I looked at Eleanor’s back. We were moving deeper into the dark depths of this hall, leaving the minotaur monster behind—at least, what was left of it. Right now, there was a pale leather backpack on her back, full of the monster’s meat in it…

A rather surprising thing, since after cooking the meat, she completely devoured it, and even went for more, regardless of how tough the skin of the monster was. Once she was satisfied with it, she pulled as much meat as she could from the monster, going as far as even using the skin of the monster to create a bag for her to carry as much as she could.

I knew that she was a poor noble girl capable of doing chores and mundane things like that with her magic, but for her to even know magic that could help her transform the skin of the monster into some usable leather was something quite unexpected; a skill likely learned from the common folk around her family’s small lands.

How, however, was she ever going to carry all that meat and consume it before it rotted, was something that she seemingly didn’t think about…

She turned to glance at me, and noticed the direction of my eyes, right at the pale leather backpack. “Do you also want some? You didn’t try to get any… so I forgot to offer…”

While I did have some curiosity to know what that monster’s flesh tasted like just from her reaction, I had no need for it, so I reluctantly shook my head after thinking about it for a moment. Eleanor smiled in response, apparently relieved that I wouldn’t be taking her meat, and turned to look at the road.

Nothing much had changed from the entrance of this new zone to this point, as there were still craters and destruction—likely by the hand of the minotaur monster. There were, however, a few corpses now, similar to the previous zone. Most of them had better gear, but still, not anything that Eleanor could use as an upgrade or wear at all, since it wouldn’t fit her.

After a while, we reached a wall at the end of the hall, where this hall divided itself into two paths; one going left and the other right.

Eleanor looked at both sides, and I did the same. There wasn’t anything different between each other besides the direction that they went, as the same walls, pillars, torches, and damage still spread in each one.

“Which way should we go…?” she asked with a low tone as she looked to the left side with a thoughtful expression.

I couldn’t really tell her since with my limited viewpoint, I didn’t know what was at the end of either one. It was up to her. She looked down at me after a while, but I ignored her as I just turned my eyes from one path to the other, trying to let her know that I didn’t know either.

“I guess… we’ll go left,” she said, turning on her heels to go in that direction and I followed.

There appeared to not be a difference from what we were doing before, and as I looked at Eleanor’s expression, it seemed like even for her, the normality of the situation had somewhat calmed her down—or it could’ve been that after eating, she didn’t feel as much stress as before.

Still, there was a lingering feeling of unease in her from the way her eyes darted from one shadow to another, doing her best to avoid having something dangerous pop out of nowhere.

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Some time passed and more distance was covered. She glanced back at me once more, her eyes narrowing slightly when she did. I looked back at her and tilted my head in response, unsure of what that kind of gaze could possibly mean, but she refused to say anything as she turned to look forward once more.

I ignored it as best as I could, until she repeated the same thing a couple of times. Could she be doubting me? It wouldn’t be strange, since I was the first thing that appeared in this place, and my cat-like appearance wasn’t too different from the shadows being cast by the torches.

“Kyun?” I made a sound as if trying to ask her what it was that she wanted to say with those looks.

“Um…” she replied, glancing at me with narrowed eyes. “Say… are you a boy or a girl?”

“Kyun?!” I unwillingly let out, not expecting at all that kind of question.

“It’s just that… no matter how much I look at you, I can’t be sure about it. There’s” —she gestured with her hand at my body while walking— “nothing down there that I can see.”

I froze on the spot and my sight shifted from her to the spot she was pointing out. There were indeed no defining features at the back parts of this body besides the triple tails. I had no need for anything like that, as this body was composed of nothing more than my power, so as long as my power remained, the body would exist as well. It had no need for sustenance nor any other mortal bodily functions.

“You must be a girl, right?” she asked, stopping to crouch down and look at me. “That’s why I can’t see anything, right?”

In response to this wild conclusion, I quickly shook my head.

I was a powerful God! One with the powers and abilities to make a normal mortal human woman like her lose her mind if I wished for it; one that many Goddesses desired belonged to them! Just because I was using this small vessel as my tool to investigate a strange place didn’t mean that this was my body!

Eleanor appeared surprised at first, opening her mouth in an o-shape, before asking, “You’re a boy then?”

Even being referred to as a ‘boy’ from such a pitiful mortal made me feel the kind of disrespect that I had never directly suffered. I couldn’t help but return a glare back at her, which is when she raised her hands in a soothing manner, stood back up, and took a step back.

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it…” she said, turning to the path that we were on with a somewhat fearful expression on her face. “I guess we better keep going, then…”

I nodded and continued our path, but it didn’t take more than a handful of steps before a strange sound was heard from the depths. Eleanor completely stopped moving and the shaky anxiousness that she had when she first walked into this zone through the black veil was brought out once more.

“Kyun,” I said to try to get her to prepare, which thankfully, she did as she pulled out the sword, held it with both hands and pointed it at the incoming noise.

After a few moments, the dim light of the torches finally illuminated something. It was a horde of monsters.

They looked just as pale as the minotaur, with exposed bodies like that of a shaved animal. They ran on four legs, however, all of those legs looked like the deformed legs of humans, and most of them didn’t have symmetrical features, making them move in erratic and wild steps.

Finally, their heads were just like a bald human’s with horns popping out of them in seemingly random places, making them look like they had spikes in other places of their bodies. Their faces were just as deformed as the rest of their bodies, with mouths that would open from the side, or the top; eyes that went from just one to a handful of them; and whenever they opened their mouth, a row of red teeth could be seen.

Eleanor saw that and took a step back, her face now full of fear. The monsters suddenly noticed her standing there, and a lot of them screamed with the holler of mortal humans, some with deep voices and others with a high pitched noise.

“Ah!” Eleanor exclaimed, her eyes tearing up, and her will to fight leaving her as she chose to turn around and run away.

The monsters, however, noticed her reaction and their rushing speed increased. I did as Eleanor did and ran after her—not out of fear, but simply to keep up with her. Though, the more that I looked back at the horde of monsters chasing her, the more I thought that she would have to fight them, since they were getting closer to her with each passing moment.

Eventually, the rumbling of their steps and their screaming voices couldn’t be ignored, and one of them leaped from its spot, going straight for Eleanor’s back.