“You’re almost late,” Zuken stated in a factual tone as he went over some paperwork behind his desk, even once looking up as Lukas walked into the room with Tanya in tow.

The terramancer sat on a very comfortable chair against the table, with everything save his head and shoulders obstructed from Lukas’s line of sight by the folders stacked upon each other. Elena sat on a chair in the extreme west, her brunette hair tied backwards into a single tail. She wore a formal white short, a black skirt with a slash on one side that showed off a generous portion of her thigh, and shoes that were definitely a study in high-heeled torture devices.

“Sorry,” Lukas replied half-heartedly, “I got lost in a bit of soul-searching.”

Tanya poked a finger into his abdomen from behind.

“Behave,” she warned.

“What?” Lukas challenged. “It wasn’t like we agreed at a particular hour.”

Zuken looked amused at his scorn. “That is true. Also, my thanks for cooperating earlier. The Overseer’s presence sped up my plans a bit, especially with your demonstration.”

“Oh?”

“Kinosu was both gob smacked and impressed by your performance. You now have his attention.” Zuken paused for a moment. “You might not be glad that you did.”

Lukas arched an eyebrow.

“I know Kinosu will ensure your participation in the upcoming event. That makes it easier for me to get your documentation done and out of the way. It means they’ll watch you, observe you, pay attention to you. That can be a benefit. Or it might prove to be a curse.”

“For you?”

“For everyone.” It was Elena that answered. “Don’t get cocky. Not everything is about you.”

“But for that to be true, I’d have to not be the center of the universe.”

Lukas felt Tanya grip his arm tightly, and cut down on his wiseassery, deciding to focus on the surrounding room. It was a reflection of the person working in it. Every piece of furniture, every pen, paper file cabinet and device needed for the job was positioned and organized flawlessly. Granted, a third of this paperwork would have been absent had computerization existed in this world, but he knew better than to make suggestions on that end without getting a better idea of the true potential of the world around him.

“Fine,” He consented, “what’s the issue?”

Zuken tilted his head slightly to one side. Sitting like that, he wasn’t at all imposing to look at. A man in his good shape, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, with a respectable amount of muscle, in the way of long-distance runners, or a soccer coach, but too heavy in the shoulders and arms for that to be all he did. He was a striking-looking rogue, but not like the sort of man who would have his legs broken, or his jaw wired shut. Compared to him, Olfric looked like an all pro player ousted for extreme and unnecessary roughness.

He glanced at Tanya and spoke in a clear baritone voice. “I need everyone to leave. I have private business with Aguilar.”

“But Zuken—” Elena objected.

Zuken raised his hand. “You know the risks and the possibilities. This is something I have to do myself.”

“Are you certain this is a good idea?” Tanya asked. Lukas wasn’t sure if she was worried about Zuken or for him, which… felt oddly refreshing. Or maybe that was because after spending an inordinate amount of time in the presence of entities that could have killed him on a whim, he was finally towering among others.

In less than ten seconds, the room was empty save for the two men sitting on opposite sides of a large, wooden desk, looking at each other with different levels of wariness and expectation, as if trying to figure out what was going through the others’ mind. Once again, it was a poetic repetition of the events that had transpired back in the yokai territory.

“Where is that metal band?” Zuken asked after several moments of silence.

Lukas tapped his abdomen. “It reacts at the oddest of things. So I made it into an undershirt.”

“An… undershirt?”

“It’s a slime. It can become whatever it wants.”

The edges of his mouth twisted into a small frown. “Or whatever you want it to be.”

“That too.” Lukas beamed at him. Smiling always annoyed people more than insulting them. Or maybe he just had an annoying smile.

Zuken seemed a little put off by his attitude. “We had some very interesting experiences with that band. I’ve seen automatons crafted out of metal, as well as sentient weapons that hold many mysteries within them. But a complete living creature? That’s new, even for me.”

“It’s a big world,” Lukas shrugged.

The terramancer nodded acceptingly and looked down at the papers in front of him. “Lukas Aguilar. Origin — Outsider. Race — phenotypically bremetan. Eyes, brown. Hair color: black. Assumed age, twenty-one. It is possible your world arose from an Asukan invasion in the past. Estimated lifeforce output, five thousand units. Estimated Mana Output, six thousand three hundred units.”

Lukas stood there, suddenly very wary. He had expected this, but the sudden, blunt impact had caught him off-guard.

“Nature of mana, Fire and Ether. Kami—” Zuken met his eyes. “None.”

“This won’t end well, will it?” He asked as calmly as he could manage. Dead or alive, his body had been under observation for over a month. Spiritism arose out of voluntary sacrifice of soul capacity, so it wasn’t surprising they had technologies to determine if someone had a kami in them or not.

Kind of like thermal imaging cameras, only for the soul.

And knowing he was an Outsider was one thing, but him showing the ability to perform manacrafting without a kami? That was something else.

“Depends,” said Zuken. “Are you a deviant?”

Lukas blinked. “A…deviant?”

“Someone of a mixed heritage. I know the jotnar are wielders of fire and frost, depending on their origins. The svartalfar’s affinity for terramancy is well-known and feared for good reason. The ljósálfars twist light to their will and the Vanir can use the World energy directly.” He paused for a moment. “All of them are physical beings, but are attuned to a singular form of mana. But you—” He trailed off.

“I can use multiple elements,” Lukas affirmed, wondering where this was leading. “And no, not a deviant.”

Zuken cupped his chin. “I assumed as much.”

“Are we going to have a problem?”

“Potentially. It’s not unheard of for an adventurer to wield multiple kami, or boast enough soul capacity to bring out multiple affinities of their kami, but… they’re rare, and are usually Gold-tier or higher. But not only can you use multiple elements, you do it without one.”

Lukas eyed him.

“I have a couple of questions, and I need you to answer them truthfully. Be warned, if you try to lie to me, I’ll react appropriately.”

Lukas doubted the Banksi’s definition of ‘appropriate’ matched his own, but he wisely kept that thought to himself. This would not be like his earlier encounters. His power and his skills could aid him in a fight, but not here.

“Fine. Shoot.”

“Where are you from?”

That was easy. “Earth.”

“Which is a—”

“Realm, from what I understand. Much like this one.”

“And your people travel to this world often?”

“Can’t say.”

“Why?”

Lukas weighed his options. Tanya’s image of Zuken painted him as a man of connections and questionable motives. He did not doubt even for a second that if the man was keeping him here because of some misguided sense of fair play. No, Zuken had seen something valuable in him, and did not know his exact worth.

That was what this meeting was for. Determining his worth.

Very well. Two could play this game.

“I’ve… reasons to believe that something destroyed my world, or at least damaged it beyond repair. It is possible that there was an Asukan invasion on my world earlier, and possibly Nordic ones as well, since I recognize species from both, and well — your folks look like mine do.”

“Interesting.” Zuken crossed his fingers and rested his chin on them. “And how did you get here?”

“My parents put me on a baby shuttle and sent me to a different world so that I could live a normal life and love sunshine and flowers. Instead, I got stuck in a cave and encountered you folks.”

Zuken led out a brief snort of amusement. “I suppose I walked into that one myself. But levity apart, what would you say is the soul capacity of the average… whatever it is you call yourself?”

“Human.”

“Right. That.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Humor me.”

Lukas narrowed his eyes. This was a trick question, and he knew it. He already knew that lifeforce and mana were measurable, and the presence and absence of kami detected. In that light, how impossible was it to measure one’s soul capacity?

“What’s there to think? Surely that’s not a hard question?”

Oh yeah, this was a trap alright. But staying silent would make things worse.

No value, no matter how great or small, would ever match up to infinity. Nothing would explain the impossible amount of soul capacity he had within himself. So instead, he went for a doozy.

“Nothing.”

“Excuse me?”

Lukas smiled. Yeah, it’d be interesting to see him tackle this one. “Nothing. Absolutely zero. People on Earth did not have Soul capacity. We did not level up. Or have skills.”

“No soul capacity. No skills,” Zuken repeated dumbly.

Lukas beamed. He could practically see the gears running in the terramancer’s mind. Seeing him struggling to face a truth so byzantine reminded him of himself, when Inanna had unveiled her existence before his eyes.

“Nothing. We led our entire lives, reliant on our intelligence and technology. No lifeforce, no mana, nothing, at least, in the last two thousand years. Before that, not so sure.”

“And why not?”

“Because I have genuine reason to believe that gods and goddesses existed back in my world back then. As did demons. And lifeforce and mana and all that.”

“But not any longer?”

Lukas shook his head.

“And yet you—”

“Well,” Lukas drawled, “All that potential had to go somewhere.”

He let that one hang there. And given the gobsmacked expression on Zuken’s face, the effect was just as devastating.

“You… you can’t be serious.”

“I’m not,” Lukas replied with a straight face. Crossing his arms, he regarded Zuken’s growing scowl. “What? You expect me to just tell you stuff like that? Nothing is free. You want information? Pay for it.”

It was hard not to smile. He could almost see the gears running inside Zuken’s head, trying to sort between what was true, and what wasn’t. The irony that every word he had spoken was absolute truth was not lost on him.

“Do you think this is a joke?” Zuken growled, waving the piece of paper in front of Lukas, “The Cobalt Army would be happy to pay a hefty amount even if half of this list was true.”

Oh.

So that was what this was.

Lukas pressed his palms against the table and glared at the terramancer. “Let me get this straight. We had a bargain. I kept my end of it in the anomaly, and now you want to hold my Outsider status over my head and force me to comply with your new demands?”

“What if I did?” the man asked coolly.

Lukas eyed him. Zuken had just established that he knew exactly what Lukas was capable of, and the towering differences between them. And despite that, he wanted him to react with fear and caution.

Why? Because of fear of prosecution from the Army? Could the Banksi be betting so much on the Army’s arrival and their ability to trap him? Perhaps he had already had the Army ready to move in if the shit hit the fan? It’d definitely explain why he had Tanya and the others leave. Was this what he had meant when he had mentioned ‘risks’ and ‘possibilities’ to Elena earlier?

“Well?” Zuken asked, snapping Lukas out of his thoughts faster than a cold bucket of water ever could.

But it also helped him set his head on straight.

As his training kicked in and Tachypsychia activated, Lukas used reason and discipline to blunt most of his initial burst of panic. Zuken had his body for over a month. No doubt he had performed whatever experiments he could, and derived whatever conclusions that were possible. And after this period of experimentation, he had practically showed off Lukas to the Overseer like a prized collection.

No sane person would do that, unless he intended to keep said ‘collection’ for a considerable time period‌. So no, it wasn’t a choice between forced servitude or fighting off an impossibly powerful army.

At least, that was what Lukas told himself.

The pounding of his heart slowly abated with that thought, till it approached something that he could at least pretend was normal.

“No,” He said at last. “If you wanted to, you’d have done that already, instead of having this conversation and gloating about it.”

The terramancer stared back at him, his face set in a half-frown, thoughts indecipherable, before giving a curt nod. Then he calmly raised his right hand and flicked his fingers once, and the ambient energy inside the office room drastically shifted.

“I had estimated a sixty-two percent chance of you attacking me right off the bat,” Zuken said, as he continued to watch him. “I could almost see you considering alternatives, verifying your chances against a possible Army onslaught and every other possibility you could think of. That you could arrive at a satisfying conclusion makes me feel a lot more confident about your involvement in our… world.”

His throat constricted at the thought of being so predictable, but Lukas kept his composure. “What do you mean?”

Zuken wrinkled up his face, as if carefully considering what he would say, and taking his well-being into account with an almost grandfatherly concern. “I might not look like it, but I have some experience dealing with beings that eclipse me both in raw potential and strength. And I’m certainly not foolish enough to deny the existence of beings above my power or their ability to cause unbridled chaos. So far, you’ve shown no inclination towards disruptive tendencies, bar your unorthodox attitude and outspoken behavior, especially in matters of social hierarchy.”

Lukas felt like a kindergarten kid being spoken to by a teacher during a Parents Meet. Zuken’s words carried with them a sense of finality, but despite that, Lukas wasn’t sure what the man was going for.

“Tell me, the terramancer’s eyes drilled into him. “Just why are you hiding the fact that you’re a fucking demigod?”

…

…

“...huh?”