The Insider System

Chapter 404: The Deal Pt.40

Getting to the other three people, Donny tried to ask them if they were in the same situation as him but soon realized that he couldn't get the words out no matter how many times he tried. If these were the effects of the contract he had just signed with the Demon Lord, it would take him some time to get used to it.

"I haven't seen you before. How long have you been around?" Donny guessed they couldn't talk about anything actually important, so he answered their question having completely lost the excitement he had felt about talking to other people going through the same thing he was. "Not long. I think it's only been around a day."

He wasn't aware of how much time he had been knocked out, so it was hard for him to give an accurate estimate without asking some questions first, and he didn't think they would be able to answer the types of questions he would need to ask or if he would even be able to say any of them to begin with, so letting the ones who had probably been talking for a while lead until he got used to this made sense.

"Oh wow, are you sure you haven't just been asleep or anything? I know a few of the better candidates have been kept away from the others." This was a scary prospect, but he was pretty sure the Demon Lord had just taken him a day or two ago, as this seemed to be a continuation of the situation that was happening when he was first taken. "I'm sure."

He had tried to add a bit more information on why he was sure, but he was unable to say anything about what the Demon Lord had been up to recently. "Well, in that case, you're probably the luckiest of us all. Getting given back your freedom on your first day is probably the best anyone has ever been treated."

The guy who said this sounded weird halfway through what he was saying, and Donny guessed the man had had to change it in the middle because he had been trying to say something that alluded to what the Demon Lord did to his prisoners. What the guy said still got the point across, so Donny felt maybe he could talk in a way that people around him understood the things he couldn't say.

"I wouldn't exactly call what we're getting freedom. It's much better than sitting in the dark, though." The one who said this was the only lady amongst them, and their voice sounded familiar if you accounted for them sounding less dry. "Were you the one I spoke to in the cell?"

"No, I was alone where I was." Donny guessed he had misidentified the voice, which made sense because he had been trying to approximate what the person from the cell would sound like if they hadn't been on the verge of dying. "Oh, sorry. Someone in my cell seemed to have a similar voice to you."

"Was she kind of mean?" Donny nodded, even though the owner of the voice had been nice enough to explain some things to him. "That might have been my twin sister then. She got grabbed at the same time I did, and I've wondered if she was kept around as well."

"Does she have similar affinities to you?" Donny had put together that most of the people he had seen up till now were probably like him and had Unholy affinities they didn't use, and the Demon Lord kidnapped them all to turn them into pawns for things like this. "Yes, we both have Unholy, but she only has two affinities while I have three."

Now that he had been talking for a while, he was happy to see that he was right about being able to speak around the Demon Lord, even though everything they were saying had something to do with the things he had done to them. This would make talking to people in the future much simpler for him since it wasn't nearly as restrictive as it had seemed before he had learned this trick.

Donny was about to ask what affinities they all had when the man who had called him over grabbed his arm. Donny thought the man was trying to get his attention at first, but he quickly realized there was something wrong as they looked scared when he turned to ask what it was that he wanted to say.

Looking back towards the giants for the first time in a while, Donny saw that one of them had stopped ignoring them and was looking in their direction now. He didn't know why the guy beside him was so afraid of this because it made sense that the giants would look at them every now and then to make sure they were still where they needed to be, but as the seconds passed and the giant kept looking at them, he also started to get worried.

It was very unsettling, and it made him feel the giant might be being told what to do with them by the Demon Lord at this very moment. He knew standing here wasn't going to last forever, but it really hadn't been that long, and he wasn't ready even if technically he would be leaving the company of undead giants for the God of Metal.

This was a clear improvement for him, but he didn't think he would just get to walk over to the God of Metal, and he didn't want to find out what the actual handover method of him would be like. The only thing he could picture was him being picked up by one of the giants before being brought into the sky. Unpleasant was the only way he could think to describe this.

...

Lake was staring up into the holes in the sky and wondering if anything would ever come out of them. They had already been open for a few minutes, and he felt if the gods wanted, this was enough time for them to be done already.

"Look down there." Hearing Millie say something was happening somewhere other than the sky, Lake looked at the streets below to see some giants coming out of a partially rebuilt building. His perception was much higher than it had been the last time he had watched something from this balcony, so Lake had no problems seeing that all the giants coming out were holding people in their hands.

Figuring Millie couldn't see this, he said it out loud for her benefit and to see if she would have anything to say about this. "They're holding people in their hands."

"Do you think they're about to exchange hostages?" Lake couldn't think of a better explanation, so he agreed with Millie. "That could be the case. That would mean the gods have things to give to the Demon Lord as well, though."

After he said this, he cast a brief look at the sky again and saw the clouds, while still open, didn't have anything coming through them yet. "Maybe." Lake felt like Millie had been about to say more after the only word she got out, but she stopped talking because the giants started to fly up toward the clouds.

"It looks like two are heading for the red cloud." The red cloud was probably the God of Fire, which Lake knew had ties to the Demon Lord, so the fact their dealings were more extensive made sense. But Lake didn't understand why the Demon Lord would need to have hostages to keep the God of Fire at bay.

The Temple Head had made it sound like the God of Fire liked the Demon Lord, so it made more sense for the people he was giving to the gods here to be people they would like to have. He needed to look deeper into this situation first because he could probably make a better guess if he tried to understand what the Demon Lord might want from the three gods who had been the first to agree to peace with him.

If Lake were to be in the Demon Lord's shoes, he would be trying to gain the approval of more gods so that he could make more truces and eventually ascend once no one was left to stop him, but he couldn't see a way four what seemed to be mortals could make that happen for him.

After some more thinking, Lake couldn't help but think maybe it would just be for the best to wait for the Temple Head to tell him the next time they spoke. Now that he was back at the Alchemist Guild, what the Demon Lord was doing wasn't exactly his problem until the Insider forced him to go back, so focusing on his own problems for now was what was best for him.

His top priority should be getting the next mission from the Insider, which meant he needed to steal and gather gold until it happened. Getting involved with the Demon Lord would make it too dangerous for him to run around in the open like he wanted, and to be honest, with everything he had done in the Metal Domain, it would probably already be unsafe for him if he was easy to track.