Chapter 126

Chapter 126: What Did You See

Watching Nina go from shock and nerves to pure excited curiosity in just a moment, Shirley really could not hold back and muttered under her breath: “At this point, you are way past just being brave…”

Nina did not hear what Shirley was whispering. All of Nina’s attention was already drawn to the pitch-black skeletal hound in front of her. She jumped down from the chair and walked around Dog twice, carefully studying him from head to toe. When she finally saw Dog’s hollow eye sockets, filled with blood-red light, she did get a fright, but it was only a little scare.

“So amazing…” she repeated again. She even looked like she wanted to reach out and touch Dog’s bony head, but at the last second she pulled her hand back. Instead, she lifted her head to look at Shirley: “This is my first time seeing an supernatural being with my own eyes… What is Dog? Is he a creature summoned by a spell, or…”

“He is a demon,” Shirley answered honestly. She sounded as if she wanted to scare Nina, to make Nina realize at least a bit how dangerous Dog was. “The most dangerous kind of demon.”

Nina was indeed a little stunned. She had not expected that this creature who, aside from his ugly appearance, seemed polite in every way would actually carry the name of “demon.” Her face was full of disbelief: “He is… a demon?”

“Strictly speaking, a Abyssal demon,” Dog raised his head a little. His hollow eye sockets turned their gaze on Nina. “Miss, this is probably the first time you have seen a Abyssal demon. Do not let my existence give you the wrong impression of Abyssal demons. My kin come in many shapes, and what they have in common is that they are especially cruel and merciless…”

“Abyssal Deep…” Nina froze for a moment. She finally woke up from the mix of nervousness and novelty of seeing an supernatural being for the first time, and she recalled what the books had said: “Shirley, you…”

“As you can see, I am bound to Abyssal demons,” Shirley lifted her arm and showed Nina the chain that had fused into her body. “So I do not want people to know my secret. Do you understand? If people from the Deep Sea Church find out, they will throw me into a fire without a second thought, or throw me into the Boundless Sea.”

Shirley’s expression was very serious. From this, Nina realized something. She gave Shirley a slightly complicated look, then looked at Dog again: “…I read in a book that in the Deep Sea within the Abyssal Deep, there are crazed, evil creations everywhere. They are the waste expelled from the holy body of the Abyssal Deep. From birth to their end, they are ruled by chaos and madness. But Mr. Dog looks…”

“Dog is special,” Shirley said quietly. “Normal Abyssal demons have no heart and do not understand human feelings. But Dog does. Even he does not know why this change happened to him. Because of it, he cannot survive in the Deep Sea of the Abyssal Deep anymore.”

Nina stared in a daze, half understanding, and nodded: “Oh.”

While she spoke, she fell into a short silence. Then she suddenly scratched her hair and looked at Duncan with some distress: “Uncle, my head feels all messy.”

She thought back over the chaotic things she had gone through today, the time she had spent with Shirley, and then looked at Dog in front of her. A strange sense of unreality, as if she had stepped outside the Mortal Realm, finally and clumsily rose up inside her.

“You went through a lot today,” Duncan’s gentle and calm voice came, like a candle lighting up in the dark. It made Nina’s suddenly dazed mind settle down again. “Feeling a bit confused is normal.”

Nina blinked and finally realized what she had been ignoring. She looked straight at Duncan: “Uncle, if you already knew Shirley… did you know her secret too? Do you know Dog as well?”

“Earlier than you did,” Duncan showed a faint smile. “But before this, I did not know she was the ‘friend’ you kept talking about.”

“Then…” Nina hesitated for a moment. “Then are you also investigating what happened eleven years ago? Are you two investigating together?”

“More or less. We happened to work together once or twice,” Duncan nodded.

“…Why do I feel like I am the only one you both kept in the dark?” Nina muttered, a little slow on the uptake. “And you are investigating what happened eleven years ago… Was there really some secret in what happened back then?”

“Right now we still do not know. But we both agree that there was a great fire back then that was erased from the records,” Duncan said in a low voice. His eyes fell on Nina. “I am sorry. I did hide it from you, because this is not a field you can deal with right now. It is too dangerous.”

“What about you, Uncle?” Nina suddenly got a little angry. “Uncle, are you not in danger?”

As soon as she said this, Duncan had not even replied yet when Dog and Shirley both covered their faces at the same time. Shirley even muttered softly: “Of course your Uncle is dangerous. Your Uncle is the most dangerous one…”

Duncan gave Shirley a silent look, then turned back to Nina and shook his head lightly: “Your Uncle is an adult. And as for me, I am much stronger than you think.”

Nina’s gaze moved back and forth between Duncan and Shirley. Her expression changed several times. No one knew how many messy thoughts were spinning around in her head. Just when Duncan thought this young lady might get stubborn or start sulking like an ordinary teenage girl, Nina suddenly sighed.

“It is getting dark,” she looked up at the sky outside the door, as if all the things they had just talked about had never happened. “I will go cook. Shirley, you stay too. It is not safe to travel after dark.”

“Ah… ah?” Shirley did not react at first and could not keep up with Nina’s train of thought. Then she quickly waved her hands. “No, no, that is not necessary. If Dog and I hurry back, we can still make it…”

Before she finished, Duncan’s voice came from the side: “Stay here. The Sun will set in a few minutes. When it does, the streets will be full of Guardians. Are you sure you want to cross a locked-down district in that situation?”

Shirley’s whole body stiffened. She turned and glanced at the sky outside the shop, then at Duncan’s calm face. She finally realized that there was no way she was leaving this antique shop today.

“Then… all right,” the girl sat down in defeat. She forced a smile and looked at Nina. “Is there anything I can help with?”

“No need. I always cook at home,” Nina smiled as she walked toward the stairs leading to the second floor. But just as she was about to step onto the first step, she suddenly stopped. She stood there and looked at Shirley very seriously. Only after a few seconds did she speak: “Shirley, are we friends?”

Shirley was stunned. Her first reaction was to glance at Duncan, but Duncan turned his eyes away. She had no choice but to turn back and look at Nina again. After a few seconds of short but painful silence, she shook her head: “…No.”

But right after that, she nodded: “But I can try.”

Nina smiled. Even though the answer was not very certain, she looked as if she had already received the perfect reply. She ran upstairs quickly, her footsteps fast and light.

Shirley stared blankly as Nina ran up to the second floor. Only then did she suddenly hear a calm voice from the side: “Thank you.”

It was Duncan speaking.

Shirley jumped in fright. She quickly sat up straight in her chair and turned to Duncan: “Why are you thanking me?”

“Nina has no friends at school,” Duncan was already used to how tense she always became. He kept his tone mild. “So when she mentioned a few days ago that she had made a new friend at school, she was very happy.”

Shirley blinked in confusion. She had not quite understood.

“So first of all, thank you for not casually telling Nina that you are her friend. And second, thank you because you said you can try.”

“I… do not really understand,” Shirley was still very confused. In fact, she was more confused than before. “Here, you are just playing the role of an ordinary person, right? Nina seems to have no idea how special you are. At school, too, she has almost no presence. If Dog had not guided me, I almost did not find her the first time I went there. But by normal logic, someone like her, favored by you as a ‘retainer’…”

“Not a retainer. A niece,” Duncan corrected her again. Then, with a very serious expression, he looked at her. “Now that Nina has gone upstairs, I have a question for you.”

“Please, go ahead. Please…”

“It was Dog who guided you to get close to Nina, right?”

“…Yes.”

“Because Dog ‘smelled’ a certain aura on Nina? And from that, he judged that Nina was connected to the fire eleven years ago?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of aura exactly? The same aura as that factory, or something else?”

This time, Shirley did not answer. She turned her eyes to Dog.

Under Duncan’s gaze, Dog hesitated for a few seconds, then finally lowered his head:

“There are ashes floating around her. Countless ashes, Mr. Duncan.”