The first thing Asa noticed upon waking up was that she felt like someone was watching her. The second thing she noted was the… rawness(?) of her name. She knew her designation was Gray 03, felt like she could pronounce the words just fine, but there was something wrong about referring to herself with them.

The third one was that she had just referred to herself by an unknown name on instinct. Then she remembered what she'd been doing before and, for once, felt dread and fear well up on her.

"Oh, you're awake. Nice reflexes, I was looking at you and still couldn't tell the change in your breathing. I'd ask to learn that on free time, but it's easier to just stop breathing air and change to mana when sleeping." Aki's voice came from the side, not too far away, but as she opened her eyes and maneuvered into a combat stance, she noted at almost the same time that she was in her original form and that there were no windows to the room.

She was trapped and he had likely already prepared to deal with her attempts at escaping depending on how long she'd been out of it.

"I imagine you want to know what happened, why you passed out, the works. Well, to be succinct, I tricked you into signing a contract with me through the use of a ceremony and a ritual, the former being more of a linchpin in history than an actual part of the magic. Congratulations, you are now freed of all your former assignments and contracts.” He chuckled, back turned to her and…

In a moment of strange desperation, she searched inside of herself for her connections, finding only… One, incredibly sturdy and hard to look at stell cord connecting her to the man in front of her. It felt… different.

Yet what did it matter? She had a new master and absolutely no purpose. Again.

"No need to be like that, you're my daughter now, you can kill as much or as little as you want. Come, sit with me, let's have some grilled cheese." His words reached her and she obeyed, but what did that even mean? And why would he call copious amounts of hot cheese between slices of bread like that?

"I await your orders master." She said out of habit, realizing that might not be what she was supposed to say at the moment but not stopping herself either.

"None of that now." He said, visibly twitching. "Unless we're in an extremely formal or dangerous setting, you are not to refer to me as master. Though I would prefer to be called father, it is fine to call me as you wish, be it teacher, Aki, mage, I'll understand it when you decide to be truthful enough to not try and fake closeness."

His reaction didn't exactly shed much light into the situation.

…………………

"...And the spore grew out of the girl I tricked, leading to the birth of this one. You can thank me for getting more info from the assassin later though, as there are some rather concerning targets to be taken out, especially since a rather important piece of information has come to my ears. We need to quickly form attack and assassination squads before the cult figures out what we have discovered, as it might just be enough to give us the strategic advantage to win this war." Aki declared, completely straight faced in front of the royals and generals he was lying to.

He had not asked her anything about the cult, so any information he had was something he got on his own or a lie.

Stolen story; please report.

Besides announcing the fact that she was a shapeshifter under his control, little else of this whole affair made sense to her, so despite having her standing orders, she was still left to ponder what she could possibly do for her master.

"... Are compromised. As such, you are the perfect agents to spread misinformation by pretending to be under scrutiny, especially if you act in an exaggerated manner and offer opportunities to be intoxicated. There's no need for alarm each one of you will be equipped with…"

She understood the 'daughter' thing was probably just a way to effectively bind them, but she also couldn't help but question that notion due to how eccentric her orders were.

"... Despite what you may believe, I do not actually believe in the wanton sacrifice of troops, nevermind officers. Rather, I find it disheartening to not hear about a volunteer to command the squad supporting the retreat. We can, of course, fix that by…."

Acting with her own life as first priority was somewhat understandable considering where she was now going to work at, but her new training regimen was a bit too… broad. The weapon arsenal she was to practice with was understandable, but the needles, cooking knives, gardening tools and pickaxe seemed a bit too eccentric and niche in use for her.

Not that it made much sense for her to waste time with magic either, as she had absolutely no talent for it outside of some lifestyle spells that every demon were supposed to learn from their parents.

"...Even if not taken to an extreme, it would be for the best that a full, sinergetic team be formed through the usage of the available war resources and the provided ritual. While I expect little divergence from previsions, there is little reason to allow common men and women at arm's to throw themselves to near certain death, something even more true in the case that the plan is indeed seen…"

It was also very strange that she was even allowed to hear all of this while sensitive information. Despite slight trepidation at what she could only see as a giant blow to her former masters, Asa finally got out of her slump as she thought about all of that.

If these decisions made no sense to her, it was because she was using the wrong point of view. Much like what her master's plan made use of, there were several things she herself discarded from her logical process due to sheer implausibility, but as was being demonstrated, she had no actual way of following his thought process with her current knowledge.

"The reason I do not share my predictions is the same you current do not commit to a proper battle plan. A lack of absolute trust that will make it so those without all the necessary knowledge diverge in action, leading to chaos and failure. With that in mind, I can only use my contract and the fact I have not psicoticaticaly gone on a murder spree of people I do not consider necessary or positive to the empire, to assure those present that I do have everyone's…."

She needed to adapt. There was time, so she could be less efficient now in hopes of learning. So she started to postulate.

If Aki was lying and leading these people on to an impossible mission in hopes of destroying the empire from inside, then that meant he intended to take things into the long term, likely pushing for some pyrrhic victory of the sorts or straight out springing a complex trap that would set the empire on it's back foot.

More likely however, he spoke the truth, as such a trap would require greater commitment from the empire than was being offered at the moment, and the intention was to free up the internal resources of the empire by routing the cult in one fell swoop.

Now, this conjecture could in turn mean that he either intended to fully support the state and was moving to assure their success or that this was the moment where he would obtain everyone's trust so as to later allow them to fall against external threats.

So as to discover the reality of the first possibility all she could do was waiting, but to better understand the second one, and possibly rule out the first ahead of time, she would need to speak with the summoned demon and search for more data on her master's results.

The whole 'killing a dragon' thing was a bit hard to qualify as either good or bad for the Empire after all.