Yuan’s heart missed a beat. Would he be caught?
“Normally, everyone knows what those are - but possibly your clan has some sort of taboo about mentioning them. There’s a lot of beliefs - some good, some bad - about what attracts transmigrators, and often people know less about the subject than one might expect. Better to ask these questions now at the start of your cultivation journey than to rue not asking them later, when you go toe to toe with a demon like an Arrogant Young Transverser or an Isekai Protagonist.”
Yuan breathed a sigh of relief. He was safe.
Hong stroked his bear. “I’ll phrase my reply in scholarly language: ‘Devourer’ was originally a folk term for any variety of transmigrator that gains its strength parasitically, by feeding off of others. It has since been repurposed as an academic term for a specific class of transmigrator, delineated by its phenomenological role (using the three-fold classification schema of Scholar Zhexian - see his Recommendations to the Authorities upon the Classification of Transmigrators) as a devourer of the world.
“In its less insidious form, it gains strength from stealing the skills of others, either after defeating or killing them or simply at an opportune moment; the more insidious varieties have to kill and eat others, leading them to commit large-scale massacres. Both varieties are demonic, of course, but the Bureau for Transmigrator Affairs has a policy of tolerating them if they register the exact parameters under which they gain strength and agree not to use their skills on other people or spirit beasts, and to respect environmental law when hunting.”
“…Respect environmental law when hunting?”
“‘Displace the Heavenly Sky-Splitting Lightning Serpent, and you increase the population of Mountain-Clearing Thunder Stags. Increase the population of Mountain-Clearing Thunder Stags, and you strip the Earth of Tengri’s Spirit Grass. Strip the Earth of Tengri’s Spirit Grass, and the Earth suffers’ - animals have no food, people have no income, the cultivation of cultivators stagnates. Then the people starve, and cultivators lack the strength to protect them. ‘The cultivator is not culicid, but cultivates even when culling,’ declares Xiu Yang, Young Master of the Nuclear Catasterism Sect.”
“I see. That should suffice as an explanation. I can do more research later.”
“Mmm. You should find a copy of Systems and Cheat Skills: an Overview, by Yin Zhi, sect master of the Vivi-Sect. It contains excellent morphological and phenomenological descriptions of the different types of transmigrators, and many useful scientific facts - like how much their amygdala differs in size from a normal person’s,” Hong finished helpfully, as he punched a hole through the rock, opening a new passage. Ducking down he entered it, Xian still skipping along behind him. Yuan followed slowly with a vaguely terrified look on his face.
“Thanks, I will… and flesh wearers? What are those?”
“Hmmm? Transmigrators who steal people’s bodies, naturally, and wear their flesh. A catch-all term for the spirits responsible for transmigrator possessions.”
“Transmigrator possession…? I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Yuan said, not liking where this was going.
Xian began laughing. “What do you mean, you have no idea what a transmigrator possession is? Everyone does - one of the first things most people remember is being told as a child that if they’re naughty, then they’ll be possessed by fallen divinities from another world. Why, I still remember when I was a kid…”
***
Mini Xian sat in bed, pouting. “But I don’t want to go to sleep - I’m not tired.”
The bogeyman who lived in her closet sighed, and shook his head melodramatically, bits of decaying flesh swinging from his mouldering cheeks. His eyelids hung low over the glowing coals he used for eyes as he contemplated his small charge with some fondness.
“Oh, Xiaoyue,” he said, using his pet name for her, “if you don’t go to sleep, then you’ll be very tired in the morning. And do you know what happens to little girls who are tired?”
Mini Xian crossed her arms in front of her chest, holding tight to her teddy bear. “They become an adult, because then they’ll be a big girl.”
“Well, if you’re tired from a lack of sleep then you’re certainly an adult,” the bogeyman who lived in her closet admitted, “but maybe not in the way you’re hoping for. No, if you’re tired from a lack of sleep then you’ll become a very, very cranky little girl. And do you know what happens to very cranky little girls?”
“No…” Mini Xian admitted reluctantly.
“They grow up to become an Otome Game Villainess!” The bogeyman who lived in her closet declared melodramatically. Mini Xian gasped in fear.
“What’s an Otome Game Villainess?” She asked, clutching the teddy bear closer to her chest.
“An Otome Game Villainess? Why, didn’t you know? An Otome Game Villainess was once a lady who was nasty to others because she’s so cranky - from lack of sleep, you know - and because she’s so nasty, the gods punish her by sending a sort of demon to possess her and steal her body. Then, the Otome Game Villainess forces the soul of the cranky lady to watch as it steals her body, does weird nonsense like open a fruit juice stand, and finally marries her off to an inscrutable asswipe whose only charm is that he looks good shirtless.”
“No!” Mini Xian cried. “Say it ain’t so! You’re lying.”
“I am not,” the bogeyman who lived in her closet said, “it happened to the last little girl who lived here - she never went to bed on time, and now she’s living as a soap saleswoman in New Shanghai, and is married to a fabulously wealthy hunkish second son of a baron. The Otome Game Villainess fell for him because of his dark and mysterious brooding personality.”
Mini Xian shivered. “What do I have to do to escape becoming an Otome Game Villainess?”
The bogeyman booped her on the nose. “Go to bed on time. Then you’ll wake up well-rested and become a wonderful, nice little girl whom everyone likes and who doesn’t have to worry about being possessed by evil demons from beyond the stars.”
He pulled the switch on her lamp, plunging the room into darkness, and went back to her closet. He paused as he was closing the door. “Now go to sleep. And remember, if you’re ever scared, that the monster under the bed and I are here to keep you safe. Sleep tight, Xiaoyue.”
Mini Xian lay back in her sheets and desperately tried to fall asleep. It took a while - she kept worrying about demons coming to steal her body and marry her off to weird, inscrutable asswipes whose only charm was that they looked good shirtless - but eventually the knowledge that there were monsters hiding in her closet and under her bed and behind her dresser quieted her - for the Otome Game Villainesses could not get in without them knowing, and they would protect her. She let her worries about becoming an Otome Game Villainess fall into the back of her mind as she drifted off, sailing to the Land of Nod.
***
Hong kicked down another wall, muttering about the need to refine this part of the restaurant protection technique. “The lady Xian is correct. All transmigrators are descended gods, of course - everyone agrees on that, barring a few heretics not worth mentioning. But not all of them have the same nature; a flesh wearer is either a fallen god who possesses mortals, or a type of demon who punishes the naughty by stealing their bodies. People disagree on which, although it’s possible there isn’t a real distinction between the two.”
“Precisely,” Xian said, her tone still a jaunty mockery, “I don’t know how you don’t know that. Everyone born here is well aware that…”
And then she trailed off, as the proverbial lightbulb went off in her head. She sat down on a rock, head in her hands, expression stunned. She looked like one who had experienced a shattering revelation, except without any of the cultivation growths one associated with revelations.
“Lady Xian…?” Yuan asked nervously. He had never seen her upset like this before. Hong looked at Yuan sympathetically, then put one hand on his shoulder, patting him a couple times.
“Best not to have this conversation with anyone other than us, lad.”
“What do you mean…” Yuan started to ask, until Xian sprang back up from her rock. She still looked intensely distressed - or as if someone had taken something major away from her, ruining plans that were long in the making - but she also looked refreshed, as if an immense load had been taken off her shoulders.
She skipped back down the tunnel path, merrily whistling away. Hong let out a wry chuckle, shaking his head as he followed her. Yuan came last, still confused.
After a while there was another explosion down the tunnel path, and Mu stepped into view. He dusted himself off, using the Heavenly Divine Supreme Cleaning Technique to remove the blood from his tunic, and then turned to face his companions.
He looked about at their wildly different faces, his own increasingly bemused. “So, what did I miss?”
