“Have you cooled your head off yet?” Phisola asked.
“How about we make an agreement?”
“Oh?”
“You stop being violent towards me, start treating me like an actual person instead of treating me like an animal, and in turn, I’ll pretend nothing happened. We did start on the wrong foot, but the circumstances were far from ideal. I believe there will be far fewer misunderstandings now that we can talk to each other.”
“Hmm …” she mused while squatting to get in his face again, “You don’t understand, kid. I’m treating you the way you deserve. You’ve been nothing but a blabbering idiot so far, but if you start acting like a responsible adult instead of being a naïve child, then I’ll change my behavior accordingly. You’re nothing but a burden now, but if you prove yourself useful, then not only will I be more lenient with you, but I will also give you some praise.”
“How can I prove myself useful?”
“Ok, that’s a good start,” she nodded in satisfaction, “But we’ve already established that all your skills are useless here.”
“I could learn a new one. I don’t mind learning from my betters.”
“Hmm … good. Although, there isn’t much that I can teach you. You said your world has no magic, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, there are no mages in your world. Correct?”
“True.”
“Well, if you’re not a mage, I can’t teach you much.”
“You’re a mage?” Eric’s eyes widened a little bit.
“And not just any mage. But you’ll learn more about it later. I can teach you some barbaric things though, like how to catch prey and what to do with it. At least you can speed up the process.”
“What process?”
“The one I’m about to show you. Come on, roll onto your stomach,” she said while grabbing a high-quality knife, a far cry from the rudimentary stone knife Eric had made for himself, “Roll over so I can cut your bindings.”
“That’s some good knife you got there,” he said while rolling on his stomach, “Did you have it with you when you were teleported here?”
“No, I got it from one of the adventurers.”
“Ah … that makes sense. Did you trade something for it?”
“No. I killed the fucker and took it.”
“Oh …”
“I did tell you there are adventurers in this dungeon. If there’s anything we need, we can get it from them. Oh, but I forgot.”
“What?”
She gently hit the top of his head with her hand: “That doesn’t count for you, doesn’t it? If you’d run into an adventurer, you’d end up dead.”
“If I ever see an adventurer, I’ll try reasoning with them.”
“Haha! Damn, you’re dumb!”
“What? Why wouldn’t I? They’re people like me.”
“Don’t you know anything about the adventurers?”
“My … knowledge of them is limited. There are no adventurers in my world.”
“Oh, really? You people are too cowardly to risk your life for a lifetime of fortune? That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
“No, it’s that there are no dungeons in our world. I mean, there are some dungeons, but none of them have riches inside.”
“None of the gods came up with the idea?”
“There are no gods at all.”
Even though he couldn’t see her since she was behind his back, he knew his words hit her hard because she had stopped cutting the bindings.
“I mean, there are gods here, but not in my world,” Eric continued, “I didn’t mean that the gods don’t exist at all. I meant that they don’t exist in my world. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, offensive, or unpleasant in any way.”
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“This world of yours …”
“Yes?”
“… what makes you think there are no gods in it?”
“We have never seen anything divine. There was never an occurrence that couldn’t be explained with reason and logic. Sure, some things did appear divine at first glance, but after some investigation, we’d always realize everything was perfectly logical.”
“Then how did life come to be in your world?”
“By pure chance. And it wasn’t created instantly, it took billions of years.”
“What is a bilijn?”
“Do you know what a million is?”
“No.”
“You know what a thousand is, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“A thousand times a thousand is a million. A thousand times a million is a billion.”
“So, a thousand, times thousand, times thousand is a billion.”
“Yes. In short, that’s a lot of time. Ouch! Why did you smack me in the head?”
“Don’t you dare act superior with me!”
“I’m just trying to explain math, that’s all! And it’s not the real number that’s important. What is important is that it took a lot, and I mean a lot of time, for life to come into existence in my world. It wasn’t just created on someone’s whim.”
“Then how did it come to be?”
“By pure chance. Some chemical elements reacted with each other, that … Ouch! Stop it!”
“You’re talking in words I don’t understand.”
“Then ask me to explain it! You don’t have to hit me in the head!”
“I didn’t hit you! That was just a strong pat.”
“Still, it hurts like hell! You’ve clubbed my head not so long ago, so even the smallest touch hurts! If I say something you don’t understand, just ask! It’s not like we’re in a rush.”
“What elements reacted with each other?”
“Chemical elements. You don’t know what chemical means?”
“No.”
“It is … hmm … that potion you made, that was alchemy, right?”
“Yes.”
“Chemistry is an advanced form of alchemy. Imagine getting the same results but without the magic. Imagine drawing the power not from the magical essence of an ingredient but from its basic essence instead.”
“But you said your people only know how to make peasant medicine. I’d expect you to create an elixir of immortality if you could do that.”
“That’s because we didn’t really focus our research on medicine that much. We focused it on destruction instead.”
“Ha! Hahaha!” She let out a hearty laugh, “You? Your people? Your people have focused on destruction instead of medicine? Hahaha! Don’t make me laugh!”
“You think that because I’m a diplomat, but you’d change your mind if you’d see our soldiers. They have flaming arrows that can shatter a stone wall into tiny bits. Besides, why do you think I can afford to be this naïve? It’s because our soldiers are doing such a good job that the rest of us don’t even have to think about our safety, let alone worry about it.”
“Hmm … are you trying to tell me you are coming from a conquering empire?”
“Not really a conquering empire, but we do wage wars all over our world. It’s just that we aren’t interested in keeping the territory and ruling over the people there. We’re more interested in profits.”
“So, you’re like raiders?”
“Not … really. We don’t pillage.”
“Then what profits are to be found? Are you taking slaves?”
“ … I never thought I’d be agreeing with Francisco on anything, but you could say so. We aren’t taking them forcibly, though! We just destabilize a certain region, and then the people living there come to us of their own free will.”
“And now I know you’re full of shit. If you’re going to lie about something, then you have to make your story coherent. There is no such a thing as people coming to be your slaves on their own.”
“It’s not … it’s not really like that … it’s very complicated …”
“Yeah, it’s very complicated. A lie has to be simple if you want it to work. Otherwise, you’ll just sound like a complete idiot. Ok, you people aren’t warriors, that much is obvious. But who is Francisco?”
“A guy I know. A colleague. Not in the strict sense of a word, but we’re working together. Or at least were.”
“Anyway, back to the real subject. I must admit, it takes some serious balls to say that gods don’t exist. Aren’t you worried your gods will be furious with you if you ever go back?”
“There’s no divine intervention whatsoever in our world, and no divine being has ever communicated with us.”
“Certainly, there must be some records of it in your myths.”
“Well, that’s the thing. In our world, the word myth is used to describe something that’s believed to be true even though it’s false. Shure, some people believe that a god is real. There are also hundreds of religions. But no story has ever been proven true, and no holy book has ever stood up to scrutiny.”
“Oh? Stand up to scrutiny?”
“If an all-powerful being writes a holy book, shouldn’t it be able to stand up to any kind of scrutiny? What kind of god would write a story with plot holes in it? So far, no human religion has managed to come up with a convincing story. But hey, that’s just me. Billions of humans do put their faith in those religions.”
“Bilijns?”
“I’ve just taught you what a billion is.”
“Thousand, times thousand, times thousand.”
“Yes.”
“How do you feed all those people?”
“The honest answer is, we don’t. A good portion of humans are starving. The rest of us just pretend it’s not happening and go on with our lives.”
“That sounds quite cruel.”
“Yeah … look who’s talking.”
“If your people are starving, why don’t you give them a purpose? Let’s say send them to war. At least you’ll reduce the number of mouths you need to feed.”
“My people aren’t starving, we’re talking about the human race in general. And what you’re talking about was the case until my people decided to put a stop to it. We became a kind of world police, punishing the nations who start wars.”
“Ah, I see!” An understanding smile formed on Phisola’s lips, “That actually makes sense! That’s very smart! You’re making sure overpopulated nations stay burdened, causing them even more misery while robbing them of their only way out! You’re getting rid of competition before it can even get a chance! That’s very smart!”
“Not really. We have food relief programs, giving food to poverty-stricken nations to help them.”
“Oh, that’s even better!” Her smile grew wider, “You’re making sure they’re dependent on you! And they’ll get lazy and complacent in the process! You may not be warriors, but what you’ve just said makes perfect sense. I have my doubts about you, but it looks like your leaders know what they’re doing. Were you taking part in any of that, mister diplomat? Were you making sure poor and overpopulated nations stay poor and overpopulated so your people can be on top?”
“No, I … I wasn’t … why did you stop cutting the ropes? Can’t you get it done already?”
“I was having some second thoughts for a moment. Some of the things you said got me worried, but now I know I was just paranoid. Here, let’s get it over with.”