Eleanor stood still, looking down at me. I, in turn, looked up to her, wondering what it was that she wanted to say, and after a few moments, she finally opened her mouth. “U-um… What… What should I do now?”
I couldn’t help but raise my summon’s eyebrows at her question. If she was looking for guidance from me, I wasn’t going to give it to her. I had done more than I should’ve done for a random mortal by healing her wounds and helping her fight back the shadow monster. From now on, I was going to leave it mostly up to her.
In response, I chose to sit down and close my eyes. This cat-like summon wasn’t me, so I could still see everything around me, and I could see her look of surprise as she crouched down to look down at me. “What… Are you telling me to figure it out…?”
It seemed like she wasn’t completely clueless, so I nodded in response. She pouted, but didn’t push it as she stood back up and looked around the darkness. She walked around the place, and stopped right next to the sword that was sent flying before. She picked it up, looked at it for a moment, and a deep frown that turned to anger formed on her face. After gripping it, she finally tossed it aside with the same fury she was displaying.
And it was obvious. That sword belonged to one of the knights that tossed her in here and even suggested to have his way with her. Even if I couldn’t read her mind, I could tell that there was no way she was going to use the sword of such a man to save herself and then give her thanks for doing it.
However… it was a good sword, and just with a sweeping gaze around this place, despite there being a lot of weapons and gear, the one that she just tossed aside was at least in good condition; better than the weapons used by every other dead being in this place, since if their weapons were good, they wouldn’t have died.
Still, she tried to look for something else. I finally opened my eyes and tracked her with them. It felt more natural to do so.
She went from one side to another, stopping by different corpses to inspect what they had. There was hesitation on her step with every single one of them, because, despite the distance that I had from her and everything else around here, the foul stench of rotten flesh and decayed bone could be felt all around this place, and even more so from the ones that were burning.
Eleanor refused even to stretch her hand into one of them to see what could be salvaged as she continued to walk from one to another. However, I noticed something from every one of those corpses that she might’ve noticed as well. All of them had holes in their chests, so if she wanted to find an armor to wear, it wouldn’t work for her.
Eventually, she moved deeper from where we were at the start, and I followed after her. There was only a certain distance from the summon where I could properly see things, so I had to get closer now.
Time passed, and after walking for a while, she finally dared to stretch her hand into one of the corpses. It was a knight in a silver armor. Judging from the appearance, however, it seemed like it wasn’t just any normal man. The armor wasn’t big, it was slightly wider in the chest area, and even the plates covering the arms weren’t quite as wide either.
It would’ve been the armor of a woman, if not for the strange couple of long and thick horns poking out of the metal helmet.
Eleanor didn’t pay it any attention, or simply didn’t notice it, as she placed her hands on it. This one was no exception to every corpse here, with a wide hole in the chest piece, and damaged parts everywhere, but the gear was in a much better condition than all the other ones we passed before as it still held some luster in its metal.
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By carefully gripping one of the arms, she pulled out the piece of armor protecting it. Bones were revealed under it, falling to the ground with a hollow thud. She paid it no mind and started strapping the pieces on to her own body, starting with her new-grown black arm. She then moved on to the leg pieces, and whatever she could get, to use them on her own body. The pieces that were too big or too damaged she left as they were.
Finally, she moved on to the head, and this time, she hesitated to grab it. After taking a deep breath, she reached for it, and pulled it. It resisted her hands, so she shook it from one side to another, until the helmet came off.
“Ah!” she exclaimed in surprise, gripping the helmet in her hands as she looked down at the skull.
It looked similar to a human’s with the only exceptions being the hard-stuck horns on top of its head and the row of pointy red teeth in its mouth. It seemed to be some form of demon… But there were several kinds of demons, so I couldn’t be sure of what this was beyond just what I could see. Still, it didn’t matter. This demon was dead, and right now, she didn’t need any of the gear she was wearing.
Eleanor looked at me for a moment with the same hesitation with which she looked at the corpse, but I refused to say or do anything. It was up to her to figure out what she should do, and it seemed like she picked up on my intentions when she brought up the helmet to the top of her head. She refused to put it on, choosing instead to think about it while tightening and losing her lips several times.
In the end, she chose not to wear it and placed it back on top of the demon-skeleton, right where the hole on its chest was.
She continued looking at the corpse, pushing it from one side to another to see if there was anything else, but after a few turns, she left it alone and stood back up to give a sweeping gaze at the darkness of this place.
There were still several bodies burning here and there, and markings of both combat and dried blood everywhere, with just as many decaying corpses and no signs of an exit.
What’s more, Eleanor was still missing a weapon. The longer that she spent looking around, the higher the chances that another shadow monster had of attacking her. She needed a new one quickly.
Realizing the same thing, she once more took to walking as she inspected everything in our way. I quietly followed after her while keeping my attention on both her movements and whatever we were walking by, but besides that last corpse, everything else seemed to be of no use.
After a while, her steps became slower, and she reached for her own long hair. There were red stains of her own dried blood, mud, and most of all, the silver flower hairpin from her mother.
She gripped the flower in her hands, stopped walking and closed her eyes in a pained expression. I was sure that there were memories of the past flowing through her mind, likely the things of her youth, or maybe even the events that unfolded at that party. But none of that it mattered anymore in this place, as the only thing she needed to worry about was staying alive, and getting out of here.
Still, I gave her the time that she needed to consider things. Once she was done, she opened her eyes with a pained expression that threatened to break into crying. With that same expression, she looked around once more and her eyes stopped on a dropped short dagger not too far away from us. She hastily moved to it, took it in her hand, and in one swift motion, cut her hair short. It flowed down under her hand, keeping only the silvery hairpin that still kept together the recently cut clump of hair.
With careful movements, she removed the pin from her cut hair and then let the remaining strands of hair fall. After looking at the flower for a moment, she folded and unfolded a few parts of it. It seemed like this pin was able to be rearranged for different uses, and after turning it a few times, she finally brought the silver piece to the top of her head, where she locked in place over her now short hair, making it look like she was wearing a simple silver diadem with a few bits poking out.
For what reason she chose to do this, I wasn’t certain, but if that's what she needed to push forward, then so be it.
She closed her eyes once more, took a deep breath and then opened her eyes to look at me. “Okay… Let’s go… Um… Kyun.”
Huh?