Ben laid in bed, exhausted from the events of the day. As great as it was to see his friends after so long they definitely made a stressful appearance, and that wasn’t even considering their request.

But really, now I’m going demon hunting with them? That sounds exhausting. His last couple months had felt like constant danger and near-death experiences, and now his friends had come along and wanted him to face more, even worse given it seemed he wouldn’t have a choice. As soon as Will said the words, Falk took over the decision making for him and essentially forced Ben into it.

“Demons make great materials no matter how dangerous they might be, and I told you when you started I expect you to hunt your own materials. Sometimes that means pushing yourself,” His teacher had told him as he’d been forced into it, while at the same time making a deal with Wedrow. “I’ll give you a good deal on whatever you need for those two on two conditions. I want the boy to be working on getting a couple of skills anyway, and my niece could use some experience with a demon hunt too. What do you say?” The flying worm agreed surprisingly easily and with that, the deal was done.

And now I need to work on getting those two skills too.

It felt like ages ago now, but when he’d been making a temporary cloak for Thera he’d asked Falk before he left about skills he should try and get, and it seemed like despite the advances he’d made since then, especially considering what he’d discovered about his connect and enchanting, his teacher had focused in on two that could be good for his crafting, meaning that while Thera, Will, and Steph hunted demons, Ben would be off to the side killing this world's equivalent of rats and squirrels to try and get the knife wielder and hammer wielder skills.

He understood where his teacher had been coming from at least. While crafting and all other production-related skills came with tool proficiency as part of its package, that didn’t mean he shouldn’t try to increase it more. The issue was how he’d have to go about it. Hammer and knife wielder were both combat skills, meaning he could only gain them by fighting with those weapons. Once acquired they could level up through regular use of the weapon for other tasks, though much slower, and the added proficiency with the weapons would increase his ability to use them as tools for other things like blacksmithing and woodcarving.

The main issue was just that he didn’t have any interest in the act of acquiring them. He knew they would be useful and that they made sense to get, but up until now his preferred method to hunt had been from a distance, and if he was being honest with himself he didn’t remotely care about the combat aspects of them. Perhaps it would be a different story if he’d come to this world with awoken and blessed versions of the skills, but that just came down to him wanting the strength without the effort. If he had to choose between going out and hunting to raise those skill levels or hunting to test some tools he’d crafted, he’d take testing any day of the week.

Well it’s to help me improve my crafting overall, so as long as I get the skills before the week is done it won’t be too bad, at least level zero skills aren’t too challenging. If he couldn’t get them in that time he’d just have to try and construct some traps that would be able to capture some monsters without finishing them off so he could quickly do it himself.

“As fun as it is waiting for you to notice you’re not alone, things have been pretty busy since our little announcement, so if you don’t mind let’s get this going.” A familiar voice came from beside him, Ben seeing Quilith when he looked.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show.”

“A deal is a deal. Besides, this is the easy part.”

“True.” As per what they had decided when they first met, Ben would only be asking questions right now, the alien wouldn’t come back until the next month with answers for him and to take new questions. It felt long in some ways, but it also created more than enough time to think over exactly what he wanted to learn, as well as plenty of time for the grey to gather the information he needed without impeding its own work too much. “In that case, there’s three things I want to learn more about. Modern weapon technology, how something like a walkie-talkie is made, and how showers work.”

The grey was unfazed for the first two, but the last one provoked a look. “One of those was not like the others.”

“I’m not a fan of only being able to wash with a bucket of water or a bath if I’m lucky,” He said with a shrug. “Plus, showering just feels good. I guess we can change the request to plumbing in general with an emphasis on showers.”

“Very well, that one shouldn’t be an issue, but may I make you a recommendation for the other two?”

“Sure, let’s hear it.”

“Rather than get the information we know about both in the next month, wait until the various nations of this world finish conducting their own research and then we can provide it to you.”

Ben thought for a moment. Of course, those two topics would be some of the first that the world wanted to learn too. As far as he knew, fast long distances messages could only be created by exceptionally skilled space and air mages, with both options having drawbacks that made them impractical to all but the wealthy and powerful. As for weapons, based on what he knew a powerful enough mage could cause as much damage as many of the more common ones available on earth, some potentially reaching the strength of military-grade weapons, so he hadn’t initially considered they would be looking to get them, but it made sense. After all, wouldn’t the common person benefit from having something that was easy to use with a low skill level in the event the fighting made it to any residential areas? That wasn’t to mention nukes or whatever weird sci-fi weapons these aliens might have at their disposal, of course the governments of the world would want access.

“Alright, sounds good to me,” He decided. “How long do you think it will take to work some of that stuff out?”

“It’s going to depend on multiple factors. We’re currently trying to compare the physics of this reality to any of the others we’re aware of, but unfortunately ones like this with rules that allow the sentients within to have so much power in reshaping it as they see fit tend to be messy. On top of that, we can’t conduct the tests ourselves, instead needing to get each nation or kingdom to follow our directions. It could be a few months at best, maybe longer.”

“Well hopefully I have years so I guess it’s not the biggest deal. Though speaking of, any news on the invaders?”

At this, the greys facial expression shifted in a way Ben interpreted as displeasure. “We’ve checked the homeworlds of each of this planet's inhabitants and suffice to say the situation isn’t ideal. Frankly you’re all going to lose, though you probably shouldn’t spread that around.”

Ben felt a knot forming in the pit of his stomach. “That bad?”

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s worse. These creatures not only have taken over hundreds of worlds, in the hundreds and thousands of years since each has been conquered they’ve managed to fill them up. Our scientists are trying to model what their reproduction rate is like as we observe them, but should you all manage to survive the first three waves we see no reason for them to stop. Frankly if they didn’t insist on doing things in such a way they could take off and kill off its inhabitants in a few hours at most, and if you managed to free a single world from them they could likely have it filled up again in just a few years.”

“Delightful,” He said, wishing he hadn’t asked.

Surprisingly though, Quilith seemed to try and lift his spirit. “We’re working on it,” The alien told him confidently. “All of their worlds are connected through gates, the same sort you lot use to travel country to country, but on a much larger scale. Our scientists are working on figuring out ways to disrupt gate travel so we can keep them completely off world. It’s the only hope we can think of at the moment, but it’s something.”

“So what’s your take on all of that?” Ben asked when he awoke in his god’s realm shortly after Quilith left.

“Not ideal but not shocking either. We’d believed that the invasions were for colonization purposes, and their quick reproduction rate is something we’re at least familiar with thanks to all of the demons that have made it onto this world and still exist despite frequent hunts for them. It only takes a few to fall between the cracks and before you know it you’ve got a new batch of demons fresh and ready to go.”

“Great, anything else I should know about them before I get dragged off to face them tomorrow?”

“Don’t sound so pessimistic, it seems like your friends are going to manage all of the fighting and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to get to see what’s to come, even if it’s on a small scale.”

“Yeah yeah, I’m sure it won’t be too bad. It’s just a bit quick, I want to focus on developing my skills and getting job levels if I can.”

“Well work on your connect more since raising it should give you some job experience. It just so happened I had a surprise for you coming this week that should be able to help, but I guess you won’t be able to enjoy it until you’re back.”

“Wait what?” Ben asked, completely taken off guard. “I’ll look forward to it then, but why?” Even he had to admit he wasn’t a great apostle. With everything his god had already given him he couldn’t ask for more, at least not without putting in some work for it.

Myriad felt some small joy hearing the feeling cross Ben's mind but gave a brief explanation to provide context. “No need to feel too grateful about this, it will help the apostle of another god as well, you’ll just be able to get plenty of benefit out of it too. I’ll leave the details for when you’re back.”

“Or you could tell me now?”

“Surprises can be fun,” The god said, brushing him off. “And more motivation for you to make it back safely.”