The next day started similarly to yesterday. But, actually, it felt completely different.

  I got up by myself at four in the morning, head spinning like crazy, so when Isabella came to put on the motivational collar, I was already dressed for the run.

  She clamped the collar around my neck, but I didn’t mind all that much. It was all theatrics, anyway.

  I went for the run, and once again, I mentally phased out of the activity, completely, and focused on studying the skill trees. There might have been other non-specialization branches or sections that I missed during the early study.

  And they were. Aside from the System interaction branch, which included two more skills in it, to ask System for help at level twenty, and finally, to manifest the agent for any task, at level fifty.

  Those two skills seemed to be borderline mandatory, as the agent was probably pretty damn strong. Although any task almost surely had limitations in what the agent was willing to do.

  The second branch, which didn’t require a specialization, was the Nova release section. The first skill required level seventy-five, so these weren’t terribly relevant for me right now.

  What I had to figure out now were the stats. So far, I had allocated twenty points to endurance and nothing else.

  What do I do with the other stats?

  The obvious choice would be to mirror Isabella and try to pivot into the dexterity plus willpower plus speed build, which apparently worked.

  I couldn’t really spec into willpower anytime soon though, because then I would have all stats in defense, and no offense.

  Right now, I should have put points into speed to catch up in that department, but I didn’t have enough points for any perk, and I wasn’t sure a low number of stat points did anything, especially without a perk.

  So, I was going to hold the points for now, and then put them into speed, most likely. Or dexterity.

  This time, I ran to the cemetery and back. I got a few ticks from the collar, but since I expected them, it didn't bother me much.

  Upon my return, Isabella sent me straight to the training floor. Much to my surprise, as I expected to be sent to work instead. Isabella didn’t participate herself, but she gave me a list of exercises to do and even a box of food.

  The exercise list had lines like ten thousand push-ups on it, so those were probably long-term goals.

  I went through each exercise for a few repetitions, which really wore me out, so I went to rest in the pool.

  When I returned from the baths to the training room, I summoned Shadow to help me train.

  He beat me up all afternoon, and no, I didn’t even come close to hitting him. The day earned me two levels, so I have made it to level nine.

  In the evening in my room, besides a dinner box gently thrown into the dog bowl, I found new clothes.

  It was all the same suits, shirts, ties, and underwear, all black except for the white shirts. That was apparently the corporate uniform, which put a smile on my lips. I fell asleep contentedly, and for the first time, I didn’t miss my old life at all.

  A whip lash across my chest woke me up, making me jump out of bed in spite of how lightheaded and dizzy I felt.

  Couldn't she wake me up normally?

  She could, but that would be too boring for her.

  I looked around, and Isabella was sitting on my table, again.

  She graced me with a smirk. “Get up, princess, we're going to work.”

  For a second, I wondered how all the smirking didn’t disfigure her face or something. I got out of bed and went to get dressed, slightly wobbly due to the world spinning to my mind. I blushed a little as Isabella kept her eyes on me, but I didn't think shame was a feeling that would do me any good.

  As I was getting dressed, I received another lash with her hair, making me yelp in pain. “What was that for?”

  “Make a little show of it. This is boring to watch.”

  Absolutely not. I turned tomato red and dressed normally. That earned me two more lashes with the hair, but they were weaker than the first one.

  I got dressed, and the new suit fit me well. When I turned around, Isabella tapped on the box next to her. “Take this too.”

  A box? That made me sweat. I came to her and opened the box. Inside were two long metal gloves. I picked up one glove. It was light, its outside shell made of steel, but the gloves were suspiciously light.

  I put the first glove on, and it fit me perfectly. All the parts I needed to be flexible were indeed perfectly flexible, in spite of the glove being made of dark steel. I turned my wrist and put on the other glove. I tapped my fists together, and it clanged metallically. But I didn’t feel the impact at all.

  They perfectly absorbed the impact and covered my hands up to the elbows. “Thanks,” I whispered, and my eyes watered a little.

  A strand of Isabella's hair turned into chains and gave me such a blow across the back that I screamed out in pain.

  “Move,” Isabella commanded, and jumped off the table.

  We took the elevator down to the garages, got into her Ferrari, and drove off. As usual, Isabella drove as if she had a death wish, and then missed every second exit, so we reached the warehouse behind the city in about the same time as it took me to get there back when I first drove my car there..

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  When we arrived at the warehouse, I couldn't believe my eyes.

  A new, ten-foot-tall fence topped with razor wire now surrounded the complex. About ten black vans were parked around the warehouse, and three black tents stood pitched in the courtyard. The roof now hosted what was clearly a sniper’s nest.

  Isabella drove in under the barrier and braked so hard that the seatbelts had to catch me. “Those above don't know what's below.” She opened the door and got out.

  What did that mean? I knew better than to ask aloud. I also got out of the car and looked at about twenty people who peeked out of the tents or from the roof. They all wore suits, and most carried military-grade weapons.

  One man came out of the tent and bowed slightly in front of Isabella. “Madam.” He spoke English but with an Eastern European accent.

  Isabella imperiously looked over the agents. “Don't gawk, and get back to work,” she shouted. “In the morning, the place has to look as if nothing has ever happened here.” She waved her hand, and everyone returned to their positions.

  I followed her into the warehouse and pretended I knew what was going on. “My international team,” Isabella remarked as if she was reading my mind, which she actually might have been, when we entered the warehouse.

  Inside, everything was cleaned up and fortified. All the boxes lay stacked up neatly on the shelves, closed, arranged. No marks of blood or claw marks.

  Isabella led the way towards the underground. “We’ve reduced the Philadelphia branch to a minimum because I have more than enough international agents already.”

  “Why?”

  “It's cheaper and simpler. Fuel costs almost nothing, and paying third-world wages is a lot cheaper than dealing with first-world snowflakes.”

  One of whom she was. I kept my mouth shut though. We descended underground, and a research laboratory now encircled the portal.

  Six people worked there, three men and three women, all in suits in Isabella's colors, black and white. They all bowed slightly when we entered, and I knew they weren't bowing to me.

  I just stayed by Isabella’s side and tried to look professional… whatever that meant.

  She stopped by a man with glasses who sat at a laptop, whose cables connected to a very complicated-looking machine. “Simon, do we have something that can go through the portal?”

  “No,” he replied calmly, his accent foreign, but indistinct to me. “The portal is stable, spontaneously created, and without transmission capabilities. Well, almost, because the demon we found here obviously somehow crawled out of it.”

  “Did you try to use the demon’s body parts?”

  “It was all rotten and half decomposed by the time we arrived. You would have had to send the expensive planes to bring us, if we were supposed to get here in time. The demon requires regular recharge from some external source, which we do not possess.”

  Isabella clicked her tongue. “Did you find any explanation of how the demon got through?”

  He shrugged. “Negative. Judging by no other demons having made it through, the best guess is that the demon somehow mutated into an extremely rare variation, which allowed it to use the portal. It could have also been a stupid coincidence, which I can’t rule out, even though it goes against my better judgment. Nevertheless, suppose demons can't see the portal but walk through the area, then out of a million passes, one could get through out of the sheer ridiculousness that can happen at such probabilities.”

  Isabella nodded and smiled at me. “You’re in luck. You’ve apparently caught some of those mutated germs through the demon’s saliva as it bit you, and somehow survived with it. We’ll hook you up like a worm and toss you back in.”

  She looked at the others and pointed at me, as if it wasn't clear who she was talking about. “This is Peter O'Connor, a junior agent from the Philadelphia branch, the one I wasn’t allowed to abolish. He can go through the portal, there and back, so he’ll carry our drones and other equipment there for us.”

  Simon rubbed his face with his palm, moving up and down his glasses in the process. The others audibly sighed. “Could you not have told us that before sending us here? We could have analysed his blood, his passive aura, and maybe we would have found something useful. Instead, we pulled an all-nighter dissecting the rotting corpse of a long-dead demon for an impossibly low chance of success.” He pushed his glasses further up his nose. "And how do we know he can return? Even if he can go in, there’s a high probability he won’t be able to return, thus sending him there would essentially be murder. By a pure probability, doing it a hundred times kills him about ninety-eight times.”

  I shuddered a little. Isabella knew this, so when she first threw me into the portal, she not only didn’t care about what was on the other side, but she also knew I was unlikely to be able to return.... no, she wouldn’t have done that to me. I leaned towards her and quietly asked, “Did you know I would return?”

  “I believed in you.”

  That didn’t sound convincing at all. “What were the odds?”

  She leaned towards me and ran her hand through my hair. But there was nothing romantic or exciting about it. Hers was the icy touch of death, toying with its victim before dragging it to Hell.

  “Not zero, which is good enough for me. But if you want to complain about something, do that about me piercing your femoral artery in the steel bathtub.”

  I froze, and a cold sweat broke out on me. I had pushed that out of my mind, but when I remembered it, I realized that I had saved my life by using a technique I didn’t have when she stabbed me.

  If I didn’t have any saved up stat points, I would had died in that bathtub.

  Isabella let go of me and signalled to a woman in a suit who was typing something on a tablet. “Marge, prepare the equipment. We're going fishing.”

  Could I escape? No, Isabella would catch me. Besides, I didn't want to escape. I wanted to go explore what was beyond the portal. But I also wanted to live, and that wasn't guaranteed in Isabella's presence.

  Yet when she motioned me to come to her, I did so without thinking. Marge and Simon showed me what I was supposed to take with me.

  At the first look, I thought it was equipment for a team of four. I got a large backpack filled with eight spider drones, four transmitters that looked like small steel pyramids, a bottle of water, and a can of Pepsi Light... for some reason.

  I tried to understand the explanation of what the drones and transmitters did, but I gave up after the third sentence and just remembered which button to press when I placed them in some intelligent spot.

  Yet that wasn't all, because Simon then brought a larger steel pyramid that I was supposed to place right behind the portal.

  I put on the backpack, tied it around my waist, and picked up the pyramid.

  Isabella clicked her tongue and motioned to a suitcase by one of the tables. “You forgot weapons.”

  That made me smile. I walked to the suitcase, and my eyes lit up as if it were Christmas. The suitcase contained a lot of ammo, two guns, a short-barrel shotgun, an assault rifle, and three futuristic-looking hand grenades.

  I put down the pyramid, wrapped the gun belt around my waist, tucked the shotgun by it, stuffed my pockets with ammo, and flung the assault rifle over my shoulder.

  Did I know how to use all that?

  No, but I’ve been in the States for a while, so I had the rough idea and some shooting range practice. Shooting things was my first hobby when I moved in here, and it took a few years before I got bored with it.

  "It's all with AI-assisted aim," Isabella remarked. "So, just hold the weapons in a rough direction of enemies, and you will always hit."

  I picked up the steel pyramid and walked to the portal. But I stopped in front of the portal. What if I couldn't return this time?

  My heartbeat sped up, filling my ears. All other sounds faded into the background. At the moment, it was just me, the portal, and my deafening heartbeat. Sweat covered my entire body, legs frozen.

  I didn't see the demonic dogs through the portal now, but there could be twenty of them hiding around the portal, just waiting for me to come out so they could tear me apart.

  Sure, I’ve levelled up, but not all that much.

  There could also be something much more dangerous than the dogs. No, there were guaranteed to be many things more dangerous than the dogs.

  Isabella's hair grabbed me by the waist, lifted me, and threw me through the portal.