We gave ourselves up with no struggle since our entire group was too tired to keep fighting properly and were led to what was presumably the guild headquarters of the ‘Scarlet Emporium’. Their symbol felt oddly oversimplified. It was as if they created a mediaeval guild flag with all the complicated imagery and then oversimplified it into a marketable and recognizable logo.

We were led inside the building and walked right past the lady at the front desk, and past the many people shuffling papers around and searching manual databases. The second and third floor were more of the same administrative offices. We finally stopped at the fourth floor that felt sterile. Every surface was polished, the rug was unnaturally smooth and fluffy, and it was eerily quiet.

“You’ll all be interrogated at once by the herald of commerce whenever we get a hold of him so just sit down and don’t try anything funny.” Said one of the knights. Most of the battalion was gone, with only the captain and two other knights staying behind. We all sat down after they ordered us to and I looked over to Christian who was still carrying the sleeping body of the demoness.

“Are you sure she’s gonna be satisfied from the battle and won’t just attack us the moment she wakes up?” Sam told me.

“I’m sure. Even if she isn’t, we can trick her into helping us and basically joining the party.” The captain looked up and stopped reading whatever book he was reading and put it back into his cape pocket.

“You think you can have a demon princess join your party?” I nodded. “Of course you do. You haven’t actually talked to any new world people have you?” The captain said.

“I have, trust me. If reincarnators know how to do one thing, it’s how to talk.” My mention of reincarnators caught the captain off guard. A random adventurer, no matter how powerful, was not meant to know about reincarnators. Even if they did, they wouldn’t just casually mention them.

“Excuse me? Well, I guess we are new world people, but we don’t actively acknowledge that. Look, all you need to know is that demons are evil incarnate, and that demon is the daughter of the demon lord of pain. If the king of the world wasn’t on this planet, she would’ve been a world ending threat.” I mean, he wasn’t wrong. The nato remnants could’ve probably done something about her considering they nearly killed me twice, but everyone else would’ve been toast.

“We beat her once, so we can do it again.” The captain actually facepalmed. Why did all these reincarnated people have to act so goofy? Has anyone actually facepalmed before?

“Are you serious? Demon lords literally rule over entire universes. These aren’t the knock offs in your media. The fact that you beat the daughter of one of them ONCE doesn’t mean anything. She’ll just wake up with more knowledge on how you defeated her and adapt to beat you next time.” She didn’t seem all that evil to me. She just wanted to have fun, and fighting was fun.

“Are you in charge of who gets to join my party?” He sighs and goes back to reading.

“I’ll have to request a transfer to another world before I go insane. First all the weird ideologies, then our allies are a bunch of weirdos who can’t fit in armour or teens who barely survived their first dungeon. It’s what I get for coming to a frontier world.” So… some reincarnators go here on their own and don’t just appear after dying? Neat. We continued to do nothing while we waited until a portal opened up much to the nano-chatte’s delight and to Anna’s confusion. Another man wearing a more expensive version of the salesman’s outfit walked through the portal and looked at us.

“Could you four go into the interrogation room? Don’t worry, it’ll just be a nice chat, I promise.” He looked us up and down before I got up along with everyone else. We walked in, then the guards and captain followed, and finally the herald. The room was pitch black with no windows and only had a desk, one comfortable chair, and a bunch of cheap wooden ones.

“So I guess technology is only allowed for the rich now.” I said as the herald laughed and sat down.

“I guess so. Now, what happened and why did you sabotage one of my many businesses?” The herald said. At least he was honest.

“This group of scoundrels stole–” The captain tried talking before portals surrounded him to stop the sound. After a couple seconds, the portals disappeared.

“I asked them to talk. I don’t need another self righteous prick trying to get others in trouble. I believe I have been kind to these individuals, and that my kindness will have me rewarded with an accurate description of events. Is that understood, captain?” The captain grumbled. “Is that understood, captain?” The herald emphasised it more the second time, expecting a reply.

“Yes, herald. I understand.” The herald nodded and looked at me.

“We saw you were selling slaves and were about to ignore it for the time being before your employee annoyed us to the point where we had to free them just to make him shut up. Along with freeing everyone else, we also freed the demon princess of pain and had to fight her to knock her unconscious, which resulted in a lot of property damage.” The herald kept nodding as he took out a small notebook from his pocket. He wrote something down and looked back up.

“Now. We just so happened to get a leak from a bunch of refugees that travelled here saying that a couple adventurers that looked exactly like you four arrived in town and cleared the dungeon before fighting off the Golden Guild’s knights. Now, don’t call me a detective or something, but I’ve got a hunch that you four are those adventurers, which leaves us with two options. Option one, you pay off all the damage you caused, excluding the cost of the slaves. Option two, you join us for three months which should be just enough time to pay off everything. You will be given accommodations, constant missions, and be allowed to keep approximately half of your loot in value. Do we have deal gentlemen and gentlewoman?” I immediately put my hand on Anna’s shoulder and looked at her. She seemed to get the message and let me decide. I knew she didn’t want to join a guild, but I didn’t wanna be on the run or in massive debt.

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“We’ll join if you actually calculate the amount of property damage instead of estimating the amount of money we need to pay off.” I said, knowing his estimates were likely to be on the high end. The herald chuckled and wrote something else in his notebook.

“Clever boy. You start work tomorrow. Here’s your cards. Any business that we own will be obligated to serve you for free if you show them it.” He slid five cards forward with the original, unsimplified version of the guild’s symbol on it. I tossed them at everyone except Sam, who I gently gave it to because he didn’t seem like someone who could catch anything. There was also the demon princess, but I kept her card for now.

We walked out right as the captain looked like he was starting to explode after not seeing us punished, and the herald not caring about the demon princess. Speaking of which, I suddenly got an intense feeling of paranoia, so she should be waking up soon. We walked down street to street searching for a tavern to stay at, and my paranoia turned out to be correct before we found one.

“Robot!” She flew out of Christians arms and fell on me. I managed to keep myself standing but threw her off before she’d start doing something stupid. “Where are we?”

“In the same city you almost destroyed. We’re looking for a tavern to stay at.” She scratched her head after I said that.

“Why? Do robots also need to sleep like the inferior races?” I knew what she meant, but her saying that did throw me off guard. I was going along with her calling me a robot because I was sure she didn’t have a high view of humans from her classification of us.

“No, but they’re humans so they have to sleep.” I pointed to my party members. “What’re you gonna do now that you’re free?” She stared at me and then squinted her eyes in thought.

“I’ll probably go visit dad after I give you a slave crest.” My eyes widened as she said that.

“I’ll have to stop you right there. You are not putting anything on him.” Thank god for Christian always being there to defend me.

“And why not? He’s so neat.” She ran at me and bearhugged me before starting to walk away. I ordered the nano-chatte to make me a liquid so I’d slip out, and then turned back to normal again. “Hey! Come back in my arms.” She walked at me only to be stopped Christian who blocked her with one arm.

“Look, girl. How about you help us first, and then you do what you want with Ian.” Said Anna, to which the demoness scowled.

“Since when were you in charge of what he does?” The demoness said.

“I owe her one for making her join a guild.” I couldn’t tell her directly that Anna was blackmailing me so that explanation would have to do.

“Wait a minute. You said you were already owned by someone when we fought. It must be her! Where’s her symbol?” She picked me up, turning me around like I was nothing and eventually threw me away with a frustrated growl after not finding anything. “Fine! I’ll help you, but after that he’s coming with me.” We all nodded, knowing that after she helps us pay off our debt, we’d be levelled out of our minds, and be able to fight her off easily.

“Can we go find a tavern now?” Sam said in a exasperated tone

“Demon lord!” The planet shook as a tiny imp flew past the many palace decorations and right to the demon lord sitting on his throne while watching something on his floating display. The imp finally made it to the demon lord of pain’s throne-room and kneeled before him. “Demon lord! We have gotten news from the Scarlet Emporium.”

“And why should I care what my enemy has to tell me?” The demon lord flung the display away and looked down at the imp.

“They say your daughter has been freed!” The imp said back.

“Do they think that will reverse my bad will towards them?” Red lightning struck the ground far away in a ominous way that all lightning on a demon world was required to.

“T-The battle report of the battle that freed her speaks of a human who fought with her on relatively even ground that she wanted to keep.” The demon raised his eyebrow and tightened his grasp so hard on his throne arm handles that they broke before he calmed down.

“Imp. You have no idea how much that piece of news has made me want to act like an overprotective father, but she can probably figure it out. Send a message to the Scarlet Emperium. They shall spy on him, and if he so much as dares to make my precious daughter uncomfortable, I’ll go past all the flimsy defences they can put around that world and personally strike him down.” The imp nodded frantically before running off. “And now I have to replace this throne. It was nice and comfortable too. What a waste.”