The creature in front of him seemed to have crawled out straight from his worst nightmares, with strangely elongated arms and legs and a hideous smile on its face, it was enough to make George scream in terror with a single look.
And when the thing was only a foot away from him, with his brother's head grasped in its elongated fingers as if it wondered whether or not it should crush the thing, the horror was magnified by a hundred times.
What made him really piss his pants, however, was the unmistakable face on the thing. Even if it was far more hideous now than he ever remembered, it was still unmistakably that of the dead girl Michelle.
"I—"
The thing didn't give him a chance to talk at all, as it jumped across the table and clutched his neck in its grasp, strangling him as he struggled futilely. The thing seemed to have infinite strength, however, and he could only powerlessly plead with his gaze his vision went dark.
After both the boys had fainted on the floor, the 'monster' moved away in disgust.
"Yuck, the bastard actually pissed himself! What a wimp… I didn't piss myself even when I was killed! Um… Right? Did I?"
Cynthia shuddered as she tried not to pay attention to the horrific form her partner had taken. "I-I don't… Um, no, I guess you didn't."
Emilia breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh… good. Well, the easy part is over, now comes the hard part… hiding for eight hours till the shapeshift cooldown runs out."
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Noelle had absolutely no idea what Emilia was planning when the girl asked her to drop her near the Porter brothers' location.
Their address wasn't any mystery, of course. Even the secret hideout of the two brothers was no 'secret' to her, as often as the younger brother revealed it to the young girls he brought over.
However, she couldn't leave the safety of this precious jewel to the girl's whims, could she? If something really happened to her, it didn't take a genius to guess whose head would be on the chopping block.
Unfortunately, Noelle had no idea what witchcraft the girl used, but she disappeared in just thirty seconds after Noelle pretended to drop her off and returned to check.
"Fuck!"
Noelle's hair wasn't naturally grey in color. She dyed it like that to make herself look more mature, as her face otherwise looked quite childish in her opinion.
But after almost eight hours of relentlessly searching for Emilia, she was sure that she wouldn't need the next coloring session anymore.
And as if to infuriate her further, the girl appeared right on time at the location she had told Noelle to pick her up from, as if it was all according to her plan.
But no matter how Noelle felt, she could only keep these grievances to herself and drive the girl to her friend's home.
Emilia waved at her cheerfully. "Well, goodnight Noelle, byebye~"
Noelle barely managed to croak out a 'you too', internally screaming.
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Emilia groaned in exhaustion as she jumped onto Crystal's bed, which wasn't even remotely as fluffy and soft as the one in her home. "Cynthia, add replacing Crystal's bed to my to-do list, please."
"… When did I become your personal assistant?"
Emilia ignored her partner's sarcasm as she sighed into the pillow.
Crystal, the considerate angel that she was, had left to make her a cup of coffee as soon as she saw her come back looking tired.
"Ah… the heroine is so cute~ Even though she was so curious, she prioritized taking care of me first, ehehe…"
Cynthia scoffed. "Don't pretend, Emilia. With your body, no matter how exhausted you are, it shouldn't take more than half an hour to fully recover with the void formula!"
Emilia couldn't help but pout. "You don't understand, Cynthia! This is mental exhaustion! I'm tired of the day, ah~ I wonder if Crystal will agree to give me a massage?"
Cynthia rolled her eyes and kept silent as the heroine finally came back with two cups of coffee.
Emilia was instantly reinvigorated as she sat up on the bed and gave Crystal a grateful smile. "Thank you, angel!"
"U-Uh, y-you're welcome…?"
Emilia didn't pay much attention to the heroine's embarrassment as she closed her eyes with a sigh after taking a sip from the cup.
Although it would disappear soon enough, the taste was still relaxing.
The art of tea-making had been quite refined even in her previous world, though she never got to personally experience it in her first life. However, coffee was something new to her, and she quite enjoyed the novel taste and pleasure it bought.
Cynthia was actually completely correct when she said that Emilia had already recovered. Actually, today's task was extremely easy for her, to the point of almost being trivial.
The most challenging part, technically, was escaping Noelle.
Not to mention sneaking into the two boy's apartment, even if they had been at the main Porter's home, the security there was nowhere close to what the White Deer or even the Brown's family had.
With Emilia's skills from her first life, it was really not a big deal to sneak in and out. She didn't even need to use her shapeshift skill for anything except to drive fear into George's soul.
What she found really exhausting, however, was hiding in her 'transformed' form.
It was the first time she had taken such an inhuman shape, and she vastly underestimated how much such drastic changes to her body would affect her skills.
There had been a few mishaps in which she was almost caught, especially since she had to continuously avoid Noelle.
After all, if Noelle caught her in such a monstrous form, not only would she not recognize her as Emilia, she would definitely shoot her in the face.
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~ To be continued ~
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DustyDream:
A bonus chapter should be out in an hour, once I'm done editing it.
Thank you for all your support! :>
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