I looked at her, covered in blood, and heaving heavily as she looked with anxiousness in her eyes at her defeated enemy. She was no longer quite as bruised, since the power absorbed from the monster already healed some of the wounds her, but I could tell that there was still some aching from the battle.

There was a certain beauty in her appearance that I couldn’t deny to myself. It gave me a desire to go over and give her a few pats for a job well done, so I did just that and started making my way over to her. However, after a couple of steps, Eleanor let go of the sword, allowing it to hit the floor with a metallic clank, and causing it to do a couple bounces before lying still.

She dropped to the floor on her knees soon after. I wondered what was wrong with her, since there shouldn’t be anything that could cause her to do that, but I quickly realized what it was when soft sobs could be heard. They changed to louder ones after a couple, which is when she brought the bloody hands up to her face, ignoring the mess that it could cause—not that it would change much, since she was already covered.

I sat closer to her, and simply listened.

“Why is this happening to me…” she said in-between the sobs, stopping to look at her shaking, bloody hands. “I can’t deal with this!”

After loudly saying that, the sobs turned to wails as her voice resounded through the hall; just for me and the dead monster to hear. It was odd for me to hear a mortal cry after achieving something that would’ve killed anyone else, when normally they would celebrate, but I simply watched as she let it all out.

“Goddess… Father, please save me,” she whispered, and the wails turned to sobs once more.

I quietly got closer to her until I was right next to her legs. Eleanor appeared to be unaware of my presence as her tears continued to mix with the blood and dirt on her face. I couldn’t say anything to her in this body, so I simply sat and allowed her to cry as much as she needed.

Still, after a moment, I raised one of my paws and placed it on her leg. She finally turned to look at me, at first with slight surprise, but then with a soft smile that didn’t quite end the stream of tears that continued to turn to red.

“At least you’re still with me, Kyun…” she said with a slightly hoarse voice.

She stretched her hand to try to pet me, but I glared at it, as my Godly pride wouldn’t allow such a thing, regardless of how much pain the mortal was suffering. She stopped herself just a short distance away from my head—before I could slap it away—with her eyes on the bloody hand instead of me.

“Ah, I guess—I guess it wouldn’t be nice to be pet with a hand full of blood, huh,” she said with a sad smile, after which she retreated it and used that same hand to clean away—rather smear to the side—some of the blood still on her face. “I should do something about this.”

Saying that, Eleanor stood back up, closed her eyes and focused on the magic power within herself. A few particles of blue magic floated up from her body, and then quickly turned to clear water. After focusing with her eyes closed for a while longer, the water turned into a swirling stream around her body, which is when she opened her eyes and directed the movement of the water with her right hand.

The swirl washed all over her body like a current, and the blood of the monster followed with it, until finally, she was both completely soaked and clean of the monster’s blood. With one final swat of her hand, the bloody water flew away and into a random spot of the hall. Once she was done, she turned her right hand in a circle with her index finger pointing up, and a small vortex of wind formed all around her, causing her clothes and hair to fly all over the place. After a few seconds of a powerful gust of wind turning around her, she was dry and clean from the fight, which is when she turned another soft smile my way.

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“How’s that? Clean now, right?” she said, twirling a couple of times and causing the skirt to swing up slightly in her movements. “I was really good at cleaning in my home, you see.”

With a nod, I agreed with her. From what little I had glimpsed from her life in the empire, her poor noble household hardly had the funds to have servants do the work that nobles refused to do, as such, she would help with chores around the house and the land.

After that short interaction, her stomach grumbled. She brought her hand to it and frowned. She had yet to eat anything and had only had the water that she had found before. As for why she needed that water and not use the same water magic, it was because drinking one's own magic did hardly anything to the body. It might keep thirst away for a while, but it would deplete one’s magic, and quickly leave a person without strength and dying of thirst.

The same could be said about food. She could always chop off a piece of meat from her body to satiate hunger… but such a thing would be insane—besides… There was a fresh kill right next to us, so I turned my eyes to it.

“Kyun,” I let out, and with my cat swiftness, went over to it.

Eleanor appeared to be somewhat confused about what I was doing, but all I did was place a paw on the monster’s body and look back at her. She still didn’t quite seem to get it as her eyebrows furrowed upwards in confusion and her head tilted slightly to the side. I glared, and with one wide chomp, bit into the monster’s meat.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, placing a hand over her mouth with disgust. “Y-you’re not telling me to…”

But after one strong pull that ripped out a tiny piece of meat, I nodded to her. This time, there wasn’t a reason to deny it. I knew that humans liked to eat cow meat, and while this was not completely a cow, a minotaur did share several similarities to such an animal. If she wanted to have something to eat, then this was a perfect opportunity.

Eleanor still hesitated, her eyebrows now turned into a disapproving frown, but after another grumble from her stomach, she tightened her mouth a couple of times, and finally relented as she made her way over to me.

“U-um…” she said, carefully inspecting the dead body of the monster. “Are you really sure that this is okay to eat…?”

With another nod of confirmation, I let her know that it was, indeed, okay. Eleanor looked at the bloody mess of the monster, took a deep breath and reached for the dagger at her side. Her hands trembled when she stabbed the blade into the meat, but it didn’t quite pierce the skin. She struggled a bit more, grunting slightly as she pushed it, until it eventually went through.

After putting effort into cutting the monster’s skin and meat, she cut away a small piece of meat. It dripped blood from the monster, and she stared at it with an unwilling expression, which she eventually turned over to me, seemingly questioning if this is something that she should—or could—do.

There was no need for me to tell her. I had just pointed out that there was a fresh kill right here to satiate her hunger. More than that, it should be her that decides whether to eat it or not, so I simply shrugged.

“Okay…” she said with some resignation, after which she shut her eyes tightly, opened her mouth wide and went to eat it.

As the bloody piece of meat was reaching her mouth, I remembered that humans weren’t supposed to eat raw meat, and it wouldn’t be good for her to get sick based on my suggestion, so I stopped her with a quick, “Kyun!”

She stopped and opened her eyes wide in surprise to look at me. “W-what? What is it?”

I wasn’t sure about how to let her know that she should at least cook it, so I simply shook my head, pointed with my paw to the piece of meat, and then to one of the burning torches of this hall.

Eleanor looked at it for a moment, trying to process the message that I tried to convey as she looked between the torch and the piece of meat. After a few seconds, she finally realized what I meant as her eyebrows raised. “Ah! I should cook it!”

I nodded and Eleanor placed the piece of meat down. She looked around for something, from the torches to the surroundings of the dead monster, and then moved over to pick up a few rocks from the rubble the fight caused. She arranged them neatly, creating a small box, and after she pointed her hands towards it, dark yellow magic appeared, and a small grill from the rocks was formed on top.

Once it was done, she picked up the piece of meat and placed it on top, before sitting down next to it, extending her hands once more to it, and creating a small flame right under the grill.

She sustained it for a few minutes, watching with unmoving eyes as the piece of meat was cooked. I looked at it and at her. She had her eyes focused on both the fire and the meat. There was no apparent effort from what she was doing; something that she was likely used to doing in her home—even if unusual.

“Okay…” she said once the piece of meat appeared to be cooked, stabbing it with her dagger and bringing the steaming piece up. “Here it goes…”