Perhaps somewhat awkwardly, Akkau's "assistant" was, in fact, a demon waiting to lead Cale to his new room. This was mostly only awkward because Cale had failed to notice the demon in question until after he'd taken credit for blowing up an entire infernal realm, at which point he'd turned around to see a demon staring at him.
At least the demon in question was pretty to look at. His skin was a deep, burgundy red, and the suit he wore accentuated his wiry frame quite nicely. Cale attempted a bright smile.
"So!" Cale said. "What's your name?"
"Jaxovar," the demon said flatly.
"I'm gonna call you Jax," Cale said, making him twitch. "Which realm are you from?"
"The sixth."
Great! Not the one he'd blown up. That was a good thing, probably. "What's got you working here in a magic academy, of all places? I would've thought you'd be out, I don't know, making deals for souls or something."
[Blabbermouth] has reached level 4!
What, was that spell only leveling when he put his foot in his mouth or something? Cale glared at the notification, then wondered if it would turn into an active spell if he leveled it enough. He might be able to evolve it...
On the other hand, he wasn't sure he wanted to test what would happen if he evolved a spell based around putting his foot in his mouth.
"Not all of us are soul traders," Jax said. Cale couldn't tell if the demon was trying to suppress a smile of amusement or a scowl of irritation. "I am third in a line of administrative demons, which is rather common in the sixth realm. You could be forgiven for being unfamiliar."
"Well," Cale said. Now that he thought about it, the sixth realm was the realm of bureaucracy. The whole jab at Akkau being a paperwork-based dark lord hadn't been entirely fanciful. "I haven't spent a lot of time in the sixth infernal realm."
"That you have spent any time at all in it is highly unusual," Jax said, giving Cale what he decided he would call the look. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to contend with the thought that I am apparently contracted to guide the soul that led to the extinction of the eighth realm to his new sleeping quarters."
Cale supposed that was probably fair. In a stroke of unprecedented wisdom, he decided to spend the rest of the walk examining the mana signatures all around the university, instead of repeatedly trying to question Jax.
For now.
Besides, he'd learn more about the demon eventually.
There were a number of metaphysical rules that acted as multiversal constants, of a sort. Cale's Thread of Fate was one of them. Another was the reality of magical academies: where they existed, a certain number of anomalies always manifested. Students getting into trouble was one of them, but there were many others. Enchanted, hidden rooms; ancient artifacts; very old, very cursed books held in dark, protected archives.
Also, staircases. Every magical academy had at least one staircase in which remnant mana tended to gather, leading to a variety of unpredictable effects. Sometimes they became endless, looping climbs. Other times, they lead to any number of impossible locations, most often the closest forbidden forest or secret archive. This was one of the reasons security and mana management tended to be crucial for any given magic academy.
Cale encountered none of these on his way to his assigned dorm, but he did notice something strange: the farther they got into what Jax had called the Astral Wing, the stranger the mana signatures he felt.
They weren't strange in the sense that Cale hadn't encountered them before—there were very few things he would consider truly unusual—but it was outright anomalous for so many rare mana types to be gathered all in one place. Stranger still was the fact that the rest of the university had a relatively mundane mana distribution, which meant that it was only this Astral Wing that was compromised.
Weird.
Cale came to a conclusion in short order, then turned to Jax. "I know I said I wasn't going to talk, but I have a question."
"You made no such promise, unfortunately," Jax said. "But ask away. It is my duty to respond to any queries."
"Duty like slavery?" Cale asked, wondering if he needed to blow up Akkau. Jax gave him a deadpan look.
"It is my job," he clarified.
Ah. Cale nodded in understanding. "This Astral Wing feels off," he said. "Is it where you keep all the weirdos?"
"Please do not call them that," Jaxovar said with a sigh, which Cale thought more or less confirmed his theory. "It is inappropriate."
"You know what I mean," Cale said. "This is where you keep the magically unusual. People with abilities too dangerous to be kept with everyone else. Artifacts too, if I had to guess. Is this place enchanted?" He squinted at the walls. He could make out faint traces of an inscription of some kind, though the detailing was too faded to make out what kind of inscription it was.
A suppression script, most likely. Cale flexed his mana briefly, then watched with interest as the walls bent away from him. Yep, that was a suppression script.
"Please do not do that, either," Jaxovar said with a wince. Cale glanced at him with interest—the demon was rubbing one of his horns.
"Are you bound to that script?" he asked. "That's not ethical."
"I wasn't aware you were one of the people that cared about ethics when it comes to demons."
"I could be convinced." Cale shrugged. Demons weren't all bad. He didn't particularly regret blowing up the eighth realm—that realm was, in fact, pretty much filled exclusively with evil demons. It was one of the reasons he'd blown it up and all. (There was a discussion to be had there about the possibility of true ontological evil, but Cale didn't like to think about it.)
"If you must know," Jaxovar said with a sigh, "I designed and implemented the suppression script myself. It's only anchored to me because I chose it."
"Ah," Cale said. "That's alright then. I was a little worried I was going to have to blow Akkau up."
"Is that something you would actually do?" The demon raised a brow at him. Cale shrugged.
"If I had to," he said.
He didn't look Jax in the eye, but he thought the demon seemed... surprised, and maybe a little appreciative.