"So." Wade gestured at Eri, who straightened his spine and squared his shoulders like a bodyguard waiting for introduction. "This is Eri LE-10. He's dead."

  Bael tried his best not to say a word, focusing on marching to the signpost.

  The pair that screamed danger to his senses followed behind, chatting with each other about what Bael feared would complicate his rather simple and honest living.

  "Well, duh, we can all see that." Medy said. "What exactly is he?"

  "Right, I'm getting to that part. What I mean is that he's really dead. Not undead-dead. Just dead-dead who happens to be walking around."

  "That's what undead means Wade."

  Bael reached the signpost, then grabbed the compass, quickly orienting where they should be going. He remembered the last direction, but certainty was far more important than saving an extra minute and marching into the wrong direction. Measure twice, cut once.

  The mortal behind him continued to babble nonsense for now.

  "No, see, undead implies necromancy according to this world, right?"

  According to this world? Bael felt like there was something real strange about the wording here. It wouldn't matter what parallel realm they were standing in, the rules of magic and spellcraft were the same in every realm.

  Wade nodded, making sure Medy was following. "Well, the thing is: I don't know anything about necromancy. I'm not even controlling him at all. "

  "What?" Bael coughed, then shook his head furiously. "Nevermind, forget I spoke."

  If Wade could grin like the cheshire cat, he would have.

  Eri clicked his jaws behind his employer, equally looking forward to the chaos.

  And Bael decided Wade was outright lying about this right now. Mortals could and would cheat contracts unless they were binding in other ways. They weren't demons or subject to the same rules he was. That's what Bael decided was going on, because the alternative was insane to think about.

  "So who's controlling him then?" Medy asked, easily thinking about the insane with little trouble and far more curiosity.

  The skeleton tapped his ribcage a few times, insistent.

  "Yeah, what he said." Wade nodded along. "Eri is his own man."

  Bael rolled his eyes, but focused on getting the compass to give them a heading again. Someone had to get things done around here.

  Faster they started making their way to Zakka, the faster he'd get away from all this nonsense before it complicated his life.

  Because some deep instinct inside him was screaming that it absolutely would.

  "But, uh, I'm still not really following?" Medy flinched a moment later as if worried about some imaginary threat. "Sorry, sorry! I'm really not trying to be stupid, I'm just not getting it yet? How is the skeleton controlling himself?"

  "You're not stupid. He's speaking insanity." Bael grunted, shaking the compass a few times, willing it to orient itself faster. On the third rap of his knuckles, the needle broke free and began spinning correctly.

  "Hey, you're both free to take it up with Eri directly." Wade shrugged. "How he works isn't something I got the faintest idea about, and I don't think he does either." Wade gave him a look.

  Eri clicked his jaw affirmative.

  A thought crossed Wade's mind: Was it time to tell them it was all the work of an eldritch entity beyond the power limits of the universe, basically?

  …

  Naw. Not yet.

  He needed more build up to that first. Feed the fire a little more. "Looks like he says he doesn't know how he works either." He said instead, waiting like a crocodile in the watering hole.

  Soon. They'd start to ask more and more questions.

  "Er, could I… take a closer look at him?" Medy asked, inching nearer to the metaphorical watering hole.

  Eri gave a few happy jaw clicks. Medy gave him a strange look, then glanced back at Wade as if asking for permission.

  Wade shrugged. "Eri's a paid employee, you can ask him directly."

  Paid in musical instruments, hats, and an IOU on a wrapper. But that part went unsaid.

  Wade had a much better speech for what was said instead: "Here at Wade Industries, we take pride in our employee first culture. It's a great place to work at, right Eri?"

  Eri gave his boss a thumbs up.

  He was having the time of his life so far. Killing golems, squashing blackrotten bugs, saving his boss's ass a few dozen times, exploring strange new worlds and seeing exotic lifeforms. The perks were excellent, and so was the work-life balance.

  "Wade Industries." Bael deadpanned. "You're scheming something."

  "He said he was a businessman." Medy shrugged. "Maybe he's trying to recruit us? I don't see why else there's so much greed radiating off him right now."

  She was also confused how it was back so soon after she'd eaten it all. Most emotions like that wouldn't resurface until the mortal went to sleep, and their brain reset.

  Bael gave Wade one glance.

  Wade smiled back innocently.

  "I don't know what's got you all so defensive here, I'm only offering excellent opportunities. Maybe you'll change your mind soon enough."

  That sounded more ominous than welcoming.

  Medy gave a nod, clearly untroubled by all of this. "I am really curious about what makes this skeleton work, if you don't actually know yourself. Could I run a few tests?"

  Wade gestured at the skeleton a second time, smiling like a car salesman who'd just hooked a customer.

  "Oh. Oh, right, uh, sorry." She turned to the skeleton next. "Eri? May I try to identify a few things going on within your bones?"

  He gave a jaw click and the demonic version of a shrug. Go for it.

  Bael huffed, letting the compass drop back down on its chain. "Investigate the skeleton quickly, and then let it handle the duties to keep the roadway clear. You can check if the mortal's lying or not once we're at Zakka and safe. I'll be picking the first street direction the other way, and walking away."

  Preferably a lot faster than most people would describe walking. Something about Wade was putting Bael on edge, and he was already suspecting some incredibly insane ideas.

  Like Wade not being a mortal human at all, but rather the avatar of something far more primordial than gods. Or a construct that came from the ancient civilizations, gifted life in such a perfect manner even his senses were getting fooled. Whatever Wade was, a human was very low on the possibility right now.

  He started marching directly for Zakka, hearing the rest of the party move behind him again. Best not think of monsters, least he summon them here directly.

  Unlike Medy, who would likely love to summon said monsters so long as she was curious enough.

  This area was still cleared by the skeleton earlier, before Medy started harassing it. Soon they'd hit new ground in the hike and at that point Bael would punt the skeleton ahead of them all regardless of Medy's personal curiosity right now.

  The direction was the opposite from the dead fused colony, which was a blessing because Medy would probably never stop asking questions about that in specific.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Killing blackrotten beasts that had too much mass was on a completely different level than simply cutting off their heads. They generally had to be burned to oblivion, but this human might have found a way to simply eradicate blackrot itself within the veins of the monster.

  Bael had his bets it had to do with some other relics the human might have been holding onto inside that strange backpack of his, now carried by the skeleton ahead.

  Medy did separately confirm emotions that weren't rage or feral screeching on the inside. The curiosity and happiness was apparent from the skeleton, and the bones were indeed consistent with what they'd find on decaying skeletons in the world. So Bael wasn't delusional in his original thoughts on that.

  "Wait, if he's not controlled by necromancy, does that mean he's... just a feral spirit left completely unchecked?" Medy asked, head tilted. "Or… uh, not feral? How's the even possible?"

  She'd spent the last five minutes rapidly talking to herself, going through a hundred theories as the group walked. Neither Bael, nor Wade, had even seen a chance to say a word in.

  "Eri's Eri." Wade gave another helpless shrug, debating when the best moment would be to drop the bomb. "He's mostly been a good sport. Obsessed with hats, music, and a few other things. Bit of a smartass, honestly."

  The skeleton shot Wade a betrayed look from far ahead. It was quite interesting how a featureless skull could somehow convey all of that by sheer body posture.

  "Are you seriously debating that fact?" Wade shot back.

  Eri clicked his jaw a few times, laughing.

  Then the skeleton cracked his neck, rolled his shoulder, and started advancing further ahead of the team. Continuing his current favorite job of squashing insects with blackrot within them. He'd gotten good enough he could almost tell where they were before Wade pointed them out.

  There was a certain aura about those bugs that the skeleton was growing familiar with.

  It just made running around squashing these into a smaller mini-game of finding them before Wade did.

  Eri had his own reasons for enjoying the little things like this.

  In his previous life, he'd been an older adult among the slaves, reaching twenty-nine years. Outright ancient compared to the rest of his work crew.

  Joy was rare and fleeting as a child among the Nathir slaves. As he grew, responsibility and duty forced him to grow fast. His natural skills with the blade and golem hunting set him up to be a leader. There was no other moral choice than to be one.

  Now that he was living a second time, he was determined to drag out his inner child and enjoy every last second of time he was getting.

  The world was vast, and Eri was going to run amok into every corner he could shove his skull into and under.

  "Was he recently killed?" Medy asked, hand on her chin as she walked side by side with the team. "But that wouldn't make sense! The mana in the bones he has are really dense, like the kind of dense that... How old is he? Or wait, was I imagining things?" She popped her head up from her thoughts, focusing again on the distant skeleton as if she'd get more information.

  "Oh, no. He's probably ancient." Wade shrugged, looking over to Eri. "He was a Nathir slave in his first life."

  The wording came out of Wade with such innocence, Bael almost stumbled on his next step. "He was a what?"

  "A Nathir slave." Wade answered. "Or ex-slave. Technically. He's gainfully employed and we're discussing benefits at our next HR meeting given his recent outstanding performance in fights and general handiness."

  He'd saved Wade's life multiple times now. Possibly approaching five times if Wade counted the prior round.

  Eri gave his boss a thumbs up from a distance.

  "But aren't the Nathir long dead?" Medy asked. "Why would they still have slaves at all around? Bael, was there some new cult that came out while I was stuck down here? Why the Nathir to worship even? They hardly have any ruins left, and their technology is completely sealed up. I can't think of a single reason to want them anywhere back in the world. Weren't they really weird?"

  "I dunno if there's a cult today or not," Wade answered before the Satyr could. "I haven't actually seen Azdrial in person yet, so it'll all be a surprise to me too when I finally get out of this place."

  The two demons shared a look with one another at that, trying to process how a mortal hadn't been to the mortal realm yet. Theoretically two mortals who loved each other very much and somehow stayed in a ringed city for whatever reason could potentially do it.

  But why? Mortals had no reason to live down here. It wasn't any safer than the mortal realm, and there wasn't any food growing here. Not enough land on the top of the mountains, and not enough light going through the mithril sea to make anything under here grow larger than small shrubs and grass.

  Wade kept talking in the silence while both the demons were reeling about what was going on here.

  "I picked Eri up while exploring the inside of their shelter cities. The Nathir cities I mean. You know, normal exploration."

  "A Nathir city?" Bael was now almost completely convinced Wade wasn't human, but something other and from a far older time.

  Nathir didn't have cities. All the ones on the surface were blasted into oblivion during the divine war, and all that was left of their civilization was their wargolems, traps and sealed off derelicts within caves and other remote mountains. Likely covered over by rocks and minerals over the centuries of erosion and changes to the world.

  "Yep. You know those sealed entrances that apparently are all over the world? Well, I got thrown on the inside of one. The one right here in this realm, since when I left it, the tunnel led directly out into the first circle here. Remember that mountain I met you at Bael? Up that mountain a little higher was the Nathir city I walked out from. We were about to get a boat ride out before I slipped and fell off the side of the mountain."

  Bael felt his brain frying at the thought, to the point he completely gave up on making progress walking and turned around to stare at the mortal. "What."

  Medy, on the other hand, was going through a completely different set of emotions. She'd skipped disbelief entirely, and went directly for curiosity. "Wow, you're really from a Nathir city?! Oh that explains the greatsword your skele- I mean Eri is carrying. Also his weird name too, come to think of it. Wait! Are you a Nathir?!"

  Eri clicked his jaw a few dozen times, shaking his head ahead of them.

  If Wade had been a Nathir, Eri would have killed him, cut his body into pieces, burned the pieces, and then made sure the ashes were properly mixed with extriment before being set on fire and thrown off a cliff. And since he couldn't do parts of that job himself anymore, he'd find the nearest animal instead.

  "He says no, I'm not a Nathir and neither is he. We're both human. Or at least, I'm pretty sure Eri was a human when he was alive?"

  The skeleton shot him another thumbs up.

  And Wade remembered the Nathir announcements from Lapushka did involve the word human. The Nathir version of human was a word that literally translated to 'Inferior Subspecies' but Market's blessing had translated it to 'Human.' instead.

  Wade paused. Wait, subspecies?

  "So, you were an old slave that somehow lived this long and escape- wait, are there more humans that live inside those city things??" Medy seemed to be rolling over her own mouth asking questions. "Is your race different from actual humans we know? Or was there changes over time like the sun elves? How did you survive all these years, are you an immortal human?"

  Bael remained silent. If the Nathir were involved, there might be some chance of all this being genuine. The Nathir had broken many of the fundamental rules on mana. And unlike the sun elves, the Nathir held nothing sacrosanct. Finding some way to keep a slave permanently shackled to their body and lucid enough to take orders would be something the Nathir would do without hesitation, if they could.

  But if they could do that, they'd already have won the divine war. A skeleton was the perfect vessel to both command mana, and be immune to the toxicity of it. It was the greatest state of being possible.

  "No, the city was a complete graveyard filled with patrolling golems." Wade said. "From the scraps of info my friends and I discovered, the Nathir evacuated a long while ago for whatever reason and just left everyone else behind. All the slaves and their golems. I think the slaves tried to escape from the inside, or at least looked to have lived a few years before they died off. All I found were feral skeletons all over the place."

  Wade turned to Eri, who gave a solemn nod, then tapped his Nathir greatsword a few times.

  "Oh and they were constantly fighting golems the entire time in there. Eri LE-10 was one of their leaders, and he died fighting against them."

  Which meant it certainly couldn't be some strange Nathir enchanted item that was keeping the skeleton sane. Not unless this Eri somehow broke into something more important?

  "How is he alive again." Bael asked, trying to get back into the hike and moving forward. "Actually alive. And sane. The Nathir went extinct long before even my time, even the oldest archdemons didn't exist in those days."

  "Well, well, well. Is that a question coming from you Bael? I knew you'd eventually come around to it."

  Bael tried his best not to groan. This was already so far beyond his scope and life he didn't even know what kind of bullshit he'd just been privy to.

  Medy had zero hesitation, or self-preservation instincts, and went directly for the worst question of them all:

  "Wait, come to think of it, what do you mean you were thrown inside a Nathir city? Did you run into a portal or something from their relics and turned it on?"

  "You could say I'm the portal instead?" Wade shrugged. "An eldritch entity beyond the power of the universe grabbed me from my world, and threw me into Azdrial. I'm pretty new to everything here, we don't have mana or hell where I'm from. Each night I'm getting thrown from my world into Azdrial here, and then thrown back to my world after a few hours passed. Along with anything and anyone I'm holding onto."

  This time even Medy stopped talking. Both demons were staring at him. Bael had completely given up on trying to keep walking forward, now fully stopped again, staring at Wade.

  "He… not lying is he?" Medy said.

  "This claim is so outlandish, I don't believe he is." Bael confirmed.

  "So, is he… right?"

  "Or is he mad. That's the question." Bael finished for her.

  "Well I do owe Medy some answers, and I promised I would." Wade said, tapping his chest. "And I am a man of my word deep down."

  He patted his glock. Then tapped his shirt and showed it off. Then opened up the fanny pack he had, and showed the inside nick nacks and food supplies he'd brought in with him. "You can think I'm mad if you want, but all this gear is from somewhere, right?"

  Medy and Bael slowly nodded. A madman would not have been able to build all of this for such an elaborate prank. It was too well crafted. Too… functional.

  "What, exactly, are all of these things from?" Bael asked.

  "It's all from my world. The one that doesn't have mana I mean. So we had a completely different technological path up." Wade grinned deep.

  And now for the killstroke. "Also, did I mention, there's no hell to get sucked back into if you die there? I figure you might be interested in that little tidbit the most. An entire alternate world, so far beyond Azdrial I think even the forces that bind demons back here is too far away to be a thing anymore. And like I said, I get yanked back home in a few hours. Along with everything I'm holding onto. And everyone too."

  Ah.

  Now he had their undivided attention.

  "But why believe my words about it, when I could just show you directly?" Wade shrugged. Then took out his phone, and opened up the image gallery app. "Where I'm from, they say an image is worth a thousand words. We can put that to the test right now."

  He'd had this phone for seven years now.

  That was a lot of images and videos randomly gathered over a lifetime.

  Of Earth itself.