When I woke up, I had this intense feeling of dread. It was as if I had just woken up from a nightmare, but I slept totally normally tonight.

Oh, you’re awake. Luca’s voice sounded a little malicious. You were sleeping so tight and I didn’t want to disturb you, so I decided to take control of your body while you slept.

Let’s just say you don’t need to worry about any blood sacrifice for a while.

I moved my tongue around my mouth, and I was greeted by the iron-filled taste I knew so well.

‘Oh, what the hell man? Did you drink an entire cow’s worth of blood?’ I spat into a cup which was standing on the table. Yep, blood.

Luca didn’t answer me.

I shook my head and went over to the counter of the inn. “Good morning, Anders.” Billy said.

“Good morning.” I stood there in thought for a few moments. “Do you need anything... Done around here? I’d be willing to do pretty much anything for some cash.”

I didn’t have anything specific in mind I wanted to buy, but I really wanted to get a room so I could actually sleep on a decent bed.

“Sure, we get bounties posted every so often on the board over there.” Billy pointed toward a billboard on the far side of the inn. “It might also be a good idea for you to check out the marketplace. Those guys always need stuff doing.”

I nodded my thanks and went over to the bounty board.

Anders, Anders. Do you really think a demon such as myself can’t strike a deal? I can make coins appear out of thin air. Don’t bother with this bounty nonsense.

Well, that’s useful information to know. ‘Well regardless, I think we should still go visit the marketplace Billy spoke of. I have a good feeling about that place.’

Sure, whatever floats your boat I guess.

I’d reached a water fountain, in what seemed like the center of town. Luca commented how we’d die if we took a swim. ‘Yeah sure, whatever you say.’ We could survive having a tree weighing half a ton smash into our head with not even a scratch, but water was going to be our undoing? Doubtful.

No, I'm serious! Water is my only weakness!

I decided to test this out for myself and stuck my pinky into the water. Luca retracted his demon energy from my entire right hand in response. Dude! Not cool!

I snickered a little. ‘Oh, is the big scary demon scared of a little water?’ I cupped my hand and scooped some of the fluid into my hand. I then slurped it into my mouth, gurgling it.

Ah, close but no cigar. As long as the fluid is inside your body, I'm unaffected.

I tilted my head in curiosity before spitting it onto my left arm. Luca was too slow to react, and the water began literally tearing a hole in my arm.

AAH! FUCK! WHAT DID I TELL YOU? IT FUCKING HURTS!!!

Okay, this actually hurt like hell. I manned up, and instead of screaming in pain like my body demanded me to, I closed my eyes. Before long, the fluid had passed entirely through my arm. I opened my eyes, looking at my arm. The water had left my arm looking like Swiss cheese.

ALLRIGHT. PROMISE ME YOU NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.

‘I swear on all that is holy, and unholy for that matter, I thought you were joking.’

A single tear rolled down my cheek.

Oh, boo hoo. Your arm will be back to normal within the hour. Besides, you brought this upon yourself.

He was right, I only had myself to blame. I sucked it up.

After spending some time at the water fountain coping, I finally got my head back together and began looking around for any signs, or other indications of where the marketplace might be. My clothes had also regenerated so at least I wouldn't look like a freak walking around with weird holes in my arm.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

(Oh, right. I forgot to mention, you might remember from book 1 that they don’t speak English in this world. Luckily for Anders, Luca translates the incoming words to English and projects it into his mind. How does Luca know how to translate English? Uhm. Plot, I guess. Deal with it.)

Ah, there is a sign. I walked up toward it.

Left pointed toward ‘Billy’s’. Was his inn important enough to get its name on the town square sign?

Straight forward was labeled as ‘Harbor’.

The sign pointing behind me had the inscription ‘City entrance’ on it.

Finally, the right sign was labeled with ‘marketplace’. I looked down the right path. It was still just filled to the brim with the same identical houses everywhere, but I guessed the road might turn further up ahead or something.

I began walking down the cobblestone road. There were a lot of people around, especially walking up and down the right path.

I tried my best to act inconspicuous, but my height and clothing made me stand out like a sore thumb. Regardless, I moved forward.

Look at all these wandering bags of blood... it makes me want to-

‘No.’

Jeez, party pooper much. I was only joking, I'm still full from tonight.

Remembering the iron taste I had on my mouth when I woke up made me gag, but I shrugged it off.

After walking down the road for a while, the crowd had begun to grow extremely dense to the point I couldn’t even see the ground anymore.

Not long after, I felt a ton of smells hit my nose. It was a mixture of every flavor imaginable, all hitting my nostrils at once. Damn I'm hungry.

Point and choose my friend, price is not an issue.

My mouth began watering as I moved around to the various stalls grabbing one of everything from every stall. Luca kept me fed with coins, which he had me do this goofy newbie magician’s trick to make it seem less suspicious.

‘Dude, I think coins just appearing in my palm would attract less attention than this.’

Shut up, you look fabulous!

After raiding each and every stall in the market, I sat down at a table in the middle of the market. The crowd was a lot less dense here, to my relief.

I looked hungrily over all the dishes. This would be the mukbang to rule them all.

I started devouring all the dishes left, right and center. Before long, only one remained.

It looked like a slice of chocolate cake, and it smelled goddamn perfect. The only thing that was suspicious about it was some blue flakes spread out on top of the cake, but I shrugged it off as being simple decoration. I devoured the cake.

Moments later, I forcibly coughed up the blue pieces again.

Uh, whatever that is, you definitely don’t want it inside you. You’re damn lucky I'm here to detect poisons, because whatever it is, it would have killed you.

Ack. Okay then.

I better go check out the stall I got the cake at, then.

I wandered around the market going from stall to stall, before my eyes landed upon something... Utterly strange. Two men were sitting behind one of the stalls, arguing like fresh hell. If I didn’t know any better, I'd say the two were 8 years old mentally.

It was a mighty strange view. Looking down from the two men, I noticed the same cake I'd eaten was sitting upon their stall.

I didn’t want to seem rude, but I had to investigate the mysterious poisonous cake they had.

“Excuse me?” I spoke.

The two men quit arguing for a moment and one of the two faced me. “Yes?”

“This cake you’re selling is poisonous.” I pointed to the flakes strewn on top of the cake.

The two men looked at each other, before the other man spoke up. “That isn’t poison my friend.” He leant in closer. “It’s meth.”

… Meth?

How did these two guys have meth in the year 900?

“Yeah dude, it totally rocks. You should try it.” The other man said. He looked... Regular. There is no other way to describe him, he’s just so ordinary it was almost baffling.

I shrugged my head.

These two seemed very out of place. They talked like someone from 2023 would, and they apparently knew how to make meth.

Maybe these two were also transported back in time like I was?

“Meth? Like... Methamphetamine?”

“Yeah, Meth. You know all you really need to make it is a glass vial, a fire and a lot of free time.” The person speaking was a very muscular Colombian. “Name’s David.” he stretched out a hand toward me.

“Jesse.” The other man spoke, stretching out his hand.

I took both their hands, shaking them. “Anders.”

“You know, you seem like a capable guy, Anders. What do you say you help us... Gather some ingredients? We pay well.”

I mean, I didn’t need money because I have Luca, but I wouldn’t say no to discovering more about this world’s different locations. I wanted to learn as much about this world as I could.

“Sure, I'll tag along.”

Jesse and David had begun describing the route we were going to take to get to the cave with the supplies.

Hm, a few of my followers have that cave claimed as territory. When we get there, I'll draw my symbol on the outside of the cave wall.

‘Okay, what does that do?’

Sacrifices their souls directly to hell.

Oh. Okay then.

“So, tell me something about yourselves.” I figured as we were probably going to be traveling for a while, I should get to know these two folks a little better.

David and jesse whispered something to each other before David turned his head to face me. “Well, I'm a drug cartel boss. Jesse here, well. He’s good at talking. Not much else.” Jesse hit David on the head. “Fuck you man, I can do stuff!”

“Like for example...?” David smirked back at him.

The two began bickering like small children. I shook my head, and turned my attention toward the road we were walking on.

We were in the thicket of the forest now; we could only see about three meters into the forest at most. The trees were basically forming a gigantic wooden wall around us.

Well, if we ever need to get out, I could always just burn it all down.

I mean, he wasn’t wrong. Still, it kind of came out of the blue.

Did he know something I didn’t?

Suddenly, a tree beside me fell toward me. I lifted my hand up to grab it, stopping its fall easily before rebounding it toward whence it came.

I heard a shocked gasp followed by a crunching noise.

Oh shit. I didn’t mean to throw it that hard.

I pushed the three away, and I almost gagged at what I saw. A vaguely human figure was smooshed against the tree bark, with most of its insides now being outsides.

Jesus christ.

“What happened?” jesse asked. “David said he was going to pull a prank on you.”

Oh no.