After I got home, I waved at Joe, the manager of the Mason Inc. shop at the first floor. Then I went upstair.

  Hm? I feel a presence behind the door. It's... Nyar.

  I opened the door, seeing them in their young girl form, twirling their dark purple hair with a mischievous smile. She was standing beside a whiteboard bigger than the doorframe.

  How did they get that in?

  "Yo, Charlotte.", she spoke with an excited tone, "This may be the worst mistake, revealing to you some very loosely guarded secrets of the universe. But who cares!"

  I quickly grab my gaming chair, sit down, and get ready for the expnation. I am ready to expand my mind.

  "First thing, what are the Eldritch?", they wrote the word Eldritch on the top middle of the board.

  "Aliens coming beyond the Oort Cloud?", I asked.

  "Correct, but not quite.", they wiggled their index finger at me, "Eldritch refers to beings that defiled comprehension. Basically, if you think something shouldn't exist, it's an Eldritch. Something weird? it might be something from Ohio, but its probably an Eldritch."

  Something that shouldn't exist... I'm not sure I get that. And Ohio?

  "From here we can get to the second thing.", they scribbled three things under Eldritch, "Eldritch God, Herald, and Eldritch Being. How do you tell the difference?"

  "Eldritch Gods are the manifestation of Stars, their Ego, and Will projected into a comprehensible form. That form is called Avatar.", I said my answer.

  They nodded, "Correct, Eldritch Gods also include Nebus. Though Nebus are more special, like the Pilrs of Creation, it produced not one but three Eldritch Gods! The Crawling Chaos, which is yours truly, The Nameless Mist, and The Unknown Darkness."

  I raised my hand to ask a question, "Why do you usually have many names and titles? Wouldn't one of each be enough?"

  "That, my dear, is a good question.", Nyar pointed the marker at me, that's a permanent marker, "Language is such a fickle thing~"

  They spun around, giggling to themselves,

  "Because there is no universal nguage across the cosmo. On Earth I had a name given to me so I used it, on another pnet, they may have another name for me, like Pineapple Pizza instead of Nyarthotep. As for titles, Eldritch Gods are born with certain attributes during their formation, their Titles express what their powers are, and what they can do as a whole."

  They then drew a circle with a cross inside, "This is the symbol of The Pale Court, they have the attributes of Judgement and Order."

  The second title of The First Harbinger of Life doesn't need much expining. They already expined it to me.

  That reminds me...

  "Are there any more Eldritch Gods I should be aware of?"

  "The Spawn is already taken care of... maybe.", what the fuck does that mean?, "There is The Torch Seeker, The Red Beast, The Ivory Throne, The Frozen Valley... yep, that's all for now."

  "Then what about Chaos, the Records of the Cosmos?", that is my burning question.

  "We call it The Original, I think Lovecraft gave it a name— ah, right, Azathoth. Every three thousand years or so, it would wake up and attempt to delete the universe.", they shrugged, "Nothing too difficult after the first few hundreds of times."

  "So, the tendrils I see in the sky belonged to Azathoth?"

  "Yup.", Nyar nodded, "Usually, Heliosol would deal with those things."

  "Then what about the Great Game? Isn't Chaos one of the Records in it?"

  It just doesn't make sense at all with how powerful Shemiss Aluqdim is, how can Chaos really get to Earth?

  "Well... that's a bit~ hm~", they thought for a bit, "Well, I can't really say it, I respect my contracts, but Earth has something to do with that."

  Earth... Theia again.

  Nyar snapped their finger, "Now! An Eldritch God's strength depends on how far they are away from their Core— their Star or Nebu. The further away they are, the weaker they become. The simplest way to visually gauge is to look at the sky, and see what stars are there."

  They then pointed at themselves, "I am only able to exert one percent of my power here, even without the restrictions."

  "Restrictions?", I wondered out loud.

  "Restrictions.", they nodded, "This leads up to the next thing! The hierarchy is like this."

  Nyar began to doodle a sun, below that the Earth, and a bunch of tentacles at the bottom.

  "The Sun is the boss, next are the pnets, and at the bottom of the food chain is the Eldritch Gods. The Pale Court can erase me at any moment, but for a genocidal maniac they are pretty chill."

  "Why is Earth above you then?"

  "When in Rome, do as Romans do.", they shrugged with a smile, "A Pnet has full Authority over everything on it, including the Eldritch Gods. Earth pced restrictions on the powers of any Eldritch God, like limiting their power to fifty percent on top of being far from their Star."

  "Which brings us to the point.", they pointed the marker at the word 'Herald', "Heralds, they are representative of the Eldritch Gods, hand-picked by them."

  This I know of. Heralds are... strong, I know that Hoa is strong. She didn't even go full power yet. I want to see how strong a Herald can be...

  "Unlike Eldritch Gods, who get weaker. Heralds are like a zip file, yeeted from one system to another. They retained their full power, plus the additional buffs of their Eldritch God, all wrapped up in the form of a native species! So yeah, they are very real threats.", they nodded to themselves, "On a one-on-one fight, Heralds are more likely to win."

  "Can you list all of the current Heralds?", I tilt my head.

  "Sure, what harm can that do?", they shrugged, "As you already know, the Energy Vampire, or I should say, Fire Vampire, Ph?m Xích Hoa, the Regent of Fire Vampire. She is completely immune to any fire attacks, instead, she gets stronger."

  She is my friend after all, I am proud of her. I smiled... I like Hoa, she is fun.

  "Then there is one swimming in the Atntic Ocean, sent by The All Blue. That's Sirius A if you mind. He's a Leviathan-like creature, you might know him well as The Kraken. He is currently swimming in the Atntic Ocean near America."

  The Kraken, huh. Wonder what it can do. I really want to fight it.

  "Next up is Morgan Freedude, and yes, that guy actually copied him.", she sighed, "Well, nothing too special about him, aside from being a freeloader in Babel."

  There is a Herald working for Babel? This is the first time I have heard about this!

  I frowned, "Why didn't anyone let me know?"

  "Because you don't need to know every, silly girl.", Nyar ughed, using their left hand to hide their mouth, "Morgan took the form of a human, like the Regent. Well, he's a Herald of The Lore Keeper, one of the few Eldritch Gods who successfully copied the Tempte of Life."

  The Lore Keeper, huh. That title is the simplest one and easiest to understand. But what Lore are they exactly keeping?

  "Speak of the Lore Keeper, we will get to our next Herald now!", they tapped the board with furrowed brows, "Judas Iscariot, the Jury of the Pale Court. As I said before, Heliosol sends out Heralds 'cause they have a restraining order. Frankly, I dunno what to say."

  "What about their abilities?", I asked. I need to know what my opponent wants.

  They snapped their finger, "Right! As you know, Judas was split into two people. The Sinner and The Witness. The power of Judgement, you see, directly targets the soul. They just bring a hatchet up—"

  —they held the marker high up, then dropped it.

  "—and split them down right in the middle.", they smile wryly, "Usually, the Sinner is the one doing the dirty work while the Witness judges if the world needs an Exterminatus."

  "Since Shemiss Aluqdim makes sad people their Herald as you said, can you give me more examples?"

  Nyar crossed their hands, thinking for a bit, "On top of my head, I could think of a few. There is Saint Olga, who burned an entire city with sheer spite. Genghis Khan, who fucked over the entire world that one time, figuratively and literally. Hmm, Diogenes was one too. And Hitler."

  "...", really?

  There was an awkward silence between us.

  "Forget what I said. We've lingered on the Heralds for long enough.", they moved on to the final category, "Eldritch Beings, creatures that don't belong to the Stars and have no origins connected to The Original."

  That's a lot of big words.

  "Like the Tindalos, they don't belong to any Stars or Nebus, just exist outside of space and time."

  Those dogs were pretty ugly, and that spider too.

  "Do you know the Sea People?", they asked.

  The Sea People... a civilization said to destroyed the Bronze Age world in just a hundred years. Mysterious and... oh.

  "Yup.", Nyar grinned, her eyes became more dangerous, "The Sea People, the Flood of Destruction, are Eldritch Beings. They are a part of R'lyeh, the underwater civilization ruled by the Priest of Gaia, Cthulhu. They haven't been active for a while now so don't worry too much."

  "What if I give them a reason to be active?", I grinned.

  I saw them once before when Sincir was having her st show. They are... powerful, they can be used as a weapon— a God Syer...

  Nyar went to me, going for a sp— I dodged out of the way with a duck.

  "What was that for?", I frowned.

  "Well, I just thought that you need a wake-up call, don't do anything that would fuck the world over. Babel is an organization built with the goal of protecting and preserving humanity, and you are a part of that organization.", they huffed.

  "Anyway, this is the draft of Eldritch Understanding. How did I do?", they smiled, hoping for a good result.

  That was very well expined, for me at least. I still need to think about some of what was given...

  "I think you should cut some parts out, and streamline it for easier understanding.", I spoke my opinion.

  "Great! Now excuse me, I still need to type all of this out~", they began to erase the whiteboard... then Nyar noticed it, "Fuck... I used a permanent marker! Charlotte, do you have any alcohol?"

  I giggle, nodding, "I have some for cleaning."

  I went to my work table, grabbed the rubbing alcohol and gave it to Nyar.

  "Thanks.", they poured some alcohol onto the rag, then wipe the board clean, she gave it back to me with a smile, "I'll be going now~ have fun!", they somehow lifted the entire whiteboard— right, Eldritch God and all of their bullshits.

  Oh, so that board is foldable, expins how Nyar was able to bring it into my room.

  Well, that's the end of today. Hoa is out and about, maybe eating some people for all I care. Mitsuki has club activities, so I have a lot of time for myself.

  So I'll read some books!