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"No, leave me alone!"

Yamin threw her arms around, eyes closed, as if an attacker were jabbing at her with a knife, but I wasn't detecting any threats at all.

"I don't want to...I won't help you! Stop! Help!"

She was still asleep. This must have been a night terror.

After slapping the guy next to her a few more times, his eyes shot open wide and he darted up.

“I am awake!” Marek announced. “Err, wait...” He looked around, then down at the still sleeping Yamin. His cheeks blushed. “No, not again!” He put his hand up to his face and grunted in disapproval.

I guess he was the first to wake up. He shivered when he saw me sitting on the sofa.

“Hello,” I smiled and waved, hoping to disarm his anxiety.

“Uh…” He nervously returned the smile and waved back. “I see, we have died. You are an angel, no?”

“No, I’m an Exceed.”

He didn’t understand. His head tilted with confusion, then he turned back to Yamin.

“Is she alright? Where are we?”

I told him that Yamin was going to be fine, she just seemed to be having a bad dream and accidentally slapped him awake. That part made him give her a funny look.

As for our location, I explained that we were in Esma.

“Bu bu bu…but, Esma is so far up north!” he shouted in shock. “How did we…”

“You two probably teleported here.” I stood up and pointed to the Manona crest on Yamin’s arm. “This is what did it.”

I tried to explain the process of teleportation through the planet's mana network, but his facial expressions told me he was just getting more confused.

Instead, I decided to introduce myself.

"My name is Yalda Asamo. It's nice to meet you."

He suddenly looked deeply offended. Not at me, at himself.

His hands flattened out and he stood to his feet like a soldier seeing his general.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Yalda Asamo. I am Marek Le Verren.” He did a very cordial bow, the kind a true gentleman would do to a noble lady. I felt so dignified that he did that for me. "I should have introduced myself sooner. Forgive my rudeness."

Marek was a good person, I could tell. We were going to be good friends.

Just as we finished our introductions, Indena walked into the room holding a soup ladle in one hand and a hammer in another.

“Hey, I saved your life," she blurted out. "If you fix the window, you get food.”

She tossed the hammer at him.

He caught it with a frantic motion.

Was she crazy!? Throwing hammers was a really bad idea! Especially for someone who just woke up. Wasn't she worried it could have landed on Yamin?!

"Indena, don't throw hammers!" I shouted. "They're heavy and can heart someone!"

"Ohh, sorry," she facetiously covered her mouth. "How about you hold the thing and tell me that again."

I felt the hammer in Marek's hand, it was unusual light. Actually, it was light as a feather!

Cracks in the wooden handle had an ever so soft emerald green glow. At the very end of the grip was a very tiny little symbol that looked like a cloud blowing in the wind.

An enchanted hammer...what a strange little quality of life improvement these humans came up with.

"I'm not stupid, alright?" Indena claimed. "I’m just a bitch."

"Uh…" Marek took back the hammer. "Where is this broken window?"

Indena showed him into the kitchen, then pointed to where the window had been broken by the demons.

With some lumber and a tarp, he covered up the window pretty well.

Marek even went one step further and did some repairs on the walls and floors, making the kitchen look a little bit less like a battle took place in it.

"All done," he smiled. "But we'll need to find a better fix later."

"Huh, a man who gets the job done right," she shrugged. "Keep that up and you won't be as useless as your wife in there."

“Waa...wife?!" He blushed. "No no no…" Marek’s hand clenched the hammer tightly. "I...don't have a wife."

He sounded a little sad. Downcast eyes accompanied his tone. That comment touched him a little deeper than she probably intended.

Indena's face had an unusual amount of concern, like she should have avoided the subject. "Whatever. I was just kidding anyway."

She took the hint that Marek was upset, but she was still being a bit of a jerk to Yamin, who we haven't even met yet.

"Indena, you shouldn't call people useless when they can't even defend themselves," I scolded.

"And why's that?" Indena put her hands on her hips, looking down on me like a lioness about to reprimand her cub. "Seems to me like she isn't doing anything helpful right now."

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"That's no excuse!" I shouted, drawing upon a little lion courage myself. "What's got you all angry with her?"

Ever since Indena saw that star shield necklace, she's been up in arms with Yamin’s existence. Did Yamin attack her in her sleep or something?

"You wouldn't understand. None of you Daula will!" she shouted, pushing me aside and sprinting out of the room.

So this had to do with religious beliefs? Indena wasn't very partial to those.

SLAM!

We heard her march upstairs and slam one of the bedroom door shut.

Something tells me she'll be in there for a bit.

~☆☆☆~

Marek sat down in one of the seats in the front room, nervously keeping an eye on Yamin, who was clenching her teeth and sweating. We put a cold towel over her forehead to keep her temperature down.

"Sorry about Indena. She's a lot nicer than she acts," I said.

"I figured it was better to just let her be," Marek said. "Meeting anger with anger never helps."

Very wise words. Keeping that in mind when around Indena was probably going to prevent some major fights.

So, what happened to you guys before you got here?" I asked.

He was giving me a few very conflicted looks, shaking his head.

"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you."

I probably had a lot weirder stories to tell then he did. So I'd keep an open mind.

"Shoot," I said.

"The town we came from, Verrenvill, it was destroyed by demons."

"Demons?" I sat on the edge of my seat. His story felt way too real with what we went through last night. "We had to deal with a demon yesterday!"

Could it have been a coincidence? I wonder...

"Sacré bleu..." he fell back in his seat. His face wrinkled with stress and fright. "What is this world coming to? It must be the End Times..."

"The End Times...?"

I didn't like the sound of that.

"It's said that in the End Times, demons will rule over the world, covering it with darkness forever." He pointed to the shield necklace that Yamin had around her neck. "Those stars on her necklace represent the eight angels that will protect us when that happens."

Seven stars surrounded the big blue one in the middle. Clearly one was a bit more pronounced than the others.

"Why is one of them so bright?" I asked.

"You don't know?" His brow raised. "You've heard of the Eighth Star of God, yes?"

Thinking about it, I knew shockingly little at all about the being I worshiped. But it seemed like this was the time to get a little more knowledge.

"I haven't heard of it." I shook my head.

He just stared at me in disbelief.

"Yamin...she would know how to explain this better...I think," Marek sighed. "This is what I get for skipping church, isn't it?" he said, gazing at the ceiling with remorse.

"Is the Eighth Star supposed to be someone really special?" I asked.

A woman's voice answered, saying "He's supposed to be our saviour."

It was Yamin!

She was now sitting up on her sleeping bag, holding her head like she had a really bad migraine.

"Madame..." Marek moved quickly to comfort her. "Please, don't overwork yourself."

Yamin smiled at him, trying to hid the pain, but the twitches in her eyes showed her struggle.

"Don't worry about me, Marek. Thank you." She said, politely. "I hope I didn't scare any of you when I spoke up."

She didn't scare me at all. If anything, I was happy to see she was alright, and curious to know more about this Eighth Star.

I stood to my feet and kneeled down next to Yamin.

"Can you tell me more about that?" I asked.

She was about to continue, but suddenly her eyes gazed at me in awe.

"Sa...Saint Pireel?"

"Who?" My head tilted. "No. My name's Yalda."

"Oh..." Yamin let out a nervous laugh, grasping her necklace and holding tightly over her heart. "Sorry. For a second there, I thought you were a guardian angel. Funny, huh?"

Everyone thinks I'm an angel...everyone! What's the deal with that? Wait till they see my wings.

"A-anyways..." Yamin continued. "The Eighth Star of God is the one who will defeat the devil and bring in an era of light for the rest of eternity. The faithful will be rewarded with that paradise, and those who were evil will be sent to Hell and destroyed by the Eighth Star's judgment, along with the devil and all other enemies of Heaven."

Woah. This angel, he must be a huge deal then.

Marek added something to her statement. "Nobodies sure when it will happen, but everyone on the planet knows the prophecy. If demons are appearing everywhere, then..."

...then it might have actually been the beginning of the end.

My hands were a little shaky just thinking about it. I just got to the surface world, and suddenly demons were starting to take it over? Talk about rotten luck.

"Well, don't get too worried yet." Yamin shook her head. "Demons aren't exactly anything new, but the Eighth Star will appear near the end too. And so far, I don't think that's happened."

She claimed that when the angel appears, he'll bring with him thunderous lighting and tremendous explosions that will be heard across the world. A giant dragon will attack him, but he'll easily fight it off.

If the necklace that Yamin wore represented that religion and the Eight Stars, I wondered what about it made Indena mad earlier.

"Yamin, is there any reason why someone would be upset with your religion?"

"There’s a lot of reasons," Yamin nodded. "For starters, some people are just evil. They want the world to get worse, and they'll help the devil any way they can to make it that way."

I'm not sure that's Indena’s reason, but speaking of her...

"Oh, is that what you think we want?" Indena was listening in from the top of the stairs. She had a nasty scowl on her face. "It's either we follow some outdated books that always seem to say the end is right around the corner, or we must be working with Satan...is that it? Then we all burn in hell like the garbage we were."

Yamin struggled to make eye contact with Indena, opting to face forward from where she was sitting instead.

"It's not like that," she had a really meek voice. "T-the goal isn't to punish bad people, b..but to protect everyone from evil." She stuttered a few times.

"Huh, protect us?" Indena laughed. "We'll see about that." Indena walked down the stairs, then hovered over Yamin. "Oi...listen up...you try hurting anyone here, I'll serve your ass up as monster dinner so fast you won't even have time to say grace."

"Indena!" I screamed. That was uncalled for!

But Yamin just continued to timidly stare forward with a sad look on her face.

"I won't hurt anyone, I promise."

"Damn right you won't."

I shoved Indena away from Yamin, then gave her a mean look.

"What's your deal?!" Indena shouted at me.

"Stop being such a jerk!"

Indena let out a growl and lifted her hand to slap me, but held her hand back.

"No. You shut up and act like a little kid!"

"Don't tell me to shut up! You shut up!"

I was so mad at her that I swung open the front door and stormed outside! Indena was just such a big, dumb, stupid, idiot, jerk face times a million! Gahhh!