We followed the Dark Designator hand as it pointed us the way. And since it ignored the buildings, that meant that the best way to move was flying. 

Spoiler

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Luckily all three of us could fly, so we just flew over the city. I was a little worried, as I’ve not seen demons flying despite most of them having wings, but Cetiri said it was fine to fly in an emergency or when you needed to get to the summoning altar quickly.

Because apparently time went weird in this world when someone uses the demon summoning circle. It causes things here to quicken compared to the real world, even more than they already are.

This place is already running faster than the normal world, at about twice the speed. I noticed that with the help of Factory while Janina and I had our little picnic in the park. But apparently when a summoning happens, the time dilation goes way up to give the demons the time to pick who answers the summoning.

The Designator hand showed us to a large concrete building that, from the outside, looked like a stereotypical prison, with bars in the windows, a fence with barbed wire at the top, and even watch towers. 

“... Why would she be in prison?” I heard Cetiri mutter, as a searchlight from a watchtower illuminated us. “We should land.” She said, as the searchlight began to blink at a rhythm. “Unless you want to be shot down.”

“They probably can’t shoot us down, but yeah, let’s land.” I said, not ready to assault a demon prison. I mean if they attack with magic, they’d have to use some crazy powerful stuff to actually harm me. And before it could, Mirror Force would turn it back on them. And if they attack me with actual projectiles, like arrows or even bullets, I can take them into Storage before they hit me. I’ve actually practiced that with Unika’s arrows and as long as the arrows aren’t coated in magic it really isn’t that difficult. At least when I have Time Magic speeding up my perception and reaction speed.

If she coats them in magic it is more difficult, as the magic doesn’t let me take the object inside into Storage. And Storage sadly can’t store already cast magic spells. Nor can it hold mana, unless the mana is contained in an object.

After landing, I was expecting a group of prison guards to rush us and take us in for questioning, but that didn’t happen. Instead we were just left to walk around the prison to where the gate into it was located.

Cetiri explained that demons fly near it all the time, so it isn’t worth stopping and interrogating all of them. To prove her point, as we were talking, another spotlight pointed at the sky and revealed a demon. It then did the same light blinking it did to us and the demon changed directions instead of continuing over the prison.

“Do they actually shoot you down?” I asked. “Or do they just let you fly over?”

“They shoot you down. Well, unless you are powerful enough. Or fast enough to fly past. The prison doesn’t generally face problems, but they were given the authority to shoot people down and they like doing it.” Cetiri explained.

“Ever been shot yourself?” 

“Do I look like a trouble junkie?” 

“Well, you are escorting us to a prison.”

“Maybe to lock both of you up.” Cetiri joked.

“If this prison can actually hold us, I’ll give you a cookie. … a miasma cookie. I can’t actually make any yet, but I’ll figure out a way.” I promised. Because honestly speaking, I think demons would like miasma cookies.

And I mean think about it. How would you hold me in a prison? I can theoretically take the entire prison into Storage. Admittedly I’d have to break it off of its foundations to do that, but still. And that is just Storage.

But honestly, Storage is overkill. Based on the info Storage has analyzed from everything we bought, the materials here aren’t durable enough to stand up to Janina and I. We should be able to punch a wall open. Unless the prison is much, much more durable than the things sold in the market.

We eventually reached the front gate and we let Cetiri do the talking to the guard. She explained that we were here to see Pioglitazone, and while he seemed to question how we knew she was here, he still let us in. 

At the front door of the building itself, we were let in by a demon I also recognized. He was one of the war demons I summoned when trying to get Whip and Bow Technique skills, but sadly he couldn’t trade me either so I just sent him back after learning it. Still good to see a demon I ‘know’. Or more like good to know that the demon knows me. Sadly no clue what his name is since we didn’t make a deal.

“You are here for Hope.” He says, not sounding accusatory or angry, just stating a fact. And it is good to see at least one of the demons is calling her by the name I gave her.

“I am. Is there a problem?” I asked.

“With me, no. But some of the others might not agree.”

“I don’t need them to agree, I need them to get out of the way.” I said coldly. “What is she even in here for? She wasn’t imprisoned until today, so what gives?”

“She was followed to this world by people, thus someone decided that she is the one the false demons have also been following her here.” He answered. “She was taken in for the duration of the investigation.”

“So they noticed us coming in but didn’t even send us a welcoming committee. Shame.” 

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“No.” The prison warden stated.

“I wasn’t asking. I was informing you that I’m taking her.” I told him.

“You have no authority.”

“I don’t need any. Consider this me bailing her out.”

“With what money?” The warden asked. “You might be a half-demon, but you wouldn’t have any … What is that!?” He yelled, as I activated a few copies of Corruped Power Stone.

“Nothing much, just miasma stones. The other demons seemed to like them. So how about it? Three of them and you let Hope … Pioglitazone, come with us.”

The warden looked at me, then at the stones, then at me and then at the stones again. 

“Five and you can have her. But she better answer when she is called to answer before our God.” The warden said. 

I just produced two more stones and traded them for him.

He personally showed us to the cell Hope was held in. She didn’t look too bad, but she did seem down, until she saw us. She tried to call out to us, but as she did, some sort of collar placed on her seemingly shocked her and she stayed quiet.

So demons have shock collars to keep people mute. Not the nicest thing, but admittedly I could see myself making something similar so I can’t be too angry about it.

Other than the shock collar, I didn’t see any injuries on Hope. Her outfit was a bit scuffed so she might have some under it, but I can’t tell unless she removes her clothes and I’d rather she not have to do that.

The warden opened the door and Hope practically leaped into my arms. I just let her hug me while I took a look at the warden. He then placed his hand on Hope’s collar, which unlocked it and he walked away from us, leaving only the five of us. 

After Hope calmed down, we were guided out by the guard I didn’t make a deal with. On the way we stopped by an office where he wrote a letter of summons for Hope, and it read both Hope and Pioglitazone as the name so I was happy about that. It was just for her to appear before God, not that I really understood what that meant. But I’m guessing it is something akin to summons to court.

The one thing the letter lacked was date and time, but I suppose with time being slightly wacky in this world they might not be able to do that. Or maybe the demon will simply know when it is time. I mean if the Goddess wants to see me, I’ll know. So maybe the Demon God has something similar.

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After we got out of the prison building, we said our thanks and goodbyes to Cetiri. I also gave her a miasma stone as a thank you.

Hope then began showing us somewhere. On the way she explained how she was taken in.

It was immediately after she returned from the last summon. She expected to see us with her, but we weren’t there. She waited a bit in case it just took us a second, but after we didn’t appear, she headed out to search for us.

But by the time she reached the front door, a squad of security were there, preparing to come in. They took her down and took her to prison, telling her that she was now the prime subject in the false demon case.

And that’s about it.

It somewhat made me question the demons’ intelligence, but again, circumstantial evidence. 

I asked Hope about the collar, and she said they placed it on her when she was telling she had permission to bring us here and to go ask the contract keepers, but the warden didn’t like hearing her words, so a collar that both muted her and would shock her if she attempted to talk.

I asked her about the contract keepers and Hope explained that they are high ranked demons who keep an eye on the world border, making sure that demons don’t leave unless they are summoned. Because of that, they have all the contracts held by demons so they know who can go when called.

This also means that they know when someone comes in. So they’ve been working with the security to track the false demons. 

Hope then admitted that some of the contract keepers don’t like that she has the best contract ever seen. A young, low level succubus getting such a contract is an insult to them, as well as every other more experienced demon who should have gotten my contract.

But by the rules set by the Demon God, they couldn’t do anything.  

So apparently they went with the not so good route of blaming her for the false demons. With us following Hope, they could prove that people follow her through and could likely use that to indict her, thus allowing them to delete her contract and leave me with no choice but to make a new one with a different demon, a demon they could pick.

At least that is my theory.

Not that it would have helped as I likely would have gone with Cetiri if Hope’s contract was destroyed. Because even if I didn’t know her full name at the time, I likely could still summon her if I tried.

And besides, I’ve already annihilated two demons. Sure one was Arzox and it wasn’t fully his fault. He did what he was summoned for and the reason I had to kill him was because he was feeding off of the dimensional fissure, making him stupidly powerful. And because at the time I didn’t know demons can be reasoned with.

But the other demon I killed after randomly summoning him. I honestly killed him just because I didn’t like his attitude. He was greedy and even attempted to attack me. I don’t want a demon like that to be summoned by anyone.

So if some greedy demons attempted to get a contract with me after Hope’s contract would ‘mysteriously disappear’, I’d definitely be looking into them.

Eventually we reached Hope’s apartment. I was honestly expecting her to own a house with all the miasma stone I’ve been giving her, but she lived in an apartment. It was a nicer one, I think, so maybe she did upgrade her living arrangements. 

The inside wasn't very decorated, even missing things I’d consider ’bare essentials’, but we are talking about demons here. I don’t really understand them.

It did hold a nice, high quality cabinet with a glass door that held a large quantity of miasma stones. From that I could count how many Hope had used and just how many she had left. And she has only used about a quarter of the stones I’ve given her. 

I asked her about it, even specifically mentioned the other demons eating the stones, and she told me she was saving them. Both to buy things and so she could eat them later when she had learned to be a better succubus.

I asked her why demons eat miasma stones and she explained that it is how they grow in power, even comparing it to my Level Up!s. But if a demon wasn’t skilled enough, my miasma stones would be too much for them and a lot of it would go to waste. This waste could be seen by them changing their skin color, generally to a darker shade.

So the demons at the market who ate my stones just wasted a lot of their potential. Good to know.

That is also where miasma coins come in. They are given out by the Demon God and the demons working directly under him. They contain a much smaller amount of miasma and can be earned by working jobs in the demon world. With them, not much of the miasma is wasted, thus allowing for a slower accumulation of power compared to my stones.

I asked about the miasma in the air, specifically why the demons didn’t just eat it, and Hope explained that it is not good for them. The natural miasma is a sort of poison if consumed in high quantities. And only the Demon God can purify it into a state where it can be eaten.

I probably could make something that can purify miasma, I think. But I’m not sure if that is a good idea. The demon world has that and it seems to be running quite well even without more of those kinds of devices. Sure it is far from perfect, but yeah, better not to step on the toes of a God. 

We then began talking about the false demons as well as how to get Hope out of trouble. Even if she really shouldn’t be in any in the first place.