“So this is what the mortal sea looks like?”

Lucia asked, astound.

Xe observed the morning city, bustling with people everywhere. The size of the buildings were colossal compared to hirs tiny figure. All, if not most of the structural exteriors were made of some expensive materials like metals or tempered glass.

Everything felt foreign to hir. The mortal sea was unlike anything xe could imagine through reading books alone. Now that xe had this chance to witness the real thing upfront, It was different from xe envisioned it to be.

Xe, small as a pixie, had demon wings sprouting from hirs shoulders. A devil’s tail curling upwards behind hir, short fiery red hair, two horns growing from hirs head, and round ruby eyes.

A pureborn demon elf.

“Your irul’s first time onboard?”

Elk, the demon corvette, asked Lucia’s father, Carlos, who was a pureborn demon himself. Similarly, he was as small as a tennis ball.

“Yes. This would mark the first time xe’s ever come to the human realm.”

“Why? You could’ve taken the spirit land, right? Or is this a vacation?”

“I wanted my irul to experience something different.”

“It’s my birthday gift,” Lucia chided.

“That also.”

“So when’s your birthday?” Elk asked, interested.

“Next week,” Lucia gave a rough estimate. Xe wasn’t comfortable revealing the actual date.

“So you're celebrating it onboard huh..”

Lucia nodded.

For someone whose birthday was around the corner, Elk found Lucia’s expression a little subdued. Xe must be the kind of person conscientious around others.

“There’s no need to rush. As long as we Tartarus before the year ends,” Carlos said.

“Sure. Leave that to me.”

Elk wasn’t doing volunteer work. He was getting properly paid to onboard the two pureborn demons.

“Lucia, Carlos, do you want to return to the cabin first? It will be a while before I reach home.”

“It’s alright, thank you for the offer. I want to continue observing the world.” Lucia said, studying the intricacies of the mortal’s culture here.

“Thank you for your consideration,” Carlos said wryly.

“If you say so.”

They arrived at the train station. The place was packed with people and Elk had trouble making his way through. Meanwhile, Lucia and Carlos were watching him struggle like a salmon in the crowd.

Nobody reacted to the conspicuous fairies just above them. That’s because only mortalborn demons and angels could perceive pureborns. Lucia found it a rather peculiar phenomenon.

The train entered the station. The sound of air sizzling, the doors pulled open. People began flowing in both directions.

Elk managed to squeeze his way in. The door shut, the train began to move.

Lucia watched the flashing lights above the entrance. This must be the map. It was fairly geometric, different from the maps xe would commonly find drawn on parchment.

Elk remained standing, holding the handrails while browsing through the web.

Lucia watched him as he swiped his fingers in the air. Had it to do with the things they were wearing on their eyes? There seemed to be something flashing on the glass part of the accessory.

Turning hirs attention away, she observed the interior of the coach. It seemed to be some kind of large transport service.

The people inside this long conjoined space were similarly busy staring into the air.

Lucia flew up to the window and sat down. Xe watched as the train whizzed through the city.

“Interesting.”

Despite the dangers, some pureborns still prefered to take the sea route. Now xe understood why.

“What do you think?”

“It’s a mysterious world. Thank you dad.”

“You’ll be surprised by what else you can see in this world.”

“I can’t wait.”

Lucia hummed happily, hirs tail swayed in amusement while hirs eyes reflected the blue city. The two of them departed from Hades, a demon nation. Carlos was a merchant, or more like, a porter. He freights items from nation to nation on commision. This time around, he was headed to Tartarus.

Taking the chance, he decided to bring his irul along while his wife remained in Hades.

One could call it a father-irul excursion which would last a little more than a week.

Another reason why Carlos chose the sea route was because he had a lot of cargo to move. It was a lot more cost effective to hire a mortalborn demon to transport these items compared to taking the train in the spirit realm.

As with any tool, or consumables in the astral world, cargo or objects from the spirit realm are represented as some common, everyday objects in the mortal sea.

In his case, a few tons of unprocessed ores and a newly developed deployment-type tool was to be transported to Tartarus. Yet, all that cargo was condensed down into something like a black cube. For those oblivious, it would easily be mistaken as a wedding ring box, stuffed inside Elk’s bag.

“Does time here pass differently? If I’m not wrong, time distortions happen very frequently in the mortal world because of the instability of space, right?”

“The deceleration varies. During low times, it is possible for time in the mortal sea to flow 3 times slower compared to our world.”

“That’s slow.”

“Indeed.”

Three times slower would mean that they would arrive in Tartarus in 3 weeks, counting in spirit realm time, if they stayed for a week in the mortal realm. Time was faster in the spirit realms.

Lucia wondered if they would bump into mortalborn angels during their time here. Xe had read that an even smaller time pocket, causing absolute deceleration of time, known as ‘fallouts’ would be generated when a demon encounters an angel.

For pureborn demons, they were vulnerable out in the mortal sea. They did not have any capacity to depend on themselves and heavily depend upon their ship to protect them against this harsh, yet magnificent world.

Nevertheless, Lucia wanted to experience what it was like, seeing the ship in battle.

The train had stopped over a few stations now. The coach was beginning to clear, Lucia was beginning to understand how this transport system worked. It was similar to the steam train in their world, just exceptionally efficient.

“Lucia, Carlos. Get in the cabin, now,” Elk’s voice tensed.

Lucia began looking around. Not noticing anything out of the ordinary xe turned to hirs father for hirs opinion.

“Submarines. Lucia, let’s go,” He said in a grave tone.

Unlike Lucia, Carlos was more experienced when it came to the happenings of this world. He didn't overlook how some people on the train glanced at their direction.

Lucia nodded. And in an instant, two pureborn demons disappeared.

With them gone, Elk assessed his options.

Numerous mines had been scattered around the narrow space of the coach. He would have to be careful not to trip any of them when making a run for it.

Failure of a corvette’s duty.

He lamented how he didn’t pay attention to his surroundings. He wouldn’t have ended up in this predicament if only he was more cautious.

An angel fleet of 5 submarines now eyeing him.

Moreover, one of them was a demon.

It was an ambush.

He cursed under his breath.

‘Carlos, if things go south..’

‘I trust in you Elk. Don't give up so soon.’

‘You’re being too optimistic.’

The submarines moved.

{WARNING: YOU ARE BEING TARGETED}

{YOU ARE NOW A TARGET}

{WARNING: YOU ARE NOW A TARGETED}

“Shit.”

Before the train could come to a stop at the next station, the world had turned monochrome.