Chapter 32

The oni that slashed at the intruder was surprised when he passed right through her.

No sound could be heard as he slashed through her. He could not even feel any resistance.

"Ah, sorry. You cannot hit me with that. First" Alexis slashed down a sword she conjured quickly and unsummoned it right after destroying two power cables that came from the large crystal that led to some sort of gate looking construction.

"Second. Please, sit down boys. It's time to talk about the condition of your stay in my world."

Out of a tiny bit of mana, Alexis made some chairs and placed them in front of her beckoning the oni to sit on them.

"Who the hell are you? Tell me quickly before I throw a lot of fireballs into your pretty face."

After she breathed in and out a few times, Alexis said in a firm and domineering tone

"I am a God of the world you are trying to enter. As I don't want homicidal oni in my world that try to overthrow a government or kill innocent people, I came here to contract you to me.

If you decide to work for me and do some cleaning up, I will allow you to stay."

The leading oni took a stance when he stepped towards the crazy looking woman and sat on one of her created chairs.

These chairs could well become a trap for them the second the woman disagreed with them.

But her holy aura gave her claims at least believability. He had never seen such pure holy mana.

If that woman wasn't a God, who would else qualify for the job?

In taking the risk, Alexis put on a smile and conjured a single sheet of paper.

"These are the conditions I came up with. Your job is quite easy, just don't cause trouble for the people in my world. I cannot let precious faith get lost because you thought it would be funny to kill some people."

The rest of the oni gathered behind their leader to get a glance at the contract this supposed God came up with.

They couldn't deny that this woman had a strong holy aura. Even if her body was weak, this was likely only a soul clone from her.

'Wait a minute. Soul clone?' The oni came up with a theory that this woman must have been the one who made the soul clones for the other group of humans.

If she wanted to explore this world and get some benefit out of it, there was a great likelihood, that she would send humans as the vanguard.

And resource management meant that if she wanted the mana crystals that the oni had, that she was low on mana for something great.

It was beneficial for her to just let the oni through without obstruction and give them a little treat if she got what she wanted.

This God was selfish but the oni couldn't care less.

The other world that the leader spoke of, at least technology wise, was at least a few hundred years more advanced than the one they were currently in.

As for the conditions this crazy god came up with, they were easy enough to follow for them.

It was only to help her against invading demons and to keep rioting humans under control.

Other than that was a clause that they couldn't harm innocents in any shape or form.

For the mostly peaceful tribe of oni, these were easy enough to follow.

And the punishment for breaking these terms was just a stricter contract that they would be forced into if that were ever to happen.

As long as they behaved, nothing would happen to them. This was a far better deal than what they had currently.

For years on end, the oni were on the run. They couldn't stay in a single place for too long before humans would come to hunt them down like animals.

Some for dumb reasons like money, other were just in for the fun of hunting.

"Can you guarantee that the humans of your world won't attack us?"

Alexis started laughing hard.

"Of course they will, dummy. But did you forget the part where I specifically stated 'Innocent' people are not to be attacked. Do you really think of the people that have the guts to attack you to be innocent?"

The oni gulped. He underestimated this God. She was seemingly nice, but that was far from what she was doing. While dealing them their cards, she was playing an entirely different game.

She just followed her own goals, even if she had to make a sacrifice here and there.

"I can practically see what you are thinking while reading your face." Alexis was happy that they seemed to agree with her.

"But don't misunderstand, I don't intend for you to actively seek for trouble. It is just that the humans of our world are the dominant species. They are also racist to a great extent. But you look fine the way you are. The best thing you can say is that you got that look from the game Choices and just go your own way."

"Game?" The oni seemed confused. Was this whole thing just a game for them?

"Ah right, you don't know. Sorry, I forgot that."

Alexis began to explain what the game Choices was and why the group of players came back to them in the first place.

They couldn't die and from the games they previously played they were accustomed to dying.

Not seeing the consequences of their actions, they came back to the oni and got beat again.

They weren't liches, the oni though now. They were something way worse than a lich.

Undying humans that were unafraid of death and just kept coming was a nightmare for anyone involved.

They had luck that the humans were weak and low in number, but if some high-level immortal beings came for their heads, it wouldn't end good for them.

Without further ado, the leader of the oni accepted the deal. To continue living in this world as impossible for them.

It was just a matter of time before other similar humans were to hunt them. Better risk it all than fight an unwinnable battle.

"Good. I will bring you now to your new best friends. Can you guess who they are?"

Fear could be seen on the faces of the oni. The only people the goddess could mean were the idiots that they killed before.

***

After Alexis shrouded them in a dome of pure white light, a single open door was in the center.

This was her way of using the soul clones as gates between the worlds.

Through the door, they would shortly enter Alexis's soul realm and go through a small tunnel that led them to another door that connected them to another soul avatar that she had placed in the room where the group had their capsule room.

This was more complicated than using a normal gate that ripped through space, but this way Alexis had to use less energy.

The dome lifted in the room and the five oni that came out of it had the shock of their lives.

Standing before them were the four adventurers that they killed a few times in their full getup.

Behind them were four tank looking things their real bodies were in.

But that was not what shocked them the most. Looking outside, the oni could see tall buildings that stretched far into the sky.

Just a few of them were visible, but that in itself was a feat that few humans of the other world had accomplished.

Most large buildings were churches, but these seemed like residential buildings.

The standard height of the other houses in the city was two to three floors, but the buildings looked far too modern for the oni. They were accustomed to the medieval style, so they got a great cultural shock.

"Look who I got boys. Your new best friends have arrived in this world. Make sure they like their stay and tell them anything about our world."

The four boys just answered with a "Huh?" and looked suspiciously at the oni that killed them before.

Especially the thief was not happy about the development because he had been tortured the longest of the group.

"You want us to take care of them?"

They were sweet little boys that understood well.

"Yes. I have to take care of some things in the other world. Right, before I forget. They have signed a contract with me so that they won't harm innocent people. Just don't attack them and you'll be fine."

With that said, Alexis vanished again, leaving the people in the room alone. They were adults and could work things out on their own.

After they exchanged names and formalities, the oni apologized to them and explained everything from the beginning.

How they suffered for years and were hunted by a lot of people.

All they did was to defend themselves.

The group that only had a one sided view of the game world and no real experience in fantasy geopolitics, didn't think about that part of the story one bit.

They just assumed as this was a game, that they had to reach some kind of high score and just have fun while leveling up.

They told their point of view in form of the game to the oni after that.

It was interesting enough for them to be exited about every bit of information they got told.

To be asked questions and then get a race assigned to them was already incredibly incredible enough. But then came the realization for them, that the density of mana in this world was next to nothing.

The mage of the group reassured them that this was normal in their world and that they got their mana from either the sun or simply through the game world.

Socializing with the oni was fun for them. Meanwhile the warrior of the group tested logging out of the game.

He wasn't having the benefits that the others had. The mage could cast magic and the thief could move around quicker than before.

Heck, even their bard had fun with his instruments. He was completely silent the entire time the goddess was talking because he was shy in the presence of woman, but now he had fun while playing his magical lute.

Only the warrior was left out of the fun because the only thing he could do was to destroy things.

And currently not things needed to be destroyed.

The goddess just told the group essentially to have fun with their newfound friends and go on with their day.

It was to be expected that she wouldn't return at all as she had better things to do.

As the warrior logged out, his soul avatar vanished into thin air and one capsule in the room opened.

Out came a completely different person.

The oni expected the original bodies to look the same as the soul avatars, but nonetheless that wasn't the case.

Where the avatar had muscles, the real body lacked even enough mass to properly sustain himself.

To call him underweight was an understatement.

"Are you sick or something? Did someone cripple you so that your real body looks like that?"

One curious oni asked him while looking at the pitiful human before him.

Even if this warrior wanted to, he could punch the oni for multiple days without doing any kind of damage.

This saddened the oni. His newfound friend had a problem with his body that seemed bad.

"What? No that is just how my body looks. As I created my avatar, I just wished to be strong and mighty. But looking back, I should have chosen something with magic, it is the better thing that I could have done."

The oni patted the head of the pitiful human.

"You can be strong and be good at magic little one. I can train you if you want. We oni are fairly good at magic, but not many come close to our physical strength.

In human terms, we are what is sometimes called battlemages."

With tears in his eyes, the warrior looked at the oni in a new light.

Maybe they were really just misunderstood the entire time.