Despite the severe glare that this demoness was throwing at everyone standing by the entrance, both Grool and Jul walked in without much thought. Dom and Eleanor, on the other hand, looked with doubts at the woman threateningly standing inside this base. She obviously noticed the hesitation and turned her glare their way.
The demoness was slightly floating off the ground, glaring with her arms crossed under the chest. The black dress she was wearing was a strange black piece of cloth that stuck closely to her body shape from her neck down to her waist, where it split between her legs, allowing us to see her pale skin, while covering the space between them and going down to her feet. This black dress was swaying slightly under her magic power.
“What are you waiting for? I don’t want to keep the doors open. Get in here already,” she said, beckoning with one finger for them to walk in.
“Arhg, Goddess. I hope that I’m not walking myself into my own death,” Dom said with a grunt and walked in with a defeated hunch.
Eleanor said nothing in response and walked inside with an unconfident step as she wrung her hands close to her chest. I walked in close behind her, but while doing so, the demoness noticed my presence and looked with annoyance at me before pointing a finger.
A powerful wind spell was formed at the tip, and almost immediately was fired my way. However, despite my powers being limited in this cat-like form, my reflexes and reaction times were still shared with my original body, so I could easily step to the side and allow the gust of wind to blow past me.
“Huh!?” exclaimed the demoness with her eyebrows raised. “What—do you think that you can just walk in here and do whatever the fuck you want, you dirty animal?! I’m going to…”
The wind spell changed form to cover her whole hand and give her a dangerous wind blade. Seeing this, Eleanor quickly jumped in the way to block her way to me. “W-wait, he’s with us!”
“Hah?” the demoness replied, raising one eyebrow in apparent annoyance. “Is this your pet? No, I won’t allow any animals inside this place. It’ll stay outside, like the rest of them.”
Hearing the demoness call me a pet caused my pride to soar and for me to send her a glare just as severe as the one that she was throwing at Eleanor. Noticing me do that, the demoness instead mockingly smiled, and that, in turn, caused me to get even angrier than before. If this was anywhere besides the insides of this strange Void Dungeon… I wouldn’t kill her like other Gods would, but I would certainly do something to inconvenience her for a while.
“No, no!” Eleanor quickly replied before our battle of glares continued. “He’s a friend.”
“I don’t care if he’s your fuck toy. I’m not going to allow some stinky animal to walk in here—and I certainly am not going to be cleaning after its piss and shit,” she said, before pushing Eleanor aside, and reaching her hand to me.
“Wait!” Eleanor exclaimed, but I easily moved away from the woman’s grasp and deeper into the building to stand atop a table. Eleanor extended her hands as if she also wanted to catch me, but I still moved further away. “Wait, please! He’s not going to ruin anything! He doesn’t eat or need to—to… do the other stuff!”
The demoness didn’t seem to believe her as she simply scoffed and lifted herself up from the ground, floating closely away from it. She locked her eyes on me like a beast hunting prey, and I returned a similar look. She prepared herself to burst and catch me no matter what, and in response, I sharpened this body’s skills to be ready to move.
However, right as she was about to move, Grool got in her way, and she was forced to stop.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the demoness asked, but Grool remained immobile.
He turned to look at me while making sure that the demoness wouldn’t get around him. “He blessing.”
“What?” the demoness asked, her face a mix of confusion and annoyance, after which she glanced from the side of Grool’s wide body. “That cat doesn’t look like a blessing to me—unless you think tiny pieces of shit on the floor are blessings.”
“Look careful,” Grool said, and pointed at me.
The demoness narrowed her eyes and tried her best to see whatever it was that Grool saw in me, but I just glared back at her. However, the more that she looked, the more that she seemed to see something, as her head was getting tilted to the side, and the glaring look eased. After a while, she lowered herself from the floating stance, the magic on her arm disappeared, and she stood only on her toes.
The severe expression that she carried was replaced this time by a look of suspicious curiosity as she moved aside to pass by Grool and approach me. It seemed like she no longer had the desire to get rid of me… But mortals could deceive just as Gods could, so it would be better for me to be ready to move.
“You’re right… What the fuck is this thing?” she asked, placing a hand on her chin as she inspected me.
However… I felt extremely annoyed by her. I could forgive Eleanor’s girly desires to treat me like a random cat, but for someone like this mortal woman to lower me from pet to animal, and now a thing, I felt like I would rather go back to my original body and tear them all out of this place just to teach them a lesson in humility!
But…! But I knew I had to keep myself calm. To allow myself to be taunted in such a way by mortals was unbecoming of me, so I just looked away from her, jumped down from the table, and walked back to Eleanor.
When I reached her, and Eleanor looked at me with a wry smile, the demoness finally set her attention to Eleanor. She also looked at her with the same curiosity, after which her eyes glowed green for a split second.
It seemed like she just scanned both of us.
“How odd…” she said, one eyebrow slightly raised. “The cat… Doesn’t seem to be an animal at all—at least not the same kind that are here or in the outside world. I couldn’t detect it with my Healer’s Eye, while as for you…”
The demoness slightly floated up from the ground and slowly moved to get closer to Eleanor. Her eyes were completely focused on looking at her up and down, while going in circles around Eleanor, who just followed the demoness’ movements with her eyes and a look of uncertainty. Suddenly, the demoness stopped on Eleanor’s left side and grabbed her arm, harshly pulling it up and causing Eleanor to yelp.
“Oi! What’s the big idea here?! Are you finally going to show your true colors you disgusting demon?! Well, I’ll show ya! I ain’t going down without—”
“Silence!” the demoness interrupted Dom, not turning her eyes away from Eleanor’s arm. “I just saw something quite interesting, and your yapping isn’t helping!”
“U-Um…” was all that Eleanor could reply, as she tensed up, but refused to take her arm away.
The demoness pinched her arm a few times, going from her fingers, then her hand, and all the way up to the shoulder, to then continue pinching Eleanor’s torso, which caused her to recoil slightly like someone that was being tickled. However, the demoness ignored it and gripped the glove that was hiding Eleanor’s hand.
“W-wait—”
Eleanor tried to stop her, but the demoness removed her glove in one swift move, revealing the jet-black arm under it. Dom appeared unsurprised, looking confused at what he saw, while there was no expression or reaction that could be seen from Grool, and Jul appeared to be smiling, but just as unaware as Dom was, as he simply watched the interactions.
“How interesting!” the demoness exclaimed, “A completely regrown arm of pure Dark Magic; so detailed, and so finely crafted that not even the best healers of Nobsua, with the most advanced technology, could ever get close to making something like this!” Saying that, she pulled Eleanor closer, and looked her directly into her eyes, their faces almost touching. “How? Who did this? Did you do it?”
“U-um, I… I don’t know,” was all that Eleanor said, before being overpowered by the intense gaze of the demoness and turning her face away to look down at me.
The demoness obviously noticed Eleanor’s gaze and turned to look at me. “Oho. So, it would seem that there’s something really special about the little shit.”
I glared back up at her. This mortal didn't really know how to treat others! And being called a ‘little shit’ was something that never in my existence had happened, not even by the most arrogant of Gods!
…But at least it seemed like she wasn’t completely clueless about how special this body was.
The demoness finally released Eleanor and floated away from her. Eleanor quickly took the glove and covered her hand once more. There was a moment of silence while the demoness considered Eleanor, after which a smile formed, and she nodded. “Yes, I think we should work together! Name’s Annaleth Zar’bog, pleased to meet you!”
