After leaving Belle to rest and recover, Ed returned to Zara’s apartment for a while as he waited for Buddie to get back to him.

Zara wasn’t around, so he had filled in the time by reading the encyclopedia Urdhuri had given him.

There was a lot of information in there, more than he would be able to read in a lifetime. He would probably have to be a god if he wanted to finish reading it. So instead he just read the book to satiate his curiosity from time to time.

Like by finding out what it said about humans.

He didn’t know who first created humans, but luckily the book could follow his thoughts and take him to the page he wanted, otherwise it would have been impossible to find.

“Humans exist in several realities, and are one of the more common forms of intelligent life. While not the strongest or most capable species out there, they are remarkably adaptable, and have thus flourished in several places.

However, they are overly curious with a penchant for exploration and conquest. This has resulted in them being wiped out of existence in several realities after starting wars with species far beyond their capabilities.”

That’s not surprising.

The book went on, detailing more information about them, a lot of which went along with Ed’s own understanding.

By the time he finished reading, he heard the front door opening behind him, and felt a gust of wind as Zara’s wings sliced through the air.

She appeared in front of him in an instant, healing at the ready as she scanned his body up and down for any signs of injury. The glow in her hands petered out as she realised that he was fine. She dropped down onto the couch next to him happily.

“I thought you’d be gone for longer?” she asked.

“It was fairly short. We probably only spent half an hour before we died,” he explained, going on to tell her exactly what happened.

She sighed and leant back into the couch. “If I had known that I would have come back earlier.”

“It’s fine, I still had work to do. What did you end up doing while I was gone?” he asked.

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“I ran into Kieran while I was out shopping and we chatted for a bit. I also bought you some new clothes, go and try them on so I can see how it looks on you,” she said.

Ed’s heart was filled with warmth, and he immediately went to try everything on. She had bought him a few different things: some nice button ups, a pair of jeans, and some dress pants.

She had him try on everything in all the different combinations, and was satisfied with how everything looked. After the impromptu modelling session, Buddie called them back to the office.

They sat down at their desks and watched their traps play out.

Zara was a bit bored watching Ed’s, but she agreed that Ed had made the right call by making it so easy. What Oli did wasn’t too bad, and since the young man didn’t get too hurt, she felt it was right to let Oli off easily.

She relaxed into her chair as their screens faded to black and turned to Ed. “Do you need to check on them?”

Ed sighed and got out of his seat, reluctant to leave now that he had a chance to be with her. “Yeah, it’s probably for the best. I’ll see you back at the apartment once I’m done.”

Waving goodbye, he walked through the door and stood in the hallway outside their rooms again. I’ll give Belle a little more time to rest.

Ed checked up on the others first. Everything was going well, and it didn’t seem like there would be any issues with them making it past the internship, especially since the company was wanting to rapidly expand in this universe.

It made Ed wonder just how many people the company had taken from Earth during this period. He knew that it wasn’t a lot last time when he was hired, considering his department only hired him and Zara.

He figured that they had probably only taken upwards of a hundred people last time across all of the departments. But now he couldn’t guess how many people were taken. It was probably tens to hundreds of times more.

I wonder if there are other planets with intelligent life that they’re hiring from? At this rate, there’s no way Earth would be able to sustain their desire for growth.

Ed shoved these thoughts to the back of his mind as he opened the door to Belle’s room.

It seemed that him opening the door had disturbed her sleep, as she began to rouse the moment he stepped through the door.

She looked around in confusion and pain, clutching at her chest as she felt a searing phantom pain.

Ed let her acclimate to the feeling on her own so that it would fade away naturally. Seeing that she had started to calm down, he walked over to her and sat down. “How are you feeling?”

As he asked this, he turned a small part of his body into threads so that he could get a fuller picture of her current condition. While he wasn’t as knowledgeable and experienced at this as Zara was, he still had a rough idea of what to look out for.

Everything looked fine physically from what he could see, and at most she would have to deal with some lingering pain for a while.

The main problem he could see was that her soul was a bit weak. It looked like a flickering candle in the wind. Like it could be blown out at any moment.

It would probably take her a while to recover from the damage, but the company was there making sure that she didn’t die.

It took her a moment to refocus as she let out a pained laugh. “I feel like shit.”