"So? What are you willing to give to me?" Loki asked nonchalantly as he coolly rested his chin on his intertwined fingers.
The grips of everyone tightened around their wands.
Hermione wanted to speak up, but she didn't know how she could 'convince' her lord to let them leave without revealing her familiarity with Mr. Error to everyone else.
But there was an even more 'important' thought taking up space inside her mind courtesy of all the fanfiction she'd written about 'Him' in her head.
'Was Mr. Error truly angry with us?'
'Or was he just startled…like any normal person would be if someone barged into their apartment without permission?'
'If Mr. Error is truly a person who does not know how to communicate with us properly as I guessed earlier, perhaps he's asking us if we need something?'
'No…based on the principle of equivalent exchange…perhaps he wants us to do something for him and will reward us instead!?'
'But what would he want us to do?'
'....spread his faith and help him gain believers!?'
Suddenly Hermione grew very excited. She felt like she had grasped the crux of the matter and as such, without any further delay, Hermione strode in front of everyone else, taking confidently measured steps as she walked up to the end of the table closest to her, directly opposite to where Mr. Error was sitting.
"Could we know what we could address you as my lord?" Hermione said softly, but her words caused a deep sense of panic in everyone else.
Had Hermione been brainwashed? Perhaps a strong confundus charm was used to get her to obey the being in front of them like this?
But none of them had noticed the being in front of them making any wand movements; in fact, they couldn't even see a wand on his person.
Harry matched Cedric's gaze as they mentally communicated with each other about what steps they would take next, but with no concrete plans or even vague ones to escape from this place, they had to give up very quickly.
The corner of Loki's lips twitched up into a happy smile.
'Miss Magician!! You truly are the most inquisitive member of the Tarot Club and the best indeed!'
But since Loki never looked at her thoughts, he didn't realise that Hermione had gone one step deeper into a pit of 'girlish squealing joy'.
'In the gospel that Mr. World wrote for us, it was clearly stated when Mr. Error helped Salzar Slytherin that he was the wooer of fate!'
'Could it have meant the Goddess of Fortune!?'
'Is that why she sent us all here!?'
'To help Mr. Error!?'
'Did Mr. Error end up wooing 'Her' after all!? Is this 'Her' response!? Ahhh~~~!!!!!!'
Had it not been for the situation they were currently in, Hermione would've giggled like a school girl hearing gossip about her best friend's crush.
But she kept herself calm and 'professional'.
Mr. Error pretended to be lethargic and completely uninterested in their conversation as he spoke plainly-
"You can refer to me as Mr. Error."
Hermione nodded and spoke in a joyous tone, "Gladly Mr. Error. I have a proposal. Could you grace some of your precious time to listen to my dull thoughts?"
Mr. Error took some time to answer, as each second passing by caused the tension in the room to only tighten. And just as Harry was about to interrupt, 'He' spoke.
Speaking was a harsh term for what Mr. Error did.
Mr. Error simply placed his hands on the table as he looked in Hermione's direction. And while his face and by extension his eyes were covered up by the mirage that hid it all from view, Hermione realised that 'He' was ready to listen to her.
So Hermione continued-
"Mr. Error, letting us leave would work immensely towards your benefit! In fact, letting us all leave unharmed will give you the opportunity to extend your influence to the real world…"
Hermione paused as she gauged Loki's reaction but seeing nothing to note yet, she continued-
"-As you obviously know by now, Mr. Potter among us is the strongest and he is already a Demigod, which means he can do things a lot of us cannot, he is also favoured by the Hogwarts Headmaster himself, which would mean that helping him would allow Mr. Potter to ask 'Him' to grant a wish for you."
Loki was slightly interested so he started calculating if he could realistically do anything with such a thing.
'A favour from Dumbelman huh…what could I do with that? Create a fake Beyonder Characteristic? While it isn't a terribly bad deal…it isn't outright good either since getting 'Him' to do anything for me would involve leaking information about me or my plans to him either way.'
'But it isn't like I'll be able to keep my plans a secret from 'Him' for much longer…since the more higher Sequences my plan involves, 'He's' bound to learn one or two things about it.'
'Hmmm…I see…'
With Hermione pausing to see if Mr. Error accepted her proposal, Loki simply looked at Harry as if he was evaluating him.
Everyone shivered as they felt the divinity around them grow stronger when Mr. Error looked at Harry.
All of a sudden everyone was praising just how well Hermione was doing by pretending to be fearless in front of what was very likely a literal True God so that they could leave from here.
Most of them even realised then that Hermione had truly struck gold with her methods.
By telling Mr. Error that they could have 'future value' she had effectively given them a way to stay alive as long as they could prove their worth to 'Him'.
And who knew if the God would really even think about them after they left this strange place?
After all, a True God was bound to have better ways to carry out his 'evil' deeds in the world right?
And along with all that, Hermione had revealed that Harry was heavily favoured by Dumbledore, which acted both as a threat and an enticing opportunity, since if the True God was weak, then Dumbledore would be someone scary, but if he was someone strong, having the leader of the white faction in your pocket was good, right?
Harry felt a little embarrassed at being used as a bargaining chip so blatantly by his friend.
But he said nothing, after all that was their best shot at getting out of this scary place where his instincts were continuously ringing about death at every turn.
Which wasn't particularly hard to believe for him when they'd all witnessed the typhoon of grey fog that had begun spinning around them all earlier.
So Harry braved through the heavy scrutiny that he felt gaze at his soul.
Meanwhile, Loki's expression was strange.
'Hmmm…I can bury anything I want into Harry's Body of Heart and Mind right now…but given that Harry's likely going to go to Dumbledore after this, 'He'll' probably discover it immediately…'
'And then there's that strange soul in his scar…'
'Was that always there?'
'Why had I never noticed it before?'
Loki was confused since he'd never seen such a thing before.
The soul was feeble and weak. Almost as if simply blowing on it would cause it to shrivel up and die.
'Did I just miss it because it's so weak…or was it because of some mystical reason?'
Loki frowned.
'Should I simply steal it to see what it is?'