I appeared back on the magic circle next to Silver and quickly looked over my body. As expected, all my damage was healed, but I still felt a faint phantom pain from the brutal mauling I had just endured. Let’s avoid repeating that experience ever again.

“Jeez, you guys took forever, and why didn’t you turn on the screen so we could watch!” Scale came over to us, followed by Cleopatra and Muld.

“Better question, who won?” Cleopatra said, stepping in front of Scale. It wasn’t hard for them to figure out the answer after seeing Silver’s boastful grin and my pout.

“Ehh, don’t beat yourself up over it bud. The first fights are mostly luck anyways.” Scale pat me on the back as he offered up his words of wisdom.

“Oh really, would you have said that if you hadn’t been beaten by me?” Cleopatra said with a laugh.

“It was luck! Luck I say, so don’t start getting smug now!”

“I think you both did very well, and congratulations on your win Silver!” Muld chimed in supportively.

Silver gave Muld a proud smile that was way too pure for someone who had been grinning wickedly as her minions tore me apart just a few moments before. I sighed, mentally exhausted from the two battles I had fought today, as well as the mild information overload from all we had to learn today. It was probably about time to head to bed, especially considering that we had even more to learn tomorrow judging by Ivercel’s command to meet him after breakfast tomorrow.

“Ah yeah, where are we supposed to sleep? I don’t think Ivercel ever told us.” My tired sigh hadn’t gone unnoticed, as it prompted Scale to ask his question.

“Did he forget to lead us to our rooms or something?” Cleopatra asked.

Wait wait. Did these idiots not listen when Ivercel told us we would be sleeping in our domains…?

I looked at Muld and Silver, and noticed they looked rather confused too. Dear lord, these fools. No wonder Silver outnumbered me by so much as well. She had extra money to spend on monsters since she didn’t spend any on a room. Should I tell them or could I just sneak off to my room…

I caught Silver eyeing me suspiciously, realizing I knew something she didn’t. Being more perceptive than I thought he was, no offense, Scale also noticed I knew something.

“Gem, do you know where we sleep? C’mon, we all wanna get to bed so now’s not the time to be all quiet.” Scale asked.

“We sleep in our domains.” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Wait, seriously!? How were we supposed to know that? Don’t answer that. Shoot, where am I supposed to sleep tonight then.” Cleopatra said, nearly in tears at the thought of sleeping on the ground of whatever terrain she had created for her domain.

“Hey hey Gem, you knew about this already which means you created a nice place to sleep right? We’re like, a team right? So you wouldn’t mind helping us out. If you don’t have enough room you can just help me as well!” Scale said hopefully.

I had gotten a pretty big bed, but would it be big enough for five people? Actually, it might. I had gone kind of overboard with it, in all honesty. Sighing once again, I gave in and we all went back to the spirit gate in the main courtyard.

“Did Ivercel teach us how to go to the domains of other demon lords? I don’t remember him explaining that, but well, I don’t remember him saying we sleep in our domains either…” Muld said, voicing a pretty good question.

“Let’s all just hold on to each other and let Gem take the lead. Worst case scenario, we will just pop out next to some random bit of that fog stuff and we can just walk back in to return here.” Scale grabbed my hand and Muld’s, tugging us closer to the gate. 

Cleopatra took Muld’s hand, and Silver took mine, linking all of us together. Mentally preparing myself, I stepped into the spirit gate with the others following, and felt myself pulled towards my domain.

Unlike last time, I felt a bit of resistance as I dragged my team with me into my domain, but other than that, it worked smoothly.

“Huh, I half expected that to fail the first time we tried. I'm guessing the wooden box is your house?” Cleopatra said, looking around at my domain.

I nodded, though it was hardly a house at the moment. From the outside, it was simply a wooden shack with a small chimney on the side. There weren’t even windows or the classic slanted roof, although it didn’t exactly need a slanted roof since the weather inside a domain was determined by the demon lord who owned it, therefore there was no risk of rain pooling on the top.¹For those who don't know, slanted roofs have a purpose beyond just looking nice. They let rain and snow fall off instead of pooling on top, as a flat roof would. Too much rain could add enough weight to cause a roof to collapse, and this is especially true with snow. This is why desert buildings often have flat roofs, and why buildings in snowy climates have extra steep roofs.

“It’s huge!” Scale and Cleopatra both exclaimed as we entered the room and they saw my bed. As I thought, it really was big enough for all of us.

Taking the lead again, Scale hopped into the bed and spread his arms out. Cleopatra took a moment to light the fireplace before shoving one of Scale's arms to his side so that she could fit on. After a bit of jostling, we all ended up in the bed in the same order as we had been when holding hands when going through the portal.

“Should we sleep with a fire going?” I asked Cleopatra, somewhat nervously.

“It’s fine. Your fireplace seems built well enough, no sparks should be able to get out. Besides, the crackling of the fire is relaxing.”

She seemed to know what she was talking about, or at least I hoped so, so I decided I would just trust her judgement and get some sleep. I wondered what Ivercel had planned for us tomorrow. Hopefully whatever it is would get us some more spirit power so that my team could make their own rooms and I could have my bed to myself...