Rey looked to Kassi. "Can we please continue this later?"

  Kassi just turned from him. Somehow, that felt worse than when she was yelling at him, but he didn't have time to put a balm on his bruised feelings. That would have to wait until they got rid of these guards.

  Rey didn't bother using the ladder and just jumped down. He fired a small Repulsion to slow himself and not break his ankles. The banging on the door was constant, and if they didn't open the door at any moment, the demons might even break it down.

  Rey went to the others and motioned for them to huddle together, but for Aearbon, it was easier said than done. They all put their togethers in a manner of speaking. Kassi hadn't bothered to come down. That girl could really hold onto her temper. It wasn't good for her stress levels, but he was the last person to talk to his angry girlfriend.

  "Where's Kass?" Filomena asked.

  "She's upstairs, thinking about how much she loves me," Rey replied.

  "More like the opposite," Ajay said. "We heard the shouting."

  "Not the time," Noidet snapped. "There are city guards outside my door, and if we don't open the door soon, they'll break it down, and then we'll have another fight on our hands."

  "See, at least one of us is focused. Good job, No Grip."

  Rey didn't know why, but the demon rolled his eyes.

  "We need to hide, and that includes you as well, Sniffer. They'll be looking for a one-armed demon, and four humans, and well, one Baaghror." Rey looked to Noidet. "Do you have any place where we can all hide?"

  He shook his head. "Not really. We didn't really need a reason to hide."

  "Then where did you keep your Humans or beings with souls before you handed them off or made human curry out of them?"

  "Mostly in the store room." Noidet motioned with his head.

  "I can expand my camouflage skill to hide two more people," Aearbon stated.

  "Now, he tells us this," Rey grumbled.

  The door threatened to blast open as it was practically caving inwards with their blows. "You'd better open up right now, or we will skin you alive."

  "Coming!" Rey shouted. "Just give me one fucking minute."

  He made himself sound as annoyed as he felt, because he was getting increasingly annoyed. He was used to being in control. Knowing all the variables and then making decisions that were, if not the best, generally leaning towards good. But he never had to think up a plan of their survival in seconds, or they would be all done for.

  Thankfully, he had been in a situation like this before. Well, not exactly like this, but close enough that he could warp the plan he had used to get out of that hairy situation. And this was as hairy as a chimpanzee's backside.

  "Okay, Aearbon, you will hide Kassi and Noifet," Rey said.

  "Close enough," Noidet relented.

  Rey went on. "Ajay and Filomena, you're captured humans, and you better play that part. When they open the door, to check, play the part that you're trying to escape. Just don't actually fry them, please. We don't want another army coming down on us. Got it?"

  Kassi shimmied down the ladder at that moment. She didn't even look in Rey's direction and headed straight for the storeroom.

  "Aearbon, let's go, time's wasting," she said.

  Rey could do nothing but watch her walk away with the demon and the Tigerman. Even Noidet was throwing Rey sympathetic glances, and that was the last thing he needed—sympathy from a Sniffer. Now, he had seen everything. It wasn't as if demons were incapable of the emotion; it was just that it was extremely rare.

  "Ouch," Filomena exclaimed. "She's that mad, huh?"

  Ajay placed a hand on his shoulder. "Why do you look like you've been slapped? It's fine, man. She'll come around eventually."

  Rey shook out of it when the door slammed so hard that it nearly broke off its hinges. Rey quickly drew his dagger and made a cut on his wrist again to draw some blood. He noted from the corner of his eye that Kassi had seen him do that, but instead of exploding on him like last time, she turned her head and walked into the storeroom.

  He washed Ajay and Filomena's faces and clothes with his blood, making the Sicilian cry out.

  "It's just to sell the look. You two are, after all, captured humans. Now, git."

  They ran to the storeroom and immediately started banging on the door. Rey couldn't help but be proud of them. They were really selling their roles here. He quickly dabbed some Healing potion on his cut and made for the door, when it smashed open.

  "Whoa, you people really could not wait," Rey said, turning his body in a manner that the demons wouldn't see him pocketing his Healing Potion.

  The guard, who looked like a fat pig with a pudgy nose, came straight for him. He stomped so hard that he made the glasses on the table jump. Rey backed up a few steps, but the guard picked up the pace. He grabbed Rey by the neck and drove him right into the wall.

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  He smashed Rey into the wall, making him see double. "What the fuck were you doing?"

  "Ah, you really should not start with the head. Makes it hard to concentrate."

  The demon slammed him into the wall again, as if Rey had said that he liked getting his head pounded into the wall. He had to really stop himself from shooting the guard into the opposite wall.

  "Ah, will you stop?" Rey barked.

  "What the fuck were you doing?" the guard asked. "Are you deaf?"

  There was a loud Sniffing noise. "He smells like a human," said the demon that entered the house with the pig demon. Rey was having a hard time concentrating, but he was sure that the demon looked like a tall, reptilian-skinned demon with fangs the size of Rey's fingers. He was also sure that the demon was a Sniffer.

  Just how many of these fuckers are there in the city?

  "Yes, that's because I was securing the humans," Rey said, raising his bloody arm.

  The demon paused and tilted his head. "Which humans?"

  "Can you let me down? It's hard to talk with you clutching my neck like you're about to kiss me, which I might be okay with, but my missus might rip off your fat lips and make herself a necklace. At the end of the day, it's your call."

  The pig demon let go of him. "Now, talk."

  Rey rubbed his neck. "I caught a couple of humans trying to flee the city on account of those other humans that've been making a whole bunch of noise lately. Well, they didn't know they would run into me."

  "Where are they?" The Sniffer asked.

  "In that storeroom back there." Rey motioned with his head. The Sniffer started to make his way towards them. "No, don't open the door. They've already tried to escape three times. I barely got them locked in before you two smashed my door open. Who's going to pay for that, huh?"

  "Shut up," the pig demon said, and motioned to his buddy to check on the storeroom.

  The Sniffer sniffed like a sniffer dog at an airport, trying to find the hidden drugs. As soon as he got to the storeroom door, it smashed open, and Ajay and Filomena looked downright feral, even compared to the demons, and tried to make a run for it. Rey was rather proud of the work that he had done. They really looked the part that they had been trying to escape multiple times.

  The Sniffer pointed his rusted spear at them. "Get back, you filthy dogs."

  "Look whose talking," Filomena snarled.

  "These two have no manners," Rey said. "If you two go back in the storeroom, I'll give you a sweet treat."

  The demons turned to look at him.

  "What? I wasn't telling the truth, of course. Sometimes, you need to make them think that you're on their side."

  "I'll shit on your corpse," Filomena snapped.

  Rey stared wide-eyed. "Okay, that's really uncalled for, after all I've done for you." The demons turned to stare once more. "You know what I mean, feeding them, making sure they don't run away or kill me until my crew arrives from Narzroth."

  "You're a Sniffer?" the Sniffer asked.

  "Not really. More like a Sniffer in training. I haven't gotten my nose to sniff out souls yet."

  The pig demon walked towards his friends, who were doing a far too good a job, and made it seem like they were actually going to escape if the demon even took his eye off them for a single moment.

  "Who is in your crew?" The Sniffer asked.

  "You wouldn't know them," Rey said. "We haven't established ourselves in the city yet."

  "And you better not without talking with—"

  "Ginirth. I know, we are all set to give him one of these two as our due to let us work in the city."

  "Or you can work for the prince, and we can take one of them as our cut and introduce you to our captain," said the pig-headed demon.

  Rey snorted. "You must've thought I was born yesterday. These humans stay here, and besides, we want to stay independent."

  "Your loss." The Sniffer glared at his friends. "Get back inside the room, you degenerate fucks."

  "And get fucking," Rey ordered. "I want a baby from you by the time my crew gets here."

  The demons laughed, and Rey laughed along with them. Though Filomena truly didn't find the joke funny. She threw him a look that said that he would pay for this later. Knowing her, she would zap his little friend when he was taking a piss or something.

  The Sniffer shoved them inside, took a whiff of the storeroom, and recoiled. "This room reeks."

  "Oh, you wouldn't believe the kinds of things these humans do in there."

  The Sniffer snapped the door shut and nodded to his buddy. "We're done here. Let's go."

  The pig demon nodded. "If you think about working for us. Let me know, I'll be circling the area for some days."

  Rey chuckled. "I'll let you know."

  With that, the two demons left, and Rey breathed a sigh of relief. His friends filtered out of the store room and found Rey standing with his head to the door. Noidet brought a chair and stuffed it under the handle to block the door from opening up, since the guards, in their enthusiasm to get in, had broken the lock.

  "Looks like that worked," Noidet said. "I'm genuinely surprised that actually worked. Have you done this sort of thing before?"

  Great. Now, even the demon is trying to expose me.

  "Oh, yeah, I used to do this on the regular back home," Rey replied. "Let's just take a breather, and then head out to pay Mr. Ginirth a visit."

  "But none of us are Rank 10. So, killing him wouldn't advance us to D-Tier," Aearbon said.

  "I didn't say let's go kill him." Rey shot back. "All I said, actually, all I meant was let's go scope the place out. See where he lives. How many guards does he have under his employ? Find out if there's a structural weakness in his place that we can exploit? If we stayed here, we could play this trick on them only so many times before they realize something is up."

  He got slow nods from his friends.

  With that, they all dispersed. Rey watched Kassi walk to a bed down here, turn her face to the wall, effectively ending any chance for him to strike up a conversation with her.

  "I'll take first watch," Aearbon said.

  "Nah, big guy. You get some rest this time. I'll watch the street for a little bit. After all, we've established that it is my house."

  With that, everyone dispersed to get some well-deserved rest. Ajay and Filomena took his order seriously and were probably in the process of making a baby upstairs. While Aearbon put his back to the wall and fell asleep in a seated position. Noidet took the bed beside Kassi and was snoring away within minutes.

  Hours passed in sheer boredom. Rey found his eyes drooping, and every time they did, he turned to look back at Kassi, but she was fast asleep. His headache lessened as time crawled by, and his Mana returned.

  He was about to fall asleep entirely when he noticed a lot of guards moving about in the street outside. They were slinking about, trying to be sneaky, but then Rey realized they weren't knocking on any doors. In fact, they were moving into position with this house as the focal point.

  "Fuck!" Rey cried. "Everyone, get up! Looks like we're about to be in the shit again."