"I think that this is all, it seems like the mission is up to only you now." The mesmerizing eyes of the lesser demon stared at Frei, who in turn looked left and right at the collected guy with glasses and the one with messed hair cut at his shoulders. He had not seen the hot-headed youngster anywhere. He might have had an accident.

"Wait, we are three standing here." Frei protested before any of his partners could say anything themselves.

"No, It will be up to you. The genius over there have clearly visited one of the local kindergartens." Their superior pointed at the man with glasses. "I can smell the holy souls even from here, disgusting."

"What? I am a demon now, so . ."

"You sure as hell are!" The man with red mane swished his tail angrily and Frei realized only now that he had one. He almost teleported next to the protesting man and touched him, turning him into some kind of stone in an instant.

"I do not have time for your shit." He barked and Frei thought about what had the one with glasses done to deserve such ire, when he realize how he called himself a demon, something that must have ruffled the lesser demon's hair in the wrong way.

"Well, the . . hobo here might help you a little if you find him another bottle." The lesser demon snorted and indeed, the other man next to Frei was hiding an almost empty bottle of vodka behind his back. He noticed that his presence was also a little thin, had he bought [Stealth] ?

Wait! He had bought [Stealth], stole a bottle of vodka and had been drinking the whole time! Someone like that would not help him at all!

"It seems that I will have to do my best." Frei said dryly, when it dawned on him that he was really the only one that would be actually doing the mission.

"Good luck, little spawn, I hope that I will never see you lot again." The lesser demon had come closer and whispered into his ear.

The next second, there was a bright flash and the scenery around Frei changed drastically.

He had been teleported to a slope of a rocky hill, the area around him reminding him of a rocky desert he had seen in some kind of a documentary about scorpions. It seemed desolate with only a little vegetation around, the only landmark in sight quickly capturing his attention. It looked like a city with a few skyscrapers towering to the sky, but nothing in the considerably large city could overshadow a great bluish tear at its very center that ran all the way down from seemingly the stars themselves, stopping at the city's ground. It looked quite thin from afar, but had to look like a huge gate stretching up to the sky from up close.

"Damn, that is a minor spatial breach? Minor my ass!" Frei had chills just looking at that thing from the distance.

[He Fucked You Over]

"W-What, what do you mean?" Frei stuttered, slowly getting used to converse with [Infernopedia] of his interface.

[This Is Not A] - minor tear. It is either a full scale invasion, or an accident. This place is surely located in one of the unstable sectors.

"Hey, what now? You have to report it or something, I cannot complete the mission like this!" Frei complained, but received no answer in contrary to his distant companion's previous talkative attitude.

"Do not joke around!" He received an answer when he began to think that any ongoing communication between them had been deemed a nuisance.

[You Should Not Joke] - around. I will not go directly against a lesser demon to help some newbie slug that I do not even know. Get real.

"Shit! This is not even the right planet! How can he so freely distort a mission? Is it normal?" Frei despaired, watching the city with unease.

[He Should Not, But] - no one will be eager to burn their fingers for you, for a mere hellspawn. Honestly, I would not recommend you to return now. Try to make it to at least a fiend first, but you have to be careful not to engage stronger entities. My shift is about to end, good hunting.

"Good hunting? Hey? Hey!!" Frei sat weakly on a boulder nearby.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping down.

"How have the demented angel said it?"

"You will have even holidays." Frei imitated the voice of the artificial angel from the time he had been trying to catch him into the webs of its propaganda. "Indeed, a holiday, a very long holiday and I should not expect to return."

Sadly, after a long streak of self-pity and despair, he accepted that the only person that was going to help him was he himself. With a long sigh, Frei began to formulate a plan, he should stick to the edges of the blue rift, just nibbling on the weakest intruders or whatever was going to crawl out. He could not care less about the investigation under current circumstances, the essential part was to become a rank higher.

He stood up again and after straightening up his back, headed towards the city. He looked at the main road going in the direction of the city, the society here seemed to be at the level of dark ages, He had no idea where had the skyscrapers came from, he would probably get more clues as he got closer.

Walking for more than ten minutes, he noticed there was more vegetation, but the trees were unnaturally gnarled, not that he knew how they were supposed to look. Anyhow, he was glad, the sparse vegetation providing him at least some cover, leaving him less exposed. The city was further away than he had expected and even after half an hour of his leisurely stroll, he had not reached its edge, but his dull walk had been interrupted by a sudden noise. Walking around a pile of rock, he saw a dirt road emerge, leading to something that was probably a mine that bit deep into the side of the hill he had been walking along.

There was a cart traveling in the direction of the city, surrounded by a few men. It was drawn by some robotic thing the shape of a pig. Although he had to use a lot of imagination to make the comparison. The second the men saw him, they lifter their primitive weapons, mostly polearms, Frei was intrigued by the different quality of their weapons. The worst one looked just like a stick that was being used like a spear, the best was something out of a fantasy movie where even the metal did not look like an ordinary steel. However, the one wielding it looked more like a thief than a lord, because all of them wore the same simple clothes.

"Don't move!" With a shout, the one with the finest weapon stepped forth."This mine belongs to Duke Ashworth, state your business."

Surprisingly, he understood the alien men. Frei lifted his eyebrows in amusement, was it a common feature of demons? Well, it would have been troublesome if demonic existences spoke a different language than everyone else and were unable to understand anyone down there in hell. Was that the reason for his knowledge? Probably, he could only guess, as the only one he could ask was silent now.

"I am here to . . " Frei thought quickly about how to bullshit his way out of the question. ". . to investigate."

"To investigate?" The man repeated, obviously finding it suspicious.

In his head, Frei was strangling himself for his poor imagination.

"Yes, actually Duke Ashworth wants to investigate a certain matter in there."

"In the mine?" The man exchanged looks with his fellow companions.

"Yes." Frei nodded with confidence.

"You carry no weapon, will it not be troublesome in there?" He played with his beautiful spear for a second, before gazing back at Frei.

"No." Frei said resolutely.

"Alright, good luck with the investigation. We'll be on our way." The spear wielder acted like he believed all claims that Frei had made.

"Thank you." Frei nodded and continued in the opposite direction. It felt too easy and he swore that their foreman, or whoever he was, had a smug on his face.

"Yeah, he was too smug, there is something fishy about this." When the small group was out of sight, Frei activated his {Stealth] and continued forward with caution.

He knew that it was a mine and the men had some kind of a mineral on their cart. Were there thieves or some danger in the mine? The remark with weapons had bugged him a little, but his doubts would clear very soon, because he could already see a large pit in the distance.

"Looks like some kind of a surface mine." Walking onward, he met no other group. He was glad that the way he went was roughly perpendicular to the path towards the city, he wanted to leave the city on the horizon to not get lost. He had been always bad with maps and directions.

When he arrived at the edge of the huge pit and looked down, he swiftly stepped back and pressed himself to the ground.

"Shit! I might have had the wrong impression about this place!" Frei had revised the sight he had seen for a second.

It was a classic surface mine, the road went down in a spiral along its inner side, reaching the bottom at its end. There were tunnels occasionally along the way, digging deeper into the side of the pit, but what had surprised Frei was the commotion in there. There were no lone people moving about, all of them moved in groups of at least twenty and more than half of the group had always weapons. There were some creatures made of rock moving about, their specific features hard to discern given the distance, but one of the creatures had been fighting with the group closest to Frei.

"I need to see more." Frei looked over the edge and saw how the fight unfolded. The miners were not in panic and faced the creature that looked like a bunch of minerals swirling around its core, creating an illusion of a humanoid. It tried to slam into people with its massive hands or pierce them with its sharp protrusions, but the miners seemed to be experienced in facing this kind of a creature using their superior numbers to overwhelm it. They put the mineral monster down and Frei could tell that the most important factor in the fight were the fancy spears he remembered from before, as they cut through rock with ease.

"I need to wait for the night." He decided and searched the edge for the right place. He found a place with higher density of the gnarled trees and watched the shadows grow longer. It was late afternoon already and he did not need to wait for long. Watching the pit calmly, he realized that the miners had not completely left the mine, but another shift came and continued their work, bringing with them blue balls on chains that provided light for their night time work.

"Well, demon time. Ok, hellspawn time." Frei chuckled and corrected himself, remembering the fate of the man with the glasses. "First is range."

He had not tested the range of [Black Bullet] and planned to correct his negligence. He found the furthest source of blue light and tried to shoot it. The vague black light was hard to see at night, but he could follow it until the point where it dissolved into nothingness.

"Alright, no good news there." He guessed the range of the ability was slightly greater than one hundred meters, but it was to be expected of the cheapest long range ability.

Damn, a good bowman could outrange him!

Grumbling about his bad luck, Frei went inside the mine, looking for the first mineral monster he could find. During the day, he followed their behaviour, combat speed and other characteristics. He was sure that he could run away with his enhanced body if he found himself on the losing side. During the night, there was less groups of miners, but their groups were more numerous. He did not plan to meet any, watching out for their blue lights.

Soon, he met the creature he wanted to meet, a chaotic conglomeration of rock and minerals in a human form standing some fifty meters away from him. Without hesitation, he pointed his finger in its direction and a ray of black light smashed against the creature. He already knew that the most vulnerable spot of the creature was its center.

Stone cracked and the swirling of the pieces of minerals intensified, Frei just snorted and used the second of confusion for another shot, The largest stone at the creature's center cracked and it rushed in his direction. Still, Frei estimated that he would be able to make another few shots before it arrived. After the fifth, the central stone had been half-destroyed, but Frei had to turn around and ran, because the creature was now just ten meters away and he had no desire to test his fists against it.

"Fall apart already, you pile of dirt!" He turned from time to time to score another shot when he managed to increase the distance, it took another three shots before the mineral monstrosity whined like a tortured cat and crumbled to the ground. The sound of rocks falling to the ground closely followed by the sensation of, oh so sweet souls. Frei had been too preoccupied with the fight to look at the potential gains and the change of his balance was a surprise.

[Souls] - 1 affinity-lithoid(unspent 1) 4 affinity-plant (unspent 4) 63 affinity-none (unspent 13)(borrowed 20)

But not a positive one.

"He had just his own soul? So poor!" Frei clicked his tongue, the bread and butter of a demon was really hard. So much work and only one single soul! That reminded him, he had no clue what the different affinities meant, but he should find out soon enough.

Not discouraged by the poor result, he decided to continue, after all, he had sixty eight souls now. In the worst case, he would need just another thirty two more Lithoids to reach one hundred.