How Vexing

"Here's fine.", Akiol called for the car to stop.

Pulling over to the side of the road the driver allowed his two passengers to disembark. Rue stretched upon leaving the cramped car and inhaled deeply. Fully tasting the air she commented, "The air quality is poor."

"There's no mana to cleanse it. Any waste they produce remains in the air until nature itself slowly sorts it out.", Akiol commented off handedly while thanking the driver. 

Watching the car roll off he turned, "In their history humanity had a tendency to produce more waste than nature could handle, so the air is certainly more poor than back home."

"They left it as such?"

"Science comes at a cost, not many are willing to bear that."

"There's always a price.", Rue lamented.

Adjusting his grip on the case Akiol motioned for her to follow, "For now we're staying at a hotel. You can have your own room."

"Hotel?", Rue asked.

"A sort of Inn. Usually far larger."

Rue nodded with understanding. Placing her hands behind her back she followed Akiol and teased, "Not willing to share a room with me?"

"That is your decision. I can afford more than one room."

Rolling her eyes at the boring response Rue answered plainly, "Matters not to me."

Scrolling through his phone Akiol searched several local hotel options for their availability. Upon finding one that fit his criteria he picked up the pace. Rue followed easily and the two moved at a startling pace. Many bystanders frowned and looked in their direction with how quickly they were moving despite not being in a sprint.

A mixture of footwork and empowerment of their individual energies. Akiol let Aura strengthen his body as a method to improve his control, and Rue was naturally far stronger thanks to her rampant Demonic energy. Currently her strength was above Akiol's, not a surprising thing considering their circumstances. 

Arriving at the hotel Akiol gestured towards the entrance, "No comments for now, I don't need you complicating things."

Rue held up her hands in a surrendering motion, "If you insist."

Studying her expression Akiol found himself slightly irritated by his inability to discern her intentions. Not willing to let such frustration show he turned back and walked into the hotel. Approaching the receptionist he began to organize the needed things for their rooms. Meanwhile Rue walked about and studied the inside of the building. As she looked up she found herself growing dizzy at the height of such a building. 

'This is an inn?', Rue asked herself.

It was significantly different seeing such tall buildings from the inside. Although not comparable to that of the height of those legendary skyscrapers, it was still far taller than any building from her home world. Even those arrogant wizard towers didn't compare.

Her daze was cut short by Akiol's approach. He handed her a thin card and said, "Your key, the room number is on it as well. Don't lose it, it's costly to replace."

Receiving the card she inspected it, thin and certainly not made of a material she was familiar of. Flipping it about she compared it to the one in Akiol's hand, "If they are keys, how are we certain my key doesn't work for yours? Without mana you can't enchant them."

"That would be the science I speak of. How it works specifically is knowledge I do not have. I can show you how it works however, let us go to our rooms."

Akiol lead her to an elevator and pressed the button. A light lit up and he waited patiently. Rue found herself looking at the strange doors and him several times before they slid open. A handful of people moved passed while excusing themselves before the two could enter. Pressing a button the doors close and Rue felt her weight shift. With a frown she asked, "This is?"

"Since the buildings are so tall stairs are inconvenient. They designed this solution called an elevator, a metal box that can move directly up and down. These buttons correspond to the floor."

"Convenient, but not as much as a teleportation ring."

Akiol found himself unwillingly chuckling at the comment, "Even back home humanity could not afford such luxury. Even as the once Hero I wasn't given access to those without paying a heavy price, or in case of national emergency."

"That's your own fault. Whenever I had the materials I ordered my kind to make them to cut down on transportation. The costs of maintaining them are not comparable to hauling materials via cart or luggage worm."

Akiol pictured the demonic luggage worm. It often barely lingered at the surface, large wooden crates tied to its back. The Hero party often intercepted these in the past to cripple the Demon Lord- no Rue's army. He now understood why there wasn't as many as they continued to travel. Rue was setting up a teleportation network! 

Scratching his head Akiol asked, "Is there not a sense of individuality among demonfolk? For instance humanity's merchants were responsible for a lot of the transportation of materials. Their way of making a living."

Shaking her head Rue lectured, "That's because humanity is all the same. Excluding those proficient in fighting, or blessed with various means. Demonfolk range between many types, as their Lord I often utilized their strengths where it could be used most efficiently. The idea of 'making a living' is not found among Demonfolk. Rather you were given a responsibility based on your skillset."

"Was there no infighting?"

"A lot of Demonfolk find fulfilment in a steadier lifestyle. Since I provided safety and food for their work they rarely complained. The last Demon Lord was very insistent upon robbing the needed resources from Humanity. So a lot of Demonfolk not meant for battle were forced into it."

The elevator doors opened and the two walked out. As they progressed through the hallway Akiol continued to ask, "Is this the reason of their attacks during our childhoods?"

"Childhood?", Rue found the word confusing for a second, "I suppose so yes, it was only when I took the throne of Demon Lord did I start to change such barbaric methods."

"I was under the impression humanity was fighting back well enough to subdue the constant attacks."

Rue laughed, "Although you did harm it wasn't the key factor. Considering the last Demon Lord never unlocked their emotions, their hatred for humanity overtook their more sane thoughts."

Taking a deep breath Akiol found himself coming to several realizations, "No wonder fighting demons got harder as time progressed. You were removing the weaker ones from the front lines."

To this Rue shrugged, "Not that it stopped you or your party."

"I found good allies."

"Much to my displeasure at the time."

They stopped at a pair of doors. Akiol flourished the keycard and slotted it into the lock. A faint beep could be heard and he opened the door. Rue tilted her head and mimicked the action, allowing her to open the door. She then closed the door and attempted to open it normally. A look of interest formed on her face and she gestured for Akiol to hand over his key.

Doing so Rue tried to open the door with Akiol's key and found it to not work. Handing the key back she smiled, "Very efficient."

"Don't lose it."

"You need not remind me."

They entered their separate rooms. Akiol closed his eyes and utilized {Way of the Galaxy: Star Guidance} to gather information on his surroundings. Only when he knew Rue was exploring her room did he choose to relax. Sitting on the given bed he pulled out his phone and opened a number of group chats.

There was a lot of backlash from various Guilds from the raid. He was aware this was going to happen, although to his surprise Jumpstart Pavilion made no fuss. Determined Souls and Bakery Basics merely thanked him for the opportunity, not making a single complaint about their losses. The forces given by Eternal Candle were not as helpful as Akiol hoped. Apparently their real world elites hardly played the game, so it was mostly experts from their Guild, meaning it was a group of above average players. 

Torch made several jokes about the losses incurred, but sent a long paragraph on the improvements he wanted to make. At the end there was a request for input, and once again more battle data.

He then opened the party's group chat. Looking at the list he stared at Wrock's offline profile. If Akiol had simply waited for Wrock to exit seclusion, just bit his tongue on the raid for a while longer. . .

Shaking his head he swiped off the member list. No use thinking about the past. Instead he scrolled through the messages to understand what he was missing out on.

He asked Kan'na to watch over Givale and Mira for now. To which Kan'na was strangely enthusiastic on. Silently apologizing to Givale in his heart Akiol found the last message he read before.

Jarvis was overly pleased about his finding in the vault of the Undead Army. Apparently he was still trying to find out what exactly it did, so he didn't mention anything about what it was exactly. Kan'na added that she had a flash of inspiration and wanted Akiol to allow her to get in touch with Torch. 

Akiol frowned and forwarded this message to Torch. What Kan'na wanted with Torch was unknown, but he was positive he could simply ask later. Tilia found her priority was replacing the damaged equipment everyone suffered from Rot. Currently she simply asked for a list of what needed to be replaced or repaired. Akiol was likely the only one to suffer basically no consequences from the Rot thanks to the King Slime's Territory, and the high quality of Stars. Pausing Akiol thought about his ring, he would have to check on that whenever he logged back in.

It was here that Akiol found his true goal. The side effects of dying from the Rot. Yielya gave an ample description of what she knew. First there was a permanent mark on her wrist, Kan'na commented it didn't hold any similarities to any form of runes. Thus it was assumed to be a form of scarring. 

The effect of Rot gave a permanent reduction to any obtained experience. Hindering any players from leveling. Akiol was aware on just how punishing this was to the Guilds and winced. Additionally all stats suffered a penalty and were reduced as a result. However most importantly, was that its very existence hindered any form of evolution while it persisted.

This was mostly of no use to many human players. Since the basic human race that many chose didn't have any evolutions, and race changers were quite rare still, but Akiol finally fully understood why the Slime King intervened. There was a chance that Akiol couldn't evolve into a Prince Slime in time before the King's death. Meaning he couldn't inherit the King position in time.

The rest of the messages were side comments and responses to Tilia's request. Akiol found himself skimming through these before turning off the phone. Turning to his case he crossed his arms, this was a bit troubling. It was currently the only owned weapon he had. While the case itself looked similar enough to a brief case so he could carry it around, it would be troublesome to actually retrieve the sword in case of emergency. Opening the case to then unsheathe the blade. . . too much wasted time in between.

Akiol shook his head, "But it's not like I can just carry around a sword can I?"

How vexing!