Okay, I definitely didn't expect that turn of events. Because before my very eyes appeared... Fuck it, I'm not even going to try to come up with some pretentious epithets. Long story short: it was one of those agents from Helluva Boss! The very one Stolas possessed to summon himself from Hell to the human world and save a couple of unlucky imps. A dark-skinned woman with light, short-cropped hair and a surprisingly athletic, fit figure... Hey, I was just stating an undeniable fact, that's all!
"What's wrong?" Nancy immediately noticed my sudden confusion, looking at me with something akin to concern.
Yeah, I probably looked quite comical right now. A minute ago, I was pretentiously pondering how Fate itself was smiling upon me, and now, as soon as the conversation turned to us urgently needing to find D.H.O.R.K.S. employees, one of the main agents walks into this very cafe! After all, only she and her partner had firearms in the cartoon. And they were the only two shown as having any semblance of a defined personality; all the others were just ordinary, faceless dummies who happily jumped in front of the imps' bullets without a single drop of fear in their eyes...
But seriously, what is with this series of fortunate coincidences?
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a real owl fall from the ledge outside the window. After hitting the ground, it shook itself out awkwardly, looked at me with its huge, round, dazed eyes, and, with an annoyed hoot, took off. Whatever.
"I've found the solution to our problem..." I say, feeling a sly, satisfied smile creep onto my face on its own. I won't have to play detective and follow some idiot for hours until he leaves his phone unattended. Or whatever my young companion was planning to do.
"And after that, you still say you're not a demon?" Nancy immediately commented on my sly mug, making such a skeptical and therefore extremely cute face that it only made my smile stretch even wider.
"You behave yourself, and we'll meet in Heaven someday. I happen to need good and proactive girls there," I replied, averting my gaze from the female agent (oh, these modern gendered nouns of yours...) so as not to accidentally scare her off. She had already noticed my intense stare and started staring back at me, nervously sipping her coke through a straw.
"..." Ah, right. "I need good girls" sounds extremely... ambiguous, let's say. She doesn't know that I only meant "girls" because when guys become exorcists, their jade rods get completely burned off...
"Don't look at me like that," I roll my eyes theatrically. "That woman over there, by the entrance, is one of the top people in their organization, so we can work through her," I nod towards the agent.
"..." After giving me a suspicious glance, Nancy pulled a small mirror out of her handbag and, pretending to fix her hair, began to discreetly observe the dark-skinned woman. "Are you sure?"
"Yep, recognized her by her clothes," I nod, no longer hiding the fact that I'm staring at the woman. The clothes really gave her away, because in all the time I'd spent on Earth, I hadn't met any women with such a specific look. No, there was, of course, a small chance that I had luckily stumbled upon a lady who just looked very similar to her, but I highly doubted it. And the large, silver-embroidered letter "D" on her jacket hinted at it quite thickly. Because that was the logo of those same losers. "What do you think?"
Why could I afford to stare so openly at a stranger? It's simple: she looked quite attractive, and for the locals, checking out beautiful women was, in principle, within the bounds of normalcy. So, I didn't really stand out that much. Even if I had slightly different, more practical goals compared to the local idiots.
If I were to describe this lady's appearance in more detail... Well, yes, she was definitely above average. The art style of the cartoon certainly hinted at the beauty of this dark-skinned female agent... Fuck, what's with this trend of feminatives? And if I think of her as a "dark-skinned agent," and simultaneously think that this same agent is quite seductive... In short, I'm already schizophrenic enough, even if it's cured, so there's no need to create such headaches for myself over nothing. I'll call her "Number Two." Because Number One must be a man, God himself said so, so don't you dare argue with me!
Her athletic, toned figure made Number Two stand out favorably among the other locals. Although, to be honest, I rarely noticed overweight people here, which was surprising for both the States and for a universe based on a progressive agenda packaged in a wrapper of "adult" jokes (in the opinion of a fifth-grader, of course). But I hadn't met any truly athletic, toned women among humans at all. Petite, cute, sexy, beautiful—yes, any kind you want. But muscular (not excessively, of course)—I hadn't seen a single one. And her dark skin also attracted attention, because here, in Heaven, all the girls are mostly "light-skinned." I'm talking about the exorcists now. Among ordinary angels, and even the Seraphim, there are dark-skinned individuals, of course, but they have a sort of unnatural, bluish skin tone, so that doesn't count.
"You're going to burn a hole through her with your stare..." the young detective noted, skeptically raising an eyebrow. Ugh, what a villain! Won't let me admire beauty! No sexual attraction, of course. Purely aesthetic interest, that's all.
(The unseen but distinctly felt presence of Lute with an unknown blunt object reeking of Death behind my back disappeared, phew...)
"I have a brilliant idea..." I began, tearing my gaze away from the slightly darkened "chocolate bar," who was already starting to shift awkwardly on her couch under my intense stare.
"I'll try to establish diplomatic relations with her and get everything I can out of her. And I'll swipe her phone for a bit so you can go through it peacefully," I propose my plan, which seems much simpler and more effective to me than boring, 24/7 surveillance until some "lucky" opportunity arises. And I was just curious to get a closer look at this "stupid," as it seemed to me, character from the canon. I had long since learned that what they once showed us... In short, it was complete bullshit that was extremely loosely connected to reality.
"..." An extremely suspicious gaze was immediately fixed on me.
"Hey, we've only known each other for a couple of hours, what's with the doubt?" I began to protest such dirty, unfounded suspicions. "I'm great with my tongue!" And that, it seems, I said a little too loudly. Because that very ambiguous phrase echoed throughout the entire, fucking, establishment, causing even Marco—the local cook and cashier in one—to turn his attention to the room with some interest.
"And after that, you..." Nancy started reproachfully, but was immediately interrupted.
"Yeah, yeah, 'say you're not a demon,' I get it already," I roll my eyes. "This is exactly what speaks to my pure, angelic nature! It's you mortals who immediately start imagining all sorts of things, while such a thought didn't even cross my mind!"
"Whatever you say, smooth-talker," the redhead replied slyly, smirking. "You don't happen to have a tongue like a snake, do you? I think that would also work great for 'distracting' your target."
"Snakes? Pfft!" I turn away theatrically. "You might as well call me by the name of that... that... questionable individual." I lift my chin, putting on my most offended look.
"Lucifer?" Nancy asks (?) with a drop of genuine interest.
"Hey!" I half-turn towards her.
"Alright, alright, 'Mr. Angel'..." the girl raises her hands in a defensive gesture.
"Archangel," I correct her.
"'Mr. Archangel,' just go and do your thing already..."
"That's more like it," I smile at the little scene we created, which seemed to slightly ease my young lady's tension.
"...Smooth-talker..." I hear a quiet whisper from behind me. That little devil!
Meanwhile, I had already managed to approach the table of that very agent. She had, of course, noticed my approach, but either she hoped I was heading for the exit, or she was just flustered (for no clear reason), and simply started staring demonstratively out the window, apparently having found something "incredibly interesting" there. Yeah, right.
"Good afternoon. Mind if I sit?" To be honest, this girl's behavior surprised me a little. I literally hadn't done anything yet, and she's already making eyes at me and blushing as if I'm about to confess my love to her. No, such girls exist, of course, BUT! There weren't many of them even in my past, much more chaste world. And here, over thousands of years, the past Adam had never met such... chaste girls... Except for Mary Magdalene. And yes, I'm a Rock Star and a Top Dick, of course, but she doesn't know that, for one. And secondly, my appearance, while quite "handsome," isn't to that fucking degree! It's not even serious.
"Are... are you talking to me?" she genuinely looked around a couple of times, raising more and more questions in my mind. I repeat, such behavior is possible in principle, but it was extremely rare even in my past world.
"Of course, to you. There's no one else here, after all," I smile at the girl as charmingly as was possible for me, glancing at the empty chair opposite her.
"Oh... Yes, yes, I'll pay now and clear the spot for you," the girl immediately started to gather her things, and at that moment, it felt like a screw had come loose in my brain, because… I was completely confused about everything. Before, the characters from that cartoon were extremely similar to their real-life counterparts, just in reality they weren't as flat and caricatured. But here… They just didn't portray that woman as so shy and insecure! It never happened, that's all, not a single, fucking, moment! Then I remembered the recent fragment with Asmodeus, who also behaved strangely. So much so that for a second I even thought there was another loser dimension-hopper like me inside him, but apparently not, Asmodeus turned out to be Asmodeus.
"No, I'd like to sit with you," I sit down and place my hand on this "chocolate bar's" palm… Ahem, purely for the purpose of calming down one extremely strange but very important source of information. "My name is..." and here I paused for a bit. Baal? Beelzebub? Adam? And what the fuck am I supposed to call myself? "Adam," I finally decided to use my real name, since it wasn't some personal name and was quite common among Americans. Something to praise them for, at least—they hadn't forgotten the name of their big daddy, even if they did blame me for committing the very first sin. Well, what else could you expect from these idiots? After my death, it was Cain who ruled all of humanity, so tarnishing my good name was only a matter of time.
"L-Linda... Linda Taylor, very nice to meet you!" she bowed to me, rattling off her name.
"Me too," I smile at her behavior. "I noticed you were sitting here all alone, looking bored. Are you having some problems, perhaps?" and now I look intently into this "chocolate bar's" eyes. "Maybe at work?"
Aha. For a split second, her gaze filled with dislike, which, however, was quickly hidden, and all I got in response was an awkward, forced smile.
"Oh, no, sir, everything's fine…" So, the heads of their agency aren't too happy that so many people died because of a brilliant idea that sounded something like: "The Japanese Edo period was fucking cool, so let's arm all our agents with melee weapons from that era instead of normal firearms!"
"But I can see you're lonely. How about we meet up this evening, go to a cafe…" I wink at her. I doubt she'll be watching her phone closely that evening. So, Nancy can spend a quiet hour or two combing through all possible data while I eat ice cream. Ugh, I'd kill for some Heavenly ice cream right now, but I'd stand out too much. Oh well.
"This evening? With me?" Linda looked down. "Well... maybe…"
Half an hour later, at the Hotel.
"So what's her deal?" I asked, sitting in the young detective's room and watching some silly series on TV. Girls are definitely better at this stuff.
"What about her?" she tore herself away from watching the camera footage, which she was very interested in looking at, even though we had already found our "victim." Oh well, there was nothing else to do anyway.
"She reacted to me so strangely. I thought everyone here was more… used to being hit on and all that, aren't they?" I lean my head back on the sofa, looking at Nancy, who was lying on the bed, carelessly kicking her legs.
"Well, she's chunky. Of course, she's not used to attention from guys," the redhead replied, as if that explained everything.
Chunky... that literally means "stocky," which, I guess, described our new acquaintance's athletic appearance. Except, I wouldn't say she was really particularly muscular, just athletic and fit, so I still didn't really get her explanation, which I had no intention of hiding, asking Nancy to explain.
"Well, it's practically considered an ugly trait among girls," she just shrugged. "My grandmother used to talk about it. Like, you can't do too much sports, or your muscles will show, that kind of thing," she continued, not taking her eyes off her tablet.
What kind of explanation is that?
"What do you mean? They really told you not to overdo it with sports? You consider an athletic body ugly?" I clarified, trying to understand this strange train of thought.
"Only for girls, yeah," Nancy nodded. "Isn't it like that where you are, in Hell? It's not pretty. No guy will approach a girl like that, they look like gorillas," the girl grimaced.
"..." Just, fucking, unbelievable. What kind of moronic trend is that? "And this shit is in every country?"
"Yep. I think it's not so bad in Europe, but here in the States, girls like that aren't really even considered girls," the girl confirmed my fears.
"And how long has this been going on? A hundred years, right?" Guesses about the cause of this strange phenomenon, which in my eyes looked completely unnatural, were already beginning to form in my head.
"Listen," Nancy looked up at me. "You have the internet, stop distracting me from important work!" after which she rewound the video with a flick of her hand and continued her observations. Welp…
So, the result of my hour-and-a-half of surfing the internet was this information: the widespread trend of bullying girls with athletic builds began about 70-80 years ago, in the USA. At first, it was little things, like making fun of female athletes, similar to our jokes about bodybuilders, but over time it turned into real harassment. And if at first it was mainly girls participating, over time guys joined in, en masse and, it seemed, for no apparent reason. There were even some rallies about it, which included athletes themselves who were advocating for body positivity… Yes, people who had torn their muscles for hours in gyms took to the streets and shouted "my body, my choice." And at that very moment, I remembered who had shouted similar things in my past world, after which I experienced even greater cognitive dissonance.
At one of these "rallies," a female athlete "brutally killed one of the anti-rally participants," for which she was immediately put behind bars, from where she mysteriously disappeared a couple of days later… And then mass unrest began in society and the mass media on the theme of "girls with abs and muscles are evil freaks," which the majority of residents suspiciously supported in unison. And on TV back then, these stories were played daily, literally hammering into the heads of ordinary people that sports for a girl is just a hobby, and a dangerous one at that.
Have I expressed my thoughts on this matter yet? If not, then this is a complete, total, fucked-up mess. Who could possibly benefit from this? You don't need a fortune teller to know—it was Eve! The suspicious moments in that story were literally at every step, and the reason is already clear: the main fighting force of Heaven is the exorcists, who are, for the most part, women, because men, for all their desire, will be weaker, simply due to the inability to proportionally "level up" their bodies. The more girls get into something related to martial arts, the more girls are willing to spend dozens of days in the gym to keep their bodies in good shape, the more potential soldiers Heaven has, which means what? That's right, you need to lower the quality of recruits while simultaneously reducing their numbers!
Thank the Light that people discard all this crap as soon as they die and are transported to Heaven or Hell, but even so, this is such a clusterfuck that I'm at a loss for words! The past Adam didn't give a damn about the tastes of earthly men, he only cared about his own tastes, and it never even occurred to me that something like this was even achievable. And who, in their right mind, would even think about such a thing? Only after facing the outcome of all this bullshit did I finally learn about it, and now I had to somehow solve this too. True, I'd have to do it when I have real power over the media and the governments of some countries. Moreover, I definitely can't handle this on my own. I needed the help of someone who understands people well and has great influence over them… Hmm, I don't have anyone in mind for now. I'll have to bring this issue up at the next Meeting, maybe the Seraphim will suggest something. They were supposed to finish updating the barrier soon, by the way. Well, let's hope…
More and more moments not shown in that cartoon are surfacing. And I'm afraid to even imagine what all this will lead to in the end. But I really hope that I can cope with all the difficulties that still await me…