I tasked the Throne with searching ruins for an abandoned table. Soon afterwards I had a furniture catalogue to browse through. This is better than google. I picked a non-sophisticated one with stone slate top and sturdy wooden legs.

I have had it placed near the window. If there were any noxious fumes emitted I could remove them with Breeze spell. Unfortunately there were no holograms for placing furniture like in games. An obvious oversight, one I would need to fix and add to the GUI.

In the end I had to move the table a bit by means of manual labor. Otherwise the windows would not open. The table was not that heavy. This room’s windows had cloudy glass plates instead of simple wooden shutters like every other building around. How classy.

I hummed a little tune while setting up the equipment. Some of them were unfamiliar, but the shopkeeper did explain all of their uses beforehand. I noted down what chemist’s equipment from Earth I remembered, that the alchemist’s shop did not have in stock. My mind wondered briefly whether magical flames could substitute for a good old gas Bunsen burner. Probably not. I had the more old-school alcohol burner.

A wick in a clay bottle filled with spirits. It was not high spirits originally, but some oil. Spirits in their most distilled and pure state would burn with flame temperature of around two thousand degrees Celsius. Vegetable oil would burn only two hundred. Maybe it was not a vegetable oil, but I had no thermometer that could go up that high. I had no thermometers at all. So I swapped the oil with some dwarven high spirits. Apparently local alchemists had no knowledge how to distill properly, eh. No vodka for the wicked. Dwarves were able to reach three quarters of alcohol content, which was still far from 95% theoretically achievable by mere distillation. Alas I had no equipment to distill anything.

The burner even had a flame strength regulation. The wick could be squeezed by a wooden screw. Overall such a burner was a major fire hazard, so I had a Cone of Cold prepared.

The first experiment I have planned was boiling the teeth cleaning sap in plain old water. The more it boiled the more the water turned orange-brown. I saved the samples and changed water again and again. Finally the sap was yellow and the boiled water clean.

Identify-ing the samples revealed only the sap from boiling once was somewhat effective in dental care. The rest were completely ineffective.

Hypotheses: A) water removes the active substance; B) Heat (100 °C of it) destroys active substances; C) Water does not remove enough sap dyes.

Clearly the active substance should be soluble in water if it killed the bacteria on the teeth, I presume. Just to check I left a small amount of sap in cold water. I would stir it energetically now and then to speed dissolving.

Meanwhile I have set up a similar alcohol-based cold extraction as well as a ‘hot’ one.

The latter almost immediately caught on fire and I had to extinguish it with a Cone of Cold. The remains were a little bit charred so I had to start anew. This time with lowered flame I managed to heat it up properly. To perfect the setup there should be a cooling tower for reflux, but it was among the things unavailable in the shop.

The results were that while alcohol would lower the effectiveness of the sap by about 40%, it would also remove the natural dyes almost completely. The key to the process was keeping it at a lower temperature and controlling the flames of the wick as not to cause the alcoholic vapors to catch on fire.

The last experiment I performed was with the seed oil, which dissolved the sap completely. That was somewhat unacceptable.

In the end my best result was less potent, slightly alcoholic, but transparent sap. I could settle for that. I estimated the costs of extraction. They were somewhat high, almost doubling the price of sap. It would be slightly less if I recycled the alcohol by distillation. I had bought a very basic equipment for that, but unless I start to make the sap in larger scales I would not bother.

I saved a few weeks portion for our own use and left it to dry. The rest I would try to sell at higher prices. I chewed my gum-like product and went on to finish other tasks.

That dress for priestess was ready to pick up according to my archangel. I sent thanks to both Archie and Heavenly Seamstress, whom I had yet to meet. Unfortunately my mortal worshipper was not in her room in the temple complex. She was still awake at such hour, but looked to be busy right now. She was right in this palace complex, but I resisted the temptation to meet her incognito. If someone was busy so late it was better to not disturb her with additional meetings. It can probably wait till morning. She probably would not become more mad at me for such a delay.

The experiments took longer than I expected. I decided to go to sleep early. Relatively speaking.

I was awoken by hushed sounds coming from the corridor. After a while they were joined by the sound of metal scraping on metal.

I sneaked out of the bed. After tiptoeing towards the door, I found the sounds to be much clearer.

“I do not seem to be able to pick this lock,” whispered male #01.

“Why is there no one who can pick a simple lock in this Palace?” spoke female #02.

I could faintly recognize that one. Where have I heard it?

“Your Majesty, maybe because it is the Palace? Nobles and their servants rarely have such a skill,” declared male #03.

Now I was certain thanks to my deduction powers - the Queen was the culprit!

“Just scram,” she shouted. Silently.

Are they trying to pick the lock to my bedroom? The lock in which the only key is inserted into? Haha, good luck with that. It was astonishing that so many rooms had only a single key available.

“Stand aside! Let the Hero bash the door down,” the Queen ordered.

“What about surprising the demons?” said female #04, sounding unsure of herself.

“Such conduct is not honorable,” said male #05.

Perhaps some knight or an old noble? Did he mean surprising or bashing?

Wait, they want to bash my door? Those ruffians! This is not an RPG. You shall not bash every door and barrel you encounter!

I quickly donned my mask and armaments. I had the ‘spell’ of teleportation ready and all the intruders on the minimap marked. Destination was a random swamp closest to the city or.. the good old pool of lava inside an active volcano. The choice being dependent on the degree of their blasphemy. I had my war pick drawn, which happens to sound much cooler when you have a sword.

With my shield hand I turned the key.

*click*

I pushed the door handle down and pulled the door gently inside. I hid behind the door by taking a big step backwards and to the right. I had the door protecting my right flank and left covered with the shield.

“Die, demon lord!”

A silhouette rushed in, missing me completely. She was wearing a blazer, jeans and a full cap.

Earth-style.

They mentioned something about a Hero, but not The Hero. Was the gender not wrong? Maybe it is just a girly dude? Does he identify as a Hero or a Heroine? Maybe Apache..

He/she/ah* turned around and took a swing at me with her sword glowing blue effectively disrupting my thoughts. What an amateurish swordsmanship, even to my young eyes. I just raised the spear part of the war pick for him/her/ah to skewer him-/her-/ahself onto. My shield was ready to intercept and redirect his/her/ahs slash.

*preferred pronoun of all apache helicopters.

He/she/ah simply had no chances even with a 4th level weakling like me. He/she/ah did not even have a shield despite using only one hand for his/her/ahs weapon.

Then it struck me and I quickly used Status Check, while she lunged at me. I tried to move my war pick away, but it was too late.

I am going to kill my own hero due to acting hastily.

An earthling like me.

For a crappy room in a crappy palace.

Suddenly everything stopped. The sword of Damocles hanging above me was on collision path with my shield. I felt like the time stopped.. no it really did. Did I stop the time? Was it The World?

Then the Hero moved.

“Why is it stuck?” she spoke in perfect Language of Heroes.

She grasped the sword with both hands and tried to shake it. It remained in place.

I took the chance to finally move my war pick aside. By turning the head around I repositioned it with the hammer part outwards in case she still wanted to fight. Nevertheless she concentrated on struggling with the sword. Did she not bring a spare backup weapon?

I took my time reading her status, casted Identify on her sword and finally hid my weapon in storage. I walked towards the door, closed it and turned the key to the astonishment of hapless courtiers in the corridor. They shouted something about saving the Hero, but not one did anything to actually help her.

Still she had swung at me with the intent to kill or harm me. I walked up to her and cupped her face gently in my left hand. I then turned her face to me and slapped her other cheek with my right hand.

“Youch!”

She let go of the floating sword, which fell to the ground and tried to pry my hands. Unfortunately she had lost the numbers game of 20 strength against mine at 54.

“Let me give you a warning and an advice. Not everyone wearing a demon mask is an actual demon. Striking an Envoy of Heavens on the first day of a new job as a Hero of Thrope is a major no-no of a monumental kind,” I admonished her in the tongue of Heroes.

It must have had an effect as she had stopped struggling.

“The last thing is a secret so do not go spreading it. In return I will erase your criminal record for you,” I continued speaking while forcing her to look at me.

“What criminal record?!”

“You have assaulted me and that is written down in the Crimes & Bounties section of your status,” I calmly explained.

“I cannot see it, do not lie to me,” she accused me in return.

“Little girl, you only have a Status Check at level 1, are you expecting to see your complete information?”

“Well, no.”

At least she understood as much.

“Have you ever played a cRPG?”

“What?”

My hopes were up for nothing.

“Never mind. Why would they even summon a Hero? Why would they botch the ritual and summon female one?” I spoke mostly to myself.

“You have something against females?”

“Not really, but were the Summoned Hero not supposed to be a guy?”

“I did not ask for this!”

“Yeah, yeah. Neither did I. Was the summoning system not locked? It should have been,” I mused.

“Master?”

I froze.

I forgot my Elfin was sleeping right next to us. She was staring at us, without the mask covering her face. Fuck.

“There is no need to get up. Sorry for waking you up. I will throw this night visitor out as quickly as it is possible,” I tried downplaying it.

“Is she a Hero?” my Elfin asked astonished.

“Yeah, apparently so.”

“Your servant is an elf?” butted in miss Hero.

I guess all three of us were surprised by the situation.

“A half-elf. To be exact she is a slave of mine, not a servant,” I clarified.

“Amazing! Master even knows the Hero of Legends. This must be a dream.”

“Huh, why would you think it is a dream?” replied the Hero(ine) yet again.

I was slowly being removed from this derailed conversation.

“There is no Hero on Thrope right now. The Hero only appears when there is an Era of Strife. It is peaceful now. And there must be a limit to how astonishing my master can be,” she laid out her thoughts completely.

“Wow, thanks,” I replied sarcastically.

“Is he really that amazing?” the Heroine tried to confirm.

“Elfin, be silent. This is not a dream and she clearly does not know we are allies yet. She attacked me just because I was wearing a demon mask.”

Elfin took another glance at my face, touched her own and quickly covered herself with the quilt. She then murmured from beneath:

“Does she know, that..”

I felt like I knew where this was going so I interrupted her.

“No! Check her status. Do not hide underneath a blanket for such a thing, it will never work like that.”

She peeked out and invoked the spell under her breath. On the other hand the Heroine..

“Status Check! Status Check!”

..yelled.

Why would everyone yell out those words when they first learned it. No one in the entire Adventurer’s Guild would even utter them silently at us. Besides, tough luck. You might get Elfin’s basic data, but I will appear as only the Lord Demon, the Dark Rose Society’s Upper Inner Ring Leader. Shame Elfin showed her face to this girl. Maybe I should silence her just in case?

“If you tell anyone about the name, skills or the looks of my slave or otherwise tie her to our presence in the palace I, will, harm you. Hero of Thrope or not,” I threatened her trying to sound convincing.

I stashed my shield away and sat on the edge of the bed. I searched for Elfin’s hand and grasped it.

“Do not be scared. She is weak and I will protect you. Besides she was only misled to think of us as Thrope’s enemies, which we are not,” I soothed my scared kitten.

“Really, master?”

“Yes.”

“Are you not a demon, dude?”

“Of course I am not, you idiot. I am more or less a human. That is all I am going to reveal to you.”

“I am sorry for attacking you. They just teleported me, gave me a sword and pep talk about saving the world and told me a demon is occupying a room in the palace.”

“How preposterous of them. Apology accepted.”

“Master?” asked a pair of eyes peeking out of bed.

“Yes, dear?”

“Is there really going to be an Era of Strife?”

“I am afraid it had already started a few days ago. Fortunately there were no invasions as of yet.”

“Are we going to hide, master?”

“Where do you want to hide?”

“In the mountains..”

“It is of no use. It will only buy you time, not save you from invaders completely. I am going to fight them and I hope I can count on you to remain on my side.”

“Master, I..”

“I know it is a lot to ask for. Especially since we had only met, but a scant few days ago.”

“No, master, I want to stay and die by your side!” she said while trembling.

“Well, I would rather you stayed and lived by my side, but thanks.”

I laughed and stroked her hand.

“It will be alright.”

I must have sounded unsure, because she then asked.

“Is master lying to me, right now?”

“As long as I am alive I will protect your back, but when I am gone, deader than death, I will not be able to uphold that promise. I really do not know how strong the invaders will be this time. We shall seek the level of strength above any invader and help the Heavens repel them,” I declared.

“What kind of world was I summoned to?!” interjected the forgotten Heroine.

She was making too much fuss. It was time to make her leave the premises.

“Dear, please open the door. Our guest is leaving,” I said.