Hearing the suggestion to become a pet, Kairos was at first too stunned to respond. Before they could agree to it, he quickly spoke up.
“What if I just show my normal form?”
Both Jeff and Sara looked at him strangely. Jeff raised the question in both of their minds.
“This isn’t your normal form? Then why are you even like that?”
Nyoka smiled bitterly and let out a sigh.
“I suppose I probably should’ve clarified earlier, but that’s something you should have kept secret, Kairos. And it should be a well guarded one too. I figured you should know that.”
Jeff blinked a few times, still confused. However, he didn’t show any displeasure.
“Oh, if that’s the case then I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear anything.”
Kairos gave Nyoka a long look. He didn’t understand what was so crazy about the fact he could shift between a human form and a monster form.
“What exactly makes it so that I have to be so secretive?”
Nyoka didn’t respond immediately. After a good few seconds, he spoke in a hushed voice that was more of a mumble than anything.
“Red blood is incredibly valuable down here. Few people can use it, but those that can become incredibly powerful from it.”
Kairos couldn’t help but think of the conversion spell he got. Though he still didn’t fully understand the value of black blood, the effects of the conversion spell felt quite exaggerated.
Now hearing that apparently red blood was some sort of highly sought out resource, he considered it fair enough. He wasn’t planning on exiting his Abyss form anyway unless there were extenuating circumstances, but now he knew that he never could.
With this knowledge, Kairos felt stumped.
“So… can I not enter the city?”
Jeff shot him a glance.
“Why don’t you just pretend to be a pet like what Sara said?”
Kairos stared back blankly for a few moments.
“…Well, it would be too hard for me to do that. I have this spear in my hand which looks a little strange for a pet, right?”
Nyoka smiled bitterly.
“Um, it’s very normal for monsters to hold onto weapons. And even if that was the case, you could have one of us hold onto it, or even if you didn’t want to do that you could store it in your flesh.”
Kairos’s eyebrow twitched.
“In my flesh?”
Nyoka looked back and spoke as though it was obvious.
“Don’t you remember that you had glasses? They are currently in your flesh.”
Hearing that, Kairos reached out to his face in an attempt to reach for his glasses, but where it was supposed to be was instead only flesh. They were covered entirely. After this realization, he tried what Nyoka had said right afterward, putting the spear into his back. At first, it didn’t really work out, but as he kept trying the flesh eventually clung onto the spear, and pulled it within.
It definitely felt a little strange to be storing things like that, especially because of how long the spear was, but it did indeed work.
Nyoka then called out to him.
“There are no problems now, right?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“…Well, other than my pride that is. Do they even allow pets in the city?”
Sara tilted her head to the side and put a finger on her chin.
“The last time I had a pet, they let me bring it in for free as long as it always stayed by me. Some people tried to kill it though.”
The corner of his lip twitched.
“Whatever then. How should I pretend to be a pet?”
Nyoka raised an eyebrow in surprise, probably because he wasn’t expecting Kairos to accept it. However, he still promptly answered his question.
“Er, for starters you probably shouldn’t talk. Not that there aren’t monsters that can talk, but those are usually the human mimicking ones that people really don’t like for various reasons. As for the other kinds, they probably wouldn’t become pets.”
He tapped his chin, continuing to think to himself.
“Ah, there’s also the fact that monsters eat the black flesh, while people don’t really do that. But that’s also something you already do anyway, so I guess it won’t be much of a problem. To really sell the act I guess we can buy some black flesh and give it to you to eat.”
Kairos thought about it, and found that it didn’t sound too bad. He did overuse the conversion spell earlier a tad bit, so he was feeling quite hungry.
“Alright, fair enough. I guess I can… walk on all fours.”
With a bit of hesitation, he got on the ground. Almost immediately, he felt a lot more comfortable. It felt like he was trying to do a handstand the entire time while on two legs. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t do it, but it felt quite awkward and difficult to do.
Kairos didn’t really like where this was all heading. But at the same time, he didn’t care all that much about his pride.
That’s why he was a loner in the first place. He never fought to make himself look the best in others’ eyes.
Because he really just didn’t value others’ opinions that much at all.
And so, they approached the city with Kairos tagging along by Sara’s side. She was a little apprehensive at first, but warmed up to him a little too quickly. Probably because she was just a little too endearing towards dogs and cats, and he currently had a small resemblance to them.
The closer they got to the city walls, the more Kairos realized that this place was a really big deal. He thought that the walls of Tiana’s city were quite excessive when they stood at fifty meters, but he couldn’t even see the top despite his vision reaching roughly two hundred meters at this point.
Nyoka then silently held up three balls of black blood in between his fingers.
Kairos was wondering what was going to happen next. Then, out of nowhere they suddenly disappeared. Several black hands appeared out of the ground and dragged them underneath the ground. Kairos instinctively struggled, but noticed the other three didn’t even look slightly panicked, so he held back that urge.
While everything looked dark, he felt something getting imprinted on the back of his head. He was very uncomfortable considering the head had his brain and all that, but it didn’t do so threateningly.
Eventually, his vision returned as he felt himself coming back out of the ground.
Next to him were Nyoka, Sara, and Jeff. The only difference being they all had a glowing white sigil imprinted onto the back of their heads. The sigil looked like a crescent moon, but the design made it look as though it was decaying, looking like an art piece that used only black and white.
Kairos assumed that the same sigil was on the back of his head too and ignored it.
As for the city itself, he didn’t know what he was expecting, but it was not this. For full kilometers, there were stretches of bare land without anything but a few people walking. It was nothing like what one would expect from a city, which was normally packed and bustling.
Nyoka cleared his throat.
“Alright, we are at the outskirts of the place. We gotta get closer to the center to get to the places that matter.”
Kairos realized he was saying that to indirectly introduce him to the city, but not blow the fact that he was an actual person instead of a pet. From there, the three began running. Kairos decided not to question it and began running with them.
The three definitely ran faster than Kairos expected, but it wasn’t a big deal because he could easily keep up while in this form.
As they passed by buildings, one thing that stood out was the lack of names on things. There were a few things that had basic signs on them, but at the very most they would have one word on them, like “Weapons”, or, “Food”.
There didn’t appear to be anything like brands, nor did people really care about advertising in any sense. It felt like a wasteland in some sense.
Though, after they continued further and further, the density of people gradually increased. Eventually, Kairos saw a giant building in the distance. Though, other than having really tall walls and having the general shape of a skyscraper there was nothing to indicate where it was.
All around the place were quite a few people, making it a little inconvenient to get close to the place. Though, one thing that stood out to Kairos was that most people were just standing around. And when the four of them got closer, nearly all of those people began looking at them, almost like it was a horror movie.
Nyoka cleared his throat, still with the same smile on his face.
“Alright, now we’ve gotten close to the place that deals with cores, we can go in and have a look.”
Jeff scratched the side of his head.
“Will there even be any good ones though?”
Nyoka chuckled.
“You never know. There could be something.”
Once the four of them got close to the building, black hands reached out and grabbed them, pulling them into the place. Kairos once again felt uncomfortable by it, but other than tensing up he didn’t resist.
His vision suddenly cleared once more, and the shop was revealed to him.
He found himself in a large room that could be compared to the average grocery store, except for the fact that there were no aisles, making it seem larger than it actually was. Though as for the ceiling, he couldn’t see it at all. However high it was, it was as far as two hundred meters.
As for the store itself, there were various pedestals at the very edges of the store, all of which had a glowing cube on top of them. And next to all of them, were scratches in the pedestal itself in the form of tally marks.
Some had three, others had five, while certain ones had nearly twenty on them.
And standing at the back of the place, was a tall man standing tall with his arms crossed. Part of his body was covered in black flesh, making it a little hard to make out his features. Along with that, there was a large ethereal bear behind the man. It was a little skinnier than the average bear and also had its arms crossed to match.
Once the four of them got into the place, the man called out to Nyoka.
“You buying or selling?”
Nyoka waved his hand dismissively.
“Just looking around a little bit, Daniel.”
The corner of Daniel’s lip twitched. He stared at him for a few moments before letting out a sigh.
“Fine. Just not for too long, alright?”
Nyoka chuckled.
“Don’t worry, it won’t be long. Do you mind telling me about what some of these do?”
Daniel smirked.
“Want to show your new friend around this place?”