My favourite activity, walking around in an empty landscape, is finally nearly over. The mountain where the supposed "main camp" is looms over me, casting a shadow similar to the floating diamond structures, which is the closest thing to nighttime I have experienced in this world.

Forcing my glaive blade first into the ground, I sit down to enjoy the dark as it feels surprisingly comforting, slightly similar to the lake but more subdued and instinctual when I turn to Eden.

"I can't just walk you into town. You don't know a way to hide you, perhaps?" I ask, resigned.

Inside. Eden sends in a broken, distorted way accompanied by a literal picture of inside a house.

"Uh-huh... So you can hide inside?" I ask with more than a little sarcasm, "I mean, if you can, then sure thing as long as I can still find you." I respond before lying down, both arms under my head, while closing my eyes.

Never a dull moment with Eden. People should tame monsters more often. This was almost annoyingly easy, and those people acted like I just invented gravity.

My mind relaxes before I feel a weird tingly sensation inside myself, more accurately in my core where my weird link and mana are. It feels like someone just put a weird, surprisingly painful strain on my soul or core before I open my eyes.

Eden is literally gone, but my connection says they are close, very close apparently. But I can't see them while the strain on my core slowly disappears nearly as fast as it happened.

I should have asked what they planned on doing first, Eden you still there, right?

I ask myself before Eden responds in a much clearer way than normal.

Yes. Was again, the only response.

"Eh, I should be more surprised, but today has been a long day. It seems like you know what you are doing, so I will leave you to it, make yourself at home or something." I say in a more resigned way than normal before sighing and closing my eyes as nothing happened. Again, the thought I should be more surprised occurs. However, I quickly remember literally everything has been both weird and easy. Too easy, what even am I to have such a similar circuit to Eden in the first place? Let alone my ability to easily use magic that is decidedly not normal when I don't even slightly know what I am doing.

Finally, I conclude that things will be like this until I can find Seraph and Orath from the White Realm, reassured that I am not the only weird one that is better than what most people get.

Still, with my eyes closed, I hear the familiar sound of crunching ash approach, with my good friend intuition telling me who it was before I even had to open my eyes. Glad to be able to take my mind off my depressing thoughts, I respond with an amused chuckle. "Hey, Josh," simple and clear while I opened one eye to look at the person walking in from my right.

Josh stumbles slightly. However, he quickly moves on while rubbing the back of his neck for the third, or maybe fourth time since I first met him barely a few hours ago. "Hey, Arthur. Mind if I join you for a bit?" He says while gesturing toward the ground. I respond by copying the gesture and closing my one opened eye again when I see him sit down, showing my signature carefree attitude while silently being slightly distraught. These thoughts were something I should have been upset with or at least considered when I first get here, but I never did until now.

Maybe meeting people, if even only that one group, really brought into perspective how strange I am. Remembering the sensation that I felt their cores, but it felt so off. Like I had something they didn't or maybe multiple somethings. I knew straight away, I had not only more mana, but my mana felt even purer. I also felt like something else was missing, but it is even less clear, so I can't comment.

All of that combined into a general aura of them being surprisingly weaker than me, though I have no proof; it just felt right. I knew I was supposed to be stronger, though I didn't expect to be that much stronger, which shocked me a little. Not just anyone willingly explores the Demon Realm, and it should have shown, but it didn't, making me disappointed and reflective.

What do I do if I realize that I am one of the strongest people in the world? I could become a walking political nightmare with people starting wars depending on where I even buy food. Let alone the horror if I actually had a family or even a home somewhere.

Hit with a mixture of pride, fear, amusement, and just pure shock at what shenanigans I could get up to, I turn to Josh, finally opening my eyes. Then, deciding to break the probably awkward silence going on for who knows how long, I begin with a simple, obvious question.

"Why aren't you with your group?" I ask while looking at him when he nervously rubs his neck for the fifth time and looks away.

"You remind me of a friend I knew," he says before stopping and swallowing hard. Then, finally, he says with apprehension, "I wanted to come with you. Our group was nice..ish. But I would prefer to go with someone who doesn't obviously hate someone I know, oh! And can probably teach me." The apprehension quickly wore off, becoming something more like hope at the end.

Before I could even respond to his rant, he again continues with almost reverence, "If we try really hard, we can probably meet one of the God's! Which because of your taming skills, I am sure it is possible. Wait, where is Eden anyway?" Josh finally finished with worry.

The sheer amount of different emotions shown was staggering, making me stare with my eyes wide while struggling to find a response before settling on just a short but loud chuckle. "You sure have your goals, Josh, though I would like to ask some questions if you don't mind?" I ask while looking at him in his now almost shining blue eyes.

Apparently, he didn't expect me to actually be interested, tilting his head like he expected a completely different reaction. But, instead, he remains silent for barely a second before replying with hopeful vigour and quickly forgetting the question he just asked. "Sure!" Josh says with such excitement I almost thought he de-aged by almost 20 years.

I do another slightly more subdued chuckle before I continue.

"First, why do you want to meet an actual God. Aren't I good enough?" I say with mock hurt in my tone.

"What do you mean? Most, if not all, are extremely popular for one reason or the other. Almost everyone wants to be in their presence, although it is not nearly as inspiring as meeting a Primordial. But, of course, that's an exception." Josh almost whispers the last part, which of course, spikes my curiosity.

"Why are they exceptions?" I ask with a little too much curiosity in my voice.

He squints his eyes and stares for a while before continuing. "...Well, people say they are more powerful than God's. But I don't think that's true, but even they don't talk much about them." He said, obvious in his tone that I shouldn't continue the conversation.

I am sure we aren't talking about the same God, let alone apparently there are more?

Confusion apparent, I move on, "Well, Josh, I don't exactly know if I will be able to teach you much, but I can give company. I am pretty great, you know." I say, reaching unseen levels of sarcasm with a wink at the end.

On the other hand, Josh doesn't appear to appreciate my grandness, preferring to grin and nod. "Yes, Arthur, your wisdom knows no bounds." He says in a sage-like tone before quickly shaking his head with a light chuckle.

"Are we just going to wait here a while?" He continues, still holding his grin from before.

"Yup! Though not much longer, I can wait though if we have more people, from your group, of course, coming on our grand journey?"

"No, some either dislike you because you're a demon or don't trust you," He said in an apologetic tone.

"Alright, well, let's just relax for a minute, or else I may have to do evil demon things," I say in my best spooky tone while waving my right hand in a circle, still resting my head on my left before I close my eyes again.

Josh chuckles before laying down as well, though he does ask one last question.

'How long have you been here, exactly." He asks in a serious tone. I pause, being slightly shocked and open my eyes, looking at the only sky I ever knew, the dark roof of a dark cave.

He tilts his head to glance at me before following my gaze. Finally, we both look at the roof before I say in a quiet and honest tone.

"I have no idea." I say in a resigned fashion before a slight sigh escapes my lips, "And I don't want to know." I finish before I close my eyes again, resuming my slightly less relaxing rest. Josh doesn't respond, doing a slight nod before he also closes his eyes. We both sit there in silence while we reflect on an eventful day. A campfire would have been nice, though only the slight gust of wind, beating of my heart, and the empty, scentless air I breathe mark the sign of anything living in this void.

I need to get out more.

"Wake up, sleepyhead!" I say to Josh with no small amount of amusement. Apparently, while I was contemplating my existence with my eyes closed, Josh also got up to something with his eyes closed. Although it mostly seems like sleeping because it took no small amount of yelling to wake him up.

"Huh?" Marks the grand awaking of my new companion as he blinks awake before he slowly rubs his eyes and takes his time getting up.

"How long did we sleep for?" He asks while getting up before I shoot him a glance and wry grin.

"Josh, you were the only one who did sleep." He reacts to this by opening his eyes wide and opening his mouth to speak. However, he is silenced by me holding my hand up.

"It's fine, so let's get on our way. We are actually almost there," I say with slight impatience while pointing my glaive at the massive mountain a good few kilometres away. In this realm, it is the closest thing to being just down the street, and being so close is making me excited, to say the least.

Looking forward, I barely see a staircase on the mountain. Instead, it is a tall, steep, and winding staircase that zig-zags along the side of the massive mountain up almost five hundred meters up until it reaches a sort of cave that cracks upward slightly. The cave itself large for an entrance, being about a good house and a half in diameter, reminding me of the lava ravine but more winding and angular, but it only goes up to about an extra 50 meters from the already large cave entrance.

I know stairs lead to the entrance because they look a shade more grey than the normal rock, but the unnatural shape and general structure also help. Josh soon joins me as we look at the entrance, "So, is that it?" I say with a minuscule amount of disbelief.

"Yes, it is, Obsidian Refuge, it's called. Pretty fancy if I do say so myself." Josh says, with slight hints of sarcasm.

Nodding, I begin walking the last few kilometres toward the staircase with Josh slightly behind and my glaive as my walking stick once more. "Anything I should know about this place?" I ask while glancing at Josh, "Not really. It is your standard outpost filled with overconfident adventurers and cocky representatives from who knows where." He says before sighing and shaking his head.

I frown, then nod my head. It Doesn't sound like a good first introduction to civilization. I quietly grumble to myself while walking.

Josh and I stand just before the massive cave entrance. It doesn't show much evidence of someone living here other than the fact the ground seems just barely worn down; meter tall stalactites droop from the ceiling while tiny centimetre tall stalagmites rise from the corners of the cave, leaving an open path towards a light at the end of the 100-meter tunnel.

The light at the end of the tunnel keeps the cave just bright enough to see in, but it is still the darkest area I have been in so far. Not even the shade of the floating diamonds are as dark as in this cave.

"Hey, is there any way to get to, hmm, I think it's called the 'Creation Realm'?" I ask while scratching my chin innocently.

"The 'Creation Realm'? Arthur, I only ever hear either old veterans call it that or the priests. But, of course, you shouldn't even know about it anyway..." Josh pauses before giving me a wry smile and continuing.

"Well, there is a way. It is in the camp. It is pretty much a giant, weird portal that sits somewhere in the middle of the camp, and only high-level people with high-level cores or mana circuits or whatever it is called are physically able to get through." He says before shrugging his shoulders.

"Didn't you come from it as well? So how do you possibly not know?" I ask with a mix of concern and confusion.

"I dunno, I came with the group. We had specialists to get us through without getting torn apart." He says before grumbling about something being expensive.

We continue general banter while we cross through the cave before stopping around fifteen meters away, seeing the other side of the tunnel. Or, more importantly, the mass of armoured and robbed people beyond the cave.

"Oh." It escapes my lips as I start wondering what I do now.