In his room, Solomon sat on his flimsy wooden bed. Every time he thought about Hyde his blood would boil in anger.

"'I can't go to the mine with you. I have to work in the kitchen.' He says. Like I'd believe that. He just sat there gambling all day." Grumbled Solomon.

Originally, when he arrived at the camp, he was utterly exhausted from the excruciatingly long walk and mining. But now that he was so furious he couldn't relax and get to sleep.

To distract himself, Solomon pulled over his bag full of metal and opened it. He had turned the bag upside down and emptied the contents onto the floor.

Chunks of black golden metal spilt out and landed on the ground with a thunk. A few pieces of metal landed near his tail and Just from being near the metal, his tail started vibrating with a strange humming noise and snaked towards it of its own accord.

He could feel a strange hunger and desire coming from his tail as it got nearer to the metal. Seeing that his tail was moving of its own accord, it seemed to have a mind of its own. In the end, he decided to leave it alone and see what will happen.

A metallic scraping sound filled the cramped tent as the tail slithered like a snake along the ground and towards the metal.

When the tip of the tail came into contact with the nearest piece of metal, a syringe-like protrusion came from the tip and then, like a viper striking its prey. The syringe at the tip of the tail stabbed into the chunk of the black-gold metal.

Solomon could feel a powerful suction force coming from the syringe that was firmly inside the metal. Over time, he started to notice the chunk of metal losing its lustre.

The piece of metal the syringe was stabbed into slowly started becoming duller and began losing its colour, starting from the area the syringe was in contact with.

As the metal was losing its colour, The tail was gaining a hint of dark gold and the suction force was increasing.

After a few minutes, the metal had almost completely lost its colour and lustre. He removed the syringe from the metal that now looked like a dull grey rock. Solomon gave it a tap out of curiosity it crumbled into dust.

Unsure of what exactly had just happened and whether or not it was a good thing, he scratched his head in confusion.

"Hmm, has it gotten tougher or something?" Solomon mumbled as he watched his tail make its way towards another piece of metal.

Once a few more pieces of metal had turned to dust, Solomon started to become more certain of his guess.

His tail had become visible darker with a golden tint and felt stronger and tougher. However, if he used up all his metal, he would go back to being poor, so he set some aside out of the reach of his gluttonous tail.

After his tail finished absorbing the rest of the metal, Solomon took a deep breath. His muscles were bursting with energy and his heart raced in his chest.

He swung his tail behind him to test it out and it split the air with the noise of a whip. He couldn't help but grin at this. "Looks like I don't have to stay weak then."

Solomon passed out from exhaustion while smiling and dreamt of how amazing his new mining speed would be.

The next morning, after dragging himself out of bed, Solomon was standing outside Hyde's room "Hey gambler, get up! Did you think you could trick me again today?" He shouted.

"Shut-up ass-hole! Do you have any idea how early it is?" Came shouts from the surrounding tents

Solomon apologised and went into Hyde's tent to take out his embarrassment on him. After being woken up by a slap to the face, Hyde made his way to the canteen with Solomon.

Hyde, who was sitting across from Solomon at the canteen was looking at him in displeasure. "So, you're saying, after all that complaining, you only made half as much as me yesterday."

"No, my tail absorbed a bunch of the metal I got. I actually made more but..." Solomon defended himself before being interrupted.

Unimpressed Hyde pressed harder. "How much did you make?"

"500 copper pieces." He said with a sigh.

"how much did I make?" Hyde asked smugly.

"1000 copper pieces," Solomon said sadly.

Hyde raised a finger to his lips and shushed Solomon. Then, he continued speaking with a shit-eating grin. "So are you going to keep the mining thing up?"

"Yeah, it's the only way I've found to make my tail stronger so far. I can absorb metals to make it more powerful and there are plenty of metals in the mines." Solomon explained.

Hyde nodded hearing this and explained that fishing was similar for him. "I can eat parts of the monsters we catch and practice fighting which will probably be useful later."

"That's fair," Solomon agreed, although he seemed somewhat disappointed.

An awkward silence descended on the pair. Since their paths were splitting up here, they probably wouldn't see each other too much. Although they hadn't known each other for long, there was definitely a friendship there.

Hyde broke through the awkward silence with a question. "Did you find out anything important from your miner buddies?"

Solomon paused in thought and explained how the mafia demons were planning to wait as long as possible before taking their 'Penance'.

Hyde nodded hearing this. He had heard something similar from Fike but he wasn't sure it was a good idea.

"I think it might be a better idea to take the 'Penance' as soon as possible. If we assume that the earlier 'Penances' will be easier, then we might be grateful for the extra time we have at the deeper levels of hell." Hyde explained his thoughts.

Solomon agreed with this train of thought for a few reasons. But, he didn't want to rush into the 'Penance' immediately. It would be best to get used to their new bodies first. After all, both of them had already come across problems with their new body parts.

He explained his concerns to Hyde, who agreed that this was reasonable. "So how long should we wait before taking it?"

"How about 2 weeks. We'll spend the first week at our respective jobs, getting stronger and earning a bit of money and then try and find out more information on the 'Penance' in the second week." Solomon suggested.

Hyde agreed with this plan. He felt that, if you spent too long on the first level you might become too comfortable here and end up procrastinating. It might even make it harder to complete your 'Penance' if you stayed here too long.

The two demons got their planning out of the way and Hyde spent the rest of breakfast listening to Solomon complaining about his new coworkers.

"Mafia demons?" Hyde asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, Don't get me started though. I don't want to talk about it." Solomon said before proceeding to talk about 'it' extensively.

Solomon and Hyde made plans to meet each other for dinner and headed off to work.

...

As Solomon met up with the mafia demons on the outskirts of the city, Kith commented on his 'Cool new tail'

Today, they had ended up in a Slightly wider and further away tunnel. The Boss had used his sonar to pinpoint a good deposit of metal and Laud had shouted his head off in typical fashion.

Solomon managed to find the metal again today by using his tail like a metal detector. He had discovered that it would vibrate when it neared valuable metal.

Like he had guessed, His tail had become a bit tougher and sharper after absorbing the metal last night. His mining speed was quicker and it was slightly easier for him to carry the metal back to camp.

On the way back, he explained his plan to Kith who ended up trying to dissuade him. "That's too risky. You've barely gotten any stronger. What if you end up failing?"

Solomon explained to Kith his plan to save time for a later 'Penance'. Since they didn't know how long the deeper levels of hell would take, he felt that it would be better to have as much time to spare as possible.

Kith looked somewhat depressed when he heard Solomon speaking about the deeper levels of hell. "I don't know whether I will even finish the later 'Penances'" He admitted.

Solomon was baffled by this statement. "What do you mean?"

"By clearing more 'Penances' you are cleansing and improving your soul. This means that when you reincarnate, you will have a better life. Like instead of being a toad, you might end up as an eagle or something." Kith explained.

"So why wouldn't you aim to complete all of the 'Penances'?" Solomon asked confused.

"I've heard that the deeper you go, the more difficult the 'Penances' Become. Most people don't end up making it past a certain level."

"So what? they just accept that they can't make it any deeper than a certain point and settle for reincarnating with a slightly better life?"

Kith kicked a stone while refusing to look Solomon in the eye. "Pretty much." He said in a small voice.

Honestly, Solomon empathised with this, the problem was the green flame that surrounded him. He wouldn't end up reincarnating, his soul would be destroyed, "Well, that won't work for me. It's all or nothing I'm afraid."

Kith sympathised with Solomon's plight. "Your right. Seeing as you won't reincarnate your only option is to complete all the 'Penances'."

Solomon nodded and followed this up with his thoughts. "Seeing as I have to complete all of them, I'll take any advantage I can get."

Kith admitted that this was his only realistic option at the moment. "Good luck then."

...

Meanwhile, Hyde was staring at a giant turtle that Fike had just yanked from the ocean of fire. He looked down at his claws doubtfully.

"How am I supposed to break through that massive shell with these?" He asked doubtfully.

The problem wasn't only the shell that looked strong enough to stop a missile in its track. The turtle also had a sinister scorpion tail behind it.

Fike was worried as well. Every time he went near the monsters head it would snap at him with its vice-like jaws. "Normally its underbelly would be weaker." He shouted to Hyde. The problem was that if you went under it, the creature could just crush you with ease.

"Throw me your rod," Hyde shouted to Fike.

Deciding to trust Hyde, Fike hurled the sturdy fishing rod like a javelin into the ground at Hyde's feet.

Hyde picked it up and tried to bend it. "Should be strong enough." He muttered. Then, with the metal rod in hand, he ran towards the side of the turtle.

Hyde rushed towards the monstrously large turtle which was hissing at him as he drew closer. In response, Hyde growled and his canine ears twitched.

On instinct, he hastily raised the fishing rod and barely managed to block the attack of the lighting fast scorpion tail that lashed out at him. Staggering back a bit, Hyde shook off the blow as his arms ached from the impact.

Now that he was at the side of the turtle, he plunged the metal fishing rod into the gap between the turtle shell and the ground.

Grabbing onto the other end of the fishing rod, Hyde pushed it down into the ground with all his might. His arms bulged and a low, throaty growl came from his throat.

The fishing rod that was wedged in between the shell and the ground acted like a lever flipping the turtle over.

With a massive dust cloud, the turtle landed on its back and started to make a screeching noise as it desperately tried to right itself.

Presented with the soft underbelly of the monster Fike jumped onto its underbelly and plunged his harpoon into the creature's heart.

The monster died with a whimper as the light left its eyes. Hyde and Fike were left panting, desperately trying to get air back into their lungs.

Hyde could feel his own heartbeat smashing into his chest like it was trying to break out. With deep breaths, he tried to calm his adrenaline riddled body and stop it from shaking.

The adrenaline brought with it a euphoric high that shook Hyde's body. "Good job Fike." He called out.

"Same to you. How's my fishing rod." Fike called back.

Hyde looked down at the mangled fishing rod gripped in his white-knuckled hands. Unable to find any words to describe it, he simply held it up for Fike to see.

"Shit! That cost me an arm and a leg. Dammit," Fike swore. "I guess it's a sign."

"What do you mean a sign?" Hyde asked now that he had caught his breath a bit.

"Actually I've been planning to take my 'Penance' soon. Now that my fishing rod is broken I reckon I should just get it over with." Fike laughed dryly.

Hyde was overjoyed and immediately invited Fike to take the trial with him.

This seemed to cheer Fike up a bit and the pair began separating the useful parts of the turtle from the useless.