Tyler had been ready for some hostility, a threat maybe. He thought the demon might have thought his presence here in this small town would upset the status quo. But fear — that was unexpected. He could see it etched in the demon's face, displayed by his body language. Magda was honestly afraid of Tyler.

  Magda’s gaze flicked over Tyler’s face, then dropped, his eyes looking at nothing in particular, like he didn’t want to look directly at Tyler, well not for too long anyway. Like eye contact made something worse.

  Tyler shifted his weight from one foot to another, feeling a little like he had done something wrong and had been pulled up for it. “I mean you no harm. If I did, I very much doubt I could. Any chance we can talk, sort this all out?”

  Tyler didn't know what else to really say, but tried to look innocent and non-threatening, which was harder said than done, standing in front of this demon, who by the looks of it could rip Tyler straight in half.

  Magda hesitated, his lip curling up slightly at the corner. Was this demon chewing his lip? Was he nervous? Very slightly, Magda stepped back from the door and opened it wider. He bowed his head with such grace it looked slightly comical on the huge figure.

  “You may enter,” he said, the formal tone still clinging to him.

  Tyler walked in past the demon, and although he held his ground, he felt a slight flinch from Magda as he passed. Was being too close to him revolting, hideous, too much for the demon to bear?

  The room Tyler entered was dim, but not dark. Lanterns hung from beams, their light steady and pale. The air was cool, like the place was designed to keep things from overheating. There were tables lined with objects Tyler half recognised — glass instruments, carved wooden frames, stacks of parchment filled with tight writing and neat diagrams. There were symbols too, drawn in chalk on a slate board, some familiar in shape — circles, angles, lines — others were completely alien.

  It looked like someone had tried to build a science lab out of whatever the forest and the system had allowed. It was clean, well maintained and familiar to Tyler. His heart gave a small, stupid jump at the familiarity. He understood this type of obsession. The need to measure and categorise everything. To figure out how things worked, to know the underlying rules.

  Magda watched Tyler take in his workspace, still keeping his distance. He let Tyler take everything in, give him a chance to understand the overarching premise of his work.

  “You are… interested?” he asked. “I see understanding in your eyes. Can you follow the working?”

  Tyler glanced back. The demon still kept his distance, but he had a curious expression on his face, as if his passion for his work had overridden his negative emotions towards Tyler.

  “Yes, this is very interesting, and I can follow some, if not all, of your work. This here is energy calculations. If I am right, you are testing the energy capacity of different substances, specifically relating to temperature. From where I am from, we call this specific heat capacity — the amount of energy required to increase its heat by a certain measurement.”

  Tyler pointed out a chalkboard with some equations on it and a table labelling different substances, all with a unique number identifying said capacity. He paused for a moment, looking at the different substances, before his eyes widened in realisation.

  “It’s mana. You are trying to understand the properties of mana.”

  Tyler's head spun round, looking at the different work plastered on the walls. He could see different categorizations of mana on one board, a test to define power on another, stability on a third.

  “Are you a mana chaser?” Tyler asked.

  The demon scoffed, crossing his arms in defence. “Not at all. My work might lean into some work those fools chase, but I do not, nor have I ever believed in infinite power. To preserve something without an external power source is absurd. No, my area of research is to understand the system — what is it, why is it here and what lays beneath it.”

  Tyler raised his arms up above his head and puffed his cheeks, letting out a breath of air. He wanted to show relief, a gesture of agreement even, make light of his previous assertion. Instead, though, it had quite the opposite effect.

  The demon jumped back, knocking some papers off a desk, his shoulder uprooting a shelf and the contents sent flying through the air. It was like he was trying to meld into the wall or pass through it to get away from Tyler.

  Tyler instinctively held his hands up and took a step back. “Sorry, I am sorry. Nothing to be worried about. I am staying right here.” The demon looked horrified. Had a simple gesture like this really put that much fear into this creature?

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  There was a long pause as neither Tyler nor Magda moved, both just staring at one another — Tyler giving the demon time to understand he was not a threat, the demon weighing the human, watching for any signs of hostility.

  Magda was the first to move. His shoulders loosened a fraction. He moved from being pinned to the wall and stood straight, his gaze never leaving the human in front of him.

  Tyler took this as his cue to respond and stepped closer, keeping his hands out for the demon to see, his steps slow and controlled. He stopped himself from getting too close, about two metres away, dropped one hand to his side and left the other out, offering a handshake.

  The demon still looked tense. It was subtle but real, like he was holding himself together by sheer force of will. His eyes drifted down to Tyler's outstretched hand, his eyebrows raised as a look of comprehension settled in his eyes.

  He exhaled — slow, controlled, like he was letting something out that he’d been holding in for years. “You, you are greeting me. This is a very demonic thing, to offer a hand like this. I am sorry, I'm not accustomed.”

  “To handshakes?” Tyler asked.

  Magda’s eyes flicked up, then away again. “To humans.”

  Tyler frowned. “What do you mean, ‘not accustomed’? You’ve met humans. You’ve met me.”

  Magda’s jaw clenched. For a moment he looked embarrassed. Which was ridiculous. It shouldn’t have fit his face. But it did.

  “My world was integrated into the system only five years ago,” Magda said, rubbing his chin as he took the time to think of the right words. “Before that… before the system, that is… well… humans were not real.”

  Tyler stared. “Not real? I don't understand.”

  Magda’s gaze stayed fixed on the chalkboard behind Tyler, like it was easier to confess to a diagram than to a person.

  “Stories,” Magda said. “Myths. Monsters. Things told to children to make them obey. Pale skin. Thin limbs. Clever hands. Smiling while they take everything from you.”

  Tyler felt his stomach tighten as a realisation started to dawn on him.

  Magda continued, voice flat but tight beneath it. “We called them the White Ones. The Soft Hands. The Thieves of Worlds. It may sound a little insane, but my race revelled in the myth. Written texts about Humans adorned many libraries, and many enjoyed the nightmare they entailed.”

  Tyler swallowed. “And then the system arrived.”

  Magda nodded once. “And you were there. Real. I am embarrassed. I like to think myself enlightened and to judge people on merit, not superstition or looks. But I am finding this very hard when it comes to Humans. Your pale skin, the way you move, then you smile — it sends shivers down my spine.”

  The demon physically shivered at his own words, the image he portrayed of Humans making his skin crawl. He looked down, away from Tyler, his face flushing slightly as if in shame.

  Tyler let everything sink in as he tried to rationalise the demon’s fears. He’d grown up with demons as jokes, as horror films, as church warnings people didn’t fully believe anymore. Horns and fire and evil. It had never bothered him that much, but he did know people who were terrified of such stories.

  Now here in a world full of demons, humans were the nightmare — different and strange, but terrifying in their own right. Magda was facing his nightmare. It stood before him. I am the monster. Tyler held a smile back, not wanting to scare the demon, but he was impressed. Facing one's fears is not an easy thing to do.

  Tyler rubbed a hand down his face. “I am not that myth. From what I have seen, I would guess we are more alike than not. On my world, it’s demons they tell kids about.”

  Magda’s eyes snapped to him. Properly this time. Focused.

  Tyler nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. Red skin, horns, claws. The thing under the bed.”

  Then, unexpectedly, Magda gave a short sound that might have been a laugh if it had been anyone else. But it sounded more guttural, like hidden in a growl.

  It was more like disbelief.

  Tyler felt something loosen. His shoulders relaxed from tension he didn't know he had been holding.

  “So that’s why you’ve been…” Tyler gestured vaguely. “Jumpy.”

  Magda’s lips tightened. “I am not jumpy.”

  Tyler raised his eyebrows.

  Magda stared back for a beat, then sighed through his nose. “I am… adjusting.”

  “Fair enough,” Tyler said quietly. “I didn’t exactly adjust well to goblins.”

  That got a real reaction. Magda’s mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “Goblins?”

  “Another myth us Humans have. We have plenty. It seems that there is more truth to these myths than we both thought. Although there are differences.”

  “So you do not go around enslaving Demons, stealing younglings from their sleep, torturing, killing everything you see, with no control of your emotions?”

  “Of course not…” Tyler paused, thinking about the other day, the way he attacked the young spider. Would other humans have done the same?

  The demon noticed Tyler's pause and stiffened slightly.

  “No, I don't. Well, I try not to. This is hard to explain. I do not intentionally go about attacking and killing demons or any living thing. If I could go through life without harming another creature, I would happily do so. But there are times where fear can creep in, or defence is needed. I am, like many others, working on being better.”

  The demon stayed quiet, indicating for Tyler to continue. He thought for a moment and decided there was no issue in hiding anything about the other day and told the story of his encounter with the mother and child spider.

  He told it plainly, leaving nothing out—the panic, the swing, the child's legs curling. By the end, his voice had gone quiet. He didn't look at Magda. He looked at his own hands, his face slightly flushed with shame.

  “I see we are not so different. If I am reading your reaction correctly, what you did troubled you — a sign of humanity. All living things should have the right to exist. I see now why the system has guided you to this path.”

  The demon shook his shoulders and steadied himself. Taking a step forward, he held out his hand. “Shall we start again? If you can show progress to the spiders you feared, I can also show that same progress. I am Magda. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  Tyler smiled, and the demon did not flinch. He reached out and took the demon’s hand, giving it a firm shake.

  The universe was indeed a very big place and a lot stranger than Tyler could have ever imagined.