The hole led into a tunnel which was grayish with bits of green. It reminded me of the burrows a lot of my siblings make, though this one felt... empty.

So... are you perhaps a type of... ant?

I waited for Holt to respond, yet it was as if it didn’t hear me.

It would make sense... you have a big family here!

It wasn’t the truth, from what I had seen, my siblings that were some type of ant had numbers that would have completely covered this tunnel.

The only sound was Holt moving throughout the tunnel, making a rhythmic shuffling sound echoing along it. With annoyance I accepted the fact that maybe nothing was able to hear me.

As another moment passed, Holt stopped moving in the tunnel and turned to face one side of the tunnel which had a light brown color with a reflective gray outline.

Uh is there a reason for stopping?

I stared at the strange wall and watched as Holt reached out with one of its limbs and... opened the wall?

I was confused as we entered the wall and into another room.

Why is the entrance blocked? Wouldn't it be better to not have anything in the way?

Not planning to question the strange ways these creatures made their homes, my eyes found themselves wandering around the interior of the room.

It was far darker in the room than in the tunnel, which changed immediately as Holt said something that I missed, and an orb of light appeared from nothing, momentarily blinding and surprising me. I felt myself getting put on the ground and after a few moments I regained my vision allowing me to see that Holt had lowered itself closer to me.

I searched for the strange orb of light, but once I did find it, I looked away after a moment as it had made my eyes uncomfortable.

“So, what are you really? There isn’t much that can evade my [Appraisal].”

Holt asked me to make me look at it in blend of confusion and annoyance.

I told you! I’m Eclipse! And what is an ‘Appraisal’ anyways!

“No matter, this must be a sign that my shackles will be released soon.”

Why am I even trying, you can’t even hear me...

Holt rose to its full height and moved to a side of the room where a brown elevated platform held up by four brown pillars stood, from there Holt used its limbs to move something on the top, but I couldn’t see what it was, all I could hear was a constant rustling.

I couldn’t even move for some reason so I couldn’t even explore my new surroundings!

“Ah here I found it.”

Thankfully, Holt didn’t take long to find what it was looking for and with a motion of its limb it opened part of the wooden elevated surface and grabbed a white stick? At least I could now see what Holt was looking through as it grabbed a rectangular object with a yellowish interior and a faded brown exterior. The interior curved somewhat while the exterior stayed rigid.

I looked in interest as Holt put down the object letting me see it closer. On one side, there were many lines reminding me of the words the turquoise boxes had in them; there were many different ones here, but it was messier, making it impossible to understand.

On the other side, there was a ring with inscriptions; inside it, there were two squares, one rotated with a smaller circle in each corner. And finally, there was a smaller ring in the middle of all this with smaller inscriptions.

I watched Holt place the white stick on the ground and drag it around creating a white line, but it wasn’t long until that line started to become a circle which was encircling me.

Oh, is that for creating that circle?

It would make sense since currently the Holt was making a good copy of it around me, I wonder why I was placed in the middle of it though.

“It was worth stealing that fool’s blood even if I had to seal my power.”

Holt spoke to itself as it grabbed another object from elevated surface.

Even though I had questions, I knew it was pointless to ask since it wouldn’t be answered so I simply looked on as Holt held a rectangular object with a curved bottom. In it was contained a dark red liquid.

I'm assuming that’s ‘fool’s blood’?

I wasn’t sure which part of it was the fool’s blood as I was sure that the liquid was not part of the object. Holt used one of its appendages to break the object’s brown top which hit the ground with a bounce.

Then Holt spilled the liquid alongside the outside ring and threw away the now empty object. Next Holt brought one of its appendages to the orifice at the top of its body and brought it back out again, this time the appendage was leaking a similar dark red liquid.

Without warning Holt placed one of its appendages in between my eyes and started muttering something I couldn’t hear.

“You will no longer follow the commands of the commoner Zolton, your new master shall be I, Holtan Blackmoor.”

Holtan Blackmoor? I thought you were Holt though?

I was confused, but I had probably mixed Holt and Holtan Blackmoor... that doesn’t make sense though, I was certain Zolton had told Holt specifically to get closer to me...

I mean Holt was the shortened version of Holtan Blackmoor so I’ll just keep calling you Holt.

And with that Holt pulled away its appendage and the turquoise square decided to show up

[Quest Updated]

Oh, hey, a new one! It still doesn't explain anything so you can go to the others.

“You are allowed to move, however don’t stray too far from me. Zolton wouldn’t care about a supposed lesser infernal gone, but he would care if you were someplace you aren’t supposed to be.”

And just like that I felt lighter confusing me since I never felt heavy before.

I can move now?

Testing Holt’s words, I tried moving... and it worked!

With overflowing excitement, I moved along the ground, my legs making a clink sound every time they contacted the ground.

I looked over at Holt with thankfulness, who was currently moving its lower body along the circle removing it. It simply made a sharp exhale.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“If you’re useless, I’ll dissect you and use your organs for rituals.”

I have no idea what that means, but something is telling me I don’t want to end up dissected.

I should probably figure out a way on how I could talk with Holt since having a one-way conversation was annoying, but that's for later, right now, time for exploration!

Turning around I looked around to see what interested me the most, which was the large brown object with flat rectangles connecting the top to the bottom and connecting it with flat rectangles laid down and spaced out horizontally.

In the spaces were a mix of black, green, red and blue; each color in a different rectangular shape and faded out.

Moving closer, I was able to see that there were golden words on some of them, words that I could read.

‘The Inner Workings of a Demon’, ‘Human Anatomy’... ‘Journal of Blainne the Calamity’? None of these I understood! Though I keep hearing about demons so I should learn what those are.

“You can see through my illusion ward? Interesting... your hunger for knowledge must be as great as mine. Hm...”

I glanced slightly at Holt, mostly confused. I was starting to think that Mother had forgotten to give me knowledge that was useful.

But I’m guessing this weird assortment of colors contained knowledge? I wasn’t sure but ‘The Inner Workings of a Demon’ did sound like it talked about demons.

I reached out with one of my legs, hopeful at learning at least something.

“I do not permit to touch a single thing on that bookshelf... However, if you are useful to me, I will allow you to pick one thing from it.”

The second Holt spoke, my leg stopped moving any closer to the object. Forcing me to put it back on the ground.

I looked back at Holt, slightly annoyed but understanding. My siblings rarely shared things with each other. Thankfully, Holt did seem willing to share one of them as this was perhaps the only way I would be able to understand more of this place.

So, this is a bookshelf? Maybe there's something in here that’ll help me converse with creatures.

Not yet knowing what Holt wanted me to do, I turned around and moved towards the light brown part of the wall as I wanted to see if this was another one of those blocked entrances.

However, I stopped as the entrance to this room swung open with great force it shook the ground itself.

“Aha! I knew you kept it around!”

A voice that was higher pitched than Holt sounded and looking back I saw one of the red shells with a smaller build enter the room, its side limbs were exposed compared to Holt allowing me to see large sticks connecting the place where the appendages resided to the main body of creature.

Wait what happened to your shell?

“Eline how many times have I told you to NOT come without my permission.”

I could feel the sheer tiredness coming from Holt which made me interested in the creature named Eline who was currently rapidly approaching me.

“How could I not when this cute thing is here!”

And with that I was grabbed by Eline and pulled closer to the main body of Eline allowing me to feel the softness of its shell. Which was weird, shells weren't supposed to be soft...

“So, what is your plan with it? I’m not sure what you could do any of your grand plans with the help of a child.”

I felt the appendages of Eline move along my fur which was surprisingly... nice.

“What do you mean child? How can you even tell?”

Holt sounded confused, not too surprising considering how little it knew of me. Does Eline know more about me then?

“Well look at it! Does it not look super innocent?”

Never mind Eline had zero idea.

“I had thought you couldn’t get any stupider, yet you prove me wrong yet again. Why did that fool even think it was a good idea to enslave someone who doesn't even use mana.”

“Well, you said it yourself, that bastard is a fool! There is not a single measure of keeping us in line, he’s putting all his faith in the enslavement tattoo. Anyways, back to this thing being a child of some sorts.”

With that I was let down, slightly missing the warmth that was provided, but happy that I was free again.

“Why don’t you just use a Creature Reader to check?”

Eline continued.

“Eline why would there be one of those just laying around? They are fairly expensive for most people to carry around-”

As Holt was speaking, Eline had put its appendages inside its shell and pulled out a yellowish small thin square object which it held in-between two of its appendages.

“You mean one of these?”

There was a brief moment of silence before Holt replied.

“Is that from the mercenary girl from this morning?”

“You bet! I was able to snatch it away before Zolton had taken her to the dungeon, I don’t even know why she had it on her.”

“Was she some sort of noble? She was far too weak to be a high enough rank. Unless- No we are getting off track, give the creature the Reader.”

“Hmm~ how about no? After all, since Zolton wanted that mercenary alive, I wasn’t able to eat...”

Holt let out a long exhale for an odd reason.

“Eline I will not be giving you my blood for the hundredth time.”

“Why nottt, I'll just take a little sip!”

There was silence as Eline I think stared into Holt, I still wasn’t sure where their eyes were.

It wasn’t long before Eline crossed its limbs and turned its orifice away from Holt.

“Tch fine, but you better convince Zolton to allow me to be able to drink more blood.”

“That depends, this creature might be our way to freedom.”

With that Eline fully turned around and lowered itself closer to me, letting out a long exhale.

Eline then placed the object, the Creature Reader, in front of me, once again there was another simple circle with inscriptions, it was slightly more complex than what Holt made which confused me since it did make it seem that these were hard to get.

Why can’t Holt just copy it?

“Alright little buddy, I’m going need you to place your leg right here.”

That’s a weird way to name me.

With a bit of reluctance, I placed my leg in the middle of the Creature Reader.

“Alright this is going to sting a little bit, but I'll be fast!”

With that Eline grabbed a dark grey object with a horizontal rectangle separating the object in two, one side was a straight cylinder while the other side was a wavy long triangle.

Next Eline positioned the wavy part of the object along my leg and put some pressure on it.

A warmth went throughout my body, and I felt a shiver follow with it. It was uncomfortable, but it wasn’t too bad.

Sting was the word? What a weird feeling.

A drop of gray liquid clung close to my leg as it gently made its way down, before contacting the Creature Reader. In mere moments, the gray liquid disappeared into the Creature Reader.

Following suit was an immediate reaction from the object as it lit up in a turquoise color before the turquoise rectangle with the largest amount of words I had ever seen appeared.

Name – Eclipse Level – 0

Species – Insectoid Sub-Species – Juvenile Moth

Age – 2 days Status – Alive

Stats:

Strength – lowest Wisdom – low

Endurance – low Intelligence – Highest

Dexterity – high

Skills – 2 Titles – 4

Oh, hey the turquoise box knew my name!

I looked past the box at Holt and Eline who both were quiet, which wasn’t for long as Eline faced its orifice towards Holt.

“I told you it was a kid!”

“That’s- yes, I can see that, but have you ever seen that species?”

“No, I had guessed you would know what it is since you like to read so much.”

Eline turned its orifice back at me and placed its appendages on my head moving them back and forth. It still felt nice, so I didn’t complain.

“I’m more curious about the Titles, it’s got four at such a young age.”

“Let’s hope those Titles are good. It has a lot of potential if that's the case.”

There was a moment of silence before Eline took away its appendages and got to its full height.

“Alright Zolton is going to wonder why I’m not patrolling so I best get back to it.”

“It would be a lot better if you stopped coming all together, Zolton may be a fool, but he isn't stupid. He questioned me yesterday why you keep coming to me.”

“I’ll think about it!”

With that Eline left the room and Holt moved closer to me and picked up the Creature Reader which caused the turquoise box to disappear.

“Alright, you’re useless. But it would be a waste to dissect you now considering how much potential you have.”

I simply stared at Holt as it moved a bit to get closer to the bookshelf. There was a moment where Holt didn’t do anything. But then it grabbed one of the red rectangular objects which was closer to being maroon. The object had a higher quality color than most of the other objects on the bookshelf.

It gently placed the object in-front of me.

‘Workings of a Magic Circle: Book 1 of 3’

“Since your intelligence is the highest, it would be best for you to learn some basics of magic. If you don’t finish this book in a two weeks’ time, I won't bother teaching you anything.”

Wait! Was I going to learn something?

My excitement grew as I looked at the maroon-colored object. I think Holt called it a ‘book’?

“If you need help with anything, come to me... Hm, move to the right if you understand what I’m asking of you, or move left if you have a question.”

I looked around me, confused. I wasn’t sure what a ‘right’ or a ‘left’ was.

Holt exhaled quietly.

“Do you even understand me? The bookshelf is to your right, and the table is to your left.”

Oh, it's a direction!

Holt made sure to point which direction it was talking about which I was thankful for as I didn’t know what a table was.

Now that I knew what directions I could use to ‘talk’ with Holt, I moved left.

“Alright you do understand me, that's good, I should’ve probably checked before. Anyways, use one of your legs to point at what you’re confused about.”

Finally!

I had a lot I wanted to understand, but first I pointed at the book.

Holt let out another exhale.

“This is going to a long night.”