Shout-out to Patryk Dabrina for the patron support!

***

"Confession?" Swigging in anticipation, Brian placed his metallic jug down. He felt a little unburdened after laying all of it down and as he said, even if there lay a teeny tiny chance of backstabbing, the temporal fiend would be willing to take the risk to finally dispel the long cast of loneliness that his origin and the life after that had cast. "Don't get angry," Nik raised his hand with a helpless expression, "But... um, just remember, I didn't overreact after finding our that you might possibly be a transgender formed from the fusion of two different gendered rank 9 beings."

"I am perfectly a male," Brian chuckled, amused, "The times I have gotten in trouble for being a man and possessing little ways to achieve an 'outlet' has already gotten me in great trouble during my rank-up quest. And stop bitching out..."

'Although... you started the bitching out part,' Nik thought internally before slowly recounting the whole trial of the war between the Infernal and the Holy Paradise. What Nik didn't relay was the conspiracy hidden behind the curtains. The Infernal Ancestors, in the end, wished to use the 'Confusion' Soul to open some sort of tower, as opposed to the general belief of the Infernal Society that would use the three genius Infernal Members to create a big infernal bang, creating a new, superior lineage of infernals. All of it had been a ruse. Deep down, Nik had come to believe the fact that even the Supreme Seraphim, on some level, had come to an agreement with the infernals for he grew the most activist about cutting Kaal down. And that he did, after making sure that two of the three infernal lords fell, when his prowess already allowed him to slay even the last one.

Probably, it might have been a temporary alliance. Or, all of this is merely an elaborate play. For once, Nik couldn't care. The infernals and the Supreme Seraphim had only troubled themselves to stand in opposition with Nik. However, he kept his musings solidarity. Meanwhile, Brian and Ray only caught up to the events that occurred on their face value. Supreme Seraphim was caught humping a body pillow by Kaal, who, in return, projected the image to a few galaxies and finally incited the great war. Though speechless, the two showed themselves of greater mental capacity as Brian pointed out the core issue, "All of this is... fine. Still curious how you got to know all of this. But, two points remain, where is the confession in all of this, and, you wouldn't happen to know why we are being targeted by our ancestors, do you?"

"The last part... well, I know why I am being hunted. You two? Not so much. Clearly, the archaic beings won't make moves with a clear course of action... so, just keep your eyes open. Now, for the confession," Nik coughed, feeling a little parched, he placed the edges of the glass of wine against his lips, slowly sipping on the blue-tinted alcohol before heaving a deep sigh, "I... ehm, Brian, again. No weird feelings after what I am going to tell you guys."

"Just get on with it," Brian rolled his eyes.

"Welp, I am your Ancestor."

Nik stated, making Ray pull a sour face, "Is that supposed to be some sort of trash talk? Truly disappointing."

"Agh, I knew it would be awkward," Nik groaned, "what I mean is... I have come to understand that my previous incarnation was, in fact... Kaal, the genius Temporal Fiend. I mean—"

"Wait, wait... I have seen Kaal..." Brian's gaze focused on Nik, "He felt real dead to me. And I don't mean the consciousness image, but the way he talked."

"Well, as I said, he is dead. Um, I am the next cycle of birth. Something like, um, well, you know what I am saying, right?" Nik inquired with a hopeful expression but all he got in return was a crushing confusion. "Not really, no," replied the temporal fiend, "but... I don't know. I feel a little relieved that you decided to share this fact."

"Aw~ How sweet," Ray snickered, making the other two grimace, "Do you want me to bring you ribbons and tie your hair up? Hmm? Maybe chat about rainbows, snicker about hot men, or maybe, we can all just hit the road with matching skirts?"

"Shut up," a little hot on the cheeks, Nik gave a rare grunt of embarrassment while Brian shrugged with a casual expression, "Honey, you are the one who just named our relationship as friendship, remember? As I said, I am relieved to be trusted."

"Anyway," changing the topic, Nik looked at Ray, "That's all I had to confess for now. Ray, want to say something, this is safe space," Nik nudged the succubus' shoulder as he shook his head, "Nothing to confess aside from saying that I am no spawn or incarnation of Rank 9 monster... seriously, I feel too ordinary... sigh, I hope that I get a super-strong master to reach your level of absurdness."

"You'll probably fuck him, though..." Nik smiled.

"Probably... if he is hot..." Ray nodded with a sigh.

"So, should I just accept the mission?" Nik inquired as Brian shrugged, "It's up to you. I hope you guys succeed. That auction... though it's sudden formation seems a little uncannily matched with the update of the system provided by the Paradise, we should still be able to gain enough advantages once we have a great stock. So, if you can find good stuff in your quest, get it."

"Yes, boss!" Nik saluted.

Meanwhile, Ray hummed a soft tune, "Let's not waste any more time, then," he tugged Nik's sleeve, "I am accepting the quest, I'll be the leader of the party this time... since you were the one last time."

"Go ahead," Nik agreed, "After this, it's pretty much Brian being the boss after all."

"Hey—" before Brian could say anything, Ray saluted with a smile and disappeared from the bar, "at least, pay up for your food— damnit!"

The fiend cursed.

---

"Hmm?" Nik opened his eyes, a little dazed. Instead of standing, he found himself on his butt. Considering that he had been sitting on a comfy couch, it should be normal. But with his vision and senses monopolized by Ray's sensual scent and touch as she remained on his lap, Nik commented softly, "It's time to move, darling. Don't just take advantage of me out of nowhere." His words instantly made the short-haired youth look back with a shameless smile, "I just woke up, swear to the god!"

As he moved up, Nik chuckled while standing, "You have fucked a God, remember? This swear has lost meaning to you."

"Ah, true~!" Ray nodded, looking around as Nik decided to ignore the behemoth trees for a moment and opened his quest tab to make sense of the situation.

[Transmigration Vs Undead Paradise

Rank-Up Quest— 1

War

Description: The Paradise war between the Transmigration and the Undead Paradise takes place in the Tropical Section of the War Plane. The host is required to contribute to the war and reduce the number of the host of the undead paradise. In the forest infested with Undead and Transmigration Anomalies, you must find and hunt the required hosts.

Rewards:

1 Host: Successful Completion of Rank-Up Quest.

2 Hosts: 10% status boost.

3 Hosts: A Black Chest.

4 Hosts: A Silver Chest.

5 Hosts: A Gold Chest.

Time Remaining: 6D: 23H

Penalty: Rank-up failed. Chanced Execution.]

Finally, aside from Ray, Nik observed his surroundings. As he had made a note earlier. Behemoth trees. The surroundings were dark, but one look towards the sky full of mighty leaves suggested that the duo had found themselves in a typical rainforest situation with the possible sunlight and the bright sky hidden by the bed of leaves, just that the proportion of this scenario had been completely blown up. While the ant-like Nik and Ray finally pointed out the 6 meters long layer of grass that may as well signify a layer of two-storied houses, surrounding the duo and their empty patch of ground, their attention was taken by a shrill call. Looking to their left, what they saw shook them to their spines.

A beast, gigantic. As if, the beast's proportions were what the entire forest was based on, emerged from the clearing of trees. With a translucent skin that showed its twitching muscles wrapped with a bundle of nerves completely exposed to the naked eyes. Eyeless with only a single orifice surrounded by jagged rocks, 'Ah... that's a mouth. Damn,' commenting internally. Ordinarily, with a bed of 6-meters long grass covering their vision, Nik and Ray should have been unable to see different things but the sheer height of the beast seemed to wrap their perception and point of view.

"I am going out of the limb here... and say that this is the Transmigration Monster... or an Undead," Ray mumbled, making Nik snort, "No shit, I thought that is was a giant poo with mouth... anyway, we need to find hosts. This monster... can also be a host for all we understand, so, we attack it."

Nik whispered, his body slowly floating as Ray nodded and summoned Yar, who instantly erupted with her bat-like wings and held Ray from his waist, making sure to keep him balanced while flying. Seeing this and winking at Yar, Nik snickered at Ray, "You should learn to fly... it's awesome."

"Tch, shut up..."

"Oh, well," flying straight up, instantly leaving the cage of grass and finally gazing at what seemed like the tiniest patch of the titan-sized forest, Nik equipped his hands with two handguns. Still wearing a rather weary capri, just for the sake of convenience, now that he had left the world of astonishingly dressed men and women, while his torso covered with a hawaiian shirt, he aimed his gun at the maws of the aimlessly growling monster. In fact, he had already equipped his Silver Dragon Set. The problem with equipments that rose his stats, something Nik found later in his adventure, was that unlike his bodily stats, which he could make full use of even without the exercise learned from Koro-Sensei, credits to his [Body Manipulation], the stats provided by the equipments didn't fall in this category. Hence, he had could not reveal the full potential of stats greater than hundreds of points.

'A pair of guns?' A little surprised by Nik's choice of weapon after the demise of his shotgun by a mere crunch of Demon Lord's fist, Ray waited as Yar continued to flap her wings. Gazing at the pair of silver and black handguns, Ray felt a little worried. These guns... felt too weird. An internal feeling that the succubus couldn't shake.

'I have always wondered what my Origin is...' Nik gazed at his handguns. The origin gun [Type-A] (Silver) and [Type-B] (black) were close combat and a sniper handgun respectively. With the handle of the Type-A a little buffier and cozy to his grip and a lighter weight when compared to the black Type-B installed with a holographic point to create an extraordinary scope, something, that Nik didn't need, but loved greatly. That, combined with his newfound skills in the past month, helped the Lust Apostle greatly in making the best use of the guns as possible.

"All right~" a little chipper than usual, "Nik pointed his Type-B handgun towards the growling monster. A whiff of rotten stench made Nik inclined to believe that this monster might be of the undead kind, so based on this assumption, he only needed to pull the scope up and align the shot with the area right above the mouth of the beast.

"I think, the recoil would be ineffective with the equipment set..." thinking out loud, Nik finally fired a shot, making Ray's eyes widen in astonishment as the violet-emerald bullet shot towards the monster with a thundering bang.