Chapter 14 Nina

Nina's focus seemed to be on very subtle points, but for Sherry, this was a good thing.

She had already wholeheartedly regarded the seemingly simple and ordinary girl in front of her as a member of some subspace shadow, and of the favored kind – the fewer negative impressions she made on this protégé, the higher her chances of survival in front of the boss.

Nina, however, was unaware of the many thoughts hidden beneath Sherry's awkward, stiff smile. The girl was now surprised and a little excited, because she had never been so close to a true transcendent. Her understanding of such matters was limited to books, and in her eyes, Sherry, who had infiltrated the school to investigate the incident using some kind of "supernatural illusion," seemed to be shrouded in a mysterious and powerful aura.

She even briefly forgot the other party's minor "deception" and turned her full attention to the extraordinary life and adventures of a transcendent – even though these adventures were mostly conjured up in her own mind: "Where do you usually live? Do you have your own secret base or a very mysterious organization?"

"Do you usually hide in caves or sewers? Is there a place like a warehouse where you store all kinds of ritual items?"

"Are you born with special abilities, or do you have some powerful supernatural item? Are you the legendary 'Mystic'? I heard there's this ancient profession. Mystics can cast spells without relying on any gods. It's said their power comes from their bloodline..."

"What do you usually eat? Do you often drink herbal medicine or strange animal blood? You eat normal food too? Really?"

Nina's questions came one after another, like a barrage. Before Sherry could even get halfway through answering, beads of cold sweat were already forming on her forehead – not because she couldn't answer the questions, but because Duncan was right next to her!

Duncan had been silently watching Sherry from the beginning, his smile gentle and kind – looking on the surface like a parent greeting their child's classmate who had come to visit.

Simple, kind, and harmless.

But every time he smiled, Sherry broke out in another layer of cold sweat.

"You seem very afraid of my uncle," even if Nina's reaction was slow in this regard, she couldn't help but notice Sherry's strange behavior. Coupled with her recollection of the other party's reaction at the museum earlier, she couldn't help but ask, "What... what happened between you two?"

"No... nothing! Really!" Sherry almost jumped upright, waving her hands vigorously. "What could possibly happen between me and your uncle? I'm still a kid..."

As soon as Duncan heard this, he felt like something was off. He knew he couldn't let these two girls continue to improvise freely, so he quickly coughed lightly to interrupt Sherry before she started spouting nonsense: "Actually, it's nothing. She just got caught skipping fare on the bus once by me."

"Just because of that?" Nina looked at Sherry in surprise. "That's not enough to leave such a big shadow... But Uncle is right, skipping fare is bad."

Sherry's tears were about to fall: "I really won't skip fare again, okay?!"

Nina nodded, then seemed to remember something, and couldn't help but look at Sherry earnestly. "Then... can you tell me, what exactly are you investigating? Are you being friends with me also because of your 'investigation'?"

Sherry's body stiffened, and her eyes began to drift to the side, but before they could drift halfway, they met Duncan's calm gaze.

"I'm investigating the fire eleven years ago," Sherry suddenly lowered her head slightly, as if she had suddenly figured something out, or simply given up, and said in a low voice, "the factory leak incident mentioned in the official records in the Sixth District..."

"The fire eleven years ago?" Nina's eyes widened, her voice filled with astonishment. "Wait... you also know about that fire eleven years ago!"

"...You also know!" Sherry was also surprised. She stood up directly from the chair. "You also experienced that fire?"

"Of course I know. My parents died in that fire – I was six years old that year, and Uncle Duncan rescued me," Nina said urgently, subconsciously gesturing with her hands. "But everyone has always said that I was confused by the toxic smoke on the street. They all said that there was no fire at all, and even the later newspapers said that it was just an accident in a factory..."

"That year... I was also six years old, and my parents also died in the fire. I remember it clearly," Sherry stared straight into Nina's eyes. "But the people around me also told me that there was no fire at all... No wonder, no wonder Ah Gou said he smelled a familiar aura on you..."

As soon as she finished speaking, Duncan's voice suddenly came from the side: "So, Ah Gou guided you to approach Nina, and that's why you infiltrated the school – and you didn't know why you were doing this, so you seemed so surprised after hearing Nina's words just now."

Meeting Duncan's calm gaze, Sherry quickly nodded, while Nina looked puzzled: "Ah Gou? Who is Ah Gou?"

"Ah Gou, it..." Sherry said, but hesitated in the next second. She looked at Duncan, and then at Sherry. "Ah Gou is my friend, it's right here with me, but its appearance might be a little scary..."

Sherry said this, but the feeling in her heart was especially strange – because there was clearly a subspace shadow sitting next to her that was infinitely more terrifying than Ah Gou, and this subspace shadow was still living with Nina day and night, but she had to cooperate with the boss's "personal hobby," pretending that Ah Gou was the scariest thing here, and treating the boss as an ordinary human being...

Objectively speaking, she usually relied on Ah Gou's disguise ability to move around, had dealt with cultists, had dealt with security officers, and even had dealt with pastors in local churches, but all of this combined was not as tense and thrilling as sitting in this antique shop for ten minutes.

In her eyes, this unremarkable shop was almost on the same level as a subspace entrance.

Nina, however, was just curiously looking around, searching for the figure of "Ah Gou" beside Sherry, craning her neck and looking around for a long time before asking curiously: "Then let 'Ah Gou' come out and meet me. Since it's your friend... what's there to be afraid of?"

Sherry was still hesitant, but Duncan suddenly tapped the table lightly and said to Nina, "Then you have to be mentally prepared. I've seen 'Ah Gou'. It's really ugly."

"Then I'm even more curious," Nina said. Seeing Uncle Duncan and Sherry's reactions, she became even more curious. "I really want to meet that 'Ah Gou' Mr., and want to know why Sherry's friend has such a strange name."

"Okay, since you want to see it," Duncan shook his head and looked at Sherry with a bit of helplessness, "Let Ah Gou come out and say hello, after all, it's also today's 'guest'."

Under normal circumstances, Sherry would never expose the secret of herself and Ah Gou to the outside world, because in the City of Order, traveling with a dark demon was an extremely taboo thing in itself. The priests of the Deep Sea Church could directly point eight-pound cannons and six-barreled machine guns at her even if they only sensed a hint of dark aura.

But now, a subspace shadow-level being was asking her to summon Ah Gou.

Oh.

She nodded, and then slowly raised her arm. The next second, in Nina's astonished and slightly nervous gaze, black flames and thick smoke suddenly rose around Sherry!

Chains extended from the flames, and the figure of the dark demon condensed at the end of the smoke and black flames.

The dark hound appeared in the flames, and quickly shrunk into a ball in a second, hugging its head with its front paws, hiding the most terrifying eye sockets on its body, and greeting Nina in a muffled voice in a cloud of black smoke: "Good evening, Miss, I am Ah Gou, Sherry's friend and guardian dog. My appearance does not conform to the mainstream human aesthetic, but you can look at it with abstract and tolerant eyes, so that I am just a pile of cleverly stacked bone fragments and a cloud of slightly strangely colored..."

Duncan glanced at Sherry lightly: "Objectively speaking, I have never seen such a dog that can act so freely in my life... Just in terms of personality, it's quite cute."

Nina on the other side was stunned, and after staring at Ah Gou in astonishment for a long time, she finally let out an exclamation: "Ah!"

Sherry quickly said: "I told you you might be scared..."

As a result, before she could finish speaking, she heard Nina continue with the second half of the exclamation: "This is also so powerful!"

Sherry: "..."

"You... hello," taking advantage of Sherry's stunned moment, Nina began to tentatively greet Ah Gou, "Mr. Ah Gou... um, are you a 'Mr.'?"

"Dark demons have no gender, but if you wish, you can call me that," Ah Gou answered in a muffled voice, and seemed a little surprised, "You... aren't afraid of me?"

"It's okay, although it does look a little scary," Nina thought for a while, and a bright smile appeared on her face, "But I'm quite brave~"