Chapter 125

Chapter 125: Getting to Know Each Other

Nina’s attention seemed stuck on a very strange point, but for Shirley, that was a good thing.

Shirley had already, deep down, started to see this seemingly simple, ordinary girl as the retainer of some Subspace Shadows, and not just any retainer, but a cherished-daughter-level retainer. The fewer bad impressions Shirley left in front of this retainer, the better her odds of surviving when she faced the big boss.

Nina had no idea how many worries hid behind Shirley’s stiff, awkward smile. The young lady was now both amazed and a little excited, because she had never been this close to a real supernatural before (her usual visits to the Cathedral did not count). What she knew about such things came only from books, and in her eyes, Shirley, who had used some kind of “supernatural illusion” to slip into the school and investigate, was now surrounded by a mysterious and powerful glow.

She even forgot, for a while, about Shirley’s small “deception” toward her, and instead put all her attention on the unusual life and adventures of an supernatural—even if those adventures were mostly things Nina made up herself: “Where do you usually live? Do you have your own secret base or something? Or a very mysterious organization?

“Do you usually hide in caves? Or in sewers? Do you have some warehouse-like place to store all kinds of ritual items?

“Were you born with special powers? Or do you have some powerful supernatural item? Are you one of those legendary ‘Arcanists’? I heard there is an ancient profession like that. Arcanists can cast spells without relying on any god. They say their power comes from their bloodline…

“What do you usually eat? Do you have to drink herbal brews or strange animal blood all the time? Huh? You eat normal food too? Really?”

Nina’s questions came one after another, crackling on without end. By the time Shirley answered half of them, sweat had already formed on her forehead—not because she could not answer, but because Duncan was sitting right beside them!

From the start, Duncan had been quietly watching Shirley, with a warm and gentle smile—on the surface, he looked just like a parent who showed up to greet a child’s classmate visiting the house.

Plain, kind, completely harmless.

But every time he smiled, Shirley broke out in a new layer of cold sweat.

“You seem really scared of my uncle,” even Nina, slow as she was in such things, noticed Shirley’s strange behavior. When she also recalled Shirley’s reaction back at The City Museum, she could not help asking: “What exactly happened between you two?”

“N-nothing! Really!” Shirley almost jolted upright in her seat, waving her hands hard. “What… what could happen between me and your uncle, I’m still a child…”

When Duncan heard that, he felt something sounded off. He knew he could not let the two young ladies keep going on their own. Before Shirley’s wild talk got any worse, he coughed twice to interrupt: “It really was nothing. She just tried to ride without a ticket once, and I happened to catch her.”

“Just because of that?” Nina looked at Shirley in surprise. “That shouldn’t leave such a big shadow, right… But Uncle is right, fare-dodging is bad.”

Shirley was almost in tears. “I really won’t dodge tickets anymore, okay?!”

Nina nodded, then suddenly seemed to think of something. She looked at Shirley very seriously: “Then… can you tell me what you’re actually investigating? Did you become friends with me because of your ‘investigation’?”

Shirley’s back went ramrod straight, and her eyes started to drift to the side, but halfway over they met Duncan’s calm gaze.

“I am investigating the fire from eleven years ago,” Shirley suddenly lowered her head a little, as if something had finally clicked in her mind—or as if she had just decided to give up. Her voice dropped. “The one in the official records, the factory leak incident in the Sixth District…”

“The fire from eleven years ago?” Nina’s eyes went wide at once, her tone full of shock. “Wait… you know about that big fire too?!”

“…You know too?!” Shirley also looked shocked. She stood up straight from the chair. “You went through that fire as well?”

“Of course I know. My parents died in that fire—that year I was six, and Uncle Duncan was the one who saved me,” Nina spoke quickly, gesturing without thinking. “But all this time, everyone said the poisonous smoke in the streets confused me. They all said there was no big fire at all. Even the later newspapers said it was just a factory accident…”

“That year… I was six too. My parents also died in the fire. I remember it clearly,” Shirley stared straight into Nina’s eyes. “But the people around me also told me there was no fire back then… No wonder, no wonder Dog said it smelled a familiar scent on you…”

As soon as she finished, Duncan’s voice came from the side: “So it was Dog that led you toward Nina, and that’s why you slipped into the school—and you didn’t know why you had to do it, so you were just as shocked when you heard Nina just now.”

Meeting Duncan’s calm gaze, Shirley quickly nodded. Nina, however, looked puzzled: “Dog? Who is Dog?”

“Dog is…” Shirley began, then hesitated the next second. She glanced at Duncan, then at Nina. “Dog is my friend. It’s right beside me, but its appearance might be a little scary…”

As Shirley said this, she felt extremely strange inside—because there was clearly a Subspace Shadows sitting right here that was countless times scarier than Dog, and this Subspace Shadows even lived with Nina day and night. Yet she had to go along with the big boss’s “personal hobby”, pretend that Dog was the scariest thing here, and treat the big boss as an ordinary person…

To be fair, in her daily life Shirley used Dog’s disguise ability to move around everywhere. She had dealt with cultists, with constables, and even with priests from small local Cathedrals. But all of that put together was not as tense and frightening as sitting in this antique shop for ten minutes.

In her eyes, this ordinary-looking shop was almost on the same level as an entrance to the Subspace.

Nina only looked around curiously, trying to find a sign of “Dog” near Shirley. After peering about for quite a while, she finally asked in curiosity: “Then let ‘Dog’ come out and meet me. Since it’s your friend… what is there to be afraid of?”

Shirley was still a little hesitant, but Duncan suddenly tapped the table lightly and said to Nina: “Then you have to be mentally prepared. I’ve seen Dog. It’s really ugly.”

“…Now I’m even more curious,” when Nina saw the reactions of Uncle Duncan and Shirley, her curiosity only grew. “I really want to meet this ‘Mr. Dog’ and find out why your friend has such a strange name…”

“All right, since you want to see it,” Duncan shook his head and looked at Shirley with a bit of helplessness. “Let Dog come out and say hello. After all, it’s also today’s ‘guest’.”

Under normal circumstances, Shirley would never expose the secret between herself and Dog. In an orderly city-state, walking together with Abyssal demons was an extreme taboo. If the priests of the Church of the Deep Sea sensed even a trace of the Abyssal Deep’s aura, they could point an Eight-Pound Cannon and a Six-Barrel Machine Gun at her without a second thought.

But now, a Subspace Shadows-level existence was asking her to summon Dog.

“…Okay.”

She nodded, then slowly raised her arm.

In the next second, under Nina’s shocked and slightly nervous gaze, pitch-black flames and thick smoke suddenly rose around Shirley!

Chains stretched out from the flames, and at the end of the smoke and dark fire, the form of a Abyssal demon took shape.

The Abyssal Hound appeared in the flames, then in a single second it shrank into a ball, wrapped its front paws around its head to hide its scariest eye sockets, and, inside a puff of black smoke, greeted Nina in a muffled voice: “Good evening, Miss. I am Dog, Shirley’s friend and guardian dog. My looks do not meet the mainstream human sense of beauty, but you can view me with an abstract and tolerant eye. That way I am just a clever stack of bone shards and a patch of fire with a slightly unusual color…”

Duncan gave Shirley a calm look: “Honestly, I’ve never seen a dog that acts this much from the heart… Judging by personality alone, it’s actually quite cute.”

On the other side, Nina stared, dumbfounded. She stared at Dog for a long moment before finally letting out a cry: “Ah!”

Shirley hurried to speak: “I told you you might be scared…”

But before she could finish, she heard the second half of Nina’s shout: “This is amazing too!”

Shirley was speechless: “…?”

“Y-you… hello?” While Shirley was still stunned, Nina had already begun to greet Dog, testing the words. “Mr. Dog? Uh, are you a ‘mister’?”

“Abyssal demons have no gender, but if you wish, you may call me that,” Dog answered in a muffled voice, sounding a bit surprised as well. “You… are not afraid of me?”

“It’s not so bad. You do look a little scary, though,” Nina thought for a moment, then broke into a bright smile. “But I’m pretty brave~”