The satisfaction on the man's face vanished in an instant. He was speechless, to say the least.
Once the demon was done, it met Aectaeon's eyes and jumped in repeat once more. Aectaeon forced himself to smile, trying to mask the bewilderment that he felt.
However, Thyr didn't stop jumping.
'What does Thyr want? Food again?' He thought, 'Or is it asking for praise?'
Aectaeon approached the demon once more and crouched down. He reached for its head and was welcomed by the same panel of actions. Rather than choosing pat, Aectaeon opted for the last option this time.
While doing so, Aectaeon couldn't help but compare the demon's skin texture with that of humans.
'Isn't this basically the same? But Thyr's skin has some bumps here and there.' He then diverted his attention towards its horns, 'I wonder how painful it is to have three horns. Its stature is quite small compared to the length of its body.'
He raised his hand, intending to touch one of Thyr's thorns. Withal, he retracted his hand at the last second. He figured that demons might not like it if someone carelessly stroked their horns.
Aectaeon soon stood up and went back to his spot. When he saw that Thyr was not jumping anymore, his smile became genuine.
"If you feel hungry again, just tell me Thyr."
{-{ "Demons don't feel hunger, Meister. We eat when our Meisters feed us. Otherwise, we don't. }-}
"I see. Then I'll feed you every time you're outside of the portal."
{-{ "I am grateful, Meister." }-}
Though they had several conversations already, Aectaeon couldn't get accustomed to how their communication worked. Thyr's mouth, riddled with three sets of jaws, only opened when it wanted to say something. He couldn't hear its voice, not even the sound of it breathing.
"It would've been better if you could speak," Aectaeon mumbled as he heaved a sigh.
Following that, he thought about his mission objectives.
'If I'm not mistaken, I only have one more objective left to accomplish. It's activating one Accommodating Command.'
The second he was decided, Aectaeon folded all of the fingers on his left hand except for the ring finger. He activated the Command, a panel appearing above the device afterward.
The moment he looked at the panel, Aectaeon's eyes widened, exclaiming, "That's a lot of gold coins. I can probably live off of this until the day I die."
{-{ Gold Coins: 109,764,558 }-}
He hurriedly inspected the price of the items to see how far he could get away with spending. Not even halfway in the list, Aectaeon's breathing started to hitch.
"Maybe, I should find a way to bring back this money to Earth. It will be illegal since the gold coins are not registered. Still, there will be a place for them in the black market." Aectaeon whispered to himself as he nodded. "I won't have to work if I have this kind of money. Mom will be able to live in comfort as well."
For a short while, Aectaeon was caught up in his delusions. He was dreaming of a life wherein he wouldn't be worried about where he would get the money to pay their enormous debt.
However, his daydreaming was cut short by the appearance of the game panel.
{{ Mission 'Activate 1 Accommodating Command' Accomplished' }}
{{ All Mission Objectives Accomplished }}
{{ Tutorial Complete }}
{{ Time will Begin Running }}
Upon reading the last line, Aectaeon looked at the device. Since he was using the device, the clock wasn't on display. Hence, he closed all existing panels. When he saw the time, he knitted his brows.
"I should've looked at the time right away. I didn't think that time wouldn't move during the tutorial. It was like that in the previous game."
In due time, Aectaeon had settled with his circumstances. The tutorial was already over, so any moment of hesitation from that point on would actually cost him time.
"I should return Thyr first." He said as looked at the demon, "Thyr, we'll meet another time."
{-{ "Till we meet again, Meister." }-}
Aectaeon used his right ring finger to use the command 'Portal Retreat'. Thyr vanished in an instant, leaving Aectaeon all alone in the room.
As a matter of choice, Aectaeon prepared for his departure. He didn't want to stay in the comfort of the cramped bedroom any longer.
"I didn't see a map in my inventory. Maybe it's in the list of Commands?"
The man navigated the device once more and searched for something that would help in his journey. After scanning the entire list, he clicked his tongue when he found nothing of the sort. He moved on to the inventory to recheck. As unfortunate as he was, there was none.
"Is it because the person whose place I took is knowledgeable about the area? That's the only reason why they don't have maps or compass in their belongings."
For his last resort, Aectaeon opened the shop. To his relief, there was an entire category for navigation. His eyes immediately noticed the prices before he could even read the item labels. Aectaeon gasped loudly as he counted the number of zeroes on each of the item's prices.
"One, two... seven?! Really?! Why is this item so expensive?!"
That's only when Aectaeon paid attention to what item was accompanied with that atrocious of a price.
"A digital… map? With real-time news, updates on demon activities, opportunities for meisters, and more. It also comes with a teleport function limited to twice a day."
At the outset, Aectaeon was absentmindedly reading the details out loud. But momentarily, he woke up from his reverie. As if it had a mind of its own, his hand tapped the 'Buy' icon in a haste.
{-{ Do you want to finalize the purchase of 'Digital World Map' for 20,000,000 Gold Coins? }-}
{-{ Yes }-} {-{ No }-}
Without further ado, Aectaeon tapped on 'Yes'. The Shop panel quickly disappeared, replaced by the newly bought digital map.
Be that as it may, it wasn't the map that intrigued him. It was the Manus Celer Dei panel that did.