This demoness was getting him off track.

  He'd come here trying to figure out why she was hiding her real nature and name, and now he was apparently feeding her a meal while Eri was sulking in the grass after having been harassed in ways that would make an HR department start preparing severance packages.

  If there was a current winner in all this, it was Medy. She'd even taken a few steps closer until she ended up in grabbing range, looking at him as if he were steak on a grill.

  Wade pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, hold on. We're getting off track here."

  She blinked at him innocently, which would've been more convincing if her tail wasn't swishing like a cat waiting for tuna. "Well… you asked about demons. I was just answering."

  "I asked why other demons want to kill you specifically." Wade jabbed an accusing finger at her. "The reason you introduced yourself as 'Medy the Apothecary' instead of whatever your actual deal is. Why does being known as Xan get you murdered on sight? Why are you in hiding?"

  "Oh." She deflated slightly. "Right. That. I, well look, I always mess it up when trying to explain so could you promise you won't get upset and-" Then something else came through and she lit up. "Wait! You promised you'd explain what's going on with your skeleton if I answered your demon diet questions! I gave you answers, your turn this time."

  "I di- oh." Oh no. He'd promised worse. His money. "You're just stalling here."

  "Yeah, but a promise is a promise, so gimmi the answers mortal. Who. Are. You?"

  She said those last three words with one finger tapping his chest for each one.

  Wade on the other hand was going through a roller coaster of emotions starting with regret.

  God damn short-sighted idiotic flea-brained monkey-brained poor impulse control asshole. Of all things to promise, it had to be his bank account.

  Medy, on the other hand, started purring.

  Eyes closed like she was eating the best meal ever.

  Wade was more focused on an impasse: If he even breathed a word of Earth to this serial topic derailer, she'd side-track this conversation for the next hour or three. He just knew internally that'd happen. Even just telling Medy he wasn't the one who was controlling Eri would bring out more questions than he knew what to do with.

  On the other hand, if he didn't, she'd come after his wallet.

  Wade instantly locked in, mania fully awake in the passenger seat giving expert advice:

  Placate. "Come on, be reasonable. I'll tell you all about where I'm from and who Eri is, or where I've been after I get the info out of you. Without tangents I mean."

  "No! You tell me how the hell you've got a skeleton with emotions! And know about my real name. And also why you're even down here in the first place. You promised!"

  Manipulate. "I never promised I'd tell you immediately. I said I'd explain. At some point, which I did not precisely define."

  "That's not-"

  Equivocate. "Technically I'm being extremely generous with my timeline by handing over answers right after Bael's back, it's less than an hour, no time at all. Would it really matter?"

  Medy's tail stopped swishing. "You're trying to weasel out of this. I can smell the greed radiating off of you. It's really tasty… No," She slapped her cheeks a few times, "I'm not going to get distracted!"

  Double down. "I'm not weaseling out of anything," Wade put a hand to his chest, offended. "I'm being very precise with my language. It's called clear communication."

  She wiped droll off her face, then shook her head, trying to stay focused despite the outright buffet she was being exposed to. "No,no, I heard you perfectly fine!"

  Gaslight. "Did you though? Because what I actually said was-"

  "No! You promised answers!"

  Deflect. "And you'll get them! Just not right this second. See, the thing about promises is they're more like… guidelines. Suggestions, really. A philosophical framework we can revisit later."

  "That's not how promises work-"

  Outright lie. "Look, I'm not the demon here trying to twist words around."

  "Wai-"

  Pivot. "A moment ago you tried to seduce my skeleton." Wade gestured at Eri, who was still in the grass. "I think you owe a few more answers at least to him, if not me."

  "I was only smelling him, I didn't try to seduce him, believe me, just because I don't have great practice yet doesn't mean I ca-" A thought went through her head. "Wait, can he be seduced even? What would skeletons even find attractive? Or would it remain his original sensibilities?" She turned her head around to scan for where the skeleton was lurking at. "What would be the point in the first place for a mortal being that can't reproduce at all? Is he even a mortal in the first place anymore?"

  Success.

  Eri stared back from safety. And wisely held his position.

  "Well, you're welcome to ask him directly. I can have him come over - but you tell me about your real name first."

  "I guess I ca- Wait! No, you can't fool me!" Medy turned on her hoof back to glare at him, then stomped once into the mud. "You promised me answers, or all the money in your bank account."

  And then she said the most horrible two words that could ever be put together in one sentence: "Pay up."

  Stonewall. "Look, if I start telling you about Eri, it's going to get off the rails and by the time I'm even halfway done with all this, Bael will be back!"

  "We can just kill him again and wait it out." Medy huffed. "I can do this all day! Your money or your answers mortal!" The moment she said those words, she staggered backwards, as if she'd been punched in the stomach. Full on curled down, horns aimed at him while she stared down at the ground and held her stomach.

  Wade thought for a moment something had happened.

  When she looked back up, there was gluttony in her eyes and a dazed smile. "Ohhhh~ you don't like that do you?" She licked her lips. "Feeling a bit of fear there mortal?" The grin grew wider. Hungry. "Pay up. Interest. Loan repayment. Collections. Garnishment. Total liquidation!"

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Wade's mania was now on full alert, undergoing an existential threat. This demon had to be placated. Each word hit him like a semi-truck, and was clearly having excellent returns for Medy's current lunch. She looked like she was eating at her first all-you-can-eat buffet.

  The expensive kind.

  Nuclear option it is then.

  He'd need to learn the effects of this eventually, may as well be now before actually important things were lost. From his bank account. "Wait-wait, let's not be too hasty here. How about I pay up something else as collateral for now, and then deliver when Bael's here to help keep things on track?"

  "… what kind of payment?" She asked.

  "You said you haven't eaten any real meal in a while now, right? Just passively eating my emotions? How about I pay up a full meal and we reset that promise about my bank account, eh? Win-win for us both."

  He could tell there was calculation going down through her head. But the moment Wade saw her use the sleeve of Leon's borrowed shirt to wipe the drool again off her mouth, he knew he had her right where he needed her.

  She was a glutton.

  Or she was completely starving on the inside. Same thing.

  Point was - he was doing a humanitarian thing by offering to help out, out of the nobility in his heart.

  That's right, this is outright charity.

  He should find a way to get some tax breaks from this.

  "That greed does smell really appetizing…" She muttered, weighing her options - getting answers from this half-insane mortal versus finally having something to satisfy the cravings she'd endured these past few months, possibly years, as a blackrotten demon.

  "I'll…" The hunger won out. "…take that as acceptable deferment on your promised payment. But the moment Bael comes back here, you explain it all. Deal?"

  Well now Wade actually had to pony up. "Uh, does it hurt?"

  "I've never heard a mortal feel pain from getting their emotions eaten, it's mostly a numbing thing."

  She held out a hand.

  "All right, deal." He grabbed her hand back and shook it.

  She held his hand for a moment, smiled then immediately yanked him downward while rising up on the tips of her hooves to bite the side of his neck. He hardly had time to cry out.

  Chomp.

  A debuff has been removed: Mania.

  It felt like liquid clarity running through him all at once. A sort of instant lucidity unlike anything he'd ever felt.

  Why had he been trying to wiggle this out of her in the first place? He could just tell her about earth and then repeat it to Bael later. It's harmless. He'd been stubborn about the weirdest thing.

  And talking about that, why was he so attached to money in the first place? He'd need to spend quite the capital anyhow. Hell, he hadn't even considered housing or materials to help Bael and Medy out when they arrived on Earth.

  They'd be real uncomfortable in his small living room. Where would they sleep? What would they eat? He had a responsibility to help them in the first place if he was bringing them into a brand new world without anyone there to help besides himself. Sure it's better than hell down here, but it's still a complete change of everything they've ever known.

  Wade felt Medy unhook her teeth from the side of his neck, and while it vaguely hurt, he could tell all she'd done was a very light bite. Maybe he'd have a little mark there?

  "Why the biting?" He asked, more curious than angry. "You said a handshake was enough."

  "Things taste better with a tiny bit of blood as the bridge." She hummed, licking her lips and the tip of her tiny shark teeth clean. "I could eat with just a handshake, but it's been like, a really really long time since I've eaten an emotion the proper way..."

  "You said it was painless." Wade eventually ended up saying. He didn't quite regret anything nor the nibble. Sure it was a little deceptive of her, but compared to the outright mental gymnastics he was running a marathon around her earlier, it felt somewhat deserved.

  "I said I never heard a mortal feel pain from getting their emotions eaten. I never said being bitten by teeth was painless." She had the audacity to look smug about that, as if she'd finally acted like a proper demon and wiggled around strict wordplay successfully for once.

  "Ah." Wade shrugged. "You know what, fair enough. I'm not going to drag more out of you just for something like that, are we good to move on?"

  Medy held a finger up, "Let me enjoy this for a moment."

  She closed here eyes and started rocking back and forth on her hooves. Wade realized why: She was digesting.

  Wade shrugged. Bael wasn't going to be back for another forty five minutes, possibly half hour at the earliest. "Maybe we should move out of the open area here, and find somewhere to wait it out?"

  They did.

  Eri was real cautious around the demoness now, but given the current truce setup, he was fine to work around it. They didn't need to go far, there was a good cave to hide in that was swiftly cleared of threats by Eri before Wade and Medy settled in.

  From here they had a good vantage on Bael's last location. He'd be back in just under twenty minutes now.

  "I like collecting things." Medy said, leaning back in the cave to get more comfortable. "Like, really liked collecting things. Flowers, weeds, herbs, trinkets, all of that. Demons don't usually do that so most others just avoided me. Until I learned how to do Alchemy with all the stuff I collected. I was good at it."

  She looked real smug at that too. "I could spend the entire day putting stuff together and just seeing what happened. And other people started to notice. They'd drop by my hut, get some of my potions and then return with food as payment. Sometimes mortals, sometimes money. I'd eat the first and use the latter to build a better hut for myself in the fifth circle." She scrunched her brow, realizing Wade was right there and very much a mortal. "Oh, uh, for the food thing, I wasn't that, uh, evil about eating mortals. I could be choosy about what I ate since people were constantly bringing me food for the potions I made. Grey souls already don't taste good, and I know pure ones would probably make me puke, so I only ate the high quality blighted souls and the rest I just untied them and let them leave out the backdoor. And I know I'm starting to ramble, sorry, that's a bad habit. Everyone tells me that, but I just can't help talking when I'm nerv-"

  She was outright flinching in place now.

  Eri gave her a shoulder pat, as if telling her things were okay. She stopped, raised her head up and looked between the skeleton, then back at Wade.

  "Er. Thank you… Eri?"

  The skeleton clicked his jaw once, before turning to Wade.

  She hasn't started sniffing me again this close, improvement.

  "Don't worry about going off target." Wade said. "We're well hidden here and we got plenty of time."

  Medy took a breath. "Just don't hit me if I go off tangent, please?"

  "I promise, and even if I didn't promise that's not really something I do? People hit you?"

  "I'm a bit of a chattermouth, and it really annoys people." She said.

  Eri looked up for a moment. Then, with very deliberate care, took off his pilfered orange arm floatie that he'd worn like a pope's hat, and handed it over.

  Medy slowly grabbed them out of his hand, not quite understanding.

  "Eri collects hats." Wade said, translating. "Anything that touches his head is his basically. Him offering one from his personal collection is a high level peace offering."

  "Ah." She looked nervous but gratefully accepted it, before slowly putting it on her hair. It looked ridiculous, of course. But her horns did a better job of locking it in place. "Thank you?"

  Eri clicked his jaw once.

  "So keep going, it's fine." Wade said.

  "I… I did a lot of potions for a very long time. Food always came to me instead of having to go out there for it. So I never needed to do much shapeshifting other than for fun. It's like, why learn how to fish or hunt properly when people kept giving you food? They were all better at it, sometimes they'd even come and hand over warlocks that hadn't even died yet! It takes serious skill to drag a mortal that's already alive back into hell. And…" She paused and flinched in place, then looked back up and realized neither Eri nor Wade had made any signs of annoyance.

  There wasn't any emotion of annoyance in the air either.

  "…I uh, kinda got famous in a way? Demons shared my potions around, more people came, more people talked about what I did. Things were great until one day Xan sent me a challenge summons."

  "Xan? Wait, what?"

  There were two Xan's?

  "Yeah, she was an Archdemon before I even manifested. Extra annoyed for years now since everyone claimed I was the better Alchemist, and she'd been waiting for me to officially challenge her for the name so that she could beat me and put an end to any rumor." Medy began to rock back and forth where she sat, her focus going sideways on another tangent. "Except I never went down because I didn't know who she was or why I should care about being an Archdemon. Like, I don't even understand, she could keep the name forever if she wanted! I don't want any of the weird social obligations that comes from being an archdemon, I just want to make potions and find neat things to collect. I liked the colors and the smell, and some potions you can even eat for taste - even as a demon. It was like proto-cooking before my kind even started adapting for the mortal realm aft-" She stopped, then flinched in place. "I'm doing it again, aren't I? Sorry, Sorry!"

  Wade gave her a wave. "I'm chill. Go on."

  "Umm, Okay." Medy took a breath, stopped rocking and tried to meet his eyes. Oddly enough, the eye contact seemed difficult for her now, her focus darting away before she tried again with deliberate effort, only to shy away once more.

  She eventually gave up and went to messing with her hair in a nervous tick. It seemed she couldn't quite sit completely still.

  "So… you were supposed to challenge the Archdemon?" Wade asked.

  "Ah, right! I was supposed to, but I never did. So Xan got real pissed off and summoned me to the ninth circle in front of everyone. And since she was an Archdemon, I had no choice. She put me into an official competition and I, uh, won.

  And then ate her."