"Ahh. You're finally awake. We already arrived but I didn't want to wake you up. You just looked too cute sleeping."

Damn...

I never expected to feel happy being called cute. But I guess Miia is right. I have become a new version of myself. If it's a better one... that is still to see. 

We got out of her car and walked over to the elevator but this time the door remained closed so Bishop Marguez pressed a button on its left side. After a few seconds, I heard Liz's voice from a speaker.

"Hello?"

"Hello. My name is Bishop Marguez and I am here to drop Lucy off."

"Sure. Sure. Please come up quickly"

And the door opened. Liz had a lot of questions but the Bishop claimed to be unable to answer them until further research had been conducted on the matter, on me.

After she dropped me off the evening was rather uneventful. I think the girls are still completely in the dark about me and I am unsure if I should tell them or not. They spend the rest of the evening discussing topics related to me and Miia. At the same time, I was relaxing on Liz's lap while they were watching a tv show about zombies kinda reminding me of the walking dead but the main character was way younger. Nobody was really watching except Jessica who seemed really into it especially the bloody slaughter. 

After some time Riya excused herself announcing that she was going to cook dinner which was nice because I haven't eaten since I arrived here yesterday and I was getting really hungry. But then it hit me. Am going to be served animal food? About half an episode later the whole place started smelling like cooked meat of some sort. I was getting real uneasy thinking about what may or may not was about to happen. 

"Ha, even the dog is getting hungry. Look at how she's smelling the air." Even Jessica noticed it, still not bothering to use my name.

"Here go take a look at what she is cooking up for us," Liz said as she picked me up and dropped me off on the ground.

I quickly made my way behind the counter in the open kitchen where Riya was still busy chopping something while wearing a cute apron. "Woof" and lightly padding my paw against her leg was my only way of making her notice me. 

"Ah, Lucy you also want a piece. Don't worry I've kept you in mind I know how you dislike dogfood so I've made this special steak juuuuust for you. But you too have to wait until everything is done," she said while tapping me on my nose just how I did with my cat. 

Not even ten minutes later the dinner was ready and the girls sat at the table. I, on the other hand, was demoted to the floor, where Riya had placed a flat plate with one heck of a steak on it. At first eating without cutlery or even hands was weird but after a few tries, I was getting used to it. Pressing down with one pawn and biting at it until I could chew off a piece and damn it was worth it. I've never been a huge meat fan but I guess this new body made me into one.   

After dinner, we got back onto the couch and watching the same show apparently the guy is searching for his high school crush who he lost when it all started. But when I was slowly getting into the plot and got to know the characters Flora interfered by shutting off the TV. 21:15 the end of the third episode of the day as well as the end of the day itself. Nobody complained so I guess this is their normal evening. 

"And remember girls tomorrow is training at 6:30 so don't force me to wake you up." So that's why she turned off the TV. With everything she did I was getting assured that she was the strict one of the group.

"Ye don't worry, I know. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight. Come, Lucy, it's bedtime."

I guess I'm sleeping in Liz's room.

After some awkwardness of her changing and me trying not to look, I was also ready to sleep in the bed next to Liz's made for me it was surprisingly comfortable for what I expect from a dog bed so it was easy to fall asleep...

...

"Ey.

Ey.

Lucy."

"Woof."

"Shhh, be quiet. We aren't talking from soul to soul right now but instead, I am talking to you directly. So you can't talk to me, you can only listen to me and don't worry, only you can hear me. The problem with talking as souls is that with your current skillz you can only talk as souls when I force you to but that requires you to be asleep or it will knock you out which would be highly impractically right now.

Why I contracted you you wonder? Like I said earlier today we need to get started on your training. And how to do that has become a task more proven to be more difficult than I expected. As you've been told already know this is what's known as a safe world so there are no monsters. Well, almost no monsters and the few that are here are hiding from the humans but if you know where to look you can find them, in this case, the few that are here, live underground and that's where we are going."

Under Miia's guidance, I made my way out of the apartment and into the elevator. I was surprised when it opened for me since earlier today it didn't.

 "I've arranged it so your biological signature has been added to the registration for this building meaning you can access and control most of it. Well, the ones that you can use without fingers. But we will solve that problem later. First, go look on the right side of the door is a console I've disabled automatic voice control for you so none of the girls wake up. And it's not like you could use it anyway. Doesn't matter, the consol works as well there is this tab called extra press it."

Unsurprisingly pressing a button on a touchpad without hands proved difficult. After a few tries, I jumped with my front paws against the door and wall with the extra tab right in front of my face I pressed my nose against it. To me delight, it worked and two new options popped up Basement Level 2 and 3.

"Nice work. Now press the basement Level 3 button, Normally I could do this for you but I thought you getting used to this new body is the number one priority. So this is some nice training. And we aren't in a real hurry."

Once again my nose did the trick and as I dropped back down the elevator started to decent quietly.

"Ok good job. Our final destination for today would and old tunnels where I've spotted some monsters. Nothing too big most even smaller than you."

When the elevator stopped the doors opened and the light in the new room turned on automatic reviling a room surprisingly small for this big of a building. All that was some big pipes were coming from the top entering one big machine and several others leaving the same machine on the other side just to go into the wall. The only other thing in the room was a sturdy door through the same wall as the pipes.

"And welcome to the Pump room. It's quite small since all of this building's water and energy distribution, as well as everything else, is controlled from one floor up. What I like to call the 'command center'. This room is just for emergencies. But that's not why we are here. You've probably already seen that door it's for authorized personal only and gives access to the underground maintenance tunnel and exactly where we want to go. Normally this door would be inaccessible, but I've given you admin rights so you can enter any door. For now, it's only for this building." 

As soon as I walked up to the door looking for a console or something similar it opened automatically. Reviling a brightly white lit tunnel with the same pipes from the other room at the walls after maybe 20 meters it leads me into a much bigger tunnel almost 10 meters in diameter where I walked on a metal bridge which was unpleasant on my paws, and I was even debating jumping down on the now way more and way bigger, pipes. But in the end, I decided against it.

"Great we're already in one of the major tunnels. Now you just have to walk right from here and this tunnel for about 3-400 meters."

"Woof."

"Ye. I know that's a little far on that bridge but in the perspective, for this planet, it's quite close you are lucky Liz lives close to one of the major parks and this one is our destination. This particular park wasn't always one so back in the day there were tunnels under it and in which are now closed since it is classified as a natural habitat so only a few roads go under it and drilling for resources is forbidden. And even those closed tunnels and mines are where now some monster lives."

I kept walking along the tunnel and after a while, I got used to the unpleasant floor and didn't really register it anymore.

"Aaaaaand... Stop." suddenly Miia stopped me seemingly in the middle of nowhere. "Here we are at the start of your training see that hole down there at the left side of the tunnel. About the meters inside it is a door. I picked this one as it has been damaged enough so we can open which could have been an issue because these old ones still require keys. There is no path since it's like I said an old one and no longer used so you will just have to jump down from here."

Jumping down wasn't a problem since it wasn't even a meter onto the pipes from the bridge ad I was small enough to slip under its handles. In the new smaller tunnel was way less light just a little bit made it down here from the main one and the only lights inside was a dim yellow light over the door. The Door itself looked like it had been out of use for decades completely rusted up and not quite straight in its holdings. Thankfully it opened as soon as I gave it a little tap. 

Inside the whole atmosphere changed from military base to post-apocalyptic railroad. Down here lights were as I said earlier quite rare but thankfully my eyes adapted quite well to the dark and I had less trouble to see than expected. Probably the part of me that is a cat gave me its eyes. So I was thankful to have cat eyes, but I wasn't so thankful to have a dog's nose since the smell down here was truly horrifying. The other tunnel had ventilation so the stench was to a low level but this. But through all the trouble I made my way deeper into the tunnel network under Miia's guidance.

After around 5-10 minutes I 'finally' found why I was here the first thing I was gonna kill in this new life. A big rat.