The bracelet on my hand was hanging down a little. I hope this won't cause any problems.

- Point the bracelet at your prey and squeeze the bracelet with your other hand. After this, it will begin to absorb matter. This is all. You can go.

As soon as he found out that I was not a true devil, he immediately returned to his former gloomy and slightly angry appearance. Damn hypocrite...

But I will have to endure, he is too valuable for me. Immediately, without uttering a word to him, I walked up the steps to the exit of the cave.

No longer in such a hurry to get rid of Friral in my hand, I allowed myself to examine the eagle totem closer and more closely.

It was made from the same red stone as the local mountains. There were no stitches or glues on it. This entire structure was made of solid stone. The height of the structure reached one and a half kilometers, and the width was about thirty meters in diameter. It is not surprising that the structure stands out very well among other mountains. Painstaking long work. When I return, I'll have to ask Kagor a little about this. There was no smell of vegetation in the area. At most, a couple of tufts of some strange yellow grass on small areas of soil between the rocks.

There's not much to see here, so I decided to run into that cave with the dismantled Bared. The speed taken from Friral is a really useful skill. If I were in an RPG right now, this skill would level up the fastest since I'll be using it so often. This time, instead of just running, I decided to push myself a little and run at least a little, but faster. However, it was difficult to sharply cut into second gear. Running is one of my weak points. At one time, when I was still at home, when there were no tasks, I preferred to spend my leisure time reading books, listening to music, watching films and TV series. Sometimes I devoted myself to playing the didgeridoo. I did all this only if I didn't fall asleep. I did almost no physical activity.

With great effort I still achieved greater speed. If I continue like this, then soon I will be able to reach the speed of that grasshopper, and perhaps even become faster? The main thing is that his instinct doesn't wake up in me, and I don't start whistling while running... By the way, I already ran through the place of our battle with Friral, where my black puddle of blood, which had not yet evaporated, still flaunted on the sand. I wonder if there is no sun here and the core does not heat, then how could this puddle evaporate?

Finally, having reached the cave and entered it, I activated the bracelet as directed by the artisan. Bared's remains suddenly turned white, changed their state of aggregation to liquid, then to gaseous, after which they were sucked into the bracelet. Four of the five "rubies" became white, and the last fifth only changed its shade to pink. As I understand it, this is something like a fullness indicator. This means that the weight of this beast was about 4.5 tons, without taking into account the huge loss of blood and a couple of organs during the death. There's nothing else to do here, so I'll probably go back. (https://imgur.com/a/1H55olO)

***

Some time later I was already entering the Kagor's cave. Hmm, I'll also have to ask him about the lanterns on the walls.

When I entered the main hall, Cahors was already doing something else, namely, sewing a bag from the leather of the runner I had brought. The bag was shaped like a lady's, the handle was woven from...wings? This thing can also fly? Given its low weight, this is quite possible. And it would be very sad if it decided to fly into the air.

- Oh, you're already back! You were fast. Even delivery demons don't work that fast.

- Delivery demons?

- I'll tell you later. Did you bring it?

- Yes, I brought it, but you didn't tell me how to pull it out.

- There is a latch inside the bracelet, move it and the bracelet will release all the accumulated contents.

- Where should I...

- Oh, put it all in that empty corner over there, that's where I put new materials. There seems to be enough space, come on !

I went to the place indicated by Kagor and laid out the materials.

After this was done, I looked at the master. His face took on an expression of surprise and genuine interest.

- I didn't expect you to bring such a large specimen!

- What do you mean by large? What is their standard size, if it's not a secret?

- Well, usually, all the Bareds with whom I worked reached a maximum of two or two and a half meters...

Apparently, fortune doesn't really like me...The crafter immediately ran to the pile of...um...valuable materials and began to rummage through it, like cordyceps in the ant's brain. His arms were painted black up to the elbows. I didn't squeeze blood out of anything.

- Maybe it was worth getting rid of the blood?

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

- In no case ! Blood can be donated to important persons, and for this I will receive a substantial sum.

At least he's honest about his thoughts.

- I wanted to ask, can you tell me a little about some local things while you're rummaging around here?

- Yes, of course, what did you want to ask?

- I became interested in your lanterns, how they work and how and when your eagle totem was built.

- With flashlights everything is simple. The material is glass made from local sand. They work using a light source created and maintained by me.

- How is it ?

- What is ZF do you know?

- Let's suppose.

- ZF can be used not only in the form of a nulling field, but also in the form of other phenomena. For example, I converted it into small light sources. Even though they are small, after a couple of days of continuous operation they still go out, so they need to be updated regularly.

- Okay, I understand how the lanterns work, but what about the totem?

- Oh, that's a whole story. Will you listen?

- Only if it's not very long.

- Hundreds of thousands of cycles ago, two tribes of demons existed in this place: Oriya and Umbra. The former valued power and strength, while the latter valued freedom. Yes, the concepts are different, but surprisingly, they agreed on their views on life and coexisted peacefully on the same territory. There were even cases of marriage between members of different tribes.

After some time, both tribes decided to create a monument for their descendants as a edification and made a joint decision to make it from the mountain that was located between their sites and resembled the shape of a stalagmite. For many cycles they hollowed out a straight column from the mountain, on which they painted the history of their clans before coming to these lands and how warm their meeting was afterwards and how long-lasting their friendship would be. And at the top they hollowed out a creature from the "world of Aral" - an eagle, which symbolized both strengh and freedom in the sky. And in order to increase their significance, they made the eagle two pairs of paws and six wings, three on each side.

- Well, how long-lasting was their friendship and why then does the eagle have five wings?

- Do not interrupt ! In general, five generations after the completion of the totem, the leader of Oriya had a son, and the leader of Umbra had a daughter. The Umbra leader raised his daughter to be a diligent, decent girl. And the leader of Oriya did not care about his son at all, as a result, his son did not care about the traditions of decency of his clan and began to measure everything exclusively through strength and power, although the ancestors valued this quality most of all, they also valued honor, which the son did not possess. As a result, he developed an excessive ego, assembled a gang of disciples of his faith in strength, and also collected a harem of girls from his tribe. After some time, to replenish his harem, he decided to ask Umbra for the leader's daughter, but he refused to the son. The son took this as an insult and, during the night half of the cycle, ordered one of his retinue to fly onto the eagle and tear off one of its wings from the side of the Umbra residence. In the morning, the leader of Umbra came to Oriya and said that this was the highest degree of disrespect for the deeds of the ancestors and said that the son must repair the statue, but the leader of Oriya replied that he was not going to control his son and he was free to do what he wanted. These were the words that caused the conflict between tribes, which escalated into a war that destroyed them both. So, because of one fool, two tribes died, and the eagle remained standing with five wings.

Quite a sad story. Um, no, it seemed. But one thing is important here: IT. WAS. LONG. I expected to hear a short story in the spirit of: "There was a demon, he came, made a totem and left, that's the end," but not a whole lecture. And it's not clear why, but I was drawn into this story. Either the story itself was interesting, or Kagor told it very interestingly in his hoarse voice. In any case, I'm pleased.

- I checked the materials you brought and they turned out to be of fairly high quality, quite fresh, thank you.

- I won't be satisfied with gratitude. I expect a return favor from you.

- I got you. And what do you want?

-Can you create weapons from the human world?

- In principle, yes, but why do you need it?

- None of your business. We work only on the principle of "you do for me, I do for you", okay?

- If that's what you want, then okay, what exactly interests you?

Great, now I can get an upgrade to my arsenal. What do I need? As I have already noticed, the creatures here mainly attack melee. This means that long-range weapons are not much needed. Rather, I need something powerful for short distances, and preferably not too slow in its operation.

- Shotgun. AA-12. Can you?

- Maybe. One moment.

Cahors threw his head back and fell into a kind of trance state. A little scary, to be honest. About a minute later Kagor regained his composure.

- Yes, I can, but I have no idea where I can get gunpowder.

- Gunpowder for cartridges is not needed. Just make the shotgun. By the way, what did you just do?

- Are you talking about my connection with the core?

- Explain, please.

- It is known that the cores between worlds are interconnected and through them it is possible to transmit and receive various information about the world. I just connected through the hell's core to the Aral's core and obtained the necessary information about your weapon.

- Can everyone connect to the core?

- In hell, heaven, purgatory - all are local inhabitants, but souls cannot. But for some reason very few people come from the "world of the Aral", it's not clear why...

-Who came in?

- Well... I didn't remember them much, but I know two of them well: William Shakespeare and Dante Alighieri. These two were too aggressive in exploring our worlds.

Now it's clear where they got such a wild imagination. And something else important: not all people are allowed to see other worlds.

- Okay, I'll go and take care of your gun. In the meantime, lie down on that bed and rest.

- Got it, Danke schön.

I went to the bed he pointed to. I didn't see anything outstanding. It was a wide wooden board, attached with nails and chains to the wall, on which the hair of some animal was laid out. But I must say, it looked quite good... like for the Stone Age... I lay down and immediately felt the incredible softness and warmth of this skin and began to gradually lose consciousness.

So this is how the local sleep system works...