The Insider System

Chapter 400: The Deal Pt.36

A little over an hour after he'd taken the armor, Lake arrived back at the Alchemist Guild leaving him with just over three hours until the sun was down. Even as he was walking into Lucas' office, Lake couldn't help but think he had wasted this time since he hadn't used it, but he quickly remembered he and Lucas would be going out again tomorrow to look for journals so he wouldn't have to wait long to get more stuff.

"Hello, Lucas." Lake planned to have a serious conversation with the guild leader, so he patiently waited till the man was able to look up from his work to continue. "Good job getting back in time."

"Thank you. I've found a way to track down high-level items using a few of my skills combined. Would the guild be willing to buy anything I get that doesn't really suit me?" Lake planned to lay the groundwork for Lucas to play along tomorrow now so that he wouldn't have a problem with them making a few stops that had nothing to do with the journals tomorrow.

"Yes, if you bring them to me or our blacksmiths the guild will give you a good price, and don't worry about their origins. We have people that can cover up whether something was stolen or not." Lake wasn't too surprised to hear this because he knew Lucas dealt with the Thieves Guild pretty often, but he wished he had known this sooner because being tracked through the items he took was always one of his biggest fears.

"In that case, is there anything you want me to go after for you? I'll need a name. Oh, could you get me a really detailed map?" Lake could probably use any map, but a good one would make it a lot easier for him to know where he was whenever he was using it while running using the things he passed.

"I could, but they sell nice ones at the Adventurers guild for just a couple of gold, so I would suggest going there to get one the next time you go out. Also, I'll get a list of things I've heard stories of over the years ready for tomorrow when we go out."

After Lucas said this he went back to work, which Lake took to mean the man wanted to get as much work done as possible so they would have more time tomorrow, so he left him to it and headed for the library. Lake had a few hours before he would be going out onto his balcony to watch whatever was going to happen tonight, so spending some time adding stuff to his list would help pass the time.

Entering a different library than he had used when making the list, Lake used Detector to find books that cataloged items over level forty and was excited when he found a few books the other library didn't have.

Using Detector to look for pages that held information on items that weren't on his list, Lake saw most of the book started to glow and took it to a table to get to work adding more stuff to his list even though he knew a lot of the stuff in this book was probably stuff he already passed on.

Now that he knew that the guild took stolen things, putting everything he could that was at least level forty made sense gold-wise. Now that he had gone around putting lots of new things into Inner Vault and still hadn't received another mission he was starting to think gathering gold again could be what he needed to do, and like this, he could do both things at once.

...

Donny had been washed and forced into new clothes, but that was all over now, and he had just been lying on the floor in silence for over an hour trying to stay awake. Whatever had happened to his body when the Demon Lord had told him to relax still hadn't worn off, and if he was being honest this was the best he had ever felt physically in his whole life.

This was making it extremely hard for him to stay awake, and if it wasn't for the thoughts that were running through his head, he didn't think he would have made it through the bath, even with how creepy it had been to feel hands you couldn't see scrubbing you clean.

Honestly, it was probably for the best that he couldn't see it because there was no doubt in his mind that whatever it had been had five hands, and he didn't see two and a half people being the ones who had cleaned him. It was much more likely that it had been one of the flesh creatures he had heard about from stories of what the Dark Domain was like.

"Sorry to leave you waiting for so long." Hearing the voice return, Donny stopped letting his mind wander the darkness around him and did his best to ignore the voice and what it said. "Please respond from now on. Talking to people without a voice is a waste of my time."

"Ok." Feeling words force themselves out of his mouth Donny wondered if there was a single thing the Demon Lord couldn't force him to do with a single sentence. "Alright, now that I have time to actually speak to you I wanted to explain what's going to happen to you in advance just to make it a bit easier on everyone involved."

"I'm listening." Once again, Donny was forced to say something when the Demon Lord finished talking which made him mad, and he decided to try as much as he could stay silent on the next one. "So in about two hours I'll be meeting all the gods I've signed treaties with so far to fulfill the first part of our deal, and that's the part you'll be involved with."

Donny was a bit happy to hear that whatever he was going to be used for involved other gods because he had trust in their character, but he had no idea how much control they had over what they had signed, so it was still to be seen if this was a rational response. "So what is it exactly that you need to tell me?"

"So I'm sure everyone's noticed over the last hundred years or so that fighting the gods takes a lot of time, and all I really want is to ascend as soon as possible, so to make that happen I've found a way to make that happen by having Demigods other than me use principles from Unholy magic and you'll be the Demigod that does that for Metal. You're free to come up with the name, but you have to make a deal with me that will guarantee your future element will include the corruption principle."

Donny tried to stop himself, but eventually, he felt his head start to nod, and knowing he had already failed in not answering he let the words come out of his mouth. "Alright, how do we make the deal?" Right after he said this the first light he had seen in days lit up the room he was in, and Donny saw that there was a table with a piece of paper on it in front of him.

"I'm sure you already know about contracts. Write your name, and you'll be off to the God of Metal for your training to become his next subordinate Demigod." Like every other time he had been told what to do by the Demon Lord Donny's body instantly started to walk to the table to sign and while he knew there was no way for him to stop it from happening he used the time he had before the light went away to read as much of the contract as possible.

His speed reading wasn't the best, but the gist was that he had to use principles from all three of his affinities in his future element and that he wasn't allowed to ever tell anyone what he and the Demon Lord ever spoke about now or in the future. There was an entire section after these two parts that he didn't get to read, but he had finished writing his full name in just a couple of seconds, and the paper rolled up into a sealed scroll so he would never get to know what it said unless the Demon Lord wanted to tell him.

"Go ahead and take that to the God of Metal. I'm sure you'll have to show it to him so that he'll stop questioning you for information that you don't have." Donny hadn't been expecting to get to keep the contract but did as he was told and picked it up because he didn't have a choice. "Alright. Now all that's left is for you to be handed to the God of Metal."