“Hey! Earth to robot. You there?” The demoness shaked me back into reality as I was zoning out. We had destroyed every tower other than the main one in Seoul, and retreated back into its sister city to recuperate. While the nano-chatte could fix my exhausted body, it couldn’t fix my exhausted mind, so I needed some actual rest.

“Oh. What’s up?” I said after focusing on the scene in front of me. The entire tavern was tense from the moment we arrived, and the waiter in front of us was paralysed in fear.

“Don’t humans have blood cocktails?” Oh, it all makes sense now. The demoness probably asked for one, and then got angrier and angrier as the waiter kept saying that it’s not on the menu.

“Aren’t bloody mary’s basically just blood cocktails? Like, sure, they don’t have literal blood in them, but humans don’t drink blood.” I said. Anna crossed her arms and looked at the demoness with a scowl.

“See? Everyone agrees with me. Just shut up and order something already. The poor woman has already had to suffer your tantrum.” Said Anna before the demoness’s grip on the table broke off a bit of wood.

“Fine! I’ll just go somewhere else! Who needs–” I interrupted the demoness before she could drag me away.

“No. We’re staying here. I’ll make you a blood cocktail after the staff leave.” She pouted before sitting back down.

“Don’t treat me like a child.” I sighed at her comment and sent a chunk of the nano-chatte out to fix the table.

“I’m not. If they won’t do it, I will. That’s what friends do.” I said to reassure her. I really didn’t consider her to be a child, or even child-like in her thought pattern. I could respect the simple dedication to combat, and the stubbornness that made her never shake in adversity. Everything was a challenge to her. Not a threat, but a challenge. “Why do you want a cocktail anyway? You’re immune to alcohol.” I said while the waiter quickly took everyone else's orders.

“I like the pain from drinking it. It’s kinda just spicy for me. I don’t get drunk or have hangovers, so that’s the only thing left.” I never thought I would meet someone who liked the taste of alcohol before her, but it tracked. She was very masochistic, and what’s more masochistic than drinking alcohol for its taste.

“Is masochism a family thing or is it a you thing?” Asked Christian.

“Family. My dad is the same, but thinks he’s fancier in his pain. It’s like… I like bad plays. The ones so bad that they’re hilarious and embarrassing at the same time. He likes mediocre stuff. Stuff so mediocre that it’s mind numbingly boring. It’s still painful to watch, but in a different way than pure unfiltered pain.” Who could’ve guessed that masochism was a spectrum.

“Of course. You demons always do demented stuff just to get your fix.” Said Sam. I was pretty sure it was just his bias speaking, as I knew plenty of people who enjoyed painfully average or even boring movies, and humans also had masochistic tendencies, even the ones that weren’t masochists directly.

“Why are you always so hostile towards her? I get that the Revifier is kinda like god–” I was interrupted by Sam the moment I said ‘kinda’. I could barely be heard after his assertion.

“She is god.” She is a god, but not the god.

“Does the Revifier brainwash you into forgetting about the Coming Quiet?” Sam’s expression instantly shifted between shock at me mentioning him, to seriousness at the topic I’ve chosen to make the tavern talk about.

“He’s the anti-god. A being with great power that is anything but devine. He doesn’t create. Demons are still creations of the Revifier, however evil they may be.” Said Sam.

“Yea. Hate to agree with the twink on anything, but the Coming Quiet is worse than the worst person you know times one hundred.” Anna and Christian had no idea what we were talking about, so it fell to me to explain it.

“The Coming Quiet is like Satan if Satan had the same amount of power as god. And Satan is the Coming Quiet if it wasn’t a god and was only there to trick people into following it.” I said, finally explaining everything and finally letting Christian and Anna participate in the godly discussions.

“Why would the Revifier create demons if she’s like god?” Said Christian. He probably had a second question hidden just behind it. I didn’t doubt for a second that there wasn’t a shred of curiosity in his mind.

“Well… uhm… she… I don’t know? It was probably a failed attempt to make the angels.” Said Sam.

“Gods don’t fail.” Said Christian, waiting for the demonesses answer.

“Yea, she did it on purpose. We’re the strongest things she’s ever created, and the only thing that’s keeping the Coming Quiet from destroying everything.” Said the demoness.

“Gods don’t need help. They’re gods. They can do anything.”

“Why do the dirty work yourself?” Said the demoness

“If they’re both gods, the Coming Quiet could just annihilate all demons without a thought.” The demoness and Sam stayed quiet while Christian waited for the obvious conclusion to set in for the both of them.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“I don’t get it. Why create them then?” Said Sam, much to Christian’s disappointment.

“Since he’s not spelling it out for you two buffoons, here’s what he’s trying to tell you. She’s playing angels and demons off each other. She probably just wanted to create angels, but they got complacent, so she ‘accidentally’ created demons to keep them on their toes.” Christian shrugged at Anna’s extra clarification. He likely didn’t plan on explaining the Revifier’s plan in such detail.

“W-What? But angels are perfect.” Said Sam.

“Gods are perfect, angels aren’t.” Said Christian.

“Even that’s debatable. The Revifier could just… will them to not get complacent. She’s god!” Christian scoffed with the proper emotions associated with a scoff for the first time after the demoness said that. I could likely guess by his name that he already faced plenty of similar arguments from atheists to discredit whatever religion he subscribed to. The idea of ‘why doesn’t god just make evil impossible if he’s all powerful’ was always being shared around, despite it being a relatively bad attack on theism.

“Free will. Even gods have principles.” I finally felt like getting involved after Christian said that.

“She’s omnipotent. She can make them do what she wants and make them have free will at the same time.” I said.

“That’s a paradox.” Christian said back, getting a little heated from the argument. It really proved that his devotion to whatever higher power he believed in was strong if even a being that was metaphorically associated with it was worth defending in his eyes.

“Who cares? She’s omnipotent. She can do anything. She can make it make sense. She can alter reality so it’s not a paradox.” Anna, who barely butted in before, finally got involved herself after I said that.

“Can we talk about literally anything else? The twenty-tens are calling, they want their atheism debates back.” I slumped back into my seat before feeling a hand on my shoulder.

“Is it okay if I sit down? I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Said the herald. He most likely teleported here a second ago. We had completed our mission, so he’d probably come by to congratulate us.

“Feel free to do anything. We’re under your employment.” The herald took a seat after I gave him my permission to. He was wearing a different suit this time, opting for a classic light brown coat over a shirt. It really seemed like he was taking this whole thing a lot more casually.

“Well? How do you feel? You just destroyed all of Korea. Isn’t that neat?” His wording stung, but it wasn’t wrong. Korea was completely irrelevant after this. We basically reset it to ground zero even as Japan and China kept snowballing. They would get crushed if the Scarlet Emporium didn’t send their forces to secure the area, and even then it was debatable if they could keep it.

“You ordered us to do it. The least you could do is talk respectfully about it.” Said Anna.

“Apologies. I simply thought you wouldn’t mind the… unusual descriptors I use.” I slammed a hand on the desk before coughing into the other.

“Now then. I’ve got one promise you need to keep.” The herald nodded slowly, giving me the go ahead. “I need to keep employing every guild employee in this city. I promised that the front desk secretary wouldn’t be fired, so I’d appreciate it if you pulled some strings and made her stay employed. She should be relatively useful if she was already hired once.”

“Yea, and she’s like… hella hot.” Said the demoness.

“She is?” I tilted my head towards the demon princess before the herald cleared his throat.

“Why of course! We can keep her on. We need some good press after the slaught–” He stopped himself before saying ‘slaughter’. “My apologies. After your destined mission.”

“What do you really want? You can’t just be here to congratulate us. I know a salesman’s face when I see it.” Said Christian. The two men stared at each other before the herald got up.

“I’m not selling you anything. I’m just here to tell you about your next mission. You see, the Scarlet Emporium has just acquired Poland, but Ukraine is proving too stubborn. They have refused our deals to buy them out, so we need you to go over there and… convince them.” I could feel Anna’s aura cover the entire area as her veins popped out in anger.

“No.” Said Anna.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. We’re not invading Ukraine. My family–” She quickly got silenced by an array of portals that surrounded her.

“Ignore her. Your mission is a lot more important than family. Ukraine holds the biggest pile of blessed soil in the world, and we need it badly. We can’t afford a sovereign state or a russian warlord to take it over and hold the world hostage. This frontier world is of great interest to us, so make sure to not disappoint me by starting your losing streak in Ukraine.” The herald quickly teleported away after finishing and unsummoned the portals around Anna.

“You have to be kidding me.”