I was packing my tools when Helen comes to the door of my hovel.

"Grendel, the kid has awakened," she makes a beckoning motion.

I follow her to the guest hovel, where Marcy is sitting next to a bedroll.

"Where is the brat?" Marcy points at the bedroll.

I come close and take a look at the kid. Some big green eyes stare at me.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! A troll!" The kid jumps and runs to the back of the hovel.

I'm good. I'm totally not offended. I have seen myself in a mirror. I'm butt ugly. Every appendage of my body is made for killing. There is also the issue of having a half-molten face, courtesy of the alchemical arrow. I think it will be healed by tomorrow. At least we know the kid is capable of speech. And it is the same language. I'm relieved. I'm not angry. I'm not scowling.

"Grendel! Stop making these faces! You are scaring him."

"[Holy Bolt]!" The kid chants from the back. Some golden sparks fizzle around his outstretched palm. "What?"

"Marcy, please talk some sense into that brat." I have zero urges to snap his neck.

"Hey, little one, it is fine, this big guy here is not a bad guy..."

"Die filthy beast! Gaze upon the glory of heavens and despair! [Divine Exorcism]!"

Some faint balls of light float around him in no particular pattern and they are gone with a faint pop. It is confirmed also that he is from the heavens.

Helen circles him from the left. "Please come with us, we are friends here..."

The kid gets serious and starts a long chant.

"Ye must desire rest from thy empty existence! Thou shall have it! [Celestial Star]!"

It causes some ringing around, like a bicycle chime and some sparks fall down in front of him. They fade before hitting the ground.

I sit down on the ground and cover my mouth. I'm not laughing. My turn. With a totally BS chant.

"Spark of winter gather at my command, pelt my enemies with the annoying ice! [Snowball Throw]!" It worked this time! A clear hit! I'm struck with MP exhaustion though.

The kid falls onto the fabled ORZ position. "This miasma! Such darkness to block the light of heavens! It is your victory monster." That whispered soprano voice is too much for me.

"Pffffff!" Really I don't know what is going on.

"Grendel! Not! Helping! Stop laughing now!" And now this brat made Helen scold me!

"Gotcha!" Marcy was sneaking from the other side and pounced on the little cherub. He yelps and begins to flap his wings desperately.

"Ouch! My wings!" I would be impressed if he could fly with those tiny wings even if they were

"Hey, calm down." Marcy triggers her ultimate skill, 'Everyone likes big chests'. I am just a little infuriated seeing the kid buried in there. Oops. Better stare at the ground before Helen reads my mind.

"Let go! You! You. You..."

Marcy uses girl power! It is super effective. "Are we calm now? Can we talk?"

Helen closes in from the front. "We don't want to hurt you. We rescued you from that chalice. Can we just talk?"

"The chalice? The seal on General Beelzebub! What happened to it?"

I'll just stay here and make my best impression of a potted fern. Ferns don't talk.

"Some bad humans broke it," Helen says.

"This should be impossible! Several millennia would have to pass before the seal..." He stops to think a little. "The seal came undone, right? We are several millennia after the great war, right? I was one of the tallest of my kind, but now I am reduced to the size of a child."

"I'm afraid so. You were trapped in a crystal and we thought it would be bad to leave you there." Marcy answers matter-of-factly.

"My divine power. I can't feel it anymore. A crystal you say? Did it leak out? Where is the crystal?"

"Grendel ate it." Oh, thank you, Marcy. It is fine to hate the big ugly monster.

"Who is Grendel? The troll? You let a monster eat my divine power?"

I can't stand it anymore. "Come on! We had no idea what it was, and shattering the crystal with tools could hurt you. I was very careful biting it, and I ate only half the crystal. The other half dissolved. By the look of the sparks you made with your chant right now, you probably will recover after some time. Helen?"

"Yes, let's hope for the best!" What is up with this noncommittal answer?

"The troll spoke! How can it be possible? Trolls are absolute idiots!" I wonder how much Exp this kid is worth. Can I find out?

"Yeah, sorry about that. In the 'several millennia' you were in that chalice, trolls developed a high intellect. We used science and technology to build a great civilization, and we live in peace with the humans now."

"Impressive! I have never seen such a thing! I wonder what twists of fate made me meet the BIGGEST LIAR ever! Look at you dressed in rags! Look at this twig hovel dug on the ground!"

I really hope that after the initial shock wears off, this kid shows a better side. If he is going to fill in the role of the insufferable brat I'm siding with Marcy and we will sell some angel steak to the guild. But why am I antagonizing him so much?

"Hahahahah. I was sure I would fool you." There is a huge urge to go full chunni here and say something I'll regret. Seriously, this kid tugs some weird strings in me. Wait for a second... "Are you some sort of angel? Cherub? Seraph?"

"Yes! Seraph! I am one of the seven great seraphs. Zahariel of the Sun, I was called back then."

"Pleased to mee you Zahariel. Can we be at peace? Jokes aside, I really want to learn about the war. I also think you might be of great help in my travels."

"Why would I ally myself with a troll? I acknowledge that you are not a dumb beast, but still..."

"Does it help to tell you I am actually a human?"

"Surely you haven't put all jokes aside yet."

"No! It is true, Zahariel! Grendel was indeed a human, but he reincarnated as a troll in our world." I'd like to keep this piece of personal information secret from him for later, but I won't hold it against Helen.

"Reincarnated from another world?" The brat leaves Marcy's lap and comes near me. "Say, what is the name of the world you came from?"

"We call that world Earth." Just as I feared, he reacted to the word 'Earth'. Number 1 supplier of heroes across the multiverse, our dear Earth.

"Impressive! The same world as the heroes summoned to fight the Demon King!"

"Several millennia ago, I presume."

"Indeed. Heroes Bernstein and Awolowo. Unfortunately..."

"They were defeated by the Demon King, and it forced the gods to descend on the world, but the gods themselves were defeated in the final battle, but not before leaving a mortally wounded Demon King behind. Then it fell onto the seraph to carry the will of the gods and seal the generals along with the remnants of the demon army."

"Amazing. Grendel, your analytic ability is astonishing."

No. Not really. From what he told us in the conversation before and the condition of the world, it is a foregone conclusion. You guys could not seal all the monsters, and the ones left rampaging forced humans to live behind secluded walls in places where the mana is the lowest. When we escaped the dragon summoned by the Orc King, Shraaizar made us run to the human town, where the magic power was lower. The dragon was unwilling or unable to pursue us and gave up. I am not affected by it but the other monsters dislike going to human settlements. Now thinking about it, the repellent potion is actually made with the same mana-draining herb they use on captive mages.

"Hello? Grendel?" Helen snaps me from my musings.

"I was thinking on the way this world was shaped. I think I understood most of it now. Zahariel, what are you going to do now?"

"I beg your pardon? What do you mean?" The little naked baroque angel is confused.

"Now that Beelzebub and his gang are free and thirsting for blood, we are in a bad position here. So my friends are lifting the camp as we speak, to flee south. The girls and I will go to the nearest human settlement to finish some errands. You are not our captive, but we would be delighted to have one as enlightened as you together with us on our travels. If you have somewhere to go or something you must do, we won't hold you back."

"How are you going to visit the human settlement? You are a troll! Don't tell me that humans and monsters really live together now!"

"Nah. It is just me and these two crazy girls here. The rest of the villagers would either run or try to kill me in sight. If I were to show myself in this form anyway. I can transform into a human for a few days at a time."

Actually, I know I could remain in human form forever if I were willing to indulge in cannibalism. But this is a dark path I won't travel. I'd rather choose exile in the wilderness.

"Amazing. To think you can disguise yourself as human... It is decided. I will join you on your travels. An irregular existence like you will attract all sort of things, it is like a law of the world."

"Good. There is one thing that worries me though. Those wings. Is there a way to restore them?"

"When I recover my divine power, I can grow them back. It will take several centuries though."

"Do you mind if we cut them? It will be hard to blend in with the humans the way you are now. If you can grow them back the same, I mean."

"I see... It might be a wise choice, to blend in with the humans. I can't fly anyway... It is fine. You can cut them."

"Really? Are they not a symbol of pride or status?"

"Pride was the spark that caused the war in the first place. There is no room for such a feeling in a being as pure as me!"

Don't talk about pure when you were groping Marcy just a few minutes ago, closet pervert. Oops, trope alarm is ringing. "Were the Demon King actually one of your kind, called Lucifer of the Light?" I think these parallel worlds are either shaped by the Earth myths or the other way around, the myths of the earth are actually real stories from other worlds that somehow slip between worlds. It is like a chicken

and egg thing.

"Amazing! Such wisdom. You asked me to tell you of the war, but you actually know all the main points! Indeed, the loathsome Demon King was one of our ranks, Lucifer of the Light. The most powerful of our brethren. The one that fell the most. Thrice damned be his name."

Call it wisdom, call it genre savvy. I am sure this world and Earth mixed back and forth several times during the eons, and not only when those two heroes were summoned and in my case. The humanity living on Earth could very well be exiles from this world that fled there in the aftermath of the war. Probably the myth of Noah's ark. The ark could actually be a dimension ship. Or Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden by God's wrath.

"I think some people from this world traveled to mine ages ago and spread those histories as myth. This makes sense."

Shraaizar shows herself at the entrance of the hovel. "Grendel. Preparations for departure are ready. Who is the little one?"

"I am Zahariel of the Sun, pleased to meet you, lady..."

"Shraaizar isss what I am called, little... no. You are not human. What are you?"

"I am indeed not human. I am a seraph, one of the last servants of the gods. I am no enemy of yours."

The brat is talking to Shraaizar! "Hold a second! You can understand the monsters?"

"It is an obvious development to understand the speech of your... former enemies. Isn't it so?"

"Zahariel, welcome aboard. And to celebrate our friendship, I am giving you the gift of clothing. After we cut off your wings." I'll rip out my good eye if I have to keep this naked angel in my field of view much longer.

"You really don't have to make that face when you say 'cut off your wings'." The little cherub swallows dry.

"It is already getting late. Let us make arrangements for the night, and we depart tomorrow morning. Zahariel, you can sleep here with Marcy. Helen and Shraaizar with me." Helen and Marcy are not happy with this arrangement. "Do you all want to sleep together then?"

In the end we left the guest hovel to the burly monkeys, and everyone slept together in my dismantled workshop.