"It seems that everything is much simpler than we thought," Grumbled grumbled . He turned to Arsi and raised his eyebrows inquiringly. - Let's go to the arena?

"Let's go," the girl jerked her shoulders joyfully and somehow joyfully.

Kiass sighed heavily and only now Ink thought that for him these throwings from one side to another are especially unpleasant.

"Did you expect this when the clan talked about the buffer?"

- Expected, Ink . There is a lot of things in the buffer, but our situation looks stupidly somehow ...

- Explain? - got interested in Grank .

Metallic only shook his head. Kiass frowned , his defocused eyes staring off the floor. This look gave him a thoughtful and stupid. The corridors quickly gave way to the spaciousness of the arena, and inside Ink a there was excitement and excitement. All relations with the local inhabitants seemed confused: neither friends nor enemies. A piece of another world, a part of which the students of Glam simply did not have time to become.

Arsi walked around the area of ​​fights in a circle. On it, one of the young magicians tried to beat the enemy, hidden behind an earthen block. A man in a brown robe walked forward, and a hill of earth moved with him. The magician threw himself in some white flashes. They hissed and knocked out small holes in the fence. The magician did not want to approach the enemy, after every two or three throws, he briskly ran to the side, trying to reach a straight line of sight with the enemy. It was not possible to do this, because the unknown moved a mini-mountain in front of him like a feather, like a stone and does not weigh anything.

- Get ready.

Ink turned to Arsi and saw that she plunged the brush into stone. The wall of the arena began to turn blue smoothly and after a few seconds an oval of sufficient size to allow two people to pass simultaneously appeared in an icy blue color.

- Now we pass quickly. Behind me.

Arsi ducked forward. Kiass and Grank rushed after, although the latter more likely fell on its side than entered. Ink looked back at last and managed to notice Yuvi running toward him with a twisted face. A step back and a blue flash marked the passage through the wall. Easy and without any resistance to matter.

"Well, that's it," Arsi looked pale after wasting her strength.

Grank instead of an answer rather shake clothes and Kiass with fanatical gaze fingered hand shiny black beads. Everywhere, as far as they could see, they covered the earth. The strange material seemed like some kind of light stone, but was distinguished by a metallic luster.

Ink looked up expecting to see a stone sky, but the heights were lost in the dark. The only source of uneven light was on a hill with a steeply clipping edge.

"Is this a view of the arena outside?" No ... the mound is somehow small for this "

"Let's see what's up there?" - Arsi was ahead of the others with a proposal, pointing to the stone steps nearby.

"Necessarily," the metal nodded. - We were very lucky.

- Do you know this place? - snapped up . "Is your relative living somewhere nearby?"

"No," Kiass laughed happily, not releasing a handful of crystals raised from the ground. - This is not a buffer. We are in a small world. Only the strongest ... creatures can create such. They say that today no one is capable of this. None of the clans has such personalities, otherwise all would have been united under one arm. They say a lot about the origin of small worlds, but no one knows exactly where they came from. Now the main thing is that it is in such places that the largest amount of resources. In the buffer, they are rare, but in a small world, everything is different.

"Is this bullshit on earth worth anything?" - Ink began to think about stuffing his pockets, but something stopped him.

"For me, yes." This is metal, and I can absorb it to strengthen the skin. It is for this that I exchanged points of merit for metallization, and ventured through alchemy. I never thought I'd get so fast.

- Any special metal? Is it worth it to collect?

Kiass no longer listened to Ink a. Metallic sat right on the ground, cross-legged, closed his eyes, and plunged his hands into shiny black grains.

- Go upstairs yourself. I keep watch him - Grank awkwardly down a couple of meters from Kiass well.

"Something needs to be done with his injury. He also got to the arena. "

Arsi briskly rushed to the steps, Ink caught up and tried to ask about small worlds, but the girl did not know anything. They quickly got upstairs and stopped looking at an unusual sight. The hill was not too wide, but stretched far in length. A broken column stood in the center of a rectangle with jagged edges. On it lay a book emitting a red glow. It spread in fog and poured into the heads of humanoids sitting around with two arms, two legs and the same number of horns. The latter were not the same as Ink a - much larger and stronger. The creatures themselves seemed larger than humans. Brown skin with crimson spots resembled not human, but rhinoceros.

Above, a cluster of something Ink could not recognize flashed a white, but not blinding light . This would look like a spot of light, if you look at it from under the water. In the center of the spot was an almost human face. The black horns and eyes the color of blazing magma spoiled the whole impression. The creature was looking directly at them.

"These are demons, yes?" - Ink turned to Arsi , but found that she had already managed to hide behind him. The girl peered warily over his shoulder and seemed to step back a little towards the steps.

- That's right, little charmis. Come closer, - a voice came to Ink's ears and pouring grains of sand. Sounds formed into unknown words, and the meaning of the message penetrated directly into the head. - Do not be afraid, I will not harm you.

Ink in it seemed doubtful, but he still took a step forward. At that very instant, there was a rustle from behind and several small granules hit painfully on the legs. Arsi ran away so fast that she simply threw them back.

"Can I run away?"

Ink overpowered the second impulse of weakness, and with a firm step, as he wanted to believe, he walked towards the column. It took longer than he expected. Nearby, the creatures were astounded. Even sitting and hunched over, they were one and a half times higher than him.

- What would like to talk about? - Ink cocked his head in the direction of the glowing bunch.

"Really young," the black-horned grinned, "your older relatives love to talk their teeth." Luckily you can help me. These slaves absorb my gift. Sharmis are good at working with consciousness. Even green, it should be on the shoulder. Can you handle it?

"Maybe," "What is going on here?" "But why should I do that?"

"It is always useful to render a service to an archdemon," the black-footed frowned. "From what world did you come to this place?"

- And you?

- Do not dare.

A strict tone of words nailed Ink a to the ground. He was on his knees and tried to calm the dizziness.

"Stop," the calm voice instantly suppressed the attempt to crawl. "I told you that I won't harm you." We will agree.

"From ..." Ink tried to say "fuck off," but nothing came of it.

- That's it ... You are not from the third world.

Ink felt something hot approaching. The feeling came from the mind and was very scared. He tried to wave the sickle, but it turned out to be small and insignificant. Ink sensed the approach of the lava river and the worst thing was that he realized that it was a minor crack on a giant volcano. At the edge of consciousness, the thought flickered that he had no sickle, they remained with Yuvi, but in his mind he tried to fend off the same way. Behind one sickle, a second, a third appeared ... they were called up feverishly and soon closed the blazing stream from their inner gaze.

"I don't want to burn your mind," a voice rumbled somewhere far and close at the same time. - What world are you from?

"Zero-lion ..." the word again could not be completely said, but the black-footed one understood and by some unknown organ, Ink realized that he had greatly pleased the interlocutor. So much so that he was left alone.

- Awake!

The voice roared, but there was no new shock for Ink . He spoke with demons. Blackhorn ordered the "servants" to take care of the "important guests" and provide assistance to the "fellow demon", especially emphasizing the importance of the latter for their "master".

They were carrying Ink somewhere, in the background some kind of animal roar was heard hinting at the creature's huge dimensions. Consciousness smoothly lulled under a growing veil of sickles of different colors and sizes.

***

Glam could not restrain himself and hit Narkert. Again. The body of the current manager of the arena flew into the ranks of cells with animals. By the way, the one that contained a dangerous small snake caught the arm - a magical creature could destroy almost any inhabitant of the buffer, so Glam picked it up with a created hand. Losing part of the power is better than losing part of the body.

- Make sure that we do not interfere.

"Good." Juve nodded shortly and hurried away.

- Now you.

"Glam, I didn't know," Narkert tried to make excuses, and his hair quickly turned purple. "You should have warned that you left them such an artifact ..."

- Shut up! Fucking werewolf! Dumb animal! Do you think I can have an artifact that can open a passage into a small world? Even if there was, why should I give it to them? You were entrusted with the simple task of ensuring security, taking Michaelon to the house at the right time and provoking magicians to attack. Everything was simple and thought out - Glam could not believe that such a simple plan, which had been drawn up for several years, was destroyed due to the acquiring pride of his acquaintance and his unsuccessful joke about handing over students to magicians.

- It was just a joke. Who knew that a little joke would affect them like that?

Glam cursed and threw a cage at Narkert. The werewolf jumped up sharply and cleaned as far as possible. Horror splashed in his eyes.

- How do you like a joke? I did everything to make my students as easy as possible. He took it by the arm, brought it to the zero world, settled it next to Michaelon. Do you have any idea how much effort it took to buy a house opposite his mansion? How much effort did it take to get this? - Glam showed a large pendant in the form of white wings. - The plan is nowhere simpler. We cause the anger of the magicians, they attack, I call the heavenly army, a little verbiage and my students are protected in the zero world. A few days for the whole operation. All you had to do was bring them by the hand to Michaelon and bring them back safe.

Narkert was silent, never taking his eyes off the magic snake. She behaved surprisingly calmly.

"You wanted to enter the first world without ascension or rebirth," Glam gradually calmed down. "I promised you this, and in return I demanded a simple service - to protect several people." Instead, you sent them to a small world from which no one had yet managed to return. Pray that the girl is fine.

"Did she take them there?" - Narkert in a large arc bypassed a dangerous creature. "So he can take it out?"

"We will not wait until her strength is restored."

"Yes, I will certainly thank her for such an escape ..."

"Idiot." Glam started to start again. - If she suffers through your fault, do not even hope to die an easy death.

"You didn't take her as a student, or ..."

"I," Glam stared at the frozen Narkert, "not so arrogant as to try to become her master." I was asked to take care of a girl. The origin of Arsi is much worse than you can imagine. Only for her sake I had to build a plan around Michaelon and drag in your arena. All in order to resolve the regrets that remained in her memory after rebirth. Now this is done, and she can go on the development path further. Compared to the force that stands behind it, you are not a descendant of an ancient beast, but a pet that anyone can kick with their own accord ... or caress and feed.

Glam gazed steadily at an old acquaintance and noted with satisfaction that Narkert began to get what kind of hole he had dug for himself.

"I still can't believe it." To intimidate my students simply because someone there guessed something. I really want to break some bones to you, but I myself will not break this wall. Come on! And call all of yours, let them help correct your mistake.