty well. Should be more than enough for a mercenary to keep you two safe.”

“You mean all three of us,” she corrected, eyeing him. “And yes, that sounds like it could work just fine. Oh, I wonder if you could convince her to give you a portion of your pay in the form of her stock! I know merchants occasionally bring in crops or seeds from elsewhere, and it might be possible that some of them could grow in our soil! If we could get something exclusive that nobody else sells around here, that’d be wonderful!”

“Uh, yeah, I’ll ask her about it,” he said. “Anyway, I’ll probably be gone for most of today, too. Gonna talk to her about that, try to secure the job, and if I can’t, I’ll just keep looking around for the rest of the day.”

“You seem really intent on getting some sort of job in town.”

“Yeah. I guess I’m just pretty dedicated.”

After that, Zeth headed right back to the clearing, eager to get some semblance of a base made and move everything in there. With the extra focus that’d likely be put on this forest now that he’d been seen fleeing into the wilderness after the jailbreak, the sooner he hid away all evidence of rituals being performed in this clearing, the better.

As he walked, he rubbed the wounded areas across his body. Turin’s treatment had helped, but certainly not fixed any of the holes in his flesh. He needed to heal. And there was one thing that could do exactly that for him.

[Self-Destruction - Cost: 3 Skill Points

Increases the speed at which you recover from injury by 300%, plus an additional 60% for each Rank in this Skill.]

He’d been holding off on purchasing the Self-Destruction Skill so he could get Demonic Covenant as quickly as possible, but now he had it. And thanks to a few recent Skill Rank-ups, he now had enough points to purchase the healing Skill. Currently, he was trying to save up for Otherworldly Excellence, which cost seventeen, and he wasn\'t sure how easy it\'d be to Rank a Skill like this up, but subtracting three from his current total wouldn’t be that big of a step back.

So, eager to rid himself of his injuries, he went ahead and purchased the Skill.

[You have purchased Universal Skill: Self-Destruction.

-3 Skill Points. You have 2 Skill Points.]

When Zeth arrived at the clearing, it must’ve been only around four hours since he’d previously left—not much time at all. At least, being gone for only four hours was criminally short from the perspective of the still exhausted part of him that had wanted to sleep for a minimum of fifteen hours.

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However, upon arrival, Zeth found that quite a bit more than a typical five hours of work had been completed.

Out in the middle of the forest, he found a large, perfectly square hole going straight down. It was around four feet in width, with some trees having been chopped down and cut up into planks to be made into the hatch that would cover it. Peering down into the hole, Zeth found that its edges were lined with stones, turning what would be soft dirt walls into more suitable rock, and planks had been fitted into the walls and attached to a beam made from a log that stuck straight up the center of the hole to make a spiraling staircase going downward.

Deep in the hole, he heard the continued sounds of digging. So, after testing the stairs to ensure they wouldn’t collapse, he cautiously began descending.

It took over a full minute just for him to get to the bottom of the staircase, with how deep down the hole went. He’d planned for this base to go extremely deep underground, both to help prevent the possibility of collapse, and to reduce things like noise from inside from being heard up on the surface. And, judging by the number of steps he had to descend to get down here, it certainly was extremely deep. As he descended, the dirt walls fitted with rocks slowly transformed into walls made of pure, natural stone, all carved to perfection by the demon’s sharp claws.

And when he finally reached the bottom, he found himself standing in the main structure. After arriving at the bottom of the staircase, he found himself walking down a narrow hallway that twisted and turned a few times seemingly at random. Of course, that random movement was a feature he’d intentionally designed into the plans—if intruders came down here, they’d have to come through these tunnels in order to reach the rest of his base, and the natural choke point created in the hall would be perfect to fit with all kinds of traps and ritual circles that invaders would be forced to pass through. And with the only natural light coming from the hole, the long, snaking hallway would quickly become pitch black, leading to them easily stepping into any traps laid on the ground.

Of course, he realized as he walked the tunnels, that also meant Zeth would be unable to see down here. He had no idea how his demon worker was working in these shadows that whole time—maybe they could see in the dark?

Frowning, he placed a finger on the stone wall of the rectangular tunnel and went through the familiar motions of pushing mana through his body, leaving that chalky substance behind where he dragged his finger. He knew his ritual circles glowed when they were activating, but maybe…

Ah! In the pure darkness of a cavern like this one, he could see what had been too faint to notice before. Even when it wasn’t a part of any ritual circle, this chalk stuff still let off the barest glow. When compared to even the tiny flame of a candle, it was hardly any light at all, but it was still technically something he could use to see. So, tracing his finger next to him as he walked, he made his way through the winding tunnels.

Eventually, he reached the end, finding the narrow passageway quickly opening up into a wide open room—wide enough that this dim chalk lighting wasn’t enough to even illuminate the opposite wall.

But in the darkness, Zeth could still hear the sounds of his demon digging through the stone, carving it away with her claws and leaving a pile of rubble behind her.

“Hey,” he called.

There was no response.

He frowned and drew closer, following along the wall to continue dragging his finger across and spread the illumination. Eventually, she came into view, repeatedly digging into the stone and scraping away huge chunks of rock at a time.

As the pinkish light spread across her face, she glanced over at him momentarily, then went back to working, the look of disgust that seemed to permanently cover every demon’s face not budging from its place on hers.

“Working hard, huh?” he asked.

Still, she didn’t respond.

“So is there any particular reason you’re ignoring me, or…?”

She turned around. “If you need to give me a new order, simply give it to me, slug. I do not need your petty preamble.”

“No, I’m not here to give you new orders, or whatever,” he said. “Looks like you’ve been getting through those plans I gave you pretty well.”

“I will not be able to even come close to finishing everything you told me to do in the five hours we agreed on,” she said. “If you want this complex built, you will need to summon more of my kind to finish.”

“I didn’t expect you to. Just do everything you can. This’ll be my only room for now—it should be able to fit most of everything I want to do—and later on I’ll be able to add storage, dedicated rooms for separate rituals, prison cells, and anything else I may need.”

She shook her head in exasperation. The pale red shade of her skin—much lighter than the demon he’d summoned before—shined in the pink light. “You slugs always have such ambition. It’s embarrassing. Attempting to build so much using the strength of others when you, yourself, are so powerless.”

“So all demons just think of themselves as these godly beings who humans could accomplish nothing without the help of, huh? You’ve just decided that all advancement in society is purely because some demon came in to save the day? Not sure you’re as smart as you think you are, talking like that.”

She scoffed. “As though you slugs don’t constantly borrow power from other humans as well. Look at this massive structure you’re having me dig out. Likely something you were simply ordered to build by a superior, no thought put into it on your own. No argument, no drive, no fire in your eyes. You slugs are all the same pathetic creature, each one living for others so as to fend off your eventual extinction. It is against nature.”

Zeth’s face involuntarily screwed into a frown, but he ignored her words, taking a moment’s pause to consider his next words. He’d come here because he wanted to ask her some questions, not argue about some random topic she clearly knew nothing about. “When I summon demons, there’s some sort of waiting period between when I complete the ritual and when the demon actually appears. What is that? What determines how long it takes?”

“Why would I know how your magic works, slug?”

“You’re the one being summoned by it. How does it work on your end?”

“Ignorant, worthless being. You don’t deserve the knowledge of—”

“Answer my question,” he commanded.

With a sneer, she took a breath and spoke, “A sort of beacon is placed down in our realm. An invisible sphere that’s only a few inches wide, set in a random area. If a demon is inside the borders of the sphere, they are notified that they may answer its call and be summoned to the First Realm under the command of its owner. Of course, a demon happening to be in the exact area the beacon is placed is extremely unlikely, and as there is no way to see a beacon or tell where it might be, nobody goes looking for them. So, when the beacon’s call is not immediately answered, it slowly grows in width, going from being only inches wide to being several feet, and eventually even miles in width, waiting for a demon to answer its call.”

He nodded, deep in thought. “So then, when I summoned you, since it only took a couple minutes, that means the beacon must’ve been placed right next to you?”

“Yes. I was in my home in the settlement of Eitu Fini, and—ugh, what am I saying, an ignorant slug like you would have no idea what that place is. I was in my home in a relatively populated settlement, and felt the beacon notify me, meaning it must have been relatively small at the time, or else enough others would have already been contacted by the beacon that someone would have taken the offer by then.”

“Hm. But the last time I did the ritual, it took hours for it to finally summon a demon. What, did I just get insanely unlucky and it got put down in some spot that didn’t have anyone around for a hundred miles?”

She shook her head in exasperation. “You slugs don’t realize how coddled you are here in this pathetic realm, do you? In the Thirteenth Realm, the vast majority of land is uninhabitable. There is only one source of drinkable liquid in the entire realm—a single river that runs for a relatively short distance through a plain. Any demon in the realm—or any living being at all, barring a select few—will have to be in a settlement by the river, or they will die of thirst. So, it is much more likely that your beacon was simply placed anywhere in the wasteland that covers most of the realm.”

He deflated. “So it’s the opposite, then. I didn’t get unlucky the first time, I just got lucky the second. Pretty much all of my summonings are gonna take hours upon hours to wait for the beacon to grow large enough to get to that one river?”

“I suppose so.”

“Is there any way to keep that from happening?”

“Once again, I am compelled to remind you that it is your Skill you are asking about. I have never used it before. It is the height of foolishness to assume I would—”

“I got it,” Zeth interrupted. “And I don’t think it’s all that hard to just say ‘I don’t know,’ by the way. Gods, it’s like you’re trying to annoy me.”

She ignored his words and went back to digging while Zeth thought over his new findings. Was demon summoning seriously that dependent on luck? And he still didn’t know how far away from the river his beacon was during the attempt that’d lasted several hours. It was possible that he might end up finding the beacon being placed even further away in a future summon and being forced to wait twice the time. He seriously wasn’t sure if he could even survive something like that.

There was no way, right? He had to be missing something. Thinking back over his memories of the two summonings he’d completed, he tried to figure out what actions he may be able to take that would do something like moving the beacon or making it grow faster. Maybe it was just an issue of him not having enough in his Shaping Stat? More Shaping meant more mana, and the beacon was grown using his mana, so that could help. But surely that couldn’t be the only answer, right?

Just then, a detail came to mind. When he’d first placed his hands down and activated each of the rituals, it almost felt like he was being asked something by the Skill. He’d always assumed the question was simply ‘do you want to summon a demon,’ and did whatever he could to answer ‘yes,’ but maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it was asking for a location, not a confirmation.

Normally, when a Skill asked a question like that, you’d find yourself with a mental image being presented to your mind of the area you were being asked to name a location in. Except, Zeth had no idea what the Thirteenth Realm looked like, so there would be no base knowledge in his mind for the Skill to present him with an image to select from.

That felt like it left Zeth with no good way forward when it came to solving this issue. Presumably, in order for him to have some idea of what his options were, he’d have to have an accurate knowledge of the Thirteenth Realm, which meant he’d have to physically travel there. Obviously, that was not an option.

But maybe there was another way for him to get just good enough of an idea of that place for him to be able to consistently select a populated area and skip the waiting period.

“Hey,” he said to the demon, sitting down and preparing to draw a map on the floor. “I want you to give me the most detailed description of the Thirteenth Realm that you possibly can.”