Jake stood there thinking and going over what the fuck to do next as he heard a meek voice beside him.
“If My Lord wants to…”
He wondered what she meant as he remembered what he had just said. Instantly the situation just turned more awkward as Jake facepalmed. “No… no, I mean fuck me for being in this situation… not to actually…”
For every moment, Jake got more and more sure Villy had to have known and even looked forward to this entire shitty thing happening. Jake could practically see him sitting there laughing his head off at Jake, trying to deal with his newfound circumstances.
Meira at least looked embarrassed too at her misunderstanding, but also a bit relieved and… disappointed? Nah, Jake definitely misinterpreted that.
She clearly wasn’t going to break the silence either as she sat there unmoving, forcing Jake to take the initiative and try to make the situation just a tiny bit less awkward. “Even using My Lord is a bit much. Just call me whatever you want, okay?”
“That would be inappropriate and disrespectful… wouldn’t it?” she asked. The elf looked just as out of water as Jake himself.
Whatever game plan she had was clearly out the window long ago. They both had been tossed into a situation neither was comfortable with, and Jake would do his darndest to at least make it bearable.
“Where I come from treating others overly respectfully is odd, and if we are to live in the same residence, it will get old fast and just make everything weird. No, just call me by my name Jake… well, I use the pseudonym Hunter while within the Order, but considering everything that happened before hiding my name seems pointless,” Jake said as he tried to keep it casual.
Meira still seemed unsure as Jake doubled down.“Look, I call the Malefic Viper by the made-up nickname Villy and sure as hell am not going to refer to him as Lord or whatever else people use, at least not in private. If I can do that, you can call a fellow D-grade by his name, can’t you?”
That turned out to be a bad idea as Meira whitened even more and looked afraid something terrible would happen. Like divine retribution was inbound. She even looked towards the sky, but nothing happened as Jake once more tried to calm her down.
“He wouldn’t have made me his Chosen and be so casual around me if he was going to smite me for that, now would he?” Jake said, really trying to hammer through he was a casual person.
“I… how can you?” she finally stammered out.
“We are friends,” Jake just shrugged. “I know it seems weird from your point of view, but I am a bit of an odd person, so don’t fret it, okay? Just relax and keep it casual and down to earth.”
He really tried to seem approachable and friendly, but Jake seriously had no confidence he was making headway, and he wasn’t only making things worse. He just wasn’t built for this kind of thing.
His words also clearly didn’t work as she looked as meek as before, now just mixed with a good dose of extra confusion. Jake thought a bit as he said: “Look, how about doing it like this. While it’s just the two of us call me Jake, and when around others, you can call me My Lord or Master or whatever else you find appropriate, okay?”
She finally looked up but didn’t even address what he said, as she stammered out: “Are… you the Chosen of the Malefic One?”
“Wait, you were hung up on that?” Jake asked, clearly not reading the flow of their one-sided conversation very well. “Yeah, I am, at least in the name. Maybe in function, too, as it is a unique title, so whatever way I act is how the Chosen acts? Either way, yes, I got the True Blessing from the Malefic Viper.”
“How?” Meira asked again.
“Eh… a bit of a long story. Actually, not that long. We met after I did a Challenge Dungeon designed by him. He was a bit of a dick, to begin with, but we ended up vibing and having a good time, and then at the end, he just sneakily gave me the Blessing,” Jake explained.
He saw her physically cringe back when Jake called Villy a dick, as Jake once more reiterated: “As the Viper said earlier, I am also a bit of a heretic, I guess? I like the Viper well-enough as a person and all, and we generally tend to have a good time, but I don’t really treat him like a god or whatever. Just know that he is fine with it. It is a bit interesting that I can be viewed as a heretic when the god in question isn’t really offended, but here we are.”
Meira fell silent again as Jake began to realize bombarding her with ridiculousness was perhaps not the best tactic of calming her down, and he didn’t feel like they were progressing much. Jake thus decided to take it as much down to earth as he could as he pulled out a chair himself and sat across from her.
“Meira, listen,” Jake said as he got her attention again. “Where I come from, slavery isn’t really a thing much anymore, and when it does happen, it is heavily frowned upon, and let me be perfectly frank: I don’t like it. At a fundamental and conceptual level, I despise it. I want to just rip up that stupid contact more than anything, not because of you, but just because of what it represents. However, it seems that would inadvertently lead to a shitty situation for everything and everyone except my own conscience, so I won’t. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it, and I swear I have no interest in treating you like a slave. As you are stuck here, we can figure out some working arrangements, but if you decide to just stay and chill in this huge mansion indefinitely, I won’t bother you. You can speak your mind whenever around me and treat me like just another person. In fact, I would prefer that over everything else, alright?”
That finally seemed to get a response as she looked up: “Please allow me to remain; I will do anything! I can-“
“I just said you can stay no matter what,” Jake interrupted her as he held up a hand. “What I am just saying is that for you to stay and the both of us to feel comfortable with it, we need to compromise, okay?”
She took a bit, but she slowly nodded.
“Great. So, ignoring anything else that happened, what do you want to do?” Jake asked. “If you weren’t bound by any contract that told you what you had to do, what would you be doing?”
Meira fell silent for a bit before she spoke. “I was trained and raised before that to be a good worker and able to assist someone else… I want to prove myself useful.”
It wasn’t an answer Jake hoped for, but he didn’t want to press anything more. “Okay, so what do you want to do here in the Order?”
“Work for Mast… m…” she looked a bit lost for words as she stopped talking and looked down again. She looked almost scared Jake would do anything, which only made everything worse. What the fuck kind of training and upraising did she have to think slipping up a few words would result in anything bad?
“Jake,” he said calmly.
She looked up.
“Just call me Jake, and I will call you Meira.”
“Okay…” she said as she fell silent again. It didn’t seem like she got the message.
Jake had a feeling he wasn’t really getting anywhere as she looked lost in thought again. Rather than keep pressing, he changed the subject as he hoped he had gotten his point through. At least enough for her to process it for the future.
“Alright, let’s do something else. I just arrived, so could you maybe show me around the place?” Jake asked.
She instantly prepped up, and as Jake stood, so did she.
“Naturally!” she exclaimed. “Where would Master like to go first?”
A second later, she realized as she paled, but Jake just acted like nothing as he gently corrected her: “Jake is just fine, and can you show me the lab first? I just got one made back home, and I would love to see the difference.”
She quickly nodded with relief as she led Jake forward.
Jake did have to admit he felt like he was walking on eggshells throughout the entire tour, and he did recognize the ridiculousness of the situation. However, he was confident that she would get used to him not being a shit person with a bit of time and patience.
Because damn, she had clearly assumed for him to be an absolute shitbag, which made Jake wonder how other slaves of the Order and the multiverse as a whole were treated.
Reika had used the Token together with Haruto, the other bronze token alchemist of the Noboru Clan. They had instantly stepped through a gate and appeared in a large entry hall leading into a massive hallway with doors on each side.
Several more people also followed after them as she and Haruto stepped out of the way to make space for two scalekins laughing as they went into two of the rooms a bit down the hall. In the entry hall, they soon stood a dozen or so people from the new batch from the ninety-third Universe. A few had already gone and found their rooms, but Reika had chosen to remain for now.
“Excuse me,” someone finally said as a group of three fellow humans approached her and Haruto. “My name is Jiub, pleased to make your acquaintance. I wonder if I could have a moment of your time?”
This was what Reika had been waiting for, and she was glad she wouldn’t have to be the first one to approach someone.
“Reika, pleased to meet you,” she said as she returned his greeting.
“I couldn’t help but notice you seemed to be close with the sole black-token human?” Jiub asked, just as Reika had expected. “My Lord is a gold-token himself, and we hope to make some good connections here early on to make it easier for all of us.”
Reika nodded but did correct one thing. “I did indeed arrive with him. However, we are at most allies and do not hail from the same factions back on our home planet. I would prefer not to bother him with unnecessary matters unless absolutely required.”
She wanted to quickly establish a border but, at the same time, make it clear that she did have an amicable relationship with Jake in case something untoward did happen.
This did seem to disappoint Jiub a bit, but he still smiled. “Nevertheless, it is preferable for good relationships to form. I hope that in the future, we can work together and help each other strive in the face of adversity. How about we exchange contact information?”
Reika naturally agreed, even if she knew a big part of the reason was that they still hoped for an opening with Jake. She knew others had already seen her and Jake exchange contact information, so at worst, they would get someone who knew how to contact him. At best, they would get an in with Jake and even a valuable ally in herself and the members of the Noboru Clan.
After exchanging with Jiub, a few more came up to her with pretty much the same proposal. It was primarily other humans and elves, but a few scalekins and other peculiar races also came. Reika did not feel entirely comfortable with the less human-looking ones as she wasn’t sure how to act and even found herself inadvertently revolted by some of their appearances.
Scaled beasts with beastly looks and sharp teeth lining their maws, gilled creatures where the gills flapped as they spoke without the mouth opening, and a lot of other beings Reika could only have imagined out of horror films approached her.
At least she managed to keep a straight face, but she had to send Haruto away as he seemed even more uncomfortable. As she went through the exchanges, she couldn’t help but wonder how Jake seemed so completely unable to care. He had spoken to scalekins and other races without batting an eye and never even mentioned to Reika and the others from Earth that they would encounter this kind of scene.
In fact, when she stood there looking down the long hallway of dorm rooms, it became apparent that humans, elves, and the very human-looking races were in the vast minority. Sure, when it came to those coming from the new universe, they were plentiful, but in the Order itself, they seemed scarce.
After she was finally done doing the political maneuvering, she went and found her own dorm room. She could open it with the Token like it was a contact-less hotel key. If she was being honest, she didn’t carry many expectations and based on the hallway, each room had to be smaller than the average hotel room, which is why she was surprised when she entered.
A large open space opened up before her in what looked like a living room with couches, tables, and even what looked like a television or a projector. When she went further in, she found doors to a massive bedroom, a meditation chamber, an alchemy lab bigger than even the one back home, as well as a door leading into a large space that was split into three sections. The left and right parts were walled off by large glass panels in what looked like two greenhouses, with the middle part just general storage. To the left was a greenhouse with what she even recognized as a very small artificial sun, and in the other was a cave-like structure with several mushrooms and moss already growing inside.
Reika stood frozen a bit as she quickly used her Token to check in with Haruto and had it confirmed both their rooms were like this. She then checked in with the white token alchemists, and while their dorm rooms were a lot smaller, they still seemed extravagant.
This was when Reika truly recognized how absolutely loaded the Order of the Malefic Viper had to be, or at least how poor she and everyone on Earth was by comparison.
Vilastromoz hung back as he observed Jake a bit longer before moving on. At least for a little bit. Duskleaf at his side just shook his head at everything that had gone down.
“You could have easily barred him from getting a slave, even subtle ways that would raise no suspicion,” Duskleaf said. “Or not stonewalled him at every point of the following discussion.”
“I could, but I didn’t,” Vilastromoz said. “I think this is a good opportunity for Jake to face some of the less simple things in the multiverse. At least it is better than him visiting someone else in the Order and seeing them have slaves all-around and instantly create chaos.”
“Could have been done in many other ways. This seems like an unnecessary extreme,” Duskleaf insisted.
“Extreme would be me agreeing to free that slave and then let her run wild in the Order only to be picked up by someone with a taste for young elves and then show him what happened to her,” Vilastromoz said.
“That would get you a punch in the face,” Duskleaf said, glaring at him.
“I know, which is why I didn’t. I am not going to micromanage the Order, though.”
“But you do want chaos anyway,” Duskleaf noted. “You just don’t want to cause it yourself.”
“I would be fine making chaos by myself, but that would not lead to any worthwhile change… perhaps in actions, but not in mindset,” the Viper smirked.
“So you will use Jake,” Duskleaf asked. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, come on, he is a born agent of chaos,” Vilastromoz laughed as he failed to hold himself back from seeing Jake awkwardly hurry out of the bedroom during his little house tour after the elf had not-so-subtly hinted at what the purpose of the room was.
“And no matter what… I think Jake’s time in the Order should be interesting, to say the least.”