“Nhhgg…” Eleanor let out after a few hours of laying on her back on the ground.

It wasn’t a lot of time to wait for someone like me; however, I knew that mortals couldn’t sleep for so long, so I wondered if she was ever going to wake up. Seeing her face scrunched up in pain as she swayed her head slightly from side to side was all I needed to know that she was coming back to it.

I decided not to mess with her more than I should, so I simply sat at her side and watched. After a moment, she slowly opened her eyes. She looked up at the dark ceiling of this cave-like place, and then suddenly widened her eyes with a loud gasp as she urgently sat back up.

“No…” she let out, as a look of despair filled her face once realized that whatever had happened before wasn’t a nightmare and that she was indeed stuck in this dark place.

She was lucky that no monsters or enemies popped out of the darkness while she was passed out, otherwise, it would’ve meant her death, and she seemed to know that as well when she quickly stood back and reached for the same sword that she used to attack the shadow monster.

The tip of the sword shakingly moved in the air while she pointed it at the darkness. Her eyes were wide, and new beads of sweat were forming on the side of her face. I turned to look at the darkness as well, and even if I didn’t have a full sense to look at everything, I couldn’t sense anything dangerous in this place. We were alone—save for the corpses all around us.

After a moment, Eleanor sighed and dropped her guard once more, letting the blade’s tip touch the ground in a soft clink as she raised her hand and placed it on her chest in relief. It seemed like she was ignoring the fact that she was still trapped.

She then suddenly noticed the changes in her appearance. At first, it was the black dress. She looked with curiosity down at it, touching it here and there, but then paused when she saw the black left hand that had replaced her missing arm. She brought her hand up to inspect it, turning it from one side to the other, before her gaze moved up her arm.

“What is this…?” she asked herself.

With her other hand, she touched the arm. She caressed it for a moment, and then pinched it, which caused her face to show signs of pain; obviously meaning that she could perfectly feel it like it was her own. I had done a good job—as expected of a God like myself.

Suddenly, and for seemingly no reason, she started harshly rubbing her arm. I couldn’t help but tilt my head in confusion, since I didn’t see a reason for her to do that, until she started scratching it.

“What—why won’t this black thing come off…!?” she exclaimed now with slight desperation.

Eventually, she realized that it wasn’t going to come off, so she stopped it and turned her attention back to the place that was surrounding us. Her eyes swept it, going from right to left as she looked at the burning corpses, the dark depths, and the few marks of combat and old blood stains. Once she took in as much as she could, she completely turned around and looked at the dark veil from which we came.

Without hesitation, she jogged over to it—completely ignoring me standing a short distance away from her. I wasn’t trying to call her attention, so I quietly followed after her.

It wasn’t far away, so with a few steps, she was standing in front of the gate. The black flat wall remained intact with no changes from when we first came in. It didn’t matter for Eleanor, as she placed her right hand on the darkness and pushed. Nothing changed. Her arm didn’t move the veil, and her body didn’t pass through it at all. She applied more strength and a strained grunt came out of her, but nothing changed.

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Eventually, she separated her hand from the wall, looked at her new black arm, and after a moment, placed it on the wall. Once more, nothing changed. She strained herself again, but there were no changes.

Realizing that it wasn’t going to move with her strength alone, she turned around again—her gaze completely ignoring my black summon standing at the side while looking at her—as she focused instead on the sword that she left behind. With a couple of jogging steps, she went for it, picked it up, and then returned to the veil. She took a stance with the sword, and I was at first surprised to see that it was the proper stance for a knight or a warrior, but then remembered that her father, despite being a mostly insignificant noble, was someone that taught her how to defend herself; even if she never put it to use.

She raised the blade over her head, and with one strong swing, brought the sword down on the wall. Her movements were much more powerful than before, creating a booming sound of the blade cutting the air, and then exploding with a loud clank that sent the sword flying out of her hands, and her backwards with a shriek.

She fell on her butt a short distance away from the wall, her eyes wide as she looked at the wall and then her hands. “W-what was that…?”

It seemed like she was unaware of the power that she recently absorbed from the defeated monster. And yet, it wasn’t nearly enough to do anything to the dark veil keeping her inside this Void Dungeon.

The shock passed after she shook her head and looked at the veil. Her eyebrows furrowed upwards in a look of immediate realization that nothing changed, and she stood up from her spot to go back to the gate. She stopped by it, looked up and took a deep breath.

“Please let me out of here!” she shouted while knocking on the dark veil with her right hand. “Please!”

She continued to shout the same thing over and over, until from desperation, tears formed once more on her face and she dragged down to the floor with her face down. By now, she must’ve realized that there was no way out of this place by just sitting on the ground and crying for someone to save her… And I didn’t want to sit here while watching her stay defeated.

“Kyun,” my summon let out that strange sound to call her attention and Eleanor yelped in surprise, jumping from her spot to the side and away from me, not worried at all about her exposed underwear.

“Y-you… you are that cat from before…” she said after the surprise passed, rearranging herself as she carefully crawled my way.

Once she was a short distance away, she stretched her right hand to my summon’s head, in an apparent desire to pet it—me—but there was no way I was going to allow that, so I moved back and away from her, causing her to suddenly stop and retrieve her hand.

“Ah…” she let out in seeming disappointment, but then she softly smiled. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

I didn’t reply as I simply looked back at her, hoping that she would now try to do something about the situation she was in, but all she did was pull her legs together and sit on top of them with her knees on the floor and her butt on top of her heels. She looked at me for a moment and then back up at the black veil.

“Can you… take me out of here…?” she asked with some uncertainty, and after a moment she looked back down at me. Her eyes were full of expectations, so I answered with a nod. “R-really!? Then, please, if you—”

“Kyun,” I interrupted, shaking my head, since doing it would cause more damage than necessary.

“W-why?!” she loudly said, approaching me with her hands on the floor while nearly pleading. “Please! I’ll do anything that you wish of me! Please, just—”

“Kyun,” I interrupted once more, and this time, I turned the summon’s head towards the depths of the Void Dungeon.

She turned her head to follow my gaze, and the look of desperation was mixed with one of confusion. After a moment, she opened and closed her mouth a few times, before finally saying what she was thinking.

“Is the exit… that way…?” she asked, turning her gaze back to me.

I didn’t know, and I wasn’t going to lie to her, so I transmitted that by shrugging with the cat-like body as best as I could.

“Huh…? You’re not sure…? But you said that you could… take me out of here…” she said, her voice losing volume and her head hanging down.

I could see a couple of tears forming again on her face… She couldn’t give up like this, not after surviving that shadow monster. I tapped her head, causing her to look back at me. I turned my head to look back at the darkness and then took a couple of steps that way, before stopping to look at her. Hopefully, she’ll understand that she needs to explore this place if she’s ever going to find any way of leaving.

After a moment, the edges of her mouth were pulled down into a frown and she nodded with uncertainty, clearing her tears right after. “Okay…”

She stood back up and walked to my side. It seemed like she was finally going to try.