"Mmm, that is perfect. Give me some more," Frei had his ear pressed against the door of his master's room.

"What are they doing there? That guy is certainly a pervert!" He pushed against the door even more to the point it creaked.

"So tasty, I have not tasted anything similar in a long while." His relaxed voice continued to get on Frei's nerves.

"Master, you are shaking. You should slow down with the second one." To his horror, the Fluffy Tail's reaction inside was not what he had expected. Was she enjoying it even? Impossible!

"That devious creature! Corrupting such an innocent soul!" Frei was thinking about a pretext he could use to barge in.

"No, I need to put inside another one, it warms my insides nicely." Frei's master said in a relaxed voice.

"Yes master, right away." A female voice chimed in.

"Just what the hell is going on in there?!?" Frei's eyes bulged, his imagination no longer able to keep up with the supposed happenings inside his master's room.

Enough was enough!

"Master, I believe that we are under attack!" Frei could not hold back any longer and opened the door shatply.

"An, assault?!" His master's hand shook and he spilled the tea he was holding.

"A tea!" Frei breathed out and his muscles froze.

The catgirl, or a foxgirl, it was really hard to tell apart, said nothing and simply stuffed herself quickly under the bed. To Frei's surprise, all her clothes was still on.

Was she really just serving a tea?

"Who is attacking, demon? Tell me, quick!" Raghask asked with a great sense of urgency in his voice.

"A-a. . . Sorry master, I have been mistaken. It was just an animal, but I would rather stay in the room to make sure nothing untoward happens." Frei stuttered, still surprised by the situation.

"That will be for the best. You seem to be strangely caring for a demon, do you have a name?" Raghask asked, he appeared to be genuinely pleased with his offer.

Was he derailed by the recent events? Was he even the blood-thirsty cultist he imagined him to be? Frei no longer trusted his intuition too much after his recent blunder.

"My name is Argus." He was too careful to give away his true name, especially if that might have some serious implications in case all the rumours about demons were to be believed, better safe than sorry.

"Argus, meet Nitarja. She is from a different plane, as you are. You can come out Nitarja, it was just a wild animal." He said and Frei noticed one of his hands was still shaking. His master seemed to have some difficulties with his new role.

"I will go to bed. Argus, make sure no one interrupts my sleep " Raghask stood up and disappeared into his bedroom, leaving Frei alone with Nitarja, who had just crawled out from under the bed.

Why had his master so many beds in his house was beyond him, maybe he liked to sleep? He would have suggested something else before, but his intuition was not as great as he had thought.

"Hi, I am Nitarja. Have you been sold to slavery as well?" She had probably no knowledge about the summoning.

"Something like that." He nodded.

"I look forward to work with you. Please, excuse me, but I am very tired. I am looking forward to work with you Argus." She gave him a warm smile and backed away from him in the direction of the door, quickly exiting the room when she reached it.

"A good fake smile Nitarja." Frei whispered and shook his head, it was really a weird situation.

They were afraid of him! The both of them! The girl kept even repeating herself like a five year old.

He had never been a genius when relationships were at stake, but even a blind man would have been able to see it. Frei sat on the bed in the empty room and contemplated his situation. To be feared was not bad, but fear had to be served in moderation, otherwise even a mouse turned against its hunter.

"I need to reassure them somehow. Objectively, I am a cold-blooded killer from their point of view." He mused while rolling on the bed.

"No." He stopped rolling and sat up. "I am not a cold-blooded killer from their point of view, I AM a cold blooded-killer."

It never occurred to him, because he had repeated in his head that all the souls he had killed went to heaven and those who did not simply deserved it for their deeds, but he was in a different universe now! The good old system of heaven and hell did not work for foreign souls.

"Damn, why do they have to look like humans? Alien bugs would be better, no moral dilemmas there."

It was quite a moral conundrum, but in the end there was no good and bad. There were just approaches that worked and those that did not work. It was clear that with zero aggression, there could be only net loss for his universe, no gains or growth resulting in its slow death. The best approach that combined competitiveness with morals seemed to be tit for tat with an ounce of understanding to prevent never ending cycles of revenge.

They had started an invasion into his home world and even kept enslaving its inhabitants, that meant war. Even if they were not a part of the invading force, compassion was a privilege of the strong. A weak hellspawn could only take what could be taken to open more possibilities. Frei fell again onto the blanket with his head more clear.

He heard noise coming from behind the door and walked out of the room to inspect what was going on. When he opened the door, he saw Nitarja buried under a heap of clothes and boots that had apparently fallen on top of her when she tried to use her improvised bed that was just in front of the front door leading on the street.

"I-I am sorry, I am so sorry to bother you with all the . . ." She was talking quickly with her head bowed down, trying to organize all the stuff that had been misplaced by her unusual nesting practices. Frei caught her chin and turned her head to look him in the eyes.

"Go sleep inside, you do not have to be afraid of me." He said, following her pupils that were darting all over the place.

"Look, do you really think that sleeping here would make any difference if I wanted to kill you? Hardly." He let go of her chin, but her head was still like frozen, looking at him stubbornly.

"Nice ears by the way, I like white." He ruffled her ear while laughing and she held like she was at a doctor. She was the type with snow-white ears, tail and blue eyes.

"Your abilities, you are from Hell right?" She said seriously and Frei stopped laughing.

"Right, how do you know? You should not be afraid, if you know that we are on the same side." He looked at her with a smile.

"Same side?" She snorted and her mask of a timid girl had finally fallen off.

"What side? You people from Hell kill like crazy no matter the side." Her opinion made him pause.

"Those with low rank do whatever they want because they are so many their superiors usually do not bother to correct their behaviour. The powerful ones have their heads full of great aspirations, dreams and big pictures and usually end up destroying whole cities in the name of greater good. The closest to my side are the farmers labouring on the local fields, not your filthy lot!" She fired at him her views and Frei had to steady himself with one hand on the wall to not stumble backwards.

"Oh boy, that could have gone better, but she has courage. I give her that." He thought for himself, wondering how to continue the conversation, when his conversation partner was only a hair away from being openly hostile.

"Just go use the bed, we all will be a day wiser tomorrow." He said and watched her walk away after a few seconds of an intense, lingering stare.

"Ugh." Frei let out a heavy sigh. "I guess the heap of coats and bathrobes is mine now." He collapsed at the improvised bed and fell asleep.

Frei woke up with his spine slightly distorted, his bed of roses not exactly the most ergonomic way to spend a night's sleep. He emerged from all the clothes and noticed someone's feet standing near his head. He stood up quickly, breaking his leg by doing so and stared at Nitarja who looked at his leg. He quickly realized that it was not his leg that had broke, but some long piece of wood. It was. . .a flute?

They looked at the broken thing and then at each other. Nitarja took a deep breath, a moisture appearing at the surface of her eyes.

"W-Was it yours? I am sorry!" Frei tried to salvage the situation and reached for the broken instrument, but she was already running away.

"Great, I expect it to be a keepsake from her dead mother or something with my luck." Frei looked at the two separated pieces, but that was just the beginning of his early morning's encounters.

A person stepped through the door of the bedroom with unsure, small steps.

"D-Demon! I mean, demon Argus, no, Argus!" It was his master who appeared in an awkward attempt to command him.

"Good morning." Frei decided to ignore his chaotic performance to give him some face.

"Good morning Argus, how are you?" Raghask smiled at him.

"Aah, you have thought about it." Frei understood what was happening.

"About what, sir?" He continued to express himself with a high level of inconsistence.

"Fine, I see that you have found out, no need to play dumb." Frei said and his master squealed. He began waving his arms in front of himself and tried to put as many words as he could in between them, as if such an action could stall Frei from reaching his throat.

"I-I,, wait. I am sorry, it was a mistake! I am just a simple scholar, an ordinary scholar with hobbies. I have never intended to summon a beast like you, no, I mean Lord Argus. I have come across this strange item and thought it to be just a silly joke. How could I know that the item was real? My curiosity overcame my caution and then you came, but . . "

"Wait, you sounded quite into the role when we first met." Frei folded his hands on his chest.

"I was a stupid old fool, just forget this sinner my lord!" Frei watched Raghask fell to his knees and wondered when the man would call him an emperor with the continuous increase of Frei's rank contained in Raghask's blabbering. "Would you just .. .just go back to your realm and we will forget the whole thing?"

"No. It does not work that way." Frei squinted.

"B-But that was just a single mistake of a simple stupid scholar!" Raghask looked at Frei with pleading eyes. "We can still work this out, even if you cannot return. I will hide you here and you can do whatever you want. Right, I can buy you something good for a breakfast for the start. With good food and something to drink, we will surely. . ."

"I see, you will bring me something to drink, before we arrive at a conclusion." Frei interrupted him coldly, it was almost exactly the same lie Raghask had told the men he had ordered to kill later. "Hypocrite, a snake like you cannot be trusted."

Before Raghask could do anything, a ray of black light penetrated his head and his body fell down with a thud.

"That is for the plan A." Frei sighed." Well, he did not lie in the end, he did bring me a breakfast."

Frei opened his slowly increasing soul count after his morbid joke.

[Souls] - 9 affinity-arcane 46 affinity-lithoid 22 affinity-plant 77 affinity-none

"I really hate mornings, I hate them." He had to change plans, staying in the house was no longer an option and by the sounds coming from the room next door, Nitarja was leaving as well.