Jacob stared at the vein of Magical ore, the exact same that had been close to St. Peter in his past life.

He and Francis had entered a natural opening, a sort of a cavern, that went all way down in the depth of the mountain.

“This is good enough until the 5th realm, maybe even the 6th if we smelt and make some alloy out of it,” Jacob was extremely pleased with the discovery.

It would take a while to set up a proper mining operation, but it was more than doable. Now, they went in to explore and make sure there were no monsters in the most superficial parts of the cavern.

“How can the metal be so strong if St. Peter’s region is so weak?” Francis asked, surprised. “And I’ve never seen this place before, even though I hiked up here more than once.”

“Mineral veins work pretty much the same way Ancient Ruins do. They pop up randomly, and you might find very low-leveled ones in strong areas and vice-versa, even though there is a tendency for the stronger ones to spawn in stronger areas. However, mineral veins are the most random thing in existence. For all we know, a kilometer from here, you might find the strongest mineral in existence in absurd quantities. And that makes it very hard to know where the best mines are located.”

“Unless you are a freak from the future,” Francis added.

“Unless you are a freak from the future,” Jacob winked.

“So, now what?” Francis was observing their surroundings with the utmost curiosity.

“Now, we get a little walk inside,” Jacob summoned an orb of light in his left hand, “and hope we don’t find monster nesting here. Especially Charybdes.”

“Those things can hide in the mountain?” Francis asked.

He wasn’t as scared as he should be since he had not fought with them, but the tales he had heard from Jacob were enough to make him wary.

“Those things can be everywhere, even in the waters.”

“Isn’t that pretty,” Frank frowned.

“Not at all,” Jacob shuddered, thinking about the horrors that one could fight under the waters in the ocean.

On his side, though, the word ‘waters’ had suddenly prompted a spur of imagination from Francis.

“Oh, fuck, Jacob. If Devils exist, are Sirens a thing too? With shells bikini and all?” Francis's eyes became all dreamy.

“The shell biking is a human fetish, but Sirens do exist, yes,” he said. “They are beautiful and can take a human form on land.”

“Oh, please tell me there is not a ‘but’, please Jacob, tell me there is no ‘but’, only ‘butts’,” Francis pleaded.

“I mean, they have this little quirk, and that’s all, don’t worry, you can still date one, as long as you are careful enough,” Jacob remarked.

“They eat humans, I bet. Holy shit, my childhood fantasies just became horrors,” Francis was on the verge of crying, “please tell me they do not eat humans.”

Jacob looked impressed.

“I don’t know what wicked fantasies made you guess right, but they do eat human flesh. They don’t have any weird teeth or anything. They still need to cook us or cut us thin enough to eat our flesh like sushi. But humans are considered delicacies for Sirens. Not sure you are going to like that,” Jacob smiled.

“You consort with the Devil, Jacob, and you are in no position to act all high and mighty.”

Jacob did consort with the Devil. And Devils too sometimes ate human flesh, but more like a party trick to terrorize humans. They didn’t actually like the taste.

“I mean, Sirens are extremely civilized and polite. They also drool a bit when they see us, humans. I think that it may be possible that humanity lost more young men to half-naked alluring Sirens than Demonic Beasts if you start counting a few years after the change. See, some people tried having a real relationship with them, but it’s like people having bunnies as pets instead of eating them.”

Italians loved their cooked bunnies.

A lot.

“Well, I might still give it a try,” Francis looked pensive while they made their way into the cavern.

…

“And listen, I wanted to ask, who do you think it could be after you since Epagogia came back too and she landed so close to St. Peter?”

“Oh, there are many people I killed in my life that might have weirdly followed me in the past. I’m not able to rank them in order of danger, but there are quite a few people who want to see me ten feet under the ground, or just pulverized. One above all, the Undeath Tyrant, the Necromancer. I didn’t give the guy a nice death. He had taken away too many things from humanity to die a human.”

The temperature suddenly dropped for Francis, who saw a hint of the same ruthlessness Jacob had applied with the Necromancer.

“The Black Tyrant, too, might be after me. But he’s not nearly as crazy as the Necromancer. Then, let me think. I killed more than a few with a 10th level talent and different Tyrants, or at least self-proclaimed Tyrants. I think the Vermillion Tyrant might be one of the most problematic; that guy is the biggest nutjob I have ever met. If I had to point out to the one person responsible for humanity’s extinction, it would be him.”

“How come?” Francis wondered.

“The Vermillion Tyrant was smart, charismatic, super talented, had one of the strongest Hidden Constitutions in existence, on the same level of Juliet’s. He wanted to wage war on all Demonic Beasts and other races all at once, and he did exactly that,” Jacob was still fuming about it.

“And what’s wrong with that?” Francis asked, uncomprehending.

“Do you have any idea of what that means? A guy had the means to create the vastest empire of humans in history, gathered the brightest talents, then waged the most terrifying interspecies war that at some point had humans on both sides. He obviously called the other humans traitors and slaughtered them. The man was so mad he even planted nests of Charybdes in cities unwilling to join his crusade to spur them to action so that they would beg for help; he would go there, liberate them, save the day and then take control of everything.”

“The Vermillion Tyrant’s biggest problem was that he believed he was doing the right thing,” Jacob gradually calmed down, “and he was causing a war that killed most humans still alive at that time. He wouldn’t back off, even though our numbers were getting lower and lower. He said he was ‘weeding the weak ones out before killing every single filthy beast on the planet’ and that included Devils, Sirens, and every single other race. He killed countless innocents and led people with an incredible fervor.”

“That does sound terrible,” Francis muttered.

“You have no idea.”