Chapter 845

Kat was taking a break after those days of intense practice. Lily was using her as a chair during her reading and Kat could feel increasing amounts of both hope and frustration leaking through the bond in equal measure. This was partially due to Kat’s own management of Lily. Any time the frustration spiked Kat would give Lily a slight kiss, instantly dropping Lily’s frustration to nearly nothing. They did climb somewhat swiftly once Lily recovered from the bliss, but it was really helping.

The most recent spike in frustration had Lily wind up to slam the book into the bed... only for her to pause halfway through the wind-up and carefully close the book before placing it down on the bed. She let out a frustrated whine before turning and burying herself into Kat’s chest and wrapping her arms and legs tightly around Kat. “I’m SO CLOSE. I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong!”

Of course, the words were heavily muffled by Kat’s breasts, but Kat was pretty good at understanding Lily when she was only half paying attention to things as she was reading. So having Lily’s full attention, if a little distorted, was easy to parse out. Kat let out a low hum as she carefully stroked Lily’s hair. “Lily... it’s probably because there isn’t any mana in the atmosphere.”

Lily’s groaning intensified as she wiggled in Kat’s arms. [How did I miss something so simple!] Kat decided not to comment on Lily’s mental chastisement. This one did feel somewhat justified. There was a simple answer of course, that she was too frustrated to think of it, or she’d spent too long trying to work out how to cast properly that she forgot the simple fact that casting on Earth was much harder, if not impossible.

In the end, Kat just continued to softly run her fingers through Lily’s hair. The urge to pet her properly and scratch behind her ears was strong... but Kat resisted. Lily was working through her annoyance quite quickly and it would probably be best not to interrupt that right now. Kat was content to slowly bring Lily out of her funk when the familiar glow of red lines appeared. A Contract was abound.

Really? Right now? I almost thought it wasn’t going to show up considering it’s the afternoon for once... but I guess that would be the real surprise. Kat glanced down at Lily who couldn’t see anything of course. Hmm... do I want to bother Lily? Maybe I can just ignore it for a bit...

In the end though, Kat’s decision wouldn’t matter either way. She’d gotten much better at not automatically closing down the link to think private thoughts, especially with Lily around... so the whole thing was broadcast quite clearly. Lily unwound herself from Kat and flopped to the side, “You know I could hear you right?”

.....

“Oh... um oops? Does this mean we have to leave now?” asked Kat.

“Not if you don’t want to. You just can’t use me as an excuse,” said Lily with a grin.

“Fine... let’s head off. I wonder what we’ll be doing this time,” Kat mumbled.

Lily transformed and hopped up on Kat’s shoulder, nuzzling into Kat’s cheek. Kat smiled as she stepped onto the platform. Pausing, Kat carefully covered Lily’s ears with her hands before yelling out, “I’m off on a Contract!”

As soon as the words left her mouth fire exploded around them. It was beautiful no matter how many times the pair saw it. The author however was running out of ways to make it interesting so the scene was over quickly.

Kat found herself in a ruin. Already she was getting a sense of déjà vu. It was especially apparent in that one area in front of the summoning circle she refused to look at. This ruins looked to be much better maintained then the last ones. There were spiderwebbing cracks through the ceiling but nothing had fallen down yet. The lamps on the sides still glowed with light... even if every third was missing or broken. The staircase up to the platform was smooth marble, and it only had one damaged step.

There was a series of four empty pots nearby. Whatever resided in them before was dead now, and the dirt was cracked and dried. It looked like serious effort would be needed for anything to grow there again. With the rest of the room examined Kat let out a sigh. She couldn’t put it off any longer. Well, that wasn’t true. She’d slowed everything down to give her time not to just snap angrily at her summoner.

But it wasn’t helping as much as she thought it would. In this frozen time. Especially where she couldn’t properly feel Lily against her face or Lily’s mind threw the link with the speed differential. So Kat let her eyes move, seemingly in a lazy arc to come fact to face with a familiar face, and his companion. “Xiang.”

“Kat”

“I didn’t think I would be seeing you again any time soon,” said Kat, trying not to sound like she wanted to spit on his face. Based on the nearly silent hissing coming from Lily on her shoulder as the Memphis’ tail bristled. She probably failed.

“Neither did I...” admitted Xiang. Words somewhat pained though not as put out as Kat seemed to be. If Kat was trying not to seem like someone had just punched her in the face, Xiang was trying to avoid looking like he’d just been reassigned to the janitorial department at work with reduced pay.

“Xiang... who is your... friend here...” now you might think that question was coming from Kat. It wasn’t. It was said through the gritted teeth of the fourth occupant of the room. She had her golden blonde hair done in a long twin tail style. Her face was only slightly tanned, indicative of time outdoors, but no major dedication to it. She had a very slight dusting of freckles running down her cheeks that looked almost like tear tracks.

Her outfit was plain with only small embellishments, it was white with lines of gold, and a yellow sash that hung from her shoulders. Her gaze was harsh and piercing, though Kat felt remarkable unconcerned with the hostility contained within. The thing that stood out though was her weapon. It was a giant iron club that was wider than her shoulders at the top.

Xiang glanced at the girl before back at Kat and his face went through several emotions before coming to some begrudging compromise. “Well, I believe I said her name already but the demon in the circle is Kat... she was summoned last time I found one of these... I believe I mentioned that before... would you like to add anything Kat?”

*I don’t know do I Lily?*

[I don’t really know. I mean perhaps? It’s a pretty poor summation of you and your relationship with him... but at the same time it’s not wrong and the blond twit isn’t exactly endearing me to her. I’m not really seeing a reason to give her any extra information]

“For now your explanation suffices Xiang. I have nothing to add at this time,” said Kat. “Would you care to introduce the rude individual beside you?”

Xiang winced as the girl instantly took the words as a challenge. “You got a problem with me? Step out of your fancy circle and try it!”

Kat just ignored her and looked at Xiang expectantly. Xiang winced again, but deciding to prevent things from escalating chose not to comment on either of their behaviour. A surprise to Kat. “This is the lovely Yang Ming, a good friend of mine,” the flash of murderous raise at the word ‘friend’ was impossible to miss... unless you’re Xiang apparently. “and she’s not feeling the best at the moment. See... a friend of ours was kidnapped and... well I was trying to figure out what to do and stumbled across...” Xiang waved his hand around the room.

“Another demon summoning circle,” answered Kat for him.

“Well... yes exactly,” agreed Xiang. A few beats of silence passed. “So... are you going to help?”

“You haven’t exactly explained anything Xiang. I can’t really say,” said Kat coldly. Xiang winced at the tone but held Kat’s glare. Kat wasn’t trying to antagonise. Not really... but she’d begrudgingly gone along the first time and came out of it decidedly unhappy with the whole ordeal. So while saving someone who had been kidnapped sounded like something she could get behind. She wasn’t just going to agree off the bat. Even if she could guess the pay from this would be similarly overblown like last time.

Xiang took in a deep breath, ready to explain. He might not be happy to see Kat again... but he did need help and he was hopeful Kat would be strong enough for the job. He didn’t exactly have a lot of people lining up to help him with this.

Of course Yang had no appreciation for this and blurted out, “Who are you to question us?!” The sound of Xiang’s hand slapping against his face almost made hearing the insult worth it.