Shiro talked to Iziuel for a good hour before she felt tired once more. Bidding farewell, she made her way back to Aarim.
Of course, she made it seem like she returned from outside the room or else it might raise some unneeded questions such as why she has access to floors that are only available for elders.
“How goes your research?” Shiro asked with curiosity.
“Mn? Oh it’s going pretty well. There are a bunch of theories regarding the dungeons and it even contains a few experiments that haven’t been disclosed to the public yet. Though I have to take everything with a grain of salt since there may be fabrications within these doc.u.ments.” Aarim shrugged.
“I see. Well let’s head back. The party should have returned by now.” Shiro smiled as Aarim agreed.
When they were on their way back, they saw the party enter the room.
“Yo, I’m back.” Shiro called out.
“Ah Shiro, welcome ba-?? Wait Shiro, why is Aarim here?” Madison furrowed her brows.
“She’s joining our party for now.” Shiro chuckled.
“Heya. There are a few unfamiliar faces so I’ll introduce myself. My name’s Aarim, my hobby is tailoring and I made all of their outfits. I like to research to satisfy my curiosity and one of my current research targets is Shiro.” Aarim smiled.
“Yin, mum’s precious baby.” Yin popped her head around the corner.
“Lisandra, mum’s second daughter.” Lisandra gave her a small wave.
“Chen Yu, currently assisting this party on behalf of my branch master who Shiro calls a merchant.” Chen Yu said while massaging his shoulders.
“. . . What?” Aarim blinked a few times while looking at Yin who is essentially a mini version of Shiro.
“Let me explain. Bird who can’t stop eating and is essentially a parasite, an adopted daughter who is more filial than this bird who is technically blood related and Chen Yu.” Shiro gestured one by one.
“Wait bird? She’s that tiny purple bird that you had on your head?” Aarim raised an eyebrow.
“Gah! What bird! This baby is a phoenix.” Yin pouted while Lisandra smacked her on the head gently.
“A phoenix is still a bird big sis.” Lisandra retorted with a small smile.
“Alright you two. Go rest. You seem to have had a rough day.” Shiro chuckled.
“Mn.” Lisandra nodded.
Gesturing for Aarim to come into the room, they informed Aarim of the current situation. Lisandra, Yin, Chen Yu and Silvia didn’t join in the conversation since they were extremely tired.
Leaning back in her chair, Aarim took a moment to digest everything she had learnt. Naturally, Shiro made sure that Lisandra and Madison didn’t give away the fact that she was a spirit and the existence of Iziuel.
“So we’re just waiting for the response of the elders then?” She asked.
“Yup. In the meantime, the party is trying to level up as fast as they can.” Shiro nodded.
“Hm, I can see why you would need that. For a capital full of level 100’s of different factions, and you who essentially wants to take over this country, it’s akin to a death trap. But even if you level up as quick as you can, with how things are progressing, are you sure that you can get to level 100 in time to actually make a difference?” Aarim frowned.
“Nope. What we’re trying to do right now is increasing our chances of success. Even for us, getting to level 100 within the time constraint would be quite a daunting task. Especially since all the high-level dungeon’s, which are level 75+, are under the watch of other princes and factions. Should we farm in all the dungeons that are below level 75, who knows how long it will take.” Shiro shrugged.
“That’s true. But still, if the plan is to go successfully, you’ll still have to face against high level people at some point.”
“Oh there are a few ways.” Shiro grinned coldly. With the four level 100 puppets that were in the process of being converted, she could easily lay traps and assassinate the people that she wanted to kill. While the conversion would weaken their powers as level 100’s, as long as she was able to pull of the assassination correctly, that weakness would not matter.
“Well it’s getting a bit late now so you should rest. There isn’t a spare bed so you’ll have to make do for no- wait. Can’t we just kick Chen Yu off the bed and have him sleep on the sofa?” Shiro asked as she slowly turned to the sleeping Chen Yu at the corner of the bed, away from all the girls.
“. . . forget it. I’ll get Annie to bring us a spare bed tomorrow.” Shiro shrugged.
In the end, they settled with Aarim sleeping on the sofa and handed her some pillows and a duvet.
After setting up her makeshift bed, Aarim glanced over at the party and activated her skill. She was curious as to what their true nature was.
Yin was that of a graceful phoenix whose feathers seem like purple flames. But for some odd reason, it seemed to be drooling uncontrollably….
Raising an eyebrow, she glanced at Lisandra. Her nature was in the form of a swordswoman who had two pairs of wings on her back. However, the wings were slowly turning black.
‘Is she similar to a fallen angel?’ Aarim thought to herself.
Looking at the remaining members, she saw that they were more ‘normal’. Normal was a stretch since Silvia’s nature was that of a healer in priest robes while a giant greatsword was strapped to her back.
Smiling softly, she was quite happy with the state of their nature. After all, the more corrupted a person was, the more twisted the image of their nature would be.
In New York, she had even done some cleaning up near her apartment after doing some background checks on her targets.
Which only lead to the problem of Shiro’s nature.
It had no definite image.
‘For someone like Shiro, why is her nature so creepy? Is the black fog a result of it being twisted to the extreme? She did have a ridiculous amount of killing intent when she saw the statue after all. For someone with so much killing intent, it would be weird if their nature wasn’t twisted.’ She thought to herself.
However, what creeped her out was that it wasn’t the full nature.
It was akin to jumping into a shallow pool while there was a deep end on the other side. She knew that she could go deeper to see the true nature but something was blocking this. Whether this be because her skill wasn’t strong enough yet or the fact that she subconsciously didn’t want to find out, Aarim knew that after going to the deep end, there was a slim chance to escape.
‘From the records of ‘Shino’, it was stated that it was a snow girl. Snow girls are beings that manifest from negative emotion. Could the fact that her negative emotion is the foundation of her body which results in the twisted nature?’ Aarim asked herself as she slowly fell asleep.
Little did she know, Shiro’s nature had been watching her this entire time.
###
The next morning, before the party could even set off to go to another dungeon run, they heard a knock on the door.
“Come in.” Shiro called out while giving her body a light stretch.
Opening the door, Annie walked in with a smile and bowed lightly.
“The elders have come to a decision and wishes to see you in their private hall.”
“Ah got it. Would you mind leading the way?” Shiro smiled.
“Of course. Follow me.” Annie nodded.
Walking through the corridors, Shiro noticed a pair of eyes tracking their party.
‘Observers huh?’ She thought with a smile.
On the next step she took, a single nanobot was created and dug through the floors.
Skittering through the floors, it arrived beside the observer and entered his body through the legs.
Suddenly feeling a prick on his leg, the observer quickly checked his body for any abnormalities but found nothing.
Realizing that her nanobot had been planted successfully, Shiro smiled.
‘5th puppet.’ She thought to herself. However, she wasn’t going to start the conversion just yet since whoever had sent him will notice the difference. She’ll have to wait until he returns.
Little by little, she’ll change him so that it seemed natural. After all, a spy couldn’t be caught quickly.
Arriving at the elder’s private quarters, Shiro saw two girls sitting next to the elders and recognised them to be the princesses.
“So then, I heard that you have agreed to my proposal.” Shiro called out with a smile.
