“Now, now!” Bo’guth quickly exclaimed.

But I wasn’t going to bother with him anymore. I tossed the armor on the ground and turned around. Seeing me do that, Bo’guth hastily stood from the desk, which caused Nicole to nearly jump up and cower on the ground, but since I was still here, she simply faltered slightly.

Bo’guth didn’t care about her anymore, however, and picked up the armor from the ground before dashing aside to stand in my way. Nicole screamed again, and this time she actually dropped to the ground while covering her head.

“You’re scaring my friend. Move aside,” I commanded as I gave him a glare.

He had a wry smile—that looked strange on his demonic face—while having a raised hand, gesturing for me to stop. “There’s no need to be angry. I’m being serious about you only having to pay one dollar for it.”

I scoffed. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe that the armor and the sword are worth less than a meal in this world.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “You are right, they’re worth much more than that.”

“Then why do you lie to me?” I asked, crossing my arms under my chest.

“I’m not lying,” he said, and I raised an eyebrow in response, but waited for him to further explain. “The deal was that I would tell you how much you’d have to pay for it, not how much they’re worth.”

“You—you—!” I was at a loss for words. This demon continued to play with me, and I wasn’t sure if I should cut him down or laugh the whole thing off.

“Don’t tell me that you’re going to back off out of the deal now? I’m sure you’ve heard how serious demons are when making deals,” he continued with a smirk, walking around me and back to his desk, where he placed the armor and clothes on the table before sitting back down. “One dollar, please.”

I turned around, almost fuming, to glare at the smirking demon and his stretched hand, as if waiting for me to place the coins on his hand. But… I shut my eyes tightly and considered Bo’guth’s words. He was right, that was the deal and I had accepted it. What’s more, it would make things clear between us regarding the use of that equipment.

I sighed and made my way to him, reaching into one of the uniform’s pockets for a few of the small art pieces people used as coins in this world.

“Here,” I said, almost punching the piece of paper into his hand.

He smiled and looked at it. “Well this is a bit too much for what I asked.”

“Hmph,” I replied and crossed my arms again. “You can keep it.”

“Good thing I have change for it!” he exclaimed, and from the side of the desk he pulled out a small leather wallet. He counted a few of the art pieces on it and placed a handful of them on the table. “Here you go, enough to go have fun with the little missy on the ground later.”

We both turned to look at Nicole, who was crouching on the ground with her eyes closed and her hands covering her head. I sighed and made my way to her. I really didn’t expect her to be this scared of demons.

“Come on,” I said, as I crouched in front of her and placed my hands on her shoulders, causing her to jolt slightly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

She slowly opened her eyes to look around, but in the distance between us, I was the only thing she could see. “I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay,” I replied while softly smiling, “I understand. He’s quite terrifying, but as long as I’m here, nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“No, I know that nothing’s going to happen to me, even without you being here,” she replied with a wry smile.

“What?” I asked, yet again confused.

“Most people know that demons aren’t really all evil, but…” she trailed off and leaned to the side to look behind me. “I still can’t help but be scared when I see them.”

Bo’guth laughed out loud again. I turned to look at him, but he just crossed his arms and nodded. “I understand, little missy. No offense taken.”

“S-sorry, and… thank you,” Nicole said with a forced smile. “I just didn’t expect someone so big to suddenly move like that.”

There was more laughter from the demon. “I had to move fast. You see, your friend here—Althea—she’s a really serious and scary woman, so I couldn’t let her go just like that. She could come back later and cut my head off, after all!”

There was a moment of silence where Nicole simply looked at me with widened eyes as she blinked several times. “Y-you would?”

I stood up and helped the girl up as well before turning to look at Bo’guth. “Perhaps.”

“E-eh!?” she exclaimed and Bo’guth chuckled while shaking his head.

I walked to the desk once again to grab the armor while Bo’guth kept smiling.

“You know,” he said after a moment. “This world was full of humans when we got here. And curiously enough, almost all of them were wary of me and my kind as well, most of them going as far as trying to kill us just the same.”

“Is that so?” I replied, stuffing the armor back into a bag.

Judging by the way people had been acting towards him, I would’ve said that the people of this world didn’t see demons any differently than they did with each other.

“How did that change?” I asked after making sure that everything was well packet.

“Ohhh hohoho,” he replied with a grave expression. “We had to work really hard for a while to not get blown to pieces. Thankfully, the elves and beastkin were on our side, and since they are somehow easier on the eyes of the people of this world, things were able to be smoothed out…” he paused for a moment to look at Nicole. “Mostly.”

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“Hmm…” I considered what he said. “It seems like there’s plenty of things that I don’t know.”

He raised an eyebrow, or at least I think he did, since this demon didn’t have eyebrows. “Yeah… I’m amazed about how little you know about anything in this world… it’s like you weren’t living under a rock, but rather, you were sleeping under it.”

I couldn’t help but put on a regretful smile. “I guess that might be the case…”

Bo’guth responded with a surprised expression. “It seems like I’ve learned a lot today…”

“Hm?” I replied while tilting my head.

But Bo’guth didn’t elaborate on what he learned as he shook his head. “Nevermind.” He looked straight at me again with a smile. “Anything else I can do for you today?”

I pondered again while looking outside the window. “I shall be coming to the Tainted Land again.”

“Yes, of course. I can see that you still need money. However, I won’t be coming with you anymore, at least, not for the foreseeable future,” he said with a wry smile, “You know, my cute little wife gave me a really fiery hornful from the other time. It took a lot of pampering for her to calm down again, and I even had to recruit the help of our little spawn of darkness.”

“Spawn of darkness…?” I asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“Yeah, our little daughter. She looks just like a devil. Want to look at her? Here let me show you!” he excitedly answered while reaching for his large phone.

I quickly lifted my hand, since I didn’t want nor needed to see a small demon. “It’s okay, I don’t—”

“Look at her!” he said before I could even tell him to stop.

On his large phone I saw a portrait of the demoness, who carried a motherly smile while in between her arms was a small… demon child… who I guessed was his daughter. She looked like a mix of the two of them, with Bo’guth skin color and large horns, and the human-like features of the demoness. The only difference being that the child's eyes were just as red as Bo’guth’s and her mouth opened four ways to reveal a set of pointy black teeth.

“What a doll, right?” he said with a bright smile.

I looked momentarily at the drawing before slowly looking up at Bo’guth. I felt compelled to tell him that his daughter was horrifying, but seeing the smile on his face I decided not to provoke him. “…Right…”

“Bah!” he exclaimed. “I know that you don’t agree with me.”

“S-s-she’s very pretty, h-hehe,” Nicole said, and I was surprised to see that she made her way here.

“Of course she is!” Bo’guth loudly proclaimed, “See? Your friend gets it.”

“I think she just said that because she’s afra—”

“Her name’s Milraneth, and the beautiful lady holding her is Igladith,” Bo’guth interrupted me, ignoring completely what I had to say before he looked at Nicole. “What is your name, by the way?”

“N-Nicole Lain,” she said with a waverly tone of voice.

“And I’m Bo’guth Azid, Executive Director of this here Magic Red Zone, the Capital Magic Labyrinth; but you can call me Bobby if you want,” Bo’guth replied with a wide smile. “I appreciate you going out of your way to meet me, despite how scary it might be.”

“Y-yes, I’ve always wanted to meet p-people from the other world, even if they s-scary, hehe,” Nicole replied with the same scared tone.

“That is very commendable, little missy,” Bo’guth said before look at me up and down.

“What?” I asked since it felt weird to be looked at like that by a demon.

“Judging by the uniform, it seems like you’re friends from the Institute, right?” he asked as he looked over Nicole as well. “Are you also planning on going into the Labyrinth?”

Nicole’s eyes widened before quickly shaking her head and looking down somewhat dispirited. “No… I don’t have the power to join yet.”

“‘Don't have the power’, huh,” he replied and gave me a thoughtful look.

“What is it now?” I asked yet again, since he was likely thinking something bad about me.

“Nothing. It seems like you have changed a lot,” he explained with a smile.

I considered his words for a moment, and I was feeling tempted to deny it, but realizing the situation I was in right now as I had a ‘normal’ conversation with a demon, I had to agree that I had indeed changed. “I guess I have…”

He smiled for a moment while looking at me, and after a few seconds, the large phone on his desk started vibrating. “Oh, it seems like I have to get back to work already… Argh, I didn’t even get to finish my sandwiches.”

“Then I guess that we should leave as well.”

“Hold on,” Bo’guth said before I could turn around. “Before you go, I think we should exchange phone numbers—just in case.”

The idea of having easy access to be contacted by a demon didn’t feel too good for me, but not having to come see him in person if I ever wanted to know things about the weapon and armor, or the Tainted Land was better. “Okay.”

He quickly wrote my phone number, while I slowly navigated the artifact that I had. Thankfully, Nicole was with me, and she was able to speed it up for me, so writing Bo’guth’s contact information went just as smooth as sending him a message to confirm that it had been properly done.

“And that’s that. Feel free to ask me anything or drop by! I’d be happy to share another one of my wife’s sandwiches with you,” he said with a bright smile while gently tapping the colorful box that contained them.

“I think I’m fine,” I replied before turning to look at Nicole. “Let's go.”

“W-wait,” she said and I looked at her with surprise, since I didn’t think she would have any business here. “C-can I have your number too?”

Bo’guth was even more surprised than I was, but it lasted only for a moment before he burst out in laughter, nodding as he did. “Of course, little missy!”

They also exchanged numbers and I saw Bo’guth’s bright smile as Nicole wrote the numbers. I had my questions about Nicole’s motives, but I decided not to say anything. Once they were done, Bo’guth phone vibrated again, and he sighed.

“No more time to waste, it seems…” he dejectedly said before smiling back to us. “Thanks for dropping by.”

I responded with a dismissive nod, before turning around to leave.

“I-it was good to meet you,” Nicole replied before also turning to leave with me.

As we left the room and closed the door, we could hear the demon’s loud laughter once more. I had curiosity about what he was laughing about, but all I saw was his back as he held the phone in one hand, close to his face, and looked out the window.

I didn’t know what he was doing, but being a demon, I wouldn’t really understand how they would act, so I decided to ignore it and close the door. Once I did, I heard Nicole heavily sigh next to me while placing a hand over her chest.

“Are you okay? You didn’t have to force yourself to do this if you were scared,” I asked, softly placing a hand on her back.

She quickly shook her head with a soft smile on her face. “No. I wanted to do this. Demons and their kind of people have always been scary for me ever since they appeared in this world. The stories that I would hear from them were always about how evil they were, and to be honest, it doesn’t help that they also look scary.”

I nodded along. “Yes, that is true. I was always told the same thing about them.”

“Really?” Nicole said with raised eyebrows as she looked at me. “You didn’t seem to be scared at all.”

“I’m not. Never was. But I used to react much more… violently…” I confessed while remembering all the fights and battlefields where I faced hordes of beings of all shapes and sizes that looked like Bo’guth.

“What changed?”

I paused for a moment to consider what to say, since among the many things that changed, the ones that stood out the most was that the Holy Gods weren’t the beings I thought they were—just like Salrak, Bo’guth, and the world itself. And… from everything that’s happened, I guess that that would apply to me as well.

“Everything.”