*Michael’s Perspective*

“Master Uriel!” The one who was most excited was Rachel, the deer-centaur Nature Mage. The pink Dryad wasn’t too surprised to see us suddenly appear, but Ailyn yelped and some of the random apprentices screamed in terror. It was normal to see people teleporting into or away from an established location, but we simply materialized in the middle of a huge workshop.

“You can’t just appear like that! Shit! Almost gave me a heart attack…” The little Dark Dwarf was wearing a suit of pitch-black armor, that looked eerily similar to my own gear. However, the main difference was that her helmet appeared similar to a big skull that covered her whole head.

Ailyn’s apprentices included a few Tiger and Bear Tribe men, a couple Lizard Tribe women and dozens of other Dark Dwarves. Of course, those were only the people in the workshop at that moment, since there were hundreds of highly skilled apprentices and thousands of newer low-skilled ones. As for Yuri, she had tons of people being trained by her as well, but they mostly went out on missions or were Adventurers. The missions included working in hospitals, clinics and being field medics. Aside from that, she ‘taught’ people things by handing them a book that shot out tentacles into any orifices they could penetrate… Then the information would be forcefully downloaded into the poor brat’s head. 

Some people actually died from the procedure, but the book would be absorbed into that person’s body and repair the damage. A book would be lost, yet a person’s life would be saved. So I can’t say that she’s ruthless. Just umm, batshit crazy? Then again, that’s probably funny coming from ‘me’.

“Alright, everyone quiet down!” I shouted, then asked “Yuri and Ailyn, do the two of you want to come with us to have dinner at Lunar Blessings in Angren? It’s going to be a big reunion party. So-”

“Interesting… Three inorganic life forms.” Yuri lumbered over to the golems, pushing her disciple out of the way. Then she attempted to examine them with her tendrils, but I blocked her path, afraid that they might start a huge battle and destroy the workshop in the process. However, she still kept murmuring “These two creatures are emitting nanoscopic robotic life forms from their bodies. This appears to be… The work of Azrael. Incredible.”

“What?!” Ailyn rushed over and looked at the unicorn, then ended up fondling Mike’s armor, before eventually clicking a secret button and causing it all to fall to the ground. All that was left was a naked mechanical skeleton. She gasped, muttering “It’s… So beautiful…” In fact, she even had to take her helmet off in order to examine ‘his’ bones and mechanisms properly, revealing the tears in her huge eyes.

He had ‘muscles’ in a sense, but they were transparent and barely visible. It looked kind of like tiny white hairs wrapped together tightly, yet the bastard was about as strong as I was.

“This is… Plastic? What kind of plastic could possibly be so durable, flexible, hard and resistant at the same time?” Ailyn kept rambling on, while fondling all of Mike’s ‘parts’.

Eventually, he complained “Honestly, I’d settle for being a fucking Human again if it meant that I could at least get horny over a cute dwarven girl molesting me…”

“This creature lacks genitals. It is unable to reproduce, thus, inherently flawed. The equestrian life form is far more useful. It has the potential to birth many fascinating experimental subjects.” Yuri was about to start examining the unicorn with her tendrils, so I stepped in between them and prevented a disaster from occurring.

“Alright, it’s a simple fucking question. Do you want to go or not? I’m only talking to Yuri and Ailyn by the way, so sorry if you guys thought I meant everyone. Most of you would die if you ate any of the food in Lunar Blessings anyway.” Without waiting for either of them to verbally answer, I teleported us away… To our last stop.

Angren, specifically the are above ground. What was once an empty triangular patch of land a year or so prior, had suddenly transformed into a bustling construction site. A city in the making, but when we arrived, it was the middle of the night and nobody was building anything. Instead, they were manning the defenses and fighting off the endless horde of demonic beasts that poured out of the Fourth Ring.

A huge anti-magic concrete wall was surrounding most of the pentagonal area. The original triangle that pointed towards Salvation like a giant arrow still existed, but they obviously made the entire space much larger. From an aerial view, it looked like a giant pentagon that pointed southward. At each corner was a huge skyscraper, or well, they were working on them. It wasn’t the kind of thing that could be finished in a day, even with giants and magic. Especially since they had to constantly fight off demonic and magical beasts on a daily basis. It also took way more time to create a truly fortified structure, than the hastily built ones they used on the western border. 

Anyway, there were some other people who I wanted to go and fetch, but it turned out that almost everyone I knew was in Angren for some strange reason… It was really fucking suspicious and possibly a trap, so I kept my armor on the entire time and expected the worst.

“Stahp~, please stop~! Ugh…” Lorelei cried in despair, as her oversized dryad body fell onto the grass. While Ailyn couldn’t even say anything, since she was kneeling down and vomiting everywhere. Everyone else was fine though. No teleportation sickness, probably because they were either used to it or literally didn’t have internal organs.

Then something weird happened. The bark on Lori’s back burst open with lots of green goo flying everywhere, as a strange creature emerged. Okay, it was just Lorelei. She did look a bit different than I remembered, but ultimately, I recognized who she was without much effort.

Yuri rushed over and extended her tendrils to investigate the ‘carcass’ that the nauseous little girl erupted from, eventually explaining “It appears that rapid and repeated teleportation has caused some minor cellular deterioration. The damage will be repaired within twenty-four hours.”