Bro, I'm not an Undead!

It was surprisingly detailed with the blood that sprayed from the cartoon-ish lizard- ahem, dinosaur spilling from an acute opening on its neck.

The chainsaw was drawn with motion indicating lines over its jagged teeth, giving it a rather menacing image. Apparently no one was holding it.

The girl looked at the man with a pouting face as she then folded her arms, as if she felt offended.

The man sighed as he looked at her intently. This little brat.

“This is how you cope, right? With mom and dad’s death. The horrible art and the… steel music?”

“…”

The girl didn’t respond at first as she hung her head instead. One could see that she had complex emotions building up within her in relation to this subject.

The man sighed once again, his expression softening.

“It’s not a bad thing, you know? To feel sad that they are gone. They really loved you and so do I. You’re allowed to cry about it too.”

The girl slowly raised her head, her eyes which had started to redden showing the bulk of her brimming emotion.

Above all else, she looked surprised that this young man before her actually knew exactly how she felt.

Probably.

The Hound could only guess from what its master felt.

“But…I didn’t get to say thank you to them…”

The Hound found its vision rolling.

“Of course they knew you dummy and they didn’t need to hear it from you. Besides, mom loved your crappy drawings and could always interpret what they meant nomatter how weird they were. You get what that means right?”

“What? What does that mean?”

“You figure it out yourself!”

The Hound felt the heavy atmosphere that had been building up just now dissipating as the girl showed a semblance of a smile while swiping the paper she had been drawing on from the hands of the man and looked at it closely with a, “Is it really crap?”

She seemed to have understood what the master meant.

The Hound couldn’t help but wonder….

The master was like this before…

At that moment, a speeding figure darted into the room, its small stature seeking attention as it leapt up and down.

The girl called for the small creature and held it in her hands.

“Ferex. You wouldn’t say this is bad, right?” the girl said as she pointed towards her drawing which had been placed over the desk.

The little creature she had picked up whimpered lightly as it looked at the detailed drawing.

Its eyes perused over the illustration a bit before it reluctantly barked and nodded.

Unfortunately, its true feelings were not hidden from either of the two who looked at it and the individual that the Hound inhabited began to laugh madly.

The girl pouted as her eyes met the innocent eyes of the little creature she held, the small criminal imitating a shrug.

At this moment, as the Hound heard its master’s laughter, it felt a pull on its vision and at its body at the same time.

Time was up.

However, before it could be pulled away, the creature used a certain skill it had to try and bring something back for its master!

This was important!

The skill was none other than…

[Amorphous Sampling!]

While this skill was being cast, the large skeleton a distance away instantly became alert, turning its head quickly only to relax again a moment afterwards as it felt that there was no hostile intent.

It was hard to not react to such sensations when this was the first time that it had been subjected to an intrusion such as this.

Soon after, the image of the Hound which it was seeing vividly before turned into a streak of light as it then vanished from sight.

“Ah… chaotic and lonely this soul is, again…” the large skeleton said as it lowered its head and sat over the waters.

*

Skullius felt the mana he was drawing from [Elevated Mana Manipulation] and the regeneration of the mana from his core fail to keep up with the consumption of the Limitless Body Null Demon Hound skill.

‘This is taking quite a lot more mana than I thought it would…’ he thought.

Forcefully feeding mana into his core from a larger mana source had always been something he looked to when the conditions were right.

He had learned this from the time with Dezrael and his armour which contained a massive amount of mana that he pulled on to keep Doom Factor 1 from claiming his existence.

Now, he was applying the same principle to continue feeding mana to the Hound so that its skill, [Spirit Walk] would last longer. Its only limit was the single usage per day but the duration, as Skullius discovered relied on the constant supply of mana.

As he wrestled with the constantly disappearing mana, a light burst from his body and manifested before him in the form of a brown-furred large wolf that stood still at first and then looked around.

Skullius stopped feeding mana into his core and looked at his Apostle expectantly.

“Did you find anything bro…?”

The hesitation and expectancy in the Penetrator’s voice was thick, easily identifiable for the Hound but it withheld what it had found.

“What? Why won’t you respond?” Skullius asked in confusion.

The Hound resumed its pause until a few minutes after where it walked a few steps to Skullius.

“Huh?”

Skullius was so confused by what was happening that he began to think that perhaps the Hound had been RESET again somehow.

The creature suddenly retracted its Pseudo Spirit Walker’s Hide, its many dark blue Unliving Threads that covered its bone structure being revealed.

On both sides of the Hound’s head, ears appeared with the same shade of colour as the rest of the body, along with what could be called a long, fuzzy tail.

Skullius’ sockets dimmed a bit.

The Hound then started to twirl its ears in unison while circling its tail in perfect arcs, its stance lowering as it then…

RUFF! RUFF!

A powerful voice rocked the air as the Hound imitated what it had seen from the little creature in the memory, obviously a dog.

Skullius’ socket flames dilated even more until they became mere dots.

Something within him was… pulled on.

But still… he couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

It was simply… vaguely familiar.

“Bro… this…” Skullius said as his hand twitched.

He reacted to this quite intensely.

The Hound didn’t stop there however, as it then started to draw on the ground with its claw.

It quickly finished marking the dirt and nudged Skullius to look, the Penetrator’s sockets actually flaring intensely this time.

“This… is… this is too…”

That’s right!

The Hound felt it!

Its master was reacting to this information.

He had to remember right? These memories were his right? So he should remember this!

As a final card, the Unliving Thread around the creature’s body convulsed as they revealed something akin to a placard the size of its head, a rather clear and clean one.

On it, was the image of a little girl looking up front with a subdued smile while a blurry and hairy figure with a shaggy copper shimmer fur barely emerged from the corner.

—

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