“Reen, come out.”
Eren was right. Agatha had nearly forgotten at that brief moment that she was now a slave of Eren who could do anything with her. And her eyes opened wide in horror because she received another shock.
Reen suddenly manifested in front of Agatha as soon as her master called her out. The former looked at the slave in disgust before saying:
“This won’t even be an appetizer for me, Erni. You should have arranged for more food.”
Said the demon beast in a young girl’s voice that was laced with a lot of complaints. Then she opened her mouth unnaturally and showed her sawtooth-like teeth that were glistening with saliva.
Agatha felt like her soul had left her body. The visual horror of seeing a young girl open her mouth like that was horrible enough. But Reen also released a hint of her mana signature which scared the sh*t out of Agatha.
‘A C-Ranker!? No… A C-Rank beast. That too in a human form. This thing here is a demon beast.’
Agatha’s pale face was finally painted with a grim realization. She couldn’t have imagined that her new master was the owner of a demon beast as well, apart from her. Only now did the ex-cultist realize that her act of rebelling against her new master was not only foolish but also suicidal.
And now Agatha was going to get eaten alive by the demon beast. This was the worst way to die for her. She wanted to exact her revenge before she met the angel of death. But it would have to remain a dream if she doesn’t do anything about it.
“Sir Eren. I’m sorry. I was mistaken to ask for the annulment of the contract before its due completion date.
I promise that I’ll do all I can to follow your commands from now on. Please don’t kill me.”
Agatha finally made a desperate attempt to save her life. She kowtowed in front of Reen and Eren while she made her plea.
“Let me be clear that you won’t be free from us even when the contract gets completed. Not the way you want at least. Tell me, are you still ready to serve me?”
Said Eren while closing in on Agatha, walking behind Reen. He said that amusingly, but the target of that statement didn’t find anything funny in it. And yet, she couldn’t help but smile mirthlessly before replying:
“Al… alright. I’ll stay as your slave forever. Please spare my life.”
Agatha thought what she said was enough to halt the demon beast’s march. But the latter just kept heading her way.
“Whaaa… What are you doing? I’ve cooperated in every way, Sir Eren. And I won’t even…”
“Hehehehe!”
Agatha was trying to pitch her case but was interrupted by Reen’s fun laughter. The former thought her end was near when the demon beast stood right in front of her, looking down on her potential food.
“Don’t worry. This was just to nudge you in the right direction. I was talking to Eren about the snacks on the table behind you.
Now step aside.”
Said Reen and waited for Agatha to step aside. She had kowtowed near the chair so it was difficult to get to the snacks before pulling the chair.
It took a while for the young therianthrope to understand what Reen was saying. She hastily moved to the side after hearing that Reen wasn’t targeting her.
Reen started walking again. And said something in a low voice when she went past the ex-cultist:
“From now on, avoid sneaking a peek at food meant for me. I don’t like it when my food is being ogled by others. Hmph!”
“Aaah! Yes, madam. Thanks… thank you for letting me know about your habits. I’ll certainly remember that. And I apologize for staring at your food. It wasn’t my intention to do that.”
“*Sigh. Stop that. Erni doesn’t like a subservient attitude at all. Act normally like you always do. Just follow the orders given to you and you’ll be good.”
Said Reen without looking back at Agatha. She sat on the chair Eren had used then started eating the snacks the inn had provided.
“Get up now Agatha. What can you tell me about these tokens?”
Eren threw two tokens that had a bunch of beast carvings at one side and a runic mini-array at the other. They were some form of access tokens. But Eren couldn’t figure out much after that point.
Eren had seized these tokens from Reen’s cultist victims that she had just recently. They were stored inside the guys’ ID stones respectively.
“Oh. These are standard-issue Beast Blood tokens meant to be used by F-Rankers. But where did you get these from?”
“Reen’s food sometimes gives souvenirs. Anyway, what are these tokens used for?”
Agatha tried not to think about the grim fates her fellow cultists must have faced in the hands of these two monsters. But she was failing miserably at the task.
“Um… These tokens are used to access our hideouts. But the one I know doesn’t use these tokens. They must belong to another hideout that I’m not aware of.”
Agatha answered honestly. She had figured out that her fate was now tied to this vile duo. There was no running away from them. She might as well cooperate with them fully to score some brownie points in their books.
One had to admit that Agatha was a flexible person. And she had a survivor’s spirit.
“Hmm. It seems you have started to warm up to us. Hehe! Good.
Now, how can we locate the new hideout? Do you have any means?”
Eren asked Agatha who answered him after nodding at him:
“Yes. Every Beast Blood F-Ranker has been given an element-neutral spell that can pinpoint the location of the hideout if you have the respective token with you. This is done so that the members don’t get lost while returning from completing their missions.”
Eren and Reen smiled at each other after they heard Agatha’s statement. They knew tonight’s recon was going to be more than fruitful for them.