My flight to the ocean was exhilarating at first. I flew as fast as I could, using magic to shield myself from the wind as I shot through the skies. I’m not actually sure what my top speeds were. I think it’s safe to say that I failed to break the sound barrier since there was no sonic boom, but the landscape did turn somewhat blurry beneath me. That was saying something, too, considering how sharp my eyesight seemed to be. When I slowed down over a forest, I could see the individual leaves on the trees, despite being easily fifty feet above them.

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm didn’t last, and within two hours of flying, I had already started to grow bored. Flight had always been part of my life as Devilla when it came down to it, and it was only my memories of being a flightless Jacob that had temporarily kindled fear and excitement within me. Diving after Abigail had forced me to confront that terror, however, and after testing my capabilities for a couple of hours, I couldn’t help but feel that the excitement was wearing off as well. Eventually, I stopped focusing on speed, dropping my air resistance spell and instead projecting the illusion of empty sky beneath myself. With that spell running in the back of my mind, I could allow my mind to wander without fear of being spotted from below.

Unfortunately, my mind kept wandering back to Abigail. More specifically, I kept asking myself what I was going to tell her when I got back. I definitely didn’t want to reveal that this world mirrored a porn game from my old world. I wanted to avoid telling her the exact nature of my past life, too. Humans weren’t precisely regarded with fondness among us demons, after all, and men were literally a foreign concept. Telling her that I wanted to let the heroine incite rebellion before fleeing the tower myself also seemed like a bad move. It was for the sake of my people, but it was only my knowledge of Tower Conquest that made me think that path would work out alright. 

With all that said, I really wasn’t sure what I could tell Abigail. If I stuck only to what was safe, she would probably leave me. Since she was the closest thing I had to a companion in this world, I really didn’t want that. Besides, if I was honest with myself, I really did want to tell someone at least some of the truth. Perhaps even all of it, one day. A confidante would make me feel so much better… but that was also the exact thing that gave me pause.

A confidante would make me feel better. It would likely do the opposite to whoever I confided in. As such, I couldn’t help but worry that I was simply being a selfish brat again. Wanting to keep a companion who didn’t even like me. Wishing to tell her things that would only bring her distress. If people thought Abigail was too close to me, it might even cause her trouble after the coup. If I really cared about her, it would surely be best to simply let her leave me. Yet even though my plan would doubtlessly end with her hating me, anyway, I still didn’t want to prematurely sever the relationship.

In the end, I failed to come to a conclusion. Instead, I got so lost in my thoughts that I blew straight by the beach and had to spend five minutes flying back toward shore.

When I had again reached the beach, I was faced with another conundrum. I was wearing heels like I always did. Black ones, that day, with three inches of heel and an open toe that showed off my black nails. My feet never grew tired or hurt, and I tended to fly when I was in a rush, so I rarely wore flats. It was hardly ever a problem. Hardly ever a problem. But I’d never before needed to land on a beach absolutely littered with seashells. They were literally everywhere, some big and some small, some in the shape of cones and others that looked like slightly concave circles.

If I had been walking, it wouldn’t have been a problem. I could have carefully made my way through what little space wasn’t covered in shells, or perhaps crushed them beneath my heels through sheer force, or pressed them so deep into the sand that it wouldn’t be an issue anymore. Trying to alight upon such an uneven surface, however, was a whole other matter. I would be off-balance from the start and would likely fall before I could get proper footing.

In the end, I had little choice but to fly even further ashore, landing on solid ground and making my way back down the beach. I was possibly a touch annoyed at the detour. Enough to stomp my way through the sand instead of daintily picking my way across it, at the very least. Eventually, however, I came to a stop near the edge of the shore.

“Well then,” I said to myself, as cold water washed over my ankles and then receded back into the sea. “What’s the best way to do this…” The most traditional way of getting salt from the ocean was probably to separate some water from the sea and then boil it. I hadn’t thought to bring any materials to hold the water, though, so that was out. In which case, why not take a more direct approach? Rather than trying to get rid of the water, I decided to simply focus on the salt. 

First, I spread my magic power through the water before me. Then, when I’d suffused a decently sized patch of ocean with my magic, I focused on isolating the salt. Finally, in much the same manner as I might pull a ball of dirt from the ground into the sky, I drew the salt directly from the water and into the open air.

Water surged up in response to my magic, drawn from the simple force of so much salt rising upward. A moment later, the water crashed back into the ocean, while the salt that had come with it remained hovering in midair. The pure white crystals looked as beautiful to me as they did tasty. Or almost, anyway.

Stretching a hand toward the salt, I curled my fingers toward myself in a gesture to come hither. It was a completely unnecessary piece of showmanship, without even an audience to impress, but I just couldn’t resist adding a little flair to what was otherwise a simple process. My casting quickly drew the salt toward me, and I soon had a veritable cloud of it above my head. From there, I simply opened up my pouch, pointed imperiously toward the opening, and began to funnel the salt directly inside.

Of course, a single pouch would generally be able to hold only so much salt. The amount I had conjured was far too much for the bag I carried, which was only a little larger than a man’s fist. Despite that, I had no concerns at all about being able to fit in as much sodium chloride as I wanted. In fact, despite all the salt that I’d already poured inside it, the bag still looked as empty as when I had started. Just as it always would. That was the nature of the holy item I had taken from the treasury, known colloquially as “the empty bag.” It would reject sapient creatures, and it was impossible to make anything larger than your average human fit in one piece, but it could hold an infinite number of small items. On top of that, no matter how much you stuffed it, it would always look empty. And, much like the holy sword that Luci brought down alongside it, it couldn’t be so much as lifted by anyone but its current owner. 

So long as the owner remained alive, at least.

Pushing negative thoughts aside, I waited a few seconds for the ocean to lap against me, and recede, and then repeat the process all over again. Once I was convinced that enough salt had suffused the water, I repeated my extraction process and channeled another cloud of white crystals into my bag. Saturating so much of the ocean with magic power would eventually make a dent in even my magic capacity, so I mixed up my mental image a bit on the third occasion. Instead of saturating the water and coating each bit of salt individually with my power, I spread a solid sheet of magic power under the ocean. I then focused on the idea of catching at the salt while letting water through. I then lifted the sheet of magic up and out of the water, curving the edges inward to avoid any spillage, and brought up another good portion of salt. This turned out to be a far more efficient use of my magic power, so I kept it up. It quickly grew boring and a little tiresome, but within another hour or so, I thought I finally had enough salt to at least start distributing it through the tower. I’d probably have to make more trips in the future, though.

“Maybe I could set up a teleportation circle?” I mused aloud. I could build a small stone structure and stick one inside it. Then I’d be able to transport from the tower to here with ease. Of course, I had never actually cast any sort of spatial magic myself before. I also wasn’t sure humans wouldn’t be able to make use of it if I created one, which seemed like a pretty significant security risk. And finally, there was the fact that I had never really paid attention to any of the details when it came to the teleportation circles at home. Since I’d always had someone else handle the “finicky bits,”  I wasn’t sure exactly sure how teleportation circles were supposed to look, let alone how they worked. 

I thought perhaps the circles I always used maybe matched? In which case, it might have had something to do with imagining the “sameness” between two places and connecting them. There might be other ways of pulling it off, too. A mental image of folding the space you’re in so that it touches the space you want to be in? Or maybe one could literally open a wormhole between two areas, somehow? The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t know nearly enough. Which meant I’d be flying back and forth for now.

“Maybe I should clear some of the seashells, then, at least,” I sighed. A good portion of them would probably come back, but it really was ridiculous how many of them there were. I supposed that was what happened when there weren’t any tourists to pick the things up, though. Indeed, the beach seemed utterly untouched by human hands, let alone demonic ones. No tourists, no local beachgoers, not even a fisherman for as far as the eye could see. This entire area had been left alone for who knew how long before my arrival. I could only imagine that helped make it a pretty good breeding ground for shellfish.

“...I got what I came here for,” I reminded myself. “I shouldn’t get greedy…” Still, if one really thought hard about it, it wasn’t actually salt that had brought me there. It was the desire for something delicious that had drawn me to the sea. And I couldn’t imagine anything more delicious than a good old fashioned clambake.

Shaking my head at how easy I was to sway, I decided to collect a little more of the ocean’s bounty. Walking along the coast of the sea, I sent a wave of magic through the ground, feeling for spaces where there wasn’t earth - where something had burrowed into the wet sand, in other words. From there, I used my hands to dig at the ground, even going so far as to get on my knees. I didn’t pay any mind to getting dirty. I wasn’t sure it would count as a proper washing, but I was fairly sure I could at least get any sand out of my clothes with a little magic after I was done. 

My efforts were rewarded, too. I found many of the clams I wanted. There were oysters, as well, which I took eagerly. I remembered them being called aphrodisiacs back on Earth, and while I was reasonably sure that was more myth than fact… Well, I wasn’t on Earth anymore. I was on Solla. And considering this world mirrored a porn game, I wasn’t willing to rule anything out. I grabbed as many oysters as I could find.

I needed seaweed, too, if I wanted a clambake. I used an air shield to keep away the water while searching the shore for some. and ended up revealing some mussels stuck to a set of submerged stones. Of course, I took them. My bag kept anything inside it in stasis, meaning that my seafood wouldn’t spoil no matter how long it took me to eat all of it. Every morsel would remain safe and fresh right up until I was ready to feast.

In the end, I ended up with considerably more oysters than anything else. If you took all the mussels and clams I had and multiplied them by two, you still wouldn’t have enough to match all the oysters in my bag. They must have been reproducing like crazy, which made me wonder again about the possibility of them being an aphrodisiac for real in this world. I would definitely have to try some later.

For now, though, I really had to get moving. I’d spent so long on seafood that the sky had started to darken, and heavy clouds had begun to fill the sky without my noticing. It looked like a storm was brewing, and if I didn’t get home soon, I might just get caught in it.