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Falling Upwards
31. Did you see something?

31. Did you see something?

At first, I thought the Guild employee was brainwashed, but through masterfully veiled hints, he explained that the Demon King, was actually a dragon that hated technology. I mean, it was obvious, his daughter had lizard eyes. You'd expect a demon to have red irises on black whites.

I nodded to myself, congratulating myself for understanding the bear's plea for help. If I understood correctly, the lands belonging to this monster were surrounded by an impenetrable mountain wall and without science, people couldn't communicate with outsiders.

Thus, for my quest, I would need to brave the wilds to reach other nations and inform their Kings of the horrible state of things here.

"Anyway, I need to get back to work. Rest a little longer and an intern will come later to lead you to a shelter for the Transported." The bear got up and pulled a flat, rectangular stone covered in runes, from a bag laying by his feet. "Browse some internet or just relax." He tapped on the magical device and put it on the bedside table. "I set it to English, have fun."

The man walked out of the room, focused on his own tablet. "Wait... what?"

I just sat, looking at the magic-powered computer. If they had internet... what, why? Was it like a totalitarian regime and the web was censored? But why no science?

I swiftly laid the device on my knees and... which of the icons was the internet browser?  I tapped on an icon of the sun, opening a movie player. I closed the app and cycled through three other apps before the browser opened when I clicked a red eye.

It opened to a search engine called Bingle and I typed in "Dragons suck". The screen got filled with a variety of dragon porn. Right. "Dragons anti-science" resulted in a variety of articles mocking the silly customs of a couple of the Dragon Mountains. There were even some memes of cats with dragon wings running away from vacuum cleaners.

I bingled "map". After a couple of minutes, I found timetables for trains going from and to Draconis. I wasn't sure if one to seven silver coins for a ticket was expensive, but well... it seemed there were no issues with travel.

Finally, I bingled "Devil". There was a bunch of clickbait articles on evolving into a devil, various devil celebrities having affairs or looking for missing relatives. At the top of the page, was this worlds version of Wikipedia explaining the history and various mythos leading to a multitude of devil variants.

When I typed in "devil froze me" I found a post from some guy being ecstatic a celebrity froze him to the ground with some ice spell, when he asked her for an autograph in a coffee shop. I found similar results when I checked for dragons, though that time there was more post, from various people retelling their delves into dragon-treasuries, during raid events.

I put the tablet away and leaned against the wall. It was all just... so normal.

"Why dragons hate science" resulted in a whole lot of interviews with dragons from mountains banning technology. The machine translation might have been messing with the text, but it seemed to be just a fashion statement.

I got back to maps and eyes got drawn to a large section of the city, being taken up by some sort of Academy. Well, maybe the grand adventure was out for now, but a Magic Academy in another world seemed interesting.

After searching through tabs for a couple of minutes, it turned out the Academy was out too. I was a year too old.

What was a transmigrator supposed to do?

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Mister Wrinkles was the ugliest pug-like creature I've ever seen. The grey lizard, covered in brown splotches, tried to run into the street again. It was looking towards the grass on the other side of the pavement, but its legs just led it everywhere, except where it wanted to go.

I lifted the creature on a mana pane and deposited it onto the grass. Diada took up a job to take care of some spiders on the other side of the city. Tom, on the other hand, I sent with Cate and the last of our money to get some food for a week and new clothes for the quickly growing kid. So I was taking care of the abomination alone.

The pug-thing squatted to take care of its business and began making organic car noises, struggling to make it's deformed insides work.

I wasn't sure what I dreaded more. Looking at the lizard, or getting back to Miss Bogomila. The moment the old golem saw me, she went into a tirade about the modern nobility not taking proper care of their children. At the end, she gave me - to make up for my horrible parents destroying my childhood with work - candy that smelled like Mister Wrinkles looks.

At the thought of the sticky things, I trembled and felt my skin crawl. To desecrate candy like that. She should have been the devil. I bet her progenitor evolved into Satan and made her with a crowbar. Not that I'd say that to the old ladies face. She was nice.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The lizard finished its business, looked up at me, hanging out its tongue and while hiss-barking rammed it's behind on the stone wall by the grass. It continued to run its legs while pushing itself up the wall. As the distance between us wasn't closing, it's happy yelps changed into mournful moans and its legs sped up.

I carried Wrinkles back onto the pavement, and the excited pug tried to run a circle around me. It fell over and somehow continued to crawl on it's back. I observed the sixth marvel of nature for a while, until a terrible smell assaulted me.

The creatures poop was sizzling in the grass like acid. I stuffed my nose with mana and threw a couple of mana blades, to dig a hole for the chemical waste. Once it was covered in dirt I shot a small fireball at the spot, to remove the acid lingering on the now rotting grass.

That explained why there were no plants on the old ladies property. I yawned and dragged the brain-like thing behind myself. It was making happy noises, so maybe it enjoyed the backsratches such a transportation method provided. I yawned.

The street was mostly empty, so I sang about brains evolving to escape their bodies.

"I'm a free lizard now!!

 You won't catch me!!

 No, no, no..."

The pup joined in, almost matching Diadas violin skills with its voice. Maybe I'd switch with her for the next walk and slowly Mister Wrinkles would evolve under her influence into something interesting. I changed the tune, to sing about unleashing eldritch horrors. I modulated my voice, to get some throat singing, producing a second tone line whistling in accompaniment. It was fun and sounded really freaky coming from my tiny throat.

After about eleven songs I circled the neighbourhood, back to Bogumilas home. I house before it, I passed two, tall many-armed people. Between them walked a boy about my age, but thrice my size. When he saw the grey lizard, he choked and scrambled onto his father head.

The multitude of tiny arms grabbing and climbing onto the adult was quite the sight. I chuckled and nodded to the family. They only looked with disgust at the pug-thing and ignored me. 

"Of course, the devils would still breed those poor creatures," The woman scoffed once they were behind me. I shrugged, it wasn't my pup.

I opened the grey iron gate and walked onto the old ladies property. The bare ground and the iron cube of a house in the middle produced a rather dreary sight. The creature got excited and scrambled in a zigzag towards the house. I still held onto the leash, so it wouldn't bump into one of the posts at the side of the iron tiled path.

When I first came in, I was quite surprised the elderly woman didn't wear a suit of armour. Instead, the smooth, faceless golem wore a colourful and thick dress and a huge, even thicker shawl on her shoulders. It was all nicely patterned in flowers and small birds.

Mister Wrinkles slammed into the door and I hear some shuffling from inside the house. Moments later, Bogumila opened and kneeled to pick up her dearest child.

"Mommy missed her little boy," she hugged the lizard to her face then put it on her knees and withdrew a box of cookies from the many folds of her clothing. "Which good boy would like a treaty? This good boy, oh yes, this one."

I smiled and let go of the leash. "So, I suppose we will be seeing each other tomorrow?"

"Of course, Mister Wrinkles really luvs you, doesn't he? Don't you Mister Wrinkles?" She coed at the creature and rubbed its belly. The pug answered by gurgling like a broken motorcycle that got a squirrel stuck in its exhaust. "But wouldn't you like to stay for dinner? I will whip you up some good, filling roast."

"No, thank you." I bowed my head. "My maid would be quite sad if I came full and didn't eat her cooking, wouldn't she?"

"Well, alright." The woman patted herself and found a bag of candy. "At least take some snacks, to brighten up your day." Her smooth face twisted - producing screeching - into an ear to ear smile. 

I took the bag and held it in front of my face for a while. Finally, after fixing my expression behind the protection of the candies, I lowered the bag and with a smile thanked the woman.

As I turned around to leave, I got stopped by a firm hand on my right shoulder. "I almost forgot! Here is your pay." Bogumilas voice echoed from her body. I took my silver coin, smiled again and left skipping and waving to the woman.

I wondered if two silver coins, was good pay for two hours of walking a dog. Maybe it was time to learn the value of money. I threw the coins up a couple of times. Nah. Money was more fun without a set value. Cate and Tom would probably pay attention to our expenses anyway.

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Cate saddled me with four bags of clothes, while she herself held two suits I'd have to wear for various more official occasions. She packed all of the food into some bag of holding of hers, so I wasn't sure why we had to carry the clothes. 

Well, the woman seemed to enjoy the process of treating me like a doll, dressing me up in various outfits for seven hours. Maybe as a maid, she didn't have many opportunities to explore more varied outfits.

"I'm fairly certain the money Mads had, didn't cover all of this shopping. Was it really alright?" I asked. I didn't much mind spending the money my friend gave us, but I felt a bit awkward being showered in gifts by a stranger.

"Oh, of course, it is. You are a noble now, aren't you master?" Cate answered in a flat voice. "You need to properly represent yourself."

Sure, Rakshasa was an advanced race, but I didn't think I counted as a noble until I evolved into it's higher version. "That's not the point. I..." The woman interrupted me, "We must hurry master. Mistresses Mads and Diada must be starving."

I hung my head and trudged behind the maid. I'd just have to repay her in the future.

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The spiders were so tiny, barely twice my height. As soon as I gave them back to their owner, I skittered through town, back to Mads's house. The new episode of my fifth favourite show would air in half an hour and I wanted to be sat comfortably on a sofa to watch it.

I moved my screens up, for my upper eyes to view and jumped over the street. Some people made noises, but I ignored them.

I reached into the kitchen portal and found nothing within my reach. After moving my hand around a bit, I grabbed onto a piece of paper.

"It's not an adventure if you keep eating food from home. Love, "

Once I got tired of swearing in Mothers's tongue, I sighed and decided to prepare some recipes for Cate to try out.