I stared at the group of Asphons with a slack jaw and they stared back, neither of us making any moves. Well, I assumed they were looking at me. It was kind of hard to tell due to them only having a faceplate with no eyes as a… face. I took the few moments that passed like this to process what I was looking at. These guys were honest to god Asphons. The race of monsters that resulted from that spell that went horribly, horribly wrong. I remembered the last memory I’d viewed, where their entire race inexplicably started turning feral, and some third party planned to eradicate them from orbit.

Confusion rooted itself in my head since these guys obviously weren’t feral. If they’d undergone the change to a monster, we’d be fighting right now. And they obviously weren’t completely killed off, since they stood right in front of me. A ton of questions raced through my brain as the standoff continued until the Asphons finally broke the silence.

They started conversing in a language that I couldn’t understand, occasionally pointing at me while discussing. At least I had some ears to hear with, unlike when I met the travelers. Their conversation went by pretty quickly, the squad nodding at each other before one of them stepped forward. The Asphon addressed me directly in a distinctly different language, yet still not one I could understand. The voice sounded female, but I couldn’t see any other distinguishable features that differed from the others in the group.

The Asphons were a large bipedal monster… people? They were pretty thin overall, but they were decked out in natural, chitinous armor. They all had a long tail that culminated in a sharp tip and their faces were but a blank slate of shiny chitin. Odd protrusions jutted out at seemingly random parts of their bodies, which were mostly colored in different shades of brown, although I’d seen some pitch-black specimens in the memories as well. I couldn’t help but notice that they weren’t wearing any clothes either, but they probably didn’t need any. Nothing to hide, and they probably were a lot sturdier than humans were.

“Hello there, I guess you really are a voidling then?” The woman had gone through a few different languages while I’d been gawking, and finally, I heard something I could understand. The language of the void.

“Yes, yes, I am…” I replied stupidly, still not too sure what to make of all of this.

“Well, let me be the first to welcome you to the seventh layer then,” I heard somebody laugh in the back, an annoyed Asphon handing something shiny over to one of the others. “My name is Nimma, behind me are Andrius, Redax, and Orbos.”

Nimma pointed at each of the Asphons, each of them giving me a little wave when their name was called. “Hi there, I’m Gary.” I was still reeling from this entire situation, confused as all hell. “I’m sorry, but what is going on?”

“I’m sure this is all very confusing for you, but it isn’t safe out here so we would like to invite you to our city, Lophan, and answer any and all questions you might have. Would that be agreeable with you?”

“You mean there’s functional cities down here? That aren’t an apocalyptic wasteland?”

“Well, they might still be a little apocalyptic, but they are a lot better than the mess you can find around here,” Nimma gestured around us, one of the larger buildings in the distance choosing this moment to collapse as if to prove her point. “They are also kept free of monsters, making them a great place to relax. I’m sure you could appreciate a safe space after descending through the previous layers, no?”

Nimma was right. Although I’d recently gotten incredibly strong and had spent the last year in a comparatively cushy fashion, I’d seldom had a chance to truly relax ever since I’d been reincarnated. Still, the circumstances were weird, and if something on this planet seemed odd or out of place, it usually meant that my life was in danger.

“What reason do I have to trust you?” I asked warily. I wanted to trust them, see the city they talked about, and finally get my questions answered, but I’d be a fool to go with them without at least asking some questions.

“You’re wary of us, and that is perfectly understandable. I know the system probably told you that there are no intelligent races on this planet but, you see, we are a bit of a special case. We’re a race called…”

“Asphons,” I interjected. “I’ve seen the memories on the fourth layer. You’re supposed to be extinct.”

“Ah, that will help to speed things up a bit.” Nimma nodded, obviously glad that she didn’t have to explain their entire backstory. “I’m afraid our extinction was greatly exaggerated. We’re still not entirely sure why the system insists on presenting the memories like that, but everybody that has seen them is always very confused when they get down here.”

“So what? The system is spreading false information for shits and giggles?” If that was true, I needed to seriously reconsider everything I’d been shown by the system. I had come to the conclusion that the system was a neutral tool, used by everyone, but maybe there was a lot more going on here than I’d originally thought.

“Well, it’s not all wrong, our civilization really did collapse back then.” Nimma waved me off. “And now we’re stuck down here. I’m afraid that the circumstances might take some time to explain, and out here isn’t exactly the best place to discuss this. It’s dangerous.”

“I somehow doubt I’m in a lot of danger right now,” I decided to sound confident. After all, I really thought that I should be unparalleled on this layer, and this whole thing was kind of fishy. “You still haven’t answered why I should trust you, and you trying to lead me to your city in a rush isn’t exactly behavior that I would call unsuspicious.”

“Right, that,” Nimma seemed to get more nervous as time went on, her head was on a swivel, looking for something. “The system should have given you the task to complete quests, right? Well, we Asphons are the ones giving out the quests for the system. So, you either give us the benefit of the doubt, or you won’t be able to progress to the eighth layer.”

“You do?” That was interesting to know. I knew that there needed to be some sort of method in place for the system to give out the quests, and having the Asphons do it made sense. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re so nervous. Are you truly not afraid of the monsters roaming around here?”

“It’s not the monsters we’re wary of…” Nimma began to say before a group of voices to our right started shouting in one of the languages I couldn’t understand. I turned my right eye, keeping the other on the Asphons, only to see another group of four Asphons running in our direction. “I just wanted to avoid meeting another squad like this.”

Nimma sighed and turned to the newcomers, the other members of her group adopting a more hostile stance. The new arrivals stopped about ten meters away from me, and the same spiel as before played out. Lots of pointing at me and discussing, although this time they also wildly gestured in the direction of Nimma and her friends. It actually looked like they were spouting insults at the other team.

“Jugan, back off! We got here first” Nimma shouted at the other group in the void language, clearly familiar with them.

“We don’t care if you got here first” the Asphon Jugan seemed to realize that I wouldn’t understand unless they spoke in the void language and switched as well. These guys were awfully considerate, and I finally started wondering how it was that they all could speak this odd language in the first place. “The rules say that a traveler is associated once they enter a city, so us showing up here is fair game. Hey, traveler, I don’t know what they promised you, but we offer double what they did. Their city is worse than ours anyway, and our quests are better!”

Every time I thought I was getting a handle on the situation, something weird happened that threw me back into the throes of confusion. What the hell was this business of being associated with a city, and why the childish attempts at winning me over? Instead of passively letting this play out, I decided to voice my concerns.

“What do you mean by being associated with a city?”

“Once you enter your first Asphon settlement you will be considered as being an associate of that settlement. That means you will only be able to accept quests from settlements under the same leader.” Jugan quickly explained, not taking his… face off Nimma while he did. “Our city is a lot better than theirs, and we have more and easier quests, so you should come with us instead of them.”

“Hey! Our city is just as good as yours, if not better,” Nimma shouted back, agitated. “At least our leader isn’t a result-oriented fuckwad like yours. Gary don’t listen to them. Our cities are just about equal and we’ve been at war for decades now trying to take over the other.”

“So what, you both want me to come over to your settlement to benefit off of me?” I asked, seeing where this was going.

“No of course not, our city really is simply better than theirs,” Jugan called out.

“I’d be lying if I said we didn’t benefit from being associated with a traveler,” Nimma admitted. “But you’ll still need to join a settlement eventually if you want to descend. Might as well come to ours.”

“I’ll admit that it looks like I’ll have to join, yes, but how could I possibly choose which city to go to without having all the information? As it stands, all I have to go on is the childish argument between two suspicious strangers.” I was currently leaning toward going with Nimma since she seemed nice enough, and that Jugan fella seemed to win me over by putting the other city down, which didn’t sit quite right with me.

“I propose a challenge duel!” Jugan shouted excitedly. “Four-on-four combat, usual rules, whoever wins gets to take back the traveler!”

“I’m loathe to put the traveler as a price without his consent,” Nimma sighed and turned toward me. “What do you think?”

I looked between the two groups, Jugan’s posse being a lot more excited at the prospect of a fight than Nimma’s. They seemed to be really invested in having me become their associate, making me believe that they’d get substantial benefits from having me do their quests. I felt like I didn’t have enough information to make a proper decision and they honestly didn’t look like they’d leave me alone if I asked. I was confident that I would be able to escape from them, but they obviously had some way to find me or the current situation wouldn’t be happening. I thought back at the odd blue pulse along the ceiling, which had most likely broadcasted my arrival to the nearby settlements.

“What are the usual rules for this four-on-four combat thing?” I asked to gain some time to think.

“No killing allowed, once you fall below ten percent health you count as defeated. Attacking a defeated contestant is dishonorable, as is continuing to attack once defeated.” Nimma explained quickly, giving me the precious amount of ten seconds to think things over. “Also, you must honor the deal should you lose the challenge.”

“Alright, sure,” I sighed. I mostly agreed because I wanted to see how the Asphons fought, not because I was intending to go with the winner. “Although I want to change the deal. I will not go with the winner, but with the group that I think fought better.”

“That is acceptable,” Jugan commented. “We’ll win easily anyway, you’ll see just how much better we are than them.”

“We’ll agree as well,” Nimma said after confirming with her team, settling into formation. “Gary, if you would give us a sign to start?”

I watched as the two groups took up positions about thirty meters from each other, taking out weapons from nowhere, presumably an inventory. They seemed intent on doing this, and I was curious about how this would go down as well, so, with another sign I signaled them to start.

“Begin!”